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China's Communist Party embraces big business
2002-11-14
BEIJING - China's Communist Party elected a raft of business leaders to its powerful Central Committee on Thursday, giving the corporate sector a much bigger -- and unprecedented -- say in politics, delegates said.While red capitalists at a host of state-owned giants were elected, congress delegates had said private businessmen -- once reviled as the "running dogs of capitalism" -- were unlikely to get Central Committee seats this time round. Corporate honchos from a variety of state-owned enterprises, from airlines to oil majors, banks to steel makers, cars to telecoms, were ushered into the 356-member committee which gets decide a new generation of top party leaders on Friday. "These delegates are at the front line for creating wealth in society," said Sun Rongzhang, party secretary of Ganyu county in the eastern province of Jiangsu. "I don't know the proportions but (the party) publicly said they want to increase the level of business representation this time, and increase it substantially," he told Reuters. Sun is one of more than 2,000 delegates to the five-yearly 16th Communist Party Congress in Beijing, which picked about 180 new faces after a week of closed-door meetings to form the Central Committee. The congress also wrote President Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents" political theory into the party constitution, broadening the Communists' support base of workers and peasants to private entrepreneurs. Although most business heads were "alternate members," which means they don't have voting rights like "full members," they can take part in discussions on policy changes. "I think companies are the core cells of a society's economy. The many representatives from enterprises reflect that the economy is already a central part of our party's work," said Chen Feng, chairman of Hainan Airlines Co Ltd (900945.SS) (600221.SS). "There are more members from business than in the past. There are about six from the airline industry," he told reporters after the close of the congress. BUSINESS-FRIENDLY REFORMS Analysts said the Communist Party's endorsement of the increasingly powerful business sector reflected the rising importance of economic reforms in government policy. "Business-friendly reforms are definitely expected as these people will pay more attention to the business community. This will have a positive impact," said Xin Xie, senior economist for Asia at Bank of America. The chiefs of many state-owned enterprises originally came from government and their election to the Central Committee would encourage others to follow, Xie added. He said that was a "half step" towards ushering in entrepreneurs. "Traditionally, people in office don't want to go to the corporate sector because the perception is you have to have a background in government to be promoted in the party," Xie said. "This shows you can still make a mark in the corporate sector and come back to politics," he said. Other delegates noted that the new Central Committee also included more government officials and regulators with a background in economic, market or industrial policy such as China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman Zhou Xiaochuan and top civil aviation regulator Yang Yuanyuan. "There are many candidates who are familiar with economic work and at the same time their technological and cultural standards are very high," said Lin Anxi, a professor at the Dalian University of Technology and congress delegate. "This is very beneficial to our country when it faces the future and world." (Reuters)
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