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Blind dissident Chen Guangcheng has said that democratic changes in China were slow, but irreversible. In his first public speech at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in the US , Chen said: "Many people, they want to move that mountain in one week. That's not realistic. We have to move it bit by bit and move it by ourselves." Chen also expressed concerns about the rule of law in China and warned it was being trampled on, the BBC reports. Chen said that he was confident that the central government was ready to reform, but warned: "Some local authorities, they are very backward and I think it's going to take more time to change them". He said that if local authorities were not forced to respect the law then the central powers could 'lose control' in the country. But he was optimistic that the Internet age made it harder for authorities to cover up things and was forcing them to loosen their grip. "Regardless of what they did in the past, as long as they are beginning to move in the right direction we should affirm it," he said. He urged Western powers to try hard to promote the rule of law, but warned they should not force China to copy their own democracies. "We also need to learn eastern democracy," Chen said.

Blind dissident Chen says 'democracy' in China slow but irreversible