China: Mao's ally backs democracy. An elderly, onetime secretary of Mao
Zedong has published a sweeping call for political change in a forthright
article in China Chronicle, a magazine widely read by party officials
published in January.
The retired official, Li Rui, 85, warned that China must embrace democratic
politics and free speech to avoid stagnation and possible collapse. "Only
with democratization can there be modernization," he said. "This has been a
global tide since the 20th century, especially the Second World War, and
those who join it will prosper while those who resist will perish,"
reported the International Herald Tribune.
Li is a longtime advocate of faster political liberalization. He has been
held at arms length by party leaders, but his status as a confidante of Mao
and a pugnacious critic of conservatives inside the Communist Party has
given him a degree of protection from censorship and a large readership.
His call to action comes at a sensitive time when many officials and
academics here are waiting to see if China's new leaders, installed at a
party congress in November last year, will consider any substantial
relaxation of the country's one-party rule.
IHT report.
http://www.indexonline.org/indexindex/20030110_china.shtml
