One household, one vote 一个家庭投一票

Housing in Beijing
One household, one vote 一个家庭投一票

Jul 12th 2007 JIUXIANQIAO（酒仙桥）
From The Economist print edition

A novel approach to conflict-resolution。近距离观察解决争议的新途径

RETIRED workers who once made everything from nuclear-bomb components to wireless equipment are now living miserably in cockroach-infested slums in this corner of north-east Beijing. Many of them are also disgruntled with the compensation offered by developers who want to move them out. Disputes over relocation are rife across China, but this one is tirring a broader debate: about the meaning of democracy.
在北京市的东北角，退休工人在蟑螂遍地的贫民窟中艰难地生活，这些工人曾经制造过从核弹部件到无线设备的几乎所有东西。许多人对想让 他们搬出去的房地产开发商所给予的拆迁补偿费不满。有关拆迁的纠纷遍布中国，但是这次的纠纷激起了一个广泛的讨论：什么是民主的真正含义。

Dashanzi is a well-known trendy part of the capital, where avant-garde artists have set up studios in the abandoned factories that once formed the proud hub of China's military-electronics industry. Far less visited is Jiuxianqiao to its south, where the workers lived. Their blocks of flats, built by the Russians and East Germans in the 1950s, were once among the best in Beijing. These days, the 20,000 former workers and family members who still live in them mostly agree that housing in Beijing does not get much worse.
大山子是首都一个广为人知的新潮流聚集地，先锋派艺术家在其中一个废弃的工厂内搭建了他们的工作室，这里曾经是中国军用电子工业引以为豪的中心。在它的南 边是人迹罕至的酒仙桥(音)，那儿就是以前工人们住的地方。这些单层公寓组成的社区由俄国人和东德人在19世纪50年代建造，曾经是北京最好的社区之一。 20000名仍然住在里面的退休工人和他们的家人绝大多数人承认，在北京这几乎是最差的房子了。
But they cannot agree on a common approach to the developer that wants to knock down their buildings and, reportedly, to build them new ones, as well as luxury-apartment blocks. The company will give them new flats free of charge, and cash to tide them over until these are built. Some residents say the offer is inadequate. Others, desperate to leave the ramped barrack-like buildings, where kitchens and lavatories are often shared between families, are happy to take it. 但是这些居民并不普遍认同开发商的做法。据报道说，房地产开发商想拆掉那些老房子，然后建造豪华社区区。开发公司将免费给他们提供新的公寓，在新公寓建造 未完工之前，还会支付现金帮助他们暂时移居别处。部分居民认为这些补偿并不充足。其他的居民则很高兴的接受了这一提议。他们急切地想要远离这些卫生间和厨 房共用的、促狭的屋棚。

For the first reported time in the fractious history of China's recent urban makeover, residents on June 9th had a chance to vote on the offer. A month later state-owned newspapers are still poring over that event. Some called it a referendum, a term not used lightly in China. Under the Communist Party there should be no need for referendums since the party represents the will of the people. The party's dim view of this technique is evident in its dealings with Taiwan (see article).
在中国近年来难以驾驭的城市改造历程中，自有报道以来的首次，居民有机会用投票的方式来表达他们的意见。一个月以来，官方的报纸仍然在 深入思考此事的影响。部分中国人称它为公民头票，这个词在中国用起来并不轻松。因为在党执政的情况下，党的意愿就代表了人民的意愿，所以是不需要公民头票 的。执政党的这种技术性的模糊语言在对待台湾问题时尤其明显。

Ba Changrui, deputy party chief of Jiuxianqiao, which includes the slums as well as Dashanzi and its now arty factories, says he is angry with the Chinese media for portraying this as a referendum. It was, he says, merely a way of canvassing public opinion. The result imposed no obligations on the developer. In any event, it was not clear-cut: 44.8% of households voted in favour of the offer and 22.4% against, and the rest did not vote at all. But Mr Ba's denials have not stopped a torrent of media comment, some of it pasted by residents on outdoor walls.
酒仙桥区的办事处代表巴昌瑞表示，他对中国的媒体把这次事件描述为公民头票很愤怒。酒仙桥区包括那些贫民窟以及大山子和大山子现在的艺术工 厂。他说，这不过是一种讨论公共问题的方式罢了。其结果对开发商来讲没有任何约束力。从另一方面来讲，投票的结果并不很明晰：44.8%的家庭投票支持补 偿方式，22.4%投票反对，其余32.8%根本就没有参加投票。但是巴先生的否认并没有阻止媒体狂轰滥炸的评论，其中的一些评论甚至被部分居民贴到了门 外的墙上。

Many Jiuxianqiao residents are long-term tenants rather than owner-occupiers. A wave of property privatisation in the late 1990s passed the area by because of the difficulty of dealing with the shared facilities. Many press articles have nevertheless denounced the use of a referendum to decide the fate of individuals' private property. Property rights, argued one commentator, were a “core human right” that could not be taken away by democracy.
与其说九仙桥的居民是房子的业主，到不如说他们是房子的长期租赁者。1990年代末，由于面临处置公共财物的难题，酒仙桥错过了私有化的浪潮。然而许多媒 体仍然指责说，不该用公民投票的方式去决定个人私有财产的归属。有评论者指出，私有财产权作为人类的核心权利，不应该被民主所剥夺。

But as the Legal Daily noted this week, democracies could tamper with property rights by imposing taxes. And to say that a referendum was a tyranny of the majority was a misunderstanding. “Modern democracy also means protecting the minority,” it argued. Democracy can also be confusing. In Jiuxianqiao a simple majority has approved the developer's offer. But no one knows what to make of that. As those with more experience of ballots could have told them: voting is the easy part.
但是本周的《法制日报》认为，民主国家也可能通过课税的方式调整私有财产权。并进一步指出，把公民头票当作“多数人暴政”是一种误解。它指出： “现代民主同时也包含保护少数人的含义。”不过民主也可能令人迷惑不解。在酒仙桥的例子中，简单多数反而支持了发展商的补偿方案。但是没人知道究竟是怎么 回事。那些有更多的的投票经验的人能告诉他们：投票本身才是最简单的。