The Emperor is Dead

November 5, 2010

In a Republic, everyone “does not” have the right to vote and that’s the way it was in the United States until 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act and created a democracy.

In 1776, when the US was a Republic, only white men with property had the right to vote, and the electorate consisted of perhaps only 10 to 20 percent of the population.

In fact, “”This made the country (America) far more stable than places that did not have this tradition and later went through dozens of constitutions and revolutions. In short, when it came to government and voting, Americans had a model to build on.” Source: History – Voting in Early America

Since America took almost two centuries to become the chaotic democracy it is today where almost everyone may vote but many don’t, why should China be rushed.

In China, members of the Communist Party make up the electorate, which is about 5% of the population. If the Communist Youth League were added, it would be closer to 10 percent. Regardless of how this electorate makes decisions, they do have a voice.

However, the consensus (rather than a majority vote) of that electorate still decides the direction China is moving.

China’s Central Committee has about 300 members (connected by a hot line) and nominally appoints the current 25 Politburo members, who select the Standing Committee of 5 to 9 men who select the President and Prime Minister.

Before 1911, only one man had a vote and that was the emperor. China has no emperor today. Today, China’s leaders may only serve two, five-year terms and there are also age limits, which the US doesn’t have. In fact, China’s next leader will not be the son of an emperor.

At its birth, the United States was not a democratic nation—far from it. The very word “democracy” had pejorative overtones, summoning up images of disorder, government by the unfit, even mob rule — considering the run up to the 2010 election, which sounds about right.

The explanation for the pressure from the “so-called” free world that China throw away the more stable Republic that has led to a steady, controlled modernization, improved health care and lifestyles and stumble quickly into a chaotic democracy is that misery loves company.

In 1950, the average life expectancy in China was 32.  Today life expectancy at birth is 73 (78 in the US). The infant mortality rate in 1950 was about 200 for 1,000 live births. Today that number is 20 (6 in the US).

If you want to see what happens to a country that became a Democracy before it was ready, study India carefully.

In India, the infant mortality rate is 51 for 1,000 live births. Life expectancy at birth is 66.

So far, since 1982 (which marks the end of Mao’s era and the birth of China’s new Constitution), China has avoided many of India’s mistakes, and India has been a democracy since 1947.

The learn more about India, see Comparing India and China’s Economic Engines, India Falling Short and The India, China battle to eliminate poverty and illiteracy.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 7/7

October 25, 2010

Another reason China is moving toward a more open republic is China’s growing, highly educated middle class. Even most of China’s peasants have seen lifestyle improvements — not as fast as urban areas but there has been growth.

“Growth in (China’s) peasant income, which had reached a rate of 15.2% a year from 1978 to 1984, dropped to 2.8% a year from 1986 to 1991. Some recovery occurred in the early 1990s, but stagnation of rural incomes marked the latter part of the decade.” Source: Asia Times

Between 1978 to 1984, rural income improved almost 100% within six years.  That growth slowed to 14% between 1986 to 1991. 

Yet, Western critics that blast China for this slow growth seldom mention that rural India has stood still for the last twenty years. There must be an unwritten rule about criticizing other democracies, which is censorship.

China’s Western critics act as if they expect an infant to walk the day he or she is born, and run a marathon, become a rocket scientist and a Nobel laureate all within twenty-four hours.

The China Law Blog said I wasn’t being fair to India when I wrote Comparing India and China’s Economic Engines.

In fact, the West’s Sinophobic critics are the ones guilty of being unfair.

China will open the door to more freedom when China is ready and that door is open wider now than it was in 1976.

I never said “when” China would be finished building a more open, modern republic, and it may never happen until a majority of the people demand it and there may even be bloodshed.

However, the signs are there for anyone who takes the time to look.

When China arrives at that destination is in the hands of the planners, engineers, scientists and architects who lead and rule China—not the Western politicians, the media or Sinophobic critics.

In fact, in 2012, the seventy million members of the Party will have an election and the leadership of China will change again.

However, the West will still refer to the elected president of China’s republic as a dictator without mentioning that in a republic not everyone has the right to vote as it was in America in 1776.

Return to Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 6

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 6/7

October 24, 2010

In parts 1 through 5, I provided evidence showing that China is building a republic that may last for centuries.

