In addition to hard work and poverty, the farmers in China are subject to arbitrary land seizures in which the government takes their land and then sells it. Local officials rely on this corrupt practice for revenue.
Defending this simplest and most basic of rights, the right to property, Chen Guangcheng became known as the ‘Barefoot Lawyer,’ given both his rural origins and the rural focus of his work. He also amazingly overcame a significant physical handicap to carry out this work, as the New York Times reports:
Blinded by a childhood illness, he helped the disabled win public benefits and aided farmers fighting illegal land seizures. But in 2005, Shandong officials turned against him when he tried to defend thousands of victims of a coercive family-planning campaign. A year later, in a trial that many legal experts described as a sham, a local court convicted him of destroying property and organizing a crowd to block traffic while he was under house arrest.
Cheng Guangcheng identified the underlying connection between economic freedoms, like property rights, and personal freedoms. Thus his defense of property rights is of a piece with his defense of rights for the physically handicapped and for women.
The Chinese government did not long tolerate Chen’s work. Scholars debate whether the government is more accurately labeled ‘communist’ or ‘socialist,’ but in any case, it accepts no limits on it scope or power. Melanie Kirkpatrick writes:
Chen Guangcheng seemed an unlikely hero. Born in 1971 to a poor family in rural China, blind since infancy, and illiterate until his late teens, Chen became his country’s most prominent human-rights activist. His story made international headlines in 2012 when, under house arrest, he made a dramatic escape and sought refuge in the US embassy in Beijing. The Chinese government eventually allowed him to go to the United States.
Guangcheng now lives with his wife and two children in the United States. His mother and brother have faced continued harassment from the Chinese authorities.
His work has been based on the assumption that personal liberty, political liberty, and economic liberty are inseparable.
