The end of ideology in China

S.P. Seth, Freelance Writer, Sydney, SushilPSeth@aol.com

China's ruling oligarchy is faced with multiple problems as it prepares for the Communist Party's 16th congress starting Nov. 8. The most obvious, of course, is whether or not Jiang Zemin will relinquish all three posts of state president, party general secretary and chairman of the military commission.

The way the party is gearing up to sanctify his ideology of the "Three Represents" suggests that, whatever he decides, he will still wield immense power. The "Three Represents" is a wooley concept essentially designed to abolish ideology. Under this, the party supposedly is everybody's favorite uncle, representing "advanced productive forces, advanced culture and the fundamental interests of all people." In other words, China is now free of all social and economic contradictions.

It is now the end of ideology for China, but with the party's monopoly on power intact. The party regards itself as the authentic and representative voice of all the people, hence there is no longer any need to focus on workers and peasants. They have been abolished as the party's favored people. The party is now open to all, including capitalists, who even qualify as model workers.

Why is this happening? Basically, the party has become a victim of its own propaganda, which proposes that China is making rapid economic strides with everyone gaining. This, however, is definitely not true for China's rural population of 800 million, which initially benefited when communal farming was abolished in the 1980s. Since then, farming has been neglected at the expense of urban areas.

For China's peasants, the situation is getting worse. Large numbers of rural youth seek jobs in the cities under the most inhospitable conditions. Estimates of this floating rural population vary anywhere from 200 to 300 million people. Statistics in China, official or unofficial, are unreliable. Regardless, the enormity of the situation is quite obvious. For those left behind, things are very hard. A 71-year-old farmer has said that after handing over 75 kilograms of rice to the local government and paying other taxes, he is almost left with nothing to keep going.

People can't fathom where all the money is going. The system is corrupt, and makes life hard for everyone, especially the peasants. To make things worse, the countryside is losing arable land at an annual rate of 0.5 percent to erosion, urban development and encroachment of deserts. As it is China has only 7 percent of the world's arable land with the largest population to support. Still, the rape of the land and exploitation of the peasantry continues.

Even the much-touted urban boom, according to He Qinglian-a Chinese author forced into exile-is an exercise in plunder. It has been "a process in which power-holders and their hangers-on plundered public wealth. The primary target of their plunder was state property that had been accumulated from 40 years of the people's sweat, and their primary means of plunder was political power."

In this respect there are remarkable similarities with Russia under President Boris Yeltsin. In China, though, it is all happening under its communist regime-supposedly the guardian of the interests of the workers and peasants.

China is being effectively ruled as a partnership between the party and the country's new robber-baron class. A small clique is becoming very rich by diverting resources. For instance, it is calculated that since 1992 the outflow of capital to private foreign accounts, maintained by China's rich and powerful, has equaled the inflow.

Similarly, vast sums have been squandered in speculative deals, especially in real estate. This accounts for part of the non-performing loan crisis. Bad loans in banking sector are estimated at anywhere from 25 percent to 60 percent. The people, however, are kept in the dark about the financial black hole, so China has escaped a run on its banks, which are technically bankrupt.

It is this alliance of the party and the underworld that Jiang seeks to sanctify under his "Three Represents." Everybody, who is anybody in China, has his/her fingers in the till. While the ruling oligarchy pushes to legitimize this exercise, it is unlikely to stave off an eventual catastrophe.