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- When Will Beijing Say Sorry?
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- The Courage to Speak Out…
- Let Us Come Home
- Finding Hope in Hong Kong’s Changes
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| Posted: 30 May 2012 12:21 PM PDT  国会大厦对公众开放（照片：Xiao） 前些天介绍马萨诸塞州首府波士顿的博文发表后，有读者问是否可以到州议会大厦内参观，我们的回答是肯定的：美国的政府办公楼，无论是联邦政府还是州政府，或各级地方政府，民众都可以入内参观，全部免费。 以马萨诸塞州议会大厦来说，州议会1969年通过法案，成立了州议会大厦导游部门，由议会大厦员工或志愿者担任导游，向民众讲解议会大厦的历史、建筑风格等。导游服务还提供八种不同的语言，方便外国游客，导游部门在大厦内设有咨询服务台，提供相关信息，解答游客提问。议会大厦的开放时间从上午十点至下午四点，周末和节假日不开放。 根据我在各地的旅行经验，美国各州政府办公楼有不少是行政、立法合在一起办公的，办公楼的对外开放，与马萨诸塞州议会大厦大同小异，民众可以在导游的带领下入内参观，也可以自由入内参观，各取所需。而州以外的各级地方政府，比如郡、县、市、镇的办公楼等，由于集中了各类办理民众事务的部门，更是大门八字开，只要是在办公时间，民众随时可以入内。 在联邦政府这个层级，包括白宫、国会、法院以及各个联邦部门大楼，不仅办公期间对外开放，为了满足游客的需要，有些地方在周末及下班后也都开放给公众参观，比如白宫、国会等。 美国国会从周一到周六，上午八点三十分至下午四点三十分向公众开放，只有感恩节、圣诞节、元旦以及周日不开放。为了适应游客的参观需求，国会特别设立了访客参观中心，访客在参观中心时，每二十人左右分成一组，由一位训练有素的导游带领，进入国会大楼参观，为了使游客在参观时更方便了解国会内的建筑、历史、雕塑、壁画等，每人还发一个耳机，可以清楚听到导游的讲解。 白宫是总统工作、居住的地方，也是副总统工作的地方。九一一事件以前，到白宫参观是随到随进的，九一一后因为安全上的考虑，参观白宫必须事先预约。一般来说，民众需要通过所在选区议员办公室办理预约手续，不论是否认识议员，议员办公室都会为选民办理这项事务。外国游客想要参观白宫，只要按规定的手续办理预约，也是一样可以进入白宫的。欧巴马担任总统后，大力推动白宫的对外开放，要将白宫变成"人民之家"，据白宫的统计，欧巴马入主白宫迄今三年多，已有约二百五十万人到白宫参观过，换句话说，在这三年多的时间里，参观过白宫的人数，占美国人口总数的百分之零点八，平均每一百二十五个人中，就有一人参观过白宫。 五角大楼是美国国防部所在地，九一一事件后虽然五角大楼大大加强了安全检查，但依然向公众开放，五角大楼的开放时间是周一到周五，上午九点三十分至下午三点，周末以及联邦假日除外。到五角大楼参观，必须提早八天至九十天预约，早了或迟了都不行。入内参观时，游客必须在五角大楼员工的引导下，按指定路线行走，参观时间约一个小时左右。每年进入五角大楼参观的人数，约有十万之众。 我们国务院总部所在地的杜鲁门大楼也开放给民众参观，但必须事先预约，由于要求参观者众多，所以国务院建议游客提早三个月预约。进入国务院总部参观时，由国务院员工带领，对外开放时间为周一至周五的工作日，周末以及节假日不开放。 其他的联邦部门，比如农业部、能源部、运输部等的对外开放事宜，都可以在这些部门的网站上找到，十分方便。 美国是民选政府，也是建立在民众交税基础上的政府，没有民众缴纳的各种税款，政府就难以运作。所以，政府是纳税人"养"的观念人人皆知。林肯总统1863年11月19日在葛底斯堡的演讲中，讲到政府与人民的关系时，有一句名言广为流传，曾被孙中山翻译为"民有、民治、民享"(of the people, by the people, for the people)，成为三民主义的蓝本。"民有、民治、民享"用现在的话来说，即"人民是政府的主人、政府由人民管理、政府为人民服务。" 政府办公楼的大门向公众敞开，从一个小小的侧面体现了林肯名言在美国已经真正深入人心。 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 30 May 2012 11:23 AM PDT 刚刚试用innography，顺便拿google试试手，于是就有了以下的一些图表和数据。 Google当前全球拥有授权和正在申请的专利22645项，自身研发的拥有授权和正在申请专利有5546项，而收购摩托罗拉公司就拥有了6642项专利。另外，google自身研发的已授权美国专利1264项，正在申请815项。 这是google目前所拥有的所有授权专利的文本聚类分析，几个大方面：搜索、UI、无线通讯、视频、基站。显示了google当前所关注的主要技术领域。
这是Google自身研发的已授权美国专利的文本聚类分析，主要五个方面：搜索、地理位置、视频、内容、浏览器。这显示的是当前google自身核心业务。
上图是Google自身研发的正在申请的专利的文本聚类分析，主要方面：搜索、内容、UI、移动计算、SNS。这表示的是google未来5-10年内将会主要关注的领域。 ————————————————————————–
这是当前google主要竞争对手的气泡图。大致上，气泡越大，代表该公司拥有的专利数量越多。气泡越靠右，表明公司的技术实力越强，越往上，说明该公司的经营状况越好。下面是主要竞争公司，当然，也可能成为主要的合作伙伴：
这是google所拥有的各公司专利分析。摩托罗拉一家就占掉了32%。
这是google自身研发的主要的授权专利持有人分析：
这是Google所研发专利历年申请情况，2011年为何锐减呢？
——————————————————- google当前持有商标148个，正在申请76个，最新的一个申请商标是google drive的商标。
这是google商标的历年持有情况。
这是google当前持有商标所涉及的领域：
google正在申请的商标所涉足的领域：
——————————– google有133项专利诉讼，但是还没有为此赔过1分钱，同时他也告过别人10次，但也没拿到一分钱。以下是告google的公司：
以下是google告别人的10场官司：
——————————— 以下是google目前下属的所有分公司和子公司，以及子子公司等：
