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Shenzhen shows way in political reform
By Cheng Yunjie |
August 31, 2010, Tuesday
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POLITICAL system reform has always been a sensitive issue, revolving around the redistribution of power and vested interests of government.
Rather than copying the prevalent multi-party system in the West, China aims to blaze a different trail by expanding democracy and autonomy for its 1.3 billion people based on the existing political framework.
The reform is aimed at securing the governing party status of the Communist Party of China (CPC), under whose leadership other parties jointly participate in state affairs through political consultation.
The National People's Congress functions as the parliament, supervising the State Council, the goverment's administrative arm, while the Party's leadership is prevailing under the most senior decision-making body, the CPC Central Committee.
This framework, established shortly after New China was founded in 1949, is viewed by the CPC Party authorities as the precondition to realizing a "socialist democracy."
The latest comfort to reformers came from Premier Wen Jiabao who reiterated the difficulties and significance of optimizing the socialist system during a tour of Shenzhen, China's first economic zone, this month.
Wen said China should push forward not only economic reform, but also political restructuring. He said the government should create conditions to allow the people to criticize and supervise.
The remarks came right before the 30th anniversary of the establishment of economic zones - a "significant signal" that the CPC expects Shenzhen to continue spearheading the reform by advancing political system reforms, says Zhao Zhikui, a researcher with the Marxism Research Institute of the China Academy of Social Sciences.
"If China wants to seek a bigger role in the global arena, it must get stronger by expanding democracy and automony to better address thorny domestic concerns and to close the ties between the government and the people," says Zhao.
A closer look at Shenzhen, bordering Hong Kong, highlights political system reform involving the Party, the administration and the public.
Lai Yukun, deputy chief of the organization department of the Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the CPC, said one innovative reform was to adopt increasingly competitive elections for leadership positions.
The city's Fifth Congress of the Party Representatives in May decided that leading officials will be nominated more by public recommendation and decided more by public election rather than higher authority appointments. By 2015, at least half of Shenzhen's new promotions for positions below bureau level will be decided through competitive election.
In descending order, the ranks of China's civilian official echelon are state leaders, ministers, bureau chiefs, division chiefs and section heads.
(The author is a writer at Xinhua news agency.)
Rather than copying the prevalent multi-party system in the West, China aims to blaze a different trail by expanding democracy and autonomy for its 1.3 billion people based on the existing political framework.
The reform is aimed at securing the governing party status of the Communist Party of China (CPC), under whose leadership other parties jointly participate in state affairs through political consultation.
The National People's Congress functions as the parliament, supervising the State Council, the goverment's administrative arm, while the Party's leadership is prevailing under the most senior decision-making body, the CPC Central Committee.
This framework, established shortly after New China was founded in 1949, is viewed by the CPC Party authorities as the precondition to realizing a "socialist democracy."
The latest comfort to reformers came from Premier Wen Jiabao who reiterated the difficulties and significance of optimizing the socialist system during a tour of Shenzhen, China's first economic zone, this month.
Wen said China should push forward not only economic reform, but also political restructuring. He said the government should create conditions to allow the people to criticize and supervise.
The remarks came right before the 30th anniversary of the establishment of economic zones - a "significant signal" that the CPC expects Shenzhen to continue spearheading the reform by advancing political system reforms, says Zhao Zhikui, a researcher with the Marxism Research Institute of the China Academy of Social Sciences.
"If China wants to seek a bigger role in the global arena, it must get stronger by expanding democracy and automony to better address thorny domestic concerns and to close the ties between the government and the people," says Zhao.
A closer look at Shenzhen, bordering Hong Kong, highlights political system reform involving the Party, the administration and the public.
Lai Yukun, deputy chief of the organization department of the Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the CPC, said one innovative reform was to adopt increasingly competitive elections for leadership positions.
The city's Fifth Congress of the Party Representatives in May decided that leading officials will be nominated more by public recommendation and decided more by public election rather than higher authority appointments. By 2015, at least half of Shenzhen's new promotions for positions below bureau level will be decided through competitive election.
In descending order, the ranks of China's civilian official echelon are state leaders, ministers, bureau chiefs, division chiefs and section heads.
(The author is a writer at Xinhua news agency.)
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