China: Constitutionalism, the New Power Struggle between Reformists and Conservatives

Posted: June 19, 2013 | Author: chankaiyee2 | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: China, Chinese politics, constitution, David Bandurski, democracy, evaluation of Mao, Hu Jintao, political reform, power struggle, reform and opening up, rule of law, Wu Bangguo, Xi Jinping | Leave a comment »

When Deng Xiaoping started to conduct the reform capitalist in nature, did he not know that the reform was capitalist in nature? Readers certainly do not think that he was so stupid as not to know that.

Conservatives immediately started to attack the reform fiercely due to its capitalist characteristics. A fierce power struggle broke out between the conservatives and reformists regarding the nature of the reform: Was it capitalist or socialist in nature?

In order to reduce conservatives’ resistance to the reform, Deng told them to stop the debate but wait and see the outcome of the reform.

Still the power struggle went on and there was heavy casualty. First, Hu Yaobang, a top enlightened reformist was brought down as he wanted not only economic but also political reform.

Then Zhao Ziyang and quite a few other high-ranking reformists fell into disgrace.

The conservatives gained upper hand and almost reduced Deng to a general without army.

Though aged near 90, Deng Xiaoping made his Southern Trip to overcome conservatives’ resistance with his authority as the core of leadership. Reform regained its vitality. However, conservatives remained very much optimistic: Reform will pass away peacefully when Deng Xiaoping passes away.

They did not know that there was Jiang Zeming who had mastery of the art for being an emperor and that he was assisted by the new generation of talented scholars with moral integrity who had been making preparations for a long time for seizing Party and state power. As described in Chapter 5 of my book “Tiananmen’s Tremendous Achievements”, they successfully carried out a gradual, silent and peaceful coup d’état that enabled intellectuals to take over the Party and state.

Conservatives suffered a serious defeat. Their previous argument against reform was that the reform is capitalist in nature. When intellectuals had taken over power, Jiang Zeming used his Three Representatives to justify the capitalist road and turn CCP (Chinese Communist Party) into a party of the whole people that recruited capitalists, the targets of conservatives’ revolution.

The above was the history of the power struggle before Hu Jintao took over the job as CCP general secretary. It is now clear to all.

The next fierce power struggle was between the reformists publicly represented by Hu Jiantao and the conservatives lead by Bo Xilai. People are not very clear about the commencement, development and end of this power struggle that was vital to the continuance of reform. I give a detailed description of it in the second edition of my book “Tiananmen’s Tremendous Achievements”. As it is too long, I only give a short summary here.

It was started by Hu.

Hu Jintao who carried on Jiang Zemin’s reform knew that reformists’ victory was not a stable one and that the conservatives could use Mao Zedong Thought to attack the reformists.

Hu Jintao Omits Mao Zedong Thought
It was typically reflected in what Hu Jintao said in his 2010 New Year’s message on New Year Eve: “In the upcoming new year, we will unswervingly uphold the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, further implement the Scientific Outlook on Development under the guidance of Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of Three Represents,…”

In CCP’s and China’s constitutions, the guiding ideologies are Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of Three Represents, but here Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought were conspicuously missing.

Hu’s words became CCP jargon and was frequently repeated by him and other Chinese leaders and in CCP documents in the last couple of years when Hu was in charge. Premier Wen Jiabao repeated the exact wording in his speech in celebration of the 61st anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. As CCP continued to urge its members to study Marxism at that time, clearly what Hu wanted was to omit Mao Zedong Thought.

As CCP wanted to protect Mao’s image for the legitimacy of its monopoly of power, Hu could not revise CCP constitution to strike out Mao Zedong Thought, nor could he omit it alone to give rise to suspicion that CCP would completely denounce Mao, Hu had to also omit Marxism-Leninism in order to avoid drawing too much attention. Certainly, when Hu’s idea that Mao Zedong Though is detrimental to reform, has become popular, the reformists will remove Mao Zedong Thought from CCP constitution.

Conservatives Lead by Bo Xilai Countered with Sing-Red, Propaganda of Quotations from Mao
Bo Xilai countered Hu Jintao’s omission by intensification of his sing-red campaign to remind people of Mao era. He often quoted Mao’s words and even sent quotations from Mao as message to all mobile phone users in Chongqing in early 2012. By so doing, he rallied all the conservatives in the nation around him into a powerful conservative faction as basis for seizing supreme power in CCP.

Evaluation of Mao became the major issue of the recent round of power struggle between conservatives and reformists.

