[Nasional-m] The CCP wears the pants in this marriage

Fri, 29 Nov 2002 23:09:35 +0100

The CCP wears the pants in this marriage

By DAVID WALL
Special to The Japan Times

CAMBRIDGE, England -- Now that the dust is settling after the Chinese
Communist Party's 16th National Congress, we can begin to see the
implications of the various decisions announced there.

There was a lot of rhetoric in the media, both before and after the
congress, about the way in which the Communist Party has embraced the
private sector. The CCP seemed to be struggling to give birth to an elephant
over the last year or so as President Jiang Zemin called for it to welcome
capitalists as members. There was even talk of private entrepreneurs being
elected to the party's central committee and maybe even to the Politburo and
its standing committee. The congress, however, gave birth not to an elephant
but to a mouse.

No private-sector entrepreneurs were elected to the party's central
committee, although the chief executive officer of Haier Corporation, Zhang
Ruimin, was elected as an alternate, nonvoting, member. Haier Corporation
is, however, not really a private enterprise: state bodies of one sort or
another hold the majority of its shares.

Although the pressure to have Jiang's theory, the "Three Represents,"
written into the party constitution was successful -- although without his
name attached -- a lot more was expected.

The party chiefs know that they no longer lead a communist party. They have
been saying for some time now that the Marxist-Leninist foundations of the
party's ideology are antiquated and not relevant to contemporary China.

The Central Party School, which is in charges of doctrinal issues and is
presided over by China's new leader, Hu Jintao, has been studying the Third
Way policies of Britain's Labour Party for some time now. Third Way guru
Peter Mandelson has made more than one trip to the CPS to spread the word.
Teachers at the CPS have been to Britain to learn.

It seems clear that while the old-guard Communists who still have the faith
won one or two battles -- keeping Jiang's name out of the party constitution
and private entrepreneurs off the central committee for now -- they lost
ground. Party committees around China have legitimized the membership of
thousands of private entrepreneurs who had joined earlier, despite it being
against the rules.

The All China Federation of Industry and Commerce, which the party has been
using to try to maintain some control over the private sector, recently
claimed that 9,065 private businessmen are now members of city and district
(above county level) People's Congresses. It also announced that 32,025
entrepreneurs have become members of regional Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conferences.

Don't, however, be fooled. While the Chinese Communist Party can no longer
claim to be a communist party, its leaders are not about to share power with
private-sector entrepreneurs.

China's leaders are well aware that their continuing in power is dependent
on the private sector, which is now larger that the state sector. It
provides the growth in income and jobs that keeps the people from
questioning the legitimacy of the rule of the Communist Party. They are also
deeply worried that an uncontrolled private sector could develop an
ideological threat to the continuation in office of leaders who claim to be
Communists. The party is terrified of a second force -- a force that could
be organized as an opposition, developing around the growth of the private
sector.

It was fear of such a force that led Jiang to initiate the bloody
suppression of Falun Gong. It was his surprise at how fast, and how quietly,
Falun Gong came to be a second force in China, well organized and with more
members than the Communist Party itself, that led him to decide not to make
the same mistake twice.

Jiang is determined to bring the private sector under the party's control.
Unlike Falun Gong, which he could destroy with impunity, he knew he could
not do this with the private sector. Hence the Three Represents, which is
all about bringing the private sector under the disciplinary processes of
the party.

Hundreds of thousands of party cells have already been sent up in the more
than two million registered private enterprises with the rest being required
to come into line and set one up. Individual high-profile entrepreneurs are
being pressured, often against their will, to join the party.

The party cells allow the party to keep a watch on the political aspirations
of emerging entrepreneurs; they have the security files on them and their
tax records. If they get out of line they can be denounced and their
companies taken over. There has been a spate of high-level and
well-publicized arrests of private-sector leaders recently.

Other private-sector leaders may be learning how to trim. Tao Xinkang, the
man who created and developed the Xin Gao Chao Group, Shanghai's biggest
private firm and one of China's biggest, did not complain, at least in
public, when the Communist Party recently took the credit for his success.
The deputy head of the party cell in the company, the first in Shanghai,
recently claimed, "Our enterprise was once just a seedling. The sunlight and
rain of the Communist Party allowed us to grow strong and healthy." Tao now,
probably wisely, splits his time between China and Canada.

The domestic private sector in China, in a reversal of the truth, is being
told that its continued success depends on its acceptance of the authority
and discipline of the Communist Party. The more successful entrepreneurs are
likely to pay lip service to the leadership of the party while building up
their overseas assets and obtaining foreign citizenship for themselves or
their families.

The less successful or less scrupulous entrepreneurs are likely to form an
unholy alliance with party officials. Together they will exploit the people.
And then there will have to be another socialist revolution. You read it
here first.

David Wall teaches in the Center of International Studies of the University
of Cambridge and is chairman of the China Discussion Group at the Royal
Institute of International Affairs.