China activist floats online party

Guo Quan has launched the China Netizens’ Party to expose lies by the Communist Party

HONG KONG: A Chinese pro-democracy scholar who is campaigning to end China’s “one-party dictatorship” has escalated his struggle by forming an online ‘party’ of Internet users to “expose the Communist Party’s lies”, with the “ultimate goal of restoring power to the people”. 

Guo Quan, who lost his job at Nanjing University last month after he ‘founded’ a New Democratic Party, has now announced the formation of a nebulous China Netizens’ Party that seeks to enlist the country’s large and growing army of Internet users as “troops in the bloody battle the Chinese people are waging for democracy.”

It isn’t immediately clear what kind of traction Guo’s virtual call to battle will get in China, where even US-based technology firms have been complicit with authorities in keeping the Internet free of political opposition.

Guo has even outlined the bylaws of the Netizens’ Party, which he characterises as “not a political party”, but a “citizen’s movement” that has as its “ultimate goal the restoration of power to the people.”

But as befits a country that doesn’t protect the freedom of association, there is no requirement for party members to “sign up or register in any fashion” —  or even identify themselves publicly as members. Citing several instances in 2007 when China’s vigilante cybersleuths publicly exposed official pronouncements by local-level
Communist Party leaders as untrue, Guo says that China has no “real news, only propagandist lies.” 

But henceforth, Guo pledges, “all official public statements will now be subjected to the most scientific scrutiny… In future, lies will not go unpunished.” He believes that 2008 will go down as “a year of brilliant exploits for the China Netizen Party… Let every honest Chinese person make his or her voice heard across the world… Let all those who hope for a strong, democratic China see the bloody battle the Chinese people are fighting for democracy.”

For instance, Guo points to the lack of transparency among Chinese officials about the true extent of the death and devastation wrought by the blizzard that swamped southern China in recent weeks.

“How many people froze to death? How many starved to death? Where did they die? What were their names? What did they do for a living?” The Netizens’ Party will “investigate the truth behind incidents that the Chinese Community Party does not wish to disclose,” he pledges. 

“It is my fervent wish that China will realise its democratic aspiration soon, allowing our people to live happily and our democratic country to grow strong,” Guo says.