Another example that shows how much Chinese democracy is mature, consensual, collective and bottom-up. Western democracy NOT!

This Venn diagram perfectly demonstrates that Western governance is a uni-party in each country, which represents the trillionaire dictators.

I have written The China Trilogy (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/06/30/praise-for-the-china-trilogy-the-votes-are-in-it-r-o-c-k-s-what-are-you-waiting-for/) and thousands of pages of articles and transcripts, to explain how Chinese democracy runs circles around the Western variant (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/search/?q=democracy).

Thanks to Slow Chinese for the article below (https://newsletter.slowchinese.net/p/you-hurt-my-feelings-167). It AGAIN gives another shining example of how China’s democracy is the will of its 1.5 billion citizens. They can thumb-down a proposed law and it will not be passed. When was the last time your government posted proposed laws and regulations for public suggestions and criticisms? And then amend the laws to please the vast majority of the people? Not mine and I vote in two countries: the US and France!

This article reminds me of my recent month in China. I was walking down a busy sidewalk in Changsha and a very good-looking, young Chinese woman was walking toward me, sporting a T-shirt that said in bold English letters,

FUCK YOU

YOU FUCKING

FUCK!

Safe to say, she had NO idea what it meant. I was slow in reacting and did not get the photo of the day for my Twitter channel (https://twitter.com/44_Days), but made up for it along the way.

Would her T-shirt be an issue, with this new law being proposed below? What if it was in Chinese? I can answer the second question for you: she would never be caught dead with it.

The article

A draft amendment to China’s Public Security Administration Punishments Law (治安管理处罚法 zhì’ān guǎnlǐ chǔfá fǎ) was published on the Chinese People’s Congress website on 5 September.

The draft is published for public consultation (征求意见 zhēngqiú yìjiàn) before China’s lawmakers finalize changes to the law. 

One proposal in the draft has sparked debate in China:

In this revision, the second and third paragraphs of Article 34 indicate newly added behaviours that should be punished, including “wearing in public places clothes and accessories that are detrimental to the spirit of the Chinese nation, and hurt the feelings of the Chinese nation”; and “producing, disseminating and publicizing things or remarks that are harmful to the feelings of the Chinese people”. 

在该修订中，第三十四条的第二款和第三款意见显示了新增应处罚的事项，包括“在公共场所穿着、佩戴有损中华民族精神、伤害中华民族感情的服饰、标志的；制作、传播、宣扬、散布有损中华民族感情、伤害中华民族感情的物品或者言论的。”

Punishments under the draft changes include detention of up to 15 days and fines up to 5000 yuan. 

But what counts as “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people”?

It’s vague and subjective, as one commentator notes:

The meanings of “harming the spirit of the Chinese nation” and “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people” are ambiguous. If implemented, it may be a typical “pocket crime” which is likely to be abused. 

“有损中华民族精神”、“伤害中华民族感情”含义模棱两可。如果实行的话，则可能是典型的“口袋罪”。有可能同饱受争议的寻衅滋事罪和曾经的流氓罪一样，极大可能被滥用。[1]

And it’s reminiscent of another over-used and abused legal instrument, which we have learned about in this newsletter: 寻衅滋事 xún xìn zī shì – “provocation and troublemaking”.

So, where will these proposed changes to the law stop when it comes to hurting the feelings of the Chinese people…?

What exactly do you mean by “clothing and accessories that hurt the feelings of the Chinese nation”?

Does wearing a suit harm the spirit of the Chinese nation?

Or is the performance of the Chinese men’s football team over the past decade considered “damaging the spirit of the Chinese nation”? Does it not call for subjective judgement to determine the crime and dish out punishment? 

“伤害中华民族感情的服饰、标志”到底指的是什么？

穿西装是否有损中华民族精神？

又譬如中国男足这十几年来的表现，又算不算“损害中华民族精神”？

认定并处罚那算不算带有主观意识？[2]

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