Can anyone get the original because this is a situation where western reports are likely to be heavily slanted. Most obviously, "Private enterprise", which presumably here includes the large town and village cooperative sector, is translated as capitalism.
We also need context from a Marxist point of view of any attempt to explain this development. What did the CPC actually say?
Chris Burford
London
PS I would appreciate information on the best internet sources on China.
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China enlarging role of capitalism in its constitution
BEIJING (CNN) -- The Chinese Communist Party on Saturday proposed landmark constitutional amendments that would give private enterprise a key role, the official Xinhua news agency said.
The party's 193-member decision-making Central Committee also elevated the rule of law, and the capitalist theories of late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping would have the same status as those of Marx, Lenin and Mao Tse-tung, Xinhua said.
The draft amendments were expected to be approved by a full session of the National People's Congress, or parliament, scheduled to begin March 5, the news agency said.
Political analysts said the amendments illustrate the growing belief that China needs to boost its private sector to spur growth.
The private sector would be an "important component" of the socialist economy under state ownership, Xinhua quoted the amendments as saying.
The current constitution describes private enterprise as "complementing" the socialist economy under state ownership.
The amendments still refer to the public sector as the mainstay of the economy, analysts said.
Economists have argued that despite 20 years of reform, China's economy is too reliant on the state sector, which was built up under the years of Mao Tse-tung, who died in 1976.
Deng's reforms in 1979 led China to the revolutionary decision to dump Soviet-style central planning. Deng's capitalist-style reforms would become the creed of the world's largest communist nation.
Deng, who died in 1997, coined the phrase "socialism with Chinese characteristics" to justify his un-Marxist concepts such as stock markets and private enterprise.
China has about 960,700 private businesses, which employ 13.5 million non-state sector accounts for about 75 percent of gross domestic product.
However, the state sector sucks up two-thirds of all bank lending.
In April China's chamber of commerce, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, submitted a motion to parliament pushing for legal protection of private property in communist China.
China's private sector has flourished under Deng's reforms, but communist authorities have not granted it full legal protection and still ban private ownership of land.
The amendments also call for rule of law, Xinhua said.
China under Mao was ruled by a handful of leaders of the Communist Party; even the constitution was subordinate to the policies of the party. Beijing has been pushing the rule of law.
But that does not mean it will allow any organized opposition. Authorities have detained at least five democracy campaigners in recent days in intensified efforts to crush dissent, a rights group reported Saturday. The detained are mainly members of the opposition China Democracy Party.