EPOCH WEEKEND
A2 | JANUARY 20-26, 2017
January 19–25, 2017 |A13
www.TheEpochTimes.com
PERSPECTIVES
A FREE CHINA
262,379,106
Is China Still Communist?
The trappings of a modern consumer society don’t change
the essence of the Chinese regime
nese business elites, but businesspeople join up anyway because Party membership guarantees advantages for business.
And in line with textbook Marxist teachings,
the Party is the only true landowner in China;
the Party leases land to the Chinese people.
Chinese society continues to be tightly
controlled by the Party.
The Party employs over 2 million
internet police to censor public opinion and maintains a powerful internet
firewall to keep out the global internet within China’s borders. Population control officers force Chinese
women to stick to the state-mandated child limit and carry out
forced abortions and sterilizations
against women who don’t conform.
Regime dissenters, as well as religious communities and ordinary
members of civil society, live under
the constant threat of being declared
political enemies by the Party and then
“invited to tea”—code for being interrogated by public security officers. Dissidents
are abused, tortured, and frequently made to
carry out forced labor in detention centers.
The regime secures an almost perfect conviction rate against its political enemies in the courts,
which it controls. Prominent dissidents find themselves under house arrest the moment they complete their often lengthy jail stints.
The Chinese constitution states that it guarantees
freedom of belief, but the Party ignores its own laws.
For instance, former Communist Party general secretary Jiang Zemin forced through the unpopular
persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual practice
in 1999 and created an extralegal organization to
ensure that the regime’s law and security apparatus carried out Jiang’s policy.
Politically, China is still run by a Leninist Party
obsessed with control.
The Chinese Communist Party has been the only
governing political party since 1949; other parties
exist under a “united front,” but are not independent of the communists.
The Party’s leader or general secretary doesn’t run
a cabinet and is instead part of a political bureau,
a collection of top officials that make all the top
decisions in the country. He is also handpicked by
Party elders and elites, not democratically elected.
These days, the leaders of China may have traded
in their grey, five-button, Mandarin-collared Mao
suits for dark business suits. But as long as the hammer and sickle remains in the Great Hall of the People, communism hasn’t yet been relegated to the
dust heap of history in China.
By Larry Ong | Epoch Times Staff
China has the world’s second-largest economy
and one of the biggest stock exchanges. Modern skyscrapers dot the skyline in Beijing,
Tianjin, and Shanghai. All makes of cars
can be found on the streets, and Chinese
citizens carry the latest smartphones.
So is the People’s Republic of China
actually a modern capitalist state, and
communist only in name?
While the Chinese Communist
Party has adopted some aspects of
capitalism, China remains a textbook communist country: The Party
controls all land and the “Commanding Heights of the Economy”;
it maintains strict controls on speech,
assembly, and belief; and the Chinese
regime’s political structure is that of a
classic Leninist dictatorship.
China would not have been able to enjoy
stretches of double digit GDP growth in
recent years if the Party had not turned away
from pure socialism under paramount leader
Deng Xiaopeng in 1978, when they experimented
with economic reform.
Over the decades, the Party slowly relinquished
some control over the means of production and
allowed private enterprise and entrepreneurs. The
top Chinese leadership now refers to its five-year
plans as “guidelines,” in recognition that the Party
no longer oversees a classic command economy.
But the Party runs what could be termed a “neocommand economy.”
State-owned enterprises may make up only 3 percent of all companies in China today, but they produce an estimated 25 to 30 percent of the total industrial output. The Party maintains command over
the economy by having top Party officials or family
members own several key industries. For instance,
Jiang Mianheng, the son of former Party leader
Jiang Zemin, is known as China’s “Telecommunications King” due to his sizable interests and control over the industry.
China’s impressive GDP growth figures are widely
known to be manipulated. Li Keqiang, the current
Chinese premier, told a U.S. official in 2007 that
official figures are unreliable and he instead looks
at railway cargo volume, electricity consumption,
and new loans disbursed by banks to better gauge
China’s economic growth.
Many top Chinese businesspeople are Communist Party members who serve in the regime’s rubber stamp legislature or its political advisory body.
Part of the reason is a Party policy to co-opt Chi-
A ceremony at the Great Hall of the People
in Beijing on July 1, 2016.
WANG ZHAO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Many top Chinese
businesspeople are
Communist Party
members who serve in
the regime’s rubber stamp
legislature or its political
advisory body.
Communism is estimated to have killed around
100 million people, yet its crimes have not been
compiled and its ideology still persists. Epoch
Times seeks to expose the history and beliefs of this
movement, which has been a source of tyranny
and destruction since it emerged.
