Return Power to the People, Return Property to the People

DearMr Wen Jiabao,

I amHu Ping. I graduated from BeijingUniversity in 1981. I amliving in exile in New York,working as the editor of Beijing Spring. Asyou are visiting the UK,my friends and I have two demands on the Chinese Communist Party: returningpower to the people and returning property to the people.

First,returning power to the people means democracy. Even if you think democracycannot be achieved overnight, you must at least put forward a timetable and aroute map for it. You must start right now by stopping political persecutionsand respecting freedom of speech. You must also allow exiles to go back to China, withoutany conditions.

Second,returning property to the people. After the CCP came into power in 1949, itappropriated the private property of the common people and turned it into thepublic property of the so-called ‘whole people’ in the name of ‘revolution’.Then in the name of ‘reform’ the CCP turned the public property into theprivate property of its own members: 0.4 per cent of the population hold 70 percent of the wealth of the country, and over 95 per cent of the billionaires arethe CCP officials and their families.

Stealingin the name of revolution; dividing the spoil in the name of reform. Yet thesetwo opposite crimes have both been committed by the same Party during the spanof 60 years! This kind of reform bears no legitimacy whatsover. Therefore, wedemand that your Party must return your ill-gotten wealth to the people! 

Weremember that last May after the Wenchuan Earthquake you said to the PLAsoldiers: ‘Do as you see fit!’ Now we would like to say the very same words toyou: ‘Do as you see fit!’ Man acts; Heaven sees. Do as you see fit!

Yourssincerely,

HuPing