Feng Congde: Civil Rebellion, Military Coup, Political Coup

In this video, Feng Congde delivers a speech focusing on "civil rights" and "how Chinese democratization can succeed," pointing out that the core of civil rights is civil and political rights, rather than simple economic or social rights defense. He believes that in the past, even when China's rights defense movements achieved local successes, they were held accountable by the CCP after the fact due to the lack of political rights protections. Feng Congde further criticizes the translation of "non-violence" as being misleading to protesters, advocating for the use of "civil action" and "civil resistance" to replace "non-violent action." He argues that China's future democratic transition cannot rely solely on rights defense or external pressure, but must form large-scale civil unrest, which in turn triggers a military mutiny, ultimately driving a coup and constitutional transition.

My speech title is "Civil Rights and Civil Action."

Because our theme today is a seminar on civil rights. In fact, Teacher Xin has just provided a very accurate new definition: civil rights are the rights that citizens should have.

The concept of civil rights, after being proposed by the Father of the Nation, Sun Yat-sen, was further clearly interpreted and defined worldwide through two subsequent international human rights conventions. One is Convention A, and the other is Convention B.

A Convention is the "International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights," and B Convention is the "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights." These two conventions are binding documents that followed the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Since the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" itself has no legal binding force, the signatory countries of Convention A and Convention B are, in principle, bound by them.

The CCP signed and ratified Convention A, the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Of course, they set many restrictive conditions for Convention A. However, for Convention B, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the CCP only signed it in 1998 and then submitted it to the National People's Congress, where it has remained shelved to this day.

It is evident that the CCP is very, very afraid of the concept of "civil rights."

And civil rights are precisely the most core, bullseye concept we are pursuing for the democratization of China today.

This is the first point I want to make today: civil rights equal civil and political rights, which is what Teacher Xin said—the rights that citizens should have. The primary focus is political rights; this is the bullseye.

In fact, we see that from the 1990s to after 2003, the rights defense movement flourished and many people participated. A large number of petitioners joined the rights defense movement one after another. However, because it only occurred at the economic and social levels, such rights defense movements, even if they occasionally achieved temporary victories, were unstable and lacked long-term guarantees.

For example, in the early 90s, in my hometown of Yibin, there was a peasant movement. Tens of thousands, even over a hundred thousand peasants participated. The leader was Jiang Daqing, a veteran. He led the peasants to fight against taxes and fees. But after that period, over a decade later, he was held accountable and subsequently sentenced twice. I won't go into the details.

Today, look at Xu Zhiyong, who has already been held accountable and thrown into prison. People like Teng Biao have also had their movements restricted.

And then there is Wukan. Wukan was an event that attracted worldwide attention, and there were even democratic elections. They elected a village committee, which was actually a quite real election, even better than the student elections we had at Peking University in 1989.

But look at the result of Wukan. Xue Jinbo was beaten to death, and his body was not returned to his family for several months, and the family was given hush money. To this day, the entire village is trying to reclaim their land, but they simply cannot get it back.

Therefore, without political rights, even if a small amount of economic or social rights are temporarily won through rights defense, it is unstable.

Thus, civil rights are the core, the bullseye.

This is the first point I want to make today regarding the concept of civil rights.

Second, I will speak briefly: how to pursue and obtain civil rights?

Mr. Sun had a classic saying: we must stir up the tide and awaken the masses. Those who are first to know and awaken must lead those who awaken later, as well as the vast majority who, like us in 1989, are unaware. In this way, the Jasmine Revolution will come.

In this process, a key core has been debated for several years: so-called "non-violence"—must the pursuit of civil rights movements necessarily adopt non-violent movements? Or should they adopt violent movements? Or should we also have a violent revolution?

Some friends were discussing just now whether we should use violence and whether a violent revolution is justified.

I believe the most critical issue here is our translation of the word "non-violence," which in my view is fundamentally wrong.

When translating Western vocabulary, Chinese often makes many misleading errors. For example, "communism." The two characters for "communism" (gòngchǎn) are far removed from the original meaning of the word communism, which is community-ism. Therefore, we are all victims of these terms. Because of these two characters, China paid a price of at least 80 million abnormal deaths.

Today, the concept of "non-violence," in my view, is something we will also pay a huge price for.

The term Gandhi himself used was "Satyagraha," meaning we must hold fast to the truth. In reality, it means "non-harming," meaning not to harm others, not to use the violence of thought, language, and action to harm others.

