A MOMENTOUS CHANGE

The 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China elects a new leadership and renews the country's commitment to build `socialism with Chinese characteristics'.

THE election of a new generation of leadership for the country was among the host of important tasks accomplished at the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China held in Beijing from November 8 to 14. The retirement of the old guard led by President Jiang Zemin was on the cards despite some predictions to the contrary in the Western media. The Congress also became a venue for a grand send-off for President Jiang Zemin, who had presided over the destiny of China for more than 13 years. The Congress was attended by 2,114 delegates, representing the 66-million-strong membership of the CPC.

The past decade has seen China making tremendous strides as the fastest-growing economy in the world. Under Jiang's stewardship, China successfully managed to steer a steady political and economic course. The leadership transition took place in a cordial atmosphere.

The last generational change took place after the events in Tiananmen. Deng Xiaoping nominated Jiang Zemin after his two initial choices as general secretary, Hu Yao Bang and Zhao Ziyang, backed out. This time round, Vice-President Hu Jintao was unanimously elected General Secretary of the CPC, signalling the takeover by the "fourth generation" of leaders after Chairman Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin. He will assume the Presidency of the country next year. Also bowing out gracefully from the political stage is an entire generation of political leaders who are in their seventies. Prominent among them are Prime Minister Zhu Rongji and Li Peng, the second-ranking Communist official and currently the Chairman of the National People's Congress. The 15th Party Congress held in 1997 had decided that all party leaders above 70 should retire.

In his first media conference after taking over as General Secretary, 59-year-old Hu Jintao praised Jiang Zemin for his effective leadership and for doing the ground work for the party's future. "We will live up to the great trust of the entire party and the expectations of the people across the country. We firmly believe that China's tomorrow will surely be better," Hu Jintao said. The new General Secretary, trained as a hydraulic engineer, had important stints as the party secretary of Guizhou and the Tibet Autonomous Region, two economically backward parts of China. He effectively handled the attempts of the supporters of the Dalai Lama to exploit the brief political turmoil that hit the country in the late 1980s.

It is said that it was Deng Xiaoping who first spotted his talent. By 1982, he became the youngest member of the CPC Central Committee at the age of 39. Ten years later, he became the youngest member of the Polit Bureau. Hu Jintao is not a frequent traveller outside China. However, he visited India in the late 1980s when he was the Chairman of the All China Youth Federation. Along with Hu Jintao, eight members were elected to the new Standing Committee of the Polit Bureau. The strength of the Polit Bureau has also been increased from 22 to 24. The two other prominent members of the Standing Committee of the Polit Bureau are Luo Gan and Wen Jaibao. Wen Jaibao, who is currently the Deputy Prime Minister, is expected to replace Zhu Rongji as Prime Minister. Luo Gan is in charge of China's law enforcement agencies and is expected to take a tough line on corruption and anti-state activities.

There are 198 full members and 158 alternate members in the newly elected Central Committee, around half of them being new entrants. According to a Chinese official, the average age of the Central Committee members has come down to 55 years. The new Central Committee members are educationally much more qualified, much higher than members of the outgoing committee. According to the official, over 98 per cent of the members have university degrees. "The Central Committee is representative of people from all walks of life, representing the government, party, local governments, ethnic minorities and women. There are 27 women representatives in the new Central Committee," said the official. The newly elected 16th Central Committee, which held its first plenum on November 15, elected the General Secretary, the Polit Bureau and its Standing Committee members. Based on the Standing Committee's recommendation, the plenum approved the list of members of the Central Military Commission (CMC), the Secretariat of the Central Committee and the Secretary and other office-bearers of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), elected by the first plenum of the CCDI. (The CCDI is the highest body of the CPC for discipline inspection.)

Significantly, the outgoing General Secretary, Jiang Zemin, has been re-elected as the Chairman of the powerful CMC. This indicates that Jiang Zemin will continue to play an important role in politics. Although the CMC is technically a non-government body, it is constitutionally empowered to supervise the running of the 2.5-million-strong People's Liberation Army (PLA). Hu Jintao will continue as the Vice-Chairman of the CMC. Analysts interpret this development, which was along expected lines, to mean that the Army will continue to wield considerable influence in the country's politics. Many of Jiang Zemin's confidants are said to be in the Polit Bureau's Standing Committee and other important state structures.

Jiang Zemin had assumed leadership at a time when the socialist bloc was disintegrating. The CPC under Jiang Zemin kept factionalism at bay and focussed on economic development. Jiang Zemin's theory of "Three Represents" has now been incorporated into the party constitution by the 16th party Congress. The theory holds that the Party can represent not only the working class, but also "the development trend of China's advanced productive forces, the orientation of the China's advanced culture and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people".

For the first time, the Party officially announced that rich business people were welcome to apply for membership. However, reports that China is run by a new unified structure consisting of the party, the government hierarchy and private business is highly exaggerated. The resolution on the amendment to the CPC constitution, adopted unanimously by the 16th Congress, states that the new reforms are being undertaken "to propel the modernisation drive, to achieve national reunification and to safeguard world peace and promote common development, and bringing about the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on its road to socialism with Chinese characteristics".

According to a senior Chinese official, the path that China has adopted is in response to the "peculiar conditions" the country is facing. According to the official, a huge population coupled with a weak economic base had prompted China to adopt a different course. He asserted that the country was "on a socialist path with Chinese characteristics". The resolution on the CPC Central Committee report, adopted unanimously by the 16th Congress, agreed "to establish the important thought of the Three Represents, Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory as the guiding ideology of the party". The resolution emphasised that the "Three Represents" is the foundation "for building of our party, the cornerstone for its governance and the source of its strength. The implementation of the thought of the Three Represents is, in essence, to keep pace with the times, maintain the party's progressiveness and exercise the state power in the interest of the people". It is evident that the new leadership is determined to continue the policies of the last decade. In his farewell speech to the Congress, President Jiang Zemin emphasised on the need "to keep pace with the times". He said that this was the "principle of overriding importance". The Congress wholeheartedly reciprocated to his speech by endorsing Jiang Zemin's formulation of the "Three Represents".