Bo Xilai gained upper hand with his image, eloquence, charm and charisma and for a time became domestic and foreign media’s favorite. The sing-red campaign spread all over the country and even to capitalist Hong Kong while quotations from Mao became popular in Chongqing. It seemed that Bo Xilai would certainly be elected into the Politburo Standing Committee at the 18th CCP Congress and Bo believed that the time would soon come for him to grab the right of succession from Xi Jinping.

The reformists seized Bo Xilai’s mistakes and exploited his wife’s murder of British businessman Neil Heywood to bring down Bo. Bo was placed under house arrest. But Bo’s conservative faction was too strong. It was only Jiang Zemin as the core who was able to make the final decision to punish Bo Xilai

However, Jiang Zemin only made a decision on punishing Bo’s crimes, but has not touched the evaluation of Mao. The issue was left to Xi Jinping to deal with. Xi skillfully applied the art for being an emperor to satisfactorily deal with it.

Xi Jinping’s Wisdom in Dealing with the Tricky Issue of Evaluation of Mao
By June 2013, eight months had passed since Jiang Zemin made the decision to punish Bo severely on September 28, 2012, Bo was still not punished, which proved that the conservatives remained very strong in spite of their leader Bo Xilai’s downfall.

Mao must not be denounced as it concerns the legitimacy of the Party’s rule, but Mao’s enthusiasm in public ownership and planned economy may be used by conservatives to attack the reform.

How has Xi Jinping dealt with the problem? He has repeatedly said that the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics, i.e. the pursuit of reform and opening up is correct, and shall be adhered to. It indicates that he is a reformist and wants to carry on the reform. The reformists are certainly very happy he says so.

On the other hand, he has also said that the Mao era shall not be negated. That is in fact contradictory to his pursuit of reform. He just said that to please the powerful conservative faction.

Obviously, he applies the balancing art, one of the most important parts of the art for being an emperor. He knows well there is no harm in keeping a respectful image of Mao as after decades of reform, there is no return to Mao’s public ownership and planned economy. The conservatives, though advocate Mao’s egalitarianism, are not so stupid as to want the obviously impossible return to Mao era. They just want a fairer distribution of the wealth brought about by the reform.

Xi’s wisdom is reflected in his words: “Making empty talk is harmful to the nation, while doing practical jobs can help it thrive.”

It reflects his skillful application of the art to use popular wording to win popular support, avoid opposition and hide his true intention.

He regards negating Mao as harmful empty talk that may displease the conservatives as their opposition will hinder his further reform. He just wants to do the practical job of further reform and opening up with as little hindrance as possible. That is his hidden true intention.

It was indeed similar to Deng’s order to suspend debate whether the reform was capitalist or socialist in nature while hiding his intention to pursue capitalism.

Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Xi Jinping are all masters of Chinese art for being an emperor.

The power struggle between conservatives and reformists that has dominated Chinese political scene since the beginning of the reform does not end there. It will not end until a thorough victory of the political reform is achieved to bring China human rights and democracy. That will be a very long process that may take several decades.

Such a long process is entirely normal. It was perhaps a longer process in Britain and the United States if you study the history of those countries. There was a democratic constitution in the United States in 1787, but women did not have right to vote until 1920 and blacks had to fight for and win civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s.

Democracy Is a Very Sensitive Issue
Why is there so strong opposition to democracy in China? Because for many people democracy is synonym to multi-party democracy that may deprive the CCP of its monopoly of power. Due to its monopoly of power, the CCP is a huge group of vested interest that includes not only 80 million CCP members but also those who are not CCP members but rely on the CCP for their employment, income, benefit and even assets, including lots of non-CCP public servants, soldiers, employees of state-owned enterprises, etc. The number of those people including their family members and close relatives exceed one fourth of Chinese population according to my conservative estimate.

They are afraid that when the CCP is deprived of its power in a multi-party democracy, they will lose their jobs, privilege, fringe benefits, income and even assets

The large conservative faction opposes democracy desperately as many of them or their parents or relatives have fought and even sacrificed their lives to enable the CCP to gain monopoly of state power.

The new generation of talented scholars with moral integrity also opposes multi-party democracy strongly. They have grabbed monopoly of state power from uneducated workers and peasants and wanted to use the power to make their country powerful and rich and the people lead a relatively well-off life. A multi-party democracy may cause them to lose power to achieve the above-mentioned goals.

