Wednesday, December 30, 1998

Repression in China is cause to speak out

China is nearing its 50th anniversary as a Communist state, and while it has shed some of the vile and self-defeating practices excused by Marxist ideology as necessary for some future good, it continues in other ways to be a crude dictatorship unworthy of the respect of anyone holding to humane ideals.

Lately, the regime has been sentencing democratic dissidents to outrageous terms in prison for so-called crimes that amount to little more than expressing a point of view. One man will reportedly serve 10 years for nothing more than talking to a reporter for Radio Free Asia about farmers upset with their lot in southern China.

To some, it’s bad manners even to mention this thuggery. To us, it’s akin to complicity for people of good will to keep their mouths shut.

This sort of grotesque repression is not required because China is relatively poor or its stability somehow threatened. It’s the consequence of a group of politicians clinging to power for all their worth and opposed to any change they themselves did not design.

Considering the very real possibility that China may emerge as a force to be reckoned with throughout the world over the next century, it becomes doubly important for critics to speak out.