BEIJING, Oct. 22
The political report presented by President Hu Jintao to the Chinese Communist Party's 17th Congress received an embarrassing amount of admiration from CCP leaders, whose duty was to examine and discuss that report, not to praise it.
This report included all aspects of the work done since the 16th Party Congress and outlined the Party's future work. This means that proposing and determining the major political policies was done by the 17th Congress in name only. In fact it was done by the 16th Central Committee. So why did more than 2,000 delegates come to the Congress?
Jia Qinglin, a member of the Standing Committee of the 16th Central Committee, told the Beijing delegation to seriously study and put into practice Hu's report. As for their duty to "examine and discuss the report," this is just a superficial slogan. The most a delegate could do was to suggest a slight modification of the report. It was impossible for any of them to give a unique political perspective. The real job of the delegates was to study and practice the spirit of the Central Committee, which has been made up to be the spirit of the 17th Party Congress.
This is certainly not a strange thing. It follows under the practical rule that the whole Party and the Party Congress are subordinate to the Central Committee.
The necessity for intraParty democracy, advocated by Hu, lies in the fact that there are different voices, different political ideas, perspectives and claims within the Party. There are various candidates for Party posts, surrounded by diverse supporters. Since there are different voices, intraParty democracy is supposed to allow debates and discussions. Since there are different candidates, it is supposed to mean elections. Generally, elections should be contested -- single-candidate elections are only for very special situations. The CCP, however, has the ability to make "very special situations" into "very normal" things.
At present, the CCP seems not to need democracy within the Party, as there are no different voices reflected in the leader's report. Everyone praises and supports the report of the Party head with one voice. Moreover, all the candidates for Party posts are appointed by the Party head. Elections are just a superficial procedure without real significance.
However, the successor to the Party head appointed by former Chairman Mao Zedong was soon defeated by his opponents. Hua Guofeng was sitting in the last row of the chairmen's committee at the 17th Congress without any real political power. The real successor, whom Mao Zedong trusted, was defeated within one month after Mao's death. The ones chosen by Deng Xiaoping have become successive heads of the Party.
It appears that this practice of Deng's has been handed down to his followers and will continue to influence the operation of the CCP. As a result, Jiang Zemin will not abandon the right to choose the successor to Hu Jintao. Why is it like this?
Under the tradition of the Communist Party, after the death of a "great leader" the Party will usually turn to collective leadership, with a transition period in between. But if another figure with an iron hand appears, the phase of collective leadership will be delayed.
In the Soviet Union, after Vladimir Lenin died there were many powerful figures, and fierce struggles continued for a number of years till Joseph Stalin obtained absolute power. The real opportunity for collective leadership didn't appear until Stalin died. Usually, there will be a key figure within the group leadership, and his colleagues can restrict him or even drive him away from power. In practice, Georgy Malenkov and Nikita Khrushchev were both driven from power, but not Mikhail Gorbachev.
In China after Mao Zedong died, the "gang of four" was defeated, Hua Guofeng was forced to resign, and then Deng Xiaoping took control. Deng's dictatorship was not as strong as Stalin's. Deng considered leading the CCP to democracy, but was hesitant under the pressure of reality. Even compared to Khrushchev, he was much weaker, let alone compared to Gorbachev.
During the "1989 movement" people saw very clearly that the 85-year-old Chinese man (Deng Xiaoping) could not be compared to the 58-year-old man from the Soviet Union (Gorbachev). Therefore, after Deng died, group leadership could develop gradually. But during Jiang Zemin's presidency, due to Vice President Zeng Qinghong's strategies, the group leadership was not obvious. Hu Jintao appears to be of limited ability and his relationship with Zeng Qinghong is not as good as Jiang's, which creates more space for group leadership now.
Gorbachev was young and strong. He had new theoretical thinking and was bold enough to be politically open. He came to power and brought hope to the Soviet Union and its Communist Party. However, the Soviet Union was nearly 70 years old. It was very difficult for his reforms to achieve major breakthroughs under the restrictions of the conservatives -- giving up the communist monopoly on politics was already the limit. Therefore, the reforms could only be pushed by another, more radical political power. It is not an accident that Chinese conservatives and CCP bureaucrats are afraid of Gorbachev.
The CCP's conservative power is very strong and deep-rooted. Typically, it tries by all means to prevent any Gorbachev-like figure or activity from appearing. It also tries by all means to prevent different voices from emerging. Therefore, even Zhao Ziyang, former secretary general of the CCP, had to pay a high political price for this -- he was placed under house arrest until his death.
Although the CCP is inevitably marching toward collective leadership, faced with the fast development of the market economy it has put all its focus on the economy, to obtain wealth and benefits, while maintaining a cautious approach to politics to ensure its security. As a result, the Party has become corrupt and mediocre. It is very difficult for anyone who is ambitious, intelligent and capable of leading the Party to democracy to stand out from the crowd.
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(Guan Jian is the pen name of a commentator on China affairs for New Century Net. He is a former researcher at an institute for state economic reform. This article is edited and translated from the Chinese by UPI Asia Online; the original can be found at www.ncn.org. ©Copyright Guan Jian.)
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http://www.upiasiaonline.com/politics/2007/10/22/commentary_chinas_long_march_toward_collective_leadership/
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