The issue of universal participation in China's reform is
becoming increasingly accentuated now that the retrospective
discussion of the current reform, which was launched nearly 30
years ago, has gone in depth. The reform made the country initially
prosperous and has also given rise to a host of problems.
Universal participation is necessary to the fair sharing of the
reform's benefits by all social strata. More importantly, it would
provide new momentum for the reform.
In history, almost all reform programmes in traditional
societies that lack the institutions of democracy were carried out
depending on the personal charisma of their top leaders, while the
masses were shut out.
The reform we are currently implementing in this country,
however, is substantially different and should not be gauged by
historical antecedents.
The reforms and rearrangement of interest relationships in
history involved only local interests, instead of the general
interests of society as a whole.
The reforms generally took place in such a scenario: The reform
was motivated by the crisis the society ran into and defusing it
required specific resources; the ruler, whose interests were not
necessarily identical to those of the upper social strata, launched
the reform to defuse the crisis; the resources needed by the reform
lay with the upper strata, or vested interests, not the poor
masses; the vested-interest groups, however, would not yield their
privileges to the reformers; the vital question, therefore, was if
the State was powerful enough to force these interest groups to
give up some of their privileges; and the reform would be able to
continue and embark on a peaceful and progressive road in case the
interest groups, under the pressure of the State, gave up some of
their privileges, as was evidenced by Britain's Glorious Revolution
in 1688.
The social fabric would break and revolution would erupt when
the nobility refused to yield an inch or the State was too weak to
extract the resources needed by the reform from the vested
interests, as was demonstrated by the French Revolution in
1789.
In view of all this, many reforms involving local interests were
in essence "nobility yielding privileges." Their losses were of
course compensated for.
Our current reform, however, marks the transition from a
centralized distribution set-up to a market-economy one, which
involves wider coverage and much more fundamental realignment of
interest relations.
The outdated centralized distribution system meant that the
State had all the important resources and wealth concentrated in
its hands first and then redistributed them, subsistence resources
in particular, among social members according to certain
principles.
The market-oriented reform, however, is to gradually transfer
the resources monopolized or controlled by the State to sectors and
members of the society and institutionalize this fashion of
distribution within the market-economy framework.
The realignment of interest relationships in the context of the
reform involves almost all important resources and social members
and sectors as a result of the State having the important resources
concentrated in its hands under the old centralized distribution
infrastructure.
It is only natural that the social members and groups who took
part in the creation of social wealth claim a share of the
benefits.
The expression of their demand for interest-sharing covers such
a wide scope that no historical antecedent could match it.
The problems arising in the course of the current reform can be
directly attributed to the tipping of balance in terms of interest
relationships and to the lack of a mechanism for universal
participation. Or, in other words, the mechanism for the expression
of different interest claims and the mechanism of different
interests interacting with each other are lacking.
In the retrospective discussion on the reform, for example, some
people have pointed out that the masses are kept out of
decision-making on reform of State-owned enterprises, healthcare,
education and housing, which are of vital importance to their
lives. Such examples have not been lacking over the last nearly
three decades of reform.
Moreover, some government departments, which are supposed to
watch over the implementation of reform policies, have evolved into
entities of interests, getting involved in interest-sharing and
losing their neutrality as watchdogs.
At the same time, alliances between advantaged groups and these
new interest entities have been forged.
In such a scenario, universal participation becomes all the more
important if the reform is not to go astray.
Now that different interest groups have taken or are taking
shape, a new way of thinking is called for: Although different
interests clash with each other in some cases, their existence is
justified and should be protected on condition that they do not go
counter to the law.
The retrospective discussion on the merits and disadvantages of
the reform, which is largely conducted on the Internet, attracts
wide participation. Media reports point out that signs of benign
interaction between decision-making bodies and the masses are seen
in the Internet-based discussion.
It cannot be denied that some go to extremes in voicing their
opinions and others are given to excessive emotional outbursts.
The Internet is not to blame. The mode of discussion via the
Internet itself makes it clear that we lack the mechanism of
knitting together interest claims expressed in scattered ways.
Generally speaking, individuals' expressions of interest claims
are fragmented and piecemeal. They should be collected and combed
into clear-cut packages of the standard required for
decision-making.
Take the person who is laid off or whose interests are harmed in
the course of reforming State-owned enterprises (SOEs). His
personal claims could end up in social security bills compensating
for his losses, which were made possible by the
opinion-concentration mechanism.
In the absence of this interest-claim-concentration mechanism,
his demand, going unheeded, could turn into resentment and
excessively emotional language.
In view of all this, it is imperative to introduce an
institutionalized mechanism of interest-claim expression and a way
to collate the interest claims that are expressed in fragmented
ways, in my opinion.
(China Daily May 15, 2006)