ONE
CHIEF INSPECTOR CHEN CAO, of the Shanghai Police Bureau, was attending a lecture at the Shanghai Writers’ Association, sitting in the audience, frowning yet nodding, as if in rhythmic response to the speech.
“The enigma of China. What’s that? Well, there’s a popular political catchphrase—socialism with Chinese characteristics—which is indeed an umbrella term for many enigmatic things. Things that are called socialist or communist in our Party’s newspapers but are in practice actually capitalistic, primitive or crony capitalistic, and utterly materialistic. And feudalistic, in that the children of high cadres—or princes—are themselves high cadres: the ‘red trustworthy,’ or the successors in our one-party system.
“In spite of the Party propaganda machines chunking away at full throttle, Chinese society is morally, ideologically, and ethically bankrupt, yet still going, going like the rabbit in an American television commercial.”
After tapping his pants pocket, looking for a pack of cigarettes, Chen stopped and thought better of it.
It was one of those controversial yet permissible lectures. The speaker was a well-known scholar named Yao Ji, a research law professor at Shanghai Academy of Social Science. Not exactly a dissident, Yao was nonetheless considered a potential troublemaker because of his open criticisms of the problems in society. He had published a number of contentious articles and posted even more unpublishable articles on several blogs online. A gaunt, angular man, he spoke with his hands on the podium, his body leaning slightly forward, and his prominently balding head reflecting the light pouring in through the stained-glass window. He looked like a hallowed figure, as in a time-yellowed painting.
Chen happened to know a thing or two about Yao due to an internal blacklist memo circulated in the police department. But it wasn’t his business, Chen told himself. He adjusted the amber-colored glasses along the ridge of his nose and pulled down the French beret just a little. He hoped he looked like anything but a cop. Here and now, it wasn’t a good idea to be recognized, even though several members of the association knew him fairly well. For the moment, Chen found himself bugged by the word enigma. It somehow reminded him, distantly, of a painting he’d seen, though he couldn’t recall the details. Professor Yao was producing a flurry of concrete examples.
“Indeed, what are the characteristics of China? There are so many different interpretations and definitions. Here are some examples that speak for themselves. A Beijing University professor tells his students: ‘Don’t come to me if you don’t make four hundred million by the time you’re forty.’ The professor specializes in real estate development, advocating high-priced housing investments in return for the referral fees he receives from developers. For him, and for his students, the only value in the world of red dust is what shines in cash.
“In a reality show, where the participants were discussing how one makes a marriage choice, a young girl stated her manifesto: she would rather weep in a BMW than laugh on a bike. The message of that is unmistakable. A rich husband who can provide her with material luxuries—even if in a loveless marriage—is what she wants. In a recent drunk driving case, the accused actually shouted at the cops, ‘My father is Zhang Gang.’ Zhang Gang is a high-ranking Party official, in charge of the local police bureau. Sure enough, the cops were hesitant to arrest him, but a passerby recorded the scene with his cell phone and placed the clip on the Internet. Immediately ‘My father is Zhang Gang’ becomes an Internet catchphrase.…”
These were all examples of what was really happening in China, Chen thought. But what did they mean?
For the government, “stability” was the main priority. It was declared that the economic and social progress from China’s reforms had been achieved because of that stability. Yet the Party authorities were finding it increasingly hard to maintain that stability, despite their efforts to cover up any “unstable” factors.
Professor Yao was coming to his conclusion.
“In a time when the government’s legitimacy is disappearing and the Party’s ideology disintegrating, I am, as a legal scholar, still trying to hold that last line of defense—a real, independent legal system—hoping against hope for the future of our society.”
Chen, his brows knitted more deeply, joined in the applause. As a cop, he found it far from pleasant to listen to such a lecture.
Still, he would rather be sitting here than in a routine political meeting with Party Secretary Li Guohua and other officials at the bureau.
Li, the Party boss of the police bureau, was reaching retirement age, and Chen was unanimously seen as his successor. But for one reason or another, Li had been recently reappointed for another two years. As a sort of compensation, Chen was made the first deputy Party secretary of the bureau and a member of the Shanghai Communist Party Committee.