About Taiwan's One Country, Two Systems and Hong Kong's Occupy Central Movement

-Speaking at the seminar on December 19, 2014

Hu Ping:

Why did Deng Xiaoping propose "one country, two systems"? ——"One country, two systems" was proposed for Taiwan, and it was only later mentioned that it could also be used in Hong Kong. I thought, with such a whimsical person as Mao Zedong, he would not propose peaceful reunification of Taiwan? Why did Deng Xiaoping, such a pragmatic man, propose a "peaceful reunification of Taiwan" in a whimsical way? People live well in Taiwan, what are you doing to make you peacefully reunite? You can only fight, if you don't fight, if you want people to be willing, why should people be willing?

My explanation is that at that time, the CCP discovered that a fatal problem of Chiang Ching-kuo’s generation of Kuomintang people was that they found that the local forces were constantly rising in Taiwan for so long, although at that time, Chiang Ching-kuo could still continue his authoritarian rule. However, in the long run, Chiang Ching-kuo will face one of the biggest problems: sooner or later, the Kuomintang's rule in Taiwan will not last, and will be replaced by local forces sooner or later. So at this time, the Communist Party put forward a bait: you surrender to us, and we will be in the background, so that just like Hong Kong now, you will be able to "every generation" and will not be overthrown. On the other hand, if you do not accept my offer, then you will be overthrown by the local opposition in the end. This is obvious. In other words, the Communist Party has already seen this crisis in Chiang Ching-kuo, so it "prescribes the right medicine" and gives you such a bait. He thinks that Chiang Ching-kuo and the older generation of the Kuomintang may accept "one country, two systems" and are willing to be the chief executive, just like Hong Kong. ! No matter how violent and violent the Hong Kong people are, there is Beijing as the backstage for the Chief Executive! At least it can be done for a long time. This motion put forward by the Communist Party is aimed at you, Chiang Ching-kuo, and at the older generation of the Kuomintang, and is aimed at you. That is, the crisis of Chiang Ching-kuo's rule, the Communist Party sees it very clearly. You read the article very clearly. Li Jiaquan, the deputy director of the Taiwan Institute of the Academy of Social Sciences at the time, wrote an article saying that if you continue like this, your Republic of China will not be able to last, and one day someone will replace it, and the brand will also be changed. will be lost. (Feng Shengping: In which year did he propose "one country, two systems"?) It was first proposed by Ye Jianying in 1979, then in 1980 and 1981, and then it became obvious. Especially after the Kaohsiung Incident in Taiwan. He sees it very clearly, and you can understand if you think about it this way. Deng Xiaoping's proposal was not false. At that time, if Chiang Ching-kuo was willing to accept one country, two systems, then Taiwan would be today's Hong Kong, and the Kuomintang would be able to rule for a long time. Absolutely no problem, right?

The problem is that Chiang Ching-kuo did not accept it. There are of course many reasons why he didn't accept it, and I also admit it. Chiang Ching-kuo's later liberalization of democracy was not entirely out of democratic ideals, nor did he make some fake moves and then figured it out. He couldn't make any fake moves. There is one thing, he knows that his rule has no future, and the other side is trying to lure him to surrender, but he is the child of Lao Jiang, the Kuomintang has fought against the Communist Party for so many years, and he absolutely refuses to recognize you. If you don't do it, you will never want to take this step. There are people in the Kuomintang who are willing to vote for the Communist Party. Chiang Ching-kuo will never do this. In the end, he also saw it very clearly. At this time, I will open up to democracy. I would rather our Kuomintang be an opposition party in Taiwan under democracy, and I do not want to be a chief executive under your CCP. He just wants to gamble with you!

