Sol Invictus
01-25-2011, 12:40 AM
China invokes Maoism in battle against corruption
'Princeling' descendants of Communist party heroes revive Marxist-Leninist teachings to combat graft;
January 10, 2011 | The Vancouver Sun (http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/editorials/China+invokes+Maoism+battle+against+corruption/4084652/story.html)
There are tantalizing indications that the anointing of the fifth generation of post-revolution leaders in China next year will be marked by a return to the Marxist-Leninist political philosophy of the dynasty's founder, Mao Zedong.
Observers in China and Asia are speculating about an impending Maoist revival after official media enthusiastically reported on a visit early last month to the massive western city of Chongqing by the man slated to become the next Communist party leader and national president, vice-president Xi Jinping.
What made Xi's visit to Chongqing, one of the world's largest metropolises with 32 million people, seem a harbinger of things to come is that the city's party secretary, Bo Xilai, is an avid and indefatigable promoter of the thoughts and philosophy of Chairman Mao.
And Xi during his two-day visit was, according to China's state-controlled media, unstinting in his praise of Bo and the Maoist revival.
He applauded Bo's campaigns of "singing red songs, studying the Maoist canon, telling Mao-era stories, and passing along Mao's dicta. These activities have gone deeply into the hearts of the people and are worthy of praise," Xi said.
Bo, who like Xi is a "princeling" son of a hero of the Communist revolution of the 1930s and '40s, sees a return to Mao's unequivocal Communist morality as the antidote to the social ills that have overtaken China since the campaign of economic reform began 30 years ago.
When Bo was appointed Chongqing's party leader in late 2007, after several years as China's minister of commerce, he decided that a reaffirmation of Mao's thought was the solution to the problems of corruption, moral degradation, ideological confusion, and the entrenchment of fraud and dishonesty as normal behaviour that are threatening the continued rule of the Communist party.
Since mid-2008, Bo's officials have organized 128,000 "Red-song" shows and 28,000 public recitations of Mao's writings. About 130 million cellphone and computer text messages containing Mao's thoughts and mottoes have been sent to school and college students.
Along with this campaign of moral renewal, Bo launched a campaign against the intertwined corrupt relationship between triad gangsters, the police and party officials in Chongqing.
About 2,000 people have been tried and punished in what has been perhaps the most persistent and effective drive against China's endemic corruption.
And it is here that we can get a whiff of the politics of the succession as Xi prepares to replace party leader and president Hu Jintao starting in September 2012.
Bo's predecessor as party secretary in Chongqing was Wang Yang, now the party leader in southern Guangdong province.
At the very least Wang must have ignored the institutionalized corruption in Chongqing on his watch. More likely he was a beneficiary.
But Wang is a protege of President Hu and rose to prominence through the ranks of Hu's power base, the Communist Youth League.
So Xi's praise for Bo's Maoist campaign is being seen as both a slap at Hu and, perhaps, the start of an attempt to create a ruling alliance among the "princelings." Xi is known to believe, like the imperial dynastic families before him, that only the descendants of revolutionary leaders have the right to run the party and rule the country.
The Maoist revival is also a snub to Hu's attempts to reverse the moral decay of the Communist party and Chinese society by promoting a re-branded and modernized version of the social compact between the ruler and the ruled set out by the philosopher-sage Confucius.
Retro Confucianism hasn't caught on, but Xi is not alone among the nine members of the inner core of the Communist party, the Politburo Standing Committee, in admiring the Maoist revival.
Last August, Li Changchun, the standing committee member in charge of ideology, attended some of Bo's Maoist song concerts and is reported to have "highly praised" the campaign.
There is much public speculation in China that come the change of leadership next year, Bo has his eyes on replacing Li as the ideology czar in the party's inner sanctum.
After Xi's Chongqing visit, a commentator in the state-controlled People's Daily newspaper wrote with breathless approval that the incoming leader's support for the "Chongqing Model" carries an important message.
His backing of Maoist "core socialist norms" set out "for all members of society, basic yardsticks and criteria for discriminating between good and evil, and for differentiating between meritorious and detrimental behaviour."
Xi's support for Bo's Maoist campaigns, said the commentator, is a signal the "system of core socialist values should be applied in other regions."
