China's ruling party's 'longer march'

Updated: 2016-06-25 11:34

By Ikenna Emewu(China Daily)

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CCP was founded in 1921, just few years after the first major communist state of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) Bolshevik Revolution took roots. So, China actually became the ideological and political outpost of USSR style of politics.

In the days of the birth of the CCP, opposition in most parts of the world was defined in fisticuffs. So, CCP and the ruling Nationalist Party of China slugged out their political trade in bloodshed. Those were the civil wars of China and when the opposition CCP was routed, it flee to a far and remote location in Yan'an to re-strategize, ensconced for 13 years in the deep valleys.

When CCP efforts came to fruition in 1949, it took over the management of China possibly expecting a war of opposition soon after. But that has not happened till date. Today, opposition has taken a different shape, not that of warfare and blood but ideological tantrums and naggings.

To consolidate, maybe after the demise of a despot in USSR, Josef Stalin, who implemented unsparing and intolerant socialism in Russia that was a strong influence on China, CCP took a different route of entrenching development. That gave birth to the first Development Plan of 1953. March this year, as I reported the Two Sessions in Beijing, President Xi Jinping announced the commencement of the 13th Five-Year Plan that culminates in 2020.

No doubt, CCP has been a catalyst in the growth and evolution of China to where it is today. From the bloodshed days to the leadership days later, CCP has been on constant evolution and self reinvention over time.

Being in China now when the CCP celebrates its 95 years, I owe the party some words. I am just a journalist, not Chinese, but Nigerian. I am not a politician, I am not given to so much ideology gimmicks because they are the platitude with which the political elite confuse and convolute the system to get what it wants from the masses. I am just an observer from my profession that gives me the latitude to take on any issue. With the entire world as jurisdiction, I am an interested party in the business of the CCP for a better China and better world. I congratulate the CCP for these long years of struggle and tenacity.

In China, the political system is complex and unique. It is like something not known elsewhere. But most of all, it is workable. Many countries that operate multi-party democracy have an opposition that is never part of the government. In China, there are eight political parties that seem to operate under the same platform.

At the National Peoples Congress (NPC) and the China Peoples Political Consultative Congress (CPPCC) at the Two Sessions, all of them gather in the same auditorium and decide on what the country’s leadership and its policies should be. This also includes the parties that rule in Hong Kong and Taiwan. China prides herself with another complexity known as One Country, Two Systems.

A proof that China operates democracy by its own model and not ruled by the arbitrariness of one man is because the NPC elects the president who operates under the supervision of the electing body. In Britain, the masses don't elect the Prime Minister. It's the party that has majority membership in the parliament that forms the government and appoints the PM. In China, the NPC, a representative body of the leaders of the parties plays the role.

That implies that China's CCP operates a constitutional government with checks and balances.

By CCP system which I call creative, the NPC that elects the president is made of members of the opposition parties and some other interests and certainly with the CCP members in the majority. Even the CPPCC has these other members.

In a lecture by Prof. Lu Keli on the History of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to my class at the Renmin University of China, Beijing, three months ago, he noted that many observers all over the world have started doubting the socialist credentials of the current CCP and dubbing it a capitalist institution already.

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