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习近平可能是中国的最后一个共产党领导人

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发表于 2014-10-13 14:13 | 显示全部楼层 |阅读模式
习近平可能是中国的最后一个共产党领导人

译者注:研究民主转型方面的权威学者斯坦福大学教授拉里•戴梦德10月1日在《时代》杂志 (TIME Magazine)发表题为《习近平可能是中国的最后一个共产党领导人》的文章。文章分析了近日香港的抗议活动,并称习近平似乎并不能意识到他权力的限度,这也是为什么他可能会是中国最后的一个共产党领导人。戴梦德称,香港人民等待多年,等来的不是“一个国家,两种制度”,而是“一个国家,一种专制”。自由港将该文全文翻译成中文,以飨读者。

近日发生在香港的大规模抗议的长期影响远远超出这个有着七百万人口的特别行政区。通过拒绝北京的伪直选政策,通过动员几万人连续几天占领香港的公共空间,通过塑造一种在面对警察挑衅性的过度反应时仍然保持平和和克制的形象,此次由年轻人领导的抗议成为了自25年前的天安门大屠杀后,中国共产党遇到的最严重的挑战。

对于香港今天的政治危机,中国共产党只能怪罪于自己。自从1997年香港的主权从英国移交到中国后,香港在“一国两制”下享受着相当程度的自治和公民自由。在过去的17年间,香港人民耐心地等待北京履行《基本法》所许诺的行政长官根据“循序渐进的原则”“由一个有广泛代表性的提名委员会按民主程序提名后普选产生”。当2004年北京宣布香港还不具备在2007年实现行政长官普选和在2008年实现立法会普选的条件时,很多香港人感到了深深的失望。但是人民心怀希望地等待2012年,最晚,2017年。

但是北京在八月份颁布的无限期推迟香港民主自治的决定,终于让香港人民爆发了。中国的统治者现在决定对“普选”进行伊朗式的解释——每个人都可以投票,但是只能投给背后真正统治者挑选的候选人。香港人等来的不是“一个国家,两种制度”,而是“一个国家,一种专制”和越来越集中的经济权力和越来越萎缩的媒体和学术自由。

香港这些年轻的抗议者不仅仅是担心经济前景,更多的是他们对香港的政治现状感到愤慨。很多人,比如说17岁的抗议领袖黄之峰,他们出生于香港移交主权后,成长于一个繁荣、活跃和开放的社会中。在推特和短信的伴随下长大。他们不仅视民主自治是他们的天赋人权,也视其为宪法的承诺。很多老一代的香港人对殖民统治仍有记忆,珍视公民自由和法治,但是越来越感到这些权利被来自北京的政治和经济控制所侵犯。没人清楚到底有多少比例的香港人愿意放弃经济上的繁荣来追求民主权利。但是街头几万的抗议者和他们的同情者认为北京的顽固是对香港未来的实质威胁。

这本来是一个可以避免的危机。在过去的几年中,对于如何实现“循序渐进”的民主的各种有创意的想法层出不穷。中国的共产党领导人本来可以和香港的温和民主派进行谈判,逐渐拓宽行政长官候选人资质的范围,并且逐渐走向一个完全直选的立法会(现在70个议席中,30席是由指定商会或行业的“功能组别”产生)。 政治妥协原本可以催生出被大众所广泛接受的耐心进步,但是香港得到不是谈判,也不是进步,而是伪装成民主的威权强制。

北京的顽固不仅仅是针对香港,也不仅仅是针对现在正在进行的抗议。这是一场和未来中国的斗争。习近平和他的同党们害怕,如果他们不坚持严密和集中的政治控制,他们会遭遇和戈尔巴乔夫一样的命运。习近平试图发动党内清洗和反腐败(同时也清洗了他的政敌),但是排除了任何政治改革的可能,甚至连“普世价值”,“言论自由”,“公民社会”’,“司法独立”这些概念的讨论都不被允许。

随着经济的快速增长,中国正发生着巨大的变化。公民社会在缓慢的形成,同时带来的还有一个务实和思想独立的商业阶层。尽管受到审查,人们还是广泛地通过社交媒体讨论社会议题。中产阶级通过旅行获得了接触民主思想和自由社会的机会。最“危险”的地方莫过于台湾和香港了。讽刺的是,在这个“十一”国庆长假中(今年已是共产革命的第65个纪念日了),很多去香港旅游的中国人正在目睹非常不同类型的革命。

中国的领导人现在陷入了他们自己制造的陷阱中。如果他们像四分之一世纪前那样残酷镇压大规模抗议,他们会严重损害自己在国际上的合法性,毁灭任何进一步发展台海关系的前景,破坏香港公民社会结构。如果他们做他们几个月前就应该做的——谈判——他们担心他们会看起来像是向公众压力投降了,进而会招致更多的此种压力,尤其是在这个每天都有几百起抗议事件发生的国家里。因此,他们很可能会等待,寄希望于抗议浪潮的自行消退。同时,他们也会保留甩掉现任行政长官梁振英这一选择,就像祭献羔羊一般。

如果抗议持续进行并得以扩大,中国的共产党统治者们会面对一个可怕的选择,他们可能会重复1989年的悲剧错误。但是,这已经不是25年前的中国了。习近平已经无法再把一个新兴的公民社会完全消灭,就像克努特大帝无法命令潮水退去一样。但是, 至少克努特大帝知道他的权力是有限的。习近平似乎并不能意识到他权力的限度,这也是为什么他可能是中国最后的一个共产党领导人的原因。

