Independent Legislator Li Ao's (李敖) visit to China has caused a furor. This is not very strange in China, because Li is a strange animal in that environment, and was certain to stir things up. In Taiwan, however, it is odd that someone would spend the time to give a political analysis of his trip.
Li's trip highlighted two things: the restrictions on freedom of speech in China, and confusion regarding Li's own image.
Some people say that Li's speech in Beijing encouraged liberalism, challenged the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and was worth applauding. The fact is that Li's criticisms of the CCP could have been heard weekly in the 1980s when I studied at Peking University and there were many people who were more penetrating and fierce in their criticism. Does the fact that Li is allowed to give a speech at Peking University mean that the CCP is opening up? No. Rather, it means the exact opposite.
The same day Li gave his speech, Chinese dissident Zheng Yichun (鄭貽春) was given a seven-year prison sentence for having stated his opinions on a Web site. The day after Li's speech, China promulgated rules restricting free speech on the Internet that surprised the whole world.
The reason Li was allowed to speak was that the CCP wanted him to oppose Taiwan independence, and because he is from Taiwan. In today's China, outsiders are allowed to voice criticism, but if Chinese do so, they go to prison for seven years. Can this kind of free-speech environment really be called free? The fact that Li was allowed to speak in fact highlights the CCP's hypocrisy and lies.
If Li really wanted to challenge the CCP, he wouldn't have gone on to flatter it so shamelessly at Tsinghua and Fudan universities. A comprehensive look at all three lectures reveals many contradictions.
Why? Because he wants to protect his image while at the same time sucking up to the CCP, which makes it difficult to avoid contradictions.
But he seems to have succeeded on both counts, and his visit to China must be considered a successful commercial endeavor.
Another important reason why he managed to stir things up was his extreme arrogance. Arrogance is normally the preserve of youth, and there are but two possible explanations as to why one would continue to be arrogant at age 70.
One explanation is that his arrogance is feigned and aimed at putting on a show and promoting himself. It's a strange way of winning people's affection because he is afraid of being forgotten.
The other explanation is that his intellectual level has deteriorated and he has nothing to say, and he is using his arrogance to hide that fact. I won't comment on which explanation applies to Li, but a visit to some Web sites of Chinese intellectuals shows that they disagree with his lectures.
Li's actions in his old age cannot hold a candle to the brilliance he showed during the era of Wenhsing Magazine, an influential magazine among young people in the early 1960s. The lack of contact between Taiwan and China meant that Chinese intellectuals had high expectations of Li.
I think that Li's three lectures have given Chinese intellectuals the opportunity to see that he is not the person he used to be.
That means at least something positive came from Li's visit to China.
Wang Dan is a member of the Chinese democracy movement, a visiting scholar at Harvard University and a member of the Taipei Society.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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