Trước tiên, chúng ta cần phải nhớ cái gọi là "thế giới thông tin đại chúng và toàn cầu" hôm nay, tất cả đều được kiểm soát và điều động từ trung ương của nhóm tập quyền và chủ lợi để bẻ hướng, kềm tỏa quần chúng cho những kế hoạch quyền lực và đạt lợi của giới thượng tầng cai trị này. Mô thức này đang hiện hũu và hoạt động gần như toàn cầu, bất kể là quốc gia nào, hệ thống chính trị nào. May mắn lắm mói có một hai ngoại lệ như Thụy Sĩ hoặc Băng Quốc (Iceland) những nơi mà các "cơ quan truyền thông" chưa bị tập trung sở hũu dù là của tập đoàn tư nhân hay tập đoàn nhà nước.
Xác định như vậy để thấy rằng một sự kiện từ Trung Quốc, sẽ không chỉ được nền báo chí Trung Quốc uốn nắn, mà khi tràn qua các quốc gia khác, nó cũng bị uốn nắn cho cùng một mục tiêu. Trừ khi hai chế độ đang là kình địch của nhau, thí dụ như Nga, Ba Tư với Mỹ, Phương Tây. Như thế, muốn hiểu rõ vấn đề, thì những thông tin chính qui cần phải được tái thẩm định và truy nguyên. Đấy chính là việc làm nền tảng của những chuyên gia, nhà báo chân chính và độc lập.
Bác Hi Lai (薄熙来), xuất thân là một trong các "hoàng tử" trong giới đặc quyền của Trung Quốc hiện đại. Nhóm "hoàng tử" đặc quyền này là con cháu đời thứ hai của các LÃO THÀNH CÁCH MẠNG thời Mao còn sống sót sau trận Cách Mạng Văn Hóa tàn bạo, và trở lại nắm quyền sau khi Mao qua đời do Đặng Tiểu Bình lãnh đạo. Báo giới Tầu gọi nhóm người "lão thành" này là Bát đại nguyên lão (八大元老), Tây phương gọi họ là Bát Tiên- the Eight Immortals ; Con cái của giới lãnh đạo tối cao này được gọi là Thái tử đảng 太子党 (báo giới Tây phương gọi là "the Princelings"- the "Crown Prince Party") danh từ này bắt nguồn từ thời con trai Viên Thế Khải tung hoành chính trị. Nhóm Bát Đại Nguyên Lão hay Bát Tiên đã cùng nhau lật đổ Hoa Quốc Phong để thực hiện "Chủ Nghĩa Cộng Sản Thị Trường" (Market Communism) của họ.
Đặng Tiểu Bình (邓小平) (1904–1997)Lý Tiên Niệm (李先念) (1905–1992)
Trần vân (陈云) (1905–1995)
Bành Chân (彭真)(1902–1997)
Dương Thượng Côn 杨尚昆 (1907–1998)
Bác Nhất Ba (薄一波) (1908–2007),
Vương Chấn (王震) Wang Zhen (1908–1993)
Tống Nhậm Cùng (tống vận cầm) 宋任穷 (宋韵琴) (1909–2005)
Hai thành quả đã đưa Bác Hi Lai lại gần quần chúng, được quần chúng quí mến, nhưng xa rời trung ương Đảng đó là đập tan thế lực băng đảng Mafia, và các nhóm tư nhân đầu cơ dịch vụ của đảng viên bí thư tiền nhiệm Uông dương (汪洋) (hiện nay lại được thăng chức bí thư Quảng Đông- để vị cụu bí thư Quảng Đông- Trương đức giang (张德江) về nắm Trùng Khánh thay Bác Hi Lai bị thanh trừng.
Thành quả thứ hai là chính sách cải cách ruộng đất, hệ thống Địa Phiếu (地 票) (National pilot project revives rural areas | South China). Tại Trung Quốc, sau khi Mao lên cầm quyền, đất đai phần lớn được qui vào hợp tác xã; số đất còn lại được qui định sở hũu giới hạn. Sau thời mở cửa nhảy vọt của Đặng Tiểu Bình, giá nông phẩm tụt dốc, vì các chính sách chỉ tập trung nâng đỡ khuyến khích công kỹ nghệ, người nông dân đã bỏ đất để về thành thị tìm công ăn việc làm.
