China doesn146;t wall great debate over ideologies

These old-style Leftist thinkers have used China8217;s rising income gap and increasing social unrest to raise doubts about what they see as the country8217;s headlong pursuit of private wealth and market-driven economic development.

The roots of the current debate can be traced to a biting critique of the property rights law that circulated on the Internet last summer. The critique8217;s author, Gong Xiantian, a professor at Beijing University Law School, accused the legal experts who wrote the draft of 8220;copying capitalist civil law like slaves,8221; and offering equal protection to 8220;a rich man8217;s car and a beggar man8217;s stick.8221; Most of all, he protested that the proposed law did not state that 8220;socialist property is inviolable,8221; a once sacred legal concept in China.

Those who dismissed his attack as a throwback to an earlier era underestimated the continued appeal of socialist ideas in a country where glaring disparities between rich and poor, rampant corruption, labour abuses and land seizures offer daily reminders of how far China has strayed from its official ideology.

8220;Our government only moves forward when it feels there is a strong consensus,8221; said Mao Shoulong, a public policy specialist at People8217;s University in Beijing. 8220;Right now, the consensus is eroding and there is a debate over ideology, which we haven8217;t seen for some time.8221; he divide does not appear likely to derail China8217;s market-led growth. President Hu Jintao, in what Chinese political experts and party members said was a clear reference to the debate, told legislative delegates last week that China must 8220;unshakably persist with economic reform.8221;

China has generally stuck by its market-opening commitments to the World Trade Organization. Wen Jiabao, the Prime Minister, has allowed billions of dollars in foreign investment to flow into the once tightly protected financial sector. Legislative officials insist that the proposed law, which has taken eight years to prepare and is intended to codify a more expansive notion of property rights added to the Constitution in 2003, will sooner or later be enacted, though possibly with some significant modifications. But Hu and Wen wittingly or unwittingly invited the debate when they made tackling growing inequality a center of their propaganda efforts, political analysts say. The state-run news media are abuzz with calls to make 8220;social equity8221; the focus of economic policy, replacing the earlier leadership8217;s emphasis on rapid growth and wealth creation. Since his rise to power in 2002, Hu has also tried to establish his Leftist credentials, extolling Marxism, praising Mao and bankrolling research to make the country8217;s official but often ignored socialist ideology more relevant to the current era.

He told party leaders in 2004 to study how Cuba and North Korea maintained political order, party officials say. And he has tried to distance himself from his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, who invited private businessmen to join the Communist Party and was viewed as permitting well-connected officials to enrich themselves with public property at the expense of the poor.

8220;Hu is himself a centrist who is not really pursuing one agenda or the other,8221; observed a party official who said he could be punished for talking about leadership politics if he were quoted by name. 8220;But he did pull us to the Left to restore balance, and that gave the old guard an opportunity it has not had in years.8221; As a result, analysts say, the leadership may find it harder to pursue market-oriented solutions to some pressing problems, like providing health care to rural residents, grappling with rampant corruption in the state sector, expanding access to education and overhauling banks, insurance and securities companies.

Beijing8217;s new plan to address its rural woes, labelled 8220;building a new socialist countryside,8221; promises an infusion of government cash for peasants and rural areas. But it steers clear of tackling some restrictions on economic activity, like a ban on private land sales in the countryside, that many pro-market economists say have left peasants economically disenfranchised. 8220;My impression is that allowing an expanded role for the market in education and health care is off the table,8221; said Mao, the People8217;s University policy expert. 8220;Rural land ownership is also too sensitive to consider now.8221;

The tensions reflect rising concern that breakneck growth averaging nearly 10 percent annually over 20 years has left China richer but also dirtier and, by the standards of the one-party state, politically volatile. Corruption, pollution, land seizures and arbitrary fees and taxes are among the leading causes of a surge in social unrest. Riots have become a fixture of rural life in China8212;more than 200 8220;mass incidents of unrest8221; occurred each day in 2004, police statistics show8212;undermining the party8217;s insistence on social stability.

Many Western and some Chinese experts have argued that these problems stem from China8217;s authoritarian political system, and that they will not easily go away until people have a greater say in how they are governed. But the Communist Party and many left-leaning scholars reject that view. They say the ills are caused by capitalist excesses and rising inequality, which requires that the government reassert itself in economic affairs.

One measurement of inequality, the gap between the average incomes of urban and rural residents, has risen to about 3.3 to 1, according to the UNDP, higher than similar measures in the United States and one of the world8217;s highest. A study by the party8217;s Central Research Office estimates that the ratio could rise to 4 to 1 by 2020 if current trends continue, a level some Chinese economists say could incite wider social turmoil.

Such political fears seemed to give an opening to critics who felt economic policies had strayed too far toward capitalism. The strength of Leftist opposition had faded throughout the 1990s after Deng Xiaoping, who called economic development 8220;hard truth,8221; and later Jiang tolerated little ideological discussion of the direction of changes.

JOSEPH KAHN