In reporting the events of 4th Plenum of the 16th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee, the attention of the media has been focused on the fact that Jiang Zemin (
It is common practice for the fourth plenary session to focus on roadmaps for reform outlined by the decisions of the National Congress and to put forward concrete proposals for implementation. That this plenary session has focused on the need to strengthen the party's ruling capabilities indicates that the senior leadership is feeling a sense of crisis in regard to the legitimacy of the CCP's hold on power.
This sense of crisis is a response to what happened in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, some third world countries and even the loss of power by the KMT in Taiwan. Strengthening the party's ruling capabilities is how the CCP hopes to avoid following the same path.
The research of China's own scholars provides the best explanation. Huang Zongliang (
Yu Yunyao (
Ding Yuanzhu (
Looking at these opinions by Chinese academics, the problems within the political structure have become a factor that will limit the development of China's economy and society. Mass protests and strikes are on the increase.
Based on Chinese government statistics quoted by Newsweek magazine, in 1993 China only had 8,700 mass protests, but last year it recorded 58,500. If social inequality isn't remedied, there will be serious problems in China's future development.
In response to this sense of crisis, the CCP has come up with the theme "Enhance the Party's Ruling Capabilities" by focusing on the three following measures: creating standing members in the Congress of party representatives, voting by all party committee members and reform in the party discipline inspection mechanism.
Creating standing members of the Congress of Party Representatives refers to extending the power currently concentrated in the hands of a small number of party committee members at various levels and the first secretary into to a broader "collective leadership." Voting by all party committee members refers to introducing a degree of competition in the nomination and voting process for leaders and cadre positions, with the final decision being made by secret ballot in a full meeting of the Party Committee. The purpose of this is to break the current hold of party secretaries over personnel selection and the monopoly exercised by the organizational department.
As for reform in the party discipline inspection mechanism, a major change will be that the local discipline and inspection commission of the units sent out by ministries and commissions should no longer come under the jurisdiction of the party committee of that unit, but will come directly under the higher-level Discipline and Inspection Commission. This will avoid the awkward situation of a local commission supervising its own boss in these units.
These reforms have been made by the CCP in response to corruption at the lower levels of the party. We might say that in a situation that offers no other choices, the CCP is gradually introducing the concepts of competition and separation of power that are part of the democratic spirit.
Overall, the problem faced by the CCP's senior leadership is to reorganize a deeply corrupt administrative system. But this is a difficult task. Two recent cases underline the difficulty in dealing with a corrupt administration.
The first is the open letter posted on the Web site of the People's Daily by Huang Jingao (
The second case is of an official surnamed Li who was head of the Anti-corruption Bureau in Xingtai City, Hebei Province. An explosion at his home failed to harm him, but his wife had both legs amputated as a result. These two incidents make one think of the book Hidden Rules by the Chinese scholar Wu Si (
The new regime of Hu Jintao (
Senior scholars at the Party School of the CCP Central Committee such as Wang Yu (
Hsu Szu-chien is an assistant research fellow at Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica.
TRANSLATED BY Ian Bartholomew
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