CPI-M broods over "imponderable" changes in China

KOZHIKODE: After decades of leaning towards the neighbouring Communist comrades in China, CPI(M) is having a critical look on the shift in policies of Chinese Communist Party that is taking "imponderable" steps like the decision to admit capitalists into the party.

The draft ideological document, presented by CPI(M) polit bureau member Sitaram Yechury before the ongoing 20th Congress of the party, says "negative tendencies" like economic inequalities, unemployment, corruption and nepotism have surfaced in socialist countries including China, who have embarked on a course of reforms to meet the challenges of present-day world realities.

The report says China, which has charted out a "socialist market economy", had witnessed a 13-fold increase in the urban-rural income gap in the last 18 years. China has more billionaires today than any other country other than the US.

In China, the draft says, thousands of corruption cases are coming out every year. Several have been jailed or punished for breaching administrative or party discipline in the last few years.

The CPI-M views seriously the stand of the Communist Party of China (CPC) which has dropped the concept of imperialism from its understanding. "In the absence of anti-imperialist direction, there are signs that nationalism becoming the main sentiment among Chinese youth," it says.

CPI(M) also cannot digest CPC's decision in 2002 to admit capitalists into the party and feels that with the entry of entrepreneurs and businessmen, the party's ideological and political orientation could come under new pressures.