China’s Emperors believed in morality and cared for what others thought

It is not often you see a Chinese praising the Chinese Emperors. But in today’s edition of The Age Pu Zhiqiang, a civil rights lawyer living in China and executive partner of Beijing Huayi Law Firm, compared today’s China with the thousands of years Emperors ruled the country. In comparison with the Communist oligarchy the Emperors win not only on moral grounds:

"China's emperors won their power through war and slaughter but they also believed in morality. They cared for what others thought and what their descendants or future generations would think. But in today's China, liars are accepted, judges can be bribed, evil-doers are encouraged and officials can serve the devil.

"When the Chinese Communist Party took power, it destroyed all family tradition, the middle class, and nobles. Today's middle classes are the nouveau riche - until they are targeted by bigger nouveau riche and left with nothing. There is no religion in China, the Communist Party is afraid of nothing, but it will ruin itself one day.

"Everything in China is for 'interests' and nothing is for 'isms'. As the intellectual Qin Hui says, the powerful elites use ultra-leftist methods to appropriate assets, often under the name of the environment, or justice, and once they've got them, they share among themselves in an ultra-rightist way.

"China's development is actually the bald-faced robbery of land and property by crony capitalists. Crazy development has resulted in putting poison into milk. We who are fighting for the rights of people do not expose these things for the sake of exposing the dirty side of the Communist Party. It is dirty enough already. Better to pull its necktie to make it walk forward."

The Mad Monarchist on a possible heir to the Chinese Throne:
"It is debated as to who would be the heir of the last Emperor today. In his book, Pu-Yi wrote that he designated his cousin, Prince Yu-Yan as his successor. He died in 1997 and if his line is accepted the heir to the Dragon Throne today would be his son Prince Hengzheng, aka Yuan Yuan."

Wikipedia also list a claimant of the Ming Dynasty:
"Zhu Rongji is also a potential pretender to the chinese throne, being a descendant of the Ming Dynasty Emperor Hongwu through his son Prince Zhu Bian, Zhu Rongji was born in 1928, and he also has a cousin, Zhu Yunzhong, born in 1933.

1st October 1949, a sad day for China

I was about to send the Chinese Communist embassy a letter of condolences, to regret the fact that 60 years ago a "people's republic" was proclaimed. A lamentable event indeed. But the real damage was done, when a republic was proclaimed on 1st January 1912. This “Republic of China”, which will celebrate its revolution on 10th October ("Double Tenth" of 1911) still exists, although its territory is nowadays restricted to the Island of Taiwan and some offshore islets.

For a Monarchist who has no love lost for this form of state, they are both undesirable. However, there are significant differences between the Republic of China and the people’s republic of China. While the once all-mighty Kuomintang on Taiwan gave up its iron grip on the population and paved the way to a multiparty democracy (it lost power in 2000 to an opposition party) Mainland China is still a one-party-dicatorship under an oligarchic Communist Party.

A Chinese Monarchist
When the Chinese Emperor was forced to abdicate far from every Chinese cheered the new republic. The great Chinese scholar Liang Qichao yearned for the return of the Emperor system after the abdication of Pu-Yi in 1912. Both this, and his urging for media freedom in China, "made him an unpopular figure both with Dr. Sat Yun Sen and the emerging Communist Party". Chris Devonshire-Ellis writes in his blog: "However, notable scholars of the day much admired him, including Lin Yutang, who called Liang 'the greatest personality in the history of Chinese journalism,' and Joseph Levenson who described him as 'a brilliant scholar, journalist, and political figure.'”

China's Imperial Flag was lowered in 1912

What about a Chinese Monarchy?
Daniel Bell, US professor of political theory at Tsinghua University in Beijing, gave an interesting look into his students’ thinking:

"One of my graduate students told me that she was dismayed by the uncritical coverage of the inauguration [of US president Obama], the kind of love-fest for a political leader that could only make the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party envious. We discussed, only half-jokingly, the possibility that China should adopt some form of constitutional monarchy, so that the public could project its emotions on a symbolic leader while evaluating the de facto political leader’s performance more rationally."

