CN — LARRY ROMANOFF: 民主，最危险的宗教 — 第八部分——中国的民主实验

April 6, 2023

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Democracy, The Most Dangerous Religion

Part 8 – China’s Democracy Experiments

I have written earlier that the multi-party electoral system (“democracy”) is the only form of government designed to be controlled by outsiders, naturally leaving it open to corruption and fraud. The Chinese, listening to the Americans, discovered all the proof of this in their own back yard. China has experimented with small-scale introductions of Western-style democratic elections for local officials in rural areas.

我早些时候曾写道，多党选举制度（简称“民主”）是唯一一种被设计成由外部控制的政府形式，自然会导致腐败和欺诈。中国人听了美国人的话，在自己的后院里找到了这方面的所有证据。中国已经尝试过在农村地区小规模地引入西式的地方官员民主选举。

We are often told that “first impressions” are the most important, that on initially meeting a person or entering a new situation, we see it most clearly at that first introduction. With the passage of time, our perceptions become clouded and dimmed by extraneous factors and our focus scattered by irrelevancies. On the introduction of “democracy” to the Chinese, they saw it very clearly as it really was – a system for obtaining political power that was just begging to be manipulated. In fact, it was seen as the very purpose of such a system and to have been designed precisely for such a purpose. And it was.

我们经常被告知，“第一印象”是最重要的，在初次见到一个人或进入一个新环境时，我们在第一次介绍时就看得最清楚。随着时间的推移，我们的感知因无关因素而变得模糊和模糊，我们的注意力被无关紧要的事情分散开来。在向中国人介绍“民主”时，他们非常清楚地看到了它的本来面目——一种获取政治权力的制度，只是乞求被操纵。事实上，它被视为这样一个系统的真正目的，而且正是为了这样一个目的而设计的。的确如此。

In early 2014, in Changsha, China’s nursery of democracy and many other imaginative crimes, there was a massive vote-buying scandal where almost 60 individuals were charged for electoral fraud, dereliction of duty, disrupting elections, buying votes, bribery and related corruption, involving more than 500 lawmakers and various local party officials who were disqualified and relieved of their posts, their crimes involving many thousands of citizens and more than 100 million yuan in bribes. And this was only one case of many.

2014年初，在中国的民主苗圃长沙和其他许多想象中的犯罪发生了一起大规模的买票丑闻，近60人被指控犯有选举舞弊、渎职、扰乱选举、买票、贿赂和相关腐败罪，涉及500多名被取消资格、解除职务的议员和地方党委官员，涉及数千名公民，受贿逾1亿元人民币。这只是众多案例中的一例。

In North China’s Hebei province, one town had two failed elections within a month, corrupted by vote-buying with twice as many votes as eligible voters, stolen ballot boxes and much other electoral fraud. Many towns and villages introduced multi-party elections in the late 1980s, with many experiencing similar problems. In September of 2016, there was a massive election-Rigging Scandal in Liaoning, with more than 500 people paying bribes to get friends elected. China’s National People’s Congress expelled 45 lawmakers, nearly half the number elected from Liaoning, because of bribery and election fraud. In addition, more than 500 lawmakers were dismissed or resigned from the 619-member Liaoning People’s Congress, and several people were arrested.

在中国北方的河北省，有一个镇在一个月内举行了两次选举失败，其中包括以两倍于合格选民的票数收买选票、窃取选票箱和其他许多选举舞弊行为。许多城镇和村庄在20世纪80年代末开始进行多党选举，许多都遇到了类似的问题。2016年9月，辽宁发生了一起大规模的选举舞弊丑闻，500多人通过行贿让朋友当选。中国全国人民代表大会以贿赂和选举舞弊为由开除了45名议员，几乎是辽宁省当选议员人数的一半。此外，有619名成员的辽宁省人大有500多名议员被罢免或辞职，另有几人被捕。

I was surprised that anyone was surprised. That’s democracy. That’s how it works. It was designed to be wide open to corruption. In the West, we have more experience so we do it more quietly and in different ways, but the result is the same. Wherever money can buy legislative power, all open systems will become corrupted.

