Demanding Direct Democracy: Gilets Jaunes in France & China.

look it's easy to find fault with their
methods but the French yellow vest protests are nevertheless one of the most important political movements in your lifetime or mine like it or not this is one of the most important political movements of the 21st century and not just for France for the United States for Canada for China for India for the whole world these protests are asking a question that makes many people in elite levels of politics uncomfortable all around the world they're asking the question why can't the people of France have direct democracy why do the people of France have to rely on electing members of parliament and then many years later approving or disapproving of the job those people in Pramod do why can't the people of France directly initiate new legislation and repeal legislation through the ballot box why is it that democracy has just become this plebiscite on leadership that really people have no control and no influence over and really there's no accountability for people in power once they are elected aside from the end of the next election cycle when they might or might not lose their jobs it's a very simple question and I notice that in the Western press whether it's the French the German the American they tend to focus on every other issue raised by the yellow vests except this one and I think they do that because they don't have an answer for it I've never heard a manual Mike Hall himself say why it is that he opposes the idea of direct democracy an idea that actually the French people have guaranteed to them in their constitution the problem is this is guaranteed to them a little bit too vaguely and now the question is can they make that principle less vague can they in the 21st century start to Ana meaningful meaningful sentence have an Exercise direct democracy and that's a question I think we know the masses should be asking in Canada they should be in the united states and we're not we don't have a protest movement like the yellow vests demanding direct democracy in communist china they don't have a protest movement demanding democracy and they should and we should and we should also study and learn from the example of other countries around the world that already have this type of direct democracy the two i really know of our switzerland and far-off exotic taiwan I'm living in Taiwan right now okay so didn't know so the title and topic of this video is what does the Chinese government say about france's yellow vests there's a lot to be learned by considering the perspective of one country examining another country's political problems I think in the Western world we don't do enough of it we have pages and pages of every magazine and newspaper devoted to the American perspective on the war in Afghanistan and you very rarely hear a peep about what does India think what does Pakistan think what does China think whether you're talking about the government of China or the newspapers in China or you know the average man on the street in India those are all countries that have their own involvement their own perspective that really matters and that might reveal to you problems of perception and misperception misapprehension false assumptions in the American approach to the Afghan problem and of course there's ultimately Afghanistan's own perspective so in this case we're asking what does the Chinese government say about Frances yellow fest that's a very interesting perspective because in theory the government of China feels that it represents both communism and democracy and in practice of course now it's it's very dubious whether they whether they represent another one I think for many of you this is a question you probably haven't asked yourself before before clicking from this video so let's just entertain a few hypothetical possibilities to reflect on what the answer might be before I tell you what the answer actually is possibility number one maybe China would say quote we completely support France going through this difficult period of transition this would be a diplomatic and sympathetic answer basically pro French and pro-establishment possibility number two what if instead China in some sense supports the protesters perhaps seeing them as the working class or the poor perhaps sympathizing with their discontent against Western capitalist elitism possibility number three perhaps China would resolve a classical Marxist narrative and say see that's what you get for oppressing the poor with your so-called democracy perhaps they want to pretend that the Communists have all the answers and not the capitalists like Mike hall that'd be a little bit more of an old-school Cold War approach but what absolutely nobody is going to mention is this when you see these signs in these slogans with Ric in the crowds at the ill-effects protests this is the demand for direct democracy and I've seen a great deal of shameful coverage from the West it's not just a problem in terms of the Chinese perception and misperception issue that seems to me to intentionally blot out all of the really meaningful important questions raised by the protests most of all the problem of direct democracy quote in a list of demands released in late November the yellow vests ask that any policy proposal garnering seven hundred thousand signatures trigger a national referendum to be held within a year the RIC is one item on a list of 42 measures being demanded by the let yellow vests you will see those 42 demands mentioned incredibly rarely in the Western press let alone the Chinese press us and say and even if they are mentioned you will almost never see them discussed in detail I guess I can say I have literally never seen them discussed in detail and even googling specifically for the list of 42 it's quite difficult to get them in English or in French to get the full list you might think the journalists would be devoting their time to an analysis of what these demands were their applications but no for the most part this is being swept under the rug perhaps because consciously or unconsciously people are uncomfortable dealing with this list and they're more comfortable dealing with the sort of simplified stereotype notion that the people in yellow vests just want lower taxes an RIC system already exists in some countries notably Switzerland where voters are regularly called upon to vote on policies Italy's Constitution calls for a vote to be held in if a proposal gets 500,000 signatures or is backed by at least five original councils so in theory the people of France should have something like this guaranteed to them under the Constitution but the Constitution is a little bit vague article 3 of the current French Constitution says national sovereignty belongs to the people who exercise it through the representatives and by way of referendum now on the left you have a short quotation which is suggesting to you that you interpret this