Struggle in China
Two developments worthy of note
By Deirdre Griswold
Two recent developments in China are of great interest in
trying to assess the strength of the pro-socialist elements in
the Communist Party of China versus those who want to push even
further in the direction of market capitalism.
The first has to do with what has happened since the
announcement, made July 1 by General Secretary Jiang Zemin,
that the party should open its doors to membership by
capitalists and entrepreneurs.
An article by Xu Yufang in the Oct. 23 Asia Times Online of
Hong Kong says that Jiang's proposal "met its end, in fact, in
the CPC Central Committee plenary session of September 24-26,
according to informed sources."
This has also been confirmed by other Chinese sources.
Asia Times is a bourgeois paper representing Hong Kong's
capitalist class. It often refers to China's communist leaders
in condescending or disparaging terms. However, it praised
Jiang's proposal as an "imaginative idea of granting party
membership to people who at present are not eligible--the
bourgeois, and entrepreneurs in particular."
The writer then adds that the proposal was "dead even before
the Central Committee met. A consensus was reached at a 'Minzhu
Shenghuohui' ('democratic life meeting,' a sort of informal tea
gathering) in early September, attended by most members of the
Politburo and three high-brow senior elders, Qiao Shi, Song
Ping and Liu Huaqing. During the meeting, Jiang was targeted
for making his bold announcement before going through the
normal channels of formulating major party policies.
Subsequently, the central secretariat, headed by Jiang's
heir-apparent Hu Jintao, decided to drop the open-door proposal
from the business of the Central Committee plenary
session."
The tone of the article treats contemptuously the response
by older leaders of the party to Jiang's attempt to bypass the
authority of the Politburo. It shows how the capitalist media
are only too happy to knock democratic processes in favor of
"innovation" when it suits bourgeois interests.
"Jiang's plan might still have had a chance at the plenary
session if he had been able to muster a simple majority of
votes in its favor. He failed to do that, and the Central
Committee's resolution omitted any mention of the proposal,
which meant another nail in its coffin," continued the
article.
"However, the biggest blow to Jiang is perhaps not the
rejection of his plan, but the criticism aimed at him by his
senior comrades for trying to institute dictatorship.
"In the 'democratic life' meeting, Ding Guangen, the CPC
propaganda chief and Jiang's major protégé,
received the most rebukes for having tried to suppress
discussion on the plan's merits while the party had yet to make
a decision. Prior to the meeting, Ding had gone all out to
instruct editors of all media to suppress anything that did not
conform to Jiang's July 1 proclamation. Ding was reported to
have said that there was no longer any room for discussion
since the head of the party had made a statement. In
criticizing Ding for having confused a leading cadre with the
collective leadership, the party elders were in fact reminding
Jiang that he should submit himself to the collective will of
his peers."
Ding's heavy-handed approach to the Chinese media in order
to promote capitalist elements has yet to be even taken note of
by the supposed "watchdogs" of freedom of the press in the U.S
establishment.
Another development shows that the policy of dismantling
China's state-owned industries, which are the material base for
what remains of its socialist relations, is running into
resistance.
An article by James Kynge in Beijing for the Financial Times
of Oct. 23 says, "China has ordered a virtual freeze on the
bankruptcy of its larger state-owned enterprises in a sign that
crucial industrial reforms are being slowed as Beijing seeks to
ward off social unrest."
The article continues, "People inside the government said
the supreme court had told provincial courts not to proceed
with bankruptcy cases of state-owned enterprises with assets of
more than Rmb50m ($6m) unless they had supreme court
approval.
" 'This in effect centralizes the decision-making process
for all bankruptcies of state-owned enterprises,' said one
official, who declined to be identified. 'The government wants
to stop bankruptcies of state-owned companies.'"
The capitalist world has cheered the shutting down of
state-owned production facilities in China, many of which were
built decades ago, as a move toward efficiency. However, their
deeper motive, as in the reforms they urged on the Soviet
Union, is to break up economic planning and the relation of the
socialist state to the welfare of the masses.
China's "iron rice bowl" guaranteed workers and farmers a
livelihood, along with housing, education and health care,
through their relationship to the state-owned means of
production. Where that has been broken down, it has resulted in
enormous social problems for the masses.
There is no reason a socialist country has to denationalize
its means of production in order to modernize them. On the
contrary, China will emerge much stronger if it is able to
shift its emphasis to improving and expanding the industrial
resources that belong to all the people instead of those that
have enriched the new bourgeois class.
Reprinted from the Nov. 1, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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