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Before People’s Congress in China, Vows of Change and Raised Hopes (The New York Times)
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- Tensions rise in China’s tiny democracy (The Financial Times)
Before People’s Congress in China, Vows of Change and Raised Hopes (The New York Times)By ANDREW JACOBS and CHRIS BUCKLEY Published: March 4, 2013 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/05/world/asia/on-eve-of-chinas-party-congress-vows-of-change.html BEIJING — China’s new Communist Party leaders are hoping that their annual legislative meeting, which begins Tuesday, will help persuade a skeptical public that they are serious about cleaning up pollution and a political elite stained by corruption. The two weeks of tightly controlled political theater known as the National People’s Congress rarely strays from a stolid procession of speeches, news conferences and invariably pro-government votes, all devised to present a united and untroubled public face. Last year, however, the script was challenged by a divisive scandal surrounding Bo Xilai, the combative party chief of Chongqing, whose fall unleashed months of revelations about murder, corruption and political infighting. Mr. Bo pilloried his foes during a news conference at the congress , was publicly censured by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao at the end of the meeting and then, a day after the congress ended, was dismissed from his Chongqing post. Most analysts agree that the proceedings this year will ignore the plight of Mr. Bo, who is being detained awaiting prosecution on charges of corruption, abuse of power and obstruction of justice. This year, the party’s new top leaders, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, have paved the way for the 13-day session with vows to end flagrant privileges and self-enrichment by officials and their families. They have also vowed to create a more efficient government, and reduce the acrid smog that has enveloped Beijing and other northern Chinese cities for weeks this winter. “They’ve already taken many steps that have raised hopes among ordinary people — now we’re looking for signs that the hopes can be satisfied,” said Deng Yuwen, an editor for The Study Times, a weekly newspaper published by the Central Party School in Beijing. “The congress won’t have any breakthroughs, but it can indicate where and how fast the leaders want to take things.” This congress will be the last for President Hu Jintao and Mr. Wen, the prime minister, who both retire at its end after a decade in their jobs. Mr. Wen will give his final work report to the congress on Tuesday. On the final day of the congress, delegates will vote in a new government leadership dominated by Mr. Xi as president and Mr. Li as prime minister. The transfer of party leadership posts took place in November, when Mr. Xi became general secretary. The nearly 3,000 congress delegates at the annual gathering are selected through a process that rewards loyalists; about 70 percent of the delegates are Communist Party members, and many are officials. Few dare defy the leadership’s will by voting against proposals or abstaining from ballots, and the congress has never voted down a proposal put before it. The meeting is likely to approve a modest restructuring of government ministries and agencies. Over past months, analysts and well-connected businesspeople have said that Mr. Li wanted a drastic reorganization, to create enlarged ministries for financial regulation, environmental protection and other areas. But recent Chinese news reports have described a more limited plan that is likely to include folding the scandal-laden and deeply indebted Ministry of Railways into the Ministry of Transport, and strengthening food and drug safety regulators to bring greater oversight of industries that are constantly hit by consumer safety concerns. The apparent scaling back of the plans for administrative changes reflects how difficult it will be for the leadership to deliver on promises to free up the economy from state-owned enterprises and fight corruption, while still preserving single-party rule, said Zheng Yongnian, director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. “In all these issues, there’s the same basic problem of deep distrust between the people and the government,” Mr. Zheng said. “Because there is so much distrust, the government is reluctant to make deep reforms. What they call reforms turns out be reassigning powers within government, not giving up powers to society. That’s not real reform — and then people feel increasingly frustrated.” Reformists have been hoping that the new leadership would demonstrate a greater commitment to China’s Constitution, and would promote a more independent judiciary. They have also been agitating for an end to the country’s notoriously abusive re-education-through-labor system, which allows the police to imprison drug addicts, prostitutes and political offenders for up to three years without trial. “The reeducation-through-labor system, to a certain extent, makes citizens live in fear,” Dai Zhongchuan, a delegate and law professor, told a government-run news portal on Monday. Many analysts, however, say such initiatives are unlikely to be embraced by China’s new leaders, any time soon. Party insiders have said that some officials likely to be promoted at the congress include Zhang Gaoli as executive deputy prime minister, and Li Yuanchao, a former party organization chief, as vice president. Wang Yang, the former head of Guangdong Province in southern China, is likely to succeed Wang Qishan as a deputy prime minister in charge of financial policy. Mr. Bo was seen until last year as a contender for promotion into the central leadership, but his prospects capsized after the police chief of Chongqing fled to a U.S. consulate and then surrendered to Chinese investigators, raising allegations that Mr. Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, had murdered a British businessman and then sought to cover up the crime. Ms. Gu was jailed in August for the murder. Mr. Bo is likely to face trial and conviction over the cover-up and other misdeeds. Tensions rise in China’s tiny democracy (The Financial Times)By Rahul Jacob March 3, 2013 http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d6ea7aaa-83de-11e2-b700-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2Ma0iwt1Y Yang Semao, deputy leader of the village committee in Wukan, has been writing an open letter to his fellow villagers, warning them against a fresh outbreak of violent protest. It could be called a letter to his detractors. Mr Yang has plenty of them in this small fishing village, where elections a year ago became a beacon of democracy in China following a dramatic, 11-day stand-off with police in December 2011. Today, the village committee is facing a barrage of criticism. Villagers complain that much of the land sold by the previous party chief to developers – the central issue that animated the protests – has not been returned to the village. Mr Yang alleges that many of Wukan’s villagers “are not reasonable. They do not properly analyse the situation. Some of them even want to achieve their mission by violence.” He warns that plans to seize back the land would lead to a renewed crackdown by the government. Mr Yang’s combative tone is a signal of how divided Wukan has become. After the siege of the village by Chinese police was widely broadcast, the provincial government of Guangdong stepped in to allow free elections. On March 3 last year, in a carnival-like atmosphere, more than 6,000 villagers elected a seven-member village committee in a secret ballot. Many observers in China thought this might prove a model for defusing mass protests. Now, Mr Yang, 45, explains that he is writing to the village because dozens of villagers have harangued him and committee chief Lin Zuluan, 69. “If villagers go the violent route, the conservatives [in the provincial government] will crack down without needing any further excuse,” Mr Yang said. In its year in office, the committee has succeeded in returning 200 hectares of land sold off by the previous village chief, Mr Yang says. But many villagers are still determined to seize property for which the deeds were transferred to factory owners and businessmen several years ago. Confronted with persistent criticism – in painful contrast to the adulation they once enjoyed of a once remarkably united village – Mr Lin and many committee members have contemplated resigning. “I am afraid of seeing people, afraid of hearing my doorbell ring,” Mr Lin told a Shanghai television station last month. “Why? Because whatever I do or say now, people are able to find a way to blame me.” In an interview, Mr Lin says he is determined to stay on. “Of course, the work has difficulties, otherwise it could not be called work,” he said. He remembered the elections as a “very happy day” and rattled off the public projects Wukan’s committee has overseen, ranging from many more roads being built to an expanded water supply project and a typhoon shelter for Wukan’s fishing boats. Some villagers agree the committee has made positive changes. For many households water had been available only in the middle of the night, but every home now has a regular water supply, according to a restaurant owner. He admitted, however, that many villagers “criticised Mr Lin too much and he has become discouraged”. Near the typhoon shelter, a fisherman complains that the committee is ineffectual. “They have done nothing to get the land back,” he said. Mr Lin’s remarks have prompted some official media to argue that democracy had been a failure in Wukan, says Chang Ping, chief editor of iSunAffairs magazine. But, he says, the village committee has struggled because it operates within an authoritarian system. “The headlines are misleading,” he says. “Franklin Delano Roosevelt [the late US president] said that when democracy has illnesses, it needs more democracy to cure it.” Many villagers, such as a shrimp trader who walked into the village office last week, believe businessmen and the officials who made deals with them are being protected by the Lufeng city government, which oversees Wukan. One young security officer in Wukan alleged that the previous administration had made so much money that “the street lights should be made of gold”. Protest at land grabs are a recurrent theme in rural China. Last week villagers in Shangpu, also in Guangdong, were attacked by men they allege are hired thugs acting for the businessman who has rented the land from the village chief They wore uniforms but were not security personnel “Dealing with land that was sold illegally is the priority for every village in China,” observes Hong Ruichao, 28, a young leader of the Wukan village committee, before directing his visitors to the committee’s critics. “You will find them at the mah-jong tables. They are everywhere,” he says with a laugh. 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