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Congress delay disrupts
many
By Xu Yufang
BEIJING -
State legislator and film director Fan Yuan is caught in
a funny situation. Just a week ago, he announced that
his latest film Taiping Shiming (Peacetime
Mission) would soon be in the cinemas after sitting
in storage for eight months. Now he has to consider
whether to push back the date.
Fan's headache is
caused by the fact that the release of his production
was supposed to be pegged to the convening of China's
most important political event of the year, the 16th
Congress of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC).
Completed in January, the film has not been released to
the public because the heroic epic about a grassroots
CPC cadre in the poor province of Shanxi was designed to
shape the general atmosphere for the populace during the
Congress period.
So release of the film was
announced for between the beginning of September and the
middle of October, as the Congress was originally
planned to commence on September 28, immediately
preceded by a preparatory session and a plenary session
of the outgoing CPC Central Committee.
All of a
sudden came the official news that the Congress has been
postponed by six weeks to November 8. If Fan sticks to
his just-announced schedule, he should be prepared for
the absence of bulks of audience ferried off by various
strata of party and government units, which will mean a
blow to the box office. On the other hand, it could be
embarrassing to change the release dates after eight
months of planning.
Fan is not the only one
having plans disrupted by this postponement of the
Congress. Schools, bookshops, newspapers and many other
establishments related to reaching the mass are
affected.
People, however, are not totally
surprised, as rumors of a delay of the Congress teemed
in the third week of August. It was reported by the
international media and then passed around orally as
gossip. Yet it was not the first time the overseas media
had suggested a delay, so some people just ignored the
rumors.
Since July, editors of provincial papers
had been told not to report poor governance, lest
provincial governors and party bosses should meet
obstacles on their greasy ladders to higher positions.
The provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hubei and Henan
were particularly wary, as promotions of these
provinces' key personnel were predicted. Even in other
provinces the atmosphere was tense, as no provincial
head would like to be seen barred from the new Central
Committee. Editors were told to hold back their watchdog
enthusiasm until after September.
And then the
full speeches made on May 31 by Jiang Zemin, the
incumbent state party boss, and Hu Jintao, the heir
apparent, were circulated. Jiang had made a keynote
speech to the gathering of all provincial and
ministerial rank cadres while Hu, as the person
presiding, gave a vote of thanks, but only extracts of
the speeches had been made public. Of course, those
pieces and bits not previously published caught the most
interest.
In his vote of thanks, Hu mentioned
that the CPC was on the verge of "the key moment of the
young replacing the elderly collectively" and that day,
May 31, was "the eve of the impending 16th Party
Congress". There was no objection to his remarks on the
spot and none afterward. The circulation of Hu's remarks
served to convince observers that the changing of the
guards in September was fait accompli.
But it
was not. For reasons known only among the sitting
Politburo members - most of them not much earlier than
the general public - the meeting cannot be held as
originally scheduled. Various sources, however, came to
agree that Jiang was the crucial factor. When the
general secretary is not ready yet to preside over the
Congress, in the absence of pressing causes, others have
to wait.
The next logical question is whether
the general secretary, being not ready to preside over
the Congress, will be ready to step down. It appears
that Jiang has neither said he will go nor that he will
stay. "He is leaving it to the Congress to decide,"
agreed cadres and party members in Beijing and
elsewhere.
In fact, as Hu's description of May
31 being the eve of the impending congress is now known
to have been quite wide of the mark, so might be his
prediction of a collective changing of the guards.
Jiang has obviously gotten his way in delaying
the Congress. He could not push the dates further back
than November 8. It was decided by the Central Committee
last year that the Congress should be held this autumn.
According to the Chinese calendar, November 7 this year
is Lidong, or the beginning of winter. That date
will see the preparatory meeting for the Congress, while
the registration of Congress delegates will be concluded
on November 6, the last day of this autumn.
So
Jiang still has his limits. He is at least not as
almighty as his predecessors Mao Zedong and Deng
Xiaoping.
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