The story of Chai Ling reminded me of a famous personality in our country, Former President Corazon Aquino and an infamous personality, Jose Maria Sison. I could relate her to Pres.
Aquino because of “democracy” and their attempt/s to effect change in China and Philippines, respectively; and to JoMa Sison because of their escape.
Chai Ling saw that there was a party who wanted reform in China. That was an opportunity she could have grabbed so well. However, when she initiated a mass demonstration with hunger strike as a triggering factor, she got intoxicated by the narrowness of her mind.
She thought because she was able to convince a huge number of students and she got the attention of the international media, her efforts were materializing. She failed to see that, if she thought there was something wrong against the Chinese government, she should have also thought of who could do something against that government she was questioning.
Unfortunately, she even titled herself as the commander-in-chief and cried for democracy when she actually was not even able to define the whole context of China.
In the case of President Aquino, democracy was recognized when the EDSA was jam-packed and she overthrew Marcos. Is that all that Filipinos deserve? If she really wanted to change the status quo at that time, it was not enough that she just changed Marcos, nor was it enough to change the system.
When she changed Marcos, it only led the Filipino to a new era until the time she was the president. Many consider her (until now) the Mother of Democracy because her story was dramatic and Filipinos are sympathetic. Without her, our nation may still be under the hands of a tyrant. She will always and only be remembered for kicking out Marcos, but she failed to meet the expectations of the Filipino people.
For me, she never really knew the true pains of the Filipino people. If she did, she should have been the 1st president to change the whole Philippines after decades of suffering. Imagine she had almost everyone in her favor at that time, but the opportunity turned futile.
Going back to Chai Ling, one of the reasons she was not able to gain moral force from the majority, especially the intellectuals, was because she forgot that she was not someone in authority to be looked at and be respected and trusted immediately.
Therefore, she should have broadened her base of informal authority to get more leverage. She was too quick to speak hard issues against the Chinese government, but she did not even study if her words represented something significant or a loss.
Personally, I think she represented a loss, precisely why many people had second thoughts supporting her. Normally, people in distress have too many things to think of. The only thing they are sure of is, they want their lives to change. So, they would look for someone who would take a bold action and direct that change they want.
Chai Ling failed in this aspect. She was too daring to say that what China needed was bloodshed, but she left her people. If she cared enough for them or the whole Chinese people, she should have known how hard to push and when to let go of her cause. For failing to do so, I do not think she deserves respect especially from those whose lives she put into danger, only to save herself in the end.
This is where I would also compare her with JoMa Sison. They both exemplified creative deviance. They took advantage of the fact that they do not formal authority. What was vested on them was informal authority by their people. Because of that, they lost the point of proper decision-making.
It was easy for them to tell and teach their people what to do, failing to realize that leadership is an educative strategy. It is evolving, so they too, needed to be taught.
What they particularly needed to learn was to form partners who could guide them to see what they did not see, especially those that caused of pain of their people.