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HU LEADERSHIP'S THIRD WAVE OF "THOUGHT LIBERATION" SIDETRACKED

Willy Lam

China Brief (Jamestown), June 18, 2008

Apart from the Olympics, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership’s biggest challenge this year is to lay out a road map for “the next stage of reform.” The CCP will this December be marking with much fanfare the 30th anniversary of the start of the reform era, which was unveiled by late patriarch Deng Xiaoping soon after he had shoved aside the ultraconservative Maoist faction. As befits their carefully nurtured image as worthy successors of the Great Architect of Reform, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao are expected to unveil a substantial agenda for change that suits the requirements of the new century.

The mantra of “pushing forward with thought liberation” was sounded first by Hu in his Political Report to the 17th CCP Congress last November, and by Wen in his Government Work Report to the National People’s Congress in March. Yet Hu and Wen being cautious bureaucrats rather than trail-blazing visionaries, decided early this year to let provincial rising-stars such as Guangdong Party Secretary Wang Yang take the lead in propagating what was billed as “the third wave of thought liberation.” The first tide of liberalization refers to the 1980 campaign called “practice is the sole criterion of truth,” which laid into the Maoist doctrine that “whatever Chairman Mao said is correct.” The second crusade, which was launched during Deng’s celebrated "Southern journey" (nanxun), or tour of southern China in 1992, was about boosting productivity through the unfettered adoption of market mechanisms in the economy.

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