08-12-2005, 06:48 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->By David J. Lynch
Thu Aug 11, 7:13 AM ET
An intensifying crackdown on domestic dissent is dashing hopes that China's economic opening will produce greater democracy anytime soon.
Chinese authorities in recent weeks have arrested prominent intellectuals and foreign journalists. They have tightened restrictions on Web sites and praised the killing of anti-government protesters in nearby Uzbekistan, which Human Rights Watch labeled a "massacre." And they've rounded up the leaders of unapproved religious observances.
The current domestic chill is a far cry from what was expected when Communist Party General Secretary Hu Jintao took command in November 2002. Long groomed for leadership, Hu, 62, was seen as representing a new generation of Chinese rulers. His rise - more than a decade after the massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square - revived hopes of gradual political reform.
Hu's response to a crisis over the severe acute respiratory syndrome ( SARS) virus in April 2003 - firing two top officials and briefly delivering greater openness - seemed to legitimize those dreams.
But hopes of broader change have evaporated. Since adding the title of Chinese president in March 2003, Hu has followed a two-track strategy. Publicly, he emphasizes policies aimed at helping those left behind by China's boom. This populist campaign stresses development of poorer regions long neglected under Hu's predecessor, Jiang Zemin.
At the same time, Hu pursues an unapologetic effort to rebuild centralized control, including unleashing the security services on domestic and foreign journalists.
Zhao Yan, a researcher for The New York Times, has been jailed since September on unspecified charges of leaking state secrets. Ching Cheong of The (Singapore) Straits Times, was detained April 22 while seeking an unpublished manuscript of interviews with Zhao Ziyang, the Chinese leader deposed in 1989 for opposing the use of force in Tiananmen Square. Just last week, China said it had formally arrested Ching and charged him with spying for Taiwan.
China also recently required all Web sites and blogs to register with the authorities. And the party is using undercover agents to steer online conversations in chat rooms away from criticism of the authorities, according to the Nanfang Zhoumo newspaper. In one city, the newspaper reported, propaganda office officials posing as chat room participants were ordered to: "Develop actively, increase control, accentuate the good and avoid the bad, use it to our advantage."
A stubborn one-party system
After a quarter-century of economic reform, Hu's hard line is confounding the conventional wisdom that economic liberalization inevitably will unravel China's one-party system. Most analysts still expect market freedoms to someday spawn greater political openness. But that evolution appears likely to take longer than once thought.
Today's tight grip is likely to persist through the next Communist Party conference in 2007 and the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, analysts believe. "I would say there's going to be a four-year hiatus. ... Today, the words 'political reform' can barely be mentioned," says Minxin Pei of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
So far, the domestic repression hasn't affected Sino-U.S. relations. In internal party speeches, Hu might castigate unnamed "hostile forces" that want to westernize China. But with the United States as China's top export market, he wants to preserve the lucrative relationship with Washington.
China's economic advance - far from threatening the Communist Party's monopoly on power - is helping the authorities maintain their grip. The security services are flush with cash, equipment and personnel, and the government can afford to lavish comfortable salaries upon potentially restive intellectuals.
"They have more resources to strengthen the police state," Pei says.
As its factories dominate one industry after another, China might appear to be an unstoppable economic behemoth. But the current moves to quell dissent reflect the leadership's private nervousness over Beijing's myriad problems. In recent years, there has been a notable explosion of public protests - over unpaid pensions, official corruption and land seizures - across the country.
It's a reminder that China's Communist Party is trying to accomplish something unprecedented: a permanent marriage of economic freedom with political repression. Hu and his Politburo colleagues have not forgotten the instability that attended the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, where political reform was implemented before the state-run economies were dismantled. That's why Hu welcomed Uzbekistan's tough response to May's embryonic anti-government revolt.
"They're terrified of this happening to them," says Edward Friedman, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin.
Hu's tight grip
Indeed, Hu's signature initiative is aimed at strengthening the party's ability to rule. A throwback to the pre-1978 Maoist era, the effort "to maintain the advanced nature of Chinese Communist Party members" requires the party's 69 million members to attend special lectures and engage in "self-criticism."
"On the ideological level, there's no question Hu's been quite tough. He is pulling things in. He's reining in the intellectual atmosphere," says Boston University's Joseph Fewsmith, an expert on the Chinese leadership.
Because of changes in society, though, Hu's crackdown is irrelevant to all but a small, politically conscious elite. It was easy for the party to exert influence when everyone received their salary, housing, medical care and education through jobs with state-owned enterprises. But now that only 27% of urban residents work for state factories, the old levers of control are no longer as effective. And that means Hu ultimately faces a decidedly uphill battle.