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| Posted: 30 May 2012 10:51 PM PDT 杨教授 您好！ 计划生育制度不仅仅是对公民人权的侵犯，更是对整个社会价值观的荼毒。是人们对待生命如草芥，用个人的得失价值去衡量，而非生命本身的尊严。 您博客中提到，领养制度中种种限制让人看到的是想做好事的人必须以放弃自身利益为前提，说到底就是为了保障福利院员工的经济收入，而非帮助儿童争取福利。 计生政策还让与原本为了提高人口素质的产前诊断技术在中国变相成为杀戮的理由。本人作为一名妇产科医师，目睹了太多以计生、优生名义的杀戮。不少父母就是因为看到超声报告中的一些提示性话语，不论医生如何解释结果的不确定性，他们都要做掉胎儿，因为"既然只能生一个，要生就生最好的"。 计划生育对幼儿教育又何尝没有恶的影响？肩负父母所有希望的孩子，只能过早的背上重重的书包，穿梭于各种兴趣班和补习班中。换来的是健康的人格和惊人的创造力吗？我没看见。 它还导致了社会对残疾人士的严重歧视。我在日本、欧洲都能看见不少残疾人士满大街走，谈笑风生，非常快乐。可是在中国，您除了残奥会那几天，还能看见快乐的残疾人士吗？他们工作难找，看病困难，哪里还能笑得出啊。 从小就盼着30年快点过去，可是一年又一年，专家们什么数据都摆出来了，就是撼不动计生政策的半分松动。既然大家都承认79年的政策过激，可是为什么就不改正呢？让我对制度的腐朽极其失望。我已经不寄望于在我能生育之年看到它有任何改变了。 谢谢您的聆听！ 一位妇产科医师 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 30 May 2012 07:45 AM PDT 這應該適用 not……until…… 句型： 直到幾個月前，我才知道喝醉原來是這麼有趣的感覺。 I hadn't realized that the whole world was so interesting until I got drunk several months ago。 不知道英文老師會給這翻譯打幾分，不過不好也沒關係、寫錯也沒關係，反正是喝醉了，一切都沒關係，或者應該說，想關係也關係不了。 某晚喝了點紅酒（也許比一點還多一點）然後覺得周邊人事物的影像、聲音雖然近在眼前卻又彷彿隔著什麼詭異的距離，時空感逐漸解離，約莫跌落在半夢半醒的微醺線上。搖晃走到房間和孩子到床上玩一下準備睡覺，嘻嘻哈哈抱來親去之間，不知打哪湧上了「快樂」。 過往記憶瞬間翻飛，這快樂單純到只剩快樂二字，再多形容、再多一字都顯多餘。不來自考滿分不來自贏得比賽不來自被誇獎不來自超越任何標準創下任何紀錄當然更不來自升職加薪。 「把拔好快樂啊，哈哈哈～～」 「哈哈哈～～」 孩子大概不知道她爸發什麼酒瘋，只曉得跟著大人笑而笑。 幾個月後，幫朋友隨手拍東西，本以為回來肯定抓測光最精準、焦點最清楚那張，沒想反覆看來看去，就是有一張測光既不怎樣還脫焦又晃動的，像左手拎著酒杯右手指頭上夾著細長涼煙的酒女般，怎樣都能從一群「良家婦女」之間跳出來。 喝醉了，放鬆了，沒有界線了。左腦下班了，右腦出來玩了。 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 30 May 2012 08:02 AM PDT About a year ago, I pointed out a fashionable trend: Some pundits were saying that long-term interest rates couldn't go much lower. Since then, the yield on a 10-year Treasury bond has fallen from 3.18 to 1.65 percent. The lesson: Don't try to time the market. My own asset allocation remains 60 percent stocks, 40 percent bonds, with wide diversification in each category.  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 30 May 2012 09:34 AM PDT 核心提示：人气颇高的新浪微博向用户发布新通知，要求用户自觉遵守周一推出的按积分衡量用户行为的体系。这一规则引起了国际媒体的广泛关注。 一名推特用户 @StKonrath 称这是中国版"奥威尔式"的社交媒体采用游戏化的方式来控制信息。（译注：奥威尔是知名的反极权作家，他在小说中以"老大哥在看着你"来隐喻无所不在的监控。）  《华尔街日报》一直关注中国微博发展的记者Josh Chin发表文章（中文译文）称，这个名为"微博信用"的体系鼓励用户相互举报从骚扰他人到发布不实信息等各类行为，用户每次遭负面举报将造成其信用积分降低，最终会在其微博首页等位置显示丢人的"低信用"图标，甚至可能会被删除帐户。 新浪在微博社区管理中心的一份通知中解释了这一规则的基本内容： 微博信用是新浪微博为了维护良好的微博社区氛围，而建立的一套用户信用体系；目的是依靠广大用户的举报，有效降低不实信息、泄露他人隐私、人身攻击、内容抄袭、冒充他人、骚扰他人等信息，以净化微博环境，维护良好的微博秩序。 据通知说，每位用户的初始积分将为80分，"低信用"被定义为积分在60分以下。对于发布不实信息的行为，扣分将根据相关信息直接转发数计算：比如，相关信息直接转发数不超过100次的，扣两分；直接转发数超过1,000次的，扣10分。 当然，用户也可通过采取验证身份的行动来赚取积分，如呈交身份证号码（加10分）、将手机号与微博账户绑定（再加10分）等。 有意思的是，对广泛散布不实信息扣10分是通知里列出的最严厉处罚。其它如公开暴露他人个人信息或公开攻击他人等违规行为均只扣5分。(如通过评论攻击，仅扣2分) 此外，零分账户将被删除的规定出现在新浪网旗下新闻频道新浪科技的另一份公告中，原因尚不完全明了。 长期以来，中国有关部门一直用"不实信息"指责那些质疑政府路线的消息。新浪表示，"不实信息"指的是明显有误、夸大事实或隐藏部分事实导致信息残缺的内容。 这套信用积分体系发布的同时，还出台了其它规定，惩罚那些一再发布"敏感信息"的用户。依据这些规定（已于周一生效），累计发布5条及以上敏感信息的用户，禁言48小时，删除相关内容；恶意发布敏感信息的用户，禁言48小时以上，甚至注销帐号。 现在的问题是，"微博信用"体系是不是向中国宣传机构的要求再次举白旗？还是说新浪试图采用迂回战术让审查更透明？ 鉴于中国信息政治的复杂性，最佳答案也许是两者都沾边吧。 ~~~~____~~~~ 法新社2012年5月29日也报道了这一消息（原文）：由于受到政府要求限制微博言论的压力，中国最著名的微博网站出台了新规定，对发表攻击性言论的博主予以惩罚。 这一措施是在政府对微博影响不断扩大感到不安之际推出的。近年来，这种类似推特的微博风靡全国。 微博流行对这个一党制国家政府控制信息传播带来了巨大挑战。中国的互联网用户超过5亿人，为世界之最。 北京利用一种庞大的在线审查系统，即所谓的"中国防火长城（国家网络防火墙） "，经常封堵互联网搜索，而且给新浪及其主要竞争对手腾讯施压，要求它们限制用户的发帖内容。 不过，当局一直在极力控制微博内容——从抗议消息到有关政治领导人的谣言，在今年晚些时候领导层换届前，这是非常敏感的话题。 3月份，当局关闭了16家网站，逮捕了6人，因为他们在冉冉上升的政治明星薄熙来被撤掉重庆市党的一把手职务后传播军事政变谣言。 在这种谣传出现后好几天，新浪和腾讯被勒令停止用户发表任何评论。 根据新规定，新浪微博用户将获得80分初始信用积分，每次违反规定，都将被扣分。如果积分低于60分，他们必须在两个月内不得再违规，如果积分为零，将被删除帐户。 很多人过去利用巧妙的办法规避审查——比如利用代码字来讨论敏感问题。 有人用"肖申克"来指代盲人律师陈光诚，他最近摆脱软禁，现在到了美国。 ~~~~____~~~~ 俄罗斯的报纸5月30日也有报道，有意思的是俄文报纸更多地从对比的角度认为中国的信息管控超过了俄国。如《独立报》在《中国给微博安上计分器》一文中说： 新浪微博28日开始使用新的用户管理规定——用户信用积分制，此举将涉及其3亿微博用户。专家认为，中国当局甚至比俄罗斯当局更害怕网上的公开论争。 新浪微博是中国最受欢迎的微博服务网站，相当于中国的推特。