For the first time in its 55 years in power, China's ruling
communist party has made the "ruling capabilities of the Party" a
major issue to be discussed at a plenary session of its central
committee opened Thursday in Beijing.
The Fourth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the
Communist Party of China (CPC),
which consists of 198 full members and 158 alternate members, is
slated to discuss what the party should do to make itself more
capable of governing a country with 1.3 billion people and the
world's fastest-growing economy.
Political analysts believe that the CPC's emphasis on its ruling
capabilities is catering to the needs of the times, and that it
will lay a solid foundation for China's long-term stability and
prosperity, as well as for the healthy development of the Party
itself.
"In the new century and a new stage of development, how to
enhance the Party's ruling capabilities has emerged as a
significant issue with a bearing on the future of both the country
and the Party itself," said Yu Yunyao, executive vice president of
the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, the Party's top
cadre-training base and a leading think tank.
The "ruling capabilities" issue has become even more compelling
as China's reform and opening-up drive has entered a critical
stage, with many deep-rooted problems starting to emerge and
threatening to undermine social stability, Yu said.
"China's per capita GDP (gross domestic product) now exceeds
US$1,000, but Chinese society is undergoing some outstanding
stability problems," he said. "The party faces a double challenge
of further promoting reform and opening-up while consolidating its
ruling status."
Despite its conspicuous achievements and accumulation of rich
experience in governing the country over the past 55 years, the CPC
still suffers from incompetent leading cadres, loopholes in
governance and supervision and immature governing mechanisms, said
Lu Xianfu, director of the Party Building Department of the Party
School of the CPC Central Committee.
A recent survey conducted by the Party School among the Party's
leading cadres above the county level showed that more than half of
those surveyed lacked the ability to "make a scientific judgment of
a situation," while more than one third either "had difficulty
tackling a complicated situation" or "totally lost their heads" in
such a situation, Lu said.
He cited the widespread public panic in the early stage of the
SARS outbreak last year as an example of the lack of government
capabilities to handle emergencies.
Political observers here say that the key to enhancing the
party's ruling capabilities lies in promoting democracy and the
rule of law, as well as making the party and the government more
accountable to the people.
They note that the late Chairman Mao Zedong, one of the CPC's
founding fathers and "the core of the Party's first-generation
leaders," stressed the importance of democracy to the success of
the Party's cause. Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, at the core of
the second and third generation of Party leadership, also spared no
efforts to establish a rule of law in China and made the principle
of the Party "governing the country according to law" enshrined in
both the Chinese Constitution and the CPC's party constitution.
????The new generation of the CPC leaders,
who took over in late 2002, followed suit as they set forth the
principle of "putting people first," embraced a fresh "scientific
concept of development" and promoted the building of a "transparent
and responsible government" under public and media supervision.
Over the past couple of years, the CPC put out six major
documents to promote inner-Party democracy and reforms and tighten
up supervision over the Party's leading cadres: Regulations on
Inner-Party Supervision of the CPC (trial version), Regulations on
Disciplinary Punishments of the CPC and Provisional Regulations on
the Open Selection of Leading Cadres of the Party and
Government.
In a display of its eagerness to draw upon the ruling experience
of foreign political parties, the CPC also hosted the 3rd
International Conference of Asian Political Parties in Beijing
earlier this month.
"As the CPC is now focusing on its self-improvement, especially
on its own ruling capabilities, many more positive changes are
expected to take place in China's political, economic and social
life," predicted Ye Duchu, a Beijing-based expert on
Party-building.
He believes the CPC will see major progress in combating
corruption, with ordinary citizens gaining an increasingly louder
voice in political affairs and taking a more active part in
democratic elections and government supervision. The welfare of the
people will always be put first in government decision-making in
the future, he added.
"As a capable ruling party, the CPC will continue to promote
China's political reforms in an active yet steady manner," said
YuYunyao.
"As Party General Secretary Hu Jintao said at a gathering
marking the centenary of Deng Xiaoping's birth late August in
Beijing, the Chinese Communist Party has a key role in everything
in China," said one political observer in Beijing. "So it's really
good news for the Chinese people that the Party is taking the
'ruling capabilities' issue really seriously."
(Xinhua News Agency September 17, 2004)