In retrospect, it is clear that I made a mistake in trying to establish a foundation, which operated in ways that were alien to people in China. At that time, giving a grant created a sense of obligation between the donor and recipient and obliged both of them to remain loyal to each other forever.
THE BETRAYAL OF REFORM
So much for history. Let’s turn to developments that have occurred just in the last year, some of which surprised me.
When I first started visiting China, I met many people in positions of power who were fervent believers in the principles of open society. In their youth, they had been deported to the countryside to be re-educated, often suffering hardships far greater than mine in Hungary. But we had much in common. We had all been on the receiving end of a dictatorship.
They were eager to hear from me about Popper’s thoughts on the open society. While they found the concept very appealing, their interpretation remained somewhat different from mine. They were familiar with Confucian tradition, but there was no tradition of voting in China. Their thinking remained hierarchical, not egalitarian, and carried a built-in respect for high office. I, on the other hand, wanted everyone to have a vote.
I wasn’t surprised when Xi ran into serious opposition at home; but I was surprised by the form it took. At last year’s leadership convocation at the seaside resort of Beidaihe, Xi was apparently taken down a peg or two. Although there was no official communiqué, the rumor was that the convocation disapproved of the abolition of term limits and the cult of personality that Xi had built around himself.
The committed defenders of open society in China, who are around my age, have mostly retired, and younger people, who are dependent on Xi for promotion, have taken their place. In fact, it was retired leaders like Zhu Rongji who reportedly floated the criticisms of Xi at the Beidaihe meeting.
It’s important to realize that such criticisms were only a warning to Xi about his excesses, but did not reverse the abolition of the two-term limit. Moreover, “Xi Jinping Thought,” which he promoted as his distillation of Communist theory, was elevated to the same level as “Mao Zedong Thought.” So Xi remains the supreme leader, possibly for his lifetime. The ultimate outcome of the current political infighting remains unresolved.
THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ADVOCATES
I have been concentrating on China, but open societies have many more enemies, Putin’s Russia foremost among them. And the most dangerous scenario is one in which these enemies conspire with, and learn from, one another in order to oppress their people more effectively.
What can we do to stop them?
The first step is to recognize the danger. That is why I am speaking out. But now comes the difficult part. Those of us who want to preserve the open society must work together and form an effective alliance. We have a task that can’t be left to governments. History has shown that even governments that want to protect individual freedom have many other interests, and they also give precedence to their own citizens’ freedom over the freedom of the individual as an abstract concept.