JEAN-PHILIPPE BEJA

La politica cinese fra rigidità flessibile del partito e militanza autolimitata della società

213

Settembre-Dicembre 2006

Anno LXXI    n. 3

Summary - The post-Mao era inaugurated a stage of deep review of the role of Communist Party(CCP) in Chinese society: from “revolutionary party”(geming dang) into “ruling party”(geming dang). This entailed a revised approach consisting in new method of selecting and promoting party’s officials by emphasising qualifications as expertise, managerial skills, aptitude for encouraging economic development rather than ideological and political faithfulness.  This new strategy succeeded in reaching a consensus of the growing middle class about the main political goals of Chinese regime and consequently in dampening political and social opposition by digging a huge break in social body.  With regard to this strategy of cooptation and social segmentation the Jiang Zemin’s  theory of “three representatives” is emblematic.  Though this expression of openness and efficiency keeps being obsessively confirmed in official speeches and in legislation the exercise of freedom in China   is far from being guaranteed.  The approach of managing power of past regime is still “in office” and rigorously practised in order to control the frequent turmoil of peasants. Likewise frequent initiatives of intellectuals who claim the authorities deny the people their rights are severely repressed. Nevertheless the sharp-eyed party’s control on community does not prevent  some expectations of change from being fulfilled.  Greater and greater groups of intellectuals, lawyers, journalists are resorting to state legislation to get the basic rights recognised and, for this purpose, they don’t hesitate to deliver any sort of information to Internet in order to smooth the authorities’ reaction. These actions offer a glimmer of hope in Chinese scenario.