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I Love My Country and My People

It’s 8 in the evening, and the ancient Beijing winter is just beginning to howl and bite as she closes and locks her office door in a windy corner of the Beijing Foreign Studies University.

“Take care. It’s dark,” 69-year-old Wu Qing says to her last leaving visitor of the day, one of two dozen or so who have come seeking help from her today. Then she walks out of the building and hops onto a 29-year-old bicycle and rides off home into the night.

The danger of which she warns is not entirely fanciful. Wu’s outspoken criticism of wrongdoings and unfairness has been known to bring her trouble. A few years ago, a group of men visited her home at midnight and threatened to “silence” her in an “accident” unless she ceased.

“They can’t stop me from doing my duty as a people’s deputy,” Wu says, and she adds she told the men the same thing.

Since 1984, this retired English professor of English has served four terms as a deputy to the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress, and six terms as a deputy to the Haidian District People’s Congress of Beijing. She just started her seventh term.

Listening to stories

Among her visitors today was a middle-aged man from semi-rural Tongzhou District. He told Wu that some of his village’s land had been seized by the local government for a construction project without proper compensation.

Six months earlier thanks to “Deputy Wu,” the case had been reported to the district authorities. The man now had returned with a “letter of reply,” which said he had failed to meet their demands.

“I’ll press them to go over it again,” Wu assured the visitor. “Your case will be settled in accordance with the law.”

Next came a grey-haired farmer, babbling incoherently: something about his walnut trees having been felled by the government without his permission.

As the man talked at length about why he wanted 500,000 yuan compensation, Wu Qing listened. “Please come again next week with evidence,” she said finally. “I will try my best to help you if you provide me with sufficient evidence of your claim.”

Wu is quite well-known in mainland China as the first deputy to conduct regular clinics for her constituents, Tuesday afternoons whenever possible. She also makes end-of-year reports of her work. Wu’s name is rather unique and many visitors come here from outside her constituency.

Wu’s home phone number is a public number–a rarity indeed in government. “Anyone can call me at any time,” she says. “My husband or son will hand the phone over to me when they hear the words ‘wu daibiao’ (Deputy Wu).

“They are often mistaken as ‘secretaries’!” she laughs.

Supervising officials

But the job is no bag of laughs.

“It’s hard,” she sighs. “Really hard. More often than not, it’s an uphill battle.” According to Article 3 of the Constitution of People’s Republic of China, all administrative and judicial organs of state are created by the people’s congresses to whom they are responsible and by whom they are supervised.

“In plain language,” Wu says, “people’s deputies are constitutionally empowered to supervise officials.”

In reality of course, things do not always turn out peachy in the People’s Republic of China.

“To get anything done you’ve got to struggle, for weeks and even for months. Remember China is still trying to institute the rule of law.

“It’s my duty to promote China’s democratic process. I’ll continue to fight no matter how hard. Rights are not automatically handed to you. They have to be won through struggle.”

Wu names two problems that make her work hard: first, the sheer number of desperate people who come to her looking for answers: on average, about 30 every Tuesday afternoon. Second, she must deal with apathetic, even heartless, officials.

Whenever she must meet an official to argue a case, Wu carries three things: her “people’s deputy card,” a copy of the Law of Deputies to People’s Congresses and her personal copy of the Chinese Constitution.

Knowing the law

Her mother Xie Wanying (1900-1999), penname Bing Xin, a prominent writer and a deputy to the National People’s Congress, handed a copy of the 1982 Chinese Constitution to Wu when she was first elected a deputy to the Haidian People Congress.

Ever since that day, the Constitution has kept Wu company. “Sometimes the guy is overwhelmed,” admits the tough, outspoken “People’s deputy.”

“I feel what I have inherited from my mother is not only a copy of the Constitution, but also the unyielding spirit of pursuing democracy and science characteristic of Chinese intellectuals of my parents’ generation.”

She is referring to the May 4 Movement of 1919 launched by Chinese students advocating democracy and science for China, in which Xie played an active role.

On November 8 this year, Wu was selected for a seventh term at the Haidian District People’s Congress.

“I have no time to appreciate congratulations from friends, colleagues and other people,” she says. “I’m busy making plans for work during my new term of service.”

She plans to give a talk on China’s Constitution, teachers and students at the university.

“I pin my hopes for the rule of law on the younger generation,” she says.  

Bringing concrete results

Nine students had been killed in traffic accidents attempting to cross the West Third Ring Road of the BFSU between the east and west campuses before Wu was first selected as a deputy.

She lost no time demanding municipal authorities build an underpass connecting the two compounds. Six years and one million yuan later, the underpass was built.

“That underpass has just undergone an overhaul. They installed more lights there, because they know Wu Qing will bring up a lot of criticism if they don’t meet the standards for lighting.”

Wu divides her time between work in Beijing and visits to rural areas around the city helping the poor and downtrodden. For her devotion to rural women’s rights and welfare, Wu in 2001 was awarded the “Nobel Prize of Asia”: the Magsaysay Prize, named after the third Philippines president Ramon F Magsaysay. Back from the Philippines, she donated US$50,000 prize money to the Practical Skills Training School for Rural Women in Changping District. She founded the school, in part, to empower “school dropouts among rural women and girls and help them become financially independent.”

More than 4,000 women have graduated from the school since its establishment in 1999.

“Lots of problems still need to be resolved,” she says. “The rights of migrant workers from poverty-stricken rural areas need to be ensured, and so do the rights of the disabled. Beijing is notorious for its traffic congestion. In some remote, outlying areas, people are short of potable water.”

The problems are multiple and complex. The motivation is simple.

“ ‘Love should be shared, and where there is love, there is everything,’ ” Wu quotes her mother.

“I love my country and my people. That is why I do not fear any difficulty.”