WU YONG
BEIJING, Jul. 19
Zhu Houze, former minister of China's Propaganda Department, took the unusual step last year of criticizing the concept of "New Democracy," saying it was in fact "fake democracy." This may have been the first time for a prominent Communist Party figure to make a strong and thorough criticism of this theory of democracy since it was introduced by Mao Zedong in 1940.
The reason New Democracy is fake democracy is that it is centered on the "leadership of the Communist Party," in other words, under the control and autocracy of the Party. It follows the Party's standard of right and wrong -- as a result, it is not democracy at all. Its natural destiny is a one-party dictatorship. By examining the essence of the Communist Party leadership, and its viewpoint on democracy, we can see the dictatorial nature of the Party and understand that the "democracy" it promises has nothing to do with the people's rights or ownership.
Of course the Party would not reveal its autocratic nature directly. Instead, it tactfully uses the name of democracy as a pretext while practicing one-party dictatorship in order to fulfill its own purposes. It also attempts to create a theory of the unity of interests between the Communist Party and the people.
The Party confuses and hoodwinks people by equating Party members and their privileges with ordinary people, who hold no rights. What's more, it has put the concept of one-party dictatorship into the Constitution to threaten those who question and oppose the system. It can then punish them for violating the Constitution. It uses both soft and hard approaches to entwine people in the network of dictatorship under the name of democracy. This is the scheme that the Chinese Communist Party has been carrying out, manipulating the name of "democracy" throughout the years.
The Party has said that without democracy there is no socialism, without democracy there is no modernization, and it has advocated democratic elections, democratic decision making and democratic governance. At present it is especially advocating "democracy within the Party," which appears to be something new. Some people are hopeful about this and think the Communist Party is going to implement internal democracy first. As a matter of fact, learning from many past examples, we should not be too optimistic about the so-called "democracy within the Party."
As far back as the 8th Party Congress meeting in 1956, the Party Constitution stipulated that the Party's representative assemblies above the county level should meet once a year and members should have fixed terms. This already showed a little progress toward democracy within the Party. Now, after 50 years, the system of fixed terms is still in the pilot stage. According to media reports in January 2003, the Jiaojiang district of Taizhou city in Zhejiang province became the trial site for the fixed-term system in 1988 -- 32 years after the 8th Party Congress meeting.
Top Party authorities said they thought this trial would "by all means bring progress to democracy within the Party." Thus, at each year's representative assembly in Jiaojiang, the Party Central Committee's Organization Department and that of the Provincial Party Committee of Zhejiang sent people to instruct the assembly. What was the result? Due to resistance from privileged people, the trial ended without any success. Observers must question whether the Chinese Communist Party really wants to carry out "democracy within the Party," or merely wants to use democracy as an ornament.
Wang Guixiu, a professor at the Central Party School, has commented on the result of the Jiaojiang pilot project. "Reform of the political system and democratic political construction must achieve substantive progress. They should not keep skirting the central issue," he said.
China's leaders must see clearly the difficulties they face, both inside and outside, and not view the country with complacency as a "rising power." They should no longer deceive the people with promises of democracy within the Party either. Instead, the leaders should show real determination to implement reforms, including democracy within the Party, through substantial actions.
(To be continued.)
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(Wu Yong is a former senior journalist and editor in China. He is now a freelance writer who frequently publishes commentaries in overseas media. This article is edited and translated from the Chinese by UPI Asia Online. The original may be found at www.chinaeweekly.com and www.ncn.org. cCopyright Wu Yong. )
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