The Global and Mail
BEIJING -- China's Prime Minister has ruled out any dramatic political reforms for the foreseeable future, insisting that the country will concentrate on its economic revival "for 100 years."
Wen Jiabao said China needs to undergo "quite a long historical process" before it can venture beyond its economic obsessions. It will remain a developing country in the "initial stage of socialism" for several generations, and perhaps longer, he said.
Mr. Wen's comments, issued in a dense Marxist treatise this week, were a strong rejection of the bold ideas of Chinese liberal intellectuals who have called for political reforms in recent months.
As China's Communist rulers enter an intense political season of parliamentary and party meetings, Mr. Wen's comments were a clear statement of the official line.
He released his treatise on the eve of the annual meeting of China's rubberstamp parliament, offering no encouragement to those who hope for sweeping political changes in the wake of market reforms. He left little doubt that the current leadership, headed by President Hu Jintao and himself, is unwilling to stray beyond the autocratic policies of the past.
"China is now in the initial stage of socialism and will be so for a long time," the Prime Minister wrote.
"The initial stage is the undeveloped stage. . . . Hence, we must unwaveringly persist in taking economic construction as the central task and vigorously develop the productive forces. . . . We must persist in the party's basic line in the initial stage of socialism for 100 years without wavering. . . ."
Debate over democracy has been broached at the Communist Party's internal meetings, but Mr. Wen made it clear that democratic reform must be subservient to the needs of China's socialist one-party system. "China must follow its own path in building democratic politics," he said. "It is completely possible for us to build a democratic party with the rule of law under socialist conditions."
Mr. Wen's statement was laden with the rhetoric of Chinese Communist leaders of the past. He quoted the former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, who had warned that it will take "several generations and even several score generations" to consolidate and develop China's socialist system.
The timing of his comments is significant. For the first time in five years, China's Communist Party will hold a full congress this fall, and the party is anxious to consolidate its power base.
But with the political season heating up, a growing number of Chinese scholars and intellectuals have begun calling for democratic reforms. In an article published in a Communist Party magazine last week, former Renmin University vice-president Xie Tao urged China to adopt a Nordic-style social-welfare democracy.
A former People's Daily editor, Zhou Ruijin, called this month for democratic reforms to ease the social frictions caused by the growing gap between rich and poor.
Faced with these rumblings, Mr. Wen believed he needed to take a tough stand, analysts say. "The Chinese leadership is not ready to take any bold steps on democracy," said Wenran Jiang, a political scientist at the University of Alberta.
"They're convinced that they should keep the one-party system. They're not ready for the issues of political reform. They want to show the world that 'We're in charge, we're in control, and don't expect any dramatic changes.' "
Mr. Wen's comments are also a sign of China's increasing certainty in itself. "There's a growing confidence in the Chinese model of development," Prof. Jiang said. "The Chinese leaders are confident that they will be able to stick to their existing model."