Sixty years in power, and four generations of unelected leaders, the Chinese Communist Party enters its next round of leadership. The Party has every intention to maintain its single-party rule.
Current regime leader Hu Jintao described the next steps for the Communist Party on Thursday. He did not go over possible economic or political reforms, but rather he reiterated the ideology of past leaders. Of course he did not go over the violent legacy of the Chinese Communist Party has and is carrying out.
In addition to the official legacies like the Mao Zedong Thought and Hu’s Scientific Development, each generation of leaders have left their mark in other areas, some of which remain taboo inside the country.
Under Mao Zedong, the ill-thought-out economic policy of the Great Leap Forward contributed to the death of millions. Researchers estimate between 18 to 45 million Chinese people died from 1958 to 1961.
Then in the 1960s, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution. Other than wiping out countless cultural relics, millions of Chinese were violently persecuted.
Deng Xiaoping, who eventually took over as the second-generation leader decided to pursue economic reform during the 1980s. But in 1989, calls emerged for greater liberalization. When hundreds of thousands of demonstrators poured into Beijing, Deng ordered the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown. Hundreds to thousands were estimated to have perished.
As Deng’s reign came to a close, former Party leader Jiang Zemin rose through the ranks for supporting the Tiananmen Square crackdown. In 1999, Jiang launched his own campaign, to eradicate the Falun Gong spiritual practice. The nationwide crackdown targeted tens of millions of people, and continued through the reign of current leader Hu Jintao.
Hu has been praised for leading China to become a global economic power. At the same time, observers have documented a worsening of the rule of law and human rights atrocities inside the country. Allegations of state-sanctioned organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience, including Falun Gong adherents, have also surfaced during Hu’s reign.
As for Xi Jinping, the upcoming Party Chief, little is known about his political inclination. Whether he will heed domestic and global calls for reform, and how he will address the mounting challenges facing the regime remain to be seen.