Ngược lại với hiện tượng này, là các Đảng viên đại gia lợi dụng thời cơ này, tạo lý cớ "phát triển" đi cướp lại những vùng đất này như chúng ta đang thấy xảy ra tại Việt Nam, Trung Quốc và các xã hội độc tài khác ở Phi Châu, Nam Mỹ. Sự cách biệt giầu nghèo cũng như lối sống "vô kỷ cương pháp luật" của thiểu số giới thượng luu tân đại gia đỏ đã làm cho quần chúng đang phẫn nộ. Những cuộc biều tình, nổi dậy chống đối bằng bạo động, đang xảy ra liên tục khiến Đảng phải vận dụng cả quân đội lẫn những thủ thuật mị dân để giải quyết như trường hợp Wukan, Lufeng thuộc phía Quảng Châu (Nhân Chủ đã tường thuật). Nhưng không thể chấm dứt.
Riêng Trùng Khánh dưới sự lãnh đạo của Bác Hi Lai, ông ta đã đưa ra chính sách Địa Phiếu,(1) Nguồn 1 xx Nguồn 2 - nghĩa là người nông dân được cấp giấy chủ quyền một lô đất dưới dạng khẩu phiếu chứng khoán, nếu không dùng có thể đăng sàn rao bán tự do, cạnh tranh giá cả như đấu giá, cho các tập đoàn nào muốn mua để phát triển kỹ nghệ. Với điều kiện, người Nông dân phải chứng minh là mình đã có ổn định nơi ăn chốn ở mới được phép đăng bán phần đất đó. Nếu là đất hợp tác, phải được phiếu thuận của cả xã đoàn mới được bán.
Các tập đoàn mua, cũng phải tuân thủ những điều kiện qui hoạch của thành phố mới được phép tiến hành xử dụng trong mục tiêu xây dựng phát triển kinh tế kỹ nghệ v.v mục đích là để bảo vệ tính khả canh-khả năng canh tác- của các vùng đất này. Và dĩ nhiên, như vậy các chính sách dùng công an quân đội cướp đất trả rẻ của các quan chức đại gia, cấu kết đại bản nước ngoài, không thể xảy ra!
Hai chính sách này được DÂN YÊU, nhưng Đảng và Nhà Nước rất THÙ GHÉT. Vì nó đe dọa quyền lực của nhóm " 9 tên Thường Vụ Trung Ương Đảng" và bè phái. Bởi được DÂN YÊU, mến mộ qua chính sách đúng đắn tức là UY TÍN đang lên và lan xa.
Vì hơn ái hết qua kinh nghiệm lãnh đạo những tình thành to lớn của Trung Quốc, cũng như công du quan hệ với các cơ chế Âu Tây, Bác Hi Lai đã cảm nhận được sức mạnh và tính uu việt của nó, cũng như đang thấy rõ những tàn khốc băng hoại, phi nhân đang phá hủy xã hội, tạo đau khổ bất công trên đầu quần chúng, khi vắng bóng nó. Nhất là, Bác Hi Lai nhận ra khi so sánh với các xã hội Âu tây, rằng sức tiến và tiềm năng của Trung Quốc, của hơn 1 tỉ dân, đã bị trì kéo kềm tỏa quá lâu. Sau 30 năm đổi mới, sức tiến cũng chỉ đến mức khiêm tốn so với tiềm năng và tiềm lực của địa lý, nhân vănTrung Quốc.
Vây đây chính là điểm tối kỵ vì nó không chỉ là tử huyệt của Đảng Cộng Sản Tầu, mà là tử huyệt của bất kỳ tập đoàn quyền lực nào từ Đông sang Tây. Đây cũng chính là lý do "nền báo chí Tây phương" đăng tải uốn nắn theo đúng nhu cầu bôi nhọ, vẽ sai lệch diện mục của Bắc Kinh về sự kiện Bác Hi Lai.
Để thanh trừng Bac Hi Lai, Ôn Gia Bảo cũng tuyên bố rằng Trung Quốc phải cải tổ chính trị! Vấn đề là "CẢI TỔ" như thế nào? Về hướng nào?