very brief statement in the spirit of the earlier constitution of 1791 and in terms of the philosophy of jean-jacques Rousseau that really this this ought to have a little bit more weight and substance and depth than at first glance it might have and it's not just a small group of violent protesters on the streets who support this idea of direct democracy 80% of respondents 80% of the people polled in France say that they support this type of referendum to propose a law 72% say they'd supported to repeal a law 63 percent say they'd supported to end the term of office of an elected official so this is actually a popular mainstream political concern in France in addition to being something guaranteed to them in the Constitution if you are watching this video in Canada please ask yourself why not us - do you think the people of France have a higher level of education a higher level of erudition do you think the French are somehow more democratic than we are that they care about this and they're demanding it and we aren't I think for Canadians for Americans probably for Argentina and many other people's around the world there's a real challenge here I mean yes it's a challenge to elites who are already in political power it may make them uncomfortable to think about this greater broader form of grassroots political participation that could be made possible through this type of legal change but it's also a challenge for us it's the challenge for the people who are sitting and watching TV world say well we've gotten really used to complaining about politics but we haven't really stood up and demanded to participate not in this way not in the way that France already is is showing us to do and this is not such inch in history this is not just an issue that has raised in 1791 or in the philosopher jean-jacques Rousseau or even in the French Constitution following after World War two this was all debated delineated and legislated on again back in 2008 which is not such ancient history and that again set down this broad and vague principle that the people of France ought to have direct democracy of some kind but it's remained a little bit too vague so what does the Chinese government say about Frances yellow vests and I've already told you they are not going to be dealing with the most fundamental and important question which is of direct democracy the source I'm working from here is called Choshu now Choza is a much more powerful statement of what the policy of the government of China is and of what the people of China ought to think and ought to believe than any source you can quote from the American system of government if in American politics you quote Donald Trump you're just quoting what Donald Trump thinks if you quote what the leader or the Republican Party says you're just quoting what a handful of people think you're not even really quoting some that represents the Republican Party Shousha is a very carefully written very carefully edited and controlled Communist Party of China organ and I would say that its main purpose is to instruct people within the Chinese government about how they ought to act they ought to believe what they ought to say and how they ought to say it title looking at France and shambles what should the Chinese people think even the title of this article affirms would have just told you that Shousha is really written to be a model of what the Chinese people ought to think and believe how people within Chinese government ought to act as I think it is mostly read by Communist Party officials themselves members of the Chinese government so when you look at France in its current political state what should the Chinese people think many countries in Europe need quote unquote deep reforms to revive their economy oh that's a little bit painfully vacant countries in Europe need deeper forms to revive their economies but they weren't able to do so because the European system of democracy is so polarizing so right off the bat they're trying to portray the political problems in France as if they're merely economic I think because the economy is safe to talk about and it might be dangerous for a communist party official writing this article and of course the article would have been edited and censored numerous times we're going to press would have been discussed in committee what the party message is here but it's certainly safe to suggest that the problem is the French economy and that they need economic reforms rather than saying the problem is participation and representation in their system of democracy which would raise much more comfortable questions for China this is an occasion for China to boast about their own supposed economic vitality but contrast and yes they've basically gone with a blaming democracy tactic here we continue president Mac Hall tried his best with various reforms skipping over some of the details here but increasing the fuel tax was the straw that broke the camel's back and he became despised as the president of the rich or the president for the rich etc so you might think that would be a topic the Communist Party would want to spend a little bit more time on but no see the direction that going they're putting more blame on European democracy itself quote they're powerless to handle the problems because of the divisiveness that has become natural under the democratic system so the argument here is that France has economic problems and that they're powerless to solve those economic problems because of the divisive and polarizing nature of democracy and this is of course a kind of humble brag for China as if to say China's economy is so wonderful because they don't have this divisiveness they don't have this problem of democracy in their society the article that offers a positive contrast here in China ten retired soldiers dared to have a public protest and it was quote-unquote controlled immediately the article proceeds to ask who is better able to handle these problems these social problems and maintain stability China or the West now I had not heard of this protest allegedly involving just ten retired soldiers as soon as I googled it yeah you can guess these were a set of protests that were much much larger than just ten men around the 5th of October hundreds of retired veterans of the People's Liberation Army gathered from various parts of China to protest and ask the authorities to apologize yeah for the poor treatment of veterans long story short these protests were tolerated for some period of time and then there was a brutal crackdown on them about ten men were persecuted as being ringleaders or so quote-unquote criminals but again this just says hundreds of people gathered these protests we don't know how many it was not a group of nearly ten men retired from the military so you can read more about that if you want to I think that wasn't covered in the Western press but this is being suggested that when China has public protests and demands for