The odyssey of Ruan Ming, former assistant to the communist party's former secretary-general Hu Yaobang, began in Shanghai when, disgruntled with KMT corruption, he joined the communists. Over the years he rose in the party -- but always while calling for democratic reforms, a fact that ultimately landed him expelled from the party and then later living in the US. Now a visiting professor at Tamkang University, Ruan completes his journey this week when he becomes an ROC citizen.
The tale of defector Justin Lin is more murky -- what prompted him to swim from Kinmen to the Chinese coast in 1979, leaving his post in the ROC army behind, will be a subject of debate for some time.
Ruan Ming (
Born an ROC citizen in 1931, the now-visiting professor at Taiwan's Tamkang University became a member of the communist party and then a citizen of the People's Republic of China in 1949.
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
The 71-year-old academic from Shanghai was Hu's special assistant between 1977 and 1982.
As one of the most prominent intellectuals in China at the time, Ruan was also one of the people that helped draft documents announced by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (
Though he served the communist party for years, Ruan, however, has been an advocate of democracy throughout his life.
Ruan says that the identification card that he will receive from the government this week is "the realization of my dream to become a citizen of a democratic country," something he says he's longed for since his youth.
Attracted to its promises of a better life, Ruan joined the communist party in 1946 when he was just 15, in an act of defiance against the corrupt KMT government.
Although history has proved CCP rule to be an autocracy rather than a democracy, during an interview with the Taipei Times, the democracy fighter said: "I have never changed, it's the CCP that changed."
Ruan's support of democracy blacklisted him during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s and he was sent to rural areas so that he could be "reformed through labor."
Though he later worked his way back up in the party to serve as Hu's adviser, he fell from grace again and his party membership was revoked in 1983.
Disillusioned by the party, when he was given a chance to go to the US in 1988, he grabbed it. There he served as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan and Harvard, Princeton and Columbia Universities, never going back to China.
When the Tiananmen Square massacre occurred in 1989, Ruan was one of Beijing's harshest critics, condemning the party's decision to fire on the students. The party responded by black-listing him and barring him from re-entering the country.
Later, in 1997, former Mainland Affairs Council chairman Su Chi (蘇起) invited Ruan to come to Taiwan to serve as a visiting professor in Taiwan's Tamkang University, where he has been ever since.
It was that invitation that became the turning-point for Ruan's quest to become a citizen of a democratic country. After staying in Taiwan long enough, Ruan qualified to apply for citizenship last month.
During his stay in Taiwan, Ruan has published much commentary on the Chinese government, including in the Taipei Times.
When President Chen Shui-bian (
Asked how he feels about resuming ROC nationality again, he said, "I don't have too much feeling about that, honestly, though I have always dreamed of becoming a citizen of a democratic country."
"Throughout my life, I have never seriously pursued anything, except democracy," Ruan said.
He joked that "the next time I want to return to China, I'll have to apply for the traveling identification documents that Chinese officials issue for Taiwanese citizens."
Arthur Waldron, professor of International Relations at University of Pennsylvania as well as the Director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said Ruan is "an enormously impressive to me an example of a fine human being."
He told the Taipei Times that Ruan is impressive not simply because he is perhaps the best commentator on Chinese affairs, but he is a living treasure because of his life experience.
"He was brought up on the `communist mother's milk' yet always believing in freedom and democracy ? he could have become discouraged and despondent, bitter or slightly crazy like so many [heroic] dissenters, but instead he has remained upbeat, positive, full of life -- writing and publishing, appearing on TV -- with his wonderful humor rendering his arrows of insight all the more potent," Waldron said.
While many Taiwanese are pessimistic about Taiwan's future, Ruan is upbeat.
"The democracy in Taiwan is incredible. Think about it, Taiwan spends only decades to operate a democratic system, and paid little, a bloodless price. It is an uneasy thing," Ruan said. "The process of democratization in Taiwan has been so peaceful ?."
Ruan considers Taiwan to be a free and equal society. "The best thing about Taiwan is its people's creativity," he said.
As for the nation's political power struggles, he said, "I know that many Taiwanese citizens are not satisfied with Taiwan's democracy. From my point of view, Taiwan's political power struggle is nothing. As long as you turn on the TV, the struggle can be seen. That's transparent, and that is the most important thing that matters -- no back room deals."
Andy Chang (
He said that Ruan's insights can fill up the blind points that Taiwanese can't see while studying China.
Asked whether he would write a book to record his experiences, Ruan said: "I am not interested in what happened in the past, I feel more interested in the things happening right now, and I have to observe these things first."
Ruan said that he is fascinated by current affairs and cross-strait relations.
"They change everyday and it is so fun to follow those things," he said.
Although about to get a new nationality, Ruan said he has never felt very stable.
"History likes making jokes with me. I've gotten used to it. If I have a job here [in Taiwan] then I will stay. If I don't, I'll have to find another job somewhere else.
"But I'm an old man already. I'm not sure whether anyone is going to hire me," he said, perhaps only half-jokingly.
Ruan said that Taiwan is a country that should be cherished. "Taiwan proves that Chinese people can own freedom and democracy," he said.
Ruan has arranged a trip back to the US at the end of this month. He plans to come back to Taiwan at September, when Tamkang begins a new semester.
"I want to vote in the December mayoral election," he said, "as a city-citizen."
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