In his speech at the New Year Tea Conference of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) to the vice chairman of the CPPCC, President Hu Jintao said: "To have a deep understanding of whether we have achieved the expected progress in cleaning up the Party as well as in the struggle of anti-corruption is essentially a test for the CCP’s legitimacy and the foundation of its rule. The result of the test can only be either negative or positive. If it (CCP) fails to pass the test, it has to disappear from history." Quoting the January 1, 2007, issue of Briefings of the State Council, Chen Jinjiang reported this comment in the latest issue of Trend Monthly.
Why did Hu Jintao make such a statement? What is meant by "the ruling party’s failure to pass the test?" In what way will the CCP disappear from the stage of history? These are the questions in readers’ minds after reading Trend Monthly.
As a matter of fact, Hu has raised similar alarms several times in his latest speeches. As Luo Bing reported in Hong Kong’s Cheng Ming magazine recently at the 12th Regular Activities Meeting of the CCP Central Committee Politburo, Hu Jintao acknowledged: "The (Chinese) ruling Party is facing tremendous pressure and conflicts from three unprecedented crises: political, social, and government. The three crises are all related, but to some degree the government crisis is the most significant and it is the most critical. They directly affect the fate of the country, the interests of 1.3 billion people, and the lifeline of the Party and its qualification as a ruling party."
At the Politburo meeting on December 25, 2006, Hu said, "These grave situations tell us again and again: Corruption and the abuses of power are not conducive to building a harmonious society. They are the source of social conflicts and the emergence of crises, the key issue that the Party and the government has to resolve, and the factor determining whether or not the masses support and trust the Party and government.
"The situation regarding corruption is alarming. In many areas, corruption has become structured and connected. The Party committees and the government at various levels must take this situation seriously and be alert: The time our people give us as a ruling party will not be long," Hu continued. He acknowledged, "Despite the 17-year-long anti-corruption campaign, we find the reality unsatisfactory and very passive. The vast majority of people are even less satisfied [with the corruption situation]. The root cause is in the system, in the supervision and investigation mechanisms, in the quality of the Party members, and in our understanding."{mospagebreak}
It seems that Hu has a deeper and deeper understanding of the crises that the CCP government is facing, and he strongly feels the pressing crisis of the abandonment of the CCP by the Chinese people. Over and over, Hu has warned the CCP officials that if corruption and embezzlement cannot be fundamentally corrected and eradicated, the CCP will not survive and will lose its political power and become history’s criminals. With so many facts and so much information before President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, they have no choice but acknowledging the upcoming downfall of the CCP. The following contains facts and information illustrating how corrupt and degenerate the CCP officials are.
At the Politburo meeting on December 25, 2006, Wu Guanzhen, secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CCP, announced a research and investigation report written under the auspices of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the Research Office of the State Council, and the Ministry of Supervision. The report stated that the extravagant spending of the Party and its government reached an astronomical 2 trillion yuan (US$0.25 trillion) in 2006, which includes the misappropriations of government funds, meals and entertainment, retreats and travel, education abroad, gifts, and excessive bonuses and benefits, all with public funds, together with the private use of government vehicles.
Two trillion yuan (US$0.25 trillion) is equivalent to 50.5 percent of the 3.98 trillion yuan (US$0.5 trillion) of the total national tax revenues in 2006, or 11.5 percent of the 2006 GDP, which is 18.5 trillion yuan (US$2.3 trillion).
It is about the same as China’s GDPs in both 1981 and 1982 (the GDP reached 1.8895 trillion yuan in 1981 and 2.0141 yuan in 1982).
It is equivalent to the combined domestic products of China’s agriculture, forestry, and animal husbandry in 2005.
As an example, let us look at the income levels of the high- to intermediate-level government officials in Shanghai, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shandong provinces.
In July 2007, the Research Office of the State Council and the Counselors’ Office of the State Council conducted a joint research project titled "On Financial Income of Intermediate and High Level Party and Government Officials in Certain Provinces," which concentrated on the officials in the above-mentioned five provinces.{mospagebreak}
The annual income, including wages, benefits, subsidies, and bonuses, among other things, of the bureau-level officials in these five provinces ranges from 550,000 to 1.05 million yuan (~US$69,000-$131,000). Their actual disposable incomes received exceed the actual incomes and living standards of the governors and mayors in Western and Northern European countries.
The income of officials at or above the level of deputy governor ranges from 1.25 million to 2.5 million yuan (~US$156,000-$312,500). Annual expenditure for family transportation at the provincial official level amounts to 180,000 to 250,000 yuan (US$22,500-$31,250), while their spending of government funds on hotels, restaurants, and night clubs to entertain and treat their families and relatives totals 400,000 to 1 million yuan (~US$50,000-$125,000) per year per family.
These categories merely document their expenses using government funds that are open and known to the public. They do not include income from bribery or dividend distributions from their power-for-money conspiracies, let alone the enormous incomes their family members accumulate in their own businesses because of their special status and ties.
As the CCP officials constantly dine, wine, engage prostitutes, and gamble with government money, the state treasury continues to shrink. At an internal finance meeting of the State Council after the 2007 New Year, (Premier) Wen Jiabao disclosed that bad debts and nonfunctioning loans at the commercial banks and banks owned by stockholders totaled as high as 10 trillion yuan (US$1.25 trillion), despite the infusion of 4.662 trillion yuan (US$0.58 trillion) by the central government and 920 billion yuan (US$115 billion) by the local governments. As of November 2006, among the real estate loans of 3.45 trillion yuan (US$0.43 trillion), the bad loans/assets were estimated to stand at 30 percent.
Both Hu and Wen repeatedly sent out warnings about the severity of the financial crisis. Wen said bluntly: "As premier, I am most worried that, as he financial problems mount, certain domestic or international complications or incidents may one day trigger the collapse of (our) financial system and lead to political chaos. When the day comes, not a single country will be able to help China overcome and resolve the crisis." Did the CCP officials listen to the warnings of their president and premier? Not at all! Instead, they are speeding up their misappropriations of state assets with the slogan, "Why not take whatever I want? Whatever I take is free of charge."{mospagebreak}
What happens if the state treasury is depleted? The approach the CCP government will take is to raise taxes and to open its financial door to foreign capital. In particular, hiking taxes will provide additional resources for the communist officials to spend on their lavish lifestyles, while it will take away money from ordinary people and adversely affect China’s domestic demand. Bringing in foreign capital is to help foreign investors pave the road for their profits in the Chinese market. Neither approach will benefit China.
Looking back at the history of various countries, the 1997 Asian and Latin America financial crises triggered the downfall of a few governments. While he did not elaborate, Hu must have had a good reason and a sufficient amount of supporting evidence to warn at the New Year Tea Conference of the National Committee of the CPPCC, "If the CCP is not qualified to rule the country, it will have to exit the stage of history." Neither Mao Zedong nor Deng Xiaoping, the former paramount communist leaders, made such a statement. Hu’s predecessor, Jiang Zemin, did acknowledge that "Anti-corruption will doom the Party; leaving corruption alone will doom the country," but encouraged corruption nonetheless. Since last year, Hu has made a much more serious effort to clean up corruption and to save the communist regime, but the goal failed. Hu had to acknowledge that the party that fails has to go through the exit door of history.
Chris Wu is Chief Editor of the U.S.-based Chinese website Chinaaffairs.org.
Translated by CHINASCOPE from www.Chinaaffairs.org