Hu Shuli, editor-in-chief of Caixin Media, Century Weekly and China Reform, writes on the pressing need for political reform in China. From Caixin, and translated by China Media Project:
August 26 marked the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. Shenzhen’s anniversary has lately stirred up thinking about reform in China, and in this flurry of activity Premier Wen Jiabao’s recent Shenzhen speech has no doubt drawn the most attention. In his speech, Wen Jiabao reaffirmed the importance of political system reforms, or zhengzhi tizhi gaige (政治体制改革), saying that we “must promote not only economic reform, but must promote political system reforms as well. Without political system reforms, the gains of economic reform will come to nothing, and the modernization drive cannot be achieved.”
Wen’s remarks on political reform were not given prominent play in official press releases, but they echoed strongly inside and outside China, and this interest is more than sufficient to demonstrate just how ardently the public waits for action on reform nearly three years after the objective of political system reform was described in a section of the political report to the 17th National Party Congress entitled “Building Socialist Democratic Politics.”
