By Chun Feng

Editor’s note: Observers inside and outside China often say that the country is substantially more of a market economy than before 1992, the year full-scale market-based reform began. The author here contends that since that time and up until now, the Chinese economy is best thought of as more akin to an organized-crime operation, in which the interests of different key families are considered. The article has been modestly edited and translated by Evan Osborne.

It was first published by Yibao Chinese. When reproducing or transmitting please include at the beginning the source URL, https://yibaochina.com/?p=249575】The author’s views do not represent those of this journal.

Recently, the author of this piece read an article by Xu Youyu and Teng Biao called “The Arduous Quest for Liberalism in China” (January 17, 2023, China Democracy Quarterly). The author carefully read the full text. Overall, the author very much admires this interview.  However, some points merit discussion. For example, Xu Youyu says, “Deng Xiaoping’s [1991] southern tour was a dramatic measure at a desperate time. The reason why he was able to achieve a breakthrough was first of all that China’s market economy gained legitimacy,” and that “It can be said that Deng Xiaoping’s speech during his southern tour was a way to turn the tide. China’s marketization has subsequently continued to develop, and it has also been promoted ideologically.” And finally, “Many people believe that a market economy will inevitably lead to democracy, but it turns out that this is not the case.”

These are very serious topics, having to do with the understanding of China’s socialist market economy, how to evaluate Deng Xiaoping’s speeches on his southern tour, and especially the relationship between a market economy and constitutional democracy.

The author has written this article in hopes of engaging with readers on these questions, enabling us to more clearly understand China’s current situation.

Due to the length of this article, it will be divided into two parts. This first part, here, is divided into three sections: first, discussion of the nature of China’s “socialist market economy”; second, how to evaluate Deng Xiaoping’s speech on his southern tour; third, the relationship between a market economy and constitutional democracy. 

1. The Essence of China’s “Socialist Market Economy”

In the interview, Xu Youyu said: “After Deng Xiaoping’s southern tour, the  reason why he was able to create a breakthrough was that China’s market economy first gained legitimacy, and economic liberalism was then basically unimpeded by criticism from the mid-to-late 1990s.”

If one wants to understand clearly whether the market economy in China has been legitimized, one must resolve two questions:

  1. What is the essence of a market economy?
  2. What is the essence of China’s “socialist market economy”?

Answering these two questions clarifies that what has continued to be legitimized is not even a “socialist market economy,” and instead is what I will call the “party-state economic system.”首发

Question 1: The Essence of a Market Economy

In my own piece “A Market Economy and Constitutional Democracy” (Chinese) I have already characterized the requisite features of a market economy:

  • market processes to allocate resources;
  • free competition;
  • a system having equality;
  • having a system of private property is its foundation;
  • characterized by the rule of law.

In short, a truly free market is the heart of a market economy. A market economy treats everyone legally the same, and is based on private property and the rule of law. But the CCP economy has only a modicum of freedom, and substantial legal inequality. Government ownership and not private property is its foundation. The people in it are ruled by the whims of the Party and are not equal before the law.

This is why the democratic countries of the West do not accept that China is a market economy.

In comparing the actual Chinese economy to an actual market economy, we can see that China is no market economy. What is it then?

Question 2: The essence of the Chinese “socialist market economy”

In traditional economics, the fundamental economic questions were whom to produce for (distribution), what to produce and how to produce it. Modern economics believes that there was a huge unanswered question in traditional economics, which ignores the key actor in solving basic economic problems: who will produce. In modern democratic countries, products are brought to market by privately operated enterprises.  

Goods of a truly public nature are left to the government to produce, via state-owned enterprises.

After World War II, with the exception of a few authoritarian monarchies such as Saudi Arabia, the world had three sorts of economic systems —market economic systems, government economic systems and party-state economic systems.

Market economies

If companies are privately owned, and the government provides only truly public goods, we call this a market economy.

Government economic systems

What I will term a “government economic system” occurs when both public goods (goods used collectively by many people simultaneously) and private goods (goods consumed exclusively by individuals) are both provided by the state — for example, countries governed by political parties that are members of the Socialist International.

From June 39 to July 3, 1951, parties of the “Socialist International” held their first meeting in Frankfurt. Among them were Britain’s Labor Party, France’s Socialist Party, Germany’s and Sweden’s Social Democratic Parties, and other social-democratic parties. At its formation, it announced that its platform was indeed social democracy.

