Wen, Hu speeches hint at ideological rift
By Willy Lam
Two years before he is due to retire from the Chinese Communist Party's
Politburo, Premier Wen Jiabao has issued his boldest-ever call for
liberalization. While in the Guangdong boom town of Shenzhen in late August,
the premier raised national eyebrows by playing up the pivotal role of
political reform within the country's reform and modernization program. "Not
only do we need to push forward reform of the economic structure, we must also
push forward reform of the political structure," Wen said on the eve of the
30th anniversary of the establishment of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone
(SEZ).
Wen's unusually strong words have aroused controversy particularly because
President Hu Jintao
skirted the sensitive issue of political reform while marking the
official celebration of the SEZ's 30th birthday on September 6. The stark
contrast between the Wen and Hu speeches - and, in particular Wen's
single-minded championship of political liberalization - has raised a host of
questions about key issues in elite Chinese politics. Is the progressive-minded
premier engaged in a struggle with an "anti-reform" faction within the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP)? Is there an ideological split between the Premier and
the President? Equally importantly, will Wen really go about picking up the
threads of political reform, and if so, will he succeed?
Without the "guarantee" of political reform, Wen said in his August speech,
"the fruits of the reform of the economic structure may be lost, and it will be
impossible to realize the goal of modernization." Dragging one's feet on reform
or retrogressing, he warned, "can only lead eventually to the road of
perdition."
A little over two weeks later, while speaking to Shenzhen cadres and guests
from Hong Kong and Macau, President Hu praised the SEZ for "being brave in
making changes and innovation and for not being fossilized [in thinking]." Yet
while Hu pledged the CCP authorities' continued support for Shenzhen's "bold
explorations," the Party General Secretary urged officials in the go-go city to
"resolutely uphold the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics as well
as the socialist theoretical system with Chinese characteristics."
Hu added that Shenzhen must "continue to liberate its thinking and uphold the
reform and open door policy to acquit itself of being a pacesetter in
implementing the scientific theory of development and in promoting social
harmony." In other words, Shenzhen must focus on economic - not political -
reforms, and such endeavors must not deviate from "socialism with Chinese
characteristics".
In order to discern the significance of Wen's speech, it is instructive to
compare the series of liberal pronouncements made by the premier in recent
years and his Shenzhen talk.
At a National People's Congress press conference in early 2007, Wen became the
first senior cadre to openly advocate the adoption of pushi jiazhi, or
"universal values." "Democracy, a [fair] legal system, freedom, human rights,
egalitarianism… are not unique to capitalism," Wen indicated. "They are values
that all humankind is jointly going after." In April this year, Wen published
an article in People's Daily eulogizing the CCP's liberal icon, the late Party
Chief Hu Yaobang. The premier, who had worked under Hu from 1985 to 1987,
praised his former boss's "superior working style" as well as "lofty morality
and openness [of character]". The Wen article also sparked speculation that he
might try to rehabilitate the reputation of another late party chief Zhao
Ziyang, who was sacked for supporting no-holds-barred, "Westernized" political
reforms.
While these opinions constituted a departure from the party's conservative
mainstream, Wen had refrained from criticizing his colleagues. The Shenzhen
fusillade is remarkable because it amounted to a warning to - and a rebuke of -
cadres who have failed to implement the edicts of illustrious reformers such as
Deng Xiaoping.
"Staying put and regressing will not only doom the attainments of 30 years of
the reform and open-door policy - and the valuable opportunities of development
- but also suffocate the vitality of socialism with Chinese characteristics and
go against the wishes of the people," Wen said. Moreover, parts of Wen's speech
- especially the caveat about enemies of reform shepherding the nation down a
"road to perdition" - were repetitions of what late patriarch Deng Xiaoping
said during his famous "tour of the south" in 1992. While visiting the Shenzhen
and Zhuhai SEZs, the chief architect of reform delivered a stern warning to the
CCP's conservative faction.
Who, then, is Wen targeting? At the very least, mid- to senior-ranked cadres
who have cast aspersions on the premier's pro-reformist edicts. Following Wen's
favorable assessment of pushi jiazhi, a number of crypto-Maoist
academics and commissars in influential units such as the Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences (CASS) slammed the premier for introducing "dangerous" Western
ideas. Take, for example, well-known CASS Marxist scholar Hou Huiqing, who made
a thinly veiled attack against Wen in a 2008 article in the Journal of the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Hou asserted that people who praised
"universal values" were "challenging mainstream socialist ideology" and
"submitting themselves to the strong-willed discourse of the West."
At the same time, CASS President Chen Kuiyuan noted, "we must not engage in
blind worship [of the West] and we must not extol Western values such as
so-called universal values." In a recently circulated Internet article,
commissar Zhang Qinde, a retired official at the Policy Research Office of the
CCP Central Committee, went so far as to single out Wen for having committed
"six major errors." These included fomenting "capitalism with Chinese
characteristics"; encouraging "bourgeois liberalization" or wholesale
Westernization; and even "fanning the flames of the Zhao Ziyang Faction".
