Party Split

The Internet is fueling the rumor mill about the division within the Communist Party that threatens to rupture the party. China’s one-party Communist system is gradually splintering into two-party factions ─ that look to become two parties ─ within the Party. The Shanghai faction of elitists, including the princeling children of high-ranking officials, favor an increase in coastal development and place a far greater emphasis on economic growth and free trade, is headed by former President Jiang Zemin. It is lined up against the populist nationalistic faction headed up by President Hu Jintao, who favor improving China’s social safety net, introducing greener policies, and balancing development between the wealthy east coast and the poor western hinterlands.

The two factions are divided by geography and by real economic and political issues. The Shanghai faction favor market and trade liberalization and pursuing China’s export-driven economic model which tends to favor the cities and its big factories at the expense of the rural areas. The populist faction is more nationalistic and if it consolidates its power, it could auger a more prickly economic relationship with the U.S.

To avoid the appearance of a party split, the party declared at a 2009 Central Committee plenum, “intraparty democracy” is the party’s “lifeblood.”

The split between the elitists and populists has resulted in brutal criticisms being leveled against each other and party officials being arrested and jailed for corruption. In 2006, Shanghai’s party secretary became the first Politburo member in years to be purged and imprisoned for corruption. His arrest helped Hu Jintao consolidate populist influence.

The Chongqing Party Secretary, a princeling identified with the elitist bloc, declared war on the deeply entrenched Chinese crime syndicates in Chongqing in 2009. He arrested more than 2,000 people, including the city’s former deputy police chief, three billionaires, 50 government officials, six district police heads, two senior judges, and more than 20 triad bosses. One of those bosses is a local parliamentarian.

Both factions recognize that their differences have to be contained and compromised for the Communist Party to remain in power. Both sides are mindful it was the open confrontation between conservatives and liberals in 1989 that led to the Tiananmen demonstrations and bloodshed. Neither faction wants to risk an open rupture in the Internet age. They are keenly aware of how People Power can be galvanized by mobile internet technology and social networking sites. The People Power movements in nearby Philippines, Thailand, Japan and South Korea that brought about political change at the top is not an option.

There is increasing reflection and criticism in China today that the price of China’s progress and economic success has been inequity ─ especially towards the peasants and workers ─ and entrenched corruption.

Reform within the party system and aggressive crackdown on corruption are preferable to revolution. That is the only way the Communist Party can remain in power.