该网站宣布，散布不道德或谋反言论的用户将受到惩罚。每位用户有80分初始信用积分，若发布违反规定的言论，则将被扣分。积分降至零，则将被注销账户。 莫斯科大学亚非国家研究所副所长安德烈·卡尔涅耶夫指出，中国互联网上的一些言论是被禁止的，因此出现了一种亚文化——讽喻。例如，喜欢谈论政治的用户经常用"天朝"这个词指代"共产党"。大学生有自己的俚语。 卡尔涅耶夫说："受欢迎的社交网站设立新规以加强对互联网的管制，这在中国已不止一年。国家为防止不良思潮的渗入投入了大笔的资金。美国CNN网站，以及美国和台湾的一些被认为有敌意的报纸网站都曾被屏蔽。社交网站的时代到来后，在脸谱和推特之后中国也出现了自己的网站，对国内网站的控制更加容易。共产党同时也开始积极利用互联网引导舆论。中国国家主席胡锦涛参观了坚持爱国主义路线的强国公司。爱国主义者、自由主义者以及民族主义者通常都爱在网上辩论。共产党利用各种手段，对那些呼吁巩固国家的人给予鼓励。" 在谈及网上限制议论薄熙来一案时，这位中国问题专家指出，这起案件让中国人震惊。北京努力借助互联网引导舆论，向民众灌输这只是个案这种意识。也就是说，中国通过利用自己的一种"放"来完善意识形态工作方式。但总体上看，中国当局害怕网上的公开论争，他们立马感到自己甚至比俄罗斯当局还薄弱。 而俄罗斯《生意人报》在《中国用长城围住互联网》中则说： 新浪微博启用新规，以防止通过网络发布传言和呼吁搞抗议活动。新规是北京为监管互联网——民众表达对执政当局不满的主要平台——而做出的又一努力。 针对新浪微博用户的新规从本周起实行。3.24亿的新浪微博用户每人都将获得80分的初始信用积分，违规将被扣分。 罚分制标志着对新浪微博的监管进入新阶段。 专家认为，新浪微博使用新规表明互联网审查出现强化态势。早先已有报道说，北京为升级互联网"防火墙"体系投入了1000多万元（约合158万美元）。这样做是为了在秋天领导层大规模更换前期减少对共产党不利的言论。 但网民仍能找到空子表达自己的观点和意见。中国网民经常利用同音词，即发音相近或相同但写法和意义不同的词。例如，中国异见者"艾未未"在网上被称作"艾未来"。盲人律师陈光诚在网民的笔下成了好莱坞大片《肖克申的救赎》中的主人公。因此，中国的网上"长城"未必能完全堵住这些裂缝。 不过，俄网络专家安东·诺西克认为，北京对网络言论无需过分担忧，因为网络不满言论并非主流。中国几千年已形成很好的经商氛围，人们更看重工作和赚钱的机会。 在谈及借鉴中国经验时，诺西克表示，希望俄当局向中国学习反腐经验，而不是网络审查经验。 另外，CNN和《纽约时报》都对新浪微博的新规则进行了报道。 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 30 May 2012 09:34 PM PDT 杨支柱 "社会抚养费"是补偿性的收费还是惩罚性的罚款，这是一个争议很大的问题，无论是在法学界、法院还是在普通民众中。非法学专业人员在谈论法律问题的时候很难将理想的法律、纸上规定的法律和实际执行的法律相区分。而有关"社会抚养费"的法律规则即使是纸面上，全国人大制定的法律、国务院制定的行政法规、各省市自治区制定的地方法规、国家计生委和地方政府制定的规章之间也存在众多的冲突。执法者和相对人对"社会抚养费"理解的巨大而不可调和的分歧极大地增加了"社会抚养费"的征收摩擦和征收难度，严重影响了社会和谐。 无论是对"社会抚养费"按其字面通常含义解释，是联系前后文进行体系解释（"提倡一对夫妻生一个孩子"、"生育服务"），还是根据《中华人民共和国人口和计划生育法》的起草说明做立法解释，"社会抚养费"都应该是补偿性的收费。前国家计划生育委员会主任张维庆在《关于的说明》中指出："考虑到不符合法定条件多生孩子，给社会增加了负担，理应对社会给予适当补偿。" 然而国务院《社会抚养费征收管理办法》第三条第二款的规定，"社会抚养费的征收标准，分别以当地城镇居民年人均可支配收入和农村居民年人均纯收入为计征的参考基本标准，结合当事人的实际收入水平和不符合法律、法规规定生育子女的情节，确定征收数额。社会抚养费的具体征收标准由省、自治区、直辖市规定。" 这一规定实际上将"社会抚养费"的立法目的由补偿新增未取得生育服务证的第二个及第二个以上的孩子而增加的政府开支扭转为按政府计划控制人口增长、处罚无证生育，把无证生育行为由合法行为变成了违法行为，把提倡和引导公民计划生育变成了强制公民按政府的计划生育。正是国务院这一涉嫌违反《中华人民共和国人口和计划生育法》、《中华人民共和国立法法》、《中华人民共和国行政处罚法》的规定导致了法院系统、计生系统和法学界对"社会抚养费"性质的永无止息的纷争，导致了计生委开出的"社会抚养费"征收告知书、征收决定书和法院的有关判决、裁定不可避免的自相矛盾。 我深知法学界对"社会抚养费"理解的混乱达到了惊人的程度，但是我还是没想到，就连曾经参与《中华人民共和国人口和计划生育法》的立法工作的湛中乐教授、一直反对"违法生育"的提法并否定"社会抚养费"惩罚性的湛中乐教授、认为征收"社会抚养费"是权宜之计在生育率下降过程中应当逐步取消的湛中乐教授，对"社会抚养费"的理解也存在严重问题。他居然对记者说，"实现对社会、资源、环境的补偿，这种说法太空泛，社会抚养费，应该用于整个国家的计划生育事业，比如生育保险、计划生育困难家庭的帮扶等等。现在中国主要还是以家庭养老为主，解决计划生育家庭的后顾之忧，需要政府下很大工夫。"（《媒体称超生罚款征收额随意，每年200亿去向不明》，新浪网转《中国经济周刊》文章，2012年年5月15日） 按照湛先生这种理解，"社会抚养费"就应该叫"计划生育费"——这些费用完全是因为计划生育而产生的，跟多生孩子给社会增加的负担无关。如果真的是为了补偿多生孩子给社会增加的负担，那么计算标准就只能是当地儿童福利的人均财政投入，说白了也就是免费义务教育和医疗福利等不再免费（如果考虑到规模效益，其实已经多收了）。这样收取"社会抚养费"，不但可以相对准确地与多生孩子暂时给社会增加的负担挂钩，而且不产生强制"服务"、未交预付款强征滞纳金和"超生"孩子意外死亡不退费等无法自圆其说的困境。 湛先生对"社会抚养费"的理解不但于理不合，而且实施的社会效果相当糟糕。将"社会抚养费""空泛"地上缴财政，理论上所有的公民，包括"超生"家庭的，都可以享受一份。如果将它投入对计划生育家庭的奖励帮扶，则意味着在征收"社会抚养费"之后再一次对"超生"家庭的公民进行歧视性剥夺。这也正是目前国家计生委和各地计生委正在做的事。考虑到现行养老体制下"超生"家庭不可避免地要为将来的社会养老体系做出更大的贡献，这种对计生家庭的奖励帮扶实际上构成对"超生"家庭的第三种并用的处罚。将"社会抚养费"投入对计划生育家庭的奖励帮扶，还将计生家庭的所得和"超生"家庭的所失直接挂钩，挑动群众斗群众，进一步加剧对"超生"家庭的社会心理歧视，一方面恶化"超生"孩子的成长环境，一方面进一步降低生育率。 湛先生对"社会抚养费"的这种理解还相当有市场。我经常在网上看到有人这样批判计划生育：为什么"超生罚款"动辄数十万，而独生子女奖励只有5元？如果真要提倡一对夫妻只生一个孩子，就应该把独生子女费提到跟"超生罚款"一样高！这种观点表面上在质疑政府，实际上将"超生"家庭置于死地。目前计生家庭比"超生"家庭多得多，这样的奖惩直接挂钩将导致"社会抚养费"一律顶格征收、空前增强强制征缴力度，并且随"超生"家庭逐年减少而不断提高征收标准，直至消灭最后一个"超生"家庭。而如果没有"超生"，以目前的政策生育率扣除不育率，生育率可能下降到1.0，对于高性别比的中国大陆来说这意味着每代人比上一代减少近60％！ 