CHINA: Communist Congress to Reaffirm One-Party Rule

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Oct 14 2007 (IPS) - The Chinese Communist Party may have toyed with the idea of experimenting with Nordic-style democratic socialism but next week’s key 17th party congress is expected to steer the country firmly towards a future of one-party rule.

The congress, which begins Monday and ends Oct. 21, will see the world’s largest ruling party holding its five-yearly meeting. More than 2,000 delegates will gather in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People to identify the party’s new political hopefuls and tackle key issues such as China’s development plans and its escalating crisis with Taiwan.

The months before the event have seen intense, behind-the-scenes manoeuvring for power at all levels of the party, which has prompted some veteran party members to see it as a change from the years past when paramount party leaders would handpick successors and enforce their will.

“There is already a Chinese-style democracy emerging in our society,’ says Liu Xirui, a professor at the National Administration College. “This is clearly visible in the current party leadership’s resolve to promote internal party democracy and its willingness to share executive power with other political parties.”

Indeed, in the months leading up to the meeting, the leadership of President Hu Jintao who is also party secretary has allowed a limited debate about political democratisation in party-run journals. It has also appointed three non-communist party members as ministers of the government, a move unseen since the early 1950s.

Earlier this year, an elderly party liberal and Chairman Mao Zedong ’s former secretary, Li Rui, published an article openly calling for the adoption of Scandinavian-style democratic socialism.

The essay, which appeared in the respected journal Yanhuang Chunqiu (Across the Ages), praised the Nordic model for its endorsement of social equality and political liberty and called for a comprehensive political reform in China.

In a similar vein, another party intellectual, Yu Keping, created waves with his book, titled “Democracy is a good thing”, in which he argued that “among all political systems developed by human kind through the ages, democracy is the one least prone to abuse”.

While little is known about the party inner circle’s workings, reports in the Chinese and Hong Kong press reveal that for several years after early 2000 researchers at the Central Party School have studied the ideology and organisation of various European social-democratic parties, hoping to borrow individual features from them.

As late as May this year Prof. Gao Fang, who studies the history of the world communist movement, presented in the liberal weekly “Southern Weekend” a broad comparison between the European model of democratic socialism and the “scientific socialism” advocated by China, arguing they had “similar roots and purposes”.

Since then, public calls for democratisation of political life have petered out. In a much-publicised June speech, Hu ruled out western-style democracy in China and made it clear he did not envision a fundamental overhaul of one-party rule.

While he embraced the greater “political participation” of the public, he stressed that such changes should proceed in an orderly fashion, without diminishing the party’s “leadership role”.

“Insist on the party’s leadership, governance by the people and ruling the nation by law,” Hu told a meeting at the Central Party School attended by members of the party, the central government, provincial leaders and the military.

“The idea is that we should promote democracy within the communist party,” says Prof. Liu. “This could truly be a new, Chinese model of democracy. Why should we be so narrow-minded in thinking that there is no alternative to western-style democracy?”

In its May issue the party’s most orthodox ournal “Seeking truth” insisted too that “China has opened up a new road of political democracy”, exemplified by one-party rule with broader public participation and more effective internal supervision.

Illustrating this new-style of public consultation, delegates to the party congress will be presented with 230 candidates for the 200 Central Committee positions, allowing them a small measure of choice in selecting the people who will elect the higher standing committee.

Observers say that the Communist party hierarchy has left one of the key questions of the congress – the issue of political succession – to be resolved through compromise and consensus.

While Hu is expected to be reelected as party chief for another term in office, party protocol dictates he should name a successor at this meeting and ensure that the heir-designate gains five years of experience on the party’s Politburo Standing Committee.

However, no clear successor has emerged so far, with political odds swinging between Li Keqiang, 52 – the party secretary of Liaoning province and Hu’s favourite – and Xi Jinping, 54, the newly-appointed party boss of Shanghai who is said to be a protégé of retired party chief Jiang Zemin.

Whatever consensus emerges within the closed-door power play next week, political compromise is going to be limited to the people attending it. Belying their pledges for allowing greater political participation, in the run-up to the party get-together communist rulers have rounded up activists and cracked down on all forms of dissent.

“This week we’re seeing the culmination of months of targeted tightening of controls on media, the Internet, and freedom of movement for dissidents designed to impose ‘stability’ during the Party Congress,” said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director for the New York-based, Human Rights Watch, in a statement.

“But real stability is a product of responding to criticism, not quashing it,” she pointed out.