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Is there a churning in China’s Communist party?

Both Wen Jiabo and Hu Jintao will step down before the year is out in the transition that is ordered by the party. They have very little to show as their 10-year legacy. The slow growth rates and fall in export earnings coupled with growing unemployment and consequent social unrest tell their own story. In short, as the Wen- Hu make way for the new leadership, the country stands at a turning point.

Poreg view: The question whether there is a churning in China’s   monolith Communist party assumes significance in two ways. First Prime Minister Wen Jiabo’s warning at the National People’s Congress that without political and economic reform China runs the risk of losing the gains of the past three decades.  Two fall from grace and consequently from power of  Bo Xilai, hailed thus far as the rock star of Chinese politics. He used to preside over the destiny of 32 million people living in the Chongqing mega-municipality.

These seemingly unrelated developments show that vested interests are acquiring a stranglehold and it will impact the image and economy of China. As the Daily Telegraph reports Bo’s removal from his Chongqing perch has pleased reformers who saw him as representing an old-school approach, stretching from his command economy policies to his promotion of old patriotic values. He belongs to the “princelings” – children of the first-generation leaders who made it big in the Communist party’s hierarchy. Vice President Xi Jinping, who will take over the leadership later this year, belongs to this group. His image is not tarred like Bo’s, and he didn’t intervene to save fellow princelings, who has fallen on bad days.

Bo’s loss is the gain for Wang Yang, who heads the party set up in China’s richest Guangdong province. He may sooner or later find a berth in the Standing Committee of the Party Politburo.

Both Wen Jiabo and Hu Jintao will step down before the year is out in the transition that is ordered by the party. As Jonathan Fenby, whose  forthcoming book, ‘Tiger Head, Snake Tailshas’ is billed as a scholarly study on contemporary China,  argues that the two top leaders have very little to show by way of their 10-year legacy. The slow growth rates and fall in export earnings coupled with growing unemployment and consequent social unrest tell their own story. In short, as the Wen- Hu make way for the new leadership, the country stands at a turning point.

Fenby’s prognosis is interesting and it is indeed not wide off the mark. Says he: “China needs to rebalance its economy away from dependence on investment (above all in property and infrastructure) and boost domestic consumption. The leadership also has to deal with social tensions, an environmental crisis and shifting demographics”.

Significantly Prime Minister Wen Jiabo is talking some home truths. He avers that opposition to change and reform would breed corruption, income disparity and the yawning trust deficit when it comes to the credibility of the authorities.

In a press conference that was shown live on the state television, Wen said the urgent task now is press ahead with more economic and political structural reform reforms to solve the emerging new problems in the Chinese society like huge wealth gap, and a public distrust of the government. Otherwise, mistakes like the Cultural Revolution may happen again. “Any government official or party member with a sense of responsibility should recognise this.”

The message is clear. It is that unless China changes and changes its mindset and work ethics to suit the new millennium, China will perish.

Is this a tall order to his successor? Frankly, no one knows since the Communist Party functions like a closed shop and this makes reading the Chinese pulse hazardous.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Jonathan Fenby points out that in today’s China there is no leader cut in the mould of Deng Xiaoping, who had made the country to invent a new economic wheel. No one these days dares to talk of the next step in China’s transformation to meet the demands of its society.

What happens in China will no longer remain confined to its borders; it has acquired a new global clout which is commensurate with the value of its currency. So, the world will be keenly watching the political churning that is taking place in the country.

 
– Yamarar

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