Today we visit revolutionary and visionary, Xia Yeliang. Xia, an outspoken supporter of human rights and democracy, and one of the original signatories to Charter 08, a manifesto calling for basic freedoms, constitutional democracy and civil rights in China. Followed and by Chinese police, ousted from his teaching job as a professor of economics at Peking University, he soldiered on, founding a think tank, fostering ideas via internet, conferences and ever encouraging his dream of democracy for China, despite any cost to his personal life or safety. In this series of interviews of freedom fighters for China, Xia Yeliang takes his place as a man of passion, focus and a dream he envisions for a free China. We are honored to share his thoughts in this thought provoking interview.

Interviewer: Hanako Cho

 

The Charter 08 Manifesto

Interviewer: You were among the original signatories of the Charter 08 Manifesto calling for civil liberties and the rule of law in China. I think it took real courage to do that. Could you please share your reasons for becoming a signatory at the time?

Xia Yeliang: Yes, at that time, I was one of the representatives for libertarian intellectuals in China. And Professor He Weifang is a law professor in Peking University and now professor of economics in Peking University. So, both of us are considered two representatives of the libertarian scholars or public intellectuals. So, at that time, we had a lot of private talks and we had gatherings. We have salons and banquets. I mean, private banquets. So, at that time, we had lot of things in common. And Liu Xiaobo was one of our friends and he encouraged us to draft a document, or maybe a kind of a manifesto, that can be known for all the people, especially all intellectuals, in China. So, we imitated Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia. So, Zhang Zuhua is another guy who is a major drafter of this document. And Zhang Zuhua and Liu Xiaobo, they made the original draft manuscript. Then we discussed it. So, it took a long time. Actually, it took almost over two years to discuss this manuscript. I remember the original one was quite long. It’s about 20,000 Chinese characters.

Now, eventually, there were many points upon which we could not agree. I mean, many scholars, they have disagreed on certain points. So eventually these were deleted . It was curtailed to 4,500 Chinese characters. So much less left. And then people now had more things in common, so people could sign that charter. But still, it was risky. And some people, they thought that it might be kind of challenging the party and the government. And that could put us in grave peril, right? So, I remember a few of the scholars, they signed at first but later on, they said, “Please, cut my name off.” So, there are some kind of things –they try to change their ideas and attitudes, but we don’t mind. Anyone who is willing to sign, and who’s permanently – and by that, I mean, is very active or very firmly supportive of this document — can sign and without any condition. So, I decided I should support this firmly because I’m one of the representatives of the Peking University. I mean, a lot of people, they’ll see my attitudes. So, I signed it and tried to influence other scholars.

Interviewer: So, other people followed you and signed the document?

Xia Yeliang: Yeah.

 

Being a Libertarian Scholar in China

Interviewer: Okay. So, you said that you were at the time already a libertarian?

Xia Yeliang: Yes. Yes, I’m one of the few libertarian scholars in China currently because we have a small think tank. It’s called Cathay Institute of Public Affairs. The Founding President was Liu Junning, who is a very famous political scientist, and also a dissident. And he and I have a long-term friendship since the university days. We’d lived once in a dormitory in early 1980s. So yeah, we have some ideas we imported from Western books like Hayek, Mises, and Milton Friedman, as well as James Buchanan. Most of them are economists. But they have some ideas, libertarian ideas. But of course, their ideas come from the 17th century in Britain. At that time, it was John Locke, Edmund Burke, yes, and also Adam Smith, Rousseau, and many other famous names.

Interviewer: I actually teach political philosophy at our university, so I’m very familiar with them.

Xia Yeliang: Yeah. It’s true. They’re familiar names.

Interviewer: So, beforehand, you were such a staunch liberalist. I didn’t really know how they existed in China. How do they survive right now?

Xia Yeliang: This is very hard to survive now. That institute almost stopped its activities, as I’ve mentioned. And also, perhaps you’ve heard about the famous institute called Unirule, Unirule Institute. The Founding Director or President is Professor Mao Yushi, a very famous senior economist. He’s now near 90 years old. He’s a very firm libertarian scholars — one of scholar. So, we have quite a few, but not too many in China. There are about 200 libertarian scholars in Mainland China at this time.

Interviewer: 200?

