中国和新加坡：两种专制，殊途同归，类似问题。

人生有很多面镜子，国外的镜子，国内的镜子，对照的镜子，反思的镜子。。。中国共产党的专制和人民行动党的议会专权，两面一大一小的镜子，一左一右辉映出来的经济光辉，同样出现了类似的社会，政治，经济问题。

国会现在正在辩论预算案，这些镜子可以作为参考，让我们想一想，未来的瓶颈是行动党还是新加坡；公积金为何从不灵活到灵活，又再需要不灵活；新加坡人无法胜任高管工作，又如何能够领导国家？

10个系列的哈佛中国课，即将进入尾声，在有关‘写作中国’这个单元，访问了两位中国作家：余华和莫言。这也是两面镜子，不同作家反映出不同的生活写照。从这些访问中，让我们间接了解中国，折射我们，了解新加坡。不同的专制，异曲同工，有着类似的结果。

在余华的访问中，我们看到了这些镜子，这些折射，这些问题。

例如：

1. 党的痛苦和人民的痛苦不一样。

行动党的痛苦是SG50，它希望唤回人民对以前的记忆，记得党的贡献。而人民的痛苦却是当下，现实生活的痛苦。

2. 从爱革命到害怕革命

行动党通过种种手段在1959年取得政权，以后排除异己，一直发展到现在的害怕改变，对人民稍微福利一些，就说自己向左倾。

3.经济发展让人忽视人权？

中国经济越发达，人民越不重视人权。过去50年，行动党的确做到了。但是新加坡的经济发展已经到一个高度，我们中的一些人已经开始反思，替代思维也越来越多。新加坡人应该以新态度看待在野势力，认可他们提出反向思维，认可提出不同意见的人。

4. 从政治到经济再到政治

行动党早期是搞政治运动的，接着就大力搞经济建设，现在，又回到搞政治的阶段，或者说经济政治一起搞。民主社会主义是一个，罗宾汉左倾是一个，继续大规模基建也是一个。

以上是余华的访问。看过后，反思新加坡，我们或许更能了解自己。记得，这只是一面镜子，我们还是需要看多几面镜子来进一步了解中国，了解新加坡。

#Interview with YuHua. Official translation from HarvardX ChinaX.

Video 1

Introducing Yu Hua

On Suffering in Contemporary China

Yu Hua, it is a great pleasure,

a privilege of a lifetime,

to meet you in China.

To meet the man who wrote those essays,

"China in Ten Words" which educated me,

and the man who inspired,

who wrote the book and inspired the movie, "To Live"

I've never seen a better movie than “To Live"

about real people going through terrific challenges.

Let me ask you this,

you were a dentist before you were a writer

and you learned the hard way through dentistry to confront pain.

I wish you'd begin by talking about pain in China today.

In the past, the pain Chinese people experienced

was more conformed, similar.

However, now the pains Chinese people experience

are not exactly the same,

there are completely different painful experiences.

From the point of view of the government,

our officials’ point of view

recently they always heavily emphasize

the pain we suffered before and after the Opium War,

the oppression from the west we experienced,

make them feel that we have to stay stronger.

It is expressed both in their diplomatic policies

and also in their domestic policies.

They tell themselves they have to stay very strong.

Because of this history

in terms of the experiences of the ordinary people,

their pain has become more practical.

If our pain is historical from the perspective of the government,

then from the perspective of ordinary people

our pain is that of the practicalities of daily life.

First, the price of commodities is rising,

and finding a doctor to treat our sicknesses is

more and more difficult.

First it is difficult to get very good medical care,

secondly maybe they don't have money to see a doctor

and also, real estate prices have skyrocketed in China

and people cannot afford a place to live.

So these are the pains of the majority of our ordinary citizens.

Also these two types of pain,

the pain of the government,

and also the pain in people's everyday life

are actually choices.

Regarding the pain of the government, as I mentioned earlier,

it is a historical pain.

They always talk about the pain we suffered

in the Opium War or how we were oppressed

but they will not talk about

the pain from the Cultural Revolution

and even more will not mention

the pain brought to us from the Tiananmen Square Incident.

These are not acknowledged.

The Cultural Revolution we can discuss

but the Tiananmen case is definitely a taboo in China.

Thus the pain our government chooses to acknowledge

is definitely a choice

to understand, to raise up...

or more accurately, to voice their pain

the feeling of their pain, that is a choice

for them to speak of the pain.

