(From a Nuri Vittachi Column in "The Standard" (www.standard.com.hk).)
The news has finally hit home, it just took 60 years to arrive
Happy birthday, China. Tomorrow is October 1. There will be parades in Beijing, flags lining the streets in Hong Kong and Macau, and parties everywhere with a Chinese embassy.
China is 60 years old tomorrow. Or is it? I thought I knew until a reporter from an Indian news organization phoned me to ask. The conversation roughly went like this:
Q: So, what exactly is being celebrated on October 1?
A: It's National Day. China is 60 years old.
Q: Only 60? That's so young. Our country is much older than that - thousands of years older.
A: No, China is thousands of years old. It's older than your country. It's older than any other country, older than the moon, even, probably.
Q: You just said it was 60.
A: Er, yes, but I'm not really talking about the country. This is actually the anniversary of the communist takeover of China.
Q: I see. So, how long have you been a communist?
A: Me? I'm not a communist! None of us are. These days, everyone in Asia is a capitalist. We're the opposite of communists.
Q: But you just said you were celebrating the communist takeover.
A: Yes, we are. But, er, um, it's not communism itself we are celebrating. We are celebrating the fact that the people who have run China have done a great job over the past six decades.
Q: So you think it's good that China's development is almost 40 years behind that of its neighbors, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan? Why do you prefer a slow pace of economic development?
A: I don't prefer a slow pace of development. It's hard to explain.
To fill gaps in my knowledge, I visited a keen amateur historian. "From 1949 to the present day, China gradually moved from being a communist state with no freedoms, to being a more modern society, where private property ownership is allowed, and free speech and full democracy are expected to evolve, right?" he asked.
Right, I said.
"Wrong," he laughed.
He said that in its early years, communist China was run under a constitution called the Common Program. This featured a higher degree of democracy than China ever had, before or since. People from political parties other than the communist party were included in government. Private property was guaranteed. Freedom of the press was enshrined in law.
"China suffered not because of the communists, but because people like Mao [Zedong] failed to follow the foundations laid by its other communist founders," he said.
This was news to me. And what about October 1, 1949? We're celebrating the end of the war between the communists and the nationalists, aren't we?
He shook his head. "No. The war ended in June. But communism is all about meetings. They organized vast committee meetings in September to promise a fair, democratic society with freedom of speech. October 1, 1949, was the day the meeting ended and they could all go home."
Definitely a day to celebrate.
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