"Many Western experts are beginning to think about a dictatorial system being more efficient and functional than democracy, and economic performance in such systems being better than in Western democracies. This strange trend began about 10 years ago, and today many academics and politicians in the West are talking about the retreat of democracy on a global scale. And I say to them that the global retreat of democracy is not a reality but an ideology. This says something about the intellectual degradation of these Western scholars. It’s the result of a simple fact: they get money from people who have made lots of money in China thanks to the regime in place there. Then, these businesspeople pay entities who spread these ideas."
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PrisonersNon-fiction authors from ChinaFree speech activistsHuman rights activistsDemocracy activists
Original Language: English
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Wei Jingsheng
Wei Jingsheng (Chinese: éŹäş¬ç”ź) (born 20 May 1950) is a Chinese human rights activist and dissident. He is most prominent for having authored the essay "The Fifth Modernization", which was posted on the Democracy Wall in Beijing in 1978. As punishment for writing his manifesto, Wei was arrested and convicted of "counter-revolutionary" activities, and he was detained as a political prisoner from 1979 to 1993. Briefly released in 1993, Wei continued to engage in his dissident activities by speaking t
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