Veteran foreign correspondent David J. Lynch recently returned to the USA after a three-year tour in China, where he opened USA TODAY's Beijing bureau. He now covers global business issues for the Money section.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/u.../retreatinchina<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thu Aug 11, 7:13 AM ET
An intensifying crackdown on domestic dissent is dashing hopes that China's economic opening will produce greater democracy anytime soon.
Chinese authorities in recent weeks have arrested prominent intellectuals and foreign journalists. They have tightened restrictions on Web sites and praised the killing of anti-government protesters in nearby Uzbekistan, which Human Rights Watch labeled a "massacre." And they've rounded up the leaders of unapproved religious observances.
The current domestic chill is a far cry from what was expected when Communist Party General Secretary Hu Jintao took command in November 2002. Long groomed for leadership, Hu, 62, was seen as representing a new generation of Chinese rulers. His rise - more than a decade after the massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square - revived hopes of gradual political reform.
Hu's response to a crisis over the severe acute respiratory syndrome ( SARS) virus in April 2003 - firing two top officials and briefly delivering greater openness - seemed to legitimize those dreams.
But hopes of broader change have evaporated. Since adding the title of Chinese president in March 2003, Hu has followed a two-track strategy. Publicly, he emphasizes policies aimed at helping those left behind by China's boom. This populist campaign stresses development of poorer regions long neglected under Hu's predecessor, Jiang Zemin.
At the same time, Hu pursues an unapologetic effort to rebuild centralized control, including unleashing the security services on domestic and foreign journalists.
Zhao Yan, a researcher for The New York Times, has been jailed since September on unspecified charges of leaking state secrets. Ching Cheong of The (Singapore) Straits Times, was detained April 22 while seeking an unpublished manuscript of interviews with Zhao Ziyang, the Chinese leader deposed in 1989 for opposing the use of force in Tiananmen Square. Just last week, China said it had formally arrested Ching and charged him with spying for Taiwan.
China also recently required all Web sites and blogs to register with the authorities. And the party is using undercover agents to steer online conversations in chat rooms away from criticism of the authorities, according to the Nanfang Zhoumo newspaper. In one city, the newspaper reported, propaganda office officials posing as chat room participants were ordered to: "Develop actively, increase control, accentuate the good and avoid the bad, use it to our advantage."
A stubborn one-party system
After a quarter-century of economic reform, Hu's hard line is confounding the conventional wisdom that economic liberalization inevitably will unravel China's one-party system. Most analysts still expect market freedoms to someday spawn greater political openness. But that evolution appears likely to take longer than once thought.
Today's tight grip is likely to persist through the next Communist Party conference in 2007 and the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, analysts believe. "I would say there's going to be a four-year hiatus. ... Today, the words 'political reform' can barely be mentioned," says Minxin Pei of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
So far, the domestic repression hasn't affected Sino-U.S. relations. In internal party speeches, Hu might castigate unnamed "hostile forces" that want to westernize China. But with the United States as China's top export market, he wants to preserve the lucrative relationship with Washington.
China's economic advance - far from threatening the Communist Party's monopoly on power - is helping the authorities maintain their grip. The security services are flush with cash, equipment and personnel, and the government can afford to lavish comfortable salaries upon potentially restive intellectuals.
"They have more resources to strengthen the police state," Pei says.
As its factories dominate one industry after another, China might appear to be an unstoppable economic behemoth. But the current moves to quell dissent reflect the leadership's private nervousness over Beijing's myriad problems. In recent years, there has been a notable explosion of public protests - over unpaid pensions, official corruption and land seizures - across the country.
It's a reminder that China's Communist Party is trying to accomplish something unprecedented: a permanent marriage of economic freedom with political repression. Hu and his Politburo colleagues have not forgotten the instability that attended the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, where political reform was implemented before the state-run economies were dismantled. That's why Hu welcomed Uzbekistan's tough response to May's embryonic anti-government revolt.
"They're terrified of this happening to them," says Edward Friedman, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin.
Hu's tight grip
Indeed, Hu's signature initiative is aimed at strengthening the party's ability to rule. A throwback to the pre-1978 Maoist era, the effort "to maintain the advanced nature of Chinese Communist Party members" requires the party's 69 million members to attend special lectures and engage in "self-criticism."
"On the ideological level, there's no question Hu's been quite tough. He is pulling things in. He's reining in the intellectual atmosphere," says Boston University's Joseph Fewsmith, an expert on the Chinese leadership.
Because of changes in society, though, Hu's crackdown is irrelevant to all but a small, politically conscious elite. It was easy for the party to exert influence when everyone received their salary, housing, medical care and education through jobs with state-owned enterprises. But now that only 27% of urban residents work for state factories, the old levers of control are no longer as effective. And that means Hu ultimately faces a decidedly uphill battle.
Veteran foreign correspondent David J. Lynch recently returned to the USA after a three-year tour in China, where he opened USA TODAY's Beijing bureau. He now covers global business issues for the Money section.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/u.../retreatinchina<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->