Chinese Vice President and heir apparent Xi Jinping (習近平) called for greater unity in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in a speech published yesterday — a day after the biggest political drama to hit the country in years.
The speech, in which Xi also said the party’s authority had been weakened by a “lack of principles” among some members, was made before senior leader Bo Xilai (薄熙來) was sacked as Chongqing party secretary. However, analysts said the decision to publish it yesterday in the party magazine Qiushi (Seeking Truth), was a sign that China’s leaders were keen to prevent potentially damaging infighting in the party.
Xi is expected to take over from Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) at the helm of the party later this year, before becoming China’s president next year in a generational changing-of-the-guard.
Photo: Reuters
“To maintain the party’s ideological purity is to guarantee the unity of the party,” Xi said, accusing some members of “a lack or principles and corrupt behavior which is not conducive to the purity of the party.”
“Today some people join the party not because they believe in Marxism and want to devote themselves to Socialism with Chinese characteristics ... but because becoming a member brings them personal benefits,” he added. “If the thoughts of members and cadres of the party are not pure, their ideas cannot be firm, and their political positions can easily change.”
Xi did not mention Bo by name in his speech, delivered to cadets at the Central Party School — a training ground for future leaders — on March 1.
However, David Goodman, an expert on Chinese politics, said it sent a message that party leaders did not want the kind of open politics that the charismatic and populist Bo was seen as practicing.
“What happened under Mao [Zedong] was that individual whim rather than party organization came to rule,” said Goodman, professor of Chinese politics at the University of Sydney.
“The Cultural Revolution smacks to many people of a lawlessness and the whims of a single ruler. How does that relate to Bo? He laid himself open to the criticism by going for an open, charismatic [style of] politics,” Goodman added.
China announced on Thursday that Bo, once tipped to reach the top of the ruling party, had been removed from his post in the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing.
He remains a member of the party’s powerful Politburo, but analysts say his political hopes are finished after a scandal involving a key aide who was said to have tried to defect to the US.
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