It has been two years since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) unveiled its new ideological credo, called the "Three Represents." What good fortune it is that China's most sacred, encompassing and powerful doctrine built around the triumvirate of "the interests of the majority of the people," "advanced culture" and "advanced productive forces" found one political party to be its representative. Good fortune, that is, for the CCP, not for China and its people.
The "Three Represents" has several official versions, each including the words "always," "China" and "represent." Their meaning is clear. On the other hand, "majority of the people," "advanced culture" and "advanced productive forces," as well as some other phrases that dominate the doctrine, are vague, perhaps deliberately so.
Common sense suggests that the majority of the people, whom the party is supposed to represent, should include workers. But the party long ago abandoned workers. How many lost their jobs last month? How many were forced to take early retirement? How many mining accidents were there? How many workers' protests? Who jailed their organizers? The "representative of the Three Repre-sents" refuses to say. Workers who protest and strike are "rioting." Whoever reports such events is "anti-revolutionary."
The same is true of the party's relationship with the peasants, who provided the late chairman Mao Zedong (毛澤東) with the soldiers and supplies he needed in battles that lasted decades. Pea-sants followed Mao because the party promised them land. But Mao decided to take back the land from the peasants even before it was given to them. "The serious problem is the education of the peasants," he said. So he taught them that all land belongs to the state. The "representa-tives" of the peasants are the new landlords.
In a China without democracy, student sentiment is a key political barometer. Unlike workers or peasants, students include people from all levels of society, so what-ever mobilizes them represents society's focus at that time. From April 15 to June 4, 1989, students demonstrating in Tiananmen Square and their supporters conducted the saddest opinion poll in Chinese history, expressing a common will to end totalitarianism, build democracy and eliminate corruption.
Those who defend the party's bloody crackdown have no right to call themselves the representatives of the majority of the people. Their claim to be "always repre-senting the progressive direction of advanced culture" is yet another grand and empty declaration. Chinese culture stretches three thousand years into the past and perhaps thousands of years into the future. Is it to be "always represented" by a lone political party?
I do not know what "the progressive direction of advanced culture" is, but advanced culture played no part in the party's "Wipe out poisonous weeds campaign," the "Anti-rightist movement," or the "Eliminate demons and evil heresy campaign." Such obscurantism only creates a culture of stultifying uniformity. Like a blade of grass beneath a stone, culture knows how and in which direction to seek light.It does not need to be "represented."
Of the three "represents," the clearest meaning is to be found in the CCP's vow to "always represent the demands of advanced productive forces." This means representing the interests of the da kuan, those who suddenly became rich, usually through government connections. The phrase has no deeper meaning.
The union of power and money in today's China originates from the steady inflation of bureaucracy. Before the Great Leap For-ward, townships could barely afford a few full-time cadres. Today, each township has hun-dreds. Their basic salary is paid by the central government, but bonuses and extra benefits depend on contributions from the "advanced productive forces" at the county and township level. Whatever the rich ask of the party -- land leases, low interest loans, violation of labor laws, environmental standards, contracts and intellectual property -- can be considered "the demands of advanced productive forces."
Even under less corrupt conditions, representing "the most advanced productive forces" is a flawed idea. Imagine that the Olympic Committee represented only the interests of gold medal winners, or that the education ministry represented only post-doctoral programs but ignored elementary schools. While the high-tech sector at the top of the economic pyramid is important, the traditional sectors at the bottom still form the foundation. What will become of several hundred million rural peasants and jobless workers in sunset industries? Who will address inequality and divergent social interests?
An increasingly pluralistic society is being forced into a procrustean structure that allows only one voice, one need and one kind of interest -- the voice, needs and interests of the party. But the theory of the "Three Represents" is nevertheless necessary, because a new situation has emerged. When the CCP came to power in 1948, it could claim to embody socialism, Marxism and the proletariat's historical mission. Fifty years later, socialism's advantages, Marxism's truth and the proletarian character of the party have all been unanswerably challenged.
The "Three Represents" is an effort to salvage one-party rule. You may doubt socialism, but you can't doubt "advanced productive forces." You may not believe in Marxism, but you must believe in "advanced culture." The party no longer represents workers and peasants, but it can represent the "majority of the people," including "red" capitalists.
Indeed, whether CCP members who have become "revolution-arily" wealthy remain "red" is determined solely by their acceptance of one-party rule. Welcoming "red capitalists" therefore does not imply democratization. Such people are more likely to seek to strengthen their privileges than promote pluralism and the rule of law. Totalitarianism, not political reform, is their liveli-hood. It is this, above all else, that the theory of the "Three Repre-sents" comprehends.
Bao Tong, the highest ranking official jailed for opposing the Tiananmen crackdown, was the CCP's director of the Office of Political Reform until it was dismantled in 1989.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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