Xia Yeliang: All over China. Not too many. In Beijing, we have probably 50, or maybe less than 50.

 

Libertarian Scholars Fleeing China

Interviewer: So almost all of them have already fled to Western countries?

Xia Yeliang: Mm-hmm. We have read a lot of books either in English or some translated versions. So we have been influenced by those Western thinkers.

 

Standing up for Libertarianism at Peking University and its Consequences

Interviewer: I see. So you were purged and dismissed by the Peking University for criticizing the Communist regime. Could you please share with me the thought control you experienced at Peking University?

Xia Yeliang: Yes. At that time, I finished my teaching at Peking University. That’s in July 2000. I have been quite successful in teaching and influencing young people at that time and until the year 2010. At that time, the control was stricter. And some students had specific tasks or assignments to report anything they thought was politically incorrect to the leaders. So, some students reported my teaching as something anti-communist and anti-socialist. Some of the leaders talked with me and gave me warnings, seriously– a warning, say, “If you keep doing so, you’ll be fired someday.” I just said what I should say and then the leaders got very angry. They said, “This is a socialist country. It’s a communist country. You cannot promote Western ideas, which are inconsistent with the Chinese one-party rule”.

 

The Passion for Freedom and Personal Liberty

Interviewer: Why did you try to put forth that kind of very risky ideology, and take that very risky path?

Xia Yeliang: Because I think the ideas are right. I’m deeply moved by those thoughts and ideas. I became a firm believer in libertarian ideas. I think the most important thing in the world is individual freedom or individual liberty. We should have a rule of law. We should have a constitutional democracy. We should have free market competition. We should have the freedom of publication, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, but I could not bear anymore that ideological control in China, and I cannot bear those very, I will say, the communist ideas in our education systems. So I don’t want to teach those, I’ll say, out-of-date materials to students. Those students were excellent, promising. We should not be teaching Marxist ideas to them. Because in my college, it’s a school of economics. The textbooks about Marx’s ideas on capital and all those things, Manifesto of Communism and all those things, still were considered the guiding principles.

Interviewer: Really [laughter]?

Xia Yeliang: So I could not accept that. I think those ideas are – they are very bad ideas. I cannot teach that.

 

Piracy and Infringements of Intellectual Property by Chinese Companies

Interviewer: I see. With regard to the free market economy, there have been many infringements on intellectual property rights by Chinese companies. It’s like an act of piracy. I think the Chinese companies are behaving in this way in so many countries. Could you please teach me your thoughts on Chinese companies’ unethical business practices?

Xia Yeliang: When I was in UC Berkeley in the year 2005 and ’06, and later on I was also a scholar at the Hoover Institution, Stanford, so I had a lot of access to some local scientists, and also students and professors. They told me a lot of stories, and many were Chinese actually, they were working in high-tech firms in those areas, Silicon Valley and other companies, right? I mean the other companies in that areas. So, I would compare why U.S. has so many patents, new inventions, or all kind of things, but in China why people — I mean, the government, put in huge investments, but they cannot get new inventions. The reason is not because the Chinese scientists are not excellent. The reason is our institutional environment is bad. That institutional environment discourages people’s individual research.

 

The “Institutional Environment”

Interviewer: What do you mean by institutional environment?

Xia Yeliang: “Institution” is a like social system, capitalist institution, or socialist institution. But the institutional environment in China, that means that all the people should obey the instruction from the party, from the government. Then the scholar himself doesn’t have independent decision. That means when they try to do some research, they have to make their research consistent with the ideological rules or guidelines. Even for a scientist, if you want to do some research, you should apply for the National Foundation of Science or something like that. But those people who politically — the so-called “politically correct”, they will always get funding. But those people who have different ideas, they can hardly get any funding. Eventually, those, I would say, less successful scientists, actually got more funding. Yet some really good scientists, they could hardly get funding. So sometimes some people they develop a false or foggy invention. Actually, it’s nothing real, right? I remember one case, in the year 1998 to 1999, there was a scandal about the so-called invention of computer chips that made the computer run faster. Right? So actually, that’s a product of developed by American scientists in 1980s, yet they have a very huge research group in Shanghai. It said there were about 2,000 scientific personnel involved in that research. They spent, I think, billions of Chinese yen. Eventually they got the product, and they called this a new invention. That’s called it a Chinese chip, or Chinese – what do you say? – the internal chips. Later on people found out it was not their own product. They copied. So that’s a scandal. Even after this scandal was revealed, the government did not give them very strict punishments. They did not allow the press to publish. They did not allow people to know about this scandal. So, these kind of cases in China occurs again and again. That creates a kind of discouragement for real scientists. They don’t want to do the real research. They can easily get some money, and they can try to cheat on those so-called inventions.