《中华人民共和国人口和计划生育法》实施已经10年了，已征收的"社会抚养费"早已是天文数字，但是就连湛先生这样的参与法律起草的学者都对"社会抚养费"的理解陷入自相矛盾。目睹此情此景，难怪人们要感叹"中国是法治国家，朝鲜是民主国家"了！ 尽管"社会抚养费"依法应该按当地儿童福利的人均财政投入对享受当地儿童福利的多生的孩子收取，但是这并不意味着收取"社会抚养费"在立法上是合理的。"社会抚养费"的存在不可避免地造成对"超生"孩子的歧视，打破养老与育幼的平衡，从而造成社会分裂削弱国家的凝聚力，并过度降低生育率危及社会的可持续发展。 2012年5月19日 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 30 May 2012 06:58 AM PDT 1989.8.4.晴 星期五 上午，和小杨到了五指山大厦。去应聘的人络绎不绝，有设计、业务员和模特儿三类。 先是以身份证填表，真叫我忐忑，因为我毕竟没有自己的身份，但是很顺利。一个先生和我们谈过之后就写了条子叫我们到七楼去找另一位王先生，一位汗毛很长的年轻先生接待了我们，向我们谈了南洋广告公司的前景、重要性、以及广告业务员的艰难。我们表示试一试，他就给了我们一张表格让我们填，明天送去。 下午我们先去照了一寸相，因为是快件，我们包了一版，就多收了我们九元六角。照了两张相片就花去了十一块多，海南呀海南。 因为路线不对，照完相已经快五点了，我们又往公共汽车站去，赶到海南大学去应聘一个影视报的记者，其实是广告员和发行人。 接待我们的是两位年轻的先生，与我们谈得比较开诚。我想，这个工作我是可以胜任的，而且，也能够回到大陆去开展工作，接近我的故乡。于是，初步定下来让我做他们的特约记者，准备六号再去找他们。 这一天跑了两个地方，虽然很累，但是却未必有结果，心里总不安然。 坐在屋子里，望着椰子树美丽的影子，那一份感情是永远无法表述的。 晚上，看了关于那场运动的一个电视片，又勾起我许多悲壮的回忆。我不能忘记也不能相信，那一切是真的。千秋功罪，谁人评说？愚民政策一旦昭然，必将自食其果。 如果我错了，我不怕承担责任和后果；如果欺骗我，我将抗争到底。
1989.8.5.晴 星期六 落日，在椰子树之上，格外美丽。谁没有见过椰子树的落日，他就永远无法领略这份美丽。 上午，去五指山大厦回来已经十二点了，因为相片得十一点才能取到，我们只能在街上闲逛。举目无亲，我是多么盼望遇到一个熟人啊。 接待我的是一位中年人，因为同是"老陕"，他曾在西安待过十几年，没有问我许多。他向我讲了许多广告业务员的苦辛，当我表示还是愿意试试时，他让我明天晚上八点钟去。 从五指山大厦出来，循着另一则广告我找到了海都大厦的《大特区信息报》。几位小姐正在吃饭，其中一位沈阳姑娘接待了我。没有多问就叫我填了表格，交了五元钱手续费，并允诺我下午来办工作证，二十元工本费，我的职务是采编，工作也是拉广告。走了出来，悲哀之感袭上了心头。一种苍凉和失落感，觉得自己成了一粒微不足道的尘土。 小杨也感到了厌倦。 海都大厦我不准备再来了，真想立刻回去，为了乡愁和思念。但是现实环境太险恶，为了生存，为了不辜负许多人眷顾和希望，我还要继续流亡。如果《影视周报》没有记者证，我还得到这个地方去办个证件，为了需要。 下午我们那儿也没有去。不论怎样，我是要继续赶路的，只要努力地追求，永远不会走投无路。但是小杨说他太累，太厌倦了，我也只有待在屋子里，下了很长时间的象棋。 傍晚，我们第一次下楼散步，领略到了落日、椰子树的美，让我深深地迷醉。 真不知道，把我的来历如果告诉龚老伯，他会怎样想。不过，我知道他不会出卖或者反对我。因为那些日子他也很关心，在墙上贴的日历上，他在那些日子做了许多记号，6月3日被钢笔涂抹了。 这是一个很好的老人，热心肠。 晚上，看了一段《乱世佳人》。白瑞德和郝思嘉让我联想到我和小雪，伤感的很。 唉！ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 30 May 2012 05:47 AM PDT 5月27日，重要的佛教节日"萨嘎达瓦"第六天，拉萨发生了两名藏人同时自焚的事件。 已有现场图片出现在Facebook和新浪微博。而在新浪微博上发布的图片虽被网管删除，但已流传到Twitter上。  我对这组传到Twitter上的图片做了仔细分析。这四张图片实际上为两组。图片上的地点是在拉萨大昭寺广场偏西南处，这里有拉萨著名的地标，即第1、2张图片上显示的寺院建筑——大昭寺，以及第3、4张图片上显示的经幡柱"曲亚塔钦"。 不知道这四张图片是何人拍摄，何人发到网上。或有可能是想透过图片显示自焚者被便衣和警察施救的场面，那么，这是不是与CCTV制作的关于藏人自焚的外宣片如出一辙？但这四张图片值得转载和研究，因为其中透露了很重要的信息，即自焚藏人的地点。 
在这两张图片上，右边穿格子衣服的男子和手拿防火毯的男子正向自焚者扑过去。这两人的装束对于拉萨人很熟悉，尤其那防火毯是消防警察的标准配置，说明这两人是军警伪装的便衣。但奇怪的是，平时这里熙熙攘攘，此时怎么却没什么人了呢？那一排卖哈达的四川人等商贩呢？只是在第二张照片，在自焚者的火焰后面，看见有穿藏装的妇女等人在张望。据知，当时，军警立即驱散了周围的人。 另外，从此时便衣手中的防火毯、以及平时巡逻武警背的灭火器来看，正如网友所说："看来他们准备工作还是很充分的，早知道有这一天"。事实上，早在今年2月，尽管当局对自焚藏人极尽污名化之能事，但很清楚这样的污名化对于藏人不会有效，为此拉萨各单位开会传达"上面"的指示：自焚已从四川藏区蔓延到了我区的昌都地区，蔓延到了青海藏区，离藏区的中心拉萨是越来越近了，必须动员所有力量，严防在拉萨发生类似自焚事件。 依据RFA等外媒的报道并对照这两组图片，这应该是5月27日在拉萨发生的两名藏人的自焚。中国官方新华社在5月28日的英文报道说"两名藏族男子星期日下午在拉萨市中心著名的商业街自焚（Two Tibetan men set themselves on fire on a well-known market street in downtown Lhasa Sunday afternoon）"，并透露他们的名字是tobgye Tseten（托杰才旦）和Dargye（达吉）。然而，由图可见，两名藏人自焚的位置不但是在拉萨著名的商业街——帕廓街，而且是在最神圣的大昭寺与斜对面的八廓街派出所之间。新华社的报道企图遮蔽具有重要意义的自焚位置。  在这两张图片上，地点是大昭寺广场偏西南著名的经幡柱"曲亚塔钦"一侧，有警察或协警或保安在对着大片冒烟处喷射灭火器。左下角出现了一位西方旅游者模样的男子似在拍照、在围观。据知，当时，一如往常，在这里——拉萨的中心——有很多游客，从中国各地来的游客很多，都是旅游团队，也有一些西方游客，都目瞪口呆地看着。 在这两张图片上，被烟雾遮住的自焚者应该是前两张图片上的自焚者，这表明他并未被拿防火毯的军警便衣抓住，而是又往北跑了几步。
 这是另一张最先曝露的有关5月27日两名藏人在拉萨自焚的照片。与上述四张图片对照来看，浓烟升起处，正是在"曲雅塔钦"的一侧。新华社说，Dargye烧伤住在医院，tobgye Tseten已身亡。
以下关于拉萨现状的信息来自新浪微博，但在新浪微博上搜索"大昭寺"，出现的提示是："根据相关法律法规和政策，'大昭寺'搜索结果未予显示。"  拉萨昨天发生了点事，城里到处都是巡警，武警，骑警和协查员。几乎每个路口都有扛着灭火器的大兵和警察，这治安说不出是好还是不好 一路哨卡检查得很严，拉萨是出啥大事了？ 抵达拉萨…火车站安检很严…并且还不让拍照… 这条铁道部的信息是针对近日拉萨自焚……？http://pic.twitter.com/Z007br5X 藏族人士即日起入住拉萨各酒店均需通知就近派出所，警察需当面登记询问。五星级酒店也不例外，我正在等警察。又：警察对我进行了严格审问后，对酒店说：凡西藏昌都、那曲的藏族一律不得入住，直接报派出所。  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 30 May 2012 02:37 AM PDT
