UNDERSTANDING DESPOTISM BY THE CHINESE STATE AND NONCHALANCE OF COMMUNIST SYCOPHANTS

1. Introduction: The Chinese State and the Indian Communists

The bizarre absurdity of the innate inclination of the Indian communists towards the Chinese state is such, that one might start questioning whether the numerous ‘protests’ against the apparent lack of Freedom of Speech and Expression in India is a mere inkling of one’s imagination that their brain built out of thin air. Or, is it that the Indian Communists have been so riveted in protesting against the ‘fascist’ Indian state that they have completely missed out upon the opportunity of taking a long, hard glance at their own ideological backyard, i.e, China. For a political entity that rises up in hue and cry against every little step of consolidation of the national sovereignty that the Indian government takes, it is rather difficult to imagine that the very same ideological group would back an openly truculent and despotic state like China that has absolutely no regards for the wellbeing of its citizens and shall rather engage in federating its territory than lend an ear to the problems of its masses.

China has turned the its state affairs into such a kafka-esque scenario that even political commentators feel apprehensive of steeping into its muddy waters, thanks to the innumerable instances of oppression that China has on its hands. Be it the draconian suppression of the Hong-Kong protests of 2019-20 or the fact that China has established modern-day concentration camps for Uighur Muslims, it should be clear by now that the Chinese state is beyond any hope of redemption. However, even with such manner of things, Indian Communists would rather side with a government that works merely for its bureaucratic welfare while sitting atop a throne that crushes all its citizens underneath, than stand beside a nation that is a true ‘welfare state’ in all regards.

1. The Hong-Kong Pandora’s Box: Why is the World Silent?

As is the case with many other international Hornet’s Nests, the Hong Kong issues too is one that arose out of the British Empire’s colonial conquests. When the Britishers finally decided to leave in 1997, they ensured the legal freedom of Hong Kong by the virtue of guaranteed 50 years of effective self-rule that would leave its way of life, and independent judiciary, unchanged, though the colony was returned to the Chinese sovereignty. In true Chinese fashion however, the government has consistently tried to meddle with Hong-Kong’s internal affairs that in a sense, amounts to breach of autonomous sovereignty.

The recent Hong-Kong protests that were suppressed in a brutal fashion, were organized after China passed a conflicting act that allowed the shifting of accused wrongdoers of Hong-Kong into the Chinese mainland for sentencing. This law, namely the Extradition Bill, was innately problematic because Hong Kong has its own judicial system and under such circumstances, if suspects undergo trial in the mainland, then there is a chance that the government shall use this act to vanquish its political rivals present in Hong Kong or even worse, crack down upon the brewing revolutionary sentiments of the natives that was set into effect by the virtue of similar infringements that China did, back in the early 2000s.

The youth of Hong Kong, which had grown up amidst western neo-liberal values, was against such communist despotism and out of the 7 million people who reside in Hong Kong, over 2 million took to the streets in protest, beginning 9th July, 2019. Fueled by anger toward the police, as well as the slow erosion of civil liberties, the largely leaderless protests morphed into a broader, more complicated movement about protecting freedoms, democracy and Hong Kong’s autonomy. The conundrum grew even thicker when a pro-Beijing committee member, Carrie Lam, passed a bill blacklisting the usage of masks during protests, thus opening an entire new can of worms as the youth protested against the government forcing them to give out their identities, thus risking their future prospects, that includes, but isn’t limited to, higher studies in universities abroad and jobs in corporate houses.

While the protesters mostly stuck to their original idea of conducting non-violent protest against the Chinese government for having overstepped its territory, the state didn’t hold back from unleashing its terror. State having the sole legitimate right to usage of force, no moral or ethical boundaries could stop the police and military forces from turning into blood-thirsty hounds when it came to patrolling protests organized by teenagers and young adults wearing black shirts as a symbol of defiance. The police have used water cannons, tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets while dispersing crowds, and their tactics have been criticized by protesters and international watchdogs. Reports show that the police had arrested over 4000 protestors within a few weeks of the commencement of the protests and at the very peak, the police forces had made use of over 1500 tear gas canisters over the protestors.

2.1.The National Security Law and its Ramifications for Hong Kong

The Chinese National Security Law was recently passed as a one-step solution to a variety of anti-incumbency issues that have popped up within the country in the recent years and is essentially targeted towards the rivals of the communist party and the non-believers in the splendour of the communist geist of things. Conceived in secrecy and passed on Tuesday without serious input from Hong Kong authorities, the law sets up a vast security apparatus in the territory and gives Beijing broad powers to crack down on a variety of political crimes, including separatism and collusion.

