"Capitalism" in China's constitution

[Chris Burford]

The following story has been posted by CNN based on Reuters and APP,
heavily editing and contextualising a Xinhua report. The Xinhua website is
not very accessible when I tried it this morning.

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.