有个七字成语叫"抬头不见低头见"，或者叫"低头不见抬头见"。我也不知道哪个是正确的，但意思无非是说，有的人个子高，比如姚明，你得抬头才能看他，有的人长得矮点，比如郭敬明，你只有低头才能看到他……反正吧，人生若只如初见，人生何处不相逢，山不转水转，水不转云转，云不转二人转。躲得了初一躲不了十五，跑得了和尚跑不了庙。 这世界就是这样，有些人注定你要一见再见反复见。不是鬼迷了心窍，也不是前世的因缘，不是命运的安排，也不是你存心的捉弄，只是因为：谁让你们活在一个圈子里呢。 圈子是当下的互联网行业都在拼命追逐的一个概念。Gooogle+推出了一个圈子，QQ也推出了一个圈子。但就算互联网没有圈子，也不能阻止我们活在圈子里。以我为例，兜兜转转这么多年，除了肚子上添了几圈外，平时无非就是踯躅在中学同学圈、大学同学圈、前同事圈、现同事圈、所处行业圈等寥寥几个圈子。写博客倒也结了一个圈子，但相对松散。其它方面，一次旅行可以结成一个圈子，几次健身可以结成一个圈子，参加一个社交活动可以结成一个圈子，去传说中可以那啥那啥的丽江都可以结成一个圈子，但这些偏偏都没有发生在我的身上。可恨！ 这世界有无数的圈子，但可悲的是，你我穷尽一生，也就只能在有限的几个圈子里打转。所以有首歌唱得好：圈圈圆圆圈圈，天天年年天天的我，啦啦啦啦啦，啦啦啦啦啦，啦啦……其实我完全不懂这歌词是什么意思，但用脚趾想想也知道，人生嘛，无非就是圈圈和叉叉。 记得某期新周刊有篇文章，说的是"网络时代的人际孤独症"。文中说，我们都在网上寻找"好玩的东西、有趣的人"。什么是"好玩的东西、有趣的人"呢？就是我们感兴趣的、和我们价值观融洽的、思维方式一致的，"不然，我们何以觉得他们好玩有趣呢？" 什么是圈子？按作者的说法，圈子就是彼此交流、彼此鼓励、彼此认同对方。到最后，确认自己是对的。"天知道我是不是对的，只不过因为我的圈子都认为我是对的而已，而我的圈子之所以认为我是对的，只不过是因为他们认为他们是对的而已。""当我找到越多和我志趣相投的人，我就越认为我是对的。" 网络上混圈子和现实中混圈子，都是奔着同样的心态去的。因为工作的关系，我也有幸认识了一些人，把这些人归纳为一个圈子的话，可以命名为家居圈，主要是成都家居圈。这个圈子有工厂的人，有商家的人，有卖场的人，有媒体的人，还有服务这个行业的其它机构的人。这个圈子与宇宙间其它圈子一样，内部一片沸腾，永远喧嚣。但我觉得这种沸腾和喧嚣是可疑的。 进一步套用前不久流行的所谓鄙视链，想来家居圈在行业鄙视链中的位置不会太风光，地产圈、汽车圈、金融圈等、媒体圈很多圈子都自觉可以位居其上。我想，他们的圈子与宇宙间其它圈子一样，内部一片沸腾，永远喧嚣。但我觉得这种沸腾和喧嚣同样也是可疑的。——当然，也许我是吃不到葡萄说葡萄酸。 马兰村的集市是热闹的，上海的商业中心是热闹的，就算一个蚁穴里面想来也是热闹的。同样是热闹的，但层次还是不太一样。我不是说谁的热闹更高级一些——上海市未必比马兰村高级，人也未必比蚂蚁快活——我只是觉得，对别的世界了解得太少，就跟坐在深井里观天一样，总是差了点什么。作为一只井底的青蛙，我们不可能拥有整片天空，但如果误以为头顶上就是全世界，那就不好玩了。 说到底，圈是用来叉的。但是同学，请不能随便找根黄瓜就以为这就是一切啊。 随机文章
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| Posted: 09 Sep 2004 01:33 PM PDT
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| Posted: 05 Jul 2004 01:23 PM PDT
新新聞論壇 吾爾開希觀點
大標：遛鳥俠給老教育者帶來的挑戰
引言：「遛鳥」新聞讓思考到，大學生能否得到公平的對待，這是社會成熟度的檢驗尺。我們還該進一步檢討台灣校園管理的思考方式。
主文： 長庚大學「遛鳥」事件成為全國媒體的焦點，不知是媒體的創意還是來自校園﹐連這件事情的名稱都令人莞爾。這個事件轟動不是因為裸奔本身，而是他所讀的被批為「具保守色彩」的長庚大學校長親自干預，給予該生為兩大過、兩小過、留校察看。
首先我們應該審視，學生的行為是否真的錯誤。一般大眾不進一步思考會覺得該生裸奔「總是不好」，這也是幾天來在媒體聽到的說法，包括他本人及家長，學校則是嚴厲指責他「有損校譽」，但我反而在該生身上看到今天台灣社會難得的一些優點：首先，該生充滿熱誠，願意打賭為喜愛的運動隊加油﹔其次，該生重誠信，願賭服輸；第三，該生勇敢，在明知眾人圍觀的情況下遛鳥是需要極大勇氣的；最後，該生謙遜有禮，事件之後表現出願意接受批評的態度。 我們應該審視的還有，校長的言行是否適宜？從媒體所披露的情況看，包家駒校長非常專斷專行，將個人意志強加於人，不僅強加於該生，還強加於學校主張輕度處分的其它教職員，其處理過程表現出嚴苛家長心態。而事後面對外界的批評又不肯面對、拒絕討論，反而指責外界的批評不公。 指責該生作為「有損校譽」完全與事實不符，除非包校長所指的校譽不是筆者認定的大眾、媒體及學生對於學校的公評，而是其它人士、上級長官或捐助人對此事的看法。誰會因為一個大學生裸奔而鄙視這所學校？這位學生的作為沒有造成任何社會傷害──台灣不會被他的裸奔「傷了風化」。 「遛鳥」新聞應該使我們思考，事件結果是否對此遛鳥俠公平，大學生能否在社會關注之下得到公平的對待是我們所處社會成熟度的檢驗尺。我們還該進一步思考，包家駒先生是否適任校長，專斷的校長所影響的不僅是這位捅了簍子的大俠而已，也不僅是在校的學生，而是他們所代表的台灣未來，我們更應該借助這樣一個不失輕鬆、也沒有情緒對立的時機，理性思考是否應檢討台灣校園管理的思考方式？ 包校長通過他的秘書向外界宣稱這件事情已經有學校決定，且該生並無異議。換言之，大眾不要越俎代庖。到底對這個事件，大眾是否有權置喙？教育是公共事業，大眾當然有關心的權力與義務；就如同媒體、醫療﹐雖然開設私立醫院是為了營利，但醫院不能拒絕治療沒錢付帳的病人。開設學校雖然是營利事業，也必須符合隨社會而進步的教育倫理。 如果台灣的大學沒有任何讓包校長這樣的教育者覺得「有損校譽」的另類現象，而呈現的全是類似軍校的校風，也許才應該真正擔憂吧。
（本文作者為旅台大陸民運人士﹐政治評論人） | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 28 Jun 2004 01:28 PM PDT
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| Posted: 03 Jun 2004 12:45 PM PDT Not long after he was released from prison in 1998, Wang Dan visited me in Taiwan. It was the first meeting of China's two most-wanted Tiananmen student leaders in nearly a decade, and we had a lot to talk about. We were still talking the next day when the sun came up.