Và chúng ta có thể thấy khá rõ khi Đảng quyết định thanh trừng Bác Hi Lai, tức là Đảng dập tắt ngọn gió mới của mô hình Trùng Khánh, và "cải tổ" quay về với mô hình Quảng Đông, nơi hình thức đầu cơ tập trung theo kiểu 1% đại bản Mỹ, theo thuyết Milton Friedman đang được ưa chuộng. Nó nuôi dưỡng bóc lột và lương bổng thấp để tăng cường quyền TỰ DO và lực thao túng cho các tập đoàn đầu cơ trục lợi, trong đó dĩ nhiên là các đại tập đoàn phương Tây nắm then chốt.
Nước Mỹ, Âu Châu đang bị cai trị gián tiếp qua cửa ngõ Tài Chính Do Thái, các Đại tập đoàn kỹ nghệ Vũ khí. Nước Trung Quốc hiện nay cũng đang đi vào con đường này. Cũng như ở Mỹ Obama đã được các đại chủ nhân "tuyển lựa" từ bên trong với lực chỉ đạo từ "nhóm Do Thái". Thì hiện nay ở Trung Quốc, Tổng bí thư Tập Cận Bình cũng đã được các đại chủ nhân "tuyển lựa" từ bên trong có sự ủng hộ đồng thuận của "phương Tây".
Trong bao lâu nữa, thì việc tuyển chọn "lãnh đạo Trung quốc" cần có lực chỉ đạo của giới tập đoàn tài chính Do thái phố Wall? Chuyên đời khó nói. Có những dự đoán "mơ mộng" đã thành sự thật. (Ít nhất, theo giáo sư A. Sutton, chính Mao cũng đã từng được nhóm "bí mật" Yale Mỹ chọn lựa (Skull & Bones & Bush) (Yale-China Association)
Tuy nhiên một điều có thể khẳng định, là con đường quyền lực của Đảng Trung Quốc và ngay cả của nhóm Tài Chính Phố Wall, cũng không còn bình phẳng nữa. Quyền lực đại bản toàn cầu hóa, thì nhận thức tự thân và đối kháng của quần chúng cũng toàn cầu hóa. Có muốn ngăn chặn cũng không thể được. Chỉ là vấn đề thời gian.
Cơn địa chấn cách mạng dân chủ gián tiếp, và nỗ lực chuyển hóa qua nền dân chủ trực tiếp đang rung chuyển. Khi nó đạt đến chuyển động lực, thì sống thần và bão tố sẽ kéo theo, không một thế lực nào dù được xây dựng kiên cố đến thế nào chăng nữa cũng phải sụp đổ. Lịch sử nhân loại đã từng chứng minh điều này.
Và nó đang đến. Nó tương tự như sự suy tàn của "quốc gia dâ tộc, bản sắc văn hóa"- nghĩa là chính nỗ lực níu kéo tuyệt vọng của những kẻ muốn gìn giữ mô thức băng hoại và phi nhân bản này đang đóng góp thêm vào lực chuyển động của cơn cuồng phong nhận thức tự do dân chủ.
nkptc
Tháng 4-2014
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TÀI LIỆU THAM KHẢO:
Posted By Justin Raimondo On April 1, 2012 @ 11:00 pm In Uncategorized | 11 Comments
The mysterious Orient, hidden behind a façade of inscrutability, an enigma wrapped in a veil of secrecy: that’s how the internal politics of China are “reported” in the West – and that’s just the way the present Chinese leadership likes it. They quite naturally don’t want their dirty linen exposed to public view, and the Western media is surprisingly accommodating about this, as exemplified in Western reporting on the fall of Bo Xilai, a member of the Politburo and up until recently party chieftain of the Chongqing region – the fastest growing metropolis in China.The West portrays Bo as a “neo-Maoist,” a leading figure in China’s “new left” faction which cavils at the burgeoning inequalities resulting from the country’s rapid economic rise, but this is a simplistic and essentially inaccurate portrayal of what is a decidedly more complicated context.
“To get rich is glorious!” proclaimed China’s maximum leader Deng Xiaoping, the reform-minded successor to Mao, who was himself victimized by the excesses of the radical egalitarian “Cultural Revolution.” Deng led the nation out of the economic sinkhole created by radical Maoist ideology run amok, and onto the “Chinese road to socialism,” which the party’s theoreticians define as “market socialism,” i.e. politically controlled “markets” that function under the watchful (and avaricious) eye of party officials.