The pain experienced by common people is also a choice,

to choose to express the pain that is immediately relevant to them.

When I get sick,

I discover it is very difficult for me to find good medical care.

When their kids have to go to school, they realize

that it's really hard to go to a good education

that they can only go to “not very good” schools

they cannot go to good schools

they cannot get an equal education

these are very practical pains

however those pains that are suffered by other people

if they do not suffer from the same pains

they do not realize those pains

so their pains are also by choice.

The government - by that, I mean government officials -

they always emphasize the historical part of the pain.

However they always avoid the realistic part of the pain.

Actually they really deliberately avoid that

because actually they don't experience pain in their real life

that's why they habitually refer back to and always emphasize on history.

As for our common people, the pain they experience is the opposite

because their everyday life is too heavy

so in regards to the historical pains, they have no time or energy to reflect on the pains of history

they are only concerned about the pains of today.

If you were to say pain still existed in today's China

then the pain emphasized by government is a historical pain

and the pain suffered by common people is a type of practical pain.

I want to ask you about the pain

of the economic transformation.

It's a revolution,

we can see it all over the place in Shanghai

but you, you can see the suffering too.

Can you describe it?

The suffering, can you describe what you see

as the suffering in this market transformation of the economy?

The issue you brought up is quite broad

of course when you come to Beijing and Shanghai

and the large coastal cities

and even some big cities in the middle of China

you will feel that China really is very cosmopolitan

but in reality there are still very many places in China that are very undeveloped

In fact you can even say, compared to

before China's Opening up and Reform, there are no obvious differences

In China there are still many places that still remain the same.

In regard to the people who live in a place that has not really changed

they maybe...

It is difficult for me to explain their relationship (to these changes)

For a person who has lived a long time in a place that has not changed for a long time

They may already be numb to these changes.

A lot of people, they haven't left their hometown

they don't actually know the changes that are occurring

they have only seen these changes on television, so many changes

in Beijing and Shanghai and other big cities, they have seen those sort of changes on T.V.

They haven't experienced those changes

by their personal experience.

So they're actually pretty numb toward the changes in China.

For those people who live in Beijing and Shanghai

of course there are many, many successful people

Of course there are also many, many people who were not successful,

or who wish to be successful in the future

and their experiences regarding society's changes are also completely different.

It's quite paradoxical that a lot of successful people actually

realize China is pretty problematic. However, those people who are

not successful think there is still hope in China.

Perhaps those successful in China feel that China is not so full of hope

while those who were not successful actually feel that there is hope, because

I think there are two reasons

those who are successful are afraid to lose their successes

and for people who are not successful

of course they feel they have nothing to lose.

Another reason is that those successful people

know a lot about China,

however those unsuccessful people,

they might not know China that well.

They know to little about China.

It's not that they don't want to know.

but they don't have time and energy to know

because their real life is so heavy and exhausting.

They cannot take the time to know, this is one aspect.

The second reason is those successful people,

they have more ways to get information.

There are a lot of unseen aspects in China,

China is not a country of journalistic freedom.

There are many things that cannot be reported

For the majority of the people, especially for those unsuccessful people,

Anything that is not on the public T.V. they don't know about.

However, those successful people

they may get access to that information

through unofficial sources.

Video 2

On Revolution in China

Yu Hua, in your wonderful wonderful book of essays,

"China in Ten Words"

one of the key words is "Revolution"

explain your argument that the revolution,

the worst of the revolution,

the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution,

are still driving the Market Revolution.

You remind us of Mao Zedong's famous line

"a revolution is not a dinner party",

it's violent, it's propagandistic,

people suffer in a revolution and they have to.

You say there's still suffering

from government violence

in bulldozing even parts of the most successful cities,

they're suffering from propaganda.

Explain what you mean.

My personal feeling is Chinese people just like revolutions.

If you see the 3,000 years of history of China as a country

of course the Chinese government claims that

we have 5,000 years of civilization

however as a country, our history is about 3,000 years

if you see that history you can see the Chinese history

can be summarized in the way

you establish a dynasty and you overturn it,

you establish a dynasty and overturn it

this continued on through history.

What is the continuity, what is the thread

that connects the Great Leap Forward

the Cultural Revolution and the Market Revolution

the Capitalist Revolution

that we see all around us in Shanghai today

make those connections.

I think the clue between the three revolutions

is that Chinese people just like revolutions.

