Posted on 02/28/2007 1:28:24 AM PST by MadIvan
China's prime minister promised to maintain "socialism for 100 years" yesterday as the Communist Party tried to play down media discussion of political reform.
"We must keep a firm grasp on the basic principles of the Party in the initial stage of socialism, without wavering, for 100 years," Wen Jiabao, said in an article reproduced in the People's Daily newspaper and other centrally-controlled state media.
Dampening hopes both of Chinese dissidents and of governments abroad that have called for faster political change, he said that while democracy was necessary it could only come about on the party's terms and when the socialist system was "mature". He said that in the meantime China had to focus on economic development.
The publication of what was clearly intended as a heavyweight contribution to the country's political debates was unexpected, particularly since Mr Wen is normally in charge of the day-to-day running of China rather than longer-term speculation about its future.
But the coming annual session of the Chinese parliament and expected changes to the top leadership in the autumn, at the five-yearly Communist Party Congress, have triggered speculation at home and abroad on the prospects for political change.
In contrast to the tighter rein imposed on the media in recent years, some liberal journalists, as well as academics, have been unusually open in calling for political reforms to match China's enormous economic changes.
Earlier this month, Zhou Ruijin, a retired deputy editor of the People's Daily, gave an interview to a provincial paper calling for the expansion of direct elections.
"China has been bogged down in a mess of contradictions and disputes," he said. "What I've proposed is that political reform should precede all other reforms of the government administration."
To some extent the government has encouraged this openness, by describing corruption and other forms of illegal behaviour by party officials as China's gravest social crisis and saying that they had to be made more accountable.
Billions of dollars embezzled and stolen every year by party cadres.
And there are thousands of protests every years over illegal land grabs for development and failure to protect the environment and the livelihoods of those affected.
With a growing capitalist-style class system, there is also little evidence of socialism in current economic realities.
But Mr Wen insisted that socialism was still the party's goal, and that it could reform itself from within.
"We have not built up a democratic legal system — social unfairness, corruption and other problems still exist and the socialist system is not yet mature," he admitted.
But he then reiterated China's standard formulation for rejecting Western-style reform. "China must walk its own way in terms of building a democratic system," he said.
Mr Wen is seen as the most liberal in the politburo, and is its only member to regularly meet the Western press.
His promises that China would expand democracy are often quoted favourably by Western politicians who support greater engagement with Beijing, among them Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, on his last visit to Beijing in September 2005.
His words may be intended to show that even he believes any profound reform of the system will come later rather than sooner.
The idea of socialism having "initial stages" is taken from the words of the former leader Deng Xiaoping, who began China's economic reforms but still insisted on the primacy of Communist Party rule.
Don't sweat the markets, Ivan. Just buy something that became cheap yesterday and hold onto it!
Regards, Ivan
China - Clintons - Socialism....
Hopefully there will be a bit more blood this time around.
Time for them to shoot down another of their own satellites.
If you are in the Party leadership, then communism is not holding you back. It is your ticket to great personal wealth and autonomy, and if you are perfectly cynical and selfish you will preserve this system as well as you can.
;-) Well, that one form of "population control".
Ahhhh, but you underestimate the power of the glorious peoples congress to root out those capitallist subversives who sabotaged the markets yesterday! Once they are found and, er, "punished" the people of China will show the decadent west what a dedicated peoples can do! (offstage:"I had no idea they would react like that!")
My guess is the rest of China has already figured it out, but that led to the massacre in Tiananmen Square...
I spent several months in China in the late 1980s. Pretty much all of the educated people I befriended realized that communism was a failure and a scam. It is just that no one there had any idea what to do about it. They still don't.
Nakita made the same claim.
Pray for W and Our Troops
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