Who would be Emperor?
The Mad Monarchist from Texas found the right words describing the tragic end of Emperor Pu-Yi, who reigned as the Emperor Hsuan-tung and later as Emperor Kang The:

"Despite the best efforts of the communists the idea of the last Emperor as a villain never really took hold. Most today probably view him as a tragic figure but I take a more nostalgic view. It often seems that the world as a whole missed the significance of the fall of the Chinese Empire; an imperial system which lasted from the time of the ancient Greeks until the 20th Century. His life marked the end of an era and the start of a long period of suffering and terror for China. It also marked the end of China as a society based on the moral principles of Confucius.

"It is debated as to who would be the heir of the last Emperor today. In his book, Pu-Yi wrote that he designated his cousin, Prince Yu-Yan as his successor. He died in 1997 and if his line is accepted the heir to the Dragon Throne today would be his son Prince Hengzheng, aka Yuan Yuan."

Chinese Monarchists are starting to get organised. Here's a new website of the Imperial Qing Restoration Organization.

And the Mad Monarchist had his own thoughts on 1st October 60 Years of Red Chinese Tyranny.

And the winner is ...
Princess Anne!

Did you hear the sigh of relief? It came from the republican corner. And it heaved, when the Princess Royal left Australia. The republicans have the scene to themselves again. Princess Anne’s stay in Australia was a success. Or, as The HeraldSun wrote: Princess Anne proves a winner!

The Princess Royal spent a scorching summer day touring the small community of Wandong, north of Melbourne, where one in ten homes were lost to the Black Saturday bush fires.

After visiting the local Country Fire Authority station, the Wandong Primary School and the community relief centre Princess Anne’s spokeswoman Ailsa Anderson announced the personal donation would be made upon her return to Britain.

The success of this royal visit explains why there are not as many stays of our Royal Family as could be wished. While republicans claim: “They aren’t interested in Australia”, the Victorian bushfires and the response of The Queen of Australia, Prince Charles and Princess Anne as well as other royals prove the opposite.

Therefore it should be recalled that they do not come uninvited. If we want to see them more often on our shores, politicians must send out invitations. As we all know, politicians like to be treated like stars, quite rightly they consider the royals a crowd puller, taking away the attraction from politicians.

Canadian Constitutional Monarchy
The Constitutional Monarchy in Canada is facing a similar problem. On 22nd February 2009 The Globe & Mail wrote:

"The Harper government has rebuffed efforts to have the Prince of Wales visit Canada. The same, of course, applies to the Queen.

"The Canadian government in fact has shown much less enthusiasm for visits by Canada's current head of state and her heir apparent than has the republic to the south. The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, the Mayor of Quebec City, and the province of Nova Scotia have all asked Ottawa to invite the Queen in recent years, and all were turned down by Canadian Heritage.

"The Globe on Saturday reported that The Prince of Wales, and various organizations he is associated with, have also been seeking permission to undertake a visit, and once again the requests have been shelved. The situation is such that the Liberal era of Jean Chrétien is now remembered by loyalists as a golden age for the Canadian Crown."

Of course the problem is the same here as well as on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Politicians think they must appear in every evening news with a feel good story. Instead they fail to guess that it is more their successful governing that will convince people to vote for them, but not their constantly children kissing or hugging.

Chinese Constitutional Monarchy?
It is interesting that Daniel A. Bell, professor of political theory at Tsinghua University in Beijing, published in The New York Times of 20th February 2009 a summary of a discussion with his students on President Obama. It turned out they had a better sense how a nation should be governed than most Australian politicians:

"We discussed, only half-jokingly, the possibility that China should adopt some form of constitutional monarchy, so that the public could project its emotions on a symbolic leader while evaluating the de facto political leader’s performance more rationally."

But the Australian politicians never learn from their mistakes, nevertheless an invitation to The Prince of Wales should be sent out as soon as possible.

Taking the Canadian example, I'd like to know, how often did The Queen or Prince Charles ask to come to Australia and an invitation was not forthcoming?