The Socialist International released the Frankfurt Declaration, which contained its principles, and the goals and tasks of democratic socialism, but opposed a one-party state, and supported a multiparty system and the separation of powers.

The parties belonging to the Socialist International rotated in and out of power. Thus, they exercised power subordinate to the national authority rather than the national authority being organized through them.

With respect to economics, these countries implemented economic democracy and a mixed economy, stood for some level of market competition and did not oppose private property. The part of the economy that was planned was done so according to the perceived needs of the people. The extent of planning and public ownership was determined by a country’s own economic structure. Social-democratic planning did not demand the collectivization of all productive resources — privately owned farms, small-scale industry, and retail establishments all existed. It did not not require that all economic decisions should be made by the government, in particular not by the central government. Planning was to be carried out in accordance with the principle of the decentralization of economic power.

For example, consider the British Labor Party. Near the end of the Second World War in 1945, it won a landslide electoral victory. The new prime minister Clement Attlee had run on a platform of rebuilding the country through public ownership and government control.After  coming to power, the Labor government nationalized major industries and utilities such as the Bank of England, coal mines, steel, electricity, gas, telephone and inland transport (including railways, road transport and canals), and the Labor government introduced a series of social-welfare benefits.  The Labor Party government played the lead role in the economy and implemented a planned economy based on mixed ownership. This is a government economic system.

Party-state economic system

I will take China as the example of a party-state economic system, and analyze the Chinese system under communism.

Under Mao Zedong’s rule, the CCP’s “one-party dictatorship” party-state autocratic system was implemented, and under it the party and government were integrated. The roles of the CCP are the roles of the government. After the CCP used violence to plunder the assets of landlords, entrepreneurs, and businessmen, it established a planned economic system based on government ownership. The CCP is the single organization of state power that dominates the Chinese economy. Mao’s planned economy is a typical “party-state economic system”.

Under Deng Xiaoping, the 1992 report of the 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed the establishment of a socialist market economic system, which gave limited room for a private market economy.  The CCP added the word “socialist” to explain that the CCP’s market economy is socialist in nature, not capitalist in nature.

When he spoke, Deng Xiaoping raised and answered a big question concerning the destiny of the country. He said: “What are the advantages of the socialist market economy? They lie in the ‘four musts.’ The four musts are embodied in the leadership of the party.” Deng Xiaoping believed that the superiority of the socialist market economy lies in the leadership of the Communist Party of China.

The Sixteenth National Congress of the CCP in 2002 issued two “unswervings”: “unswervingly consolidate and develop the public sector of the economy,” and “unswervingly encourage, support and guide the development of the non-public sector of the economy.” The CCP’s emphasis on “unswervingly consolidating and developing the public sector of the economy” emphasized that the CCP’s position as the main actor in China’s economy is unshakable.  In “unswervingly encourage, support and guide the development of the non-public sector of the economy,” the key word is “guidance”.  The non-public economy should develop under the “guidance” of the CCP, which means that the private economy must accept the leadership of the CCP.

After Xi Jinping came to power, he bluntly emphasized the need to strengthen “the party’s leadership over economic work.” Recently he continued to insist at the Central Economic Work Conference in Beijing on December 15-16 2022 that to do economic work well, everyone must uphold the overall leadership of the party, and in particular the centralized and unified leadership of the party central committee.

From this it can be seen that the CCP’s socialist market economy is still a party-state economy.

And the above analysis indicates that the socialist market economy and Mao’s planned economy are fundamentally the same party-state economy. A genuine market economy is a system based on the free market, equality, private property and the rule of law. The CCP economic system is only partly free market, not equal, and is built on the party-state model.

Having compared the nature of the market economy and the CCP’s socialist market economy, it is clear that, as I noted, the statement “The reason why Deng Xiaoping was able to achieve a breakthrough after his southern tour was that China’s market economy first gained legitimacy” is incorrect. In fact, after Deng Xiaoping’s southern tour, it was not that China’s market economy gained legitimacy, but that the CCP continued the legitimacy of the party-state economic system. Therefore, while economic liberalism was not unimpeded in the mid-to-late 1990s, the CCP’s “party-state economics” was.

