“I believe in accountability and responsibility.” – why the “lady with the constitution” does not mind amend-ments and why women can change China.

Qing Wu, Professor Beijing Foreign Studies University, Deputy Beijing Municipal/Haidian District People's Con-gresses, Director Beijing Cultural Development Center for Rural Women, Beijing, P. R. China

We sat at the table of Wu Qing’s small and homey apart-ment close to Beijing Foreign Studies University, where she has been teaching English for decades. We enjoyed fresh fruits and tea that her husband prepared for us and felt the friendly and warm, and at the same time very determined and self-assured personality of Wu Qing, who dedi-cated her life fighting for rule of law and empowerment of women in China and around the world.
“It has not always been easy to consistently think out-side of the box while being within the box,” she admitted, “however, I always strongly believed in what we were doing and enjoyed to fight for our legally granted rights and a better China”.
Being also a democratically elected People’s Deputy, Wu Qing has worked tirelessly to fight for the rights of people in general, and women in particular, using the Chinese Constitution as her main tool. She has helped set up a women’s hotline and provided advice to the “Rural Women Magazine” and worked for its outreach projects which both helped to build women’s entrepreneurial spirit from the grassroots, increased education, encouraged women’s political participation to have their voices heard and so improved the situation of rural women and their families.

Enjoy reading some selected statements of our discussion with Wu Qing below. You may be able to read more about Wu Qing’s fantastic initiatives and her life in our book “MyImpact”.

Qing Wu’s selected quotations:
“Social responsibility? I learned it from both my mother and my father. My mother was a student activist in 1919 and later a famous writer. At the centre of her work has always been love. My father was a professor of sociology and was regarded as father of sociology in China. He was also a diplomat, but for only a few years. Both my parents taught me social responsibility and that’s what I find important until now.”

“Because we are human beings, we are the only species that can choose to make changes.”

“I believe in accountability and responsibility. And I be-lieve that people need to become the true masters of their own lives within communities where rule of law is respected. This has not been the case in China, but I am convinced, it will be.”

“People vote for me because they believe that I speak the truth and fight for the rights of people. I base all of my arguments and action on our constitution. There is nothing stronger than that. If something is missing, we work on an amendment.”

“There are many obstacles, of course. But, in a way they are nothing. Life is not meant to be easy. And even in most difficult times there is hope, when there is rule of law.”

“Material things are relative; privately I am satisfied with little, however, now I need money for the training centre and other empowerment projects for women and girls who have dropped out of junior high school due to poverty.”

“Through our training programs, I would like to empower more rural women in China. They are human beings before they are women, and that’s not always what they are treated like.”

“I want to make myself useful – with my skills and con-nections. I believe one of my biggest impacts was through my function as a teacher – apart from teaching young people English, I had the opportunity to encourage many of them to take responsibility, to think and to be good citizens.”

“The world is getting smaller and people need to learn from each other. I am engaged on many international boards to exchange experience and because I believe foreigners help us and so we need to give them something back.”

“I don’t expect China to change over night. Good irriga-tion is slow and continuous – otherwise you just wash away the fertile top soil.”

Some background on Qing Wu:
Wu Qing was born in 1937, just in the beginning of the Japanese invasion. Her mother was China’s most cele-brated female author; her father brought the study of sociology to the country. Both were Chinese, but studied in the best US universities, retur-ning to their country to serve its people. After the war, the family went to live in Japan and in 1951 returned to Beijing, where Wu Qing later graduated from the English Department of Beijing Foreign Studies Univer-sity. A successful teacher, she soon got engaged in politics and in 1984 was first elected as People’s Deputy. She has been elected six terms as the People’s Deputy to the Haidian District People’s Congress and four terms to the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress (the city Parliament). In those capacities, she also has been highly entrepre-neurial, holding long office hours to hear the complaints and concerns of her constituents and using the Consti-tution to supervise the authorities, pushing for rule of law and justice. Such an approach is unusual in China. For Ms. Wu, the “rule of law must override the rule of men.”
Wu Qing has been an adept advocate of women’s rights in China for decades. In 1988, she helped launch China’s first university course in English on feminism. She also supported the set up of the first hotline to help women confront problems of family, marriage, divorce, sexual harassment and domestic violence. In 1993 Ms. Wu ad-vised the “Rural Women Knowing All” magazine (later “Rural Women Magazine”) to raise awareness of women and the public at large of the importance of encouraging women to develop their own potential, improve their health, knowledge of law, skills in different areas and productivity.
Wu Qing is a board member and legal representative of Beijing Cultural Development Center for Rural Women and Board Director of the Practical Skills Training Center for Rural Women. Among the numerous positions she has held are included: Board member of the Global Fund for Women from 1996-2002, President of the Women's World Summit Foundation, and honorary President of the Women's Trans-Culture Network, board member of Gender Action, a committee member of the Program Committee of Oxfam Hong Kong and a member of the External Gender Forum of ADB. In recognition of her outstanding contribution to promoting Chinese women's participation in community affairs and the rule of law in the People’s Republic of China, she won the 2001 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service and has been selected by the Schwab Foundation Network as the World's Outstanding Social Entrepreneur for 2003.

Some background on the “Rural Women Magazine” and the Cultural Development Center for Rural Women:
For years, Rural Women Knowing All Magazine has created opportunities for self-employment and development toge-ther with poor Chinese rural women. In order to increase effectiveness, the magazine underwent strategic planning and organization adjustment, and the Cultural Develop-ment Center for Rural Women was thus founded in 2001.
Today, the center is composed of several branches, in-cluding Practical Skills Training Center for Rural Women, Migrant Women’s Club, and the Rural Community Develop-ment Project. It effectively deploys each branch’s re-sources and cooperation: the goal of the center is to establish a participative, democratized and sustainable NGO network for Chinese rural women and other non-governmental organizations to establish a better way for community development. Through providing services in health, culture, skill, law, and information it aims to ad-vocate awareness of gender, uplift the ability for commu-nity development, and realize rural women’s self-empo-werment and sustainable development.

If you would like to engage with the work of Wu Qing or get to know more about her different initiatives please visit www.nongjianv.org,

or, for more specific opportunities, contact joanna.stefanska@myimpact.ch or wolfgang.hafenmayer@myimpact.ch directly.