Chinese shouldn't get more freedom, says Jackie Chan
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Independent Minds
No democracy, please, we're Chinese! Hong Kong kung fu supremo Jackie Chan is famous worldwide for beating up the bad guys, but the action star is unlikely to use his martial arts skills to fight for democracy.
Chan launched a broadside against calls for more freedom in China this weekend, saying he wasn't sure if a free society was what the country needed and that Chinese people needed to be controlled. His remarks have proven unpopular in his native city-state.
"I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not. I'm really confused now. If you're too free, you're like the way Hong Kong is now. It's very chaotic. Taiwan is also chaotic," Chan, 55, told the Boao Forum for Asia – a regional conference modelled on the World Economic Forum in Davos – when pressed by fellow panel members to take a stance against rigorous control of the media on the mainland and to give his views on suffocating censorship in the growing Chinese film market.
"I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want," he said.
His comments were warmly received by the audience, composed mostly of Chinese business leaders, but Hong Kong pro-democracy legislators were incensed. "He's insulted the Chinese people. Chinese people aren't pets," pro-democracy legislator Leung Kwok-hung told the Associated Press. "Chinese society needs a democratic system to protect human rights and the rule of law," he said.
Veteran Hong Kong pro-democracy legislator Albert Ho said Chan's remarks were "racist".
"People around the world are running their own countries. Why can't Chinese do the same?"
Like many Hong Kongers with major business interests in mainland China, Chan has taken a steadfastly pro-Beijing line since the former British colony reverted to Chinese control in 1997. Under the territory's mini-constitution, the Basic Law, Hong Kong enjoys considerably more freedom than the mainland.
In democratic Taiwan, MP Huang Wei-che said Chan "has enjoyed freedom and democracy and has reaped the economic benefits of capitalism. But he has yet to grasp the true meaning of freedom and democracy".
Chan was critical of the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing and other Chinese cities in June 1989, but in recent years has taken a much more pro-Beijing line. He was heavily involved in the public relations drive ahead of the Olympics and features as a Chinese customs officer in a promotional video aimed at stopping tourists buying pirated goods when visiting China.
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Comments
UK & US! Remember China is not soft Iraq! Be aware of it, cowards!
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla
His movies were rubbish anyway, just a load of choreographed dancing, and acrobatics, as Fake as it gets.
He'd have been better off being on come dancing or signing up for a circus.
With all the knocks and blows over the years, maybe he has developed a liver dysfunction and needs another one.
What better place to get one than in China!!.
By now the Chinese have set up an organ donor drive through takeaway service.
He can just drive up to the Mobile execution ORGAN REMOVING van in the back of his stretched limo and they stick a new one in!.
People are TOTALLY repulsed by this practice, totally repulsed by this Inhumanity.
It isn't the people of China that needs controlling more.
It is their government, it is their government that is completely out of control.
I suppose the servile Chinese people are happy enough if they are not getting exterminated by the Millions.
As they were a short while ago in the 1970's Cultural revolution.
Now with just the odd tens or hundreds of thousands of people Murdered here and there and they just get on with their lives.
Chan's "major business interests in mainland China" though is the key to it all.
Having spent so long amongst the Americans he has picked up on their two main traits.
Self interest, self satisfaction all the way.
The American riding roughshod over everything and everybody to get what they want.
And keeping hold of it.
We should recognise this from our dose of 80's Thatcherism.
It wasn't Thatcherism we were on the end of, it was Americanism in a re-branded packet.
I rather listen to Jackie Chan mouth off than some born again democrate politician. At least Jackie makes me laugh.
The purpose of government is to maintain order and promote prosperity. Compare China's economic numbers with the bastions of democracy, USA and UK. Compare corruption and fraud.
Peaceful tribal anarchy did not survive as a system of government because, without central government, there was no defense against imperialism. Democracy is failing because, without central oversight, there is no defense against fraud and corruption.
The so called human rights abuses of CCP Oversight in China include classifying government fraud and corruption as "Treason against the people". China's FDA chief was sentenced to death for taking money from drug companies. The Shanghai Communist Party head got the same for corruption.
The Chinese system has found a defense against the fraud and corruption that is destroying western democracy. That sounds like progress in the search for better government. Something that Jackie Chan has the intelligence to recognize.