There is speculation that Wen's Shenzhen speech is emblematic of an ideological
rift between the premier and President Hu, who as party general secretary is in
charge of the party and country's overall political orientations. For the past
few years, Hu, together with Politburo members Li Changchun and Liu Yunshan -
who have direct control over the party's ideological and propaganda apparatuses
- has been trying to enrich what he calls the party's "socialist theoretical
system" by reviving orthodox values such as "sinicizing and popularizing
Marxism". For example, in a late 2008 speech marking the 30th anniversary of
the inauguration of the era of reform, Hu said the CCP "never copies the
political system and model of the West" - and that it must avoid the "deviant
path" of capitalist values.
And in his Shenzhen speech, Hu called on local cadres to "push forward the
construction of the system of socialist core values, firm up beliefs in
socialist ideals with Chinese characteristics, and to popularize patriotism,
collectivism and socialist ideas."
The belief that Wen may not see eye to eye with his conservative Politburo
colleagues is supported by the fact that several of Wen's speeches over the
past year have not been fully reported by the state media. For example, in
reporting on Wen's activities in the SEZ last month, Shenzhen Television
exorcized Wen's remarks about political liberalization. At the height of labor
unrest in Guangdong and other provinces earlier this year, the premier told
Hong Kong-based Pheonix TV that the incidents reflected "deep-seated
contradictions" in Chinese society. Not a single official media picked up Wen's
seminal remark. Given Wen's rank and prominence, the decision to underplay his
speeches could only have been made at the very top of the party hierarchy.
In light of conservative party leaders' negative views about reform, it is
doubtful whether, having made a bold call for liberalization, Wen is willing
and able to follow this up with concrete policies. Several avant-garde
academics and thinkers have given Wen high marks for re-hoisting the flag of
political reform. Zhou Ruijin, a liberal theorist and former deputy chief
editor of People's Daily, praised Wen for "directly and comprehensively raising
the goal of political reform." "While some people are blindly optimistic about
‘the China model,' Wen has the wisdom of seeing the danger of freezing
reforms," he said.
According to liberal party elder Du Daozheng, who was once close to Zhao
Ziyang, the premier is capable of taking substantive measures to realize his
goals. Wen was "genuinely and resolutely committed to implementing the Deng
Xiaoping line," Du indicated. "He is firmly, clearly and unyieldingly pushing
forward reform and the open-door policy."
Other heavyweight intellectuals, however, gravitate toward the view that Wen is
just paying lip service to high-minded goals. Well-known writer Yu Jie, who
recently published Wen Jiabao: China's Best Actor in Hong Kong, believes
that the premier is merely trying to burnish his liberal credentials for the
history books. "Wen Jiabao is not Zhao Ziyang," Yu pointed out after reading
Wen's Shenzhen speech. "There is thunder but no rain. It is unrealistic to see
Wen as the star who can save China." Moreover, it is important to note that
like his predecessor, former premier Zhu Rongji, Wen's portfolio consists
entirely in economic matters. He has little say on matters relating to
ideology, culture or propaganda.
In public statements in the past year, senior officials and media commentators
have largely steered clear of the controversial issue of political reform. The
exception is a series of articles distinguishing between "two kinds of
political reform" and "two kinds of democracy," namely, the dubious,
capitalist-style variety in the West versus socialist political and democratic
norms.
For example, in an early September commentary entitled "Don't confuse two kinds
of democracy," Guangming Daily lambasted liberal cadres for "failing to
distinguish between socialist and capitalist democracies" and for "having
arbitrarily imposed Western concepts on the reality of China's political
development." In an apparent dig at Wen, the Guangming Daily commentator noted
that those who talk about political liberalization in Shenzhen should first
clarify the question of "who will be running the show" after such reforms have
run their course. In other words, conservatives are arguing that both Deng- and
Wen-style political reform may result in the CCP losing its stronghold on
power.
Instead of political reform as defined by liberal leaders such as Deng Xiaoping
and Hu Yaobang, mainstream cadres, including President Hu, have been focusing
on administrative streamlining and, more recently, "innovation in social
management." In an early September article, the Xinhua News Agency cited Hu's
ideas about social management, which included "safeguarding and improving
people's livelihood" and "promoting social equality and justice." Moreover, the
main thrust of social management is not large-scale political change but ways
and means to foster socio-economic harmony by defusing contradictions among
China's disparate classes and interest groups.
The possibilities that the CCP leadership may revisit political reform is also
affected by the fact that preparations for large-scale personnel changes at the
upcoming 18th CCP Congress have begun and honchos of various factions are
preoccupied with pushing the promotion prospects of their proteges. Even
assuming that Wen is totally committed to resuscitating reform, the odds that
the 68-year-old premier - who appears to be a minority of one within the CCP's
top echelon - can do much in this regard are slim.
Dr Willy Wo-Lap Lam is a Senior Fellow at The Jamestown Foundation. He
has worked in senior editorial positions in international media including
Asiaweek newsmagazine, South China Morning Post, and the Asia-Pacific
Headquarters of CNN. He is the author of five books on China, including the
recently published Chinese Politics in the Hu Jintao Era: New Leaders,
New Challenges. Lam is an Adjunct Professor of China studies at Akita
International University, Japan, and at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
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