WP: Chinese Officials Seek to Pump Up (Communist) Party

[DeepModem Mom]

Chinese Officials Seek to Pump Up the Party

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 3, 2004; Page A16


BEIJING, Dec. 2 -- As China moves ever more deeply into a free-market economy, the ruling Communist Party has decided to launch an 18-month campaign to reinvigorate socialist ideology and strengthen the party's leading role in society.

The campaign, scheduled to begin in January, reflects concern among the senior leadership that more than two decades of market reforms have dulled the party's appeal, caused official corruption and raised questions about the relevancy of communism even among some party members, party sources said....

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On the one hand, the playing field for free enterprise has greatly expanded in the past two decades, to the point that private business generates more than half of the $1.4 trillion gross domestic product. On the other, party officials have gained a reputation for dishonesty and abuse of influence in the broad overlap of government power and private enterprise....

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....the one-party government has lost much of the support it enjoyed in the early days of Mao Zedong's revolution, when party members were often viewed as champions of the people....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30173-2004Dec2.html

[BayCityProgressive]

1. champions of the people my ass