Searching for Reform in China: the Case of Wen Jiabao

A kind of literary squabble has erupted in China over Premier Wen Jiabao’s role as a reformer.
Searching for Reform in China: the Case of Wen Jiabao
A resident sits on a mattress where his house was located, at the Taiyangong area on May 10, 2007 in Beijing. Some 26 bungalows were torn down at midnight on May 9 by unidentified people. Housing reform in China has seen the demolition of people's homes (China Photos/Getty Images)
Heng He
8/3/2010
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/74123355.jpg" alt="A resident sits on a mattress where his house was located, at the Taiyangong area on May 10, 2007 in Beijing. Some 26 bungalows were torn down at midnight on May 9 by unidentified people. Housing reform in China has seen the demolition of people's homes (China Photos/Getty Images)" title="A resident sits on a mattress where his house was located, at the Taiyangong area on May 10, 2007 in Beijing. Some 26 bungalows were torn down at midnight on May 9 by unidentified people. Housing reform in China has seen the demolition of people's homes (China Photos/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1816650"/></a>
A resident sits on a mattress where his house was located, at the Taiyangong area on May 10, 2007 in Beijing. Some 26 bungalows were torn down at midnight on May 9 by unidentified people. Housing reform in China has seen the demolition of people's homes (China Photos/Getty Images)
A kind of literary squabble has erupted in China over Premier Wen Jiabao’s role as a reformer. Both those who attack Wen and those who defend him, however, have missed the fundamental point—the question of whether one can be a reformer inside the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

More than one year ago, writers on Maoist websites began publishing articles attacking speeches by Wen that discussed universal values, democracy, and other issues.

On the other side, some journals and newspapers that have the reputation for supporting open ideas, such as Southern Weekend and China Through the Ages (“Yan Huang Chun Qiu”) have regularly published articles supporting ideas that Wen has been promoting—human dignity, political reform, and so on.

But the support for Wen has been subtle, with his name not being mentioned. However, recently one article broke the ice. Du Guang, a former scholar in the CCP Central Party School, on July 14 published the article “The Analysis of the Context of the Wave of Criticizing Wen Jiabao” on a Chinese-language website outside China. This article has been widely posted on many websites outside China and some inside China.

On July 15, the Deutsche Welle Chinese-language website published the article “An Exception Named: the Fight Between the Left and Right Wings Surrounding the Chinese Premier” to discuss the controversy swirling around Wen.

These two articles, especially the one by Du Guang, suggested that those who are attacking Wen are the Maoist hardliners and the power elite. Although these two groups are totally different, they have tended recently to form a combined force. The ones defending Wen were said to represent the desire for reform.

Du Guang quoted the founder and head of China Through the Ages, Du Daozheng, as saying there are two ideas and two powers among the top leaders of Zhongnanhai, the CCP’s leadership compound in Beijing. One insists on keeping the current situation, representing the corrupt power elite. The other pushes for reform and openness, representing the “advanced healthy force.” Both articles suggested that exposing the top leaders’ differences to the public is very unusual.

The Meaning of Reform


Reform has at least two meanings: economic and political. For the past 30 years in China, reform has only referred to changes in the economy and has never had political meaning.

Rather than ask, “Who is the reformer?” one might better ask, “Who is not a reformer?”

In 1992, Deng Xiaoping said, “Development is the only hard truth.” In the pursuit of that “hard truth,” in a form in which those who have the political power get rich first, the entire bureaucracy in China should be considered reformers.

The Maoist hardliners, also called the orthodox Marxists, don’t have political and economic influence in China today. If someone got rich in the past 30 years through political power and economic reform, he should be considered a reformer, no matter what he claims to be. In today’s China, there are no real Maoists among those in power.

Princelings

An illustrative case among the power elite is Bo Xilai. The son of a leading member of the CCP from the generation that fought the revolution, Bo is a “crown prince.” As mayor of the coastal city of Dalian, he sponsored showcase projects meant to bring economic development to the city. In this role, Bo was very much a typical “reformer.”