Wang Dan and I studied at different universities, and we didn't meet until the early days of the Tiananmen protests. It had been 10 years since the killings in Beijing on June 4 1989 had set our lives on different trajectories. He had spent his time as a political prisoner; I had spent mine living the good life in France, the U.S. and finally Taiwan. That didn't mean we didn't have a lot of things to talk about. We did. Above all, we had to talk about whether we had done the right thing. Neither of us could be completely sure we had.
It was a difficult night, and it was a particularly difficult because, among the many things that came up, we talked about Ding Zilin. On the night of June 3, 1989, when I had already begun a flight to freedom that would take me to Hong Kong within a month, Ding Zilin's 17-year-old son, Jiang Jielan, joined the protests on the streets of Beijing, even though his mother had begged him to stay home. I was one of the leaders of those protests, and so was Wang Dan. Three hours later Ding Zilin's son was shot dead.
So much of what happened that night and early the next day is still a mystery. We don't know, for example, how many Beijing students and citizens were shot dead like Ding Zilin's son—hundreds, thousands; you choose. I don't think we ever will. But Ding Zilin, at least, has spent the last 15 years bravely reminding us that it happened. She does still, by persuading other families to stand up and count the ones they lost. She gets arrested on a regular basis, especially as June 4 approaches, but she continues to remind us—as she put it five years after she lost her son—that the "blood-splattered streets of Beijing have been paved over with a new concrete—brand-named 'economic progress.'" As the head of the Tiananmen Mothers Campaign, which calls on the Beijing government to accept accountability for the bloodshed, she has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, and in a braver, more honest world she would get it.
When her name came up that night with Wang Dan, I felt a lot of things, but mostly I felt guilty. I felt guilty about having survived and having made it to France and the U.S. when so many others died. I felt guilty that I had not stayed behind and gone to jail like Wang Dan. I felt guilty that I had not done enough to remind the world that the China I had failed to change had got no better since I left. I felt guilty that perhaps I was in some way responsible for the death of Ding Zilin's son.
I felt so guilty that I suggested to Wang Dan that we make a telephone call that I had put off making for far too long. Wang Dan—who had her number—made the call, and after a few words of greeting, he said: "Wu'er Kaixi is with me, and he has something he wants to say to you."
I took the phone and said to Ding Zilin the only thing that could be said.
"Sorry," I said to her. "I can't even ask you for forgiveness."
"I'm just happy that you finally called," Ding Zilin said back.
All three of us began to cry, and I said: "We can't replace the son you lost, but Wang Dan and I want you to think of us as your sons."
That happened more than six years ago, and the 15th anniversary of Tiananmen is upon us already—15 years in exile for me, a decade in and out of prison followed by five years of exile for Wang Dan, and 15 years mourning a son for Ding Zilin. Some of my pain lifted when I spoke to Ding Zilin that night, but not all of it—I will spend the rest of my life regretting the lives that were lost in 1989. I am taking this occasion to say it publicly to Ding Zilin and to everybody who lost someone they loved.
Wang Dan and I were young men who thought we could change the world, and we inadvertently led a lot of people to their deaths. That has caused a lot of pain to a lot of people, and an apology is a first step towards healing that pain. However, it should not be forgotten that the most important apology—the apology that would allow my exiled generation to go home—is still to come. That apology belongs to the men who ordered the shootings.
I have spent months thinking about how the 15th anniversary of Tiananmen should be marked. It has been difficult to decide. The world has changed. These, in so many ways, are less idealistic times than those giddy days before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and before freedom came to the Eastern Bloc and Nelson Mandela emerged from jail—when anything briefly seemed possible. But, if, for just one day, we could return to that idealism, in the spirit of the students who took to the streets of Beijing in 1989, I would ask the world to spend it looking hard at the China with which it has struck its business deals, and remembering that the mothers of Beijing are still waiting for their apology. Until it comes, China will remain a dark place where a mourning mother who challenges the official monopoly on the truth faces summary arrest, and where idealistic young students who seek democratic change are forced into exile.
Without that apology, China's progress of the past 15 years is an illusion. The introduction of the economic freedoms that has brought prosperity to urban China since Tiananmen is an acknowledgement by the Chinese people that students of my generation had a right to protest. But the lack of an apology is a reminder that China's new prosperity continues at the expense of freedom of expression and democratic participation. An apology, in short, would signal the long-suppressed next stage of Tiananmen's unfinished revolution.
——This article is published at the Wall Street Journal, June 4th, 2004. 15th Anniversay of the Tiananmen Massacre.
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| Posted: 08 Apr 2004 01:26 PM PDT
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| Posted: 11 Mar 2004 12:00 PM PST
By Wu'er Kaixi & Shen Tong
When the retired military doctor who blew the lid on China's attempts to cover up the full extent of SARS infections in Beijing last year recently spoke out again, I was moved by his courage.
In China, even today, few people have the strength of conviction to send a letter to the National Assembly – as Jiang Yanyong did on February 24 – suggesting that the Chinese Communist Party's assessment of a historical event demands reappraisal. They cannot be blamed. That Jiang's letter made international headlines after appearing on a Hong Kong website is a sign not of Chinese timidity but of Jiang's boldness.
Jiang's letter concerns the Tiananmen crackdown of June 4, 1989, a democratic student movement that led to the exile, imprisonment and death of many of my fellow students. The "1989 counter-revolutionary riots" have now come to be known as the "1989 political disturbances," he notes. He then asks: "If they were 'political disturbances,' did they really need to be suppressed by mobilizing several hundred-thousand troops? How it was necessary to use guns and tanks to brutally kill ordinary people?" His response: "I suggest Tiananmen be renamed the 1989 patriotic student movement."
I applaud Dr. Jiang's courage, and say to him, I agree such an assessment is long overdue. We who participated in the protests against official corruption, in favor of China opening up to the West and in support of increased democratic participation – those of us who are still living – did so because we cared. We were young and we wanted to make China a better place. And, while we failed in some ways, we did not fail entirely. China has indeed become a better place. Students of today – students who are the same age I was when I was driven into exile – have prospects my generation could only dream of. And they have those prospects, at least in part, because the student movement of 1989 compelled the Chinese government to make sweeping reforms that allowed private entrepreneurship to flourish.
But let us not forget that Jiang's letter is also a reminder of just how the student movement failed, of how China has not changed, of how little freedom Chinese have to speak out. And, let us not forget that the publication of Jiang's letter on the Internet – it has reportedly circulated widely in China – is a reminder too that Beijing continues to repress freedom of speech at its own risk. As Jiang himself puts it: "People should always be able to speak – and to speak the truth."
A popular line of thinking propagated by the Chinese government, and followed by some China watchers and most business leaders with an eye to investment in the world's largest growing market, is that in a country as large, as populous and as potentially unstable as China, stability must come first. There is a great deal of truth to this – until stability becomes an excuse for oppression. Arguing that a reassessment of Tiananmen is simply a means of expressing the will of the people, Jiang points out towards the end of this letter, "When so-called stability oppresses everything, it can only result in even greater instability."
