Want China Times
February 25, 2015
Xi Jinping makes a speech expounding on the ‘Four Comprehensives’ at a New Year tea party for the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in Beijing, Dec. 31, 2014. (File photo/Xinhua)
The Lianghui or “two meetings,” the annual meetings of China’s National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, will be held soon after the Chinese New Year holiday, according to the public WeChat account of the People’s Daily’s opinion web portal.
Over the holiday, the site has issued a series of opinion pieces from heavyweight commentators to discuss the progress of the implementation of President Xi Jinping’s “Four Comprehensives” principle-to comprehensively build an ideal Confucian society, to comprehensively deepen reform, to comprehensively implement rule of law and to comprehensively enforce strict discipline for the Communist Party.
The first piece was set to be published on Feb. 25. The lengthy piece will be republished in full or shortened form by central and local state media outlets. One observer stated that from Feb. 2, ministers at the provincial level have been participating in forums on rule of law at the CPC Party School in line with the spirit of the fourth plenum of the 18th CPC Party Congress. At the launch of the series of forums, Xi made a speech which focused on the strategic implementation and the logic behind the deployment of the “Four Comprehensives,” which suggests that they will become a centerpiece of Xi’s political theory during his time in office.
Party Media Hyping “Four Comprehensives”
From the first time he mentioned the principle in December in Jiangsu, Xi has repeatedly made reference to it, including at the CPPCC National Committee New Year tea party, at forums for ministers at the provincial level, at meetings and group study sessions of the Politburo and on the occasion of Chinese New Year.
Party Buzzwords
The piece stated that in the two years since the 18th Party Congress, several important meetings paved the groundwork for the formulation of the “Four Comprehensives”: the 18th National Congress repeatedly stressed the importance of aspiring to an ideal Confucian society, the 3rd plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee deployed the terminology “deepening reform,” the 4th plenary session called for the comprehensive implementation of rule of law, while the Summary Meeting of the Party’s Mass Line Education announced moves to enforce strict discipline within the party. These four concepts were brought together for the first time in December.
Over the past two years, state media outlets have been poring over Xi’s methods of governance which, according to the analysis piece in the People’s Daily, are summarized by the “Four Comprehensives.” Some even take it to be Xi’s guiding principle and have suggested that it will join the ranks of Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents” and Hu Jintao’s “Scientific Outlook on Development,” to become enshrined as party orthodoxy.
Amendment to the Party Constitution?
From Mao Zedong to Deng Xiaoping, the CPC has always aspired to political ideals; from its founding in July 1921 through to the establishment of the Communist government in China in 1949, the party has emphasized its foundational ideology of Marxism-Leninism, as well as Mao Zedong Thought, for its legitimacy. This is true for the notion of “people’s democratic dictatorship,” a phrase incorporated into the party constitution by Mao, as it is for the later “Three Represents,” incorporated by Jiang. When Jiang was president, the “Three Represents” drafted by political theorist Wang Huning were an attempt to provide further legitimacy for the one-party government. However the CPC has largely leaned towards pragmatism rather than ideals in actual governance and the Hu Jintao administration in particular was seen as a government of technocrats.
For Xi Jinping, anti-corruption, reform and rule of law have all made progress under his leadership but Xi is likely looking for a theoretical basis to underpin his achievements so far, according to Duowei News, a media outlet run by overseas Chinese. For buzzwords, Xi has already produced the concept of the “Chinese Dream,” also thought to be the brainchild of Wang Huning, and the “New Normal,” which puts a positive spin on China’s slowing economic growth, but the former is vague and the latter only relates to economic policy, which is where the “Four Comprehensives” comes into play.
The CPC usually adopts new guiding principles every ten years, so the timing appears to be about right for the launch of another. Hu first made mention of what would become a guiding party principle, the Scientific Outlook on Development, in 2002, on a military inspection in Guangdong. After this he expounded on the principle on several occasions and it was finally enshrined in the party charter on Nov. 21, 2007.
In view of this timeline, if the concept of the “Four Comprehensives” is to be adopted into the party constitution, it will likely go through a period of refinement and expansion and be enshrined in the party constitution during the 19th National Congress of the CPC.
