Teaching Comparative

Another bit of Chinese vocabulary

Ah, the wonders of self-defined ideology... So now, xianjinxing is "the essence of Marxist thought." You could have fooled me.

If you can find the text of Hu's speech (It doesn't seem to have been vetted for publication on the Internet yet. The most complete summary today is at The Peoples Daily.), it might be a great document to compare to the Communist Manifesto.

From the New York Times, Saturday, 1 July 2006


China's Leader Pushes Doctrine While Warning of Corruption

[President] Hu [Jintao], who is also the Communist Party's general secretary, used a nationwide televised address on the eve of the 85th anniversary of the founding of the ruling party to elevate his vague but now omnipresent notion of xianjinxing, which translates literally as "advancedness" or "advanced nature," into official doctrine.

He said that the essence of Marxist thought was to maintain an "advanced nature" and that the success of China's Communists in fighting Japan, toppling the Nationalists, rising to power in 1949 and creating economic prosperity in the past three decades can all be attributed to the same idea.

"History proves that only when the party maintains its advanced nature can it push forward both the party's and the people's mutual interests, develop advanced production and advanced culture, and realize the interests of the vast majority of the people," he said.

Mr. Hu has used the "advanced nature" campaign to eclipse the political line of his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, who had sought to enshrine the concept of "Three Represents" as China's guiding ideology. Mr. Hu replaced Mr. Jiang as party leader in 2002 and pushed him from his remaining post as military chief in 2004.

The Three Represents maintained that the party should represent advanced production forces, advanced cultural forces and the "overwhelming majority of Chinese people."

"Advanced nature" appears to be a purposefully broad and nondescript concept that gives Mr. Hu and his supporters leeway to determine policies that fit under its rubric, while punishing people who fail to promote his goals.

He said in his address on Friday that despite a seemingly endless effort to control corruption by demanding internal discipline within the party, abuse remained widespread.

posted by Ken Wedding @ 7:37 AM