Class action (China)

scmp ^ | December 24, 2001

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The notion of class is a sensitive issue in a socialist regime whose ultimate goal is to create a classless communist society.

So it is significant that the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has conducted a study on the country's class structure. The fact that the study was closely supervised by academy chief Li Tieying, also a member of the Politburo, showed the exercise had a definite political objective.

What is encouraging is that the study openly admits that the class theories developed by Karl Marx and Mao Zedong for bygone eras are no longer applicable. Their theories were meant to ''guide the revolution'' and so had highlighted confrontation between the classes, the study concluded.

Now that the country's focus is on developing the economy, the study says the aim of analysing the class structure is not to identify class enemies, but to achieve a ''win-win'' situation for all classes and to harness all social forces to spearhead economic development.

For those who still have dreaded memories of the horrors of ''class struggles'' waged during successive political campaigns on the mainland, this new theory about classes should come as a relief.

Mao had grouped people into three classes workers, farmers and intellectuals according to their political and household backgrounds and administrative identities. Many people were persecuted simply because of their parents' backgrounds, over which they had no control.

The study has now identified 10 new classes based on people's organisational, economic and cultural resources. Significantly, private entrepreneurs and small businessmen are recognised as classes whose sizes are growing.

Time will tell if this will pave the way for their induction into the Chinese Communist Party, as has been advocated by Party Secretary Jiang Zemin. The study certainly looks like an exercise aimed at providing a new theory to explain the country's changing class structure 23 years after it embarked on the road of developing socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The Chinese Communist Party allows no opposition to challenge its tight grip of the country, and that is regrettable. The only consolation is that it has tried to regenerate itself and to improve the livelihood of the people over the past two decades, although there have been blunders along the way.

It is to be hoped that the Chinese people can look forward to genuine reforms that will allow them to exercise the social and political rights that are enshrined in the constitution.