Saturday 20 June 2009
How China must change
In spite being a Communist bureaucrat in his entire political career, Zhao demonstrated a clear and concise understanding of the inherent weaknesses of a one-party system. In comparison, Prime Minister Lee recently proclaimed that a one-party state is the only viable political system for Singapore.
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How China must change
Extract from The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang
The following is taken from “Prisoner of the state: the secret journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang”. Zhao was China’s Premier from 1980 to 1986 and General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1987 to 1989. Together with Hu Yaobang, he was considered one of the key reformers responsible for China’s transition from a centralized to market economy. He was purged by the Party following his refusal to obey orders to impose martial law in Beijing during the Tiananmen protests.
In spite being a Communist bureaucrat in his entire political career, Zhao demonstrated a clear and concise understanding of the inherent weaknesses of a one-party system. In comparison, Prime Minister Lee recently proclaimed that a one-party state is the only viable political system for Singapore.
We had to change the way we governed, but how were we to make these changes? I had gradually developed some ideas on how to accomplish this.
Given that the Communist Party was the ruling party, how should it govern? My idea was to modernize how it governed, so that it could become more modern, civilized, enlightened, and open.
First, we needed to increase the transparency of Party and state decision making. The major activities and decisions of the Party and the state needed to be made public. This would have changed the long-standing ‘black-box’ operation, where the public is only given the final result of a decision. As soon as the government announced a decision, it moved on to implementation, but people were not privy to the process by which the decision had been made. This is very important. People have the right to know.
Next, we needed to establish multiple channels for dialogue - with various social factions, forces, and interests. Decisions on major issues should be made with ongoing consultation and dialogue with various social groups, not just within the Communist Party, and not only after merely consulting once with key figures of other political parties.
Of course, we had to permit social groups to exist; otherwise, how could dialogue be conducted? Most important, we needed to change the situation in which all social groups - including workers’ unions, youth organizations, women’s organizations, chambers of commerce, and others - were all in monotonous unity with the Communist Party. They should not be treated like the Party’s royal instruments. They have to be able to truly represent the people they are meant to represent.
Only dialogue conducted with groups of this kind would carry any real meaning. In other words, their functions as intermediate organizations should be fully developed. The Communist Party should not take control of everything or interfere so much in their affairs, and should give them room for independent activities. Under such conditions, the Communist Party should hold dialogues and consult with various social groups, enabling these groups to have real political participation.
Moreover, the ruling party must respect the separation of Party and state. The Party’s leadership should be essentially political and not interfere in so many other domains.
We also needed to enrich the level of cooperation with other political parties and let other parties enjoy true political participation with functions of dialogue and mutual checks and balances. Furthermore, we needed to protect citizens’ rights in concrete terms. This was extremely important.
We also needed to allow greater press freedom, though under management and leadership. In 1989, I talked to (chief editor of the People’s Daily) Hu Jiwei about whether we ought to allow independent newspapers. Currently, all news media are monopolized by the Party and the state: this is not right. At that time, I had not considered permitting a completely free press, but wanted to allow a controlled process of opening up. At the very least, material that Party- and state-controlled media were not willing to run could be published by other media. Even if we did not allow full press freedom, we should allow airing of public opinions.
At that time, I was thinking about how to allow more political participation - under the Communist Party’s continued ruling position - from various social groups and interest groups, and especially by intellectuals. Even without a multiparty system, we should have expanded various forces of political participation as much as possible.
These are the ideas that gradually formed in my mind from 1986 to 1989. The Party’s ruling position would not change, but the way it governed had to. That is to say, under the basic framework of the Communist Party’s leadership, we would allow more political participation from various social groups; “rule of law” would gradually replace “rule by men”; and many of the wonderful things defined in the Constitution would be realized, one by one.
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