Wang Hui on Chinese equality, urbanization, and the Snowden case

"we basically need a new idea of equality that incorporates the idea of diversity: not simply equalize everybody and everything but try to respect singularity, diversity, differences without rejecting the basic idea of equality. [...] in Chengdu and Chongqing, they have already had discussions about integration, how to deal with the population and their citizen status. But we have another big problem, which is that everywhere there is no longer any difference among the cities. This is a big loss of diversity. [...] I remember the slogans of the Tiananmen movement in 1989 because I was there, and at the beginning of the hunger strike, when Gorbachev came to visit China, we had this: "We want 58, not 85", because Gorbachev was 58 and Deng Xiaoping was 85. But history proved that 85 was possibly smarter than 58, and this is the irony."

"China, a new equality and the world. A conversation with Wang Hui", by Gabriele Battaglia
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-01-030713.html