This system of highly-regulated “state capitalism” has given rise to a new class of “princelings,” children of high-ranking party cadre who take advantage of their family connections to amass huge fortunes and lord it over the commoners. The result: huge disparities in wealth, and increased popular unrest. You don’t read about it in the Western media, or at least not very often, but China has been hit by a wave of strikes in major manufacturing centers: as the Chinese economy dips, in tandem with the worldwide economic downturn, workers in factory towns are facing pay cuts and mass firings. They are responding with increasingly militant labor actions: while labor unions not controlled by the party are forbidden, they are organizing using the Internet and cell phones, which are ubiquitous in China.
Contrast this with the very visible rise of a new class of “princeling” entrepreneurs, who ride around in expensive foreign cars and live a life very different from the ordinary Chinese worker, and you have all the ingredients of a potential populist upsurge. Add to this the specter of tens of millions of migrant workers coming off the land and into the big cities, which has caused social tension and even outbreaks of violence. The Communist party chieftains are justifiably nervous – and Bo Xilai made them even more nervous.
The son of Bo Yibo, one of the “eight immortals,” Bo Xilai rose through the ranks to become the mayor of the coastal city of Dalian, and then party chieftain of Chongqing, in central China, where the “Chongqing model” became a symbol of Bo’s anti-corruption, tough-on-crime nationalism. Bo is often described, at least in the Western media, as a “neo-Maoist” because he promoted the singing of “red songs” by groups of his supporters and turned Chongqing state television into a propaganda outlet pushing “red culture.” Yet Chongqing has been growing faster than any comparable region in China. Using state subsidies to attract Western investment, notably from Apple, Bo is usually characterized as a “leftist” because of these policies, but the reality – as usual – is a bit more complex.
One of Bo’s big campaigns was trying to bridge the enormous gap between the rising urban bourgeois and the peasants in the countryside by giving the latter “land tickets,” i.e. equity in the land that was formerly “collectively owned” so as to give them a fighting chance to rise when they emigrate to the cities seeking work. As The Economist described it:
“In late 2008 it set up a ‘country land exchange institute’ on the fourth floor of a new office building in the city center. Dong Jianguo, its president (and a senior Chongqing land official), describes this as something like a market for trading carbon emissions. By cutting the amount of land used for building homes or factories and converting it into new farmland, villages can gain credits known as dipiao, or land tickets. These can then be sold to urban developers who want to build on other patches of farmland, usually far away on the city periphery. The aim is to ensure no net loss of tillable fields.”
This, in effect, introduced important market reforms into China’s booming – albeit state-controlled – real estate market, and let a bit of the wealth generated by that boom to “trickle down” to ordinary Chinese, the overwhelming majority of whom still live in agricultural regions. Yet the central party apparatus in Beijing stopped far short of letting the “Chongqing model” develop into a full-fledged land reform program, which would confer land ownership on individuals rather than the outmoded “collective farms” left over from the Maoist era.
Another charge in the current leadership’s arsenal has been the accusation that Bo is an authoritarian intent on bring back the bad old days of the Cultural Revolution. Bo’s appeal to patriotic sentiment, exemplified by the “red songs” campaign, has given this a facile credibility in the Western media. Again, however, the reality is more complex. Bo came into power in Chongqing on the back of an anti-crime campaign, “striking the black,” i.e. going after the Chinese mafia, which had been allowed to flourish by his predecessor in office. As Kim Hunter and Jesse Watson put it in Chongqing and the Three Gorges:
“Organized crime was becoming an increasing problem in the growing city and gangland murders were a regular occurrence, while illegal rackets had taken control of basic city services.”
Bo went after the corrupt head of the local Communist party’s judicial branch, Wen Qiang, former deputy chief of the local police. Wen was found guilty of protecting the gangsters, taking bribes, and rape: he was duly executed. At the time, the Peoples’ Daily, the official voice of the Communist Party, praised these actions, but the central party leadership was not happy. Here was a charismatic and – worst of all – populist figure, who was gaining public support on the strength of political campaigns that, they say, resembled the dark days of the Cultural Revolution, when the country was enveloped in chaos.
Bo’s various campaigns, however, also resembled the efforts of a political party, such as one might see if China allowed multiparty democracy. Here was Bo offering up his own “Chongqing model” – in implicit opposition to the “Guangdong model” favored by the party’s Eastern elites, which emphasized exports over targeting the huge domestic market. Bo’s initiatives were bold, in stark contrast to the timid “reforms” preferred by “pragmatic” party leaders. In the days before his ouster, Bo declared China was ready to move toward a multiparty system: “We need to take the road to democratic rule.” A week later, he was ousted, his whereabouts unknown.
