Chen Warns on Investment in China

Former Chinese diplomat Mr. Chen Yonglin has warned Western businesses that they should not increase investment in China because the political environment there is dangerously unstable.

On a speaking tour in France, AFP reported that Mr. Chen said: "I would not suggest to French businesses to invest in China, the Government is not stable."

"A lot of businessmen from the Western world (believe) that China is growing... there are actually deeper crises under the surface," he added.

The former diplomat and outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) said that the rivalries between President Hu Jintao and the high ranking supporters of former president Jiang Zemin were at a point where the CCP was at risk of collapsing.

Mr. Chen said that the current economic growth in China had bolstered the Communist regime’s hold over Chinese society and increased its ability to suppress dissent at home and abroad.

"The Chinese Communist Party has been nurtured by economic growth, and now the Communist Government has all the resources to be used to persecute people who have different views," he said.

"The Government is totally corrupted," Mr. Chen added. He said that China's current economic boom was not reflective of a "deep political, economic and social crisis."

"Businesses that want to work in China must adjust to this corrupt environment.

"There is no real law, the law is fixed according to officials at each level of government."

Many commentators see the current social crisis within China as the most serious it has been since 1989 when the CCP violently suppressed the pro-democracy movement.