Translated by ESWN:
Former People’s Daily deputy editor-in-chief Zhou Ruijin (Âë®ÁëûÈáë) created a sensation in 1991 when he wrote a series of articles under the penname Huangfu Ping (ÁöáÁî´Âπ≥) to lay the groundwork for Deng Xiaoping’s southern tour the next year. Last year, he also received attention with his article “The Reforms Cannot Vacillate” in the debate between the rightwing and leftwing camps in China.
Recently, he was interviewed by Ming Pao. He said that the 28 plus years of reform in China have been concerned mainly with the economic system. Things have been very successful, but a number of problems have accumulated. The main cause of these problems is that the reform of the political system has lagged behind the economic reforms. This is now the time to go forward with the political reforms, and the object of the reforms is the Communist Party itself. The Communist Party must seize the moment to advance the reform of the political system in order to lead China down the road of harmonious development and realize the renaissance of the Chinese people by mid-century.
Zhou Ruijin pointed out that the commonly observed problems of corruption within the Chinese Communist party, the inequality of wealth in society and so on are actually related to the delays in the political reform. The Chinese Communist Party’s system is one in which the Party highly concentrates the power over and above the government, the public laws and the legislative bodies. This system needs to be adapted to the change to a market economy and the contemporary trend towards democracy.[Full Text]
