Chinese Capitalists Cool to Party Invite

Chen Zhaoliang aspires to become a living contradiction. A practicing capitalist, Chen applied last August to become a card-carrying member of the Communist Party.

He submitted his application almost immediately after China’s leaders announced that the party would open its doors to entrepreneurs, ending its long-standing vilification of people like Chen as “class enemies.” In a land where the private sector now accounts for more than a third of the economic output, the party knew that it had to do something to stay relevant.

“I believe in the credo of the current Chinese Communist Party,” said Chen, 43, who owns a private trading company. “It recognizes that people like me are builders of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ “--the official euphemism here for a market-oriented economy.

As he anxiously awaits word on his application, Chen is lonelier than might be expected in his ardent, if incongruous, quest to join China’s ruling party.

After President Jiang Zemin announced the controversial reversal in policy a year ago, analysts predicted a cascade of applications by businesspeople eager to take advantage of the connections and protection that membership in the 64-million-strong party offers.

So far, however, that stampede has failed to materialize. Instead, entrepreneurs have stayed away from the party in droves, put off by corruption scandals, skeptical of whether membership would offer any real benefit or discouraged by an onerous vetting process.

Three months ago, for example, Beijing party boss Jia Qinglin boasted that more than 90 entrepreneurs in the capital had applied for membership--a puny number considering that 120,000 private firms operate in this city.

In fact, in a remarkably frank report published in January by a government-backed think tank, less than 8% of private business owners nationwide expressed interest in joining the Communist Party. Eight times as many people said that giving to charity would be a better way to enhance their social status.

“Look at how many corrupt officials there are inside the party and how many problems the party has,” said Wang Changjiang, a professor at the party’s national training academy in Beijing, where cadres from throughout the country are drilled in ideology, governance and administration.

“People have lost their confidence and trust in the party,” Wang said in a candid interview. “It’s hard to convince people why they ought to join.”

But the pitch to new groups of people must be made, Wang said, because it’s the only way for the Communist Party to survive.

Wang is a firm supporter of the new policy on entrepreneurs, which he believes will attract the high-quality talent the party needs to haul itself abreast of fast-changing times.

But not everyone agrees. Opposition has dogged the policy reversal from the start, led by a dwindling but still influential old guard of orthodox Marxists who see as much logic in inviting entrepreneurs to join the Communist Party as in welcoming steak-eaters into a vegetarian society.

Their opposition was aired in China’s state-run media last summer and prompted a crackdown on dissent by President Jiang, the driving force behind the policy shift. A high-profile leftist journal, Search for Truth, was shut down after it criticized the speech Jiang gave July 1, 2001--the party’s 80th anniversary--that paved the way for entrepreneurs to enlist in the cause.

Partly because of the internecine squabbling, recruitment of the party’s erstwhile enemies has proceeded slowly.

Caution is the name of the game in Chinese politics this year, as the Communist regime prepares for its biggest leadership reshuffle in years this fall. Jiang, who is expected to relinquish his position as the party’s No. 1 leader, has only limited political capital he can draw on to push through his new policy and get it formally enshrined in China’s Constitution.

“As a lame duck, no one seems to be inclined to do him any favors,” said Bruce Dickson, an expert on Chinese politics at George Washington University.

The wariness among China’s political elite trickles down to the local level, where actual recruiting of party members takes place.

“Local officials may prefer to wait and see, either out of sincere resistance to letting entrepreneurs into the party, or self-preservation, lest they be accused of promoting a policy that may not get formal approval,” Dickson said.

As part of its go-slow approach, the Communist Party has limited active recruitment of entrepreneurs to 10 provinces and major metropolises, including the wealthiest, most go-go pockets of capitalism in China, such as Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong provinces. In some of these areas, entrepreneurship and party membership have already quietly coexisted for years.

Chen, the private trading company owner and party aspirant, is based in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, an economic powerhouse. Chen was among the first entrepreneurs to apply for membership under the new rules.

His eagerness to sign up is ideological, not practical. “I support and believe what the current party advocates,” such as its emphasis on economic development, Chen said. “It has nothing to do with whether it will help my business.”

At the moment, his application is under inspection by apparatchiks who are supposed to examine Chen’s attitude toward the party and toward society, his support for party policies, his treatment of his employees, his payment of taxes and his contribution to society.

He is confident that he’ll pass muster and sees nothing odd about avowed capitalists belonging to a party that once reviled them.

“Private business owners aren’t exploiters.... There isn’t any exploitation going on these days,” Chen said. “Today’s capitalists are different from what Marx described in his works.”

Perhaps, but fear of Marx and a recrudescence of the radicalism he inspired continues to worry the private sector, according to the report published in January by the government-sponsored Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Chinese in their 40s and 50s grew up indoctrinated with the idea of class struggle and saw it played out in often brutal ways, such as the persecution campaigns of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

“Many people still react with fear and trepidation when speaking of those days,” the report said.

Besides fear, the party also inspires simple indifference.

Many, if not all, of the people it is now trying to attract already have a more powerful currency in their pockets than a Communist Party membership card: money. Cash, and wads of it, can now open more doors in China than proper political credentials.

“I’m not a party member, and I’m not interested in joining,” said Wang Juntao, the head of one of China’s biggest Internet companies. “It’s of no use.”

Such apathy means that party membership can be a tough sell. But it can also mean good news for the Communist regime in that entrepreneurs, as members of China’s growing middle class, have yet to set their sights on becoming a collective political force.

Private businesspeople may chafe at the system, but many have learned to navigate it. During the pro-democracy protests that swept China in 1989 and resulted in the Tiananmen Square massacre, entrepreneurs were mixed in their attitude toward the protesters. While in Beijing some threw their support behind the movement, in the southern city of Xiamen they disapproved, according to an article by Dickson, the George Washington University professor, published last year.

“Entrepreneurs may favor liberalization in order to promote economic growth, but there is little evidence that these same people favor democratization,” Dickson wrote.

Instead, because China’s economic and political elites overlap considerably, especially at the local level, the status quo may even be reinforced. This is clearly the Communist Party’s aim in trying to co-opt private entrepreneurs.

Chen, the Guangzhou businessman, said he would welcome the chance to get involved in politics after his party membership goes through. But it would be within the party structure, not outside it.

“I wouldn’t have my current success without the reformed party,” he said.