Hi everyone,
One of the most interesting responses I received to my
series on the issues related to Zhang Shanguang was
the following spirited criticism by Lou Paulsen. While
I obviously disagree with Lou I recognize that his
criticism represents the thinking, emotions and analysis
of many readers on all of these lists. Because of this,
and because the issues involved here are, or should be,
of interest to many, I am taking the liberty of posting
Lou's comments to all lists where I have circulated my
series. I hope that readers, and the moderators, will
understand my motivations. I will present my reply to
Lou tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Ben Seattle
----//-// 28.Jun.99
-----Original Message-----
From: WW Chicago <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Friday, June 11, 1999 2:06 AM
Subject: Zhang Shanguang and Ben Seattle
Let's suppose that there was a labor activist in China whom I knew to have
been unjustly sentenced to prison. Suppose that I wanted to publicize the
case and persuade people to influence the government of the PRC to reverse
their decision and free this activist. How would I go about this? How
would I organize this defense committee? What would be the first thing I
would do?
The first thing I would do would be to collect all the information I could
about the life and work of this activist. I would find things that he/she
had written, and arrange for them to be translated into English. I would
find people who knew this activist and get their testimony about what sort
of person this activist was and why he or she had been unfairly convicted.
And I would disseminate this information.
But let's suppose, instead, that I were a bombastic twit with an ego the
size of Mount Tai and a crackpot version of Marxism based on freedom of
information in cyberspace, with which I proposed to save the world socialist
movement from the shithole I believed it to have become, and that I were
looking for a convenient sales gimmick. In that case, I might grab the name
of Zhang Shanguang, and a couple paragraphs about him, off a website and
proceed to use them as the nucleus of a long string of posts larded with
invective and braggadocio and filled out with my idiosyncratic arguments and
theories - as Ben Seattle has done.
The seven-post opus by Seattle is about 2% about Zhang Shanguang and 98%
Seattleite logorrhea. Some episodes of the series have NOTHING about Zhang
Shanguang in them at all. If I were Zhang Shanguang and were given a copy
of Seattle's work product, I would say, "This man doesn't care two dead
flies about me. Has he no shame? He doesn't know anything about me. All
he wants to do is write whatever is on his mind while using my name as
packaging."
I came to this affair in reruns, having missed the premiere due to family
crises. The only thing I knew about Zhang Shanguang was that apparently Ben
Seattle was championing his case. This, for me, was a strike against him
right there, since I know Seattle's judgment to be atrocious. Last August
he was quick to jump on the bandwagon of the "Orohovac mass graves" hoax.
He is also on the opposite side from me on the "June 4 incident".
Therefore, if Ben Seattle wants someone out of jail, my first reaction is
that he should probably stay in there. But one can't be dogmatic about
these things, and so I started scrolling and scrolling through Seattle's
posts looking for information about Zhang Shanguang, but mostly finding
nothing.
For the convenience of the reader, EVERYTHING in the way about information
about Zhang Shanguang which is to be found in ALL of Seattle's 7 posts is
reprinted below as "Appendix A".
Speaking as someone who has worked in defense committees before, I think
Seattle's signal-to-noise ratio here is unpardonably low. He has the nerve
to invoke Richard Feynman, a brilliant scientist worthy of respect because
of his commitment to dealing with the objective world. In his speech about
"Cargo Cult Science", Feynman legitimately warns against ignoring data which
tend to disconfirm our preconceptions. Even worse, however, is to divorce
onself entirely from the need to deal with data at all. Seattle's demand
that we sign "Free Zhang Shanguang" statements is underlain by very little
data. How do we know that Zhang is anything that we would call a "labor
activist"? Just because the "BBC, CNN, and Reuters" say he is one? What
has he actually done?
In the interest of science, I decided I would devote an hour of my scarce
time to finding about a little bit more about Zhang, since Seattle had done
such a bad job as his lawyer. I tried the www.labourstart.org site, which
is actually a decent source of information, but they had apparently gotten
their information on Zhang from something called www.insidechina.com which
is related to something called EIN (European Internet News), and where I got
a 'File Not Found'. Then I found some other versions of the same AP/Reuters
stuff that Seattle had found. Finally I found a section of an Amnesty
International report on the case, which is reproduced below in its entirety
as "Appendix B." A section of the court's opinion in the case, quoted by
AI, reads:
“while still deprived of his political rights, on March 1, 1998, the accused
carried out a telephone interview from his home with reporter Li XX of
'Radio Free Asia'. During the interview, the accused passed onto the Radio
station details of the kidnapping case of Zhang Qingren which public
security organs had yet to make public.”
