Beijing officials and their allies in Hong Kong tend not to know much history of the Chinese Communist Party. Here is one history lesson thanks to Frank Ching, a columnist in HK and veteran China correspondent.



South China Morning Post

Communist Party was a true champion of democratic rights - until it came to power

Tuesday, 21 October, 2014, 7:15pm

Comment›Insight & Opinion

OCCUPY CENTRAL

Frank Ching

Frank Ching looks at how the Communist Party championed everyone's right to vote - and to be elected - until, that is, it came to power

Proverbs reflect the wisdom of a people, as passed down from generation to generation. Sometimes they can be traced to an individual who is not as well known as the words he or she coined. Few may remember it was the French writer and critic, Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, who noted in January 1849, " plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose". But most of us know the phrase, "the more things change, the more they remain the same".



This distillation of wisdom popped into my mind recently. In Hong Kong, we have been contending for most of this year with the concept of universal suffrage, when it is fake and when it is genuine. The pan-democrats, citing international norms, tell us that if there is no genuine choice of candidates, then one-person, one-vote is only fake universal suffrage.



This concept, it turns out, is by no means original to 21st-century Hong Kong. In fact, the issue of what constitutes "genuine universal suffrage" was discussed in 1944 - 70 years ago - by the Communist Party. On February 2, 1944, the party newspaper, Xinhua Ribao, carried on its front page an editorial under the headline, "On the Right to Vote".



"In a genuine universal suffrage system, not only must the right to vote be 'universal' and 'equal', but the right to be elected must also be 'universal' and 'equal'," the editorial declared in its first paragraph.



"Not only must people enjoy the equal right to vote, they must also all enjoy the equal right to be elected ... Broadly speaking, the right to vote already includes the right to be elected." In other words, one implies the other. "If the right to be elected is restricted, the right to vote is also being restricted."



The editorial ended, saying that, if there is a precondition as to who can be elected, or if the authorities put forward specific candidates, then even though the right to vote has not been limited, voters have been turned into tools of the election.



To put it in today's Hong Kong terminology, if potential candidates for chief executive are barred for political reasons, such as for not loving China or Hong Kong enough, then the electorate at large is deprived of the choice of voting for such candidates.



The editorial discussed the issue entirely in theoretical terms. It did not speak of attempts to bar any particular candidates. It did not appeal to international norms. It merely appealed to reason. And the logic of the party's argument is as strong today as it was in 1944.



It is just that the party's position has shifted. In 1944, it was in the political wilderness, with most of the country under the control of the Nationalist government of president Chiang Kai-shek. Through this editorial and many other articles, the party sought to depict itself as the champion of democratic rights, unlike Chiang.



Of course, after the party gained power in 1949, promises of democracy were forgotten. Democracy advocates, and intellectuals generally, were persecuted in one political campaign after another.



This brings to mind another saying, "Where you stand depends on where you sit." Or, to use a more earthy Chinese expression, "the head follows the buttocks."



Frank Ching is a Hong Kong-based writer and commentator. frank.ching@gmail.com [1]. Follow him on Twitter: @FrankChing1 [2]

