Chinese Politics

I don't think I or anyone else thinks this round of discussions in China about political reform is going to lead to the near-term blossoming of democracy. Still, I think it's striking the extent to which there really is politics conducted in China in a meaningful sense with some measure of public debate, disagreements, factions, people speaking, etc.

“What we’re seeing is a repudiation of Deng Xiaoping’s edict that the party should focus exclusively on economic development,” said Lu De, an influential economist who has pushed for greater political pluralism. . . .

“They want democracy to belong to the party, not to belong to people who oppose the party,” said one retired party official who declined to be identified because top leaders sometimes punish people for discussing elite politics. “If the party can define what democracy is, then it will not be as dangerous.” . . .

Lu Dingyi argued that the party should embrace democracy and freedom because intellectuals favored those ideas and the party needed the support of intellectuals. He said people in the sciences and the arts must be allowed broad latitude to express themselves as they saw fit, provided they did not contest the party’s political leadership.

There more like that. This isn't, obviously, democracy in action. At the time time, it's not North Korea or the pre-Glasnost USSR, or Saddam-era Iraq. Indeed, despite "Deng Xiaoping’s edict that the party should focus exclusively on economic development" it's clear that Xiaoping’s reforms have led to meaningful, albeit circumscribed, political changes relative to the Mao era.