我感到惊讶的是，竟然有人感到惊讶。这就是民主。这就是它的工作原理。它的设计初衷是向腐败敞开大门。在西方，我们有更多的经验，所以我们用不同的方式更安静地做这件事，但结果是一样的。只要金钱能买到立法权，所有开放的体系都会腐败。

The Chinese saw “democracy” as it really was – a way to obtain control of a government by collecting votes. The easiest way to collect votes is to buy them, and there isn’t even any morality here. Before moralising about the Chinese, consider that if it’s okay for AIPAC and corporations to buy politicians, why isn’t it okay for politicians to buy voters? The next easiest way (if you’re willing to be a bit dishonest) is to print excess ballots and stuff the ballot boxes. And let’s not forget that stuffing ballot boxes was a tradition in the US and Canada 200 years ago.

中国人看到了“民主”的本来面目——一种通过收集选票来控制政府的方式。收集选票最简单的方式就是买票，这里甚至没有任何道德可言。在对中国人说教之前，先想想，如果AIPAC和企业可以收买政客，那么政客为什么不能收买选民呢？第二个最简单的方法是打印多余的选票，然后塞满投票箱。我们不要忘记，200年前，在美国和加拿大，塞满选票箱是一项传统。

But again, with this “new” political system, we are being offered full control of the government of a city, by the simple expedient of having people vote for us. There is no other requirement, and anyone can do it. It’s obvious that someone with money and ambition will rise to this challenge and find a way, honest or otherwise, to get those votes.

不过，有了这种“新”的政治体制，我们可以完全控制一座城市的政府，只是为了让人们投票支持我们。没有其他要求，任何人都能做到。很明显，有钱、有抱负的人会勇敢地迎接这一挑战，找到一种方法，不管诚实与否，获得这些选票。

These are serious issues in China because increasingly the king-makers in the background will be foreigners. Jews, US Consulate staff, members of the US State Department, Embassy officials who are CIA but disguised as diplomats, the NED, USAID, AmCham and dozens of American NGOs, are all spending money and working in the background to influence government in China. That’s the truth, and if it’s apparent to me it should be obvious to many others. Their success in Hong Kong is stunning; the Americans have obtained enormous influence on the political landscape in Hong Kong and are so clever and experienced that the hundreds of thousands of little Hong Kong puppets cannot even see the strings. And they have every intention of doing the same in Mainland China.

这些在中国都是严重的问题，因为越来越多的幕后主使将是外国人。犹太人、美国领事馆工作人员、美国国务院成员、伪装成外交官的CIA大使馆官员、NED、美国国际开发署、美国商会和数十家美国非政府组织都在花钱，在幕后工作，以影响中国政府。这是事实，如果对我来说是显而易见的，那么对其他许多人来说应该是显而易见的。他们在香港的成功令人震惊；美国人对香港的政治格局产生了巨大的影响，他们非常聪明、经验丰富，以至于数十万香港小傀儡甚至看不到其中的线索。他们完全有在中国大陆这样做的意图。

Kindergarten Democracy

幼儿园民主

But these examples were nothing compared to what happened at the Chunhui Primary School in Zhengzhou, where 1,700 small children learned lessons about “democracy” that they will unfortunately never forget. These students used to have a “backward, old-fashioned, traditional, Chinese-style” system of choosing student leaders where the selection was based on silly things like scholastic merit and the recommendations of teachers as to character. But, thanks to American pressure, they “altered their tradition” and instead turned to modern, Western-style “democracy”.

但与郑州春晖小学的情况相比，这些例子算不上什么。在那里，1700名小学生学到了他们永远不会忘记的有关“民主”的课程。这些学生过去有一个“落后的、老式的、传统的、中国式的”学生领袖选拔制度，选拔的依据是愚蠢的事情，比如学业成绩和老师对性格的建议。但是，由于美国的压力，他们“改变了传统”，转而转向现代的西方式的“民主”。

And how did that work? Well, one student (with a very poor academic record) was chosen as a leader because he was “good at basketball” and was “friendly”. And how did they get themselves elected? Well, they learned to conduct democratic election campaigns, just like all Westerners. According to media reports, “Some played the saxophone, some danced, and some showed off their calligraphy or painting skills, played traditional Chinese musical instruments as a way of impressing voters.” One mother was so eager to make her little kid a king that she printed more than 1,000 pretty little blue election cards with his name, asking everyone to vote for him.

这是怎么回事呢？一名学生（学习成绩很差）被选为领导，因为他“擅长篮球”，而且“友好”。他们是如何当选的呢？他们学会了进行民主竞选，就像所有西方人一样。据媒体报道，“一些人会演奏萨克斯管，一些人会跳舞，一些人会展示自己的书法或绘画技巧，会演奏中国传统乐器，以此给选民留下深刻印象”一位母亲非常渴望让自己的孩子成为国王，以至于她印了1000多张印有他的名字的漂亮的蓝色小选举卡，要求所有人都投他的票。

The Headmaster of the school, Hu Jianling, said the program aimed to encourage students to “bravely express their ideas” and to “participate in the school’s management”. In the opinion of the school, these student leaders proved Hu’s plan “effective and perhaps even beneficial”.

