China’s Backbone

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

For anyone still harboring illusions that China is transitioning into something other than a despotic state, the case of Fu Xiancai will come as an awakening. Mr. Fu, a farmer and property rights activist, is partially paralyzed and is unlikely to walk again after a recent attack in which an assailant broke three vertebrae in his neck. An official of the local Public Security Bureau has now found that Mr. Fu injured himself, according to a human rights group, Human Rights in China. The authorities claim no other footprints were found around the site of the attack. But considering the pattern of harassment to which Mr. Fu has been subjected as a result of his advocacy for property owners displaced by the Three Gorges Dam project, the rest of the world comprehends the involvement of China’s regime.

The truth is that individuals like Mr. Fu are the backbone of China. He paid his dues as an activist in the 1990s protesting the government’s plan to relocate him and more than a million others to make way for the dam. Even after he had been removed from his land, he continued to protest the government’s compensation for those uprooted by the project. This is not the first time Mr. Fu has been beaten for his advocacy work; the same Zigou County police who now refuse to investigate his case stood by one day last fall as Mr. Fu and other protesters were beaten by local thugs after the protesters were obstructed on their way to Beijing, according to HRIC.

The most recent attack on Mr. Fu appears to stem from an interview he gave to a German television network in June about the plight of his displaced neighbors. A few weeks later, he was summoned to the local police station; the crippling attack occurred as he was leaving. Mr. Fu’s son, Fu Bing, has told reporters “My father was beaten with a wooden stick, first on his thighs, then repeatedly on his neck. He was beaten until he fell to the ground and lost consciousness.” These supposedly self-inflicted wounds have cost $7,500, donated by the German government, to treat.

To believe the authorities, China must have a self-hating populace. Mr. Fu is only the latest in a series of dissidents to suffer “self-inflicted” injuries in or near police stations.The list includes, to name but three, Zhao Xin, Dong Cui, and Zhao Chunying, all of whom were practitioners of the outlawed Falun Gong movement before managing to beat themselves to death while in custody; the first of these just happens to have found a way to break three vertebrae in her neck, just like Mr. Fu. It would sound like a grotesque joke if it weren’t so serious. By comparison, Mr. Fu is lucky even to have survived, and by all accounts he remains undaunted. “His will is still very strong,” his son told the Associated Press. He intends to appeal the initial police finding in respect of his attack, despite being “advised” by the local authorities not to press the issue.

The Orwellian trend of which Mr. Fu has become a part stands as a reminder that, for all the gleaming skyscrapers popping up in Chinese cities and the new spirit of capitalism sweeping the land, typically communistic repression is still the order of the day. Mr. Fu’s story, and the fate of other dissidents and protesters like him, is also a warning to America and other nations who must deal with China’s party leaders in the international sphere. A government that cannot provide even a semblance of justice to its citizens can never be a truly reliable diplomatic partner. Despite its economic progress over the past 20 years, China is not a respectable state. But there is hope so long as men like Mr. Fu set an example.


The New York Sun

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