TORONTO STAR Column: Plans for constructing a nuclear processing plant in China’s Guangdong province have been shelved after demonstrations earlier this month. The people spoke and the authorities caved in. The demonstrators engaged in nothing more than what the organizers called “an innocent stroll.” Yet they defeated a project that would have provided enough fuel for 50 per cent of China’s atomic energy needs.
Along with the growing power of village democracy in quite a few parts of China, is something happening? Unless one is a high-profile dissident you can complain all you want on the Internet about most of the deficiencies of the time, except the party leadership itself. Many newspapers are staffed in part by liberal journalists who are constantly looking for opportunities to report honestly.
This suggests that what the then Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, said in London in 2011 has the making of truth: “Tomorrow’s China will be a country that fully achieves democracy, the rule of law, fairness and justice. Without freedom there is no real democracy.”… (more)
