CHINESE LEADERSHIP MULLS INCLUSION OF POLITICAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIJING 016057 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/03/2031 TAGS: PGOV PHUM CH SUBJECT: CHINESE LEADERSHIP MULLS INCLUSION OF POLITICAL REFORM ON PARTY CONGRESS AGENDA REF: BEIJING 3852 Classified By: Classified by Political Section Acting Internal Unit Chief Susan A. Thornton. Reasons 1.4 (b/d). Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) Party leaders appear to be laying the groundwork for including the issue of political reform on the agenda of the 17th National Party Congress next year. Embassy contacts have told Poloffs that a treatise on political reforms written by Central Party School scholars and posted to the website of the Party mouthpiece People's Daily has the backing of top Party leaders. One veteran Party journalist maintains that Party chief Hu Jintao would like to make political reform the centerpiece of his legacy and that the Congress political report, currently being drafted, will be the vehicle to launch this process. Comment: While publication of articles on political reform may well signal leadership discussions of the issue, leadership views are unlikely to track with proposals made by scholars. Caution remains the watchword as the leadership's focus on stability will likely yield incremental moves, at best. End summary and comment. Political Reform Treatise -------------- ¶2. (C) A 30-page treatise, entitled "A Plan for Political System Reform From the Perspective of Economic Development," by prominent Central Party School political economist Zhou Tianyong was posted to the People's Daily website on June 15 and is being cited as an indication that the topic of political reform is currently under discussion in leadership circles. The essay was a condensed version of a much larger Party School study on political reform conducted by Zhou's Party School Research Office two years ago. The popular reformist Guangdong party paper, Southern Weekend, carried an interview with Zhou a week later, further calling public attention to his views. (Note: Zhou traveled to the United States on the International Visitor Program in 2004. End note.) ¶3. (C) While Zhou's article advocated some important changes in governing structures such as the National People's Congress (NPC),his approach hews to the pragmatic Deng Xiaoping-era notion that reform of political institutions must serve economic development. His blueprint lays heavy emphasis on incremental change and stability and seeks to make government more efficient and public-service oriented without relinquishing Party control. Zhou argues that the sole purpose of political reform is to clear away obstacles to continued economic reform, rather than pursuing reform "for the sake of political reform itself" or from the perspective of "good and bad values." Critical of China's lack of "pragmatism" and "entanglement in ideological issues" in the past, Zhou advocates highly centralized political control combined with economic liberalization. He argues for Government retention of control over agricultural land and for continued control of the media. ¶4. (C) Within this framework, Zhou proposed non- interference in judicial proceedings, replacing governmental institutions below the county level with civic organizations and a series of reforms to the NPC. Specific reforms to the NPC system would include granting the NPC significant budgetary and fiscal power, broadening the social representation of its delegates, ensuring that legislation flows from NPC deputies rather than government bureaucrats, and instituting direct, competitive elections in which "voters directly elect" NPC deputies who in turn elect county magistrates and city mayors. "Future generations can choose a more satisfactory socialist political system after a few decades," Zhou concluded. Central Leadership Backing -------------- ¶5. (C) Although differing in particulars, well- connected journalists told Poloffs they consider the appearance of Zhou's essay on the People's Daily website an important development. At a minimum, this signals tacit leadership agreement with Zhou's approach to political reform, they said. Zhang BEIJING 00016057 002 OF 003 Xiantang (protect),an editor and manager at the State Council Development Research Center's influential paper Economic Times said it is difficult to know whether Hu Jintao or other top leaders had given specific instructions to People's Daily to post the essay. The People's Daily Online would not have carried it, however, if Zhou's ideas were not in close alignment with those of the leadership and if the Party Center had not given some indication on the timing of the essay's publication. In the opinion of Dong Yuyu (protect),long time Embassy contact and editor at the Party-controlled Guangming Daily, there is no question that internet publication of the essay indicates central leadership approval to give Zhou's proposal a more public hearing. ¶6. (C) In a speculative aside, Zhang commented that he and colleagues were not only surprised to see the essay, but were surprised at its cautious tone, particularly the advocacy of tight media controls. Zhang said this did not track with Zhou's earlier views on freedom of the media, which Zhang and his editors had heard Zhou discuss several times in person. Economic Times editors considered Zhou, who is a frequent contributor to the paper, to be fairly liberal and surmised that he had softened his tone to conform more closely to central leadership