Jottings from the Granite Studio

Li Datong, the former editor of Freezing Point (bingdian 冰点) has a post at openDemocracy on the Shanxi slavery case. Li’s point is that the sort of corruption that permits such atrocities to occur cannot be solved without systemic reforms:

If political reform is delayed even further, more serious political crises will emerge. The core aspect of reform is passing some of the power to society. Unaccountable power has led to corruption [12] as high up as the politburo, and modern-day slavery at the bottom of society. No part of the political system is clean. No surgeon would be arrogant enough to perform surgery on himself, and the party should be the same. The diseases of the system can only be cured by reform of the system. Delaying the treatment can lead only to death.

Excellent post.