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EDITORIALS

december 14, 2013 vol xlviII no 50 EPW Economic & PoliticalWeekly8

If one were to go by Xi Jinping, the Chinese Communist Partys

(CCP) general secretary and Chinas president, the Third

Plenum (plenary meeting) of the 18th Central Committee (CC)

of the CCP, held in Beijing from 9 to 12 November 2013, is going to

prove as much of a turning point in the development of social-

ism with Chinese characteristics as the historic Third Plenum of

the 11th CCof the CCPin December 1978. For the latest Third

Plenum deliberated upon and passed some major issues in

comprehensively deepening reform (the official communiqu),

just as, 35 years ago, the then plenum heralded the road to the re-

distribution of commune land to individual households, the institu-

tion of the household responsibility system, and the open-door

policy of 1979 that led to the development of special economic

zones. The present reform initiative, scheduled to be completed

by 2020, is based, not just on the principles of socialism with Chi-

nese characteristics and Deng Xiaoping theory, but also the

important Three Represents thought, the latter in vogue ever

since the 16th CCP Congress in 2002 welcomed capitalists to jointhe Party. So what is the content of Reform 2.0?

As usual, the reader will be hard-pressed to find any specifics

in the official communiqu. It is full of platitudes. But all the

economic proposals, whatever they may be, closely revolve

around the decisive function that the market has in allocating

resources, for the country will remain in the preliminary stage

of socialism for a long time. The communiqu reiterates that

the core issue is handling the relationship between government

and the market well. It, however, deeply disappoints the Wall

Street market-types when it states, We must unwaveringly con-

solidate and develop the publicly owned economy, persist in the

dominant role of the public ownership system... Nevertheless,

it does give importance to the establishment of a uniform land

use market across town andcountry (our emphasis) and the

endowment of peasants with more property rights. And, it in-

sists: We must relax investment access, accelerate the con-

struction of free trade zones and expand inland and coastal

openness. Last but certainly not the least, China is going to

establish a National Security Committee on the lines of the

national security councils in Russia and the United States (US),

bringing together the military, the intelligence, foreign policy,

and internal security establishments under one umbrella.

What seems to have disappointed the Wall Street types is thefact that Chinas and some of the worlds biggest state-owned

enterprises (SOEs) and banks China National Petroleum, Sinopec

(the super-large petrochemical group), State Grid Corporation and

the state-owned commercial banks are not going to be restruc-

tured and privatised. But the big new change seems to be that the

peasants are going to be allowed to lease their land for commer-

cial purposes, and this will spur agribusiness. And, if one were

to go by what the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is reported to have

said just before the plenum, local governmentsshouldno longer

be allowed to invest in and run businesses, which suggests a

whole lot of privatisation of local SOEsis on the anvil.

Perhaps the most pressing reform, if one were to stretch

ones imagination to call it that, is going to be the creation of the

National Security Committee. What has brought this on? The

first is the imperative to devise and implement a comprehensive

counter to the USadministrations pivot to Asia strategy that seeks

to militarily and diplomatically isolate and contain the Middle

Kingdom and we already, perhaps, see this in action in the East

China Sea. The second reason is the apprehension that the deep-

ening inequalities are going to spur many more class struggles those of workers, especially migrants, resisting exploitation in

the factories and at the construction sites, and fighting for the

right to independently organise, and of peasants fighting for

their land tenure rights in the face of displacement. However,

besides strengthening the repressive apparatus, the plenums

communiqu also exhorts the CCPto be concerned about the

lives of the masses and especially the masses in difficulties.

The bid to further open the Chinese economy, both in the trade

and financial sense of the term, evident in the communiqu, should

be seen in the context of the deceleration of economic growth

following the great financial crisis and subsequent economic

stagnation in the developed capitalist world. Indeed, the recent

life sentence handed down to Bo Xilai, a politburo member and

party secretary in the south-western city of Chongqing, it is

alleged, had more to do with his mass line Maoist-style politics

and opposition to further opening of the Chinese economy than

on the merits of the prosecutions charges of corruption per se.

The old left in the All-China Federation of Trade Unions and/or in

the CCPcannot stomach the glaring disparities between the workers

and peasants on the one hand, and the economic and political

elites on the other. This old left now has the indirect support of

Chinas new left students, intellectuals and other sections of the

middle class (active internet activists) in the universities and urbancentres. The question is: For how long will reform go on under

the guidance of the CCPand without political democratisation?

China Reform 2.0

Will the new initiatives be successful without political democratisation?