China's Leaders Prepare to Meet as Elders Slam Censorship of Wen
Xi Jinping, China's vice president
Ian Waldie/Bloomberg
Xi Jinping, China's vice president, in Canberra, Australia earlier this year.
Xi Jinping, China's vice president, in Canberra, Australia earlier this year. Photographer: Ian Waldie/Bloomberg
Wen Jiabao, China's premier
Jock Fistick/Bloomberg
Wen Jiabao, China's premier.
Wen Jiabao, China's premier. Photographer: Jock Fistick/Bloomberg
China’s Communist Party elite gather in Beijing tomorrow in the wake of a public challenge from retired officials who accuse some leaders of censoring calls by Premier Wen Jiabao for greater political openness.
The 200-odd Central Committee members are set to discuss personnel changes and a new five-year economic plan that starts in 2011. Vice President Xi Jinping may take a position on the party’s military commission, paving the way for him to replace General Secretary and President Hu Jintao, who steps down in late 2012, political analysts say.
In the run-up to the plenum, Wen has called for a relaxation of state control of social and political affairs. At last year’s session, Hu advocated more “intra-party democracy,” to give lower-level officials a greater hand in appointments and policymaking.
“Wen has called for fundamental political reform,” said Victor Shih, a professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois who analyzes Chinese politics. “This may be a ploy by Hu to” make changes within the party and encompass more radical reforms, he said.
Past plenums have provided turning points in the party’s history. A gathering in 1959 in the mountain resort of Lushan was the scene of a failed move to criticize the economic policies of the late Chairman Mao Zedong, allowing him to cement his leadership. A meeting in 1978 saw the rise of Deng Xiaoping, who led China’s opening to outside investment.
‘Black Hands’
A group of retired officials drawn from the military, state media and academia, this week accused “invisible black hands” of suppressing a speech last month in which Wen called for greater political openness to match economic gains. The open letter by party elders including Li Rui, Mao’s former secretary and a participant at the Lushan plenum, was published on the Internet Oct. 11.
“What right does the Central Propaganda Department have to muzzle the speech of the premier?” the letter said, referring to the party branch that focuses on ideology. “What right does it have to rob the people of our nation of their right to know what the premier said?”
The letter’s release two days before the central committee meeting reflects an internal debate over the future of political change, said Huang Jing, a visiting professor at National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. It may also be a sign the reformist camp is in retreat following the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned Chinese democracy activist Liu Xiaobo, he said.
‘Look Bad’
The award was widely viewed in the party as “a deliberate move to make the Chinese government look bad” and this besieged mentality has emboldened opponents of political reform, Huang said. Publicly releasing the letter was a “desperate last effort” on the part of reformists, he said.
Liu was given the prize for his struggle to promote human rights and democracy, the Nobel committee said Oct. 8. The 54- year-old writer was jailed for 11 years for subversion in 2009 for his role in organizing Charter 08, an open letter calling for direct elections and freedom of assembly.
Willy Wo-Lap Lam, an adjunct professor of history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said Wen “has come under quite heavy criticism by the conservatives,” including propaganda chief Li Changchun, a fellow member of the ruling Politburo Standing Committee.
‘Minority of One’
“Wen is pretty much a minority of one within the Politburo Standing Committee,” Lam said.
Another member of that nine-man group, Vice President Xi, should gain the post of vice chairman of the party’s military commission, which controls the People’s Liberation Army, Lam, Huang and Shih said. The appointment will allow him to build ties with the military in preparation for taking power.
Should Xi not be appointed to that post, it may be “a sign of top-level disagreement on the successor,” Shih said.
The central committee named in 2007 had 204 members and 167 alternates. In addition to the top leaders, members include China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman Shang Fulin and China Construction Bank Corp. Chairman Guo Shuqing.
Of the 303 Chinese academics, lawyers and retired party officials who signed Charter 08, five were also signatories in the latest petition, based on a list published by Human Rights in China. These include Hu Jiwei, former editor of the party’s mouthpiece, People’s Daily, and Du Guang, a retired professor of the Central Party School.
‘Network Error’
A link to the Chinese-language version of the letter couldn’t be opened inside China, with screens appearing showing “network error.” A search in Chinese for Li Rui’s name on Google.com in China generated the following message on Microsoft Corp’s Web browser: “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage.”
Instructions to censor comments in the domestic media are made by anonymous officials from the propaganda department, which is assuming a role senior to the State Council, the highest authority in the nation, the latest letter said. Addressed to the legislature, it called for the party to respect the constitutional guarantee of free speech.
Hong Kong
“When our country was founded in 1949, our people cried that they had been liberated, that they were now their own masters,” the letter said. “But even today, 61 years after the founding of our nation, after 30 years of opening and reform, we have not yet attained freedom of speech and freedom of the press to the degree enjoyed by the people of Hong Kong under colonial rule.”
The letter blamed the “invisible black hands” for squelching Wen’s comments domestically, including an August speech in the southern city of Shenzhen in which he called for more political openness. Wen’s comments on a future China with more freedom during a Cable News Network interview last month were not mentioned in domestic accounts, the letter said.
“I believe I and all the Chinese people have such a conviction that China will make continuous progress, and the people’s wishes for and needs for democracy and freedom are irresistible,” Wen said on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” program taped Sept. 23 in New York. “I will not fall in spite of the strong wind and harsh rain, and I will not yield until the last day of my life.”
--Michael Forsythe. Editors: Ben Richardson, Bill Austin.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Forsythe in Beijing at mforsythe@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bill Austin at billaustin@bloomberg.net
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