30TH ANNIVERSARY OF REFORM CELEBRATION TO AFFIRM

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIJING 004574 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/17/2033 TAGS: PGOV CH SUBJECT: 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF REFORM CELEBRATION TO AFFIRM CURRENT LINE, SIGNAL "CONCLUSION" TO POLICY DEBATE REF: A. 07 BEIJING 5974 ¶B. 07 BEIJING 5815 ¶C. 07 BEIJING 4420 ¶D. 07 BEIJING 3608 Classified By: Political Section Internal Unit Chief Dan Kritenbrink. Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) China's Communist Party leadership is set to commemorate the 30th anniversary of China's reform and opening policies on December 18 by lauding the Chinese "economic miracle" and affirming the legitimacy of the present leadership as heir to former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's mantle, according to a range of Embassy contacts. The celebration is also designed to mark the "conclusion" of a debate over the direction of reform, meaning the Party will maintain its current "correct" path of continued economic reform and development with minimal political change. Despite the official "end" to reform-related debate, discussion continues in elite circles over China's proper policy direction for "the next 30 years." End Summary. CAREFULLY ORCHESTRATED ANNIVERSARY -------------- ¶2. (C) In commemoration of the 30th anniversary of China's reform and opening policies, prominent Beijing journalists and academics expect the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to stage a carefully orchestrated celebration on December 18 that will tout the Party's successes of the last 30 years and call for continued support of the current leadership under Party General Secretary Hu Jintao. The celebration is timed to coincide with the opening 30 years ago of the Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee on December 18, 1978, at which former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and his allies gained the upper hand and launched China on its present path of "reform and opening" (gaige kaifang). ¶3. (C) The official commemoration will be an event of "considerable fanfare" that will "declare the reform and opening policy as correct and successful," while crediting the Party for that achievement, Wang Wen (protect),opinion editor of the People's Daily-affiliated international affairs newspaper Global Times, told PolOff on November 25. Well-connected independent journalist Chen Jieren (protect) separately agreed, commenting to PolOff on November 24 that by staging the event, the Party hopes to achieve three goals: affirm Hu Jintao's leadership position, enhance Party legitimacy by showing "the people" the "great things" it is doing for them and signal that there will be no deviation from the current policy line. ¶4. (C) Despite wanting to trumpet the Party's claims that "reform and opening" has been an unqualified success, some pundits predict that Party leaders will exercise "restraint" over the content and style of the celebratory rhetoric. The event "should be a huge spectacle," Jin Canrong (protect), Associate Dean of International Studies at Renmin University, said to PolOffs December 15, but concluded that it "almost certainly will not be," in part because of the many challenges China still faces despite the accomplishments of the past 30 years. Li Dun (protect),Professor Emeritus at Tsinghua University, said November 21 that the commemorative events will "not be too big or overblown," partly in anticipation next year of greater debate in the media over China's pressing social problems. Wu Yin (protect) of Horizon Research, a public polling firm, thought the Party's relatively "restrained" rhetoric surrounding the celebration is a "good thing," viewing it as a "sign of progress" that the CCP has moved beyond its past "over-the-top propaganda." KEEPING A "TIGHT LID" ON THE PRESS ... -------------- ¶5. (C) Tsinghua's Li Dun said the Central Propaganda Department will keep a "tight lid" on the media because the leadership does not want the anniversary to spark a public debate about the pros and cons of reform. The Chinese Government's attitude, Li said, is that any open discussion of problems somehow negates all past success. The Party wants to "cool down" the current "free-wheeling debate" among intellectuals on the merits of reform and opening, Tsinghua history professor Qin Hui (protect) told PolOff November 24, noting that the Central Propaganda Department has taken a tough stance regarding the public celebration of the event. "Hard-line" President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Chen Kuiyuan, recently gave a speech that conveyed that same message, Qin said. The liberal scholar Mao Yushi BEIJING 00004574 002 OF 003 (protect),Chairman and Senior Fellow of the Unirule Institute of Economics, said on November 25 that his remarks at a Beijing University conference on 30 years of reform in January 2008 were the only ones not reported in CCTV's coverage of the conference. It is okay to talk about rising living standards in China, Mao said, but discussion of human rights and Westernization is "clearly more sensitive." ... WHILE RAMPING UP COVERAGE -------------- ¶6. (C) PRC media have been running special columns and retrospectives on the reform period all year and have further stepped up their efforts in recent weeks with special CCTV programming and comments by high-profile intellectuals in major urban newspapers and magazines. The major commentary journals are planning special issues this month. For example, Southern Window, the reform-minded Party-owned biweekly, will publish an article on U.S.-China relations (the establishment of which coincided with China's reform and opening drive) by well-known Beijing University Professor Wang Jisi, editor-in-chief Zhu Xuedong (protect) told PolOff on September 24. Zhang Jingping (protect),senior journalist at the Party-owned envelope-pushing weekly, Southern Weekend, will begin a new series that will discuss the merits of the tenures of former Premier Zhu Rongji and former Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin. In a departure from this pattern, however, the magazine Sanlian Life Weekly will do "some coverage" of the 30th anniversary of reform, but will try to keep it to "a minimum," according to editor Cai Wei (protect). "Ignoring" the event is not an option, Cai told PolOff November 22, "but for commercial reasons," Sanlian will do "only the minimum necessary" to "please propaganda officials." As a for-profit publication, Sanlian's sales will decline if people see that it is running the same news as Xinhua and other state organs. In fact, the reason people buy Sanlian, Cai said, is because it is not operated by the Central Government and does "interesting" independent stories. MAINTAINING THE CURRENT LINE: "CONCLUDING" DEBATE -------------- -------------- ¶7. (C) Although the Party has been careful to keep debate over the merits of reform largely out of the public realm, spirited discussion of this issue has taken place among intellectuals and Party members for the last couple of years, according to Embassy contacts (see refs A-D). Nonetheless, the 30th anniversary of reform celebration is designed to serve as the "conclusion" to that debate, Cao Huayin (protect),Deputy Secretary General of the China Reform Forum, a Central Party School-affiliated think tank, told PolOff November 24. The official verdict is that the Party's current path is "correct" and there will be no deviation from it, Cao declared. (NOTE: This is the second time in the past year that Chinese observers, including Cao, have pointed to a major Party event as signaling an "end" to debate over the direction of reform, the last being Hu Jintao's June 25, 2007 speech at the Central Party School, which previewed his political report delivered to the October 2007 17th Party Congress (ref A). The fact that the Party continues to find it necessary to "conclude" debate over reform clearly demonstrates that it is ongoing.) "INTENSE" DISCUSSION AMONG INTELLECTUALS CONTINUES -------------- -------------- ¶8. (C) Contacts described the nature of the ongoing debate in elite circles over reform, despite the Party's best efforts to demonstrate that the debate is "over." Liu Lilin (protect),Deputy Secretary General of the Tsinghua International Center for Communication Studies, told PolOff December 4 that, for ordinary citizens, reform and opening has been a "big success," so there is really no public debate over the wisdom of Deng Xiaoping's policies. In elite circles within the Party, however, differing views clearly exist, with some "significant people in the Party" being critical of reform and opening, Liu said. Some are older leftists who want to return to Mao's "ideals" of socialism. Younger critics do not repudiate reform and opening as a whole but do critique certain aspects of it, including inequality and the idea of "letting some get rich first." Tsinghua's Qin echoed this view, stating that although leaders say the success of opening and reform is indisputable, many intellectuals are not so sure it has been such an unqualified "success." Leftist scholars, in particular, continue to question whether the new prosperity is really something to cheer about since it is distributed so unequally, Qin stated. At the core of this debate, according to Deng Yuwen (protect),senior editor at the Central Party School weekly Study Times, is the fundamental question of the nature of reform itself. The debate is not about whether