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I am a Practitioner of 'The 7e Way of Leaders' where a Leader will Envision, Enable (ASK for TOP D), Empower, Execute, Energize, and Evolve grounded on ETHICS!

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Daily Lessons from Life 10 March 2010

"Petition filed at UN over missing Chinese lawyer - Wed, Mar 10, 2010 AFP

BEIJING - A global team of prominent lawyers has petitioned the United Nations to condemn the detention of high-profile Chinese legal activist Gao Zhisheng as a violation of international law.


The petition, filed to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday and seen by AFP, said Gao's detention also violated China's own laws.

Gao, a former Communist Party member, was an outspoken rights defender in cases against the Chinese government involving alleged police corruption, land seizures and religious freedom.

He was taken away by security personnel on February 4, 2009 and has not been heard from since, the petition said.

The government has failed to officially arrest and charge Gao with a crime and has not notified his family where he is being held - all violation of the Chinese laws, the petition said."

This is and will be one of the sensitive topics that China does not want any outsiders to meddle with. While I am not for such a behavior, it is an internal affairs as far as the Chinese authority is concerned and as a foreigner who want to influence changes in the country, it is best to note it as a 'OB' (Out-of-Bound) marker.

Lessons for me are:

1. exposure of corrupt practices by the party members, especially the highly placed and powerful ones, embarrassed the government and the party. In a country where 'face' is very important, loss of face cannot be tolerated, though very illogical, if it came about due to an outsider pointing it out! However, if it is pointed out by an insider, it is alright as it will be taken care of internally without any need to make it public! TIC - This is China!! This is how it prefers to handling sensitive and inglorious matters!;

2. the party authority has been emphasizing the need to prevent corruption and abuses of power by the party members and officials as it gravely undermined the legitimacy of the ruling party. They understand how serious and destabilizing it can be when the masses suffered too much injustice and oppression by the corrupt officials and revolt! So, they want to control (unlike to stamp out in the next 5-10 years) such bad behaviors but they want to do it their way! Not by publicising the corrupt acts in public without they involvement!

3. the crux of the conflict, since both sides also want to have ideally a corruption-free situation, centered on: some corruption cases are too close to the highly placed and powerful cadres. So, these are to be taken care of 'in private' and 'slowly'. Sometimes, too slow for real justice to reign!

The Westerners, at least some of them, could not understand, or do not want to understand, this is how the Chinese will handle such issue. Hence, another clash of ideas and ideals.

As China continues to raise its international profile and wanting to keep a sustainable path to economic successes for its 1.4B people, it will continue to evolve and 'pick-and-choose' its responses to international criticism of human right violation. At the same time, it will slowly embrace 'what is right' as the Chinese people demand it eventually in the near future!

Leadership with a unique Socialistic Chinese Character! - For now...

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