SUN WUKONG Party time for China
By Wu Zhong, China Editor
HONG KONG - The party mood of the Beijing Summer Olympic Games over, China is
now preparing to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the economic reforms that
have transformed the country and made it the world's industrial dynamo, an
event that may mark the start of reforms of a quite different nature
In 1978, the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held
its third plenary session in Beijing from December 18 to 22. Deng Xiaoping, who
had just made his third and last political comeback, delivered a keynote speech
calling on officials and party members to "emancipate minds" . With that
slogan, Deng sought to urge officials to break the ideological shackles of
Maoist dogmas and the socialist command economy
of the previous three decades and change their mindsets to embrace
capitalist-style economic reforms.
The meeting endorsed Deng as virtually the top leader of the party though
officially he was only one of its "vice chairmen". It also took up his ideas of
reform and opening up of the economy as the party line, marking the party
plenum as a milestone in the country's history.
The highlight of the celebrations marking the plenum's anniversary in December
is expected to be a speech by President Hu Jintao calling for further
"emancipation of minds" in order to advance the course started by Deng.
While major policy principles for deepening reforms are expected to be
announced by Hu personally, remarks by senior officials recently hint strongly
that changes in the current political and social systems are inevitable if
economic reforms are to be advanced further. Yet such "political reforms", as
they are called in China, are in fact aimed at consolidating the party's
dictatorship rather than at weakening it in favor of multi-party democracy
longed for by some pro-democracy activities at home and abroad.
A pointer to the shape of future changes came recently in the form of explicit
remarks about "political reforms" by Zhang Chunxian, the CCP head of Hunan
province.
At a televised conference of Hunan officials on August 31 held to mobilize a
province-wide campaign for further "emancipation of minds", Zhang said reforms
in the past 30 years had focused on how "to return li [economic
interests] to the people". The focus now would be on how "to return quan
to the people" , with efforts devoted to "developing socialist democratic
politics". The Chinese word quan has a double meaning and could refer to
rights or (political) power or both.
"To return interests to the people" is a brilliant summary of the economic
reforms of the past three decades, for their main aim has been to privatize
economic interests that had been entirely monopolized by the state under the
socialist command economy.
Zhang himself (probably deliberately) failed to further clarify what he meant
by "to return quan to the people", which is open to different
interpretations due to the double meaning of quan. From the context of
his speech, he may have been hinting at giving back people some of their rights
and power.
Quan could mean the right to own or ownership. Chinese can now own many
things, but not land. To maintain the banner of "socialism", the government
still claims that all land and natural resources belong to the state. In
practice, when one buys a house or an apartment, the purchaser only rents from
the state the right to use the land on which the property is built for a
certain period (for residential housing, normally 75 years).
Farmers, too, only "rent" the right to use farmland from the state through the
"household contract responsibility system" (normally 30-year contract). Local
governments can at any time take back farmland "on behalf of the state", and
requisition from farmers without adequate compensation has been the main cause
for large protests in recent years.
"To return quan to the people" could therefore mean some changes in the
land management system. But it is unlikely that China is ready to privatize
land ownership because this would mean abandoning the banner of "socialism with
Chinese characteristics".
It may not be coincidental that on September 8, barely one week after Zhang's
comments, China Business Journal reported that the central government is to
hold an important meeting in October to discuss "land reforms". One possible
reform is to allow a village to "collectively own" the right of use of all its
farmland. In this way, anyone who wants to acquire land from the village for
development must negotiate directly with the villagers on the price. Local
governments will play no role in such activities. But this would deprive local
officials of potentially huge interests and is thus bound to meet resistance.
From this perspective, the land reform, if ever launched, would not be simply
an economic reform but a fundamental change in the country's social and
political system.
With the slogan "to return power to the people", Zhang may also be indicating
political reforms to let people have a greater say in political and public
affairs. According to the theory of Marxist socialism elaborated by Lenin and
Mao, all social wealth belongs to the people and the state manages it on their
behalf. In practice in China, this inevitably led to an absolute state monopoly
in the name of the planned economy. The same theory states that all political
power belongs to the people and the party-state holds that power on their
behalf. This has resulted in the CCP's dictatorship with absolute power.
The reforms of the past 30 years have shattered the state's absolute monopoly
of the economy, but the party's absolute political power remains largely
untouched. Many analysts, including some officials, have pointed out that many
of the country's current problems, such as social injustice and corruption, are
rooted in this absolute power.
Zhang's comments seem to suggest that Beijing now wants to do something about
this. While Zhang himself stopped short of elaborating, it would be too naive
to take his words as meaning the CCP is ready to share its power with other
political forces. Rather, "returning power to the people" should be understood
as letting the public play a bigger role in supervising the exercise of power
by the communist government. In this sense, the public will have a greater say
in political and social affairs.
For instance, the party's Central Organization Department, which oversees the
appointment and promotion of senior officials, has recently set a new policy
under which the popularity of an official will be a factor when considering his
or her promotion, with a survey to be carried out to gauge public support. This
would in effect give citizens an indirect vote on the matter.
Zhang, 55, was Minister of Transport before he was named Hunan provincial party
chief in late 2005. An open-minded official, he has been widely regarded by
overseas China watchers as a future political star in China. His Hunan
appointment is seen as giving him an opportunity to gain experience of working
in a province - a necessary step for moving further up in the official
hierarchy as the CCP now requires that central leaders must be selected from
those who have experience in working in the provinces.
Given his background and promising future, it is very unlikely that Zhang made
a slip of the tongue by using the phrase "to return power to the people". More
likely his remarks herald that political reforms, with whatever characteristics
they may be, are now really on the CCP agenda - after 30 years of economic
reforms.
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