被打破的 '中国梦'
(1) 王月眉, 被打破的 '中国梦.' 纽约时报中文网, Dec 5, 2022
https://cn.nytimes.com/china/202 ... jinping-covid-zero/
, which was translated from
Vivian Wang, Beijing's Bargain with Its People Is Shaken; Swapping Freedom for prosperity, but they may gt neither. New York Times, Dec 4, 2022, at pag A1.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/ ... ing-covid-zero.html
Quote:
"The eruption [of protests] was a forceful illustration of how thoroughly the world's toughest pandemic restrictions have upended life in China. Xi Jinping, the country's strongman leader, is expanding the Chinese Communist Party's grip over its people beyond what even Mao Zedong attained. * * * The shift [from freewheeling to stark restrictions] strikes at the party's long-standing social contract with its people. After violently crushing pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989, Beijing struck an implicit bargain: In exchange for limitations on political freedoms, the people would get stability and comfort. * * * Nearly 530 million people — almost 40 percent of the population — were under some form of lockdown in late November, according to one estimate.
"Even if Mr Xi drives discontent back underground, the disillusionment that the protests exposed may remain. 'Zero Covid' made clear the ease, and apparent arbitrariness, with which the party could and would impose its will on people.
"The mobilization of so many hyperlocal officials — one state media report estimated that one had been deployed for every 250 adults — represents 'possibly the largest expansion of Chinese state capacity in the past 40 years,' said Taisu Zhang [张泰苏], a law professor at Yale who studies China. 'It used to be, for most people you didn’t really feel the state in your daily life too much. Now, of course, the state is everywhere.'
"Still, even if 'zero Covid' goes away, Mr Xi's broader fixation on control is unlikely to do the same. In that environment, it remains to be seen whether the ambition that fueled China's rise can still thrive.
"Still, some hold on to hope that the retreat is a blip. For all the present difficulties, the years of extraordinary growth are still fresh in many minds.
Note: 张泰苏
https://baike.baidu.com/item/张泰苏/59861684
("美国耶鲁大学法学院教授。 经历[:] 张泰苏先后在耶鲁大学获得了历史和数学学士学位、法律博士学位和历史学博士学位。
曾任杜克大学法学院副教授")
(2) Keith Bradsher, 长期宣传新冠危险性后,中国政府如何淡化民众恐惧. 纽约时报中文网, Dec 5, 2022
https://cn.nytimes.com/china/20221205/china-zero-covid/
, which was translated from
Keith Bradsher, After Years of Fanning Covid Fears, Beijing Must Now Try to Allay Them. New York Times, Dec 4, 2022, at pag A8.
My comment: There is no need to read text. |