Zhiyong as a Representitive of People’s Congress
One symbolic case is, Zhiyong run for a seat in People’s Congress in Beijing. I opened my eyes so widely when I heard about it. “How can it be possible?” I asked.
Zhiyong is a practical idealist. He is so “naive” to believe that it MAY work. He then run for it (not many people even think about it), and since he is the first independant person to run for it, and did some work to help people to know who he is, not surprisingly, many people choose him, because he is the only person they know. His initial idea is to become a representitive of the People’s Congress of Haidian District of Beijing, and then run for Beijing and finally be able to run for the National People’s Congress, but his attempt just stopped in the Haidian district level, since the Beijing’s People’s Congress Representitives are elected by the representitives like Zhiyong at district level. It means, they need many people like Zhiyong to make it really work, but now, there are just one person who are really elected in that district. It is impossible for other “appointed” representitive to elect him or any other people elected representitive.
Regardless of the result, I think he is doing the right thing to push the limit by the first step. If it is proven to be a feasible way, that is the most stable and harmless way to change this society.
Framework that Does not Work
The people’s congress representitive mechanism is a good system by design, but in reality, that does not work as it is designed. Instead of designing another working system by theory, but does not work in reality, it is more practical to work on improving the current system. No matter how hard it is, it is still a feasible approach since the same problem will bother all societies.
Another lawyer YLFer was involved in creating the Constitution and foundamental laws of Cambodia. After years of hard work, the system itself was pretty much in shape – in theory, it should work perfectly. But when I asked him about whether he is confident about democracy in Cambodia, he said no. That is the difference between a reasonable law (documents) and the reality.
To design a better system is 1 billion times easier than implementing a working system.
In that sense, I am feel Zhiyong is on the right path.
My Practice
Unlike Zhiyong, my profession is not a lawyer, and to do my best as an entreprenure is the best thing I can do for my users, and for my employees, for my investors, and my family and this country. However, I did push hard to at certain stuff.
The thing I devote most is the residential area democratic practice. No matter how big the change of national wide system is, all the house owners of a residential area need to find a workable way (The Chinese way) to collectively make decisions on the collective property. That is the lacking part. Without a working system, procedures, and even meeting orders at residential area level, I cannot imagine at higher level it can work. That is consistent with what Zhiyong is doing.