Contra the cliché-ridden “analysis” of the Guardian, Bo is hardly a “neo-Maoist.” His “leftism” is, in reality, populism – which, in the context of a one-party state, is necessarily anti-authoritarian and democratic. Because China is still socialist, with the means of production firmly in the government’s hands, the material benefits accrued by the “new class” of Communist “princelings” are conferred by the state, not the markets.
While certainly no advocate of economic laissez-faire, Bo clearly understood the role played by official corruption and the oligarchy’s collusion with criminal elements in promoting extreme economic inequity. He executed dozens of Chongqing gangsters, who had flourished under the reign of Bo’s predecessor – who is now, not coincidentally, party chief in Guangdong, where a rival “model” is being upheld and promoted by the Beijing leadership. Thousands of criminals, who had been allowed to run rampant by their friends in the local “government,” were jailed, and this gives rise to the charge of “authoritarianism” by his critics in China and abroad. The Guardian quotes one of his biggest critics, the lawyer Li Zhuang:
“Many Chongqing residents feel the city is safer and more beautiful now, but Germany under Hitler was the safest in its history.”
What the Guardian somehow neglects to mention, however, is that Mr. Zhuang was the lawyer for the mobsters behind Wen Qiang – and was himself arrested and found guilty of falsifying evidence (in effect, enabling perjury), after he shocked his lawyers by confessing to the crime in open court. He was jailed for eighteen months.
Zhuang’s arrest and incarceration caused some annoyance in Beijing, due to Zhuang’s law firm’s links to the central Chinese leadership, specifically Fu Yang, another “red princeling.” Zhuang’s law firm, Kangda, as pointed out here, is “welded into the elite of a Communist Party judicial system that runs on kickbacks and connections.” The firm is a political powerhouse:
“It is no stretch to say the fathers of Kangda’s three founding principals ran China’s entire political-security and judicial systems in the 1980s.The law firm was itself spun out of the legal department of an immensely profitable and unaccountable corporate-charity empire called Kanghua, which was run by Deng Pufang, son of Deng Xiaoping.”
When Bo put 800 mobsters on trial, and cleaned up Chongqing, he was literally putting the Communist party in the dock, as dozens of party officials who had taken bribes and worse were exposed to public view. Instead of supporting Bo, the generally pro-Western “liberal” intelligentsia denounced him for subverting “the rule of law” and what they saw as an attack on civil liberties. Yet there are no civil liberties in a one-party authoritarian state, and the rule of law is completely absent: there is only the iron law of oligarchy, which is essentially lawless. Before Bo’s rise, the ordinary citizens of Chongqing were subjected to the “law” of the jungle, in which the most ruthless gangster with the best political connections had the “freedom” to exploit and rob.
China is undergoing a generational changing of the guards, with the “red princelings” waiting in the wings to take power from their fathers: Bo, himself a princeling, represented a challenge to that. That he is going down to the jeers of “liberal” intellectuals in China, and the cheers of Western journalists, is one of the ironies of an age where “left” and “right” don’t mean much anymore.
All sorts of highly improbable stories are now arising, which – coincidentally, of course – blemish Bo’s former record as a fighter against official corruption. Having been stripped of his post, it appears he will lose his seat on the Politburo, and the lesson here is clear for any other aspiring populist leader who dares challenge the Beijing bureaucrats: don’t do it. What Western observers should take away from all this is that the Chinese gerontocracy is as brittle as an over-baked fortune cookie, and living in fear of the populist giant that shows worrying signs of restlessness, especially in the still-impoverished countryside.
Bo’s enemies in the West characterize him not only as a neo-Maoist, but also as China’s Putin, albeit a Putin nipped in the bud. This is what they fear the most about the unsettled situation in China: that a strong leader with a clear program and popular support will displace the Yeltsins currently in control. They much prefer a “collective” leadership committed to the export-driven oligarchic model, which can provide cheap labor for their factories and make sure the Chinese people don’t get out of hand and start demanding consumer goods for themselves instead of luxury reserved for the red princelings. This view was given voice by one Robert Lawrence Kuhn, in a recent New York Times op ed piece:
“Vice President Xi Jinping, who is slated to be approved as general secretary of the Communist Party in the fall and as president the following March, will be the first leader not chosen peremptorily by China’s prior leaders. Rather, he was selected through a broader polling of party officials. While neither transparent nor anonymous, the process is a big advance in China’s long march toward ‘intraparty democracy.’”
