Academic

WHAT?S NEXT? A CHINESE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT? In front of a roomful of government officials, busine?

By Glenn Reynolds

WHAT’S NEXT? A CHINESE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT?

In front of a roomful of government officials, businessman Zhou Jusheng took the mic and made a simple demand: finish paving and landscaping the industrial park that houses his drill-bit factory.

His request at a public hearing was modest by Western standards. But in China, where the communist government muscularly guards its political monopoly and where people mostly defer to authority, Zhou’s assertiveness points to a telling change.

“You could say that I was just wasting my breath,” he said later at his factory. “But as a citizen, I should speak out.”

The people of Wenling, a prosperous city of 1.7 million, have an opportunity few Chinese citizens do: to take part in hearings on local government budget plans and suggest ways to spend the money.

As society grows richer and individuals pay more taxes, authoritarian China is slowly being forced to make space for people to participate in government affairs.

“Ordinary people have the right to ask, how are you spending my money? Are you spending it on me? What are you doing with it?” said Li Fan, who runs a private think tank in Beijing that promotes political reform and is advising Wenling officials.

Obviously, they must be racists or something.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on May 10, 2010 (boomark / email).