to BEIJING 00004574 003 OF 003 continue the reforms, Deng told PolOff October 21, but "What does 'reform' really mean for China today?" ¶9. (C) While acknowledging "fierce debate" among intellectuals and policy-oriented academics over the future direction of reform, Southern Window's Zhu said this is "nothing new." "There is "always" intense discussion within the Party over reform and other issues, but "reform cannot be reversed," Zhu stressed. The challenge is to move beyond Deng Xiaoping's reform metaphor, "crossing the river by feeling the stones," because it "no longer applies." Tsinghua's Liu Lilin agreed Deng's metaphor is no longer feasible because, after 30 years, China needs a clear vision, not just a policy of "muddling through." Southern Window's Zhu noted that the Party now has 30 years of experience, with a better grasp of the requirements of reform, including lessons learned from the United States and other countries. The fact that the question is how to proceed from here, not whether to proceed, means "the opponents of reform cannot win." In its early stages, reform was "forced on people," driven by economic necessity, but now reform is a "self-driven" and broad-based initiative due to China's prosperity and security. "Over 80 percent" of Chinese elites support the reform and opening policies, China Reform Forum's Dai Fengning (protect) told PolOff November 24. The question, Dai emphasized, is, as China sticks to the general path of reform, "Precisely where do we go from here?" THE NEXT 30 YEARS? -------------- ¶10. (C) Beijing observers pointed out two challenges China's leaders will have to deal with during "the next 30 years": the rise of populism and the need for "real" political reform. According to Renmin University's Jin Canrong, the rise of populism, especially among China's on-line netizens, is a "major change" and "a potential danger." For the first 25 years of the reform period, Jin said, Chinese politics was largely an "elite game" played by Party "reformers" and "liberal" intellectuals, aligned against Party "conservatives" and "leftist" intellectuals. In the last five years, however, Party leaders have appeared to the outside world to be unified, with division among them "indiscernible," meaning that "debate" has largely been left to intellectuals (liberals versus leftists). At the same time, netizens have become involved in these debates on-line, which Jin said marks the public's first real participation in such discussions. The problem, Jin warned, is that "populist" netizens are "against everything" and do not want to be represented by anyone, as they are "anti-Government, anti-intellectual, anti-business and anti-West." ¶11. (C) If these "populists" were to find a political leader, the consequences could be "dangerous," Jin averred. China's leaders are extremely "opportunistic" and merely "play the appropriate card" at the right time to gain political advantage. For example, Chongqing Party Secretary Bo Xilai recently played the "leftist card" by allowing the Chongqing Medical University to establish a "Mao Zedong Center," Jin said. Guangdong Party Secretary Wang Yang, by contrast, has been playing the "reformist card" by pressing "thought liberation" and allowing "everything that is not illegal." Meanwhile, controversial Kunming City Party Secretary Qiu He is one of the first Chinese leaders to play the "populist card" by using autocratic methods to push policies "for the people," which Jin saw as a sign for concern. The "populist problem" will be a significant challenge as China's leaders grapple with where to steer the country and how to adjust the reform and opening policies of the past 30 years, Jin asserted. ¶12. (C) Whether China can implement "real" political reform will largely determine the country's success over the next 30 years, independent journalist Chen Jieren asserted to PolOff. The great challenge to the Party comes from social instability and waning Party legitimacy due to the leadership's inability to deal effectively with problems brought about by reform and opening, such as inequality and corruption. The "only way" to solve these problems is through political reforms that will check the Party's power, allow for popular elections and establish an independent judiciary. Unfortunately, the prospects for such reforms under the current leadership are "extremely dim." While some "reformist elements" within the Party were hoping to use the 30th anniversary celebrations as a means of advancing a reform agenda, it is "abundantly clear" that the Party will not tolerate any challenge to its monopoly on power. The global economic downturn has only further diminished the chance that the Party will introduce meaningful political reforms anytime soon, Chen concluded. Randt