Word: hu
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Gorbachev, Deng and the heads of almost every Marxist country face the same fundamental problem. In a 1984 interview with the Italian Communist daily L'Unità, Hu Yaobang, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, phrased it this way: "Since the October Revolution [of 1917, which enthroned Soviet Marxism], more than 60 years have passed. How is it that many socialist countries have not been able to overtake capitalist ones in terms of development? What was it that did not work...
...good. But three years after Hu took power, the way in which he intends to secure stability has become apparent--and it is not what many foreign observers expected. Many hoped he would be a reformer, allowing alternative sources of power, like the media, regional governments, independent judges and prosecutors, to balance central control. As head of the party's school for top cadres from 1993 to 2002, he had encouraged the study of other societies going through profound dislocations. In power, however, Hu has come across as more of a communist traditionalist. Within the past six months, the party...
...speeches to the party faithful, Hu has said Western democracy is a "blind alley" for China, and he has excoriated the path to reform, with all its attendant chaos, taken in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Gorbachev. Hu's key policy initiative so far has been to strengthen, not weaken, the role of the Communist Party in Chinese life. "They believe the party is the only way that China can maintain political stability," says a China watcher in the U.S. government. "Political institutions outside the party are not to be trusted." In essence, the thinking goes, party discipline guarantees stability...
China's well-being is predicated on continuing that flood of exports, so the U.S. has some leverage over China's policies. But beyond that carrot, the U.S.'s tools have become limited. When Jiang Zemin, Hu's predecessor, visited the U.S. in 1997, Washington could still block China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), of which it is now a member, campaign against China's hosting of the Summer Olympic Games (which will be held in Beijing in 2008) and tie access to the U.S. market to improvements in human rights (unlawful under WTO rules). Now, says...
That is why the most important figure for China's future and in many ways for the Sino-U.S. relationship is not Hu--nor Rice, Rumsfeld or any other U.S. leader. It is someone like Liu. If her life continues to get better, the extraordinary challenges facing China's leadership will be ameliorated. The best news possible for high policymakers in Washington is that a 20-year-old girl in Kaiping is happy. Between bonuses and overtime, Liu makes as much as $120 a month, nearly twice what she says she would have made if she had stayed closer...