The "deprived of his political rights" reference means that he was in effect
on a three-year parole from his earlier sentence. The reader will probably
ask, 'What the heck is the kidnapping case of Zhang Qingren??' A footnote
says that it had to do with tax protests, and I don't know any more than
that. I don't know whether Zhang Qingren was an "activist" or a tax
collector. Although the standard right-wing picture of China is that
whenever they have a "closed-door" trial, it is just because they are evil
and repressive, I wonder if the situation in this case might actually be
more complex.
I do, however, know what Radio Free Asia is, and Zhang Shanguang undoubtedly
knows it too. It is a U.S. tool for imperialist subversion of the People's
Republic of China, for the overthrow of socialism and the restoration of a
bourgeois state. Therefore, he is being disingenuous when he compares it to
"any contact between a foreigner and a citizen of China". RFA is not just
any foreigner, it is an arm of the U.S. government just as the CIA is. It
is an enemy organization, an enemy of the workers of China.
Now, Seattle justifies this by saying that the PRC does not allow workers to
communicate with each other in China, and so therefore Zhang, a "labor
activist", has no other option but to talk to Radio Free Asia and then hope
that RFA will help to organize the workers of China by broadcasting the
truth so the workers can listen on their shortwave radios. Of course RFA is
not going to organize anything other than pure counterrevolution. But in
any case that isn't even what Zhang Shanguang says. He says that the local
people knew all about the affair. What, then, is the justification for
dealing with RFA?
I still don't think I know a great deal about Zhang and his life and work,
but if Seattle wants us to fight to get him out of jail, let him start doing
some more of the groundwork.
Suppose I were living in the PRC and believed that the government and the
Communist Party and the unions in my region were not adequately dealing with
the problems of laid-off workers. Suppose that it were impossible for me to
work within the local party and union organizations because they were too
much imbued with neoliberal theory and were acting entirely as privileged
bureaucrats. I don't know if this is really the case in Shu Pu, but let's
imagine it to be so. Suppose I concluded that it was necessary to form a
new organization of the unemployed. What would the purpose of this
organization be? It would be to fight for an adequate recognition of the
rights and needs of the workers, that is, for better socialism, for more
communism, for more restrictions on capital, for a rejection of imperialist
influence and pressure. It would be necessary to make it completely clear
that we had nothing to do with imperialists and enemies of socialism. I
certainly would not talk with RFA people. It would be necessary to think
very hard before agreeing to support "tax protestors", which might (for all
I know) represent some kind of kulak movement.
There is capitalist enterprise in China; the world capitalist market affects
China; and this means that workers in China face hardship and exploitation.
And this means that they have the right to organize in their own interests,
and all Communists recognize this. But, whereas in capitalist countries
those interests are irreconcilably hostile to the bosses and the state, in
China this is not the case and it is a mistake to proceed as if it is. If a
government official in the US talks about the need to improve efficiency and
maintain production levels, we know it is solely in the interest of
bourgeois profit. If a government official in China talks about the need to
improve efficiency and increase production, we know that this is not pure
bourgeois demagogy, but represents to an important degree the actual
interests of the Chinese workers themselves. Therefore, it is necessary to
distinguish between, on the one hand, Communist unionists, who want to make
the workers stronger, better educated, more united, and more
socialist-minded, and, on the other hand, "labor activists" who are really
imperialist stooges on the model of Poland's "Solidarity", who want to
provoke unrestrained conflict between the workers and the state in order to
make counterrevolution. Members of the first group will not be found on the
telephone with Radio Free Asia.
Lou Paulsen
member, Workers World Party, Chicago
(Appendix A begins)
Today, Sunday December 27, labor activist Zhang Shanguang
goes on trial in Huaihua city in Hunan province in China.
According to the BBC, CNN and Reuters, Zhang was arrested in
August after he tried to create an organization to help
laid-off workers ... Zhang, who spent seven years in prison in the
wake of the repression following the Tiananmen Square
massacre, could be given the death penalty.