Interviewer: So-called inventions?

Xia Yeliang: Yeah. So, they pirate from many countries including Japan, the U.S., Europe, Israel, Taiwan, and Singapore.

 

The U.S. and Sanctions Toward China

Interviewer: Now the Trump administration is trying to impose more sanctions by bringing up the 301 Trade Act. How do you see this U.S. government strategy? It appears extremely opposite to the Obama administration.

Xia Yeliang: Actually it’s an old– yes. Actually, 301 is the old Act. It started in the 1970s, but they seldom use it. The last time they used it towards China was in 1995 or ’96 in the Clinton administration. So, at that time, they tried to punish the Chinese government with supposed piracy of copyrights, like Windows. You know Windows? So at that time almost every department of the Chinese government used the pirated software of Windows. But after 20 years now, there is– of course, there are some more options, more alternatives. So they have less piracy copyrights, which is good. Yet it’s not sufficient. They still have a lot of piracy or violation of copyrights. So, I think now that the Trump administration pushed this and tried to hurt them with a kind of restriction on certain products, especially with higher protection on technical patents. That’s very important, not only for military but also for civil, some inventions like medical products, medicine, and lot of things, I think, including those in telecommunications and for financial system management, and so on and so forth.

 

Peter Navarro and Possible Trade Wars

Interviewer: Now the Trump administration has a person like Peter Navarro, who has a very strong stand against China. How do you see his stance on China?

Xia Yeliang: Well, this is a kind of strategy. Probably some people criticize it. They think that it might start a trade war. Right? Yet China has been doing this for a long time. That means they ignore the copyrights. They ignore the fair trade. So, the U.S. government must do something to discourage these kind of deeds, bad deeds. So, of course, the trade war is not what people want– is not desirable, yet sometime you cannot avoid it, especially when China would not listen to any kinds of suggestions, especially considering the way the U.S. gave China for more than 20 years to improve, even after China’s access to WTO in the year 2001. Now it’s 16 years past. Nothing much improved, and also to date the financial sector is not open. And also telecommunication, a lot of monopolies in China that they did not do what they promised 16 years ago. They did not lower the tax, the tariffs, I mean, remarkably. So, then the U.S., I mean, officials and experts, they don’t have much trust in the Chinese government’s promises previously made.

 

Will the U.S. Maintain a “Soft” Stance on China?

Interviewer: But so far, the U.S. government has been very lenient on the Chinese government and taking a very soft stance on China. How do you see this kind of practice by the U.S. government?

Xia Yeliang: Well, I believe more and more new measures will be taken, whether you call it to punish, or a kind of retaliation on certain products, on certain industries, especially when China did little to make the North Korean situation less risky. And so, I think these kinds of measures are justified.

 

The Economic Slowdown in China

Interviewer: China is experiencing an economic growth slow down for the past six consecutive years, I think in order for Xi Jinping to stabilize his power, I think he needs to secure the state of the economy of China. How do you see the state of the Chinese economy right now? How would you analyze that?

Xia Yeliang: The basic situation when the economy is closing down, that means they have been going in the wrong direction. Because now there is emphasize more on central planning rather than market economy. So actually they have the opposite direction. So, they discourage those private firms. The private firms actually are the main contributor for the problems in the national economy. They took more than 75% of the national economy. So those are big firms of the SOEs. Actually, they did nothing. Yet they get more subsidies; they get loans from banks. Sometimes they have monopoly, yet when they make a profit, they never shared it with the citizens. They only share with those special-interest groups. Some people say it’s the 500 high-ranking officials’ families. And also, the Prime Minister, the Premier is not capable of doing the — but he, Mr. Li, is also our school graduate because when he studied economics and got his PhD, he actually got it from my colleagues. Yeah. So, Xi Jinping himself knows nothing about economics. Actually, one of the most able person who can handle this is Wang Qishan. But Wang Qishan is not the Premier. He’s the person in charge of anti-corruption. So, they put the wrong person in the positions. Actually, Wang Qishan would be more suitable for the Premier or the Prime Minister rather than a person in charge of anti-corruption.

