jshen@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Jun Shen) (01/29/91)
As requested, the following is the transcript of Fang Lizhi's Speech
on 1/23/91.
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San Francisco Lecture for the Commonwealth Club
by Professor Fang Lizhi
I am extremely happy to have the opportunity to speak to our
friend of the Commonwealth Club on a topic of common interest to
us all -- today's China.
As I understand it, the impression of many Western countries
is that China is a completely unique and different world, but also
a world that is difficult to understand, and one that we need not
pay full attention to. But because of the Tiananmen massacre of
1989, many friends have begun to pay attention to the problems of
China. Today, in comparison to the war in the gulf, China on the
surface appears to be peaceful. It's no longer a hot topic for the
news, and the memory of the events of Tiananmen have already begun
to slowly fade. Because of this, in the eyes and hearts of some
western friends, China has once again nearly become a unique and
distant world that is difficult to understand but that can be
neglected. Today, one of the points that I would like to emphasize
is that China is not a distant and unique world, and is most
definitely not a separate world that can be neglected.
In fact, what we know quite well today is that the planet we
live on is very, very small. And in this very small world of ours
distance is no longer an important factor. Different places can
no Longer be totally separate from each other; on the contrary,
they always show a strong, mutual interdependence. So we cannot
ignore any factor, no matter how small, let alone a country like
China. According to the July 1990 Census, China's population has
reported to be 1,133,682,501. And of the total percentage of carbon
dioxide released by the world's industry, China accounts for 8%.
Perhaps we can use meteorology to illustrate: Whether the
weather of a particular place is good or bad is not determined by
the conditions of that place alone, but by its relationship to the
entire atmosphere. Since the atmosphere circulates around the
entire world, the meteorological factors of just about every place
in the world is inter-connected. Sometimes, what seems to be an
insignificant factor in one place has a far-reaching effect upon
a distant region. Some scholars refer to this phenomenon as the
"butterfly attractor". That is to say, for example, if a butterfly
in Beijing flaps its wings and causes a slight air current, this
disturbance may be the cause of a thunderstorm somewhere else.
Like the atmosphere, today's human race has formed an
inseparable social atmosphere. The exchange of news, knowledge and
culture are the currents in this social atmosphere. Like the
butterfly attractor phenomenon, the social atmosphere has a similar
phenomenon. Perhaps my own experience provides an example. In
1989, when my wife Li Shuxian and I were taking refuge in the
American embassy in Beijing, the Chinese authorities pointed to our
actions as having instigated the "turmoil' of Tiananmen. At the
time I thought that if what the authorities said was true, then the
butterfly that caused this turmoil came from California, the state
that you are living in right now. In 1929 and 1930 Professor
Hubble of the Wilson Observatory in southern California flapped his
wings several times and discovered the "red shift" of the galaxies.
This seemingly insignificant scientific perturbation eventually led
to the formulation of the big bang theory. Later on this theory
was introduced to China. From the beginning, it met with political
repudiation, the reason being that it didn't fit the mold of
Marxist ideology. And so, scientific perturbation gave rise to
political perturbation. From the start of the 70s I began to
research and lecture on Cosmology. This then caused a rift between
me and the leaders' orthodox ideology. Many of my students
deviated from this orthodoxy; this then, was my first counter-revolutionary
instigation towards the students. And as we reached
the end of the 80s, the number of students who agreed with this so-called
counter-revolutionary instigation continued to grow, and
the number of people who were dissatisfied with the leadership grew
as well. A small perturbation rapidly amplified, becoming a big
one, and finally resulted in demonstrations. So in this way. a
California butterfly from the year 1930 transformed itself into
the events of 1989.
Regardless of the details of this story, it's already enough
to prove that with the circulation of contemporary information,
knowledge and culture it's no longer possible to keep China's
affairs separate from those of the rest of the world. Today's
China is developing under the influence of butterflies from all
over the world. At the same time, changes in China can also
influence the whole world. Indeed, if we observe the history of
china's last one hundred years, we discover that although China
has many unique characteristics, its big changes closely parallel
world trends. For example, at the beginning of this century, when
communism was on the rise world-wide, it also gained rapidly in
China. And at mid-century, when many countries were one after the
other becoming "Proletarian" dictatorships, China became one, too.
Today, with the communist system is in decline, Communism in China
is losing its reputation as well, so we can say with great
certainty that as the trend of communism ebbs further, it will also
come to an end in China. Perhaps the final withering away of the
system of proletarian dictatorship advanced by Lenin, Stalin, Mao
and Deng Xiaoping in the 20th century will ultimately be symbolized
by its disappearance in China.
The reason for the gradual abandonment of the system of
proletarian dictatorship is not only because of its economic
-failures, but also because it is a system that tramples upon the
most basic dignities, rights and freedoms of its own peoples. This
is also why-this movements that rise to oppose it are the very ones
that fight for democracy and human rights. It's the same in
Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and in China.