'Princeling' descendants of Communist party heroes revive Marxist-Leninist teachings to combat graft;
January 10, 2011 | The Vancouver Sun (http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/editorials/China+invokes+Maoism+battle+against+corruption/4084652/story.html)
There are tantalizing indications that the anointing of the fifth generation of post-revolution leaders in China next year will be marked by a return to the Marxist-Leninist political philosophy of the dynasty's founder, Mao Zedong.
Observers in China and Asia are speculating about an impending Maoist revival after official media enthusiastically reported on a visit early last month to the massive western city of Chongqing by the man slated to become the next Communist party leader and national president, vice-president Xi Jinping.
What made Xi's visit to Chongqing, one of the world's largest metropolises with 32 million people, seem a harbinger of things to come is that the city's party secretary, Bo Xilai, is an avid and indefatigable promoter of the thoughts and philosophy of Chairman Mao.
And Xi during his two-day visit was, according to China's state-controlled media, unstinting in his praise of Bo and the Maoist revival.
He applauded Bo's campaigns of "singing red songs, studying the Maoist canon, telling Mao-era stories, and passing along Mao's dicta. These activities have gone deeply into the hearts of the people and are worthy of praise," Xi said.
Bo, who like Xi is a "princeling" son of a hero of the Communist revolution of the 1930s and '40s, sees a return to Mao's unequivocal Communist morality as the antidote to the social ills that have overtaken China since the campaign of economic reform began 30 years ago.
When Bo was appointed Chongqing's party leader in late 2007, after several years as China's minister of commerce, he decided that a reaffirmation of Mao's thought was the solution to the problems of corruption, moral degradation, ideological confusion, and the entrenchment of fraud and dishonesty as normal behaviour that are threatening the continued rule of the Communist party.
Since mid-2008, Bo's officials have organized 128,000 "Red-song" shows and 28,000 public recitations of Mao's writings. About 130 million cellphone and computer text messages containing Mao's thoughts and mottoes have been sent to school and college students.
Along with this campaign of moral renewal, Bo launched a campaign against the intertwined corrupt relationship between triad gangsters, the police and party officials in Chongqing.
About 2,000 people have been tried and punished in what has been perhaps the most persistent and effective drive against China's endemic corruption.
And it is here that we can get a whiff of the politics of the succession as Xi prepares to replace party leader and president Hu Jintao starting in September 2012.
Bo's predecessor as party secretary in Chongqing was Wang Yang, now the party leader in southern Guangdong province.
At the very least Wang must have ignored the institutionalized corruption in Chongqing on his watch. More likely he was a beneficiary.
But Wang is a protege of President Hu and rose to prominence through the ranks of Hu's power base, the Communist Youth League.
So Xi's praise for Bo's Maoist campaign is being seen as both a slap at Hu and, perhaps, the start of an attempt to create a ruling alliance among the "princelings." Xi is known to believe, like the imperial dynastic families before him, that only the descendants of revolutionary leaders have the right to run the party and rule the country.
The Maoist revival is also a snub to Hu's attempts to reverse the moral decay of the Communist party and Chinese society by promoting a re-branded and modernized version of the social compact between the ruler and the ruled set out by the philosopher-sage Confucius.
Retro Confucianism hasn't caught on, but Xi is not alone among the nine members of the inner core of the Communist party, the Politburo Standing Committee, in admiring the Maoist revival.
Last August, Li Changchun, the standing committee member in charge of ideology, attended some of Bo's Maoist song concerts and is reported to have "highly praised" the campaign.
There is much public speculation in China that come the change of leadership next year, Bo has his eyes on replacing Li as the ideology czar in the party's inner sanctum.
After Xi's Chongqing visit, a commentator in the state-controlled People's Daily newspaper wrote with breathless approval that the incoming leader's support for the "Chongqing Model" carries an important message.
His backing of Maoist "core socialist norms" set out "for all members of society, basic yardsticks and criteria for discriminating between good and evil, and for differentiating between meritorious and detrimental behaviour."
Xi's support for Bo's Maoist campaigns, said the commentator, is a signal the "system of core socialist values should be applied in other regions."