2014-07-08     www.ChinaReferendum.com is available!

On June 22 I lodged my vote in the Hong Kong democracy referendum. Like most other Hong Kong voters, I did not vote to support the Occupy Central movement, but to register my concern at the threatening White Paper issued by Beijing. 

Maybe the time has come for the Mainland also to have a democracy referendum.  If you go to www.register.com and enter "Chinareferendum", you'll see that the website www.chinareferendum.com is available. I hope someone will buy that name and set up a site that allows mainland people to say whether or not they would like democracy.

In fact democracy has been quietly growing on the Mainland for some years. Many local and regional officials, even Party officials, are now elected by a democratic process. Maybe the process can be gradually expanded, whereby a lower house would be elected by the people, while, at least for the time being, a non-elected upper house would  consist of Party members.

Most important in all of this is that China peacefully becomes democratic "with Chinese characteristics". To be avoided at all costs is the chaos of other parts of the world which have suddenly tried to introduce democracy. So, a possible referendum question could be: "China should peacefully become a democracy", with two choices: "yes" or "no".