SUN
WUKONG Wen won't solve China's crisis of
faith By Wu Zhong, China Editor
HONG KONG – While the world is
increasingly convinced that China is bound to rise
to a global power in the next couple of decades,
enlightened Chinese leaders are becoming
increasingly concerned that growing domestic
problems may jeopardize the country's
modernization.
For, these Chinese leaders
are fully aware that behind the shining
statistical figures about the country's economic
expansion, there are tears, sweat and blood.
China's impressive economic achievements in past
three decades have cost the Chinese society an arm
and a leg.
For example, Chinese Premier
Wen Jiabao has recently pointed
out that the ''degradation of
morality and lack of integrity'' in society has
become such a serious problem that it would hamper
the country's rise eventually. ''A country without
the improved quality of its people and the power
of morality will never grow into a real mighty and
respected power," he said.
Wen cited a
spate of widely reported food safety scandals in
recent years as example for ''degradation of
morality''. These include the
melamine-contaminated infant formula,
clenbuterol-contaminated pork, the rampant use of
oil retrieved from drainage gutters for cooking by
restaurants, and recently discovered steamed buns
dyed with unidentified chemicals (so they would
look like made from a mixture of wheat flour and
corn flour, as the latter is more expensive).
''These virulent food safety incidents
have shown the grave situation of the degradation
of morality and the loss of integrity,'' the
premier said in an April 14 meeting members of the
Counselors' Office and the Central Research
Institute of Culture and History (CRICH), two
advisory organs to the State Council - China's
cabinet. Wen's speech was reported on Sunday by
the state-run Xinhua News Agency.
This is
not the first time Wen has addressed the loss of
morality and integrity in Chinese society. Last
month, he indirectly blamed property developers'
greed for causing sky-rocketing housing prices,
saying that ''what flows in the veins of an
entrepreneur's veins should be moral blood''.
In his April 14 speech, Wen admitted that
in the past decades, the fostering of a moral
culture ''is lagging behind the country's economic
development''.
Wen called for
reconstruction of morality to help safeguard
normal production, life and social order, as well
as to eradicate the stain of swindling, corruption
and other illegal conduct. ''China should
incorporate the concept of rule by law into the
moral and cultural construction so as to make
ethical firms and individuals be protected by law
and be respected in society, while the immoral be
punished in accordance with law and be condemned
by the people,'' he was quoted by Xinhua as
saying.
How to do this? Wen called for
deepening reforms and, for the first time, for
increasing freedom of speech. He said ''the
government will create conditions to encourage
people to speak truthfully.'' However, Wen offered
no concrete measures toward this goal, just like
in his repeated calls for political reforms in the
past.
This suggests Wen's helplessness in
dealing with these thorny problems despite his
capacity as head of the Chinese government and No
3 leader in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
hierarchy. Without fundamental changes in the
existing politico-social systems, it is impossible
for China to have real freedom of expression for
the reconstruction of morality. Apparently, the
collective CCP leadership has yet to reach a
consensus on making such changes, which may
eventually end its monopoly of political power.
The degradation of morality and loss of
integrity is a result of the ''crisis of faith''
in the past three decades of economic reform and
opening up. To pave way for capitalist-style
economic reform and opening up, Deng Xiaoping had
to abandon the orthodox Marxism and Maoism. Deng,
unlike Mao, was not a great thinker but a
pragmatist, as illustrated by mottos such as ''It
doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long
as it catches mice'' and ''To cross a river by
touching stones at the riverbed.'' As such he
offered no new ideology for the nation. The
''vacuum of ideology'' thus resulted in a ''crisis
of faith''.
Deng's successor Jiang Zemin
and current President Hu Jintao both have
acquiesced or even encouraged the restoration of
Confucianism in the hope that it may help
partially fill the ''vacuum of ideology''. But so
far, the effort seems unsuccessful, largely
because the CCP, in order to maintain its rule,
still has to stick to ''Marxism and socialism'' -
even just in name. Thus, when CCP members and
Chinese still have to pay lip service to
socialism, how can Confucianism or other ideology
take root in the nation? Besides, as atheist body,
the CCP imposes restrictions on religious freedom.
Without any spiritual faith, the Chinese
however have quickly learned to worship money. And
without spiritual faith, there is no moral
restraint on their pursuit of money. As a result,
Deng's cat and mouse motto seems to be turned into
''It does matter if a method is moral or not, so
long as it helps bring in money.'' As a result,
irregular and unlawful commercial activities have
become increasingly rampant in past three decades
- cheating, frauds, or production of fake goods -
you name it. So much so that some cynical critics
have changed a sentence in China's anthem from
''The Chinese nation is at its most critical time
(during the Japanese invasion)'' to ''The Chinese
nation is now at its most immoral time.''
So much so that many enlightened
intellectuals inside China cry with alarm that the
nation is in peril of a loss of its morality. In
this regard, Wen is right in saying that ''A
country without the improved quality of its people
and the power of morality will never grow into a
real mighty and respected power.'' From this
perspective, there is still a long way for China
to rise as a world power.
Apparently, to
restore social morality and integrity, China needs
to solve its ''crisis of faith''. To solve this
crisis, new ideology must be established to fill
the current ''vacuum''.
A famous Chinese
scientist once sighed ''How come China produces no
great scientist or inventor?'' in spite of its
miraculous economic progress. One may also say
China now needs some great thinkers to produce a
new ideology. But can any great thinker be born in
a country where people with dissent voices are
arrested and jailed?
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