2. Evaluating Deng Xiaoping’s southern trip

In the interview Xu Youyu said: “Deng Xiaoping’s speech on the southern tour was indeed a way to turn the tide. His speech not only promoted the continued development of China’s marketization, but also promoted it ideologically, via the scientific concept of development and so on. Of course, the corruption was so serious later, and this merits an in-depth reflection.”

To evaluate this, we need to resolve the following three questions:

  1. Did Deng Xiaoping’s southern trip promote the further development of China’s market economy?
  2. Did his speeches at that time perform a promotional function ideologically?
  3. Why, after China promoted the continued development of marketization, was corruption such a serious problem?

Answering these three questions is sufficient to show that Deng’s southern trip was a tool to protect the CCP’s dictatorial governance. Not only did it not promote China’s marketization, it did not even lead to fundamental ideological change. It can thus actually explain why corruption became so serious.

Question 1. Did Deng Xiaoping’s southern trip promote the further development of China’s market economy?

In July 1987, Deng Xiaoping said: “The socialist modernization drive is the basic line. To carry out the modernization drive to make China thriving and prosperous, first, we must implement the polices of reform and openness; second, we must adhere to the Four Cardinal Principles.” According to the record of Deng Xiaoping’s thought, from October 25 to November 1, 1987, the 13th National Congress of the CCP determined: “In the primary stage of socialism, our party’s basic line for building socialism with Chinese characteristics is to lead and unify all the peoples of all the country’s nationalities, to place economic construction at the center, to adhere to the Four Cardinal Principles, to persist in reform and opening up, and to rely on self-reliance and hard work to build our country into a prosperous, democratic, and civilized modern socialist country.”

“One center, two pillars” is the fundamental principle of the CCP’s “party-state” economic system.

The words spoken on the southern trip

On June 4, 1989, in order to maintain the dictatorial rule of the Communist Party of China, Deng Xiaoping brazenly ordered the shooting of Chinese students pursuing democracy. The barbaric massacre was met with economic sanctions imposed on China by Western governments. Foreign businessmen stopped further investment in China, and some withdrew their funds, resulting in a decline in Chinese exports, slumping markets, shrinking production, and economic decline.  

To rescue the sliding economy, Deng Xiaoping toured Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Guangzhou, Shanghai and other places in southern China from January 18 to February 21, 1992, and delivered a speech there. The CCP later spoke highly of Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 Southern Tour, saying things like “China’s reform and opening up, which was slowed down or even stagnated because of the June 4th incident, has since accelerated again, and the 1992 Southern Tour also saved China’s emerging capital market at that time,” and “Raising the banner of reform and opening up, adhering to emancipating the mind, and seizing historical opportunities have greatly accelerated China’s development.” Deng Xiaoping had during the tour made remarks such as “Development is the final word,” “He who doesn’t carry out reform and opening up can only end up in a dead end,” and “Corruption must be opposed throughout the process of reform and opening up.”  These remarks, if not connected with Deng Xiaoping’s adherence to the Four Cardinal Principles, were quite capable of deceiving the Chinese people. Let me analyze these words of Deng Xiaoping, who was praised by the Chinese Communist Party, one by one.

Deng Xiaoping once said, “Development is the bottom line.” The problem is, what kind of development did he mean? The “Four Cardinal Principles” are not the bottom line for the Chinese people. Rather, they are the the bottom line for increasing authoritarian control. For the Chinese people, jettisoning the CCP’s party-state system and building a democratic one is the bottom line!

Deng Xiaoping said, “To adhere to the line, principles and policies since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Party, the key is to adhere to ‘one center, two pillars’. If we do not adhere to socialism, do not reform and open up, do not develop the economy, and do not improve people’s lives, it is a road that leads nowhere. The basic line must be followed for a hundred years and cannot be deviated from. Only by adhering to this line will the people trust and support us. Whoever wants to go against the line, principles and policies of the Third Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China will not be supported by the people, and will be overthrown. Therefore, the military and state power must maintain this road, this system, and these policies.”

Deng Xiaoping always adhered to both “one center, two pillars” and to the party-state economic system of the CPC.  Therefore, the view that Deng Xiaoping’s speech in southern China promoted the continued development of China’s marketization” is wrong.

Deng Xiaoping, recall, said that the party’s basic line, and thus the CCP’s rule, should be carried out and continued for a hundred years. Forty years of reform and opening up under the bottom line of the “Four Basic Principles” has produced the world’s most corruption organization — the CCP bureaucracy.  Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening up has preserved the rule of the CCP, nourished the descendants of its then-dominant leaders, and strengthened the party’s military, so much so that after Xi Jinping came to power, he thought it could be looked at as the equal of  the those of the Western democratic world!  Today’s Chinese people should not be deceived by the Chinese Communist Party any longer.