Chinese Communist TV gave Greek King and Queen the preference

The politicians in Greece who try to wipe out and re-write the country’s history of the past 100 years must have received a shock, when they watched the opening ceremony of the Olympic circus last week. The Chinese television showed the entry of the world teams, with the Greek athletes traditionally the first to enter the stadium. The Greeks received a roaring applause from the audience – and from King Constantine and Queen Anne-Marie of the Hellenes, who were present in the stadium, cheering towards the Greek athletes. King Constantine II who won a gold medal for Greece in 1960, was visibly very proud to see his countrymen entering the arena.

The Greek royal couple were treated in the same way the Chinese showed pictures of head of states, royalty or prime ministers for other participating countries. Not a single moment was spared for any Greek politician – should they have been in the stadium. Who would recognize them anyway? Can you name the person who today calls himself president of Greece?

Strangely enough the tightly controlled Chinese television gave King Constantine and Queen Anne-Marie the honours some European countries deny them.

Did you miss the stadium scene? Send me an e-mail and I can help you out.

The Crown protects our civic rights

Three republican opinion pieces in a row, that’s a new record even for Melbourne's daily newspaper The Age. But it demonstrates beyond doubt, how much energy can be set free by thinking about Queen’s Birthday. And a lot of thinking they must do, considering that the latest pro-republican author Christopher Scanlon conceded "the debate about whether Australia should become a republic has had about as much substance as an issue of New Weekly". And to no Monarchist’s surprise he found out: "Even supporters of the republic are hard pressed to explain the meaning of republicanism".

His remedy for the ailing republican movement in Australia is to turn towards "the much longer and richer tradition of republican ideas". Should you now expect any suggestion on how a republican system could improve the life of the ordinary Australian, then Christopher Scanlon leaves you clueless. "In the ideal republic, the greatest freedom is experienced not by Robinson Crusoe, but by a person living in a society where the exercise of power is checked by laws, and where everyone has equal ability to exercise these laws. For republicans, the goal is not only to ensure that arbitrary interference does not happen, but that the very capacity for arbitrary interference is removed."

You may wonder, what he really wants that isn’t already in force in Australia. What is he complaining about? "In recent years, though, the threat of arbitrary interference has grown. Proposed changes to telecommunications laws have sought to give police powers to intercept telephone calls without independent oversight. This has come on top of anti-terror laws that permit a person suspected of engaging in or aiding a terrorist attack to be held without charge for 48 hours." He is right in mentioning these appalling laws, but could he have missed, where all the ideas for the new laws came from? Hasn't he spotted the USA as the republican nation that declares war on everything and everyone? The great republic across the Pacific Ocean became independent in 1776, yet that republican superpower is responsible for the Guantanamo Bay prison system and the mockery of a judicial system that takes place there. The USA are at the top of the list of executions worldwide, barring the other republican superpower the People's (!) Republic (!) of China. But Christopher Scanion is not so much afraid of that sort of restriction of liberty rights for those unfortunate people who suffer under the republican death penalty, but of "arbitrary interference".

Surely he knows, who is demanding fingerprints from all travellers. The collected fingerprints from completely innocent people are kept indefinitely and nobody - except a few insiders - knows what happens to the data collected from millions of people. Even if you avoid going to the USA, you are subjected to US demands: The currently standardized biometrics used for the new type of passports with electronic identification systems, the facial recognition, fingerprint recognition, and iris recognition are introduced worldwide due to USA pressure. Our freedom is not restricted because we enjoy having the Queen of Australia, but because republicans - with small and capital R - cannot collect enough data from us. Does Christopher Scanion really believe, an Australian president would do anything against that?

I wonder, what Christopher thinks about the increasing pressure from the US about Digital Rights Managment ie copyright controls to prevent fair use of copyrighted works and the extension of copyright from 50 to 75 years to ... who knows how long for the benefit of powerful "big media" (of which The Age is a part). Republics where big business set the tone are threatening us all.