democracy like the yellow vests look how well trying to handle it because China doesn't have this problem with democracy just throw everyone in prison it's no problem but you know with with absolutely no humor absolute deadpan serious China's response this is to say again firstly they suggest that Frances real problem is economic rather than political cultural or otherwise they do not suggest that the problem is the relationship between the rich and the poor between the elites and the masses between the rulers and the rule ruled no no no no that it's economic but they can't carry out the deeper forms because of the divisive and competitive nature of democracy and then democracy is a problem also because it prevents the army from just straight-up brutalizing anyone who dares to complain I wish this were comedy but it's not it's deadly serious and the lives of a billion people hang in the balance so coming to the conclusion of this article although France may seem to have more freedom on a shallow level of analysis French society really lacks the type of unity necessary to get things done China by contrast has unity and quote unquote is good at doing big things close quote but doesn't have enough of vitality or flexibility so there is a little bit of sincere self-criticism here in this part of the article if you're reading it in the original Chinese it is not just boasting about the greatness of China however from my perspective ever since the year 2007 or 2008 a large part of the sense of pride and purpose of the Chinese government and the Chinese people has indeed been this idea that they're good at doing big things what do they mean by that they mean that they managed to build a speed train this train connecting Tibet to Beijing ultimately connecting Tibet to the rest of China they mean that they very rapidly built a space program and put a man into orbit and then the astronaut returned and they all cheered they mean that they they hosted the Olympics that they build huge hospitals huge roads huge trains this is their idea of big things but the sobering reality is you know yes they built a health care system but nobody trusts it and the Chinese people pay a lot of money to try to run away and get health care in Taiwan in Thailand in the United States of America the Chinese people save and spend a lot of money to send their children to study at universities in all of these countries but again Europe in America the desperation of the Chinese people to rely on institutions outside of China is reflects how desperately unhappy they are how mistrustful they are towards this government that accomplishes so many so many so-called big things that's reflected also in this little headline we've had lately explaining China's low and falling ranking on the UN world happiness report residents of more than 150 countries were asked how satisfied they are with their lives China ranked 86th out of the 156 countries down seven places from the previous year as The Economist magazine noted this place China below Russia and even below war-torn Libya the people of Libya are happier at least according to this report this attempt of social scientists to measure happiness the people of Libya are happier with their lives than the people of China there is indeed a great deal of discontent amongst the people of China and that discontent is overwhelmingly directed towards the government precisely because they know the government dominates their lives dominates and controls the economy it creates and controls to eat conditions that make them so unhappy there are also the conditions that provide them with of course the the opportunities that they do enjoy in life but I understand very well the pride the Chinese take in quote unquote doing big things but let me tell you something in the space of two years I went to the South of France four times and if anyone is doing an honest assessment of which country is better at doing big things China or France I've lived in both during the same period of time I was living in China and flying back and forth to France my life has really involved both countries there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that it is in fact France that is much better at doing big things its France that has built a railway network that really works it's France that has built a healthcare system and it ocation system even an economy that really works although that may not be obvious at first glance it's a very unequal comparison but this article is dodging the real question which is of these two countries who has built a democracy that really works and let's face it we're not talking about a democracy that works well for the wealthiest 10% of people we're probably talking about a democracy that works well for the poorest 40% in China there's absolutely no doubt they have a social system that works very well for the elite some people have gotten rich off of Chinese communism and it does not work well at all for the bottom 40% does France have a democracy that works well for the 40% at the bottom these protests are asking that question and in the 21st century it's not just France it's the whole world that's gonna have to start coming up with some new answers including as never before direct democracy so these are their conclusions jaha has unity and is good at doing big things but does not have the vitality or flexibility of some of these democratic societies and I have a few notes there on screen just drawing our attention to the peculiarity of the Chinese wording this again tends to lean towards an economic analysis because economics is safer to discuss in 21st century China and then this is the most bizarre commentary on the state of France and the yellow vests of all here published in the same pages of Choshu magazine very much as I say an official government declaration they published a poem they published a poem on the chaos gripping the Western world they talk about how France is in ruins France is in a state of chaos because of the yellow vest protests they talk about how poorly the United States is struggling under the leadership of Donald Trump it's a whole series of complaints about how awful things are for us in Western democracy whereas yes you guessed it home life in China supposedly absolutely wonderful so again we can contrast that to the fact that guess what guys you can kid yourself but there are a lot of really grave warnings that life in Communist China is not so wonderful for the vast majority of people I don't hear anyone claiming that life in Libya is so wonderful compared to China but nevertheless they're doing better than you want a survey of who's happy and who's not what absolutely nobody is going to mention is this the French yellow vests protesters are raising one of the most fundamental important questions of our time and that is the question of direct democracy democracy is not something that your superiors can give you you and we have to stand up and take it [Music]