On Sunday, December 27, in a court in Huaihua city in Hunan
province in China, Zhang Shanguang was sentenced to ten
years in prison for "providing intelligence to hostile
foreign organizations" (ie: giving an interview to "Radio
Free Asia" about peasant demonstrations against crushing
taxes). Zhang had also been active in organizing unemployed
workers. Previously, he had served seven years in prison
for his activity during the period leading up to the bloody
massacre of workers and students connected to the Tiananmen
demonstrations in 1989.
I learned of the trial of Zhang Shanguang thru an email sent
by Eric Lee, a reformist trade union activist and webmaster
of the www.labourstart.org site. Eric issued a call for
trade unions and other organizations to issue statements
protesting Zhang's persecution and imprisonment
BEIJING, Jan. 11, 1999 -- (Reuters)
On Dec. 27, a Chinese court sentenced labor activist
Zhang Shanguang to 10 years for revealing details of
farmers' protests in Hunan province's Xupu county in
an interview with the U.S. government-funded Radio
Free Asia.
The center quoted Zhang as saying that Xupu county
alone had experienced more than 100 such protests in
the first half of 1998, indicating rural protests
nationwide may have numbered many thousands last
year amid stagnant incomes and high taxes.
BEIJING, Jan. 15, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse)
In his appeal against his Dec. 27 conviction, Zhang
argued that charges of passing "intelligence" to
people overseas were meaningless as the information
related to protests which were well known by ordinary
people in China.
"When China does not have a clear definition of secret
information, how can there be a conviction on those
grounds," he said in his appea
(Appendix B begins)
ZHANG SHANGUANG Zhang Shanguang, 45 years, a labour activist was sentenced
to ten years imprisonment for 'endangering state security' on 27 December
1998 by the Huaihua Intermediate People's Court in Hunan province.
Zhang was accused of revealing secret information on peasant and worker
unrest during an interview with Radio Free Asia . Zhang was formally
arrested on 28 August 1998 after being detained on 21 July 1998.
It was reported that Hou Xuezhu, Zhang Shanguang's wife had not received any
formal notification of the trial which allegedly concentrated on an account
that Zhang gave to the media of unrest and his expression that the burden on
workers was 'too great'.
The trial took 2 hours and twenty minutes and took place behind closed
doors, during a court lunch break. When his wife arrived at the court, she
was refused entry and reportedly told that she could not enter as the trial
would involve 'information' that should not be made public.
Zhang was the founder of the local 'Shu Pu Association to Protect the Rights
and Interests of Laid-off workers' and it is believed that his arrest was
partly in connection with his plans to register his organisation.
It was also reported that Zhang was beaten up by members of an unknown
police or armed force because he had allegedly failed to answer questions
about his organisation and his overseas connections. It is feared that Zhang
may be suffering from tuberculosis which he contracted whilst he was
imprisoned for seven years for activities during the 1989 pro- democracy
protests . Zhang had been previously sentenced in September 1989 and was
released on January 15 1996 with three years of deprivation of political
rights.
The verdict of the court states that;
“while still deprived of his political rights, on March 1, 1998, the accused
carried out a telephone interview from his home with reporter Li XX of
'Radio Free Asia'. During the interview, the accused passed onto the Radio
station details of the kidnapping case of Zhang Qingren which public
security organs had yet to make public.” See footnote 7 7
“This court maintains that, by exercising free speech during a period of
being deprived of political rights, and by illegally supplying details of a
case still not made public by the security organs, thus inadvisably making
the case known abroad, the defendant Zhang Shanguang deliberately flouted
national law. His behaviour violates the regulations of article 111 of the
PRC, Criminal Code, concerning illegally supplying intelligence to
(organisations) outside China. Moreover, recidivist criminal behaviour
should be severely punished... Therefore the following judgement applies:
the defendant Zhang Shanguang is sentenced to 10 year's imprisonment for the
crime of supplying intelligence to (organisations) outside China and
deprivation of political rights for five years; to run concurrently with the
completion of the remaining 19 days of deprivation of political rights left
over from the previous sentence”.
In an appeal against his sentence Zhang argued that he was not guilty of the
charges as China and that
“My conversation with the foreign journalist was concerning an event that
was already known by the local people. Based on the principle of the law
being unclear and on the regulations in Article 3 of the Criminal Code,
there is absolutely no legal basis for (the information) being defined as
“intelligence” See footnote 8 8 . Indeed, if this really is the case, then
any contact between a foreigner and a citizen of China can be defined as
passing on of intelligence and thus criminal behaviour. The court is clearly
mistaken in maintaining I was supplying intelligence to a foreign
organisation.”
--- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