Later, the word ahimsa was translated as "non-violence," making it seem as if we cannot use any violence. In fact, one only needs to read Gandhi's own autobiography to know that Gandhi himself participated in wars three times, and three times organized and personally led Indians to participate in wars.

In his own autobiography, how does he write? He says that if one must choose between cowardice and force, I suggest choosing force.

For example, his eldest son once asked him: if I had been with you when you were almost beaten to death in 1908, what should I have done? Gandhi told him that the issue was not whether to run away or watch me be killed, but whether to use force to protect me. Gandhi told his son that his responsibility should be to protect me, even if it required the use of force at that time.

So, in my view, the Chinese word that truly corresponds to ahimsa is actually something we might not imagine: the word "wu" (martial/force), the "wu" of bravery and martial spirit.

For example, "stopping the spear is the true martial art" (zhǐ gē wéi wǔ). Force is truly legitimate when it is the force of legitimate self-defense.

Therefore, we should not be trapped by translations like "non-violence" versus "violence," as if non-violence excludes all force.

For example, Hitler—did he not need to be removed by force? Does the evil of the CCP not need to be removed by force?

Professor Xia spoke very well just now. During a mutiny, the autocratic army must turn its guns around; at that time, the use of force is legitimate. At that time, it is not violence, but is for the country, for democracy, and for the public interest. It possesses legitimacy, the power of legitimacy.

Therefore, we should use the word "force" (wǔlì) to distinguish it from the violence of indiscriminately killing innocents.

So, how to pursue civil rights? How do we form civil action?

I hope to use the concept of "civil action" to replace the concept of "non-violent action." Because "non-violent action" has already created a great deal of confusion and misleading, just as the word "communism" created a great deal of confusion and misleading.

Civil action includes civil resistance.

I recommend a book to everyone, an award-winning book in the United States in 2012 called "Why Civil Resistance Works." The Chinese translation can be "Why Civil Resistance is Effective." It analyzes 232 cases from 1900 to today, conducts a systematic study on the division of so-called violence and non-violence, and reaches some very important conclusions.

I believe that using "civil resistance" and "civil disobedience" to replace "non-violent movement" may be more accurate and suitable concepts for China's current situation.

There are many important and good conclusions in this book. For example, it has a very clear and distinct process. I summarize it as the trilogy of "civil unrest—military mutiny—coup."

Basically, in the recent wave, the third wave of democratization, starting from the democratization of Portugal in 1973, many democratic transitions have gone through large-scale civil unrest, then formed a military mutiny, triggered a military mutiny, and then triggered the final political change.

Political change, from autocracy to democracy, is actually a revolution.

Whether it is the Xinhai Revolution, the Color Revolutions, or the Jasmine Revolution, they are all revolutions.

And the CCP, from the original constitutional democratic framework established by the Republic of China, reverted to autocracy. Therefore, the CCP is a typical case of autocratic restoration, and they are the true counter-revolutionaries.

Here, I want to mention a very, very important concept: from civil unrest to military mutiny, the most important factor, the trigger for change, is the military mutiny.

Military mutiny accounts for 68% of the importance. This is a very significant inspiration for us.

Additionally, this book has another very important study. Because it analyzes over 200 cases, it already has statistical significance. It has done a large amount of chart analysis.

Another very important conclusion, which is very close to my feelings over the last ten years: to push for civil unrest, civil unrest is still the foundation.

Only a popular uprising can trigger a military mutiny.

Although a military mutiny is the most critical, a popular uprising must form first. Just like the large-scale Jasmine Revolution.

Internal strength and internal causes are far more important than external causes.

Because external forces can be both positive and negative, and their sum almost cancels out. Relying on foreign support, foreign funding, and foreign ideological organization can sometimes shift your direction. Just as the communist revolution was directed by the Comintern.

Including some less successful color revolutions, when foreign funding is used extensively, they start very quickly. However, because it creates a free-rider effect, the support of the domestic population actually decreases. Because people feel that since you have foreign money, we don't need to donate.

In reality, donating is not just about money, but about one's courage and commitment.

Therefore, I believe the analysis in this book leads to many very important conclusions. I recommend this book to everyone.

I do not have more time to elaborate. However, we at the Sun Yat-sen School and the Tiananmen University of Democracy are preparing civic action courseware for such purposes. We welcome everyone, especially more young friends within the country, to join us in exploring and researching this carefully.

That is all I have to say for today.