DEMOCRACY, DEMOCRACY … COMMUNISM: China update

From www.maisonneuve.com/mediascout

La Presse (not available online) and the Post (not available online) front, as The National, the Globe, the Star and the Citizen go inside on Chinese President Hu Jintao’s speech at Beijing’s first Communist congress in five years. Hu’s fifty-eight-page speech delivered the agenda for China for the next five years to 2,200 dutifully applauding delegates. It addressed some of the country’s challenges, the Globe reports, such as corruption, the widening gap between rich and poor, rising unemployment, and the wasteful consumption of resources. While China’s state news agency, Xinhua, rendered the speech as pro-democratic—even counting the number of times Hu uttered the Chinese term for “democracy” (upwards of sixty times, apparently)—the Globe characterizes Hu’s actual proposals for democratic reform as “modest and small-scale, largely limited to local initiatives and party procedures.” The Post writes that Hu will continue to suppress basic rights such as press freedom and freedom from censorship within his initiative to use such tools to “give correct guidance to the public and foster healthy social trends.” While he acknowledged his country’s growing dissatisfaction with Communist rule, the Chinese leader stated that his focus remained on economic development rather than political reform. The Star reports that Hu reminded his delegates that China was transformed from a country “on the verge of collapse” three decades ago into the world’s fourth largest economy today. Reaffirming the Communist party’s control of China, Hu stated: “We must uphold the party’s role as the core of leadership in directing the overall situation.”