The Last Frontier

By Dorinda Elliott/Shanghai

We are sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop in the toniest neighborhood in Shanghai, around the corner from the Louis Vuitton store, and Wang Ling is getting steamed up over being evicted from her home. "They're liars," she says, pulling out official documents. "They're not going according to government regulations!" The Wangs got caught up in the dealings of a shady property tycoon who is serving three years in jail for stock manipulation--but not before they and thousands of others were tossed out of their homes to make way for the tycoon's now deferred project. They allege the developer got the property unfairly because of his cozy relationship with state officials. Wang has traveled to Beijing several times--so far with no success--to petition for help from the government. "We are fighting for our rights," she says.

To anyone who has followed China, it's an incredible scene. Not long ago, it would have been unimaginable for Wang to so openly criticize the government or to arm herself with the law--and all while sipping a cappuccino. True, Wang hasn't found justice yet. But compared with the repression of the past, when complainers went to jail and the Communist Party controlled every aspect of life, China can be exhilaratingly free. The Chinese can do virtually anything today, from finding a job to singing karaoke in sparkling brothels to organizing to protect the environment. If you stood on a street corner and cursed the leaders, passersby might think you were nuts, but you might not even be arrested.

As long as you were alone. The government can still be brutal--particularly with anyone who tries to organize politically. Remember Falun Gong? After 10,000 practitioners of the meditation philosophy showed up outside Beijing's leadership compound in 1999 to protest discrimination, the government launched an effort to wipe out the religion, arresting and, according to believers, beating thousands of members. In China's Northwest, the government has jailed ethnic Uighurs who complained about Han Chinese repression of Islamic culture. The government also controls the media (a Chinese assistant in the New York Times's Beijing bureau was detained in September for allegedly leaking state secrets), and it blocks websites it doesn't like: authorities shut down Everything Is a Mess, a lively political site.

Should China be praised for its progress on human rights or criticized for its continued failings? Probably both. According to human-rights monitor John Kamm, some 3,000 people are sentenced for nonviolent political and religious offenses every year. And yet, China's people have gained room to maneuver, especially in pursuit of their livelihood. That has set off shock waves--huge income disparities and corruption--that could threaten party control. By official accounts, there were 58,000 protests in 2003, as workers, peasants and even stock-market investors fought everything from corruption to overtaxation. China can't stop the outbursts, but it won't let anyone use those grievances to challenge party rule.

A key test of China's tolerance is religion. From Buddhism to Christianity, religion is flourishing, as people once immersed in Mao's revolution search for something to believe in. The party tries to steer Christians into officially sanctioned churches (the legal Catholic Church doesn't accept the Vatican's full authority). But millions instead worship in underground "household" churches that don't accept party constraints. I recently visited one in Beijing. A few dozen young office workers crowded into an apartment to pray and sing hymns at the top of their lungs. The preacher, intoning with the energy of a Billy Graham, talked of how the promise of economic freedom has given way to dashed dreams. "We thought we would be spiritually fulfilled," he said. "Instead, in our society we have lying, we have cheating, we have stealing, we have murder. That shows us Jesus' Second Coming is imminent."

What's missing in China today is a sense of idealism. I remember marching with students in 1989 in the midst of a mass demonstration for democracy and an end to corruption. There was a spirit of hope and possibility, as young and old talked soldiers out of cracking down on the protests. In the end, the hard-liners--and, indirectly, capitalism--won. The Tiananmen Square massacre led to a repression of anything viewed as a threat to the party. Beijing made a tacit deal with its citizens: We will give you the freedom to make money, but politics is off limits.

China rejects Western criticism of its human-rights record, contending that the rights that matter aren't free speech or an unfettered press but the right to be clothed, housed and fed. Beijing even publishes an annual report on human rights in the U.S., highlighting crime, racial discrimination, income disparities and a democracy that is "manipulated by the rich." But even by China's definition of rights, the country's new capitalist society can be cruel: farmers struggle to stay ahead, with living standards for the poorest peasants falling since 2001. Many migrant laborers, desperate for work, live in squalor and uncertainty.

Will a freer economy lead to more freedom? Optimists believe that a growing middle class will push for legal protections--and, eventually, political change. The cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing already have hired an independent pollster to find out what the people think of their governance. Sure, there's a long way to go. Wang, the evicted Shanghai resident, can't even find a lawyer to take up her case. That may be because more than 400 lawyers have been detained since 1997 in connection with defending clients. "This country is far from having rule of law," says Mo Shaoping, China's leading human-rights lawyer.

China's leaders, ever conscious of history, argue that stability must come first. "If you haven't been through the Cultural Revolution, you don't know what human rights means," says Sun Chao, a Shanghai official who is pushing for transparent government. "In my compound, people were jumping off the rooftops." Given that legacy, Sun goes on, "China is developing human rights faster than any country in the world." Taiwan and South Korea, of course, survived for decades as dictatorships even as they opened up their economies. But as more Chinese like Wang start demanding their rights, the government may learn to adapt. "History was pushed forward by people like me," says Wang. After all, look at Taiwan and South Korea today: they are both democracies.