“China,” he goes on to say, with a straight face, “is an oligarchy, not a dictatorship.” Oh, what a relief: for a moment there I thought a regime with a gulag imprisoning almost as many as we do and strict controls on speech, with no democratic elections, might qualify as dictatorial. I’m so glad to have been corrected by Senor Kuhn, an investment banker and “corporate strategist” who no doubt is profiting handsomely from some oligarchic largess
| China's riders on the storm |
The country's cautious oligarchy sacked a populist party secretary they saw as threatening to the system's stability. |
Hong Kong - Not many people outside China are familiar with foggy Chongqing, in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, in the heart of Sichuan province. Well, this is the biggest megalopolis in the world: 31 million, and counting. There are more people in Chongqing than in the whole of Iraq, or Malaysia.
And then, suddenly, Chongqing became literally the talk of the (global) town, like a dystopian new Rome, thanks to a monumental political scandal during the National People's Congress on March 15: the downfall of Bo Xilai, politburo member and party secretary for Chongqing.
Bo, wily and media-savvy, was sort of a pop star in China as the top promoter of the so-called Chongqing Model: a back-to-the-past, partly Maoist-inspired push for more state control of the economy, better social services, a harsh crackdown on the local mafia and an effort to promote wealth redistribution, thus alleviating social inequality.
| Hong Kong residents call for bigger say in polls |
Even though Bo was a "princeling" - the son of one of the eight immortals of Mao Zedong's revolutionary generation - his rise to power and fame started in the bottom of the hyper-complex party hierarchy.
Bo was promoted from trade minister to party head
in Chongqing in 2007. His Holy Grail was to enter the nine-member Standing Committee of the 25-member Politburo, the people who actually run China Inc like a very select oligarchy.
in Chongqing in 2007. His Holy Grail was to enter the nine-member Standing Committee of the 25-member Politburo, the people who actually run China Inc like a very select oligarchy.
Bo's weapon of choice was quite sophisticated: his neo-Maoist political campaign of purification (in this case, to get rid of the local mafia) - inspired by Mao's Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976 - was advised by a number of local intellectuals. No wonder he became wildly popular. Because tens of millions of Chinese deeply resent the arrogance of the new rich - some of whom made lightning-fast, dodgy fortunes - an anti-corruption drive mixed with a fight for social inequality couldn't possibly do wrong.
But in the eyes of the collective Beijing leadership, it did. And then came the downfall - propelled by the defection and subsequent arrest of Bo's top lieutenant, Wang Lijun, who had sought refuge nowhere else than inside the US Consulate in Chengdu, the no-less frenetic capital of Sichuan province.
Is that a tank or a Ferrari?
Anxious to decode what was going on from Sichuan to the corridors of power in Beijing, Western media fed into the immense conspiracy pool, ranging from the silly to the sillier, and including the full display of silliness.
Chinese micro-blogging sites such as Sina Weibo and QQ Weibo, and the bulletin board of the search engine Baidu, may have speculated about "abnormalities" in Beijing on the night of March 19. But if you know how to set it up, anyone can access Google, YouTube and Facebook in China. The notion that tanks in the streets of Beijing would not be noticed or photographed is simply ludicrous.
Clues about what's really going on in the rarefied inner rings of China's politics usually have to be found in the official media. Significantly, in an unsigned essay that went viral, the Global Times referred to "The Chongqing Incident" without even naming Bo, and called for the Chinese people to trust the party leadership.
Which begs the inevitable question: what is the party line right now?
Reading the tea leaves tells us that Bo's downfall happened only one day after Premier Wen Jiabao officially announced that China needed profound political reforms.
That's an understatement, to put it mildly. China is now smack in the middle of not only a once-in-a-decade political transition; it's also in the middle of an earth-shattering once-in-a-generation transition - from a successful economic model shaped by massive investment to the emerging reality of a consumer society.
No wonder the party is more than ever ultra-cautious in its slow, Deng Xiaoping-esque "crossing the river by feeling the stones". And along comes the charismatic Bo - a sort of Chinese "Slick Willie" Clinton - to lay bare all the indecisions at the top. The collective leadership simply could not handle it.