For a long time, China's human rights situation received scant
attention from the outside world, particularly because the Chinese
government completely blocked all outside communication. In fact,
a great number of people believed that China had no record of human
rights violations. But obviously, no record at all is the worst
record of all. The Tiananmen massacre of 1989 shocked many people
-- It was the first time that they were able to see the extent of
the leadership's cruelty and violence. In fact, the Tiananmen
incident is just the tip of the iceberg. I cannot describe the
whole iceberg here, but I do want to state one fact: According to
still incomplete statistics, China's labor camps, the gulags of
China, total at least 978. It is difficult to determine the exact
number of prisoners in each labor camp, especially political
*prisoners. But at the very least we know that in the provinces of
Xinjiang, Qinghai and others there are as many as 50,000 to 80,000
prisoners in one camp.
Because the true human rights situation in China has been
hidden for such a long time and because of the great differences
between china and the West in geography, race, language and other
areas and the long-term separation of East and West, it's quite
easy to view China's society, culture and politics as totally
different from those of the world's other civilizations. There is
even a kind of so-called theory that says the Chinese don't need
universally recognized human rights, and that universal principles
of human rights don't fit China's experience. This "unique theory"
has been widespread in China and in the West for a long time. it
is precisely the basis for a double standard policy that many
western political experts adopt when viewing Chinese affairs.
Because of this attitude, all kinds of behavior by China's leaders
that violate human rights are ignored, tolerated or even encouraged
in a disguised fashion. An "oft-heard' conclusion is that China
has a unique culture and history, and so when dealing with Chinese
affairs, one should use a Chinese standard to measure and
understand them. In this way the violence and persecution of human
rights violations become "understandable." and rulers who slaughter
the innocent become 'acceptable'.
One of the contributions of the 1989 Tiananmen movement is
that it proves that these "unique principles" and "double
standards" are simply theoretical fabrications. Chinese students,
intellectuals and others who are subject to such rule do not accept
these principles. The progress and freedom they chase after are
the same as those pursued by peoples of all colors in the world.
The Chinese do not have a value system any different from the rest
of the world. So please allow me to say once again that the global
village is but one unit, and that there can be only one standard
for human rights.
In politics, double or multiple standards are short-sighted.
more and more the global village faces common problems: population,
energy, the environment, global warming and deforestation, to name
but a few. But when a government still exists in the world that
can be proud of the Tiananmen massacre, when a dictatorship still
stands that refuses to apply universally recognized principles to
control its own behavior, it becomes hard to imagine that there can
exist the understanding and cooperation necessary to solving the
world's problems. There are examples throughout history that show
that indulging a government that is proud of murder will only bring
global dilemma. The problem of human rights is also a global
problem, an extremely important problem. Without the gradual
improvement of the world's human rights environment, solutions to
the problems of the global village cannot be guaranteed. Within
the context of this meaning, China's human right's problems are the
world's problems. The Tiananmen massacre caused not only China
to suffer; it has also polluted the world's environment.
China's human rights environment is far away from realizing
essential improvement. Violations of and intrusions upon human
rights continue to occur. Some of my friends and colleagues who
still live on the mainland are punished in many different ways, and
only because they hold political opinions different from those of
the government. They cannot carry on with their academic research.
Some of them are Prohibited from attending academic conferences
abroad. Some of them have been eliminated from admission to
graduate study.
But even more serious is that the Chinese leadership is now
using the distraction of the crisis in the gulf to intensify
oppression against those who are fighting for democracy. Recently,
the Beijing government sentenced several students to jail terms for
having participated in Peaceful demonstrations in Tiananmen in
1989. There will be more students and others facing similar
persecution. This is the Chinese leadership's new blasphemy
against universal human rights principles.
Therefore, please allow me to use today's opportunity to
appeal to all of you, to appeal to all who care about the dignity
of the human race, to continue your deep concern for the human
rights situation in China. Everyone who is concerned about human
rights, please use your own moral strength in your own way to stop
the Chinese government from trampling on human rights. My own past
experience tells me how much those people who are today caught in
this dilemma need a helping hand. Only your helping hand will
bring them hope. Being scientists, our first wish is to immerse
ourselves in creative research in our own fields. But today's
world does not allow us to have such complete calm, because we
cannot be blind to all the crimes that are happening around us.
We cannot keep silent. Our forerunner, Albert Einstein, has said,
"To keep silent before a crime is no different from being an
accessory to that crime." Even today many Chinese still remember
that in the 1930s, when the government persecuted many Chinese
scholars, Einstein was one of the first to telegraph his concern
and protest.
It is this kind of concern and protest that preserves justice
in the world,, that promotes the world's progress. All evil fears
justice and morality. Therefore, I am strongly confident that if
we continue to uphold human rights and justice, the power that
opposes human rights in mainland China today will follow those
powers that have already died, and will finally be defeated.