BEIJING – The Communist Party of China (CPC) will remain confident in its rule of the world’s most populous nation despite mounting pressures on social stability, as long as it represents people’s interests, a leading historian has said.
Li Zhongjie, deputy chief of the Party History Research Center of the CPC Central Committee, disagreed with speculation that the Party is in a dangerous situation, although in his speech on the Party’s 90th anniversary, President Hu Jintao issued several warnings to the whole CPC.
Hu told Party members to be aware of the “growing danger of a lack of drive, incompetence, divorce from the people, lack of initiative, and corruption”. Such phrases have rarely been heard in Party leaders’ speeches.
“The ‘four dangers’ mentioned in Hu’s speech are an alarm bell tolled to compel Party members to be clearheaded during victory and ready for difficulties in times of peace,” Li said at a news conference held by the International Communication Office of the CPC Central Committee on Tuesday.
Noting that the word “people” was used 136 times in the president’s 14,000-word speech, Li said it was undoubtedly the address’s catchphrase, which underlined the principle of putting the people first.
He also said the speech was a “guidance document of Marxism”.
However, Li admitted the Communist Party of China, which developed from a dozen members to more than 80 million followers over nine decades, has been facing greater challenges in maintaining social stability due to the unparalleled changes the world’s second-largest economy is undergoing.
The Chinese government’s budget for public security reached an astonishing 624.4 billion yuan ($97 billion) in 2011, a 15.6 percent increase year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Finance.
In response to a widely circulated claim that some establishment cliques have emerged within the Party and are hindering reforms in many fields, Li said he did not think such “special interest groups” exist. He repeated that the Party is working for the people’s well-being, not for its own interest.
“It is notable that Hu mentioned the ‘four dangers’ in his keynote speech. This gives a hint that such problems have already been quite serious,” Liu Shanying, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told China Daily.
Source: China Daily