thinking, an indication in Zhang's view that People's Daily was acting at the behest of the Party Center. Laying the Groundwork for 17th Party Congress -------------- ¶7. (C) In the most sweeping assessment of the significance of Zhou's article, Fang Jinyu, Beijing bureau chief of Southern Weekly's parent organization, the Guangdong Party Committee paper Southern Daily, asserted that publication of the article was linked to broader ferment on political reform in the top reaches of the Party, including Hu Jintao's efforts to include it on the agenda of the 17th Party Congress that will be held in 2007. Fang said that the drafting of the Congress political report to be delivered by Hu Jintao is currently underway and will be discussed at the annual leadership meetings being held in Beijing in August. Fang said that the article was timed to coincide with the run-up to these meetings, which will begin to lay the groundwork for policy and personnel changes at next year's Congress. ¶8. (C) Fang confidently predicted that the 17th Party Congress political report would contain an important statement on political reform. The need is so obvious, said Fang, that Hu cannot avoid broaching the issue. The main impetus, though, is Hu's ambition to establish political reform as his legacy to the Party, a goal which his predecessors Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin failed to achieve, Fang commented. Fang said that Hu would use the 2007 Congress, the first under Hu's stewardship, to shape the agenda in this direction. The political report will therefore reflect this goal. Consensus Favors Reform -------------- ¶9. (C) Fang described what he considered several key factors that indicate that political reform is on the Chinese leadership's radar screen for the coming Party Congress. First, in Fang's telling, there is a broad consensus in the Party leadership that without political reform, the Party will lose its grip on power. The leadership both "desires and fears" political reform, realizing that on the one hand the Party may "fall from power" without it, yet fearing that even small reforms will trigger a chain reaction that the Party cannot control, Fang said. They realize, though, that they will have to move at some point. ¶10. (C) Second, a core group of highly respected veteran cadres has been pushing for significant internal Party reform for some time, and Hu and other leaders cannot ignore them, Fang stated. This group of veterans endorsed a comprehensive 8,000-character proposal by Mao's former secretary Li Rui, which was circulated at the 16th Party Congress in November 2002 and, contrary to Western news accounts, was "accepted" by the new leadership as well as by outgoing Party chief Jiang Zemin. The proposal called for genuine bottom-up, inner-Party elections of the top Party BEIJING 00016057 003 OF 003 leadership, with each successive layer (Central Committee, Politburo, Standing Committee of the Politburo, and the General Secretary),electing the next layer through direct, competitive elections. Among other things, Fang said, this would enable the Party to "control" its top leaders. Li's proposal also suggested transforming the Central Committee into a deliberative body in continuous session with a real voice in policy, in contrast to the current system of top-down annual plenums that simply ratify leadership decisions already made. ¶11. (C) More recently, key Party intellectuals have raised the issue of meaningful political reforms in the context of ongoing reform debates (reftel). A provocative recent Internet essay by former People's Daily deputy editor Zhou Ruijin advocated a system of internal party elections not unlike those in Li Rui's proposal. Internet sites have carried lively discussions of Vietnam's inner-Party elections at its Party Congress in April this year. A June meeting of reformers in the Western Hills, reportedly approved by Hu Jintao's staff, advocated far-reaching economic and political reforms, with one participant even calling for state, as opposed to Party, leadership of the military. ¶12. (C) Another indicator of leadership intent to move in this direction, according to Fang, is that Hu Jintao himself gave an internal speech at the Second Plenum of the 16th Central Committee in February of 2003 in which he signaled his intent to push ahead with political reform. Fang did not elaborate on Hu's exact words at the time, but seemed confident that current discussions of political reform indicate that the calculated progression toward this goal is proceeding according to plan. Comment -------------- ¶13. (C) When Hu Jintao became Party General Secretary in 2002 amid speculation that he would advocate political reforms, Chinese reformers were disappointed when reality did not match their heightened expectations. Faced with the first real opportunity to put his own stamp on the important Party Congress report, however, Hu will be looking to lay the groundwork for his own legacy as he begins his second and last five-year term as Party chief. ¶14. (C) Elements of Li Rui's or Zhou Tianyong's proposals, while not disavowing Party control of the Chinese state, would nevertheless be significant moves toward altering China's political system. Caution remains the watchword, however. Publication of articles on political reform may well signal high- level discussion of the issue and their content likely reflects the universe of possible approaches. In the end, though, the leadership's focus on stability will likely yield incremental moves, at best. RANDT