链接 http://goo.gl/vqFJN
人民网北京5月7日电 （记者 崔东）2011年5月6日，英国《经济学家》读者来信版刊登了中国驻英国大使馆驳斥4月16日该刊有关艾未未评论的信函大部分内容。信函全文如下：
贵刊4月16日的封面文章《中国的镇压（CHINA’S CRACKDOWN）》，借艾未未案无端攻击中国，这是对中国司法主权的不尊重和对中国内政的干涉，反映出贵刊对中国的无知、傲慢和偏见。
中国是法治国家，不搞人治，也不搞专制。改革开放30多年来，中国取得了举世瞩目的发展成就，这不仅体现在中国经济已超居世界第二，人民生活水平大幅提高，还体现在人民思想的解放、社会的自由宽松、政府的公开透明。中国的发展是政治、经济、社会、文化的全面发展和进步。
中国民主法制建设不断加强，人民代表大会制度、中国共产党领导的多党合作和政治协商制度，在国家政治生活中的地位和作用越来越大。党内民主不断完善，彻底废除了领导人终身制。30多年来，中国全国人大共审议通过了200多部法律，全国律师人数从3000上升到20多万。
中国公民的各项权利和自由，包括言论和宗教信仰自由依法得到保护。中国公民可以自由迁徙、自由择业，自由到国外留学，可以通过各种合法渠道表达意见和诉求。中国网民人数达4.5亿，信教人数超过1亿，是英国人口的近两倍。
艾未未曾发表过很多言论，他在推特网上很活跃，还经常接受西方记者采访并到国外举办展览，中国政府未予限制。由于艾未未因涉嫌经济犯罪，中国公安机关依法对其进行调查，这既不是人权问题，也不是言论自由问题，而是要不要法治的问题，任何人，不论他是什么“家”，都没有凌驾于法律之上的特权。
西方一些人妄言，中国只搞经济改革，不进行政治改革，这在理论上不成立，也不符合事实。试问，如果没有一个合理有效的政治体制，何来中国经济30年快速增长？何来当今中国社会的开放和多元？
一个国家走什么样的道路，归根结底应该符合实际国情，由本国人民决定。实践证明，中国选择的道路是正确的，得到了广大中国人民的支持，有着光明的前景。我们将沿着这条道路，克服各种艰难险阻，坚定不移地走下去。在中国制造不稳定，损害中国的根本利益，中国人民决不答应。
中西方在民主、人权问题上有分歧，只能在相互尊重、平等相待的基础上，通过对话交流来处理。那些自以为是，对中国诽谤谩骂的人不妨扪心自问，到底是谁在搞“镇压”？谁在搞对抗？
（责任编辑：崔东）
riticising China
SIR – Your criticisms of China in the Ai Weiwei case were unwarranted, show a disrespect for our judicial sovereignty and are an attempt to interfere with our internal affairs (“China’s crackdown”, April 16th). Mr Ai, an artist, has made his comments before, through Twitter and interviews given to Western journalists, and he has travelled abroad to hold exhibitions. These activities were not restricted. Mr Ai is now under investigation for suspected economic crimes. The case is not a human-rights matter nor is it about freedom of speech, but rather it is a question of whether the rule of law should be upheld.
China is ruled by law, not by man; it is not a case of rule by a few. Over the past 30 years of reform China has achieved a great deal, not just in becoming the second-largest economy and improving the living standards of its people, but also in terms of much greater freedoms. Some people in the West assert that China only wants economic reform and not political reform. This is not true either in theory or in practice.
Progress has been made in building democracy and the rule of law. The people’s congress system and multiparty consultation and co-operation under the Communist Party now play a greater role. Democratic decision-making within the party has been strengthened and lifelong tenure of leadership positions has been abolished.
The rights and freedoms of Chinese citizens are protected by law. Chinese citizens enjoy freedom of movement and migration, free choice of employment and freedom to study overseas. They can express their views through multiple channels: China has 450m internet users and the number of religious believers exceeds 100m. The path of development a country follows depends on the circumstances of that country and should be decided by its people. China’s development has worked well and will continue despite many challenges. The attempt to create instability in China will not be supported by the Chinese people.
The differences between China and the West on democracy and human rights should be addressed through dialogue based on equality and respect. People who attack China should ask themselves just who it is that is cracking down on others, and who is creating confrontation.
Dai Qingli
Chinese Embassy
London
链接：http://goo.gl/6rkbo
China’s repressive new rulers
The vindictiveness of China’s rulers betrays their nervousness
Apr 14th 2011 | from the print edition
LIKE so much else under Heaven, repression in China has often seemed to go in cycles. Every now and then it has suited the country’s leaders to relax their steely grip on the country and allow a modicum of political liberty.