You can see that through the changing

of dynasties in Imperial China

from the destruction of the Qing dynasty and on

creating the Republic of China

this was a great revolution

an extremely violent revolution

and how the Communist Party beat the Guomindang

and established the Republic of China in 1949

this was yet another revolution.

The Great Leap Forward is another exaggerated,

you could even consider it a fictional economic revolution,

in actuality it was more of a movement

it was actually more of a political revolution

rather than an economic revolution.

How about the Cultural Revolution?

Of course the Cultural Revolution

is a pure political movement with violence,

however it is quite different from the overturning of the Qing dynasty.

also different from how the Communist Party took power

from the Nationalist Party because

the Cultural Revolution was an internal revolution.

Let's not look at China's history

our history is full of revolutions

from 1949 until now

that is in the 60 years that the PRC has been in power the revolution just goes on and on

it's just the way the revolution manifests and continues to change.

The "Opening up and Reform" of our market economy was also a revolution in itself.

but this was purely an economic revolution.

In a lot of ways it’s similar to the Great Leap Forward,

you can see all over China it's like a construction site.

All the buildings, all the houses were almost all torn down at the same time

and they were all built up again almost at the same time, big tall buildings all over the place

It's really hard to imagine this happening in any other part of the world

how can all of the cities be tearing down their old buildings at the same time

and build all their new buildings at the same time

in reality this can definitely be considered a method of revolution.

So when we are building our economy it is certainly in a revolutionary style

highways are being built everywhere

at exactly the same time high speed railways are being built.

I'm saying that everything is happening at exactly the same time

at the same time high rises are being build everywhere

they are building railroads

chemical factories are built at the same time

now up until now almost everywhere has started,

including our environmental pollution, air pollution,

how we solve the problem of environmental pollution

is a revolution by itself again

The ways we deal with the air pollution

as air pollution gets worse and worse,

our solution is almost like another revolution.

First cars are limited by their local government

to limit the cars on the road

for example based on your license plate number

you will know whether you can drive your car or not

and secondly the central government gives orders

to the local government that are very strict orders

that they have to improve their air quality

by a certain level by next year

or a certain number of years from now they have to achieve

a certain standard of air quality

it's almost like a revolution

that involves all the citizens of China.

I think that the most quintessential thing

about revolution in China is that

it involves all the citizens in this nation.

Basically that is a revolution.

For example in the Cultural Revolution

everyone is motivated to overturn the authority

and in the market transformation

everyone is motivated to make money

so making money also became a revolution

and then afterward everyone goes on

to corrupt money so it's also a revolution.

So I think China is a country that likes revolutions

Yu Hua, you write about three revolutions in your lifetime.

The Great Leap Forward, to industrialize

everybody turning in their pots and pans to make steel,

remembered now as a disaster,

the Cultural Revolution,

the Red Guard revolution,

a sort of mind control experiment,

that also was a disaster,

but you make a link also with the current revolution,

the money revolution,

the bulldozer revolution,

the skyscraper revolution.

What is it in the revolution today that troubles you?

Well what really troubles me about the revolution today

is not a secret in China anymore.

It's about the environmental pollution in China,

the air pollution in China,

the food safety in China

almost all the problems existing in today's society

are caused by an economy that because of its revolutionary development style is developing too rapidly.

You write that the new revolution,

like the old ones

is top down, few people deciding,

it's not democratic, also that it relies on violence

at some level or the threat of violence

bulldozers or bullets

and third that it's driven by propaganda.

You say that those big character posters

of the Cultural Revolution

have an equivalent today in advertising

in television bombardment.

Versions of the same thing.

I wish you'd explain it in your words.

Those three connections of top down

anti-democratic, also violent and also propagandistic.

Well there was also a bottom up revolution

that happened in China

that is the Tiananmen incident,

however it lasted for a really short time.

Where is that spirit today? Can we talk about that?

No, we couldn't talk about Tiananmen incident in China

now actually this year is the 25th anniversary

of the Tiananmen incident and

I actually didn't go take a look this year because

"Tiananmen" and "June the 4th" are banned online in China

actually for a while Chinese citizens

created a word called "May the 35th"

because it's May the 31st plus 5 days which makes June 6th

however the government rapidly found out

this great invention and this word is also became banned in China.

Everything related to the Tiananmen incident

is banned in China.

However there is one place online

you can see the things about this incident, and it is reported in Chinese

it's the official website of the American embassy.

