Eva Cheng
A secret March gathering in Beijing of high profile pro-capitalist economists, legal experts and government advisers — most of whom are members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) — have alarmed China's waning pro-socialist forces. The conference appears to be the prelude to another big push to take China further down the road of capitalism.
The 40-strong March 4 gathering — billed as a forum on China's macro economy and the trend of its reform — was organised by the China Society of Economic Reform, a think tank that advises the State Council (China's cabinet). The society's chairperson, Gao Shangquan, chaired the gathering. Gao headed the State Commission for Restructuring the Economy and the Chinese Research Society for Restructuring Economic Systems between 1985-93.
Other high profile participants included China's top neoliberal economist Zhang Weiyang, of the Beijing University's Guanghua School of Management; Beijing University law professor He Weifang; China Politics and Law University vice-dean Li Shuguang; top central bank official Xie Ping; World Bank corporate restructuring expert Zhang Chunlin, who was formerly with China's State Economic and Trade Commission; and Zhang Shuguang from the Beijing Economic Research Institute, a long-time academic at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
A transcript of the gathering was leaked on the internet in late March, revealing radical views such as advocating that China copy the "Taiwan [i.e., openly capitalist] model", that the CPC split into two factions (presumably to better accommodate the openly pro-capitalist current), that the military be under the command of the state (as opposed to the CPC) and that the "ideological constraints" on capitalist restoration were so limiting that the so-called reformers (read: pro-capitalist advocates) often have to "signal a turn left while actually turning right".
Gao proposed during the meeting that CPC general secretary Hu Jintao declare his disapproval of three developments in the CPC: continuing debates, a split trajectory and division along the left-wing and right-wing lines. It was also expressed at the meeting that the stage of "economic reform" in China is over and that the country should proceed to embark on "political reform".
In response, on April 2, Marxist intellectual Ma Bin wrote to Hu Jintao and the standing committee of the CPC political bureau expressing his alarm. In particular, he highlighted the views put forward by Gao, He Weifang and Zhang Weiying. Ma accused the trio of implementing Washington's agenda in China by whipping up a so-called "colour revolution" — like the 2004-2005 "orange revolution" in Ukraine.
On April 9, dozens of pro-socialist officials, senior CPC members and intellectuals answered the right-wing March gathering with a counter-forum organised by the Flag of Mao Zedong, a Chinese website. Forum participants emphasised China's need for continual reform, but only reforms that take the country along a socialist path.
They also demanded the government closely monitor the excessive erosion of the state sector of the economy and release the relevant data on a regular basis for public scrutiny. A participant quoted a national economic survey released in December 2005, which revealed that the state and collective sectors only accounted for 20.3% of industrial employment, while the private and foreign-owned sectors provided 56.3%.
Another participant quoted a March 2006 newspaper report that said that the state-owned sector currently accounts for only 34% of China's GDP currently, having declined by 2.34% a year between 2001 and 2004.
In a May 2 analysis published on Wyzxsx.com renowned left economist Yang Fang, from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, described the uproar over the Beijing meeting as the latest episode of an escalating debate on the direction of China's market reform, with the debate's latest round having started in 2004.
Yang wrote: "The gap between the rich and poor is widening, corruption is getting worse, certain industries are falling into the control of foreign capital and the social critique of these developments is escalating. China, into its 27 years of reform, is at a crossroads." (China dates its "opening and reform" policy turn from a CPC central committee decision in late 1978.)
Though the March gathering wasn't openly backed by any government body, Yang has no doubt about the weight it carries, noting the China Society of Economic Reform's strong links to the government. He pointed out that many of the participants were officials of the State Commission for Restructuring the Economy, who "submit their views to the party centre, raise funds overseas and were officially with bodies that advise on the country's system reform".
The Chinese Marxist left has dubbed the March gathering a "new Xishan Conference", a comparison to an anti-Communist plot hatched at a November 23, 1925, meeting of a section of the Kuomintang (KMT — the Nationalist Party).
From Green Left Weekly, May 31, 2006.
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