The Sixth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was held in Beijing from Oct. 8 to 11. The emphasis of the session was on how to build a harmonious socialist society, which the Committee defines as "building a democratic society under the rule of law, a society based on equity and justice, an honest and caring society, a society full of vigor and a stable and orderly society in which humans live in harmony with nature."
The Committee also made a preliminary decision on the former party secretary of Shanghai— Chen Liangyu's corruption case —deciding to oust him from his positions as a CCP central committee political bureau member and a central committee member.
On the subject of how to build a harmonious society, members of the session discussed the problem of of the income gap between the rich and the poor, and other social issues China is currently facing. The session discussed and adopted "resolutions of the CPC Central Committee on major issues regarding the building of a harmonious socialist society."
According to the resolutions, the CCP will, in the future, institutionally and systematically, promote social equity and justice, further decrease the rich-poor gap, enlarge the employment opportunities and plan to progress a series of important reforms in fields of medical and health care, education, social insurance, in order to benefit low-salaried people and poverty groups to better share the fruits of reform and development.
Can the above new resolutions passed at the CCP session resolve the many contradictions in Chinese society?
The writer considers that China is currently beset with numerous contradictions, which are mainly demonstrated in the following aspects:
First of all, there is the contradiction between benefits bestowed to the regime and citizens. Chinese citizens are the main body of the nation and should take the greater share of the wealth of the nation and should be endowed with the different rights guaranteed by the Constitution: for example, the right to vote, the right to be elected, the right of supervision, the right to freedom of speech
However, the national wealth is still controlled by certain officials who have power. People are deprived of their rights, officials who refuse to submit to any checks and balances can arbitrarily squander wealth created by citizens to construct "show-projects," to entertain themselves and snatch the largest profits for themselves. Currently in China corruption has become a common practice in all industries.
It is hard for people to go to see a doctor, to get an education, to buy a house and to find a job; yet society lacks necessary social protection policies.
People lack of trust in officials and the regime; they'd rather choke with silent fury instead of speaking out. Besides, the CCP always suppresses any unsatisfied voices from people, people's appeals, demonstrations and protests, which are the results of the people's long-accumulated dissatisfaction. The conflict between the CCP regime and the Chinese people has reached such depth and breadth that it will be extremely difficult to resolve.
Secondly, during the economic reforms, conflicts between different members of society become polarized. According to Deng Xiaoping's policy of "allowing some people to get rich first," certain business officials—and their relatives and associates—formed the very first wave of wealthy people.
This wealthy class absorbs the majority of the benefits of reforms, but the rest of the citizens bear the costs of them. Laid-off workers of state-owned enterprises are an example. Even if the reforms fail, the vested interests don't lose anything but instead obtain profits from the failure. The cost of failure is borne mainly by the mass of ordinary citizens. Take another example, in the "not so successful" reforms of medical system, the pharmaceutical industry and hospitals can still make money, but it is one disaster after another for those people who cannot afford to go to hospital.
Third is the conflict of greater pursuit of the physical at the expense of the mental. Since the Cultural Revolution drastically destroyed Chinese traditional culture, Chinese people have experienced a vacuum in the mental field. After reforming and opening up, traditional culture was impacted by foreign culture.
Because the CCP regime adopts policies that only emphasize economic profits and ignore moral improvement, Chinese people who lacked any traditional personality, moral constraint and education began to advocate money worship and hedonism; they possess a lack of social morality and social responsibility. Under such a situation, the social atmosphere becomes turbid and morality degenerates, igniting even more social problems. Simultaneously, the CCP regime cracks down on people's beliefs such as Falun Gong, Christian family churches, Muslim Uighars, etc., which makes social conflicts even more complex.
Through the above analysis, it is not hard to see that most of these difficulties and conflicts originate from the CCP's own corruption. A corruption problem is fundamentally the problem of the political system. However, the many new policies raised in the CCP's session didn't touch on these substantive problems, which can only be resolved through political revolution, endowing people with more rights and freedoms, opening up dialogue channels to truly allow people to appeal, letting people decide the regime's political fate, thus fundamentally eradicating corruption and resolving the above conflicts. The new resolutions the CCP raised are only some changes in certain fields. Substantially it is just "scratching at an itch from outside the boot;" it will be hard to manifest any practical effects.
Moreover, the CCP continues to strengthen its control of politics and society including the administration of foreign news agencies, persecution of political dissidents, strengthened control of Internet, etc. From the above, the CCP still doesn't want to make any real changes. Based solely on Cheng Liangyu dismissal, we cannot deduce that the CCP is determined to fight against corruption; This was merely an outcome of internal power struggles within the CCP.
From the above analysis we can draw the following conclusion: the new resolutions this session promoted are but vain efforts; they will not fundamentally resolve the underlying conflicts. Therefore, the harmonious society it deigns to build is impossible to realize. If you don't believe it, let's wait and see what happens.
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