From his point of view, the hatred of the two generations, the hatred of struggle, he had already begun to reform at that time, I will prove that my Three People's Principles are better than your communism, right? It's not that I admit defeat, I admit my mistake, I am not wrong, you are wrong! So he proposed to unify China and the Three Principles of the People to unify China. Of course, he has a sense of great China. It's almost as if you were unified with me. I will be unified with you? Absolutely not. He is absolutely reluctant to come to you to bow his head and be a minister, absolutely reluctant to admit the mistake. Then he discovered that there is only open democracy, because once democracy is open, not only will no one be able to "one country, two systems" when he is alive, but no one will be able to "one country, two systems" after him. No matter who is in power, the common people will not accept "one country, two systems" because it depends on votes. Most people in Taiwan are definitely not willing to "one country, two systems", and they are not willing to accept you, the supreme emperor of the Communist Party. If he continues his authoritarian rule, then after Chiang Ching-kuo's death, the later Kuomintang power group is likely to face the challenge of local forces. I feel that at that time, we will hand over a letter of surrender and attract your forces, and we will be Wu Sangui. "Qing soldiers enter the customs", after you come in from Beijing, he will control it. But once he opens up democracy, there is no return. Because it is a small number of such a powerful group of authoritarian rule, they may accept "one country, two systems" and accept a degraded throne for their own interests, but the people of Taiwan with freedom and democracy will never want us to have another one. The emperor is too high, so he can only go on like this, including when he was localized, he had taken a lot of things. Economically, he engaged in the ten major construction projects, and politically promoted local elites, including promoting Lee Tenghui as vice president. It is not that Jiang Jingguo chose the wrong person. He had seen it clearly at the time, and he was not mistaken in this sense. He knew that our Kuomintang was likely to stay in Taiwan. If you stay in Taiwan, you have to localize and combine with local forces, and you can't do it. Always make people feel like you are a foreign regime, otherwise you will not be able to stay.

You can only explain it in this way to explain why Deng Xiaoping proposed "one country, two systems" at that time, and I especially emphasized asking why. Mao Zedong didn't mention such words, so romantic people didn't mention such words. Do you think that a pragmatic person like Deng Xiaoping would say such words? He just saw it. At that time, your Kuomintang faced such a deep crisis in Taiwan. The crisis that you cannot overcome was not so exposed at the moment, but they saw it, right? And this hit the heart of Chiang Ching-kuo. Once Chiang Ching-kuo rejected that point, history would become irreversible until today. This is how I explained it.

Going back to the Taiwan issue, Taiwan will face such a problem next. This time, the Kuomintang was defeated in the "nine-in-one" election. Many people think that the Kuomintang is too pro-China. Of course, there is his reason, but only part of it. Because your future DPP is also facing the same problem: first, of course, you need to maintain peace with the mainland; second, you cannot close the country, you have to have economic exchanges with the mainland, and the result of economic exchanges is very likely, you The economy and industry of your country will be hollowed out. Your capitalists will go to the mainland to make more money, while in the mainland, because the industry has moved, it will cause more unemployment.

Not only Taiwan is facing this problem, but the United States is also facing this problem, but because the United States is big, it is not so obvious. Taiwan is so small, so close to each other, that's a big deal. So I think how to solve this problem, how to have a kind of communication with the mainland that is beneficial to you, because it is impossible for you to cut off this kind of communication. If you want to continue like this, this trend, caused by the Kuomintang, doesn't necessarily mean that the Kuomintang itself is fully responsible. Because the DPP doesn't seem to have anything better to do. This is not just an issue of the DPP, not just of Taiwan, but of the whole world. Anyone dealing with Beijing faces this problem. Everyone has talked about it, including Nobel Prize winners and professors from Columbia University. They also talked about that China's economic industry has reached the world's first; Rather lazy. Therefore, they are not optimistic about this trend. Taiwan is the first to bear the brunt, and the impact on Taiwan is the most obvious. In fact, this is a global problem. As for the Taiwan question, I have finished.

As for the Hong Kong issue, I don't know which angle you are concerned about... (He Pin: Do you think it is expected that the curtain will end like this now, okay? Would it be better if it ended in the middle?) If Of course, it is better to withdraw from the middle actively! Now that it ends like this, it's not the worst, but it's bad enough! There are many negative consequences.

