JASON LEE/REUTERS

President Hu Jintao speaks at the opening ceremony of the 17th congress of the Communist Party of China, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on October 15.

CHINA is a rising global player with an expanding profile as an economic power and as a space-faring nation. A question that resurfaces in international circles in this context is whether China’s existing political system is one that is best suited for these roles in the emerging era. In a sense, it is precisely this aspect that the long-governing Communist Party of China (CPC) has now sought to answer in a positive fashion.

The 17th National Congress of the CPC, held at the magnificent Great Hall of the People in Beijing in October, re-elected Hu Jintao as general secretary of the party and amended the party constitution in significant ways. Evident, indeed, was the imprint of Hu’s political ideas and preferences. Equally important was the measured finessing of the CPC’s mission as a 73-million-strong party that would like to make the most of its monopolistic hold on state power for the benefit of all of China’s 1.3 billion people.

The pride of place in the new amendment to the CPC constitution, adopted on October 21, goes to the “Scientific Outlook on Development” as the party’s new political creed. It is enunciated as a sequel to, and also as a guiding principle in the same class as “Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of Three Represents”. These four ideological orientations will continue to inspire the party as it seeks to intensify, in a totally robust sense, a new scientific animation of China’s economic development. In making this abundantly clear, the CPC has now projected this and other aspects of the latest change in party statutes as just “proper, not major, revisions”. Viewed in this perspective, what has been undertaken now is the right-sizing of the CPC’s political agenda and not the down-sizing of any earlier theories.

In the actual political domain, it is not really possible to assess whether each and every aspect of the CPC’s constitution, as now amended, is the only way forward. The crucial test of “pragmatism” lies ahead. Unsurprisingly, Hu, at the end of the CPC congress, indicated his preference for a policy of “putting people first” while “opening up new prospects for the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics”.

The results of the latest CPC congress acquire importance in three respects: Hu’s political performance in the five years since he became general secretary and his pledges for the future; the intended impact of the new constitutional changes; and the party’s vision of China’s place in the emerging global order.

Outwardly, the most conspicuous outcome of the CPC’s latest mega event is Hu’s political confidence as he seeks to lead the party into the future. Five years ago, he rose to the helm of affairs when the party scripted a crisis-free event of political succession with poise and precision. On November 14, 2002, the then CPC general secretary Jiang Zemin bowed out after an eventful tenure and, on the following day, the party’s Central Committee elected Hu, who was 59 then, as the new leader.

Hu entered the centre stage of China’s political domain on the basis of political consensus within the party. On the whole, his career graph in politics was already on an upward trajectory since October 1992, when he became the youngest-ever member of the CPC Polit Bureau Standing Committee. It was then that his talent to lead the “fourth generation” of CPC functionaries was not only spotted but also acknowledged within the party hierarchy by none other than Deng Xiaoping.

By then, Deng had established himself as the patriarch of China’s post-Mao politics of reform and modernisation. As China’s acknowledged paramount leader, Deng belonged to the party’s “second generation”, and he had, in significant ways, refashioned the legacy of Mao Zedong’s revolutionary era.

Hu’s immediate predecessor, Jiang Zemin, too, carved out a role for himself. Besides being the prime leader of the “third generation”, he came to be known, in Western perspectives, as “China’s Mikhail Gorbachev” without, of course, the old Soviet reformer’s political failings and tragedies.

Spending his initial years at the helm under the grand shadow of Deng, Jiang eventually steered the CPC into international limelight as a party that rose above Western stereotypes about the “June 4 incident” of 1989 at the Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

And, by the time Hu succeeded Jiang in 2002, the CPC was widening its representational attributes in a bid to extend its unchallenged political supremacy in China for the foreseeable future. For Hu, the timing of his ascension to the highest position in the party could not have occurred at a more appropriate time – the beginning of the 21st century. The mystique of his orderly assumption of the high office, earmarked for him almost a decade earlier, was heightened by symbolism too. It was against the pictorial backdrop of the majestic Great Wall of China that Hu introduced himself as the CPC’s new helmsman. The subtle message, contrary to the prevalent predictions of the time by Beijing-watchers such as Gordon Chang, was that the protective political wall of the CPC-led China would not collapse like the Berlin Wall.

