Mainland scholar Zhang Xuezhong tweeted on February 17, 2021 to launch an online referendum on “national constitution-making and peaceful transition. (Screenshot of Zhang Xuezhong’s tweet)
Former East China University of Political Science and Law law professor Zhang Xuezhong, who currently lives in Shanghai, tweeted on February 17 to launch an online referendum on “national constitution-making and peaceful transition. In the past few years, Zhang has spoken out against one-party dictatorship and called for the establishment of a constitutional government in China.
In a tweet on the 17th, he said, “‘National Constitution, Peaceful Transition’ is a political idea that I have put forward after much deliberation. It is both a path and vision for China’s political modernization and a slogan to mobilize public support and promote political change, and is most likely to become a consensus among different sectors. It is a proposition that some agree with and some criticize. I decided to conduct an online referendum on Twitter to see if this post could be retweeted more than 10,000 within a week.”
[Internet Referendum].
The “National Constitution and Peaceful Transition” is a political idea that I have put forward after careful consideration. It is both a path and vision for China’s political modernization and a slogan to mobilize public support and promote political change, and is most likely to become a consensus among different classes.
It is a proposition that some agree with and some criticize.
I have decided to conduct an online referendum on Twitter to see if this post can be retweeted by more than 10,000 within a week.
If you support it, please retweet it! pic.twitter.com/VhoZgQSx70
-Zhang Xuezhong ZHANG Xuezhong (@zxzlaw) February 17,2021
A dozen hours after the above tweet, Zhang Xuezhong sent another tweet saying, “The authorities started asking me to delete this tweet. My response was: ‘Although I’ve never been a brave person, I still don’t want to give up my freedom of speech, nor do I want my freedom of speech to be unduly interfered with.'”
18 Zhang Xuezhong tweeted that he had just finished an interview. “In the interview I just concluded, I said, ‘I am a timid and fearful person who would love to live a stable and calm Life. But that life should not come at the expense of freedom of speech, so I really don’t want to delete this tweet.’ Freedom of speech is not a matter of interest that can be negotiated, but a matter of principle that is difficult to compromise.”
Zhang Xuezhong is a former master’s student supervisor and J.D. at East China University of Political Science and Law. He first called for a national constitution in 2013, when he published an article titled “The Roots and Dangers of the 2013 Anti-Constitutional Backlash,” in which he publicly opposed one-party dictatorship. In the same year, Zhang Xuezhong was suspended and dismissed from East China University of Political Science and Law, and his license to practice law was revoked by the authorities in 2019.
On the eve of the Communist Party’s two sessions in May 2020, Zhang Xuezhong published a nearly 10,000-word open letter to the Communist Party’s National People’s Congress, calling once again for a constitutional and peaceful transition for the Chinese people. Subsequently, Zhang was taken away by Shanghai police and released 24 hours later.
For several years before that, Zhang had been speaking out against the Communist totalitarian regime, but was repeatedly suppressed by the authorities. In 2009, he published an article “China needs to be de-Marxistized” and was subsequently suspended from teaching by the university; since then, he has twice published open letters to the Ministry of Education calling for the abolition of mandatory university political courses and political exams.
In 2012, Zhang Xuezhong publicly opposed the “national education” plan in Hong Kong and was again suppressed by the university. On September 9 of the same year, attorney Wang Yao revealed on his Weibo account that Zhang Xuezhong had resigned from the Chinese Communist Party that day. In October of the same year, Zhang Xuezhong’s Weibo account was banned.
After launching the “National Constitution” online referendum on February 17, Zhang Xuezhong sent several tweets, one of which read, “Pursuing constitutional democracy in an authoritarian country is always an extremely difficult task. We don’t need people to tell us, ‘It’s too hard,’ ‘It’s too naive,’ ‘It’s like seeking skin with a tiger,’ ‘It’s just a whimsy. ‘ …… It is after we have overcome all the defeatism, cynicism and despair that we still hold on to our beliefs and ideals.”
In a February 19 interview with Radio Free Asia, Wang Tiancheng, a U.S.-based constitutional scholar and director of the Institute for the Transformation of Democracy in China, expressed appreciation for Zhang Xuezhong’s courage.
Wang Tiancheng said, “Many people are pessimistic and desperate about the future of China’s transition, and if this is the atmosphere, the transition will be even less likely to happen. I study democratic transformation, and in history many countries during the authoritarian era, everyone felt that the authoritarian regime was too strong and would last forever, but at a certain point, the collapse happened quickly. So don’t be controlled by pessimism, be imaginative and stay hopeful.”
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