From the Financial Times (link)
Two leading Chinese economists have called on the government to interfere less in economic life and for greater opening to foreign and private investment.
Wu Jinglian, an adviser to China’s parliament and former head of the cabinet’s economic think-tank, said reform was being resisted by opponents wedded to the disastrous system of central planning adopted after the 1949 Communist revolution.
“In the past two years, some adherents of the old system have taken the discussion about negative [social and economic] phenomena and have redirected it into opposition to market reforms,” Prof Wu said in a speech to diplomats, executives and journalists in Beijing.
UPDATE (4/7/06): See also “At a Secret Meeting, Chinese Analysts Clashed Over Reforms” from the New York Times (link):
Officials and scholars who had been convened last month to advise senior Chinese leaders disagreed sharply on how to advance economic and legal reforms, according to minutes of the private meeting that have been leaked on the Internet. They also expressed anxiety about what one official called “unprecedented controversy and dissent” among China’s elite.
The minutes offered a revealing glimpse into the policy debate among influential people who are considered core supporters of the Communist Party’s market-oriented economic reforms.
Many attendees emphasized that they were alarmed by the resurgence of socialist thinkers critical of the lurch toward capitalism. Some said the governing party would face growing social and political instability unless it established genuine rule of law.
