Opinion Chongqing model

Chongqing’s exports constituted less than 10 per cent of the local GDP last year. (In China as a whole,exports account for nearly 35 per cent of GDP.) When China’s growth slowed significantly to 9 per cent last year,Chongqing’s GDP grew by nearly 15 per cent. In 1998,Chongqing had a GDP of just $21 billion; by 2009 it had quadrupled to $86 billion.

As one of China’s four directly administered municipalities,with a population of nearly 32 million,Chongqing has also become the incubator of a new kind of politics that Xi extolled in his tour. In his two-day visit in early December,he was endorsing a very different agenda: restoring the virtues of socialism,returning to the Maoist roots of Communist China,and cracking down hard against on corruption and organised crime.

In the last couple of years,Bo Xilai,a member of the CCP’s politburo and party secretary in the Chongqing municipality,has drawn widespread attention through his unabashed embrace of Maoist slogans. He ordered officials to spend some time listening to ordinary people,and relearn the communist virtues of rectitude. He regularly texts Mao’s sayings to local students.

Bo erected Mao’s statues and promoted the singing of revolutionary songs. He launched a major scheme to provide housing for the poor. It is Bo’s determined effort against criminal mafias and their political allies in the party-state,however,that has got him the greatest notice. Bo’s arrests of nearly 5,000 gangsters and corrupt party cadres in Chongqing won much praise — as well as causing concern about human rights.

During his trip to Chongqing,Xi praised Bo’s policies. Reporting on Xi’s tour,the CCP’s official organ,the People’s Daily praised the “Chongqing model” of upholding the strict socialist path and underlined the importance of applying it to rest of China.

Redder than red Xi’s support for Bo’s policies in Chongqing has triggered speculation about a potential new alliance in the top rungs of the CCP in the run-up to a comprehensive reorganisation of the CCP leadership when the CCP Congress meets next year. Analysts of Chinese domestic politics point out that neither President Hu nor premier Wen Jiabao has publicly celebrated the “Chongqing model”.

As children of top revolutionary leaders,both Xi and Bo are communist “princelings”. Their fathers— Xi Zhongxun and Bo Yib — are part of the ‘eight immortals’ of the CCP that were ousted from power and mistreated during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. They returned to centrestage when Deng Xiaoping cleansed the CCP of extremism after Mao’s death in 1976. And their sons have risen meteorically in the party since then.

That Xi and Bo have chosen to paint themselves in colours that are redder than red despite being direct victims of the Maoist period,is an important pointer to the emerging complexity of China’s domestic politics.

Cynics might argue that the populism of Xi and Bo is about positioning for the possible comprehensive reorganisation of Chinese political hierarchy at the 18th Congress of the CCP in

September 2012. It remains to be seen if they can outflank Hu,who would want to leave his own imprimatur on the party lineup after he formally retires as general secretary.

Himalayan Studies

Much like Guangzhou/Shenzen were to southern China in the 1980s,and Shanghai was to east China in the 1990s,Chongqing is likely to become the engine of economic growth in southwest China in the coming decade.

As the closest Chinese megapolis to the subcontinent,Chongqing is becoming central to Beijing’s plans to promote greater cooperation between southwest China and South Asia. China has just launched an Institute of Himalayan Studies at Chongqing. Nepal’s deputy prime minister,Sujata Koirala,was among the special invitees at its inauguration last week.

raja.mohan@expressindia.com