According to Deng Xiaoping, “In the course of reform and opening all corruption must be opposed.” But during his southern tour he never proposed any sort of political reform.

The party-state autocratic system of the CCP has not been abolished.  Therefore, it is impossible for China to eliminate the party’s systemic corruption.  The CCP’s political corruption is the institutional foundation of the CCP’s economic corruption.  As long as the Chinese Communist Party exists, there will always be corruption in China!

Political power is in the CCP’s hands

Deng Xiaoping once said, “Don’t be afraid to set up more ‘foreign-funded’ enterprises.  As long as we are clear-headed, we are not afraid.  We have advantages, such as state-owned large and medium-sized enterprises, township enterprises, and more importantly, the government is in our hands.”

These words of Deng Xiaoping are clear.

Power is in the hands of the Communist Party of China. They have the guns. Don’t be afraid to resume the college entrance examination [which the government had abandoned during the Cultural Revolution, restoring it only in 1977]. If the students are disobedient, they will be killed with tanks!  The Communist Party of China has guns in its hands, don’t be afraid if there are more foreign-funded enterprises, as long as power is in the hands of the Communist Party!  Leave private enterprises alone. If necessary, they can be closed, taken over, and eliminated (and their owners imprisoned or shot).

Everything that Deng Xiaoping did was done in order to protect the CCP’s hold on power. Every amoral thing that Deng Xiaoping dared to do, he did because held the gun. This sentence reveals Deng Xiaoping’s butchery!

Planning and the market

Deng Xiaoping said that “having a little more planning or a little more market,  this question does not involve a fundamental difference between socialism and capitalism. Socialism is not the same thing as economic planning, in capitalism there is planning as well. Capitalism is not the same thing as a market economy, in socialism there are markets as well. Planning and markets are both simply methods.”

This statement reveals Deng Xiaoping’s ignorance. There are two fundamental differences between socialism and capitalism. Economically, the capitalist market economy is based on transactional private ownership, while the socialist market economy is based on state ownership. In terms of politics, the capitalist market economy is interdependent with a constitutional-democratic political system, whereas China’s socialist market economy is integrated with the party-state autocratic political system. A capitalist economy is a private economy that is not controlled by the government. The CCP’s socialist market economy is a party-state economy that is controlled by the CCP.

As for other things Deng Xiaoping said or wrote, such as “After a long process of development, socialism will inevitably replace capitalism. This is an irreversible general trend of social and historical development”; “I have not read many books, my primary-school texts are The Communist Manifesto, The ABCs of Communism, and History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik). I use the views and methods of Marxism-Leninism to study China’s problems.” I really don’t bother to refute this nonsense.  Please look at my article “Turning This Bloody Page” [Chinese] and take a look at the current situation in the world. Soviet Russia has perished and there are only a few socialist true believers left. It is clear that Marxism has been replaced in the thinking of most socialists. Abandoned by most onetime socialist states, violent socialism is already dying!

In his southern speech Deng Xiaoping did not promote the continued development of a “market economy.”

Question 2. In his speech did Deng Xiaoping promote ideological change?

There is only one criterion for distinguishing whether Deng Xiaoping’s speeches are an ideological transformation, and that is whether in them the CCP abandoned the “Four Cardinal Principles.” Did Deng Xiaoping give them up? No! The “Four Cardinal Principles” are like a sword hanging over the heads of the Chinese people. Where can one see any such supposed ideological transformation?

Did Jiang Zemin abandon the Four Cardinal Principles? Let us look at the reality.

While Jiang Zemin held power:

In 1991, Hubei resident Zhang Minpeng and others secretly formed the Chinese Republican Party, with “overthrowing autocracy and reviving the republic” as its program. Soon after, Zhang was sentenced to 5 years in prison for “counter-revolutionary crimes” by the Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court.

On May 27 1992, Hu Shigen of the Liberal Democratic Party of China was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

In 1993, the pro-democracy activist Liu Wensheng was sentenced to ten years in prison for organizing the Chinese Social Democratic Party.

In 1998, Xu Wenli and Qin Yongmin of the Democracy Party of China were sentenced to 13 and 12 years in prison respectively.