该校校长胡建灵说，该项目旨在鼓励学生“勇敢地表达自己的想法”，以及“参与学校的管理”。学校认为，这些学生领袖证明了胡锦涛的计划“有效，甚至可能有益”。

Let’s examine what really happened here. I have no wish to embarrass Mr. Hu, who I am sure is a fine gentleman with good intentions, but what kind of devil possessed this man that he thought it was a good idea to get 1,700 10-year-old kids to “bravely participate in the school’s management”? What the hell does he think a school is? In this one experiment in this one school, we can see all the pathetic flaws of Western democracy, flaws apparently invisible to the teachers, the parents and especially to the students who have learned a corrupt lesson in living that they will probably never forget. If you want to corrupt the population, it is always best to begin with the children, because that will make the corruption permanent.

让我们看看这里到底发生了什么。我不想让胡先生难堪，我相信他是一个善良的绅士，有着良好的意图，但是什么样的魔鬼控制了这个人，他认为让1700名10岁的孩子“勇敢地参与学校的管理”是个好主意？他到底认为学校是什么？在这所学校的一次实验中，我们可以看到西方民主制度的所有可悲缺陷，这些缺陷显然是老师、家长看不见的，尤其是那些在生活中吸取了他们可能永远不会忘记的腐败教训的学生。如果你想腐败民众，最好从孩子开始，因为这会让腐败永久化。

First, what was the purpose of these elections? It should be to select the most competent person for a job that carries responsibilities to the students, but nowhere in any of this little kindergarten travesty was there even a mention of competency or responsibility. None. These little politicians just wanted to be elected because they wanted to be elected, not because they had any ability or wanted to accomplish anything useful for their schoolmates. There were no students who campaigned to eliminate excessive homework or to have cleaner washrooms or more after-school tutoring. They just wanted to be leaders and to have the accompanying power and prestige, with not a thought to any obligation involved.

首先，这些选举的目的是什么？它应该是挑选最有能力的人来做一份对学生负有责任的工作，但在任何一次幼稚园的小讽刺中，都没有提到能力或责任。没有。这些小政客之所以想当选，只是因为他们想当选，而不是因为他们有任何能力或想完成任何对同学有用的事情。没有学生发起运动，要求取消过多的家庭作业、让卫生间更干净、或让课外辅导更多。他们只想成为领导者，拥有随之而来的权力和威望，而不考虑任何义务。

Even worse, how did these little politicians campaign? How did they conduct themselves to convince their electorate to vote for them? Well, they “leveraged their personal popularity”” from good looks or sports ability, or their father’s money for buying pretty dresses and nice bicycles. They “leveraged their entertainment ability” by playing the saxophone or other instruments. They “leveraged their painting and calligraphy skills”, and they no doubt found many inventive 10-year-old ways to run around the school begging for votes. How wonderful. The mother who paid to print the cute little blue cards for her kid to pass out will next time have a 5-yuan note attached to them. Those little kids learned that the only real qualification for becoming a leader and taking power is a talent for psychological manipulation, that credentials are ignored in obtaining votes.

更糟糕的是，这些小政客是如何竞选的呢？他们是如何说服选民投票支持他们的呢？好，他们通过长相、运动能力，或父亲买漂亮衣服和漂亮自行车的钱来“利用自己的人气”。他们通过演奏萨克斯管或其他乐器来“利用自己的娱乐能力”。他们“利用自己的绘画和书法技能”毫无疑问，他们找到了许多10年前就有创意的方式，在学校里四处跑来跑去乞讨选票。太棒了。付钱给孩子打印可爱的蓝色小卡片让她下一次发出去的母亲会在卡片上附上一张5元的钞票。这些孩子明白了，成为领导者和掌权的唯一真正资格是心理操纵的天赋，在获得选票时，资历被忽略了。

Are these the primary ingredients of a good leader? Is this how China chooses its General Secretary and Politburo members? Do they sit in Tiananmen Square and play a saxophone or a guitar, or paint caricature portraits of tourists? This is how the Americans select their leaders, but why teach this to Chinese children as an ideal?