The absolute supremacy of the Chinese state was threatened when waves of protests expressed themselves in Hong-Kong and Taiwan. The law specially targets those involved in anti-establishment demonstrations and calls out for severe penalties or retributive measures to be imposed upon them. Under the new law, damaging government buildings would be considered an act of subversion punishable by life imprisonment in “grave” cases. Sabotaging transport would be deemed a terrorist activity punishable by life in prison.

While the aforementioned issues are the manifest problems with the law, there are issues that are latent but have the potential to cause great pandemonium in the future. Legal experts reflect that the law has been so drafted that it provides enough space for adding in more clauses as felt necessary and appropriate in the future, thus suggesting that, the law is flexible enough to cover any novel acts of defiance and resistance that the young protestors come up with and thus, there is no escaping from the dogmatic act. The four major offenses in the law — separatism, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign countries — are ambiguously worded and give the authorities extensive power to target activists who criticize the party, activists say.

2.2.Faltering Loyalties: Communist Dilemma and the Tolerance Paradox

Shockingly enough, the Communists throughout the world who outrage against the lack of tolerance of the government machinery with respect to the liberty of individuals while trying to feed a sense of victimhood to those who are historically disenfranchised, completely fade out of the picture when it comes to the Chinese state’s harassment of its citizens. It should come as no surprise that the communists, in reality, place their loyalty to their Communist masters seated in China over securing justice for human beings.

Be it in the Western or the Indian scenario, the left-leaning intelligentsia keeps preaching tales of tolerance and brotherhood with the immigrants as well as the minorities, be it the Rohingyas trying to illegally cross India’s Eastern borders or the Mexicans infiltrating the southern border of the US. They have successfully generated a narrative that nations that embrace capitalist ideas or walk on traditionalist paths, are inherently oppressive towards the minorities, as they did during the anti-CAA protests, successfully painting a satanic picture of the incumbent government that apparently was trying to get rid of the minorities through the act, whereas, the truth is far away from that. Similarly, radical communists, also called the Antifa, wreaked havoc in the US under the garb of the recent George Floyd protests in which they set at least six police precincts of hundreds of police cars on fire, killed at least four law enforcement officers and injured hundreds of others and brought the entire country to a standstill. If that weren’t enough, they portrayed the very existence of the US as oppressive and the entirety of the white majority as racial supremacists.

Their true colours however, are revealed by the virtue of the fact that revolutionary groups like the Antifa don’t exist in China, nor do they speak against the dogmatic suppression of the Hong Kong protests. The truly despotic nature of police brutality is expressed in China where the police is given a free-hand by the state to supress revolution in any way or form they deem correct and the number of innocent protestors killed by the police in China is probably up in hundreds, still, no self-proclaimed communist radical group seems to condemn the existence of such a police state.

On similar lines, while they preach social justice for the minorities in other countries, they don’t seem to bother themselves with the treatment of the Uighurs by the Chinese government. The fact that modern-day concentration camps exist in China where they claim to be conducting ‘re-education’ drives for the Uighur Muslims, is shameful in itself and deserves condemnation.

It won’t be wrong to say that such peculiarity in the approach of the communists is a result of the tolerance paradox. In Classical Liberalism, tolerance paradox refers to the differences in the level of social tolerance that is seen in different cultures. Old-age liberals like Locke were of the opinion that some cultures are inherently progressive whereas some aren’t and by importing such outdated culture in a progressive society, one negates the development that has taken place over the years. Thus, the communists seem to abide by this rule when it comes to China. China believes that be it the Hong Kong protests or the Uighur Muslims’ culture, they present a sort of challenge to the otherwise progressive portrayal of the Chinese society, internationally. Thus, they deny to accommodate such anomalies in the scenario. The problem arises by the fact that the communists change their stance when it comes to the West or even in the Indian context where they believe that all cultures are inherently equal and that the state owes a right to preserve the being and the culture of migrants and the minorities even when they deny to assimilate into the society or wreak havoc upon the community.

1. Conclusion

There is no going around or unseeing the fact that China remains the worst modern-day violator of human rights and that it has absolutely disregarded the nature of liberty for its citizens. It won’t be wrong to reflect that Communist China is a modern embodiment of fascist Germany and the greatest irony of the communist lackeys of China is that while they go around virtue signalling and claiming that countries like the US and India are fascist, China goes about with its real plan of eradicating its political and social rivals and creating China into a Nazi Germany-esque ethno-nationalist society.

The author Monalisa Nanda a student at RGNUL