Democratization Quotes
There had been a revolution against the Qing Dynasty and an attempt to establish a republic. Wang, the spokesperson, quickly wrote an article in the Atlantic Monthly one of the most prestigious American publications. He minimized the degree of bloodshed, but by Chinese standards of civil unrest where over 20 million people had been killed in previous discords, this was relatively benign. It was a de facto military coup which also involved political assassinations which he carefully avoided mentioning, and just a few months after the publication of this article a second revolution broke out and this version of the Chinese Republic was very short lived.
This admission of policy failure is very unusual—especially when the speech is given abroad.
Mao worked for a democratic reform in China and ending the single party rule of the Kuomintang. It was part of his communist theoretical concept that a democratic revolution is the first stage to be followed by the socialist revolution. Young Mao valued basic freedoms. However when the Communists finally attained power, freedom of speech, assembly and association no longer were important and were denied the Chinese people by the Communist Party which was the single party ruler just as the Kuomintang had been.
The Security Council was never intended to be democratic. It was deliberately designed to give the largest, and most powerful states enough control over critical events so that they would be willing to join at all. Without the undemocratic aspect of the Security Council there would never have been a United Nations.
His views are a mix of modernism and fundamentalism. He favors democracy and elections but also favored the Taliban destroying the great ancient Buddha statues when he was called an idol worshipper for urging the preservation of art.