SEE EN.TUIDANG.ORG
Published in 35 countries
and 21 languages
Follow us
@EpochTimes
Get the latest updates
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
of English-Language Editions:
Stephen Gregory
New York Edition Editors
Managing Editor:
Jasper Fakkert
Epoch Arts & Style:
Catherine Yang
Epoch Fit: Chrisy Trudeau
Epoch Taste:
Channaly Philipp
Creative Director:
Robert Counts
Photo Editor:
Benjamin Chasteen
Director of Circulation:
Tabitha Smiles
New York Contacts
212-239-2808
Advertising:
[email protected]
Subscriptions:
[email protected]
General Inquiries:
[email protected]
Permissions & Copyright:
[email protected]
For Feedback & Submissions
Letters to the Editor:
[email protected]
Comments:
[email protected]
NATION
Clinton Foundation to Shutter Clinton Global Initiative
The Clinton Foundation has filed a
notice with the New York Department
of Labor saying that 22 employees with
the main office of the Clinton Global
Initiative (CGI) will lose their jobs as
a result of the “discontinuation of the
[CGI],” essentially marking the end of
the organization.
The WARN (Worker Adjustment
and Retraining Notification) Act
notice filed on Jan. 12 for the CGI says
the layoffs will be effective on April
15. Reports from media including
the Observer, a publication owned by
Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of President-elect Donald Trump, have noted
that the layoffs coincide with a drop in
donations to the Clinton Foundation
AP PHOTO/GERALD HERBERT
By Jack Phillips | Epoch Times Staff
Former President Bill Clinton and former
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in
Columbia, S.C., on Feb. 26, 2016.
from foreign governments.
The CGI was set up in 2005 as an
international networking platform for
the foundation, but its mission and what
it hopes to achieve are vague by its own
definition.
“Rather than directly implementing
projects, CGI facilitates action by helping members connect, collaborate, and
make effective and measurable Commitments to Action—plans for addressing significant global challenges,” its
website states.
The WARN Act requires employers
to notify their workers some 60 days “in
advance of covered plant closings and
covered mass layoffs.”
On Aug. 22, 2016, former President
Bill Clinton wrote a letter describing
the decision to shut down the CGI. At
the time, the Clintons were under pressure to figure out how they would handle potential conflicts of interest with
their foundation if Hillary Clinton were
to win the White House.
Bill Clinton wrote at the time: “Nine
years ago in my book ‘Giving,’ I wrote,
reedom of the press and humanity are fundamental to Epoch Times. In
2000, our media was born to provide truthful news coverage of events in
China, where previously only propaganda and censorship existed.
After personally witnessing tragedies like the Tiananmen Square massacre and
the persecution of the spiritual group Falun Gong, at great risk to themselves and
their loved ones, a group of Chinese-Americans started publishing the Chineselanguage Epoch Times in the United States. Some reporters in China were jailed,
and some suffered severe torture before disappearing altogether—but Epoch
Times flourished, attracting a global audience of millions.
We now publish in 35 countries and 21 languages. From our news hub in Manhattan, we provide engaging, quality local news and feature content designed to
enrich and inspire our readers’ lives.
The Epoch Times newspaper and TheEpochTimes.com website are your trusted
sources of news and information, published by our innovative and influential
media organization. At our core are integrity and truthfulness in reporting—and
giving our readers the stories, news, and information that matter most.
‘I want to continue these meetings for
at least a decade, with the objective of
creating a global network of citizen
activists who reach across the divides
of our interdependent world to build
real communities of shared opportunities, shared responsibilities, and a
genuine sense of belonging.’ ... That is
exactly what CGI, its members, and its
dedicated staff have done.”
As the Observer noted, some foreign
governments started pulling out of their
annual donations to the foundation.
For example, the Australian government told News.com.au it hasn’t
renewed its partnerships with the Clinton Foundation, ending 10 years of taxpayer funded contributions that totaled
more than $88 million. Meanwhile,
Norway dramatically reduced their
annual donations.
» AWARDS
» ABOUT US
F
people have quit the Chinese
Communist Party.
Society of Professional Journalists
2015 New York Press Association Awards
» 2012 Sigma Delta Chi Award for
Excellence in Journalism
» Richard L. Stein Award for Overall Design Excellence
(2013–2015)
Non-Deadline Reporting: The Atrocity of Forced, Live
Organ Harvesting in China
36th Edition Society for News Design Awards
» Award of Excellence, Feature Design Sections
» Award of Excellence, Feature Design Pages
» Photographic Excellence, First Place
» Feature Story, First Place
For reporting on one taxi driver’s fight to save his medallion
and his family’s future
» Best Advertising Campaign, First Place
Uncle Ted’s restaurant
Submissions of Articles and
Commentaries:
[email protected]
We reserve the right to edit.
Please include your name,
address, and phone number.
Epoch Times
International
229 W. 28th St., Floor 5
New York, NY 10001
Other English-Language
Editions
UNITED STATES
Boston
Dallas
Houston
Los Angeles
Northwest
San Francisco
Washington, D.C.
CANADA
Alberta
Ottawa
Toronto
Vancouver
UNITED KINGDOM
London
AUSTRALIA
Sydney