And the results are in! “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” (中国特色社会主义) logged the most number of uses, appearing 52 times in Hu Jintao’s political report to the 17th National Congress. A distance second, “scientific development” (科学发展) racked up 38 appearances. Used a total of 34 times, “opening and reform” (改革开放) finished third, just edging out “harmony” […]
Late last month CMP co-director Qian Gang wrote about the “Four Basic Principles” as a key phrase to watch at the 17th National Congress: Concerning the Four Basic Principles, there are two possibilities for Hu Jintao’s political report to the 17th National Congress. The first possibility is that Hu’s report will use the Four Basic […]
Political reform in China basically boils down to constitutional reform, or xianzheng gaige (宪政改革). This is an old issue, going back as far as the civil war in the 1940s, when the Communists demanded constitutional reform. The term has been on the rise in China’s media over the last 10 years or so. Both Jiang […]
There has been some suggestion in recent months that Hu Jintao might introduce two fledgling buzzwords at next week’s 17th Congress. The first is “citizen participation,” or gongmin canyu (公民参与), short for the phrase “orderly political participation by citizens” (公民有序的政治参与). The second is “consultative democracy”, or xieshang minzhu (协商民主), sometimes called “deliberative democracy.” These Hu […]
“Separation of the functions of party and government” (党政分开), or dang zheng fenkai, is a highly sensitive phrase in China. The phrase had a prominent role in political reforms as lined out in Zhao Ziyang’s report to the 13th Congress in 1987, but the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations pushed the term backstage. How Hu […]
Top party leaders will of course be at the top of your interview wish list this month. But no one, least of all officials in the upper echelons, will agree to an interview ahead of this key political session. It’s possible Hu Jintao will choose to visit with some particular foreign news icon, as Deng […]
In my last article I talked about “differential voting” (差额选举) in the selection of delegates to the 17th National Congress. One of my basic points was that we can look at the increase in the “differential rate” (差额) – a higher ratio of candidates to positions available – as a measure of progress on political […]
I would expect the reader’s response to the above headline to be something like: “Voting? In China? What is there to talk about?” Point taken. But even if we’re not seeing popular democratic elections, it’s worth noting that Chinese media have been talking about “election” (选举), or xuanju, in the selection of delegates to the […]
Pundits generally agree that this month’s 17th National Congress is unlikely to bring major change on the political reform front. But many also predict there will be small steps forward, and that these are likely to come in the area of “inner-party democracy” (党内民主). I agree with this assessment, and I think we should pay […]
When Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao wrote in the official People’s Daily earlier this year that China “is now and has long been in the early stages of socialism,” the phrase hearkened back to the political reform era of the 1980s. For many Chinese, there were clear echoes of Zhao Ziyang’s report to the 13th National […]