In 1999, Liu Xianbin was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

In June 2002, Wang Bingzhang, a founder of the Democracy Party of China, was kidnapped by the Chinese authorities in Vietnam and sent back to China. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of espionage and terrorist activities. More than 300 members of the party have been arrested and more than 30 people have been sentenced to prison across the country.

To take another example, take the New Youth Society’s “Incident of the Four Gentlemen.”

For their purposes of “exploring methods of social transformation,” discussing issues such freedom and democracy in China, political and rural reform and through publishing articles online, the “Four Gentlemen” of the New Youth Society, after being arrested on March 13, 2001, were sentenced to eight to ten years in prison for the crime of subversion of state power.

Jiang Zemin ruthlessly arrested Chinese democrats, an unforgivable crime!

Did Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping behave differently? One example suffices to refute this.

In 2008, reformers from every circle in China signed “Charter 08,” calling on the Chinese government to amend the constitution, and advocated the implementation of a modern political structure of democracy, republicanism, and constitutionalism in China under the universal values ​​of freedom, equality, and human rights.

After the publication of Charter 08, Liu Xiaobo, Liu Xianbin and other drafters of it were prosecuted for inciting subversion of state power, and Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison.  On July 13, 2017, Liu Xiaobo died because of his detention and persecution.  The Chinese Communist government bears a heavy responsibility for Liu Xiaobo’s premature death.

The time from Liu Xiaobo’s arrest to his death was during the period when Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping were in power.

If the “Four Cardinal Principles” of the CCP are traduced to any extent, they will immediately shoot to kill!  Deng Xiaoping’s speech did not give any substantial ideological impetus against what prevailed before.

Question 3. After China modestly marketized, why was corruption such a serious problem?

The obvious reason is that reform and opening under Deng Xiaoping gave birth to a new ruling class, because the CCP did not carry out political reform, instead insisting on the party-state autocratic system, and continuing the “party-state economic system”.

Chen Yun [a Chinese political leader partly responsible for implementing the current political-economic arrangement in the 1980s and 1990s] said, “It seems that we can rely on our children not to dig up their own ancestors’ graves.” He also said, “The country was built by us, so it should be our own descendants who inherit it.” He proposed that at least one member from each high-level CCP family should be in the highest circles of power, and this motion was approved by Deng Xiaoping. The ruling clique of the Communist Party of China complied with these rules and the Organization Department of the Central Committee issued a document to form the official policy: one person from each family of the top CCP officials would be assigned to be a high-ranking cadre, and the others in that family would “jump into the sea” to amass money, and local officials at all levels will also follow suit. As a result, from top to bottom in China, an intricate family-style power group headed by the CCP’s dominant families quickly formed, monopolizing and inheriting political power throughout the country. Most of these second- and third-generation communists who were not assigned official titles became billionaires through business, controlling almost the entire economic lifeline of China.  They became the new party-state hereditary aristocracy of the People’s Republic of China.

Corruption is a way for the party to continue to exist.

Due to Deng Xiaoping’s refusal to reform the political system, the ruling clique of the Communist Party of China continued to have absolute power.  They wantonly amassed wealth by corruptly grabbing all they could. No matter the level or title of their government post, and whether expressed in terms of the number of people or the amount of wealth corruptly obtained, the scope of the phenomenon became breathtaking.

CCP corruption broadly speaking takes two forms, political and economic.

Political corruption is based on power. The criminal group that is the Communist Party of China has monopolized China’s political, economic  and ideological power, and it is a group worthy of the being called a gang based on political corruption.

Political corruption is the use of political power to illegally extort wealth.

When Mao Zedong was in power, the CCP mainly suffered from political corruption.  But during Deng Xiaoping’s reign, the Chinese Communist Party began to be characterized by economic corruption.