This message has stood the test in the five years since Hu became the CPC general secretary on the strength of his credentials within the party’s inner circles. As a technocrat expected to transform the state agenda over time, his work experiences as an ascending CPC functionary included meticulous service in the party’s cause in the sensitive Tibet region of China. And, before succeeding Jiang, Hu even engaged the United States, and its President George W. Bush in particular, in the context of Washington’s new concerns and priorities after the terror strikes of September 11, 2001.

Before Hu’s ascension to the helm, Jiang had placed China’s ties with the U.S. on a firm footing of engagement between two sovereign equals. This was considered a feat in the aftermath of the U.S. campaign against China over the Tiananmen episode of 1989. More importantly, Hu has, during his first five years as the CPC general secretary, navigated several turbulent phases in China’s expanding engagement with the U.S. At one stage, the fluctuations in these ties over the Taiwan issue prompted Hu and the CPC to reassert China’s final say over that non-sovereign territory’s future through an anti-secession law. More recently, Hu has had to grapple with much U.S.-orchestrated turbulence, as distinct from full-blown crises, over such issues as the Dalai Lama’s “role” in and “relevance” to China as also the safety of Chinese-made products, among a host of other questions.

With China now coming under laser-like international focus in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the CPC’s slate is also increasingly dominated by domestic priorities – peace, stability and economic development. Hu’s re-election as the CPC’s supreme leader and the re-constitution of the Standing Committee of the Polit Bureau reflect political continuity in an ambience of national self-confidence and awareness of new challenges.

The Polit Bureau Standing Committee now has four new members, but the main outcome of the CPC’s latest mega event is Hu’s governance vision. Having stamped his authority on Chinese politics by securing the CPC’s endorsement of his “Scientific Outlook on Development”, Hu is intensifying efforts to emphasise the importance of “harmony” at home and abroad.

Hu’s overall performance since his political elevation in 2002 and his new pledges are integral to the ongoing China story of life and times under the CPC. Prior to the latest national congress, the CPC had enshrined, in its constitution, a series of strategic formulations as the party’s guiding principles. These formulations received a renewed endorsement now.

Of these established theories of the Chinese state, Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought belong to the pristine eras of the global rise of communism as a system of governance. The Deng Xiaoping Theory and the “Three Represents” as an important line of thought are relatively more contemporary in scope and remain relevant to China’s ongoing post-Mao political evolution.

The Deng Xiaoping Theory of economic reform and modernisation has introduced China to certain pragmatic practices that are designed to increase national wealth and improve social welfare. As a follow-up idea, “Three Represents”, formulated by Jiang Zemin, is another elaboration of China’s emerging political destiny.

CLARO CORTES IV/ REUTERS

Delegates at the congress on October 15.

The CPC, it is said, should “represent” China’s “advanced productive forces”, an obvious reference to the benign elements of capitalist enterprise. Two other aspects of the CPC’s three-dimensional character relate to the advanced cultural “orientation” of the country as a whole and “the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people”.

The idea of “Three Represents” has been dubbed by the CPC’s Western critics as “a capitalist manifesto” in all but name – a not-so-subtle play of sarcasm in relation to the (Communist) Manifesto associated with the bygone era of a global rise of communism. However, the CPC, proud of China’s political anchorage in a long-established civilisation, tends to see Hu’s ideas in the overall march of history.

The “Scientific Outlook on Development” is projected as a pathway to “a harmonious socialist society”, whose establishment is also outlined in the latest amendment. The idea is to “turn China into a prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious modern socialist country”. The amendment further stipulates that “the CPC leads the people in developing the socialist market economy”. A related mandate is that the party “unwaveringly consolidates and develops the public sector of the economy and unswervingly encourages, supports and guides the development of the non-public sector”.

