Domestically, the election campaign went on pretty well for the opposition parties – to their own credits. As I wrote in my previous report, “by steadily and clearly spelling out Conservative’s plan for the country day after day, [Mr. Harper] helped to turn the election campaign into a forum for policy debate.” The media, who was “in the loop”, also appeared to be fairer to the Conservatives, perhaps a sympathetic response to Bush administration’s “theatrical” assistance to the Martin Liberals.
A significant break came just after the Christmas holidays, i.e., the news came out that RCMP launched a criminal investigation into Liberal government’s income trust leak. It looked like that my major objective of de-electing Martin Liberals would very likely become a reality.
I wrote four blogs and one report during the campaign. I will give the correct interpretations here to avoid any further misapprehension.
December 29, 2005 blog
This blog was a reflection of my relaxed mood after learning the income trust probe by RCMP.
By mentioning my mother, whom I cared very much, I implied that she was part of my consideration in my “limited participation”. Indeed, my mother is 75 year old and very frail. If at all possible, I would like to spare her of the anguish of having to watching me at the center of a nasty political storm. (My mother was largely kept in the dark about the details of my struggle in the last few years. For example, she did not know that an innocent child had been murdered in connection to my experience here in Canada; she did not know that I had fasted; she did not know I had to check myself into a shelter; she did not know I had climbed a bridge and was put in jail, etc. Any one of the above news would have devastated her.)
January 4, 2006 blog
This blog might have come as a surprise to people “in the loop” who were immersed in the campaign. But I went directly to the heart of my consideration. The message was that I did (and still do) care about China and wanted to be open and honest about it. I was in fact starting to tell everybody why I was not going to fully participate in the campaign.
January 5, 2006 blog
I won’t get into the daily rhythms of the campaign. But my message to the opposition parties was: Remain cool and stay on course. The blog should also give people “in the loop” a sense that Chinese government’s backing of me was very likely for real.
Also, as I was gathering materials for my upcoming report, I decided that I should include Bush administration’s (media) nuclear bomb in it. I knew this event was related to General Zhu’s nuclear comment earlier, but I did not want to say so in my report lest it ignited a “phony war” between U.S. and China during the election. So I mentioned them separately, within a very short time span of each other.
January 7, 2006 blog
Again, we need to get into the daily rhythms of the campaign to understand my message to the opposition campaigners: Maintain the momentums in the polls. There was also a message to the Chinese government that, although I knew they were backing me, I did not always agree with the ways my file was handled. More to the point, I was not on the same page with them on my file.
(I actually knew that the Chinese leadership has a very sophisticated understanding of sustainable development as well as an awareness of China’s deteriorating environmental realities. In fact, I was quite impressed by it. – Local governments are a whole different story, though.)
January 17, 2006 report
The content of my report was a reflection of my difficult position in the campaign. On the one hand, I wanted to inform Canadian electorate about Martin Liberals shameful record on Cecilia Zhang crime and their utter deceit with respect to Canada-U.S. relations. On the other hand, I wanted to keep Chinese government away from making any news during the rest of the election period. As I was conscious of the appearance of a conflict of interest in writing and publishing such a report during the campaign, I provided some justification for writing the report: “In fact, I consider it my responsibility as a Canadian resident to right the wrongs in our not-so-perfect society.”
My biggest concern was, of course, Chinese government might react to my report. That’s why I deliberately toned down the part of the story about Matthew Li. In particular, I completely buried my conjecture that Bush administration had tried to “parachute” him into Beijing.
After my report was published, I realized that the gap between publishing it online and getting it onto the mainstream media still existed. Publishing it near the end of the campaign had an unfortunate consequence for me – I was running out of time for myself. That’s why I am still struggling today.
The Chinese government was evidently disappointed at me after I published my report. Through Li Yang’s last article on February 15, they essentially said that I was going to be on my own. I have not seen his articles on the Internet since.
Looking back, I think that I have done the right thing despite the difficult situation I was in. I am satisfied with my action although my personal situation remained difficult. As for the Chinese government, I hope they will have understood why I took the decision as I did. (By the way, my disinterest in a career in politics should not be interpreted as anything negative for the Chinese government. On the contrary, I think successive Chinese leaderships have been doing rather well in managing the historic transformation of one-fifth of humanity since the late 70’s. And the trajectory continues. -- The current 5-year plan, which emphasizes the development of rural areas, is a smart social-economic policy modification aimed at attacking the greatest inequality in China, i.e., the gap between cities and countryside. This policy also makes sound strategic sense because only when the living standard of the vast majority of Chinese people improves, can domestic demand be truly stimulated and international trade surpluses be fundamentally reduced.)