The current features of CCP corruption are:

  1. Corruption from the bottom to the top. From small officials at the village level to big officials at the national level it abounds.
  2. Corruption in every direction. It is to be found in the institution of the Communist Party of China itself, the Commission for Discipline Inspection, the National People’s Congress, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, ministries and bureaus, the army, the courts, the procuratorate, the police, state-owned enterprises.
  3. Civilian and military corruption, at all levelsI only some of take the high-ranking officials of the Communist Party of China who have been publicly investigated and prosecuted since the 18th Party National Congress as examples, including at the national level Zhou Yongkang; Su Rong, Ling Jihua, Sun Zhengcai, Xu Caihou, Guo Boxiong, and Yang Jing, who are 6 deputy state-level officials; the 28 ministerial-level officials Jiang Jiemin, Li Dongsheng, Li Chongxi, Lu Wei, etc.; hundreds of deputy ministerial-level officials such as Li Chuncheng, Liu Tienan, Ni Fake, Liu Qiang, etc. High-ranking military officials investigated include two vice-chairmen of the Central Military Commission, Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong; two members of the Central Military Commission, Zhang Yang and Fang Fenghui; three generals, Tian Xiusi, Wang Jianping, and Wang Xibin; and several lieutenant generals and major generals.
  4.  Corruption as a family matter Beginning with the family of Deng Xiaoping, the families of senior CCP officials have been using their power and nepotism to amass wealth.  Throughout the 1980s, the descendants of high-level CCP cadres headed by the children of the Deng family used the “dual-track price system” to buy and sell approval documents for in-demand goods, such as automobile indicators, steel indicators, and color TV indicators. Deng Xiaoping’s son Deng Pufang’s Kanghua Company was at the time the largest official bankruptcy in mainland China. In addition to demanding democracy, the June 4th Movement in 1989 was “anti-corruption” and “anti-government corruption.” Deng Pufang, son of Deng Xiaoping, the so-called chief architect of China’s reform and opening up, was one of such corruption’s main beneficiaries.

In 1992, after Deng Xiaoping’s southern speech, China entered the period of its socialist market economy, that is, the period of the party-state economic system. This opened the door for China’s ruling families to enter various industries and loot the people’s wealth. Since the mid-1990s, China’s greatest fortunes have mainly been made in monopolistic industries such as telecommunications, arms, real estate, minerals, energy, and finance. And these fields are all monopolized in particular by the families of senior Chinese Communist Party officials. Jiang Zemin’s family, Li Peng’s family and Deng Xiaoping’s family monopolize the telecommunications industry, the power industry, the real-estate industry, non-ferrous metals and the arms industry in particular.

In today’s China, the families of senior CCP officials dominate the list of China’s newly rich families.

Hu Ping [a Chinese writer and activist who now lives in New York City] has said: “The Communist Party’s revolutionary violence in the first 30 years wiped out all the common people’s private property and created so-called communism for all the people. The public property of the government has now become the private property of a small number of officials. Both of these things have been done by your own party. No one can compare with today’s CCP, whether in ancient and modern times, anywhere in the world.”

During imperial times, in any dynasty the monarchs were, to a certain extent, bound by the moral constraints of Chinese Confucianism. In comparison, the bureaucratic cliques in the CCP are just like the way Mao once described himself to the American writer Edward Snow in 1936, as a complete tyrant confident enough to do as he wished.

The political corruption of the party-state autocratic system and the economic corruption of the associated economic system have become a way of life for the Chinese Communist Party.

This article has demonstrated that the CCP has promoted neither marketization nor democratization. Rather, the corruption of the CCP group is extraordinary!

Summary

After recognizing the above, we can see that Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Tour speech continued to adhere to the “party-state economic system” and did not actually promote China’s market-oriented development. There was no real ideological progress, rather a strengthening of the autocratic ruling power of the CCP.

Deng Xiaoping’s crime lies in adhering to the “Four Cardinal Principles,” the core content of which is to uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China.  Therefore, politically and economically, the CCP still adheres to the party-state system. This has laid the political and economic foundation for the rampaging oppression since Xi Jinping has come to power.  Politically, Xi Jinping upholds the party-state autocracy, immorally controls freedom of speech, and suppresses peaceful protests such as the White Paper Revolution. Economically, he promotes Party management of private enterprises, the arrest of private entrepreneurs, the theft of their assets, and attempts to eliminate privately owned capital.

Liu Chuanzhi [among other things the founder of Lenovo] is a sober man. He once said bluntly at the Tianjin Entrepreneurs Forum, “The CCP is worried that the rich are so rich that their wealth rivals that of the country, and is enough even to seek political roles, threatening the CCP’s governance.”

Economist Xiang Songzuo once said in a speech that the general mentality of private entrepreneurs is that “you need us, even as eliminating us is your lofty ideal.”  Xiang Songzuo pointedly exposed the nature of the CCP’s “socialist market economy.”