If one were to go by Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP)
general secretary and China’s president, the Third Plenum (plenary
meeting) of the 18th Central Committee (CC) of the CCP, held in Beijing
from 9 to 12 November 2013, is going to prove as much of a turning point
in the development of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” as the
historic Third Plenum of the 11th CC of the CCP in December 1978. For
the latest Third Plenum deliberated upon and passed “some major issues
in comprehensively deepening reform” (the official communiqué), just as,
35 years ago, the then plenum heralded the road to the redistribution
of commune land to individual households, the
institution of the
household responsibility system, and the “open-door” policy of 1979 that
led to the development of special economic zones. The present reform
initiative, scheduled to be completed by 2020, is based, not just on the
principles of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and “Deng
Xiaoping theory”, but also the “important ‘Three Represents’ thought”,
the latter in vogue ever since the 16th CCP Congress in 2002 welcomed
capitalists to join the Party. So what is the content of “Reform 2.0”?
As usual, the reader will be hard-pressed to find any specifics in
the official communiqué. It is full of platitudes. But all the economic
proposals, whatever they may be, “closely revolve around the decisive
function that the market has in allocating resources”, for the “country
will remain in the preliminary stage of socialism for a long time”. The
communiqué reiterates that “the core issue is handling the relationship
between government and the market well”. It, however, deeply disappoints
the Wall Street market-types when it states, “We must unwaveringly
consolidate and develop the publicly owned economy, persist in the
dominant role of the public ownership system...” Nevertheless, it does
give importance to the establishment of a uniform “land use market
across town
and country” (our emphasis) and the endowment of
“peasants with more property rights”. And, it insists: “We must relax
investment access, accelerate the construction of free trade zones and
expand inland and coastal openness.” Last but certainly not the least,
China is going to establish a “National Security Committee” on the lines
of the national security councils in Russia and the United States (US),
bringing together the military, the intelligence, foreign policy, and
internal security establishments under one umbrella.
What seems to have disappointed the Wall Street types is the fact
that China’s and some of the world’s biggest state-owned enterprises
(SOEs) and banks – China National Petroleum, Sinopec (the super-large
petrochemical group), State Grid Corporation and the state-owned
commercial banks – are not going to be restructured and privatised. But
the big new change seems to be that the peasants are going to be allowed
to lease their land for commercial purposes, and this will spur
agribusiness. And, if one were to go by what the Chinese Premier Li
Keqiang is reported to have said just before the plenum, local
governments
should no longer be allowed to invest in and run
businesses, which suggests a whole lot of privatisation of local SOEs is
on the anvil.
Perhaps the most pressing “reform”, if one were to stretch one’s
imagination to call it that, is going to be the creation of the National
Security Committee. What has brought this on? The first is the
imperative to devise and implement a comprehensive counter to the US
administration’s “pivot to Asia” strategy that seeks to militarily and
diplomatically isolate and contain the “Middle Kingdom” and we already,
perhaps, see this in action in the East China Sea. The second reason is
the apprehension that the deepening inequalities are going to spur many
more class struggles – those of workers, especially migrants, resisting
exploitation in the factories and at the construction sites, and
fighting for the right to independently organise, and of peasants
fighting for their land tenure rights in the face of displacement.
However, besides strengthening the repressive apparatus, the plenum’s
communiqué also exhorts the CCP to “be concerned about the lives of the
masses and especially the masses in difficulties”.
The bid to further open the Chinese economy, both in the trade and
financial sense of the term, evident in the communiqué, should be seen
in the context of the deceleration of economic growth following the
great financial crisis and subsequent economic stagnation in the
developed capitalist world. Indeed, the recent life sentence handed down
to Bo Xilai, a politburo member and party secretary in the
south-western city of Chongqing, it is alleged, had more to do with his
“mass line” Maoist-style politics and opposition to further opening of
the Chinese economy than on the merits of the prosecution’s charges of
corruption per se. The “old left” in the All-China Federation of Trade
Unions and/or in the CCP cannot stomach the glaring disparities between
the workers and peasants on the one hand, and the economic and political
elites on the other. This “old left” now has the indirect support of
China’s “new left” – students, intellectuals and other sections of the
middle class (active internet activists) in the universities and urban
centres. The question is: For how long will “reform” go on under the
guidance of the CCP and without political democratisation?