As reflected in the amendment, the “Scientific Outlook” itself has been defined as a multi-dimensional vision and “the leading theoretical development” in the five years since the last CPC National Congress. As for the highlights, “the Party [the CPC] works to balance urban and rural development, development among regions, economic and social development, relations between man and nature, and domestic development and opening to the outside world”. The “Outlook” would also help “adjust the economic structure and transform the pattern of economic development”. The CPC “is dedicated to building a new socialist countryside, taking a new path of industrialisation with Chinese characteristics, and making China an innovative country and a resource-conserving [and also] environment-friendly society”.

These economic and social aspects of the “Scientific Outlook” are matched by certain new political directives as part of the same vision. The new political orientation is also spelt out elaborately. The CPC “respects and safeguards human rights [and] encourages the free airing of views”. The party further “works to establish sound systems and procedures of democratic election, decision-making, administration and oversight”.

In this broad framework, the amendment stipulates that the CPC uphold “the system of self-governance at the primary level of society”.

No less important are the other political formulations now woven into the party’s current statute which was passed at the 12th CPC Congress in September 1982. The CPC “helps ethnic minorities and ethnic autonomous areas with their economic, cultural and social development, and ensures that all ethnic groups work together for common prosperity and development”. Also adumbrated is the line that “the Party [the CPC] strives to fully implement its basic principle for work related to religious affairs”. The party will also “rally religious believers in making contributions to economic and social development”.

Besides mandating a work ethic of “increase[d] transparency” at all levels of the CPC, the amendment enlarges the scope of China’s patriotic united front. “All socialist workers” and “all patriots who support socialism or who support the reunification of the motherland” are now being joined by “all builders of the cause of socialism” as the prime movers in politics, the economy and the social domain.

The overall objective of the amendment, certainly not the first such exercise since the founding of the party in 1921, has been identified as the building of “a moderately prosperous society in all respects”. Hu indicated to the congress, attended by over 2,200 delegates, that efforts would be made to attain this goal by the year 2020.

The comprehensive amendment spans military affairs and foreign policy as well. The CPC, it is said, “ensures [that] the People’s Liberation Army [PLA] accomplishes its historical missions at this new stage in the new century”. The party, in line with the new “Scientific Outlook”, “gives full play to [the PLA’s] role in consolidating national defence, defending the motherland and participating in the socialist modernisation drive”. On foreign affairs, the amendment is categorical in spelling out that the CPC “adheres to an independent foreign policy of peace, follows the path of peaceful development and a win-win strategy of opening up”.

The intended impact of this broad-spectrum amendment is to place China firmly on course for stable economic progress and for a long-term role on the global stage as a power to reckon with.

Discernible beyond the substantive semantics of the amendment is a blend of what many Indians may recognise as a Nehru-like call for scientific temper and the Chinese penchant for thinking big and thinking deep. What distinguishes this new blend is the CPC’s attempt to look at all aspects of governance through the prism of Hu’s “Scientific Outlook”.

On the global stage, China sits at the high table of several key fora that could determine the future course of international relations and shape the profiles of some emerging powers, including India, in the present circumstances. To sustain this leverage in global politics and to stay relevant into the future, China has, in recent years, emphasised its adherence to a doctrine of “peaceful rise” or its fine-tuned version – the “path of peaceful development”.

Unlike George Kennan and Henry Kissinger, known as the exponents of strategies for the primacy of the U.S. at different stages of its ascendance in world affairs, Zheng Bijian, Chairman of the Beijing-based think tank China Reform Forum, has spelt out how “the Chinese dream” of a “peaceful rise” is different from other “dreams”. China, according to Zheng, does not aspire for “the American dream” of energy-use extravagance and other attributes. Nor is China seeking to attain for itself the old “European dream” of colonisation. The old “Soviet Union dream” of “arms race, expansionism and hegemony” is also not the stuff of the present “Chinese dream”.

While Zheng’s exposition makes clear what “the Chinese dream” is not about, Hu’s latest political intervention at the CPC’s 17th Party Congress turns the spotlight on what “the Chinese dream” is really about at this stage of the 21st century.