Thursday, October 12 2:10 AM SGT China's Party Meeting Ignores Strife By CHARLES HUTZLER, Associated Press Writer BEIJING (AP) - At China's biggest Communist Party meeting of the year, what wasn't discussed speaks volumes about the troubles besetting the Chinese leadership. While popular anger over corruption, brewing unrest in the countryside and global trade's impact on already high unemployment loom, the elite Central Committee mulled over a five-year economic plan and personnel changes. Members made scant mention of reforming the lumbering, often unresponsive government. ``It wasn't even on the agenda,'' said Li Fan, a former researcher for a Cabinet agency who has championed direct elections for local governments. ``They're not even thinking about it.'' The stasis comes as demands grow for meaningful political reform. Liberal and conservative scholars, who rarely agree, both predict a crisis if the party delays making itself and the government more law-abiding and open to public participation. The trouble is that party members and their families benefit most from the organization's current unrestrained power. ``The political system needs to be reformed, but the changes ought to serve the nation and the people, not other interested parties,'' said Han Deqiang, an economics professor. The politically conservative author of the anti-globalization book ``Clash'' sees China's impending entry to the World Trade Organization accelerating wrenching social change that Beijing is ill-prepared to handle. If Chinese leaders needed another reason to delay, they got one with last week's sudden downfall of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, whose defiance of the West they had strongly supported. ``Milosevic was so confident about the presidential elections, but then had to step down. Of course, they don't dare'' tinker with the system, said Li. The Central Committee - 183 party insiders, provincial politicians and influential generals - ended a three-day, closed-door annual policy gathering Wednesday, passing a five-year economic plan partly aimed at helping China better withstand the competition WTO entry will bring. Its communique, carried by state media, provided few specifics but called for more of the same reforms the government has had trouble carrying out in recent years: an improved social welfare system and better management in often lethargic state firms. There was a brief, cryptic and vague call for ``expanding the people's participation in political affairs in an orderly way.'' But the communique was silent on how that might be done. Behind public view, the party elite opened divisive, back-room bargaining over leadership changes to be made in two years, party officials said on condition of anonymity. In that climate, they said, few leaders are willing to take bold policy initiatives for fear of jeopardizing their positions. Meanwhile, evidence abounds of the party's and its government's eroding authority. In the latest bout of unrest in the countryside, farmers in southern Jiangxi province rioted in August over excessive taxation - despite a long-standing policy for local authorities to cap taxes at 5 percent of income. The party even has trouble suppressing dissent. Members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement are pulling off large-scale protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square nearly 15 months after Chinese leaders ordered the sect quashed. Pro-reform intellectuals blacklisted by Chinese leaders this year still appear in media that were told to shun them. One of the most outspoken, Li Shenzhi, former deputy head of a government research academy, recently argued that China needs to end a legacy of autocratic rule if it wants to thrive. ``History also has proven: only the countries where people are most free become the most stable, flourishing, powerful and prosperous,'' Li wrote in the latest issue of the magazine Strategy and Management. Nowhere is the party's rule most threatened than over the issue of corruption. Even President Jiang Zemin, in internal speeches this year, has warned the party would be finished in ten years if it cannot root out official graft. ``They think that if they strengthen supervision and management and execute a few people then it can be solved,'' said Li, the former researcher who now runs a private think-tank. But ``corruption is an institutional issue.'' Party leaders have tried to make tentative changes. They have moved to make the civil service more professional, opening some positions to competitive exams. Younger, better educated officials are being promoted. Jiang even launched a campaign this year urging party members to stay in the forefront of social changes. While some scholars have argued that Jiang is trying to broaden the party's representation, party officials say there is no effort to recruit executives in the thriving private sector that is ushering in change. _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