In their secret meeting described in Chapter 3 of my book “Tiananmen’s Tremendous Achievements”, they reached a consensus that there was no foundation for a democracy of universal suffrage in China; therefore, they had first to lay foundation for democracy.

That was reflected in the strong opposition to Western democracy by Wu Bangguo, a powerful oldest member of the generation.

Still, they want democracy, in Hu Jintao’s report to the 17th CCP Congress in 2007 and swan song speech on July 23, 2012, Hu repeatedly advocated democratic election, democratic decision-making, democratic administration and democratic supervision. So did Wu Bangguo repeatedly in his speeches to the Standing Committee of the National People’ Congress (China’s parliament).

However, due to strong resistance from the conservatives, they have achieved nothing for the democracy they advocated.

Xi Jinping’s Fight for Democracy
Xi Jinping knows that talking about democracy may displease lots of people and encounter serious opposition so that he refrains from talking about it, i.e. no harmful empty talk, but as soon as he came to power, he closed all black jails and free all petitioners from the jails to allow people to lodge complaints against officials. That is a great step towards democracy.

What democracy?

Democratic supervision of officials by the people!

But according to him, it was the policy of putting people first in Hu Jintao’s Scientific Outlook on Development. He just does not want to mention democracy but did the practical job to really realize democratic supervision. He has thus hidden his true intention again.

Constitutionalism, Current Focus of Power Struggle between Reformists and Conservatives
Since democracy is a taboo, Xi Jinping uses constitutionalism as the rally call for his struggle for democracy as both democracy and CCP’s monopoly of power are written into China’s constitution so that there can be no justifiable opposition to the demand for full implementation of China’s constitution.

According to Xinhua, in his speech on December 4, 2012 in the meeting to mark the 30th anniversary of the promulgation and implementation of China’s constitution, Xi Jinping said, “No organization or individual shall have privilege above the constitution or law. Liability must be affixed to any act that violates the constitution or law.

“The life of constitution lies in implementation. So does the authority of constitution.”

According to another Xinhua report dated February 24, 2013, when Xi Jinping presided over a seminar of the Political Bureau of the CCP Central Committee on February 22, 2013, Xi said that all citizens, social organizations and government agencies must exercise their rights or power, and fulfill their obligations in accordance with the Constitution and the laws.

SCMP says in its report titled “‘Chinese Dream’ trumps the constitution, says Communist Party paper”, that human rights activists soon responded to the rally call and “argued that they had a Dream of Constitutionalism, in which the Chinese government respected basic rights guaranteed by the Chinese constitution such as freedom of speech and assembly.”

When Southern Weekly fought for press freedom in early January, demonstrators supporting the newspaper held banners of Dream of Constitutionalism outside the headquarters of the newspaper in Guangzhou.

Conservatives certainly came out to counter Xi Jinping’s and democracy activists’ move. SCMP says in the report that Yu Zhong, director and professor at the School of Law at Capital University of Economics and Business in Beijing wrote in the Red Flag magazine, a bi-weekly party publication on June 14, “the Chinese Dream is bigger than the Dream of Constitutionalism”.

SCMP says, “The People’s Daily and other state-run publications have picked up on the slogan (the Chinese Dream) and pointed to China’s unique development model and the country’s incompatibility with Western values.”

Here, Chinese official media opposition to Western values means first of all their opposition to multi-party democracy, i.e. democracy.

SCMP quotes David Bandurski, a researcher at the University of Hong Kong’s China Media Project as saying “I think these hardline voices are the iceberg tips of an ongoing internal debate over the future of reforms in China.”

“The recent spate of articles in Red Flag and other CCP media attacking the idea of constitutionalism speaks to a deep concern in some official circles over demands for greater rights and freedoms”, David Bandurski said adding that these could “potentially pose a challenge to vested interests in the leadership.”

This round of power struggle between conservatives and reformists will be the fiercest in Chinese history. Reformists shall have the wisdom to raise not the slogan for multi-party democracy but that for constitutionalism for democratic decision-making, democratic supervision, democratic administration and finally democratic election step by step. They must be prepared for a prolonged struggle. An overnight revolution like the 1911 Revolution cannot bring democracy to China.

Sources: Xinhua “Xi Jinping’s speech at the meeting of people of various circles in the capital to mark the 30th anniversary of the promulgation and implementation of China’s constitution” and “Xi Jinping says all must act in conformity with Constitution, laws” (summaries and excepts translated from Chinese by Chan Kai Yee) and SCMP “’Chinese Dream’ trumps the constitution, says Communist Party paper”

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