by Wendy Liu
For Those Whose Concept of China Has Frozen in the 1970s and for Anyone
Who Would Like to Know About Today's China.
11.
"The Communist Party of China must try to represent all that is advanced
in China in the interest of the broadest number of People."
In 1998, Mr. Jiang Zemin sanctioned a first and unprecedented public debate in the country on ways that China could change. He studied reports
on models of government and presidential systems in the world, prepared for
him with his request by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He also
asked a think tank in China to develop a plan on how to make the election
of the representatives to China's National People's Congress more direct
from their provincial constituencies.
In the spring of 2000, Mr. Jiang Zemin published a new pamphlet titled "A Great Program for Comprehensively Strengthening Party Building." To
ordinary eyes, it was just one more of those limited-scale political
campaigns Jiang had launched on behalf of the Party or one more effort by
Mr. Jiang to build up his own theoretical legacy. But this one was more
than all other campaigns from stressing political awareness to stemming
official corruption. Because what was contained in this booklet marked
Mr. Jiang's latest major breakthrough for the Party. "The Communist Party
of China," he pointed out, "must always represent the development needs of
China's advanced productive forces, must always represent the forward
direction of China's advanced culture and must always represent the
fundamental interests of China's broadest number of people." The new
theory has been dubbed the "Three Represents."
Why was the theory "Three Represents" a major breakthrough? Because it touched upon and called for the modification, if not change, of the very
nature of the Communist Party of China, namely whom and whose interest
the Party represents. Throughout its history, the CPC had always
claimed to be the vanguard of the proletariat, representing the
interests of the working class. Incremental changes, however, have been made over the
years in this respect in its Constitution.
The 1969 version of the CPC Constitution, for instance, read that the Communist Party of China was "the political party of the proletariat." The
1973 version read that the CPC was "the political party of the proletariat
and the vanguard of the proletariat." The 1977 version read that the
Communist Party of China was the political party of the proletariat, the
highest form of class organization of the proletariat." From 1982 to the
present, that is, from the CPC's Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth and
Fifteenth national congress, the general principle of its Constitution
reads, the Communist Party of China is the vanguard organization of the
Chinese working class and the royal representative of the interests of the
people of all nationalities of China. What is the difference? The drop
of the word proletariat, the essence of a communist party.
Now, with Mr. Jiang Zemin's brand new idea, the Communist Party of China would not represent just the proletariat, or just the working
class, or just the interests of the people of all nationalities. Rather it should,
he argued, be a party that represents China's advanced productive forces,
advanced culture and the interests of the broadest number of people. What
the "Three Represents" has revealed is a frank realization of and an active
response to, on the part of Mr. Jiang Zemim, the changing structure of the
Chinese economy, the changing content of Chinese culture and the changing
strata of the Chinese population. To stay in power, he must have
concluded, the Communist Party of China must try to represent all that is
advanced in China in the interest of the broadest number of people. That
would include the growing number of the Chinese population engaged in
the non-public sector economy who are entrepreneurs, business
owners and "nouveau riche," not just the workers, peasants and soldiers
that the CPC used to identify itself with. In other words, with the "Three
Represents," Mr. Jiang Zemin has called for a new identification, if not a
new direction, of the CPC - a CPC that is more up-to-date, more pragmatic,
more flexible, more inclusive and more tolerant. What else
could the "Three Represents" imply?
There were also reports in 2000 of a growing interest among China's moderate cadres and followers of Mr. Jiang Zemin as well as Mr. Hu
Jintaot, Vice President and Jiang's successor, in the theories of social
democratic parties in Europe, in the transformation of former European communist
parties into socialist or social democratic parties and in the possibility
the CPC may one day transform in similar ways. It was for this interest
that a study group on social democratic parties was reportedly set up in
the State Council's Development Research Center. While we all await
what this group will come up with, one thing is clear, as one leading
economist of China pointed out in 1999, the CPC has put its traditional
goals on hold for the "indefinite and far-away" future. This economist
even predicted that in the next five to ten years, the Communist Party of
China would be renamed the Socialist Party of China. (36) The bottle will
be different, too.
(To be
continued...)
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