The political jokes people tell each other in private represent the conscience of the silent majority, and show us just how rotten are the foundation… - Liu Xiaobo

In China's communist era, despite all of the rhetoric about internationalism and "liberation of mankind" during the Mao years, the regime, especially in its claims to legitimacy, has consistently stressed nationalism. Nationalism has taken different forms at different stages - an arrogant, bellicose style under Mao; a pragmatic, defensive style under Deng Xiaoping; and a resurgence of the arrogant, bellicose style under Jiang Zemin - but the underlying passions that shape the policies have always been caught up in a vicious cycle between self-abasement and self-aggrandizement.

Power and money reign supreme in our nation today. Universities count for nothing, and scholarship and ideas count for even less. Love, truth, and sacrifice are meaningless concepts, while betrayal and collective amnesia are taken as a matter of course.

Resting beneath the mighty Communist regime is a civil society that remains weak. It doesn't have much courage and is not very sophisticated. As a civil society it is still in a nascent stage, and this is why we mus not expect it, in the near term, to produce a political organization that might replace the Communist regime.