Interviewer: I see. So, are we going to see more of the economic slowdown in China this year and next?

Xia Yeliang: Yes, I believe so. I think that it should be down around 6.2 or even less GDP, and also, they will have hyperinflation. And also, they have much less foreign reserves and are experiencing a serious capital escape from China. Perhaps you heard there’s about US$1 trillion that escaped last year. Yeah. So more and more problems occurred.

 

The Fall of the Yuan

Interviewer: So, you think that the fall of Yuan will occur in the near future?

Xia Yeliang: Sure, if they do not change after 19’s party’s congress. They’re still going towards the anti-market economy or, I mean, the central planning rather than free market economy. And they will not loosen their ideological control, that means the control on people’s ideas. It’ll definitely go down and down. There’s no hope.

Interviewer: There’s no hope.

Xia Yeliang: No hope.

 

Crushing Private Business Firms

Interviewer: But the Western countries seem to be supporting or assisting the Chinese banks, contrary to the way it should be, so I’m wondering how the downfall of yuan would begin.

Xia Yeliang: You see, the stock market got into a very bad situation, but recently it showed a little bit of hope. And also for the real estate markets, the housing markets. I think the main reason is too much control and too much interference from the government. And the banks actually are all controlled by the government. So the banks are not real financial institutions. So, they only take their leader’s instruction as their priority. When the private firms are all — the individual businessmen, they need the funding. They cannot get a loan to support their business. So that’s why many private firms, they tried to escape from China, but the government wouldn’t allow them to go. For instance, in a recent situation, the number one, or the richest person in China, is named Wang Jianlin. Wang Jianlin is the Wanda Group president. You know that he’s very famous. And he was stopped when his family tried and go abroad. They were stopped.

Interviewer: By the government.

Xia Yeliang: They have a private jet, but the private jet was not allowed to fly.

Interviewer: He was not allowed to leave?

Xia Yeliang: Yeah, not only him, but some other very famous businessmen, like Ma Yun. Have you heard about Alibaba?

Interviewer: Yeah. Jack Ma.

Xia Yeliang: Yeah, Jack Ma. Yes. He was stopped too. I mean, for several businessmen when they tried to go abroad, they could not go. Yeah. And for other scholars nowadays — I have many friends, and some are officials. Some are scholars. They’re not allowed to get their own passports. That means their passports are controlled in the government or in the universities, not in their own hands. So that situation reminds me as being similar to the cultural revolution.

 

The Man Who Would Be King

Interviewer: Do you think that Xi Jinping would like to become like the next Mao Zedong?

Xia Yeliang: Yes, he has tried to be. He thinks of himself as one powerful guy. He thinks he should be much more powerful than Deng Xiaoping. So he only tries to imitate Mao, not Deng.

 

The Legacy of Liu Xiaobo

Interviewer: For you, who was Liu Xiaobo? Could you give me your memory of him?

Xia Yeliang: Yes. This guy in his younger ages, when he was 20 or 30 years old, he was very – how can I say this guy? – very passionate, much passion, and he had a lot of ideas. He was kind of an idealist. He tried to change China fundamentally. He said China should not only be for the current leadership or institution, its culture, its culture must be changed. He thought that Confucianism was not good for China. He liked the Western ideas. He liked the libertarian ideas and the Western ideas. He thought that probably China needs 300 years of colonization [laughter]. Have you heard that? It’s a very famous saying.

Interviewer: 300 years’ colony?

Xia Yeliang: Yeah. That means Shanghai and those old developed cities are actually developed by those colonists, Western colonists. Otherwise, China would be very far behind. Only because some colonists came to China, they made some cities prosperous and much more like modern cities. So his idea is that Hong Kong is a successful model. So probably all China should have these kind of colonies and Western ideas and institutions for more than one or two hundred years. He said it should be 300 years. At that time in 1980s, nobody could accept his ideas. He was considered one of the most aggressive, most radical, intellectual or scholars at that time. But later on he became more mature, and he told us his idea is to firmly pursue the American democracy, the American-style democracy. That means constitutional democracy with the rule of law.

