Socialism with Chinese features

HANNING — It seemed an odd place to be. In this Chinese city, the capital of Guangxi, opposites clash the way it does not at other more prominent cities in China I have been to — Beijing, Shanghai or Hong Kong.

Indeed, the reason I was there was to attend a special conference of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAAP) under the sponsorship of the Communist Party of China (CPC). That to me was a contradiction.

My notion of political party was pluralist and that was shown by the number of political parties per country present in the conference. The Philippines had the NPC and the Liberal Party, Nepal had the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party (Unified Marxist Leninist) and so on.

The Communist Party of China celebrates its 90th anniversary this year and it offered to host the ICAAP Special Conference on the theme “Development and People’s Access.” It was a brilliant move, never mind the contradictions. The idea was to promote and propagandize what it considered to be the reason for China’s success. It owed its success to the people.

It remains an authoritarian state through the Communist Party. By adopting a free market economy it grew in leaps and bounds to become the second most wealthy and powerful country in the world. Again, another contradiction.

But as Shen Beili, the director general of the International Department of the Central Committee of CPC, told me do not contain China’s story into stereotypes of what communism or liberal democracy should be. “We think in tangible concepts of what is good for the people.”

She echoed President Hu Jintao’s speech that despite its success it must deal with problems. The CPC would move on and renew its strategy and policies with these problems in mind. He referred to “the scientific concept of development, the fight against corruption and care for people’s livelihood.”

Will CPC be able to ride out the effects of its own success? This we will have to wait and see. But with China’s long history and cultural tradition, it will have plenty of help from the teaching of its ancestors. One such classic Chinese teaching comes from Tao Te Ching who said “The way to do is to be.”

In Nanning, I experienced that confusion — how to appreciate the beauty of the Quilin mountains, looking more like pointed hills of varying sizes astride a long river said to lead all the way to Hong Kong. The contrast between its natural beauty and development of skyscrapers and intertwining skyways was dramatic. You can’t help but wonder how this was made possible.

*      *      *

If you are wondering what former Speaker Jose de Venecia is up to these days look him up in ICAPP. He devotes his time shuttling from country to country to pursue ICAPP’s initiatives that I think are near “impossible” tasks. But if this conference has grown from 45 political parties in 2000 to more than 300 today, then he deserves to be heard and supported.

My late husband, Ambassador Alberto A. Pedrosa, and I were among those who helped him put together the first ICAPP conference. Benazir Bhutto and Cory Aquino were among its more important guests. But after that, we did not think that this effort would go very far. Imagine my surprise in Nanning last week when I saw how far it has gone.

I confess that I was more interested in CPC’s pitch for “Development and People’s Access” and did not think that ICAPP had an important role to play in it.

He referred to Nanning as the entry point for ASEAN-China cooperation being the capital of the Beibu Gulf Growth Zone. This is the maritime border of China and Southeast Asia.

 ‘Eventually a growth corridor will run from Nanning through peninsular Southeast Asia all the way to Singapore,” he said.

He paid tribute to Deng Xiaoping as the hero of China’s successful modernization and opening to the world. It is known as “socialism with Chinese characteristics. Because it has worked well for China, making it the second richest power in the world, it could be a model for Middle East countries that are struggling to form new governments.

*      *      *

Among the “seemingly impossible tasks” being promoted by the Philippine ex-speaker Jose de Venecia, are peace and reconciliation in troubled countries in Asia, an Asian Anti-Poverty Fund and the massive planting of a trillion trees.

On peace and reconciliation ICAPP has formed the Asian Peace and Reconciliation Council at a meeting last Aug. 24-25 in Bangkok where it will be based.

An Asia-wide ‘Asian Anti-Poverty Fund’ was endorsed in the Kunming Declaration last year. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon favors such a fund. He told this to ICAPP’s Secretary-General Chung Eui-yong and Cambodian Deputy Premier Sok An’s special representative, Undersecretary Suos Yara.

They propose a $10-million start up fund. It had been proposed to Asean a few years ago but it has not moved since then.

The fund can be used for “human capital enhancement programs; ‘training-for-work’ scholarships in the new technologies; and financing micro-finance loans of say $500 to $1,000 for rural entrepreneurs.  

We’ve heard about planting a million trees during his political campaigns in the Philippines. He has translated the same project for all of Asia (indeed the world) and called for planting a trillion trees.

“Massive planting of Trillions of Trees worldwide will create tens of millions of jobs, are the best defense against tidal waves (tsunami) and carbon dioxide emissions, solve our drinking water and irrigation water requirements, fight erosion, river silting, and dangerous river floods which destroy lives, houses, farms, plantations, fisheries, and livestock.” he said.

If Asia continued its trajectory for progress and prosperity it would regain the leading global economic position it held some 250 years ago — before the Industrial Revolution. The twenty-first century would become the Asian Century.

He does not believe ICAPP should play the US card or the China card. He said the Spratlys issue of sovereignty be shelved in the meantime. Instead he would go along with Deng Xiao Ping “to engage in multiple joint drilling for oil and gas under equitable profit-sharing, withdrawal from the armed island garrisons to achieve demilitarization, observance of UNCLOS and Open Seas, and conversion of the Zone of Conflict into a Zone of Peace, Friendship and Development.”

ICAPP’s has applied for “Observer” status at the UN General Assembly and the talk was it should come before the end of the year.