Gentleman, Please Enter the Urn

“Gentleman, please enter the urn!” (qingjun ruweng in Chinese) means to trap a man with his own trick in China.

This Chinese idiom is based on a true story: once upon in China, it was under reign of Empress Wu Zetian (625 – 705, reign: 690 - 705) in Tang Dynasty. Wu had several formidable secret police officials, two of them were Lai Junchen and Zhou Xing. One day Wu assigned Lai to investigate Zhou because there were secret reports accusing Zhou of having a criminal plot. Having been good friends each other, Lai invited Zhou for a luncheon and asked him how to let the accused confess if he was unwilling to. Zhou replied: “It is easy. Get a big urn and set a char fire underneath it; then take the accused in it and he won’t be unwilling to confess anything”. After setup an urn under fire by Zhou’s instruction, Lai told Zhou: “Please enter the urn! Her Majesty let me investigate you on your criminal plot”. Zhou confessed in fear of torture. There was no evidence left in history about whether Zhou was real guilty on the charges or not, though.

Empress Wu was the only woman in Chinese history to rule China. Based on historic records, such as Zizhi Tongjian (The Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government), China was under the Terror with Secret Police in her early reign. In order to secure her power, Wu devised many copper boxes for informers to accuse on others and interviewed those informers who came forward. She gave them ride, ration, and lodge no matter the accusations were true or not, some informers, like Lai, even got promotion. According to the Book of Tang [Dynasty], “[s]oon thereafter, great accusations arose, and many innocent people were falsely accused and stuck their necks out in waiting for execution. Heaven and earth became like a huge cage, and even if one could escape it, where could he go? That was lamentable.”

Now in China, starting from this week, its Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) devises a new hot line and a website for informers to accuse the so-called possible corrupt officials secretly. It was reported that on the first day the hot line was jammed and the website was unreachable because of an extremely huge volume. I cannot fathom how many false accusations among them, but I am sure such things will happen in empiricism-wise. What intrigues me is that China already is a police state, yet it still relies on such unpromising ways to keep its ruling. It appears that either the Chinese government is at its wits’ end or the Chinese Communist wants to play a dirty political game. To resort a secret accusation is the most efficient way to purge a political rival. Yet, the damage is pervasion of fear among people. Who cares justice when fear is loaded in a society? Perhaps the Chinese people feel that it is worthy to let the SPP play “Доверяй, но проверяй” (“Trust, but verify” in English). However, “Trust, but verify” means to distrust, and in western political science “[s]ystems based on distrust simply divide [separate] the responsibility [powers] so that checks and balances can operate.” The game that the SPP plays is subject to “suspect and verify”, which leads to mistrust, even to “guilty by suspicion”.

John Locke (1632 – 1704) said that “[t]he reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they chuse and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society, to limit the power, and moderate the dominion of every part and member of the society…” When so many Chinese officials are accused for corruptions, does it mean that China has fundamental problems on “laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences”? Why cannot the Chinese government give its people Habeas corpus (a Latin phrase means “that you have the body”)? Why cannot the Chinese government govern by the rule of law? Why cannot the Chinese government implement the trial by jury, even the Japanese can now? What is so terrible for people (both the accuser and the accused) to have the freedom from fear? What is so terrible for people to protect themselves by knowing their rights? What is so terrible for people to “enter into society”, instead of to “enter the urn”, with “the preservation of their property” in a proper way?