It's consensus or chaos
For millennia, China had been under the spell of the Mandate of Heaven. If the Emperor lost the divine mandate, he had to go. In this sense, Mao was The Last Emperor. The Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping - one the giants of the 20th century, the man who allowed China to enter post-modernity - hated imperial displays. His successors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, were even more self-effacing.
The Communist Party absolutely insists on describing itself as a strictly Confucianist, meritocratic collective leadership, managing the country by consensus. The "consensus" is most of all among the 25-member politburo, and the deciders/implementers consist of the nine-member Standing Committee.
Any criticism in China challenging the political legitimacy of the party is ruthlessly crushed. But in many instances the party does allow people to express their social or economic angst in relative freedom. This will be increasingly the case, with the new urban middle class vociferously challenging countless stances of party corruption.
No political earthquake will prevent Xi Jinping, the current Chinese vice president, from being named the party's general secretary this fall, and then president in March 2013. As a personality, he's the opposite of Bo, a sort of "cautious progressive" - in a Chinese context - pragmatic, and an enemy of "empty talk". His personal motto: "Be proud, not complacent."
Xi was selected not only by the powerful nine members of the Standing Committee, but by wide-ranging internal polling. He's proven his mettle running governments at several levels, from village and county to city and province.
He was in charge of three ultra-dynamic Chinese regions - Fujian, Zhejiang, and the powerhouse of Shanghai. That would be the equivalent of being the prime minister, successively, of Britain, France and Germany.
Xi, significantly, wrote a recent article burying the Bo approach, condemning leaders who "play to the crowd" or "seek fame and fortune", and exhorting consensus - policies "decided according to collective wisdom and strict procedure". In other words, it's our (collective leadership) way, or the highway (which, in a Chinese context, means luan, chaos).
When models collide
Inside China, the top competitor with the Chongqing model is the Guangdong model. Guangdong is a provincial Mecca in China's south, close to Hong Kong, and it practices frenetic, pro-market neoliberalism.
| China premier calls for political reforms |
Bo's economics privileged competition between state enterprises (for instance, no commercials were allowed on local TV). But that, according to the Beijing oligarchy, undermined the very basis of the Chinese miracle: a somewhat downsized state not prone to interfere in business.
The Guangdong model emphasises breakneck economic growth coupled with enough room for more significant political reforms via more transparency in government. Not by accident was Bo replaced in Chongqing by Zhang Dejiang, a deputy premier who was in charge of industrial policy and who was, significantly, a former Guangdong party secretary.
Translation: for the party leadership, Chinese neoliberalism is the way to go; it trumps even the fight against corruption and the effort to relive social inequality. Why? Because the dynamism of the market - tweaked with some reforms - must rule; after all, this is the tool that has allowed China to grow at such speed.
The hidden trillion-yuan drama is that Western neoliberalism is being imposed in China against the will of a lot of people. The proof: if there were Western-style free elections in Chongqing, Bo would win in a landslide.
China has also seen Hong Kong dabbling with exactly those "political reforms", as described by Wen Jiabao: a "controlled", not exactly democratic, election for the ultra-sensitive post of Hong Kong's chief executive.
Under Deng's "one country, two systems", everything political that happens in Hong Kong offers a clue to how China is moving towards a more democratic system.
The voters in Hong Kong were only the 1,200 elite members of the Hong Kong Election Committee, a collection of wealthy tycoons, top civil servants and politicians.
The two top candidates had Beijing's seal of approval. The third, Albert Ho - chairman of the Hong Kong Democratic Party - knew that he was unelectable. At least he could get away with saying: "If I really have to make a choice [between the other two], that's like putting a gun to my head. And I'd say, 'Shoot'."
In the end, these special electors chose Leung Chun-ying, locally known as CY Leung, by 689 votes to Henry Tang's 285 (Ho got only 76).
In Hong Kong, as in China, corruption is still part of the picture. CY Leung is under investigation for a conflict-of-interest case involving a construction project (unsurprisingly in Hong Kong, CY is a property developer).
But unlike in China, demonstrators made a lot of noise outside the Hong Kong Convention Center, demanding direct elections and waving banners that read: "If there's no revolt, there's no change."