Jiang writes movingly of his own memories, of treating victims of the People's Liberation Army at Beijing's PLA No. 301 Hospital, where he was a surgeon on the night of June 3, saying that in all his years as a doctor he had never seen injuries like them and that they haunt him to this day. He writes of Nobel Peace Prize nominee Ding Zilin, who lost her 17 year-old-son that night, and has campaigned tirelessly ever since for the government to take responsibility for its actions. "So far," he writes, "we have not had a word in answer,"
Jiang writes with the conviction of a man who feels that Tiananmen is a wound in the psyche of modern China that has not healed because it has been ignored for too long.
A nationally respected surgeon, Chinese Communist Party member and a veteran of the People's Liberation Army, he also tells us that these feelings are shared amongst Party members in far higher positions than his own. His letter records a 1998 meeting with former president Yang Shangkun, in which Yang called the Tiananmen Incident "historically, the Party's biggest mistake," adding that "in the future" it would "definitely be reassessed."
As we approach the 15th anniversary of Tiananmen, I pray that Yang's vision of the future and the rightful outcome of Jiang's plea are at hand. I say this not only because I think it is time my generation were allowed to come home, but also because I agree with Jiang that, in a China that buries its past and exiles and imprisons those who dare to speak what others only bottle up inside, stability is merely an illusion.
—— Published March 12th 2004, By Asian Wall Street Journal | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 04 Feb 2004 11:38 AM PST At the age of 21, I was swept into the leading ranks of a popular, student-led movement urging the government of China to undertake democratic reforms. That movement was brutally put down by troops and tanks in Tiananmen Square and nearby Chang'an Avenue on June 4, 1989. I and a generation of fellow student leaders have been in exile ever since.
Fifteen years on, when I look at my homeland from Taiwan, where I live, and from Hong Kong, which I was recently allowed to visit, I wonder at how little has changed. True, public demonstrations for more democratic freedoms in Hong Kong have not been suppressed by troops and tanks. But Taiwan's democratic freedoms are thus threatened. Meanwhile, Falungong practitioners continue to be arrested in China, as are "bad" political elements, and my generation of student leaders cannot go home.
China may well be the world's miracle economy--the sleeping giant that has awoken. But let us not forget either that China's problems are immense. The future of its 1.3 billion consumers is bedevilled by outrageous extremes of wealth and poverty; unemployment in China's former iron rice-bowl hinterland is dangerously high (unofficial sources put the national level at around 15%); and China's banking system is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Add to these problems a noisy democracy across the Taiwan Strait that is clamouring for the ultimate democratic freedom--self-determination--and Hong Kong's demands that China genuinely subscribe to the spirit of the Basic Law in its administration of the former British colony. These are not problems that I believe can be solved by totalitarian central power.
When I look at Taiwan, I am struck by how smooth the transition from totalitarianism to democracy has been. That accomplishment is at least in part due to the long-serving Kuomintang, which realized the necessity for dialogue, and the necessity of allowing democratic reforms that eventually handed governance to the people. By allowing dialogue in Taiwan, the KMT allowed the emergence of a rational political environment. Indeed, democracy begins with understanding the importance of dialogue.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's recent visit to the United States resulted in a cautiously worded rebuke by President George W. Bush to President Chen Shui-bian for his plans to hold a referendum during Taiwan's March 20 presidential elections. The next day, Chen responded publicly by asking: "What is the Taiwan problem?" And he answered that question: "The Taiwan problem is China's inability to accept democracy, freedom of speech and human rights."
However we see Chen's plans to hold a referendum, it is impossible to deny that he has truth on his side. Taiwan needs China economically, and culturally it has much in common with the mainland. But politically, China's failure to engage in even-handed dialogue with Taiwan and respect the democratic desires of the island's people has made China itself the obstacle in achieving reunification. Its intransigence, its preference for threats before dialogue, have produced radicalized opposition in Taiwan, so that now even its long-time ally in the goal of reunification, the KMT, has turned its back on China and accepts the Democratic Progressive Party's formulation of "one country on either side of the strait."
Mao Zedong once said that power comes from the barrel of a gun. Beijing used that gun on my fellow students in 1989; it now suggests it is ready to use it again on the people of Taiwan. Thus, I find myself facing the same oppressor today that I faced 15 years ago. And 15 years on, I find that my thinking has not changed. The solution to China's vast problems begins with that seed of democracy: dialogue. Out of dialogue come ideas, inspiration and solutions. Out of dialogue come rational opposition and a rational political landscape.
When I arrived in Hong Kong in January, I concluded a brief speech at the airport by saying to Beijing, by saying to President Hu Jintao, "Let us come home." I repeat that request. At the youthful age of 21 I led a peaceful movement embraced by an estimated 100 million people across the country. In the course of that movement we repeatedly called on the Beijing government for dialogue and were denied.
We called for it then in Tiananmen Square; I call for it now in exile. Too many voices have been exiled and for too long. It is time they came home. It is time Beijing accepted an alternative to the barrel of the gun.
——This article was publishes on the Far Eastern Economic Review, Issue cover-dated February 05, 2004. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Finding Hope in Hong Kong’s Changes Posted: 13 Jan 2004 11:55 AM PST
Since arriving in Hong Kong late Saturday afternoon, everybody has been telling me how the former British colony has changed since the handover in 1997. I look around and I agree, yes, much has changed.
Hong Kong is clearly a more Chinese city today than it was when I last visited, nearly a decade ago, in 1994. But I have also been observing for some time, from Taiwan, another democratizing quarter of "greater China," the challenge that Hong Kong's shrinking freedoms have presented to the special administrative region.
It is a challenge that some Hong Kong citizens – and they are renowned for their pragmatism, for their business acumen, for that Chinese quality of bending with the breeze – have met by curtailing their own freedoms, suppressing their own freedom of speech, in the perceived interests of a faraway totalitarian central government.
This is natural enough. It is in the way of things that people seek the path of least resistance. What is more, it is a tried and tested formula in the mainland: give people prosperity; they give you the keys to government house. But the easy path is not always necessarily as easy as it looks, particularly when it begins to erode hope and dignity.
And that is why the biggest change here for me is not that so many more people speak Mandarin today than they did a decade ago, or that Hong Kong's once infamous reputation for brusque shop clerks and push-and-shove crowds seems to have taken a turn for the better, but that a new mood has overtaken the city. In short, Beijing has not inherited the politically quiescent trading port it thought it had. Some 500,000 people took the streets in protest against Article 23 last July, and just two weeks ago another 100,000 marched for greater democratic freedoms.
For me such actions are grounds for hope, and cannot help but remind me how in 1989 the people of Hong Kong then took to the streets in support of the democracy movement I led, and which drove me into exile from China. In nearly 15 years of exile I have continued to find hope in Hong Kong's anniversary vigils – some 40,000 people in 1998, the year after handover – in remembrance of the tragedy of June 4, 1989.
I am grateful for the support Hong Kong has shown my comrades over the years, and I also like to think that Hong Kong's unofficial day of remembrance has blossomed into a movement that seeks to put its own people's interests first. Just as I and my fellow students did in 1989, in both Hong Kong and in Taiwan now, people are using democracy to achieve democracy.
The reality is, there is no other way forward. For more than two decades now the mantra has been, put business first and everything else will follow. That has not happened. China's huge economic strides have not yet translated into more tolerance for democracy. Just as Beijing responds to the lively democracy it confronts across the Taiwan Strait with military threats, in Hong Kong it blocks the people's democratic aspirations with rulings from on high.
When I arrived on Saturday afternoon, I noted my appreciation for being allowed to enter Hong Kong. What I did not say is that I should have been allowed to visit long ago, if the one country two systems formula is to be taken seriously by the world, and in particular by Taiwan, which watches developments in Hong Kong with concern.