20141001 Xi Jinping Could Be China’s Last Communist Ruler

https://time.com/3453140/hong-kong-protests-china-one-autocracy/

Larry Diamond is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Director of Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

At this point, China can neither negotiate nor repress the mass demonstrations
The mammoth protests that have gripped Hong Kong for the past several days have implications far beyond this Special Administrative Region of more than 7 million people. In rejecting Beijing’s plan to allow only sham elections for the next chief executive of Hong Kong, in mobilizing tens of thousands of people into the streets for several days running, and in fashioning a peaceful symbol of resistance and restraint (the umbrella) in the face of an inflammatory overreaction by the police, the youth-led demonstrators have posed the most serious challenge to the authority of the Chinese Communist Party since the massacre in Tiananmen Square 25 years ago.

China’s Communist rulers have only themselves to blame for the political crisis in Hong Kong. Since it reverted from British colonial rule to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, Hong Kong has enjoyed significant autonomy and civil freedom under the principle of “one country, two systems.” During these last 17 years, Hong Kongers have waited patiently for Beijing to deliver on the Basic Law’s promise of “gradual and orderly progress” toward “the selection of the Chief Executive by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee in accordance with democratic procedures.” When Beijing announced in 2004 that Hong Kong was “not yet ready” to democratically elect its Chief Executive in 2007, or its legislature in 2008, many in Hong Kong were bitterly disappointed. But people waited hopefully for 2012, or 2017 at the latest.

The recent eruption of popular outrage was prompted by Beijing’s decision, announced at the end of August, to defer indefinitely the dream of democratic self-governance in Hong Kong. China’s rulers have now delivered an Iranian-style interpretation of “universal suffrage”: everyone can vote, but only for candidates approved by the real rulers. Instead of “one country, two systems,” Hong Kong is getting “one country, one autocracy,” with increasing concentration of economic power and shrinking media and academic freedom.

Hong Kong’s youthful demonstrators are economically worried, but even more so, they are politically indignant. Many, like the 17-year-old student protest leader Joshua Wong, were born after the handover and raised in a prosperous, civically vibrant, and open society. They grew up tweeting and texting, and they see democratic self-governance as both their natural right and their constitutional promise. Many older Hong Kongers remember colonial rule, and cherish the civil freedoms and rule of law that they now see eroding under the lengthening shadow of economic and political control from Beijing. No one knows what percentage of Hong Kong’s population is willing to risk prosperity to press democratic demands to the limit. But hundreds of thousands of protestors and sympathizers view Beijing’s political intransigence as an existential threat to Hong Kong’s future.

This was an avoidable crisis. Over the years, many creative ideas have been floated to realize “gradual and orderly progress” toward democracy. China’s Communist leaders could have negotiated with moderate Hong Kong democrats to gradually expand the range of candidates permitted to contest Chief Executive elections, and to move in stages to a fully directly elected legislature (30 of the 70 members are now elected by narrow functional constituencies). Political compromise could have fashioned a popular majority accepting patient progress. What Hong Kong got instead was no negotiations and no progress, but rather an authoritarian imposition thinly masquerading as popular sovereignty.

Beijing’s intransigence was never solely about Hong Kong, and neither are the current protests. This is a struggle for the future of China itself. President Xi and his fellow Party bosses are consumed with fear that they will meet the same fate as Mikhail Gorbachev if they do not maintain tight, centralized political control. Xi will pursue economic reform. He will try to purge the party and state of brazen corruption (while also purging his rivals along the way). But political reform is ruled out. So, even, is discussion (or teaching or tweeting) about such concepts as “universal values,” “freedom of speech,” “civil society” and “judicial independence.

China is changing rapidly in the wake of rapid economic growth. A civil society is slowly rising, alongside a pragmatic and more independent-minded business class. People now debate issues through social media, even with state controls. The middle class is traveling and gaining exposure to democratic ideas and freedoms, most dangerously, in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Ironically, during this long holiday week when China celebrates its National Day (and now the 65th anniversary of the Communist Revolution), many Chinese vacationing in Hong Kong are suddenly watching a very different kind of revolution.

China’s rulers are now stuck in a trap of their own making. If they brutally repress mass demonstrations, as they did a quarter century ago, they will gravely damage their international legitimacy, wreck prospects for closer relations with Taiwan, and destroy the civic fabric of Hong Kong. If they do what they should have done months ago — negotiate — they fear they will look to be capitulating to mass pressure, thereby inviting more of it in a country where hundreds of local-level protests erupt daily. Thus they will probably wait, hoping the protests will ebb, while preserving the option of dumping the current Chief Executive, C.Y. Leung, as a sacrificial lamb.

If the protests persist and grow, China’s Communist rulers will face an awful choice, and they may well repeat the tragic mistake of 1989. But this is not the China of 25 years ago. Xi Jinping can no more will an emergent civil society out of existence than King Canute could command the tides of the sea to recede. But alas, King Canute understood the natural limits to his power. Xi Jinping does not appear to do so, and this is why he could well be China’s last Communist ruler.

Larry Diamond is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Director of Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

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