June 30, 2007

JUST QUIBBLING OVER THE PACE AT THIS POINT:

Democracy? Hu needs it: Ahead of its congress later this year, the Chinese Communist Party is tolerating a surprisingly wide-ranging debate about political reform (The Economist, Jun 28th 2007)

[I]n a much-publicised speech this week, [Hu Jintao] acknowledged the growing public demand for a say in politics. [...]

His speech set clear boundaries. The party's leadership must be upheld; reform must adhere to the “correct political orientation”. This means no Western-style parliamentary democracy or balance of power between the executive, legislature and judiciary. But his reference to “political participation” suggests he faces some pressure to set a clearer agenda. He said scope for participation should be expanded, but in an “orderly” way.

Even within Mr Hu's constraints, liberal intellectuals in China see room for big changes. A newspaper article published last October in the normally staid municipal party organ, Beijing Daily, launched a debate about political reform among academics and party officials that still rumbles on. Its author, Yu Keping, a leading party researcher, argued that democracy was essential for China. Study Times, one of the party's leading theoretical journals, republished the piece under the titillating headline “Democracy is a Good Thing”.

The party press does not usually harp on the merits of democracy. But Mr Yu was careful to stay within permitted boundaries. Even Mr Hu himself had said in April 2006 during a trip to America that without democracy there could be no modernisation—a slogan first taken up in China in the late 1970s by political dissidents. But “democracy” in party-speak has a quite different meaning from the one understood by dissidents and Westerners. It certainly does not mean allowing organised opposition. Mr Yu did not define his terms.

However, in February this year a liberal-leaning monthly journal, Yanhuang Chunqiu, threw caution to the winds. It published an article by Xie Tao, a retired vice-president of Beijing's Renmin University, singing the praises of Sweden's Social Democratic Party as a model for China's Communist Party. Mr Xie did not mention multiparty systems explicitly. But he scorned the party's continuing reverence for the “utopian” ideal of communism and warned that it could be destroyed like the Chinese Nationalist Party in the 1940s if it failed to reform politically.

Mr Xie's article touched a raw nerve. Party organisations in some universities arranged symposiums to attack his views. Other official newspapers, including the party's main mouthpiece, the People's Daily, criticised European-style social democracy as unsuitable for China. But the debate has not stopped.


Like Tex Antoine almost said, if liberalization is inevitable....

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 30, 2007 6:18 AM
Comments

This account illustrates how all that remains of the shipwreck of Communism is the vulgar xenophobia of Boxerism.

Posted by: Lou Gots at June 30, 2007 8:07 AM

The Chinese Communist Party's leaders are about to discover that once the dam's broken, there'll be no way to hold back the flood. For an autocracy to flourish, those who are oppressed must acquiesce in their own oppression.

Once the Chinese really believed in the Party, and nearly destroyed themselves in worshipping false gods and trying to build an impossible utopia. Let's hope that once the regime finally falls, the mainland Chinese won't be foolish or stupid enough to pray to new Golden Calves and to build a new jail for themselves.

Posted by: X at June 30, 2007 9:03 AM
« LESS IS MORE: | Main | WHACHOO TALKIN' 'BOUT, WILLIS?: »