Mitt Romney steps in it again; Consideration of the dramatic escape of Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng to the US Embassy, his voluntary release to Chinese Government custody and new request to return to the US on Hillary Clinton's plane. Following the original Post, I include recent developments, critiques from commenters and credit where it is due.
Q; How many soldiers does it take to surround every US Embassy in China?
A: It depends on how long their legs are.
权力说真话 (Quánlì shuō zhēn huà) - Speaking Truth to Power -
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Guards at the Gates of Freedom
Background;
Mr. Chen’s case is different. A self-taught lawyer, he has called attention to human rights abuses against the disabled and women who have been forcibly sterilized. In 2006 he was sentenced to 51 months in prison on charges of destroying property and assembling a crowd to disrupt traffic, charges his supporters say were trumped up.The previous informative diary here by Rimjob documents Chen's recent, somewhat mysterious escape from in-house detention. Now an associate tells CNN that
Chen had prepared for his escape for months .....by lying in bed for prolonged periods so that the guards wouldn’t be suspicious if they didn’t see any activity from him for a long timeIf you can't see me doing nothing, you won't see when I stop. This from a blind man whose weakness, it would seem, is his strength. Wu Wei; to do without doing, a fundamental principle of Taoist thought in yo face! "The sage seems to do little or naught, Yet he leaves nothing undone." An apperantly well organized, coordinated and prepared group of supporters managed to confound both China and the US with a neat little piece of misdirection that would make Sun Tzu proud.
Chen's family and associates have since been detained and questioned, Chinese officials are in frumious tizzy and commentators are puzzled by the haphazard nature of their response, both internally and externally. Chen's network of accomplices and the skill with which they evaded the blockades and surveillance surrounding him may be just the tip of the iceberg. How many other bright, tech-savvy young people are getting, or have already gotten to the point of frustration and sophistication that they too could, and would leverage their growing power to make their voices heard? How many of these people, seeing the actions of a blind man will be content to remain unseen and unheard themselves? Chen is blind but escapes the all seeing Party. How long can a Party remain in power if it continues to feign deafness to cries of Fǔbài!, Qúndài guānxì! (corruption and nepotism)? Where and how far might the blind lead the deaf? I certainly do not know and am perhaps overstating the case, but time will tell and when and if it does come, the next Tienanmen episode will end differently I think, I hope.
Shades of our own internal politics arise like hungry ghosts as well. Commentators on the linked stories exhibit a strong bi-polar divide between Party and Chen supporters with a great deal of animus and not much middle ground. Is this depth of feeling reflected in the Chinese population at large? I suspect it is, especially among the only child cohort. Be that as it may, as details emerge the story fairly begs for a movie treatment and, funnily enough, the movies are already playing a part in the unfolding drama................>>
