Comparative Politics of Protest: China lacks Rule of Law 20 years after Tiananmen Square

Earlier this summer, before the heat was turned on the non-democratic Islamic Republic of Iran, the Chinese government kept tabs on ceremonies aimed at at recognizing the 20th anniversary the student-led Tiananmen Square of 1989.

What can the Chinese Case Study of protest tell us as we try to predict the future in Iran? And what does it tell us about the lack of Rule of Law in authoritarian -- even if supposedly democratically elected -- regimes?

Here are a couple of pieces of interest out of China. Can you draw comparisons to events in Iran?

From Newsweek's June 15 issue:

China's Ghost Writer

In designing the "bird's nest" Olympic stadium, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei helped create an architectural icon for China. Yet now he's living under police surveillance. His crime? Running a blog that lists the names of kids who died in poorly built schools in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. In the crackdown ahead of last week's Tiananmen Square anniversary, China's censors deleted Ai's blog without explanation. "The state tried so hard to make [the victims] vanish," says Ai. He began his list in March, frustrated by government inaction. By May he'd gathered 5,010 names and enough publicity to prod the government to compile its own tally of the dead. But Ai says, "You cannot just give us numbers." Now the blog has been wiped from servers, and Ai could face arrest, though he says he's "ready" for that. And while Beijing may have squashed one digital irritant, with Internet use doubling annually, the virtual realm could prove too vast and fast for China to control.

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From the June 3, Huffington Post:

Tiananmen Square: Foreign Reporters Barred By China On Eve Of Anniversary

BEIJING — A massive police presense ringed China's iconic Tiananmen Square on Thursday, the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy activists, as the government continued an overwhelming drive to muzzle dissent and block commemorations.

An exiled protest leader _ famous for publicly haranguing one of China's top leaders 20 years ago _ was also blocked from returning home to confront officials over what he called the "June 4 massacre."

Foreign journalists were barred from the vast square as uniformed and plainclothes police stood guard across the vast plaza that was the epicenter of the student-led movement that was crushed by the military on the night of June 3-4, 1989.

Security officials checking passports also blocked foreign TV camera operators and photographers from entering covering the raising of China's national flag, which happens at dawn every day. Plain clothes officers aggressively confronted journalists on the streets surrounding the square, cursing and threatening violence against them.

The heavy security moves come after government censors shut down social networking and image-sharing Web sites such as Twitter and Flickr, blacked out CNN when it airs stories on Tiananmen. Dissidents were confined to their homes or forced to leave Beijing, part of sweeping efforts to prevent online debate or organized commemorations of the anniversary.

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And from the June 22 New York Times:

Despite Law, Job Conditions Worsen in China

A year and a half after a landmark labor law took effect in China, experts say conditions have actually deteriorated in southern China’s export-oriented factories, which produce many of America’s less expensive retail goods.

With China’s exports reeling and unemployment rising because of the global slowdown, there is growing evidence that factories are ignoring or evading the new law, and that the government is reluctant to enforce it.

Government critics say authorities fear that a crackdown on violators could lead to mass layoffs and even social unrest...

But workers are fighting back. Earlier this month, the government said Chinese courts were trying to cope with a soaring number of labor disputes, apparently from workers emboldened by the promise of the new contract labor law...

The law requires that all employees have a written contract that complies with minimum wage and safety requirements. It also strengthens the monopoly state-run labor union and makes it more difficult for companies to use temporary workers or to dismiss employees.

Western companies that outsource to China say they have stepped up their monitoring of supplier factories to ensure they comply with the law. But they acknowledge that ensuring compliance is challenging in China...

China’s huge and complicated labor market has long thrived on cheap labor and lax regulation. In recent years, labor rights advocates say they have seen incremental gains for workers. But they say there are growing signs of labor abuse...

[F]actory owners say that labor law enforcement has been weak and selective for years, and changing the rules now could lead to chaos, drive up prices and force many factories out of business...
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When considering China, what conditions are necessary to claim that rule of law is the effective?
China has the law, but it doesn't appear to have rule of law. What's preventing the effective establishment of rule of law?

When considering Iran, what needs to happen to make it a democracy? Healthy democracies live on more than just elections. Iran is proving this point.

More than a week after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected in an apparent landslide, his opponents still continue to protest the election results even as police and security forces try to halt the public displays. More than a dozen protestors have been killed and journalists have been arrested.

All of this exemplifies the complexities of the word democracy.

Iran has called itself an Islamic democracy ever since its revolution in 1979. It gave voting rights to women and even (until recently) to 15-year-olds, and voters directly-elected its legislature and president.

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