Elite China think-tank issues political reform blueprint
BEIJING (Reuters) - China risks dangerous instabilityunless it embraces democratic reforms to limit the power of theruling Communist Party, foster competitive voting and rein incensors, the Party's top think-tank has warned in a new report.
The "comprehensive political system reform plan" byscholars at the Central Party School in Beijing argues forsteady liberalisation that its authors say can build a "moderncivil society" by 2020 and "mature democracy and rule of law"in later decades.
The cost of delaying this course could be economic disarrayand worsening corruption and public discontent, they write in"Storming the Fortress: A Research Report on China's PoliticalSystem Reform after the 17th Party Congress".
"Citizens' steadily rising democratic consciousness and thegrave corruption among Party and government officials make itincreasing urgent to press ahead with demands for politicalsystem reform," the report states. "The backwardness of thepolitical system is affecting economic development."
The report was finished in October, just after the Party'stwice-a-decade congress ended and gave President Hu Jintao fivemore years as party chief. But it is only now appearing in someBeijing bookstores.
This is no manifesto for outright democracy. The authorssay the Party must keep overall control and "elite"decision-making will help China achieve lasting economicprosperity by pushing past obstacles to economic reform.
But the 366-page report give a strikingly detailedblueprint of how some elite advisers see political relaxationunfolding, with three phases of reform in the next 12 years,including restricting the Party's powers and expanding therights of citizens, reporters, religious believers andlawmakers.
"Until now political reform has been scattered andinconsequential," Wang Guixiu, a professor at the Party Schoolnot involved in the study, told Reuters. "Real political reformneeds a substantive plan of action, and there are some scholarsand officials who believe that's what is needed now."
The authors include Zhou Tianyong and Wang Changjiang,senior reform-minded scholars at the School, which trainsofficials for higher office. The report also has a preface byLi Junru, a government adviser and vice president of the PartySchool.
Several authors contacted for comment declined to comment.
UNSETTLING SOCIAL CHANGES
The authors argue that government regulation of news isneeded as China navigates unsettling social changes. But thepresent system of secretive and often arbitrary censorship isstoking corruption and public distrust of government, theysaid.
"Freedom of the press is an inevitable trend," they said,calling for a law to protect reporters and "effectively haltunconstitutional and unlawful interference in mediaactivities".
They also urge greater official respect for religion -- asensitive topic in China, where the atheist Party is wary ofgrowing numbers of Christians, and unrest in Buddhist Tibet andthe largely Muslim region of Xinjiang in the country's farwest.
"Political faith and religious faith are not incontradiction," the scholars said.
They propose that China's nearly 3,000-delegate nationalparliament be slimmed down and given direct powers to set thebudget and audit government spending.
Candidates for legislatures should be allowed to activelycompete for votes, which is now banned, the authors said. Andthe Communist Party itself must bind itself under rule of law.
Communist Party chief Hu has promoted limited "inner-Partydemocracy" to expose officials to more checks, but has shown noappetite for broad political liberalisation.
In a speech on Monday, Hu said the Party had to be a"staunch leadership core" that maintained "flesh-and-bloodbonds" with the people, Xinhua news agency reported.
But the Party School report, with its detailed argumentsfor change, and other books and essays from reformist advisersin the past year, suggest that some senior advisers have beenthinking closely about much more ambitious reforms.
A recent survey of mid-ranking officials studying at theParty School indicated that growing numbers believe deeperpolitical reform is needed.
In the survey of 154 officials conducted in late 2007, 55.5percent nominated the "political system" as one of three areasof reform that most "concerned" them, according to a studyrecently published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
In late 2005, 40 percent of officials surveyed listedpolitical reform as one of the areas.
(Editing by Brian Rhoads and David Fox)