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How the Communist Party is trying to expand its influence in the private sector
Jan 28th 2012 | BEIJING | from the print edition
WHEREAS many urbanites devour Chinese editions of Western magazines like
Cosmopolitan, GQ, and Vogue, some officials still peruse weightier titles. In
December a dozen Communist Party officials gathered in the eastern city of
Hangzhou to celebrate the first anniversary of an alluring journal, Party
Construction in Non-State-Owned Enterprises. In its inaugural year, said one of
them, the magazine had struck a beautiful pose . The journal in question, as
its title suggests, is engaging with the tricky issue of how the Communist
Party can maintain influence within a growing private sector.
The subject exposes some of the deepest contradictions that now lie at the
heart of Chinese society. How can the party maintain control over a place that,
in ideological terms, is no longer communist? The closure in the 1990s of vast
numbers of state-owned enterprises shattered the party s grassroots base. Over
the past decade a priority of the party s secretive Organisation Department (it
handles personnel issues for the 80m-strong party, yet has no listed telephone
number) has been to form party cells in private businesses, or new economic
organisations as the official literature calls them. In 1999 only 3% of
private businesses had party cells. Now the national figure is nearly 13%.
Coastal Zhejiang province claims all private firms with more than 80 employees
have a branch.
As party officials see it, setting up branches in the private sector is about
more than just proving that a once-revolutionary party is still in touch with
the masses. At a time of rapid social change and outbreaks of unrest, officials
hope the new party branches will reinforce stability and keep the party abreast
of potential trouble. Some bosses of private firms encourage the formation of
cells, in which at least three party members are required. They do so in order
to curry favour with local officialdom. But others have misgivings. They worry
that the red-collar workers, as party-member employees are sometimes called,
might interfere in the running of the company.
In state firms, party committees once controlled workers lives, monitoring
everything from their ideological rectitude to their reproductive cycle. Now
the party appears less clear about exactly what the cells should be doing,
though it often tries to present them as exemplars of do-gooding in a boy-scout
vein.
Xinhua, the state news agency, reported without irony last July that Communist
Party branches in foreign-invested firms in Shanghai had acted as a red
impetus to growth in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008. It said
one such branch in a British marine-equipment company wrote to the firm s
headquarters in London suggesting that the company take advantage of strong
local demand by moving more of its operations from Britain to China. On
receiving this suggestion, light filled the eyes of the top British
management, and the firm carried out the party s plan.
In practice, party cells are most unlikely to be debating ideology with company
management. Even within the party, few people believe in Marxism any longer.
The tension between an attractive private-sector career and allegiance to the
Communist Party is always there for the new breed of party members:
20-somethings who tote iPhones and tweet furiously. Many of them joined the
party in the first place only because they were top of their college class and
they saw it as a way to earn a lot more money.
In some parts of the country, the government levies a tax, usually 0.5% of
payroll, to pay for private firms party activities. Few openly complain, but
some resist the party s embrace. Non-governmental organisations known in
party-speak as new social organisations have proved particularly difficult to
penetrate. The party, fearful that some might evolve into opposition groups,
tries to keep them small. But in December a report published by a government
think-tank warned that party leadership over NGOs needed to be strengthened.
Otherwise, the report warned, they might become tools of hostile foreign
forces .
In a crisis, the party expects its grassroots cells to help dissuade people
from staging public protests and to feed information to the authorities about
possible unrest. In the far-western region of Xinjiang, where the authorities
are on high alert against separatist unrest among Muslims, at least some party
cells in private firms are expected to report on potential troublemakers. Last
year the authorities in Jimsar county selected 39 party members from private
firms to act as gatherers of public opinion and intelligence on the enemy
situation . A local party report in August said nine pieces of valuable
information had been collected this way. Clearly some red-collar workers are
still putting the party first.
from the print edition | China