And what can you see?

A very simple description, very few words about the Tiananmen incident

it says that how many years ago

there was democratic activity in China

and it ended in bloodshed.

And it expresses a remembrance

that is of China's democratic movement, very simple.

And I have a premonition

that as the Chinese Government's response becomes stronger

the description on the American embassy's website

will become shorter and shorter, simpler and simpler.

There might be one way that this wouldn't be changed

if Hillary Clinton became the President of the United States

And then what?

If Hillary Clinton became the President of the United States

I think that articles and reports

about the Tiananmen incident

would not be reduced.

Video 3

Anger, Poverty, and Human Rights

You write in the book “Ten Words” (“China in Ten Words”)

that there's a seething anger

that's the way it was translated

that seething anger is still sort of the main driving emotion

in this country.

Can you explain that?

I think that the anger is not "seething" anymore

it's more and more obvious

All over the place there are, we call them group incidents,

for example, some violent events

this anger is right now changing, it used to only be targeted at the government.

now this anger has been twisted to be directed at the common people.

I'm not talking about the violent incident

that happened in Xinjiang

and also how Uyghur people responded

in the rest of China

because this is related to ethnic minority problems

and it's too complicated to talk about now.

What I'm talking about

are those violent incidents

that happen in schools for example, people go to schools to kill people

people go on public transportation

and detonate bombs

violence towards the common people is being expressed in this way

this illustrates more sharply how China's anger is certainly heightened.

It used to be that people just targeted the government,

at most they break the government's doors, windows, burn their cars,

but now they target common people more and more.

This is extremely frightening, the violence has already been twisted.

What would change or redirect or appease that anger?

I can't see any hope of appeasing this kind of anger

I can only see the possibility that

they become more and more extreme in the future.

Because Chinese society has already reach the point of conflict.

Nowadays people don't have hope anymore

they don't have the same hope as they used to

people's thoughts have become more and more schizophrenic.

Different people have different views so I feel

at this point it is very difficult to see that sort of hope.

People also speak though of prosperity,

their lives are better economically,

there's less extreme poverty,

does this count?

Does this matter?

I couldn't see poverty being reduced in China.

I feel that phrase is not used that accurately

because I don't actually think our country's poverty is decreasing

Maybe it's true in statistics

but I don't think poverty has actually been reduced in China, in terms of daily life.

Where is the poverty that worries you the most?

You can see poverty in any place in China

even in Shanghai

even in places like Beijing

they all have areas where the poor live

this you cannot question

Of course you cannot see poor people living in the Ritz Carlton,

Let's not look at how big our economy is,

"oh, we're the number two economy in the world, or something

how much our GDP has grown every year”

however, we should look at the rank

of the GDP per capita, in reality it hasn't much changed

we always rank roughly around 100 in the world.

We move up a little bit, we move down a little bit

and the best we get is around 90.

I think the real way to evaluate how well Chinese people live

is to look at the average income of Chinese people.

Not the country's overall economy.

You say the average income is 90-100 on the rank of nations?

Yes.

How do you measure the spiritual, the human damage

of the new revolution,

to family, to identity

to human sovereignty at an individual level?

What's going on?

Speaking of the damage on family,

if we compare this Capitalist Revolution

to the Cultural Revolution

of course in the Cultural Revolution

the family was also destroyed to a large extent.

That is because the family was persecuted

because they were considered rightists, or landlords or for other reasons and the parents divorced

this was still a small group of people because only a small number of people were persecuted.

However after the 1980s, in this economic revolution today,

the rise of the economy parallels the rise of divorce

this may be because of the changing economic dynamics of the family

which influence the families insecurity.

Anyway, today the divorce rate is rising every day.

From the human rights perspective, there was also a huge change

because after the Cultural Revolution ended

we suddenly discovered that generation of Chinese people

had no place for individual activity

after the Cultural Revolution ended

Deng Xiaoping gave individuals some space

for social activity.

Then people started to be concerned about human rights,

be concerned about democratic freedom,

and that's how the June 4th incident broke out.

However, that revolution was short lived.

The Cultural Revolution is a revolution of monopoly

and the Tiananmen Square Incident is a revolution of democracy,

it is a revolution to strive for democracy. It ended very quickly

From the 1990s on when China's economy speedily rose, people all turned to economic revolution

Today, to be honest, the number of people who are concerned with human rights

is not becoming more and more, but rather less and less

unless you infringe on their individual human rights, then they think that human rights should exist

when you do not impact their own rights they may not think about human rights

they might think about how much they made today.

