From Southern Metropolis Daily, via Lian Yue’s Eighth Continent blog, translated by EastSouthWestNorth:
On January 6, there was a Southern Metropolis Daily news report titled “Nominating himself as a People’s Congress
representative, a Shenzhen citizen claims to be a grassroots representative. The report was about Shenzhen citizen Zou Tao’s Internet-published statement “Open letter to nominate myself for the Fourth People’s Congress of Shenzhen” which expressed his desire to become a “People’s Congress representative who truly represents the broad masses at the grassroots level.” According to report, the response was great.
Any People’s Republic of China citizen whose political rights have not been stripped away is entitled to say: “I want to become a People’s Congress representative.” It is logical that the starting point for becoming a people’s representative is to want to be one (after all, many people do not want to a people’s representative for reasons such as interests, occupation, physical health, etc). It would have been very strange if someone becomes a people’s representative against his/her intention — that would mean that the election system was not objective. This is to say, Zou Tao only said something that was the most ordinary in a civic society. Yet the audience found it refreshing, perhaps because his words let them see the blind spot in their thinking: they have not thought about trying to become a people’s representative and to fulfill their ambition to serve society and nation. Perhaps, they even felt that it was improper to even try to say something like this. [Full text]