Now some people are still talking about the possibility of occupation at the end of the year and next year, such as Christmas. This is impossible at all! Occupation is unlikely next year, who will call? This time, Chen Jianmin, one of the "Three Sons of Occupy Central", gave himself full marks for enlightenment and zero marks for his participation in social movements. This shows that he himself is very dissatisfied with himself and feels that things are very unsuccessful. The question is: if you start again, who will come? People will immediately think of this occupation, and they will think that there were so many thousands of people who participated in the occupation for so many days, and there was no result. Then what are we big guys going to do? We can't be that big anymore, we can't last that long! What else could be the result? In addition, people also expected the government's response: this time the Occupy Central, the government started to send tear gas bombs and so on, and now the government is like this: if you come as few people, we will drive them away, and if there are too many people, we will ignore them and drag you down. Everyone has this expectation, then no one will go, no one will waste their efforts, and everyone knows what the government will do. The government ignores us, and we are in vain. The police cleared the scene. People all hold this kind of expectation, and few people will participate, and it will be impossible to make it happen.

(He Pin: The problem is spontaneity. How do you define his exit mechanism? When will he exit?…)

He is not building anything. Several times to commemorate the "6.4" activities, when the time is set, you send out a call. The people who come have everything, and whoever comes will come. There are so many thousands of people. When the time comes, the presidium says "the conference is over." Isn't that the end? Many of the rest of them are willing to continue to hold small meetings, or even hold other conferences, then it has nothing to do with this event, it is not your business.

One of the big problems with the Occupy Central this time is that even the "Occupy Central three sons" themselves have not figured out the reason and mechanism of this special form of civil disobedience. When it comes to "disturbing the people", they say "Gandhi disturbed the people too", and "Martin Luther King Jr. disturbed the people too" - that's different! People have a very clear concept: there are direct civil disobedience and indirect civil disobedience. Direct civil disobedience is that I "break the law", that is, "break" the "law" that I am against. For example, apart from segregation, the library doesn't let me black people in, I just want to enter that library! For everyone to see, for the police to see, not surreptitiously - this is "direct civil disobedience". While Occupy Central is an indirect form of civil disobedience, you are occupying the square and attracting attention. You occupy the square itself, you violate traffic laws, and traffic laws are not something you are going to object to. This is indirect, and the situation of indirect is different.

Like Martin Luther King or Gandhi, they are basically direct civil disobedience, and you can continue with direct civil disobedience. For example, I am a black man who comes to the library to "break the law". As long as you can't catch me, then I will come. First, my black people entered your library. I did not interfere with your white people's right to enter the library. I only pursued my rights. Of course, there will be interference in the actual struggle. A large number of black people are just trying to prove that they have this right. , all went to the library. He didn't go to read books, he went to protest, so that white people who read books couldn't find a place to read them. This is the case, but it is not his purpose. You can continue this situation because the struggle itself does not interfere or violate the equal rights of others. Indirect civil disobedience is different. Anyone can walk on the street, but if you occupy it, the life of the surrounding citizens will be disturbed. That's people's legitimate interests! Indirect civil protests cannot last long, nor should they last, as long as there will be trouble. Some people say that the Sunflower Movement in Taiwan is different. The Sunflower Movement is not the same. It does not occupy the main traffic road. It occupies the Legislative Yuan. What he paralyzes is the work of the Legislative Yuan. This occupies an ordinary street and affects ordinary people, and ordinary people will inevitably be dissatisfied with this.