What is happening on the Internet offers more evidence that China is moving toward a more open society. In China, there are more Blogs than any nation and a free exchange of ideas via e-mails.

In fact, in China there are more people logging onto the Internet than America’s entire population.

China could have limited all Internet use as North Korea has, but China hooked up to the World Wide Web instead.

What are the real reasons China struggles to censor parts of the international internet like pornography, WordPress, Facebook and Blogger? 

Is it possible that China is doing this because they do not have the confidence that most of their people are sophisticated enough to deal with all the crazy ideas floating around in international cyberspace.

Instead, China is opening to the world like a slow blooming flower allowing the people to adapt instead of being overwhelmed, which might lead to a meltdown and a return to chaos and anarchy.

However, anyone who wants to sneak past China’s Net Nanny may do so.

I’ve known people in China who have slipped past the Net Nanny, which is more like a leaky dam getting ready to burst, and it isn’t that hard. It just takes some time. See Tech Crunch for more information about Internet use in China.

Deng Xiaoping was right. If China had the political gridlock and partisieanship that exists in America today, would the Chinese have achieved the goals to modernize that they have? 

Return to Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 5

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 3/7

October 23, 2010

In Post 2, I talked about the importance of literacy in a democracy or republic.

To fix this problem, China leaders planned ahead fifty to a hundred years with this question in mind—what would it take to successfully modernize China and educate the people for a republican government?

In 1982, China wrote a new Constitution with term limits and age limits so there would not be another modern emperor like Mao.

That constitution has been amended several times.

Although Western critics claim the Party hasn’t implemented the freedom of press and religion mentioned in the Chinese Constitution, what isn’t said is that there are other articles that give the central government and the courts the power to stop anyone deemed a threat to the stability of China’s government and economic growth.


This video is outdated but accurate in some of its facts.  In Fact, China is now the world’s 2nd largest economy.

Article 5 says, “All acts in violation of the Constitution and the law must be investigated. No organization or individual may enjoy the privilege of being above the Constitution and the law.”

Article 28 says, “The state maintains public order and suppresses treasonable and other counter- revolutionary activities; it penalizes actions that endanger public security and disrupt the socialist economy and other criminal activities, and punishes and reforms criminals.”

Article 35 says, “Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.”

Notice that the language in Article 35 does not guarantee this freedom but says, “enjoy“, whatever that means.

China’s Constitution is not America’s Constitution. Yet China is often judged by Western critics as if it were.

Return to Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 2/7

October 23, 2010

In Part 1, I talked about how Sun Yat-sen was the father of China’s republic and how Chiang Kai-shek destroyed any chance of having a two-party republic after Sun died.

Even after the Chinese civil war ended in 1949, it would take decades to prepare the people so Sun Yat-sen’s dream becomes a reality.

By reading India Falling Short, you will discover what happens when a democracy or republic moves too fast from a feudal society to a modern one.

For a republic or a democracy to survive, people must be educated and literate.

In fact, literacy in the US is listed at 99 percent. However, studies assert that 46% to 51% of U.S. adults read so poorly that they earn “significantly” below the threshold poverty level for an individual. This means that the chances of the US surviving as a republic or democracy are grim.

In 1949, when the Communists came to power about 32% of the people above the age of 12 could read.

By 1976, literacy was 20% when Mao died. The reason literacy had dropped so much was because of Mao’s Great Leap Forward and The Cultural Revolution, which the nine top leaders of the Communist Party voted against.

Mao had those men eliminated or removed from power one at a time and went ahead with The Cultural Revolution.

Today, literacy in China is more than 90%. See China’s Literacy Policies

During the Tiananmen Square incident, Deng Xiaoping said that the Party wanted democracy for China, but Western style democracy would bring the economic growth to a grinding halt because the country (as India still is) wasn’t ready yet to become a democracy or the kind of republic Sun Yat-sen envisioned.

In 1989, China’s literacy program was in its infancy. Almost a billion people in rural China lived in conditions similar to serfs during Europe’s Dark Ages.  China’s cities had not been rebuilt.

Return to Growing Cautiously Into a Modern Republic – Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

Leave a Comment » | America, China, Communism, education, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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