The economic crisis that had adversely impacted on South-East Asian economies in the mid-1990s left China virtually unscathed. Although a steady 8 per cent annual growth rate has seen the population become prosperous, the CPC has been the first to admit that the economic development has been uneven. The 16th Congress has pledged to address these and related issues such as corruption. President Jiang Zemin has made around 10 important speeches on the struggle against corruption. A new law on "supervision of government" by the National People's Congress is on the anvil. At the Congress, a senior Polit Bureau member, Wei Jianxing, warned communists "in high and low positions" that their party positions would not protect them from punishment for graft.

At the Congress, CPC leaders reiterated their determination to spread prosperity to the less-prosperous parts of China. Officials said that they plan to make heavy investments to develop highways, gas pipelines, railways and other industries. Since 1999, the government has started work on a rail line to Lhasa and a pipeline to supply gas from Xinjiang to Shanghai. At the same time, when the Congress was in session, senior government officials announced in Beijing that China would implement more reforms to accelerate the privatisation drive. They pledged that areas that had remained closed to private enterprise would be opened up. Foreign companies will be allowed to buy shares in state-owned companies.

Another important and potentially controversial decision was that farmers will be allowed to buy larger plots of land. "The playing field will be levelled," said Zeng Piyan, head of the State Development Planning Commission, when the Congress was in session. In some parts of China, garbage collection has been privatised. Chinese officials released figures to underline the success of their privatisation drive. Officials said that while in 1989 China had 90,000 private companies, it currently had more than two million. CPC officials say that this is a way of developing a "socialist market economy".

Many observers of China feel that the major challenges before the leadership will be on the issues of unemployment and increasing inequality between various regions. They claim that China's development strategy has sacrificed social equity and followed Deng's dictum that it is natural that some should get rich first. Foreign direct investments (FDI) have increased regional disparities. While the southern coastal cities have got the bulk of the investments, northwestern and southwestern China has received only 3 per cent of the FDI.

The reform of the state sector has resulted in tens of millions of workers employed in state-owned companies losing their jobs. Recently, Labour Minister Zhang Zuoji revealed that since 1998 a total of 26.11 million workers had been laid off. However, he said that 17.26 million have since been re-employed. Chinese officials have put the unemployment rate at around 10 per cent. Zhang Zuoji had admitted that the unemployment situation was "very grim". Job creation will be one of the major priorities of Hu Jiantao. "Expanding employment and promoting re-employment is not only a major economic problem, it is also a major political problem," Jiang Zemin had said in September.

Chinese officials say that the major focus areas for the country in the coming years will be economic development and developing friendly relations with other countries. China is today a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and is preparing to hold the Olympics in 2008. FDI in 2002 is projected to exceed $50 billion, the largest ever annual inflow.

It was also during Jiang Zemin's presidency that Hong Kong and Macau reverted back to Chinese sovereignty. Credit is also being given to Jiang Zemin's leadership for the smooth handling of the country's internal affairs and foreign relations. The ties with the United States were handled with considerable finesse, despite provocations such as the attack on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the U.S.-led war against Yugoslavia in 1999 and the shooting down of a Chinese air force plane off the Chinese coast in early 2002.

Speaking about Sino-U.S. ties, a Chinese official said that it was characterised by "struggle and cooperation". He said that China's major problem with the U.S. stemmed from the Taiwan issue. He said that China remained opposed to the U.S. "unilateralism" in international affairs. "On the other hand, we have cooperated on issues like counter-terrorism, regional security and various aspects of bilateral relations," said the official. China wants to conduct its diplomatic relations with its neighbours on the basis of the Five Principles of Co-existence, which were jointly enunciated by India and China in the 1950s and which now constitute an internationally accepted foreign policy principle.

Hu Jintao has been a strong votary of improved Sino-Indian ties. "India and China should look closely and handle bilateral relations from the historical perspective and a long-term viewpoint," Hu Jintao was quoted as saying in one of his speeches. He said that though Sino-Indian relations had "progressed on the normal development track, thanks to the efforts of the leaders of the two countries" the process was affected by "undesirable disturbances". Chinese officials say that they want good relations with India. "There is a lot in common between China and Russia and between China and India," said an official, alluding to the close relations both Delhi and Beijing have with Moscow. China also had border problems with both the countries.

The official pointed out that it was the visit of Rajiv Gandhi to China and Jiang Zemin's visit to India that followed it that put bilateral relations back on track. Both countries had agreed not to perceive each other as a threat. "We have to discard historical leftovers and look to the future. There is the need to develop better political relations and improve the relations between the two armed forces of the country," said a Chinese official. Recently, the Indian Army chief postponed his scheduled trip to China at the eleventh hour. Defence Minister George Fernandes, who was invited to visit China several months ago, has not yet given a time schedule for his visit.

China has been sending strong signals to India that it wishes to maintain equidistance in the dispute between New Delhi and Islamabad over Jammu and Kashmir. "China is not a threat to India. We are fully concentrating on economic development. We do not want to go to war with any country," said the senior Chinese official. The 16th Congress resolution on the CPC Central Committee report stressed "the need to pursue the independent foreign policy of peace and work with all nations to safeguard the common interests of mankind, boost world multipolarisation, oppose all forms of hegemonism and power politics, and advance the lofty cause of world peace and development".