That’s why I always say that many of us have not understood the principles and mechanisms of civil disobedience. We just watch others engage in non-violent protests. The principle and mechanism, I don't know why others do it, why it has such an effect. Didn't Huang Zhifeng go on a hunger strike this time? The result was unsuccessful. Some people say, how do you go on a hunger strike with the Communist Party? Gandhi's hunger strike was successful because he was facing the British government. In fact, what happened? You can see from history. In 1981, the Northern Irish Republican Army of the United Kingdom was locked in prison, went on hunger strike for dozens of days, asked Mrs Thatcher to make concessions, and starved to death more than a dozen people. Mrs Thatcher just wouldn't budge. You say "hard-hearted", isn't Iron Lady also very hard-hearted? Thatcher's title of "Iron Lady" came from that time. Those IRA people locked up in prison, they are on hunger strike. At that time, the British government treated them as terrorists, and the treatment in prison was different from that of political prisoners. They demanded that the treatment of political prisoners be restored. We all know that the treatment of political prisoners in the West is better than that of ordinary prisoners. They wanted that, and there was a lot of commotion all over the world, including the Pope who said he was going to visit. Mrs Thatcher refused to give in an inch and starved to death in one go. So this is not mainly a question of whether the government is benevolent or not, and it is not a question of whether the government is democratic or not - it has little to do with this. Because the hunger strike is nothing more than attracting attention from all walks of life, and then the various factions will express an attitude, and your government will face not from the other party, from the person on the hunger strike, but from the reactions of all walks of life caused by the hunger strike. A kind of pressure, you will only think about whether I should give in. The reason why Mrs Thatcher insisted on not giving in is because she firmly believed that although there are so many people interceding for you, I believe that is a minority, and I believe that most people do not agree with this point of view. She dared to persevere. It turned out later that she was re-elected in the British general election two years later, and she did not lose her vote. She also gained the reputation of "Iron Lady" and was re-elected in 1987.

It's the same with your hunger strike, you just want to provoke reactions from all quarters, and if the pressure is concentrated on those in power, you have a plan. It's not primarily a question of whether the government you're facing is hard-hearted. You said that a soft-hearted government would be worried that people would starve to death, so it would give in. But what does the hunger strike have to do with the government? He does not eat by himself, starving to death is his own business. What does it have to do with your government? What's more, if you encounter a hunger striker, the government will send you meals to rescue you, so how can you put pressure on the government? It can be seen from this that the hunger strike will attract attention from all quarters, make various responses, and form a complex interaction. Such a roundabout way may put pressure on the government and make your government face a choice, whether to make concessions or not. This has little to do with whether government leaders are "hard-hearted". The hunger strike in China is not ineffective. For example, during the 1989 pro-democracy movement, when the students went on hunger strike, the authorities became nervous. First Yan Mingfu, and finally Zhao Ziyang went to the square.

I think the Occupy Central people made a big mistake. In the end, they got confused. What are you doing there? You said that I will persevere to the end, that I will persevere for ten or eight years. Those words sounded very tragic, heroic, and self-sacrificing idealistic, but the translation of this sentence into another language is: I will insist on disrupting the lives of ordinary people, and I will not care if I persist for ten or eight years, so aren't you offending people? ? Who are the people doing? Why should you do this?

For example, it's like watching a play at a theater, and someone is sexually harassing a woman next to her. Even if there are audience members around, she doesn't care. She just watches the play by herself. The woman can't help it, so she yells so that everyone can't see it. Play, look back at you here, so I stopped the harassment of that guy. Here, everyone will understand the shouting of this woman, and will forgive her for disturbing the order of the theater for a time. But if you're still there shouting endlessly after that, the audience will get impatient and say "you go out, you go out, and your disputes go out and argue, don't yell in the theater".

This is the reason why the protests take over the streets. Protesters deliberately disturb the people, disrupt their daily life, involve ordinary people, and passively drag them into this matter. That’s why they go around and create pressure from the masses, but this Once the goal is achieved, when ordinary people have to care because their lives are disturbed, and they have to express some kind of expression, then you should accept it. If you still occupy it, there will be no positive effect! Because the only thing you can convey is that message, there is no need for it anymore. If you continue, it will be futile to disturb the people, so it will inevitably cause more and more people to resent you in the future. In the end, it was very simple. We saw that the people who opposed Occupy Central surpassed those who supported Occupy Central in the public opinion survey, and then the people who supported the police clearing the scene became the majority. Very few, most of the occupiers have left. When it was finally cleared, there were very few people on the scene, only 1,000 people. Among them, more than 900 people came to watch, and only 200 people were occupied. You think their peak is more than 200,000 people.

