More than one year ago, writers on Maoist websites began publishing articles attacking speeches by Wen that discussed universal values, democracy, and other issues.
On the other side, some journals and newspapers that have the reputation for supporting open ideas, such as Southern Weekend and China Through the Ages (“Yan Huang Chun Qiu”) have regularly published articles supporting ideas that Wen has been promoting—human dignity, political reform, and so on.
But the support for Wen has been subtle, with his name not being mentioned. However, recently one article broke the ice. Du Guang, a former scholar in the CCP Central Party School, on July 14 published the article “The Analysis of the Context of the Wave of Criticizing Wen Jiabao” on a Chinese-language website outside China. This article has been widely posted on many websites outside China and some inside China.
On July 15, the Deutsche Welle Chinese-language website published the article “An Exception Named: the Fight Between the Left and Right Wings Surrounding the Chinese Premier” to discuss the controversy swirling around Wen.
These two articles, especially the one by Du Guang, suggested that those who are attacking Wen are the Maoist hardliners and the power elite. Although these two groups are totally different, they have tended recently to form a combined force. The ones defending Wen were said to represent the desire for reform.
Du Guang quoted the founder and head of China Through the Ages, Du Daozheng, as saying there are two ideas and two powers among the top leaders of Zhongnanhai, the CCP’s leadership compound in Beijing. One insists on keeping the current situation, representing the corrupt power elite. The other pushes for reform and openness, representing the “advanced healthy force.” Both articles suggested that exposing the top leaders’ differences to the public is very unusual.
The Meaning of Reform
Reform has at least two meanings: economic and political. For the past 30 years in China, reform has only referred to changes in the economy and has never had political meaning.
Rather than ask, “Who is the reformer?” one might better ask, “Who is not a reformer?”
In 1992, Deng Xiaoping said, “Development is the only hard truth.” In the pursuit of that “hard truth,” in a form in which those who have the political power get rich first, the entire bureaucracy in China should be considered reformers.
The Maoist hardliners, also called the orthodox Marxists, don’t have political and economic influence in China today. If someone got rich in the past 30 years through political power and economic reform, he should be considered a reformer, no matter what he claims to be. In today’s China, there are no real Maoists among those in power.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
