Awaiting a Democratic Hong Kong
Today on the news wires, four of China’s top officials said or acted on the words "Commitment" "Democracy," "Rule of Law," and "Harmonious Society," within a 24 hour period.
I swear the following are not headlines I thought I would live to see, and surely not on Xin Hua or People’s Daily, which are Chinese government owned News Agencies. I am floored. And all this morning BBC world (both radio and TV) put the "Bra Wars," as in clothing quotas between China and the EU as their top story.
No, no this is. This really is. Mark yesterday on your calendars for a possible different future. I know they "said," similar things before. But not like this. Not like this at all……
Chief Justice: Harmonious soceity calls for democracy
(and it has nothing to do with the spelling mistake.)
Followed by this on Reuters:
China’s Wen says moving towards Democracy
and people daily
Hu appeals to promote int’l harmony, vowing to enhance
democracy, rule of law
Chinese vice president to meet with Hong Kong democrats
and as a first step of this, they allowed respects paid to Hu YaoBang who has not even had a mention since 1989.
Leaders recover their memory of students’ hero
also:
Democracy will be Exiles’s Gift to Tibet
Sometimes my central government truly amazes me.. they really do.
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 
It sounds like step about a millimetre in the right direction. Of course, post-9/11 “democracies” are now pretty keen to introduce biometric ID cards, long-term imprisonment without charge, repatriation of failed asylum seekers to torturers, and a host of other little and not-so-little “refoms” of their citizens’ civil liberties. Maybe, to China, democracy doesn’t look that unattractive anymore.
LikeLike
All the signs point to a tightening of central control by Hu. It must be the Big Lie all over again.
Seriously, all the well placed mainlanders I have spoken to want China to achieve modernity and see democracy as part of that future. What they don’t see is how to achieve that, and what they hate is the use of the lack of democracy as a metaphorical stick to beat them with.
The irony is that the Chinese do not see how democracy, even in a limited form would be an answer to the problems that confront them now and which they are attempting to solve through traditional methods.
LikeLike