这些是优秀领导者的主要组成部分吗？这就是中国选择总书记和政治局委员的方式吗？他们会坐在天安门广场演奏萨克斯管或吉他，还是画游客的漫画肖像？这就是美国人选择领导人的方式，但为什么要把它作为一种理想教育给中国孩子呢？

But this was only the first attempt and our little politicians had no experience on which to draw. They will do much better the next time. They will quickly learn that you can buy votes, and will begin raising small amounts of money to give out more than cute blue cards to anyone who promises to vote for them. They will learn that you can attract votes by making promises – not by keeping them, but by making them. So, they will promise to reduce homework, with no idea of how to do that and with the knowledge that they have no power to accomplish such a result in any case. But they will promise, at least to try.

但这只是第一次尝试，我们的小政客们没有可借鉴的经验。他们下次会做得更好。他们很快就会明白，你可以买到选票，并开始筹集小额资金，向任何承诺投票给他们的人发放不仅仅是可爱的蓝卡。他们会明白，你可以通过做出承诺来吸引选票——不是通过兑现承诺，而是通过兑现承诺。因此，他们会承诺减少家庭作业，但不知道该怎么做，而且知道自己无论如何都没有能力完成这样的任务。但他们会承诺，至少会尝试一下。

They will learn they have the power to grant gifts of patronage, and will promise to place popular voters on committees, with the expectation these individuals will help to sway other voters. They will promise to work for easier marking standards, better school lunches, and many other things that the smart candidates will know are fundamental issues for all students. They will learn to read the wishes of the student body and to turn those desires into votes and personal power. They will quickly learn to become real politicians. In short, they will learn to lie and manipulate.

他们将了解到自己有权提供赞助，并承诺让受欢迎的选民加入委员会，期望这些人能帮助左右其他选民。他们将承诺努力实现更容易的评分标准、更好的学校午餐，以及其他许多聪明的候选人都知道的对所有学生来说都是根本问题的事情。他们将学会解读学生群体的愿望，并将这些愿望转化为选票和个人权力。他们很快就会学会成为真正的政客。简而言之，他们将学会撒谎和操纵。

They already know that a school year is a long time and that kids have short memories; they intuitively know they won’t be held accountable for failing to deliver, and they also know there is no accountability anyway, that after they are elected, nobody can do anything to them. If there were personal responsibility, there would be no candidates.

他们已经知道，学年很长，孩子们的记忆很短；他们凭直觉知道，他们不会因为未能兑现承诺而被追究责任，他们也知道，无论如何也没有责任感，当选后，没有人能对他们做任何事情。如果有个人责任，就不会有候选人。

And it gets worse. In all segments of society, including elementary schools, there are always ‘king-makers’ lurking in the background, those who don’t want to be in the light but who prefer to sit in the shadows and pull the strings. These are the clever ones who amass the real power and who intuitively understand how to control events to their ultimate satisfaction regardless of the wishes of the greater group. These are the dangerous ones; they are too clever by half, and are naturally manipulative. Often, they have a mother who is of like mind and character, providing all the guidance necessary. The first thing they learn is that the power lies in the nominations, not in the voting.

情况变得更糟。在社会的各个领域，包括小学，总有一些“造王者”潜伏在幕后，他们不想暴露在阳光下，但更喜欢坐在阴影里操纵局势。这些人很聪明，他们积聚了真正的力量，凭直觉知道如何控制事件以达到最终的满足感，而不管更大群体的意愿如何。这些都是危险的；他们太聪明了一半，天生就有操控性。他们的母亲通常具有相似的思想和性格，提供所有必要的指导。他们学到的第一件事是，权力在于提名，而不是投票。

And now we naturally enter the field of multi-party politics where we have two or three king-makers, each with a following, each selecting a likely candidate who will be obedient and controllable, and will say, “I can make you the leader. Would you like that?” And off we go, each king-maker (and his mother) designing a platform of campaign promises guaranteed to attract naive, innocent and inexperienced little voters.

现在我们自然而然地进入了多党政治领域，有两三个造王者，每个人都有追随者，每个人都会选择一个顺从、可控的候选人，然后说，“我可以让你当领袖，你愿意吗？”然后我们就开始了，每个造王者（和他的母亲）都在设计一个竞选承诺平台，保证能吸引幼稚的人，无辜、缺乏经验的小选民。

This is where it will lead, and there is nothing the school or the teachers can do to prevent it. Why? Because the original premise, however nicely-worded, is false, flawed, and almost criminal. The purpose of this selection process should be to choose the best leaders for the school, mature, responsible little people of good character who can set an example for the other kids, who care about the welfare of their school-mates and who will genuinely use their power to improve the school’s environment. But we have discarded that objective and instead created a purposeless popularity contest that is wide open to every kind of social pressure and corruption. We are not selecting our leaders on their ability or their character or their sense of responsibility, but instead on their personal marketing ability – on their skills to influence and manipulate others to vote for them, honestly or otherwise.