I am equally opposed to “arbitrary interference” of any kind, as I wrote before on this blog and I would like to co-operate with Christopher Scanlon in fighting them back and put them, where they should belong: in the dustbin of outdates laws. But despite all efforts I cannot see how in these political fields any republic in the world is doing better than Australia. The points he raises have nothing to do with republicanism, Christopher Scanlon wants civic rights. In that case there is not difference between me as a Monarchist and him as a republican. I see my civic rights better protected by a Monarch than by an elected president who owes his allegiance to parties, pressure groups, his bankers and opinion polls.

Sarkozy on the way to Bonapartism

What happens, when a monarchy in a country like, let’s say France, is abolished? Do the people enjoy their “republican freedom” and is there more liberty for the individual? The French people looked for a replacement. François Mitterrand (1981-1995) was called “Le Roi Soleil” because he behaved like King Louis XIV, Jacques Chirac (1995-2007) thought he was the sun king, but his nepotism brought him trouble and he is now being questioned by investigating magistrates about his expenditure, which – according to his mates – is unfair, “after such a long time”.
And what about the new president, Nicolas Sarkozy? He behaves not like a king, but more like an emperor: Bonapartism is back and now known as Sarkozysm. His second wife ran away in September and the couple divorced a month later. Obviously Cécilia was not happy about the criticism of her using the state’s credit cards for her private shopping tours.

Now without a wife, what does the little new emperor do? He is asking mother to accompany him. Madame Andrée was seen in China greeting the Chinese dictator Hu Jintao with a polite: “Pleased to meet you.” («Très heureuse de faire votre connaissance.») while Sarkozy introduced his son Pierre to China’s leader with a doubtful recommendation: “We will send him to you. He needs discipline.” («On va vous l’envoyer, il lui faut de l’autorité.» http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/26/content_7146221.htm). Well, well, isn’t France’s president able to exercise authority over his son? Obviously Sarkozy’s authority was under scrutiny while he was exchanging pleasantries in China. The suburbs were on fire again and - who knows - perhaps the wannabe authoritarian played with a Chinese solution? Napoléon had no remorse to kill fellow countrymen, especially if they were Royalists. In October of 1795, Napoléon Bonaparte, then an emerging military officer, was placed in charge of troops sent to control a royalist riot in Paris. Though 100 men were killed, Napoléon succeeded in controlling the “mob”, and was soon given command of the French army.(Paris in the 19th century - http://dl.lib.brown.edu/paris/chronology1.html) After returning from his state visit to China, President Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed action against rioters. Hopefully he has read Napoléon’s memoirs.

It seems, France is going through troublesome months. Since his election in May, Nicolas Sarkozy has earned a reputation of being omnipresent (Super Sarko otherwise also know as Zorro Sarko). He visited the prisoners of the Arche de Zoë in Chad, he spoke to rioting fisherpeople in the Bretagne, he attended the funeral of two firemen who got killed in an accident. There’s no event, where you cannot expect Sarkozy to turn up. At the same time he doesn’t want to be seen as president whose only duty is to represent the state. His cabinet ministers are sidelined and the Prime Minister was caught talking off camera about his displeasure that he, a personal friend of Sarko, has nothing to say. That changed briefly during Sarkozy’s visit to China, but as soon as he touched ground back home again, he went straight to Villiers-le-Bel, were the latest suburban riots started. The question is: Will his presence calm or upset the rioters? As interior minister in 2005 Sarkozy fuelled the uprising with his remarks.

Sarkozy tires to control everything. That includes his own political friends. Instead of letting the government do its job, he keeps a “kitchen” cabinet separate from the official cabinet making the ministers in charge look like puppets, when they are allowed to accompany their master to one of his frequent trips to a country hot-spot.

With the ever rising ego of Sarkozy the day can’t be far that he will be proclaimed Emperor Nicolas 1er.

A real Monarchy would not face this dilemma. That’s why the number of Royalists is on the rise in France. Before Sarkozy’s election the Royalists got 20 percent of the population behind their ideas. Sarkozy’s Bonapartism will make people realize that there’s something wrong with Bonapartism as well as with republicanism. Vive le roi!