So the influence of the Capitalist Revolution

has a really bad influence on the human rights in China.

This revolution has made Chinese people profit driven.

They care less about other people

which also means they care less about the country.

So this bout of economic revolution, you can also say its a capitalist revolution

Its impact on human rights might be very different than what Westerners think.

They might think that the economic revolution would help human rights

but it actually does not really help.

More and more people have no interest in human rights

Video 4

Money, Politics and the Chinese Dream

You write in “Ten Words” that the country

that used to be run by politics is now run by money

Can you explain?

China is such a rapidly changing country

There are now more changes, this country changes too fast

“China in Ten Words” was written four years ago in 2010,

even in those four years a lot of change has taken place.

It’s like this, its history is really fascinating.

From the Cultural Revolution to the early 1980s

China was a country in which politics ruled everything.

From the 1990s on, when the economic revolution took place,

money ruled everything.

Recently,

after the emphasis on money brought on large amounts of corruption

especially in the last one or two years, China is no longer just focused on economics, politics has come back,

so now it's a combination of money and politics.

I have always lived in China

so I know things a little bit

After President Xi Jinping took office

he took a really strong stance on everything

he took a strong stance against corruption, caught a lot of people

at the same time he enacted really strict policies against local government,

a lot of local government officers are really afraid of him.

He also controlled media very harshly

the control is even more strict than in

the Hu Jintao era and even Jiang Zemin era.

He has taken politics, that is, people feel that politics is becoming important again in daily life

However, a very interesting thing is the very strong stances that Xi Jinping took

are largely supported as far as I know.

A lot of intellectuals who believe in liberalism

even support Xi Jinping.

Xi Jinping's oppression of democratic liberalism

he still has lots and lots of people's support

so the situation I wrote about in “Ten Words” is not true anymore

Even though only four years have passed, China today is no longer the China I wrote about in "Ten Words"

Money is not the only ruler in China

It has already become an amalgamation of politics and economics.

This is a hopeful sign?

I have to take some more time to see how this policy plays out.

I can tell you a little story about it.

I have a column in the New York Times.

When the "eight-point" code was issued by Xi Jinping to censor officials' banqueting, drinking and entertainment

after the edict came out the editors at the New York Times asked me

to write an article to comment on it.

That was last year.

However, I told them "I need some time to think about it, if I am to make it meaningful.

I have to see how the local government, the government officials,

actually cope with this policy.

How are they going to secretly going to eat, drinking entertain themselves?"

However, one year has passed since then

I haven't seen this phenomenon come back again.

All the local government officers have been really careful,

they've stopped going out eating and drinking.

So I really don't know right now

At least the really strict policies implemented by Xi Jinping have lasted longer than his predecessors'

as far as I know, meaning that of Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin.

Xi Jinping speaks of the China dream,

Chinese dream, and nobody seems to know just what he means.

I want to ask you, what is your Chinese dream?

I actually used to go online and search for "China dream"

to find out what it actually means -

there was a very long description afterwards

and actually I don't understand it

After this China dream thing came out

a friend of mine called me and said

"oh you know everyone is talking about the dream of China.

I also have a dream”

and this friend said, "before I die,

I want to vote for the president of China,

and he asked me "does this count as my Chinese dream?"

and I told him on the phone

"Even if it doesn't count as a China Dream, it was a dream made in China."

so my understanding of the Chinese Dream is a dream made in China.

We speak of this ongoing revolution,

this sort of permanent revolution taking different forms

and always the problem is that it's top-down,

it's not democratic, second, that it's violent,

driven by at least the threat of violence

and sometimes massive loss of life,

and third, that it's not true, that it's not transparent,

that we can't see it honestly

How does a great nation break that habit or change?

Where does it begin?

I couldn't really see a way out of this,

the civilization of the world has been going on for a long time

there are only two ways, two political styles that we can take.

One is Parliamentary democracy

everyone votes

the other is a democratic monopoly.

I can't say that China is not democratic now, there are lots of places where China is democractic, but

but it is a democratic monopoly.

These two types of democracy, you do not have a third choice.

You can only choose one option out of these two

It is not likely that a Western parliamentary democracy will manifest anytime in the near future.

As for our Chinese democratic monopoly, how can it be better? I currently still cannot see a way.

…so?

So we can only let time decide the destiny of China.