 

Surveillance

Interviewer: Did you sympathize about these ideas with Liu Xiaobo?

Xia Yeliang: Yes, I quite agreed with his ideas. So sometimes we made phone calls and we sent emails. Yet at that time, sometimes we were controlled by national security police – so we could hardly meet. Sometimes we had meetings. Actually, it’s not meeting; It’s a private gathering or a dinner.

Interviewer: I see. Not an official one.

Xia Yeliang: Yeah. Even with that kind of situation, there were some policemen outside or sometimes even in the same restaurant in the other tables. They were watching us [laughter].

Interviewer: You have been under surveillance, right?

Xia Yeliang: Yes. So, wherever he went, there was always some people following him, and later on I was followed by policemen too.

 

The New Revolution

Interviewer: I see. Do you see eye to eye on the way to revolutionize China with him?

Xia Yeliang: No, actually we have some disagreements. Sometime I told him that I would be a revolutionary. I would form a kind of armed forces to overthrow the government or subversion. I mean, the CCP, call this subversion. Yet Liu Xiaobo was more considerate, or he’s more, I would say, pertinent, and he said that it might be too risky to do that. So many people should be sent to the prisons or even be killed.

Interviewer: So, he kept the non-violence stance?

Xia Yeliang: He said if someone had to sacrifice, it must be he. And he would not encourage those risky actions. Rather, he tried to promote a peaceful, rational kind of movement. Not too radical. So, we had some disagreements.

 

Difficulties and Fear Under the Jinping Administration for the Democracy Movement: Being “Disappeared”

Interviewer: I see. Now, I think what the Chinese government was afraid of is the occurrence of a movement saying “Don’t permit Liu Xiaobo’s life to go to waste”. Do you think this kind of movement would happen inside China with the support of foreign countries?

Xia Yeliang: It’s very hard. Nowadays, all those activists, all those people who are promoting human rights protection are under very strict supervision by the police. So even sometimes if they send some message on Twitter, or Facebook, or WeChat, they could be arrested and then disappear for some time. So even their relatives, even their family members, will be disappeared for some time.

Interviewer: Even their family members?

Xia Yeliang: Like Liu Xia. Actually, she lost her freedom for several years. Nowadays, I lost her contact, but last year I made two phone calls to Liu Xia. So I’m trying to make a phone call to her again, but I’ve failed many times in recent attempts. I don’t know why. But each time the phone number, I mean, the ring is there. There’s nobody to accept it. So, I guess she’s not in her home. Probably somewhere else.

Interviewer: Taken by the Chinese police?

Xia Yeliang: Yeah. Probably.

Interviewer: Nobody knows where she is right now, right?

Xia Yeliang: It’s not clear. I asked some friends. They don’t know either.

 

The Path to Democracy

Interviewer: I see. That’s a very sad situation. Would you please share with me your vision of the path to bring democracy in China?

Xia Yeliang: Well, I think that most people are considering that a gradual path would be the best. That means that, yeah, little by little. But nowadays, I’ve got more firm beliefs. I think there should be kind of a fundamental change. There should be kind of a revolution. So. I always compare it now with Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s revolution. More than 100 years ago, at that time Dr. Sun went to Japan many times, and he got support from Japan’s tycoons, and some scholars, and even some retired government officials. And also, I think we should develop a more enlightened movement, enlightenment movements with libertarian ideas. Unless quite a substantial amount of the population can understand, can firmly accept his ideas – there’s no hope for China.

 

Fostering the Libertarian Path

Interviewer: How should we enlighten people by exploring the libertarian path?

Xia Yeliang: Okay, for the last three years when I was in Washington DC, I had several WeChat groups. At most there were seven. Each one had more than 400 persons. So, I’d give a speech regularly to those WeChat groups. Each time when I had announcements, then more than 100 WeChat groups join. Each one would have more than 400 persons. There were also 120 or 130 groups in the meantime that would disseminate my speeches.

 

The Hard Road for Freedom

Interviewer: May I ask who the WeChat group is?