As mayor of Dalian, however, Bo also took an interest in hanging Jiang Zemin’s portrait on the streets upon Jiang becoming head of the CCP, resetting the CCP’s cult of personality. More recently, as Party head of the western metropolis of Chongqing, Bo has led a campaign to “sing red [communist] songs,” seeking to excite devotion to the Party.

In these activities, Bo is very orthodox and far from a political reformer. He has not been targeting Wen with these activities. This is just the way he and other princelings demonstrate they are the trusted successors to political power.

All the crown princes have benefited from the economic reform. For 30 years, all the policies have tilted toward the power elite. Consider the dual pricing system. In the 1980s, the Party wanted to reform the pricing system of the planned economy.

The Party did so by creating two sets of prices. One price for raw materials was controlled by the state, but there was a quota on how much could be sold at the controlled price. The other price was set by the market and had no quota. Those who had to pay the market price paid much more for essential materials than those who paid the controlled price.

The princelings began their money-making careers by being able to buy at the controlled price and sell at the market price. This “reform” set the pattern for other reforms that were to follow, in health care, education, and housing. In each case, the system was reformed so that the princelings could become rich.

The princelings are the richest and most powerful group in China. In contrast to the owners of private companies, the crown princes’ power and wealth are not affected by changes in the political climate.

Jiang Mianheng, the son of Jiang Zemin, accumulated enormous wealth through operating about a dozen companies and investment firms behind the scenes, including his flagship company China Netcom. He is also the deputy chief of the National Manned Flight Space Project and vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Not satisfied with great wealth, he also wants political power.

Jiang Mianheng is not alone. Li Xiaopeng, the son of long-serving premier Li Peng, is also one of the richest businessmen in China. He suddenly decided to get into politics and, without any political experience, became the vice governor of Shanxi Province overnight.

The wealth of these princelings came through political advantages inherited from their parents and from economic reform without any political reform. They have no intention to change that.

Power Not Ideology


Hu Jintao, the head of the CCP, is not a princeling. He is from another political power group, those who rose up in the CCP from the Youth League. They have also benefited from economic reform. With the help of their position in China’s power structure, they have accumulated wealth as well.

The difference between them and the princelings is that if they are not lucky, some of them may lose power, wealth, and even lives in the struggle for power. If members of this group are lucky enough to live to retirement, their sons and daughters will become the new crown princes. They have no motive to change the current situation, no motive to promote a political reform that would restrict their privileges.

In today’s China, there is no such thing as a “healthy power” in the ruling classes. The fighting among the ruling classes is over power, not ideology.

Perhaps Wen Jiabao’s intentions are good, and he really believes in universal values and believes that the Chinese people deserve democracy and freedom. But if so, these beliefs will not have any impact on China’s future.

If there was an argument within the Party between reformers and Maoist hardliners in the late 1970s and early 80s, that argument is over. Discussing who is for reform and who is against reform is meaningless in today’s China. In the circles of political power, everyone is a beneficiary of the current policy.

In the early and middle 1940s, the official CCP publication, Xinhua Daily, published editorials almost every month promoting American-style democracy and freedom. Once the CCP gained control of the war, it immediately stopped the pro-democracy propaganda. After taking over China, it started to suppress any signs of different opinions.

The leaders who promoted and subsequently suppressed democracy and freedom were the same people. They did not change. They simply didn’t need to disguise themselves once they had power. In Du Guang’s article, he mentions that since the Party once had reformers such as former Party heads Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, there is no reason to believe that there won’t be others.

In fact, the examples of Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang show exactly why there will be no other political reformers. If top leaders such as Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang could be easily removed and destroyed by the Party once they deviated from the Party line, then as long as the CCP survives, there won’t be any political reform.
Heng He is a commentator on Sound of Hope Radio, China analyst on NTD's "Focus Talk," and a writer for The Epoch Times.
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