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China Communist elder issues bold call for democracy | ||
2007-09-30 | ||
In a bold jab before a key meeting of China's Communists, a 90-year-old former secretary to Mao Zedong has urged the Party to embrace democracy, saying that only political freedom can end instability and corruption. Li Rui issued his demand for citizens' rights and legal shackles on Party power in a Beijing magazine, China Across the Ages (Yanhuang Chunqiu), just over two weeks before President Hu Jintao opens the 17th Party Congress, which is set to give him five more years in power. Hu cautiously has signaled modest political adjustments under strict one-party limits. But in a sign that liberal reformers may feel emboldened to press for bigger steps, Li argued that tinkering was not enough. In the October edition of the outspoken magazine, Li said his country could be dragged back into past decades of chaos unless long-delayed democratization catches up with three decades of market reforms, ending the Party's "privileged status."
Li's challenge to one-party control is the boldest yet in a series of strikingly candid calls for liberalization from older Party intellectuals this year. Purged by Mao for doubting the calamitous policies of the Great Leap Forward of the late 1950s, Li remains influential among liberals shunted aside after the bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protests, although he does not have much sway over those now in office. But the open publication of Li's call on the sensitive eve of the Congress suggests that Hu has not been able to still calls for political relaxation even from within the Party. Earlier this year, China Across the Ages published an essay that lamented Soviet socialism as an abject failure and urged China's Communists to follow the Nordic "democratic socialist" model of respecting social equality and political liberty. "Freedom of expression is the essential condition of democracy," is the title of an essay in the September issue of China Across the Ages, which is sponsored by old Party reformers. Li argued that only empowered citizens could end the corruption he said was rotting the foundations of Party rule.
Contacted by Reuters, Li's family said it was "inconvenient" for him to talk and he could not answer any questions. When Hu took power about five years ago, Li circulated a similar call for reform that stirred controversy and prompted the closure of a newspaper that reprinted it. People familiar with that earlier call have told Reuters a privately-circulated version pressed the Party to admit Deng's 1989 crackdown was a mistake. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has said it will be a long time before his country is ready to directly elect even low-ranking officials, arguing that swift reform would be a recipe for chaos. China has nothing to fear from full-fledged democracy, Li wrote, adding that it "will only promote social stability." | ||
Posted by:lotp |
#3 Approaching it directly may be less effective than if he called for a multi-party split *from* the communist party, based on a current factional division. This would mean that those currently in power would stay in power, but would compete with each other to continue to stay in power. Each faction would then create its own leadership, and each region in China would appoint its own representatives, much like how the US States originally appointed US senators. Democracy wouldn't begin from the top down, but from the bottom up. |
Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-09-30 19:41 |
#2 ... only political freedom can end instability and corruption. Cause we know how well that works in Massachusetts, New Jersey, St. Louis, etc. Democracy by its own definition is instability. The key to good democracy is to avoid the consolidation of power. And any governmental social system is going to have corruption, its the nature of power. You need to spend the resources and effort to suppress corruption like murder, robbery, rape, etc. By reducing the concentration of power, you reduce the corruption. In return you accept a degree of chaos and inefficiencies and injustices, cause the alternative is clearly more destructive of 'freedom' in the long run. |
Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-09-30 19:15 |
#1 In a bold jab before a key meeting of China's Communists, a 90-year-old former secretary to Mao Zedong has urged the Party to embrace democracy, saying that only political freedom can end instability and corruption. I foresee the strong liklyhood of Sudden Adult Death Syndrome in Li Rui's future. |
Posted by: Zenster 2007-09-30 16:22 |