Jiang Seeks to Sell China on Plan to Let Capitalists Join Party

Under attack for trying to change the makeup of the Chinese Communist Party, President Jiang Zemin and his allies are waging an aggressive political campaign to shore up support for his proposal to invite entrepreneurs to join its ranks.

A stream of relentless propaganda in leading newspapers in recent days has extolled the idea and encouraged readers to study and embrace Jiang’s controversial new blueprint for China’s ruling party.

At the same time, the Beijing regime has stepped up its efforts to win hearts and minds among the party’s rank and file, dispatching high-level propaganda teams out to the provinces and setting up old-style ideology committees in government ministries to whip cadres into line.

The campaign comes amid forceful criticism by a remnant of committed leftists in China who accuse Jiang of betraying Communist principles by welcoming entrepreneurs into the fold. What, they ask, is a party of workers and peasants doing letting in the very capitalists whom they were meant to overthrow?

Analysts postulate that Jiang, who made the proposal July 1 in a speech commemorating the 80th anniversary of the party’s founding, is seeking a way to co-opt a fast-growing segment of society outside traditional party control and to cement his position and legacy before he steps down as president by the end of next year.

But the cracks in Jiang’s leadership became evident when open letters castigating his proposal were widely circulated and published. Authorities shut down a well-known Beijing journal, Pursuit of Truth, that criticized Jiang.

Media Offensive by President’s Allies

Jiang’s supporters fought back with their own media offensive. Last week, leading newspapers were ordered to run a series of daily front-page commentaries applauding his bold, new vision.

The essays maneuvered carefully within the minefield of Communist Chinese rhetoric, loudly declaring their love of Marxism while simultaneously endorsing its opposite.

“Comrade Jiang Zemin’s important speech on July 1 is the glorious apotheosis of adhering to, enriching and developing Marxism under new historical conditions,” the People’s Daily, the party mouthpiece, gushed Thursday.

In another commentary, the newspaper emphasized the need to admit members from “the new stratum” to the Communist Party--namely, capitalists, although that word remains officially taboo. In a possible nod to critics, the paper said that such members would have to be “excellent people” who would toe the line and respect workers’ rights but that regardless of their inclusion, workers and peasants remain the backbone of the party.

Still, criticism of the so-called Jiang Zemin theoretical structure continues to surface--even in the People’s Daily Internet chat room.

One posting last week, later deleted by censors, posed “10 questions” to Jiang, including how entrepreneurs could be expected to uphold socialism and communism.

Another took a satirical swipe at the official applications for membership required of all party aspirants.

“I, a blackhearted, cruel-handed red capitalist who kills people without batting an eye, who sees money as life itself and the lives of workers as worthless as straw, volunteer to join the Communist Party, to struggle . . . for the cause of the Communist Party’s corruption and my own future wealth,” the posting said, following the same format and conventions of real membership applications.

The party, the anonymous author wrote, represents the interests of China’s “privileged elites” and pursues policies “utterly devoid of humanity.”

Campaign Bears Echoes of Cultural Revolution

Such vitriol has apparently triggered greater zeal in Jiang’s counterattack.

Wu Guoguang, an expert on Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said Beijing’s use of formal ideology groups in provincial governments and in central ministries to drive home Jiang’s new doctrine has echoes of the radical 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

“In the past two decades, we have not had anything like that” in China, said Wu, who served in the mainland government in the late 1980s but was ousted for his reformist views.

Recent news articles in China tell of high-ranking officials visiting the provinces to educate local cadres on Jiang’s pronouncements. National newscasts, which can reach hundreds of millions of viewers, stress the importance of Jiang’s agenda almost nightly.

Through the blanket campaign and the rebuke of his critics, Jiang apparently hopes to set the terms of political debate well into the future, even after a leadership shuffle takes place at a key party gathering late next year.

Ensuring now that his agenda is accepted means that the “fourth generation” of Chinese leaders, those in line to succeed Jiang, will be constrained by his legacy.

“In the traditional way of thinking in Chinese politics, two things are critical: the gun and the pen,” Wu said. Jiang is known to want to maintain control of the military--the gun--after he steps down from the presidency, and to continue to guide policy through his writings and musings on Chinese Communist theory, including the party’s recent welcome of its old class “enemies.”

“Another way to keep his influence [is to] establish an ideological framework. The fourth-generation leaders then have to operate within that framework,” Wu said. “Everyone has to talk about ‘Jiang Zemin thought.’ ”