One can imagine the discomfort in Beijing. Even though Beijing does not imperially decide who runs Hong Kong, the party rule is that the chosen leader must be "acceptable" to the people of Hong Kong. It would be enlightening to have an in-depth poll examining whether the "people of Hong Kong" believe CY Leung will look out for their interests.
Now imagine the possibility of millions of China's new urban middle class suddenly deciding: "If there's no revolt, there's no change." To prevent this from happening, the Beijing oligarchy could not risk having populist Bo as a model; he was threatening not only stability at the very top, but how this carefully spun stability is perceived by the 1.3 billion Chinese at the bottom.
So cohesion, consensus and stability had to be the unified message, as China's fragilities are increasingly exposed: how to lift tens of millions more Chinese from an agrarian dead end, how to get decent healthcare for these tens of millions, how to fight multiple instances of party corruption.
There's no question that Deng-inspired, modernised China has hurled a massive strategic, ideological and political challenge at a still-dazed and confused West.
China is home to an immensely sophisticated, ancient civilisation. It harbours an ocean of humanity, and it has been modernising for only three decades (which is only a minute by Chinese standards). The Bo episode was just a minor detail. We will only have a clear picture of where China will be in 2020 after next autumn, or by the spring of 2013. But make no mistake: stability, as Buddhism tells us, is an illusion. China's leaders are now riders on the storm.
Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times. His latest book is named Obama Does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).
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National pilot project revives rural areas
by Keith Chan, SCMP May 17, 2011
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 17 May, 2011, 12:00am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 17 May, 2011, 12:00am
The Chongqing Country Land Exchange is a national pilot project to revitalise rural areas in inland cities. The project allows landowners to transfer the land use in an open market and it was established in November 2008 with the approval of the State Council.
The exchange is expected to solve the mismatch in the supply and demand of land for redevelopment. In inland areas, many farmers have migrated to the cities for work, resulting in plenty of abandoned areas, but urban redevelopment is often held back by a shortage of land.
According to government officials, residents in rural areas have an average living area of 250 square metres, compared with 80 square metres for their urban counterparts. Therefore, if 10 million people move to the cities, this will free up 2.5 billion square metres of land for redevelopment. The project is designed to protect the rights and interests of rural residents, who can decide to transfer their abandoned land. The selling price is decided by the market.
To protect rural residents, a landowner who wishes to transfer his or her land must prove that he or she has a stable living place and good living conditions. The owner also needs to obtain approval from relevant local co-operatives. For land owned by co-operatives, the transfer must be agreed by two-thirds of members.
Trading at the land exchange is in the form of 'land tickets' for auction. The abandoned land will first be reclaimed and then examined by the land management and agricultural departments, before a 'land ticket' is issued to the owner. The 'land ticket' is then scheduled for auction at the exchange. A developer who has successfully bid for the 'land ticket' must also ensure that the redevelopment of the land meets the requirements of city planning departments. The first bid took place on December 4, 2008. Two 'land tickets' with an area of 733,000 square metres were sold for 89.89 million yuan (HK$107.562 million).
The exchange is expected to solve the mismatch in the supply and demand of land for redevelopment. In inland areas, many farmers have migrated to the cities for work, resulting in plenty of abandoned areas, but urban redevelopment is often held back by a shortage of land.
According to government officials, residents in rural areas have an average living area of 250 square metres, compared with 80 square metres for their urban counterparts. Therefore, if 10 million people move to the cities, this will free up 2.5 billion square metres of land for redevelopment. The project is designed to protect the rights and interests of rural residents, who can decide to transfer their abandoned land. The selling price is decided by the market.
To protect rural residents, a landowner who wishes to transfer his or her land must prove that he or she has a stable living place and good living conditions. The owner also needs to obtain approval from relevant local co-operatives. For land owned by co-operatives, the transfer must be agreed by two-thirds of members.
Trading at the land exchange is in the form of 'land tickets' for auction. The abandoned land will first be reclaimed and then examined by the land management and agricultural departments, before a 'land ticket' is issued to the owner. The 'land ticket' is then scheduled for auction at the exchange. A developer who has successfully bid for the 'land ticket' must also ensure that the redevelopment of the land meets the requirements of city planning departments. The first bid took place on December 4, 2008. Two 'land tickets' with an area of 733,000 square metres were sold for 89.89 million yuan (HK$107.562 million).
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