Freer criticism in the media has helped give the party a veneer of credibility. Lip-service to the law and due process has won plaudits overseas and boosted the economy at home. So a thaw would set in for a while, a “Beijing spring”. A freeze would always follow. But, until lately, in each new cycle the springs were seeming warmer and the freezes not quite so harsh. When the country was starting to liberalise, Westerners justified doing business with China on just such grounds. More economic openness would surely lead to more openness of other kinds.
The latest freeze casts this widespread hope into doubt, for three reasons. The first is the scale of the crackdown. Ai Weiwei, China’s best-known artist and dissident, who was detained at Beijing airport on April 3rd, is only the most notable figure to be caught by it. Calls on the internet for a “jasmine revolution” have prompted armed police and plain-clothes goons to descend in huge numbers on public places
Baby, it’s cold outside
Dozens have been detained and now face criminal charges in relation to these inchoate calls. Others have faced different kinds of harassment, including beatings and house arrest. But the freeze runs deeper. Since February some of the country’s top defence lawyers have vanished. Activists for villagers’ rights and the environment have faced repression. Bloggers have been rounded up. Members of a big underground (ie, non-state) church in Beijing, stopped from meeting in their usual building, were arrested as they tried to worship outside.
A second reason for doubt is the duration of the crackdown. With hindsight, it began after Tibetan riots in 2008 drew a harsh response. Since then, two events, the Beijing Olympics later that year and the Shanghai World Expo of 2010, might have served as coming-out parties for a rising China. They offered the regime the chance to show the world a more confident face. Yet both were accompanied by harsh treatment of anyone deemed likely to embarrass the government. Tens of thousands of unwashed migrant workers were forced out of Beijing for lowering the tone. Outspoken activists were kept out of sight.
Even natural disasters have triggered repression. Mr Ai’s first serious run-in with the authorities came when he attempted to account for all the schoolchildren killed during the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, many as a result of corrupt building practices. Taking in all its manifestations, which include tightened internet censorship and a stifling of public debate, the latest crackdown on political dissent certainly constitutes the worst since Tiananmen Square in 1989 and its aftermath.
A third reason to doubt the notion of gradual warming lies in the method of repression. Even the post-Tiananmen crackdown had a semblance of due process. Now such pretence is out of the window. People are picked up under arbitrary detention rules and then made to disappear. Mr Ai has not been heard of since being bundled away. Violence is part of the mix. Mr Ai needed brain surgery in 2009 after being beaten up by goons. Foreign journalists are being harassed on a scale unseen since Tiananmen Square. Vaguely defined “state security” is used as a reason to round people up. For perceived “troublemakers” such as Mr Ai, the government says, “no law can protect them.”
Western observers tend to describe the crackdown as a massive overreaction to perceived threats, but it may well be that China’s rulers know better. True, no seething mass stands ready to overthrow the regime. But in a vast country, many aggrieved people, from dispossessed villagers through unemployed graduates to angry bloggers, resent the state. The government is quite capable of handling each of these groups separately. But were those with grievances ever to coalesce, especially if the growth slows—as it will sooner rather than later (see article)—they would represent a potent force.
The view from Beijing, thus, is different to the view from abroad. Whereas the outside world regards China’s rulers as all-powerful, the rulers themselves detect threats at every turn. The roots of this repression lie not in the leaders’ overweening confidence but in their nervousness. Their response to threats is to threaten others.
Imminent political change may also play a part. Next year a crucial party congress will anoint a new generation of leaders, led by Xi Jinping, now the country’s vice-president, to take over the running of the country. Repression is the job of China’s powerful “security state”—the regular and secret police. Sensing rudderlessness at the top, it may be particularly inclined to flex its muscles now.
The fear of hanging separately
Many of China’s new leaders come from the “princeling” class, an aristocracy of families with revolutionary credentials from the days of Mao Zedong (see article). Some have lucrative positions which give them a financial interest in tighter party control over both the economy and society. Others use their ideological pedigrees to advocate a neo-Maoist approach, which includes scant regard for the law. There is plenty of resentment within the system at the growing power of this aristocracy, and repression can be used to defang opposition. A nastier China is the result.
In the short term at least, these troubling developments undermine the comforting idea that economic openness necessarily leads to the political sort. All the more reason, then, for the West to hold China to account. America and the European Union are right strongly to condemn Mr Ai’s detention, though it would have been better had they taken a stand sooner. Speaking out might just help constrain the regime’s behaviour. It will certainly give succour to those in China working bravely to create a better future.
