Posted on Wednesday, September 07, 2005 8:22 PM
#news & review #central kindom
after Premier Wen's remarks on further advancing democracy in china, people are excited and start to discuss the "roadmap" of democratization, one interesting idea is about "special democracy zone", which suggests that china should first test those practices in one area and then expand the model to the rest of the country. obviously it was inspired by the idea of "special economic zone" and has its merits.
but the underlying presumption of the idea of SDZ is that democracy enhances the social and economic development, this is exactly what practical, result-oriented chinese people expect from democracy. but what if it doesn't come out that way? the true value of democracy is not to help the society beome better but to prevent it from the worst. will a SDZ show this to the chinese people in the short run?
and which part of the country should become a SDZ? developed or less developed region? rural or urban? ........