Those who insist on occupying and opposing exit, their reasoning and reasoning is that there is no problem in persisting in Occupy Central, the first Communist Party dare not shoot, and the second Hong Kong government is incapable of clearing the scene - how do you clear the scene, how are you doing with so many people? clear? Usually, everyone goes back, when it’s time to go to work, go to school when it’s time to go to school, it’s enough for a hundred or so people to stay behind in a symbolic way. Clearance? Or, you clear it today, and everyone will come again tomorrow—they have this logic, they think that it must not be cleared, and in the end, the government has no choice but to make concessions.

I said it wouldn't be like that. People won't stay there forever, that's impossible. This kind of occupation is not the first time. How many times has it happened in the world, and how did it all end?

Some things can't be debated for a while, but some things can be seen quickly because it involves the judgment of facts, which can be verified by the facts that happened later to see which judgment is right and which is wrong. You originally thought that once the government was to clear the field, all the people who had participated would swarm, even if it was only half, half of the 200,000 people would be 100,000 people; even if it was only one-tenth, there would still be 20,000 people, and your government could not do anything about it. Clean it up, right? But the fact is that on the first day of the clearing, the government kept making notices, saying that the clearing was going to happen tomorrow, so it was not that others didn't know. Second, on the first day of the clearing, the "Pan-Democrats" and "Double Schools" kept calling on everyone, saying that those who support the Occupy Central movement will come tomorrow, calling on everyone to return to Admiralty. Many "Pan-Democrats" went there on the day of the clearing, and some people criticized them, saying that you didn't advocate withdrawal? Isn't it seldom on the scene? Why did the last moment come, "it's not to stay until the last moment, but to stay until the last moment", don't you want to get a glimpse? Do a show?

In fact, this is an injustice against the pan-democrats. These pan-democratic ideas are nothing more than that they have been dragged to the present, and they are already very passive. But if we get a lot of people this time, the government won't be able to clear it, and we can win some initiative, so they call on everyone to come, but not many people come! The clearing was done in broad daylight, and it was broadcast live. The people either didn’t know it, or they heard the news and came in time. You just came, and it was seen that there was no danger. The government did not dispatch tanks or troops.

But everyone just doesn't go, the reason is very simple: they think, it's useless anyway! After occupying the middle for so long, there is no point in continuing to occupy it. Let’s clear it! That's what everyone thinks. Some people are influenced by public opinion and feel that it is not right to occupy for so long, and it is inappropriate to disturb the people - he himself is inclined to clear the scene. In a word, what the average person thinks, one of the most obvious is that there are only a thousand people at the scene, and these thousand people are here to watch, everyone is willing to leave, and in the end, they all leave, only The remaining two hundred people were dragged away by the police one by one. Therefore, the policeman is also a good person. In the end, it is equivalent to providing the Hong Kong government with an opportunity to show off: to show the world, look, how civilized we are, and how smoothly we cleared the scene!

(Meng Xuan interjected: The police are good in the end.)

