In China, the International Human Rights Day was celebrated with the publishing of a Charter that calls for democratic change in the Peoples Republic. It is the first major organised protest after the 1989 Tiananmen rising and produced much international media attention, since the document seems to confirm the criticism journalists and politicians expressed during the Beijing Olympics.

Referring to the Charter 77, a document advocating an alternative to Soviet communism in former Czechoslovakia in 1977, the Chinese Charter demands more freedom, free elections, the end of one-party rule, the withdrawal of the Communist Party from the courts and the military and respect for human rights. In nineteen concrete postulations the authors sketch a free and democratic China, where human rights and the rule of law prevail.

The man that is believed to be one of the co-authors is Liu Xiaobo, a philosopher and writer who took part in the 1989 student rise on Tiananmen Square. He has been held for two weeks thus far by Chinese officials who believe him to be an organizer of the protest. According to Chinese bloggers the number of signees has risen to 5000. Amongst the first to sign were the wife of the imprisoned civil rights activist Zen Jinyan, the Shanghai lawyer Zheng Enchong, the former influential CP official Bao Tong, the Tibetan blogger Woeser and many other artists, lawyers, authors and business people. At least a dozen of these 300 initial signees face harassment and prosecution from Chinese officials.

Critics on Chinese and international websites call the ideas expressed in the Charter “ideology” and fear that a political movement will destabilise the Chinese Nation. Postulation number 18, which calls for a Chinese federation in order to solve the ethnicity conflict, is especially attacked. For nationalists this proposition is an offence against the unity of the Chinese Republic.

The Charter represents a new and more bluntly expressed wave of discomfort and disquiet about the political and humanitarian situation in China. The document is in many ways revolutionary. For the first time in 20 years the role of the Communist party in the political process is openly challenged. Additionally the authors clearly distinguish their view of human rights in their universal and legal application from the party`s idea of human rights as generously guaranteed social welfare.

The authors describe the ruling in China as follows: “As these conflicts and crises grow ever more intense, and as the ruling elite continues with impunity to crush and to strip away the rights of citizens to freedom, to property, and to the pursuit of happiness, we see the powerless in our society – the vulnerable groups, the people who have been suppressed and monitored, who have suffered cruelty and even torture, and who have had no adequate avenues for their protests, no courts to hear their pleas -– becoming more militant and raising the possibility of a violent conflict of disastrous proportions. The decline of the current system has reached the point where change is no longer optional.”

This passage also illustrates the critical situation in which the Chinese government now finds itself. The economic boom initiated by Deng Xiaoping in the 1990`s made many in China rich and content. But the current financial crisis has hit the Chinese economy harder than predicted. The Western world has known crisis before, whereas the newly rich Chinese have not yet experienced financial breakdown, least of all the Chinese leadership. The government is aware that without the possibility of economic prosperity, their authoritarian politics will move further into public consciousness.
For now, the government’s main strategy seems to be banning access to the document. Websites are currently blocked and media coverage is forbidden.