Power Sharing with My Old Friends

By Fang Jue

October 26, 2007

When the Seventeenth Party Congress ended on October 22, two new faces emerged on the standing committee of the political bureau of the Communist Party of China, China’s highest level of leadership.

I am a democracy activist who was jailed by the Communist Party of China. Nevertheless, the two new members of the standing committee of the political bureau are my old friends. This may be interesting.

Six months ago, I published an article in the Hong Kong based magazine The Trend suggesting that the highest leadership in China should include these two men: one is Xi Jinping, who was the Party secretary of Shanghai which, as New York City is to the USA, is China’s biggest commercial city. The other is Li Keqiang, who was the Party secretary of Liaoning Province, an important industrial area in China.

In May, a representative from communist China visited me to seek my opinion on the upcoming Seventeenth Party Congress even though I am a dissident against the Party. I advocated again that the highest leadership in China ought to include Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, both born in the 1950s. It would appear to be crazy that a member of the political opposition would support two party members joining the highest leadership. But Comrade Xi Jinping was my close colleague in the local authority in Fujian Province in the early 1990s. For more than twenty-five years his intention has been to institute economic reform and an open-door policy. And Comrade Li Keqiang was my close schoolmate when we studied at Beijing University, the most famous university in China, from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. He and I determined to push for reform in China, and we maintained a political friendship for a long time.

In spring 2004, I suggested that the American government engage with Mr. Xi Jinping and Mr. Li Keqiang who were then at the next highest level of leadership in China. It was encouraging that the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Henry M. Paulson, Jr., met Mr. Xi Jinping last September during his visit to China, representing the American president as special envoy. Of course, I hoped that the American government would also engage with Mr. Li Keqiang.

Comrade Xi Jinping may become China’s paramount leader as the general secretary of the Party and Comrade Li Keqiang may become the premier of China’s government when the Eighteenth Party Congress is held in 2012. Does this mean a good political future for me?

It is not enough to assure China’s democratic transformation.

Any democratic transformation in communist nations is not only dependent on a few reformers among the Party’s highest leadership. For China, real democratic transformation must have two steps.

The first step is to choose some politicians who are not “communist comrades” as ministers in the central government and governors in the provinces.

The second step is to open the door to allow multi-party political competition in free elections for governmental leaders and members of parliament. In other words, democratic transformation means power sharing with the communist party.

Therefore, my hope is that Comrade Xi Jinping and Comrade Li Keqiang will support China’s democratic transformation when the rigid president Hu Jintao retires as the head of the current highest leadership in five years.

Power sharing with my old friends in China’s democratic process is my favorite vision of the future.

(The author, Fang Jue, is a Chinese political activist living in the United States. fangjue2005@hotmail.com)