Yes, it is good. The key point is that the reason why the clearing was so smooth is that there were too few people who insisted on occupying it; and the fact that there were too few people proved that those who originally advocated not withdrawing had completely miscalculated the matter. This can be tested with facts - some problems involve value, you say this is good, I say this is bad, it is not clear; but in this case, you expect this result, and I expect that As a result, the result appeared that result, which means that your judgment was wrong! You have no political judgment! According to your experience and your observations, what will happen and what will not happen, this is very objective, and it has nothing to do with the position. A bad person can have good judgment, and a good person can also have Bad judgment, that's obvious. Before the Hong Kong government, he dared to make a big preview, and then broadcast it live on TV on the spot. He was right. He expected that you had no one, so he dared to do this. Come on, then he is too embarrassed! (Chen Xiaoping: The government should not have predicted this accurately.) It is not difficult to predict this: First, there are very few people left behind in the middle to the middle and late stages of the occupation. Those people either went back to rest or didn’t want to come— Call them and they won't come. So there are only so many people left. Second, in the later stage, the leaders of Occupy Central have less authority and less appeal. They have also discussed many times about whether to withdraw or not, and the majority obeys the minority (Chen Xiaoping: This is how they came here in 1989!) As long as one person does not agree to withdraw, everyone will accompany him, which is very unwise.

Chen Xiaoping: This is the result of this kind of movement, that's it!

Hu Ping: You have to grow up!

Chen Xiaoping: He can't control it! He wants to grow, but he can't!

Hu Ping: Why can't you control it? It's very simple, this kind of thing, you say that we are leading the group, and the minority obeys the majority.

Chen Xiaoping: Are you leading the group? You leave, go home, our new leader is here again! ——Isn’t that what happened in 1989?

Hu Ping: This is what we see in the mainland. If it goes on like this, if you don't reflect, don't conscientiously sum up experience and lessons, and don't say next year, there will be no Occupy Movement in Hong Kong in a few years. Just like today, 25 years later, there has not been another democratic movement in mainland China. Why don't we let children play with fire? When the fire started, the child couldn't control the fire. We want to engage in a democratic movement and a street movement. There is a saying that "it's better to stand on the street after a thousand calls", but at the same time we tell everyone that it is absolutely impossible for the movement to achieve self-control, and it is necessary to control the "fire" is absolutely impossible; then who would go? Who dares to ride in a car with only the accelerator and no brakes? If we all believe that once a street movement is launched, it is uncontrollable in principle, and it is fanciful to want to control it, and the only conclusion that leads to it is that no one should engage in it.

Chen Xiaoping: Hong Kong is the "event capital" of the world, and there will be protests.

We debated this issue more than 20 years ago. At that time, many people said that a new large-scale democratic movement would soon break out in mainland China. I said that if we all think this way and think that mass movements are uncontrollable, there will never be! After 25 years, do you see any signs of a massive democratic movement now? So this problem must be solved. Unless everyone realizes that the street movement can be controlled by itself, we didn't do it well before, but we can do it in the future. With this consensus, a large-scale democratic movement is possible.

In addition, I also disagree with the so-called Internet age, the so-called cloud revolution, without organization, leadership, center, and so on. For a movement to be effective, organization and leadership are necessary. Saying "no one represents who" is to deny one's own representation. Thousands of people, no one represents who, who should the government talk to? The Tiananmen Movement on April 5th was unorganized and without leadership, and the masses had to temporarily elect Chen Ziming as representatives. Become a mob, isn't that waiting for failure? I thought it was a great new discovery, but in fact, history has been repeated countless times.

I would say that this time Hong Kong is actually very similar to the mainland in 1989. If everyone learns the lesson you just said, then the result will not be a "climax" like many people say, but a relatively long-term trough, and the CCP's control over Hong Kong will be further strengthened. Many people will shout more fierce slogans, but it will not help. When you see, in the next election, the "pan-democrats" will likely lose some seats, and the control of the Communist Party will likely extend their hands longer. .

This time in Occupy Central, many people talked about the new generation, about the generation gap, and said that the old guys are outdated, how is the new young generation different. We hear it every few years. It is ridiculous for the elders to reprimand the younger generation because of their seniority, but it is even more ridiculous for the younger generation to reprimand the older generation on the grounds of age, ignoring the experience of their predecessors. Didn't the 1989 and 1980s in the mainland also say how unusual it was? What happened afterward?

As Occupy Central ends, there are many things to sum up and salvage. If you do not sum up and do not salvage, many valuable things will be lost.

December 19, 2014