The Tribune

IN an inter-connected world with varying time zones, information is conveyed instantaneously to a global audience day and night and the newsworthiness of items is often overtaken as the media competes to be the first to report important events.

A recent example was the surprising news of the sudden prospect of US talks with North Korea about its nuclear threat. This was sufficiently significant to distract attention from the change of China’s long-standing policy of restricting its president to two five-year terms, with this major development not receiving the media attention it merited.

In an historic constitutional change, China’s National People’s Congress at its annual sitting has overturned the two-term limit. It had been established in the 1980s in order to help to develop a system of collective leadership and orderly succession and to protect against a return to the unbridled power of the founding father of the People’s Republic, Mao Zedong, who ruled the nation from 1949 until his death in 1976. Removal of the limit could result in the current president, Xi Jinping, remaining in power indefinitely instead of standing down in 2023 at the end of his two terms. Furthermore, his political philosophy – “Xi Jinping Thought” – has also now been written into the constitution.

Critics regard this as a rubber-stamping of a Communist Party diktat since there had been no national debate on the issue, though the Party claims that the move has the mass support of “the common people”. It means that Xi Jinping has consolidated his personal and political power while he is simultaneously head of state, leader of the ruling Communist Party – over which he now has an iron grip -- and commander of the huge armed forces. Having amassed power not seen since the days of Chairman Mao, he is now regarded as having been elevated to his level.

Xi Jinping is popular because of his anti-corruption measures, and his supporters say China needs a strong leader to pursue economic reforms and deliver stability and wealth. But his rise to power has been accompanied by a strengthening of the role of the Party in the country’s affairs together with a clampdown on emerging political reforms and tighter restrictions on civil society including detention of activists and control of religion and the media. So, reportedly, there are now growing fears of a possible return to the repression and horrors of the Mao era characterized not least by the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s.

Overall, the result appears to be a reversion to greater authoritarianism or worse despite the opening-up of the country to the rest of the world and the economic reforms pushed through by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping during the 1980s. China continues to be not only a one-party communist state with no political opposition permitted but has also reverted to one-man rule as in the days of Mao. The conclusion must be that there is now no hope of political reform towards a multiparty democracy, even if there ever was.

At the same time that President Xi and the Communist Party are tightening their control at home, China seems to be seeking increased status and influence in the world while it reaches towards pre-eminence as a global economic powerhouse and is looking to embark on a new chapter in the nation’s development. The rest of the world could be forgiven for regarding with some alarm these developments in its most populous nation with the second largest economy after the USA and possessing one of the strongest military forces.

As a utopian political idea designed to protect workers who were being exploited and denied proper benefit from the fruits of their labour, communism originally seemed to many an acceptable ideology. But, while the ideal may have been noble, in practice its application in various different countries was universally brutal and cruel with a one-party state, a rigidly controlled press and political police with limitless powers –- and invariably it developed into tyranny imposed by a small minority on the rest of a country. But there will always be opposition to totalitarianism and the people will eventually rise up to remove a dictator, though perhaps not in the case of China because of its size and long period of communist rule.

While observers consider these momentous events in China, we reflect on the contrast of our own good fortune in living in a free society here at home but recognize the inherent fragility of our system of governance. It is an important tenet of democracy that those chosen to rule should do so with the consent of the people who can remove them from time to time at the ballot box. We should be on our guard against any government that exceeds its powers or violates the people’s rights in some way or lacks transparency and governs ineffectively.

Sadly, despite a good start the FNM government is now being taken to task for its poor performance in various ways and for failing to fulfil its electoral promises. Some of this criticism is justified and our political leaders would do well to take heed.