By David Bandurski — “Above there are policies, below there are countermeasures” (上面有政策,下面有对策). So goes the popular saying that more or less sums up the age-old dilemma of enforcement and entrenched local power in China. And as China’s central leadership pushes the principal (if not necessarily the practice) of information openness, local leaders are becoming […]
By David Bandurski — When Chinese President Hu Jintao pledged in his political report to the recent 17th National Congress to “promote [the] vigorous development and prosperity of Socialist culture,” he was talking not just about a re-awakening of arts and letters, but more importantly about a renaissance in China’s global power and influence. He […]
By David Bandurski — In a CMP-sponsored lecture at the University of Hong Kong last week, Lu Yuegang talked about the role of journalists in documenting the facts of history, and how, in an open society, people must be free to seek historical truth. But as Chinese web users put one up on the scoreboard […]
By David Bandurski — If I had a jiao for every time someone’s told me the Chinese don’t care about politics or democracy, I’d have enough chunk change to fund an American presidential campaign. “The new middle class is young, rich and happy. Just don’t mention politics,” Time reported not long ago. And we are […]
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 […]