Xia Yeliang: There’s a lot of WeChat groups. I don’t know the– I have my own. Its name is called “100 Years for Dreams”. That means we should realize a dream, the dream of constitutional democracy. I said, “Over 100 years our dream hasn’t been realized” — that’s constitutional democracy. So, the task or the mission of those groups is to try to reach this goal in the future. So, I give speeches, and also, I invite some friends to give speeches in my WeChat groups. But those groups are sabotaged by CCP frequently. They were destroyed. Yeah, they destroyed these groups from time to time.

Interviewer: How did they destroy them?

Xia Yeliang: When they interfered, it meant that no people could send messages. Then my assistants would try to establish new groups. Sometime within one day they would establish them twice. Can you believe that? That’s amazing.

Interviewer: You mean that the CCP destroyed the WeChat group?

Xia Yeliang: Yeah. Sometime once a week. Sometime twice a day even.

 

The Fight for Freedom Cannot Be Quelled

Interviewer: Twice a day even, wow.

Xia Yeliang: Yeah. But now we have seven WeChat groups still surviving, but it’s very hard. When people try to say some sensitive things, then it will be shut up again. But I think through this kind of dissemination of my speech, audio, sometimes video is important; I transfer my video speech through YouTube. I am on Twitter and Facebook, so people can watch it, but of course, they try to break the firewall to watch. So, I think that more than a million Chinese people can reach my video or audio speeches.

Interviewer: A million, more than a million.

Xia Yeliang: A million, more than million. Millions.

Interviewer: That’s a great figure.

Xia Yeliang: So I try to enlighten people with the libertarian ideas. And also I have a TV series for radio, Radio Free Asia. Have you heard the Radio Free Asia in the U.S.?

Interviewer: Yes, yes.

Xia Yeliang: I have this TV series about that. It’s called Classical Books Reading. So each time, I will introduce something about this book and ideas, and people like it very much.

 

The Role of Japan and the U.S. in Holding the Chinese Government Accountable

Interviewer: You are now living in the U.S. How should the U.S. government and Japan hold the Chinese government accountable for all these wrong doings?

Xia Yeliang: Of course, it’s an evil institution, so I think they should be accountable for all those crimes, like Mao should be accountable for the cultural revolution of more than, I would say, 100 million people’s death. Now, Xi Jinping should be accountable for all those crack downs or persecution of intellectuals, lawyers, and the human rights activists, and even their family members and relatives. So we cannot forgive him. Some people expect him to change, but from his five years of practice, I have seen no sign of any progress.

 

Xi Jinping Will Not Change: The Road to Revolution

Interviewer: No change.

Xia Yeliang: It’s getting worse and worse. It’s not progress. Actually, it’s getting worse and worse. So if he will not change, we will try to overthrow this government, overthrow it. So it must be a kind of a movement for revolution, for armed force revolution. But it should be in a long process, not in a once a while. I should say it would probably take more than 10 or 15 years, or even more. But now I am trying to call on people to respond, to act. I know in China, mainland China, it’s very risky, but for those people, I encourage them to have a kind of connection with each other. If you trust that person, then you meet maybe once a week or once a month. Just have a dinner together. You talk secretly. You don’t actually organize any organizations. Yet, those friends they know each other better, and I encouraged them to organize some kind of open air sports or activities, like climbing mountains, like practicing cycling, swimming, or boxing, anything to train their body. And they have more travel experience and should try to experience hardship. That means when they don’t have food, when they don’t have water supply, how can they survive? I encourage them to do all those things. It’s illegal, right? It’s illegal. You don’t say anything about political issues. It’s just something like other people do. You just do it. Maybe someday, when the situation is getting mature, then they can put it to the test. But it’s not easy.

 

Promoting Libertarian Ideas

Xia Yeliang: Now I’m trying to establish a new think tank to promote libertarian ideas.

Interviewer: What is it called?

Xia Yeliang: Okay. It’s called, “Changing the Vision”. So, I would have the think tank, and also we would promote those ideas, and also learn and do the studies on the practical experience of the different country’s transition for the last several decades. There is a Jasmine– no, actually, they have a lot of different kinds of revolutions in different countries. And we can study one century’s experience from different countries. So of course, it’s not an easy job, but we’re trying.

Interviewer: Thank you so much for taking the time today. It was great talking to you.

Xia Yeliang: My pleasure. My honor.

Interviewer: Thank you.