On my arrival, I also expressed my hope that this was the first step in a long journey home for a generation of students who tried to wake a giant from its slumber. When I said to Beijing, to President Hu Jintao, "let us come home," it was not in the belief that the time had come; it was in the hope of reminding the world, on Chinese soil, that China's intolerance continues to exile many of its own citizens.
Exile is a forced retreat from problems. And in a sense the easy path of turning a blind eye to problems in exchange for, say, low tax rates and a humming stock market is a form of stay-put exile. It is powerless condition with little ground for hope.
But Hong Kong has changed, and that change does give me hope. As a returned exile, I find hope in the fact that Hong Kong is rejecting the easy path. I find hope in the fact the people have the courage to demand that, in Hong Kong, Beijing reconsider the controls it exercises so effectively closer to home.
I find hope in the fact that the Hong Kong government allowed me to visit, and I find hope in the fact that the Hong Kong people are using democratic means to achieve democratic ends. After all these years, I still believe there is no other way forward for the country I call home.
——Published Jan. 14th 2004, South China Morning Post. Copy Rights SCMP, 2004 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Challenging The Status Quo In Taiwan Posted: 15 Dec 2003 11:42 AM PST
President George W. Bush's censure of Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian for unilaterally moving toward changing the status quo between the US, China and Taiwan was for some here a slap to the face. Given the increasing political polarization of the island, it will variously be read as comeuppance and as an affront to the island's dignity.
But, however it is interpreted, the question remains whether Mr. Chen deserved a dressing down. Washington's irritation stems from Mr. Chen's call for a referendum urging China to remove close to 500 missiles aimed at Taiwan. Those missiles actually exist; China has recently threatened to use them.
Certain U.S. policy makers have criticized Mr. Chen for having acted "foolishly." But at least he cannot be accused of having acted wrongly, or – perhaps more importantly – undemocratically. However, it would seem – as Mr. Chen has implied in response to the latest developments – China's threatening missiles are a "natural state of affairs." At the very least, it would appear that China is free to threaten Taiwan without international condemnation.
This so-called status quo – a small democratic island militarily threatened by an autocratically governed superpower – is a historical legacy. However, it in no way represents the interests of or benefits the Taiwanese people today. Its existence means that Taiwan – the world's 14th largest trading nation – is a community in isolation, humiliated by denial of the right to an international identity, representation in the United Nations, or almost any other international organization, including even the World Health Organization.
China's insistence that this status quo be maintained at all costs has won it no friends here in Taiwan. Its refusal to allow World Health Organization officials access to the island during the outbreak of SARS earlier this year, is seen here as simply the latest – if not one of the more resented – instance in a long litany of humiliations Taiwan has had to accept. Indeed, Taiwan is a member of just two international organizations: the World Trade Organization and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. In the WTO, Taiwan is known as the "Representation of the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu to WTO." In APEC gatherings, Taiwan's president is barred from attendance, while ministerial-level meetings attended by foreign ministers is open only to Taiwan's economic minister. Even in that most inclusive of global gatherings, the Olympic games, Taiwan' s athletes cannot enter the arena bearing their national flag, and their team goes under the name Chinese Taipei.
This is the status quo, and its upholders are currently toasting each other in Washington. China's stand on Taiwan is no different from its stand on Tibet and Xinjiang – both of which can now be safely relied upon not to trouble the world with troublesome democratic movements and public votes for the right to self-determination. That stand is that Taiwan is an inalienable part of the Motherland, and no movement towards independence can be tolerated.
But if the world recognizes the moral authority of the Dalai Lama's efforts to highlight the plight of his people and find a peaceful end to their oppression, how it can it brand a democracy's efforts to choose its own fate "trouble making?" Are Taiwanese to be blamed for thinking the avowed commitment to democracy that took the U.S. to Iraq would also bring the U.S. to the defense of Taiwan?
Speaking this week, Mr. Chen said the "Taiwan problem" was China's inability to accept "democracy, freedom and human rights." But the problem is equally a unique convergence of a historical standoff between the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party, the exigencies of appeasing an emergent modern China, and the complexities of Washington lobbies. In other words, the Taiwan problem is as much the U.S.'s as it is China's. And, in that sense, the growing momentum of a democratic movement in Taiwan that calls for a clearer definition of Taiwan's international status is a challenge for both the U.S. and China. For China, the challenge is to resist seeing Taiwan's burgeoning democracy as a threat that must be crushed. And, for the U.S. the challenge is to recognize that to champion democracy is to live with the outcome of its collective choices.
At least one positive emerged in Washington this week: the beginnings of an agreement to deal with the Taiwan issue peacefully. Bravo. But let us not forget that peace should be unconditional; that it should not be achieved at the expense of justice. To ensure a peaceful resolution in those conditions, as the world's leading power, and as the one nation that should be counted on to say "no" to China when necessary, the U.S. bears an undeniable responsibility when it comes to Taiwan.
The American commitment to justice, democracy and human rights, demands it assume the role of an impartial mediator in this standoff. National security may bias it to maintaining the status quo, but if Taiwan society continues to evolve to the point where a majority of people realize that a true deepening of democracy is not compatible with the status quo it will have to recognize that. It is an open secret here in Taiwan that a referendum for independence would find little opposition if it could be carried out free from fear of attack. In this unfair standoff, in which a small but determined democracy finds itself pitted against a vast totalitarian regime, it is disappointing not only to see the U.S. take sides, but to take the wrong one.
——Published Dec 16, 2003, Asian Wall Street Journal | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Posted: 09 Dec 2002 11:02 PM PST
曾幾何時﹐台灣政壇開始流行起"震怒"﹐總統夫人在美遭搜身﹐總統震怒﹔921重建進度緩慢﹐游揆震怒﹔臺北市警察局內湖分局警員偷勤聚賭﹐分局長也震怒﹔這次高雄市議長副議長選舉﹐泛藍高舉鑲金黑旗﹐與民進黨懸崖勒馬相比﹐再與前不久國民黨誓誓旦旦"已與黑金劃清界線"的言論相對照﹐難怪面子上掛不住的黨主席連戰要"震怒"了﹗
指責國民黨要對過去的黑金有個交代的親民黨﹐也許這一兩天也會應景地震怒一下吧﹐否則初入政壇的這些親民黨新科議員向黑金沉淪的速度如此之快﹐動作如此整齊劃一﹐親民黨怎麼向大眾交代﹖令人不禁想起宋楚瑜擔任省主席﹐省長期間﹐府會關係其樂融融的時代﹐是否在高雄市要借尸還魂了﹐可否麻煩宋主席今天也震怒一下﹐然後向貴黨副主席張昭雄先生所說的﹐該交代一下呢﹖
民進黨在過去的兩年多來﹐施政成績奇差﹐雖不至於說民不聊生﹐也至少是怨聲載道﹐曾經把這個具有理想性色彩的反對黨推上執政寶座的選民﹐今天多少有點後悔﹐對於國民黨的治理能力多少有所懷念。然而2004年﹐票怎樣投﹐大多數人應該會覺得很痛苦吧﹖如果看不到當初支持民進黨的理由繼續存在﹐當然就投不下去﹐但是就算心裡百般情願原諒國民黨﹐仍然找不到國民黨擺脫黑金的蛛絲馬跡﹐至少我這一張票就不會回流﹗
有人用"壯士斷腕"來要求連戰先生﹐宋楚瑜先生明快處理此次高雄市議長選舉泛藍成功被黑金整合的局面﹐我倒是覺得叫"刮骨療毒"更正確﹐只有震怒﹐沒有交代﹐撂句狠話﹐讓你們看看老百姓震怒是什麼樣子﹗
——中時晚報，2002，12，10 |
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