An Unjust Law is No Law at All

I heartily praise the Google’s new approach in China announced in this week, because it is a noble cause for Google to defend the Human Rights activists in China, to defy the censorship in China, and to denounce the organized hacking crimes in China. Google shows the world its “Don’t Be Evil” credo by confronting the Chinese Communist’s imperiousness: my way or the high way. Here, I give Google my Thank-You note; and this Muscovite of Google might already win back the due respect from Charles de Montesquieu (1689 – 1755), for he not only keeps his own liberty but also fights for others’. My regret is: this first heroic action of against the censorship in China was not taken by some major Chinese enterprises.

The Chinese Communist regime responded, “The Chinese government administers the Internet according to law and we have explicit stipulations over what information and content can be spread over the Internet.” But, this regime is a de facto, not a de jure. Should this People’s Republic be a de jure, then, according to Montesquieu, “the people are in some respects the sovereign,” thus, “[t]here can be no exercise of sovereignty but by their suffrages, which are their own will; now the sovereign’s will is the sovereign himself. The laws therefore which establish the right of suffrage are fundamental to this [republic] government.” In today’s world, China is one of a few nations that do not allow their own people to have suffrages. How come China is a People’s Republic? How come the laws in China are the just laws? Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 – 1968, a prominent Civil Rights Movement leader) said, “I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.” My regret is: I cannot recall one name of the Chinese Americans who heavily joined the Civil Rights Movement led by Dr. King.

Montesquieu said, “In despotic states, the nature of government requires the most passive obedience;” and “man is a creature that blindly submits to the absolute will of the sovereign.” This is the exact obedience what the Chinese Communist has forced the Chinese people to be. Now, it demands Google to obey the [censorship] laws in China. Many Chinese, they just like the slaves in the Allegory of the Cave, never question whether a law imposed upon them is a just law or not, and they want others, such as, Google, like themselves to be “a creature that blindly submits to the absolute will of the sovereign”. “Man’s portion here [despotism], like that of beasts, is instinct, compliance, and punishment.” said Montesquieu. My regret is: so many Chinese people who act as the slaves in the Allegory of the Cave for laughing at the returned freedman [such as, Google] and saying that he had gone up only to come back with his sight ruined.

The people in China are nowhere about their suffrages; the people in Hong Kong are fighting for their suffrages; the people in Taiwan have their suffrages. However, in this week, the Chinese PLA tested its missile interception. Its intention is clear: to bluff the world, especially Taiwan related. We saw the Chinese PLA cracked down the peaceful students’ assembly on the June Fourth Massacre in 1989; we saw the Chinese PLA invaded Vietnam, a nation has more than 2,000 years history within China, in 1979. The Chinese Communist always claims such actions for its sovereignty: China has its sovereignty to defend itself from “Vietnam’s provoking”; China has its sovereignty to bloodbath its “internal affairs”, such as, the June Fourth Massacre, etc.; China has its sovereignty upon Taiwan, humming “ready or not here I come; can’t hide from love [missile]”; and so on so forth. Montesquieu said, “A person that aspires to the sovereignty concerns himself less about what is serviceable to the state than what is likely to promote his own interest.” Now, don’t you ascertain why the Chinese Communist is so obsessing over its sovereignty talk? My regret is: so many Chinese people who tolerate the exercise of sovereignty by the Chinese Communist, but no exercise of their own suffrages at all.