这就是它将导致的后果，而学校或老师们无法阻止它。为什么呢？因为最初的前提，无论措辞多么巧妙，都是错误的、有缺陷的，几乎是犯罪的。这个选拔过程的目的应该是为学校挑选最好的领导者，成熟、负责任、性格良好的小人物，他们可以为其他孩子树立榜样，关心同学的福祉，真正利用自己的力量改善学校的环境。但我们放弃了这一目标，转而创建了一场毫无目的的人气竞赛，它对各种社会压力和腐败都是敞开大门的。我们选择领导人的依据不是他们的能力、性格或责任感，而是他们的个人营销能力——他们影响和操纵他人投票给他们的技能，不管是诚实还是不诚实。

In all of this, where is the discussion of credentials, of qualifications for a position of responsibility? Totally absent. In fact, the prior system of teacher character recommendations and scholastic excellence – in other words, credentials – which was a perfect system, was specifically abandoned so these idiotic yuppies could emulate the Americans and accommodate their foolish version of “democracy”.

在所有这一切中，关于资历、责任岗位资格的讨论在哪里？完全缺席。事实上，之前的教师品格推荐和学业优秀制度——换言之，证书制度——是一个完美的制度——被明确抛弃了，以便这些愚蠢的雅皮士能够模仿美国人，适应他们愚蠢的“民主”版本。

There is no evidence that any of these little candidates had any leadership skills, good academic records, a sound character, or indeed any understanding whatever of the needs and wishes of either the students or the teachers. None would be old enough to have any appreciation of the meaning of participating in the management of the school. None will be selected on any of the necessary attributes of a leader. Few if any will have any real qualifications for a leadership position, and none will understand the responsibility they are accepting. They are little kids.

没有证据表明这些小候选人有任何领导技能、良好的学业成绩、健全的性格，或者确实对学生或教师的需求和愿望有任何理解。没有人年龄大到能够理解参与学校管理的意义。领导者的任何必要属性都不会被选中。很少有人真正具备担任领导职位的资格，也没有人理解他们所承担的责任。他们都是小孩子。

And what of the students who vote? What will they consider in casting their votes for a student leader? The ability to play a saxophone? Mama’s pretty blue cards? Few if any will have an appreciation of their responsibility, few will know how to choose wisely, and none will have the ability to properly evaluate a (more or less) unknown person for a job whose duties they do not understand. My congratulations. Welcome to American-style politics, the one thing China was fortunate to not have.

那么投票的学生呢？他们在投票选举学生领袖时会考虑什么呢？会吹萨克斯管吗？妈妈的漂亮蓝牌吗？很少有人会意识到自己的责任，很少有人知道如何明智地做出选择，也没有人有能力正确地评估一个不知名的人是否能胜任一份他们不了解其职责的工作。祝贺你。欢迎来到美国式政治，这是中国幸运地没有的东西。

But this is precisely what China now has in its rural areas with the introduction of Western-style democratic elections for local officials. These are much more serious because the participants are adults, the decisions affect real lives, and because too often the king-makers in the background are almost all American and Jewish.

但这正是中国现在在农村地区实行的地方官员西式民主选举制度。这些问题要严重得多，因为参与者都是成年人，决策会影响现实生活，而且背景中的造王者往往几乎都是美国人和犹太人。

Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 32 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chapt. 2 — Dealing with Demons).

罗曼诺夫的作品他的文章被翻译成32种语言，发表在30多个国家的150多个外语新闻和政治网站上，以及100多个英语平台上。拉里·罗曼诺夫是一名退休的管理顾问和商人。他曾在国际咨询公司担任高级管理职位，并拥有国际进出口业务。他曾在上海复旦大学担任客座教授，向EMBA高级班讲授国际事务方面的案例研究。罗曼诺夫住在上海，目前正在撰写一系列十本书，这些书通常与中国和西方有关。他是辛西娅·麦金尼的新集《当中国打喷嚏的时候》的撰稿人之一。（第二章）。对付恶魔

His full archive can be seen at

他的完整文章库可在以下找到：

https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/ + https://www.moonofshanghai.com/

He can be contacted at:

联系方式如下：

2186604556@qq.com