Thoughts from London

Where the market outshines Marx and Mao
The JVP must be desperate for foreign friends if it is planning to sign a mutual co-operation agreement with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that is now communist in appearance rather than substance.

JVP leader Somawansa Amerasinghe and his colleague Nandana Gunatilleke are expected to do so in Beijing when they visit there early next month for a political conference.

There was a time when all sorts of political affiliations were signed and sealed with Communist blocs and nations. That, of course, was in the heyday of world communism when fraternal greetings were exchanged as frequently as a good morning in the office corridors and politicians and others of varying political hues were invited to the Mecca of Marxism or to one of the brotherly states.

The ideological split of the 1960s between Moscow and Beijing created two centres of power, competing for influence particularly among the developing nations.

While fighting the western capitalist world, they were also quarrelling among themselves. That made it even more attractive for the communist/ socialist parties in the developing countries. Their party leaders and important card- carrying members seemed to be on the frequent flyer programmes as they journeyed to the Soviet bloc or China depending on their ideological inclinations.

That did not stop socialist leaders from parlour pink to carmine red from visiting both centres of communist power. Travel, it is said, broadens the mind and travel in both directions broadens it even more.

But all that is now passé. The end of East-West confrontation and the implosion of the Soviet Union wrote finis to that period of freely flowing vodka and caviar or mo tai and Peking Duck.

So when communism appears to have lost its international appeal and Marx and Lenin have been deposited in the attic, why is the JVP so anxious to link up with the Chinese Communist Party?

Is the JVP still living in the past and sincerely believes that Marxism/Leninism is alive and well in today's China, though the Chinese would like to characterise its current policies as "socialism with Chinese characteristics?"

Is this mistaken belief or refusal to view China through a new prism why the JVP has sought this new formal relationship with the CCP or is there more to it? Last Sunday's report in this newspaper seemed to hint at something else when it said the agreement will enable the JVP to "obtain political support and financial assistance from Beijing."

Well now, that's indeed interesting. Is the JVP really seeking financial support from China and for what purpose? It is intriguing because there was a heated debate in Hong Kong when, under pressure from Beijing, the Hong Kong authorities sought to amend the Societies Ordinance to forbid Hong Kong political parties from establishing links with foreign political groups and receiving any assistance from abroad.

It would also be interesting to know whether Somawansa Amerasinghe, the sole surviving politburo member of the JVP that launched an armed insurrection against the government and let loose the dogs of anarchy in the late 1980s, will explain to the Chinese communists the whys and wherefores of its actions.

While Amerasinghe and colleague s try to rationalise the chaos and killings, they might do well to remember that during and after the JVP's first insurrection in April 1971, China led by the Communist Party the JVP now cultivates, was one of the first countries to come to the assistance of the Sirima Bandaranaike government with financial and military aid.

Chinese leaders, today as in the past, are intolerant of the kind of social disorder and instability that the JVP unleashed in the late 1980s, as the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protestors in June 1989 clearly proves. The leaders feared the party would lose its grip on society and continued protests would be seen as ideological laxity by the party leadership.

But that should not lead the JVP to presume that the CCP is still totally wedded to Marxism. While the JVP appears to be advocating Marxist economics such as a return to state-ownership and greater state control over the Sri Lankan economy, China is moving in the opposite direction.

Nearly 25 years ago, China under Deng Xiaopeng embarked on a transition based on his four modernisations. The main plank of that modernisation is the transition towards an internationally open-market economy.

Admittedly the CCP holds paramount state power as provided in China's constitution. But if the JVP intends to find a Communist Party that still preaches Marxist shibboleths except as public ideological rhetoric, then he and his party are in for a political and cultural shock.

Deng's 1978 economic transition, the growth of market forces and China's integration into the global economy have created significant and far reaching social, economic and political forces. Amerasinghe need not look beyond his hotel room to see that in today's China the Market has replaced both Marx and Mao.

Though China's leaders might continue to call this a socialist market economy, it is one increasingly reliant on the private sector as the engine of growth. Amerasinghe would do well to ask his CCP hosts how far the private sector is now an integral part of the economy and how the old, stodgy state-owned enterprises are standing up to competition from new economic institutions.

At the turn of this century some 30 million private enterprises accounted for around 25% of China's GDP. If Amerasinghe goes to Shanghai he will see what a transformation-cultural and social-China has undergone. He probably believes like his colleague Wimal Weerawansa that Sri Lanka should return to its pre-colonial culture.

But his favoured Marxist state does not appear to believe that western music and fashionable parties in Shanghai bars and clubs and designer boutiques selling the latest western consumer goods cause cultural or spiritual pollution.

If Amerasinghe is not particularly enamoured of rock music he should avoid while in China's financial centre, Martin Wong the lead singer in a rock band, who makes modern Shanghai swing like in the 1930s.

Yes, China's politics still retains totalitarian traits. But the changes that have occurred over the last decade or so have brought greater tolerance of cultural diversity and free expression as never before in China's modern history.

Had Amerasinghe been in Shanghai for the Communist Party's 80th anniversary celebration in 2001, he would have visited the revered party museum, the site where Mao Zedong and 12 others met in secret in 1921. Part of that block is now a luxury complex built with restaurants and boutiques, built by a Hong Kong developer.

On public display a few yards from the museum was an Italian sports car. In terms of public interest, the Maserati overshadowed Mao and the museum. That is the reality of modern China where monumental changes have occurred and the Communist Party has had to adapt to these changes.

The ideological fervour of the past has been replaced by a society thirsting for economic freedom and ideational expression. In that society the Communist Party has had to give ground and who knows it might eventually cease to hold power.

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