Pioneering Chinese City Offers a Peek at Political Ferment

[donsutherland1]

While recent unrest in China's autonomous Tibet region garnered headline coverage a few months ago, a quieter trend toward local experimentation with greater political liberalization in China has remained underway. Today's edition of The Washington Post features an article on one such effort.

When China decided to liberalize its economy back in the late 1970s, Shenzhen was chosen as the vanguard, the first "special economic zone" allowed to do business free of Communist-era restrictions.

Three decades later, the city has set out to reprise its pioneer role, this time in the political arena. Local Communist Party leaders have drafted a reform plan that would soften key aspects of China's Leninist political system, authorizing expanded powers for the local legislature, direct elections for some local officials, a more independent judiciary, and greater openness and accountability within the party.

The changes advocated by Shenzhen's municipal party committee, published last Tuesday in its official newspaper, show that beneath the ice cap of Communist rule in China, debate about democratization is quietly bubbling. Even if they are never put into practice, the suggested reforms also provide insight into the kinds of changes that China is likely to adopt nationwide if the party ever decides to liberalize politics the way it decided in 1978 to liberalize the economy.

Pioneering Chinese City Offers a Peek at Political Ferment

 

[Tecumseh1]

This is very interesting. It would seem someone isn't happy with the current system. They are making good money, like the retired offical said, but maybe someone is thinking, "Can we make more?"

 

[HelloDollyLlama]

While recent unrest in China's autonomous Tibet region garnered headline coverage a few months ago, a quieter trend toward local experimentation with greater political liberalization in China has remained underway. Today's edition of The Washington Post features an article on one such effort.



Pioneering Chinese City Offers a Peek at Political Ferment

One of the dirty secrets in the Chinese government is that the central government has little control way out in the provinces -- the local areas are run by local poobahs who run their provinces and districts like Mafia dons.

If you want a real barometer of what's going on, look at the Pearl River valley down in the southeast. That is where they set up all the factories that built the modern Chinese economy -- and stole all our jobs in the process. But now with the economic downturn, thousands of those factories are closing, and unemployment is reaching truly staggering proportions. If China goes crazy again, that's where it will probably start.