China ready to move forward with republic's anniversary

SHANGHAI, China -- Early this month when the Chinese delegation angrily walked out of a symposium in advance of the prestigious Frankfurt Book Fair rather than listen to presentations by two Chinese dissidents, Beijing's former ambassador to Germany told reporters: "We did not come here for a lesson in democracy. Those times are over."

China celebrates the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic on Oct. 1 as a more confident nation than it has been at any time since Mao Zedong's Red Army sent the Kuomintang forces led by Chiang Kai-shek fleeing to Taiwan.

When the tanks, missiles and soldiers parade down Chang'an Avenue on Thursday, the world will see not only "a mighty force, a civilized force, a victorious force," as Defence Minister Liang Guanglie put it, it will also see that the globe's third largest economy - the engine that many hope will lead the world out of recession.

Beijing hasn't made a secret of its plan to claim its place in the world based on economic strength and social development; in fact, it has been busy over the past year openly lobbying for a greater say and more clout in world institutions, including the G20, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

But, like the Olympics last year, the 60th anniversary military parade - a traditional Communist show of pride - is the public demonstration that China is now set to play in the major leagues.

Author and investment banker Robert Lawrence Kuhn says that since the global economy plunged into recession, China has been forced to rethink its approach to the rest of the world.

As late as last fall, Kuhn said, Chinese leaders would tell you: "We can't solve the world's problems; it's enough for us to solve our own. They felt their time would come, in maybe 15 or 20 years."

Kuhn, whose new book How China's Leaders Think, will be released soon, maintains: "China has been thrust into co-leadership of the world much sooner than it would have liked."

Kuhn views China as an incomplete project. "It's a work in progress," which he thinks will take about another 30 years to complete - particularly since the first 60 were "not very glorious."

On Oct. 1, 1949, when Mao Zedong stood atop the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Tiananmen Square and declared the founding of the republic - which he called "a people's democratic dictatorship" - the mood was understandably optimistic. Two decades of civil war and nearly a century of war, occupation and humiliation were over. China was to be restored to the glory of its ancient days.

But the Great Helmsman, as Mao was known, was a revolutionary, a fighter, a cult leader, but definitely not a politician or a statesman. From the Great Leap Forward (1958-62) through the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), his disastrous experiments with social engineering crippled the nation. People starved, as dreams and spirits were crushed along with the bodies.

Mao had the blood of millions on his hands when he died in 1976.

It was in the best Communist Party propaganda style, however, that Deng Xiaoping, the man who was left to pick up the pieces, said of Mao that his "contributions are primary and his mistakes secondary."

Intent on leaving the pedestal intact, Deng called Mao "seven parts right and three parts wrong."

Just as Mao crowds the history pages for the first 30 years of the People's Republic of China, Deng dominates the past 30 years. From 1978 onward he orchestrated the "opening up" of China, his "socialism with Chinese characteristics" led to much needed legal, social and agricultural reforms.

The progress stopped dead in its tracks, however, on June 4, 1989. No one is entirely sure what role Deng played in the massacre in Tiananmen Square, but as the foremost leader in China, many believe he was up to his neck in the decisions that led to the death of hundreds of student protesters. Overnight, China became a pariah state.

But as always in politics, memories were short.

By 1992, when Deng made his now famous Southern Tour, he was able to relaunch his reform agenda and reinvigorate it. Whether he ever actually said "to get rich is glorious," that is what the country heard and the entrepreneurial revolution he launched in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai has fuelled China's development ever since.

Despite the nation-shaping reforms attributed to him, Kuhn makes an interesting point about Deng.

"Deng greatest contribution was that he retired, voluntarily retired," the author said during a recent visit to Shanghai.

Kuhn maintains that Deng could have been a cult figure and clung to power like Mao, but instead he had the wisdom to let China transition into "a normal country."

Kuhn claims it was the first ever "non-feudal, non-traumatic transition of power" in Chinese history.

Presiding over Thursday's parade will be President Hu Jintao, a so-called fourth-generation leader (Mao was first generation) who seems to be considered more of a caretaker than an innovator.

In many circles that is not seen as a bad thing, either, given the disparity rapid change has caused among China's 1.3 billion citizens.

Never before has the gap yawned so wide between rich and poor; rural and urban; young and old. It means that keeping China "harmonious" has taken on paramount importance for Hu, leaving him little time or space to hone China's new role in the world, not to mention make any progress on the human rights front.

Indeed, Hu's stay-the-course leadership means that it may be the next group of leaders, the fifth generation, who carve China's niche.

Deputy President Xi Jinping may or may not be a lock for the presidency when Hu steps down in 2012. He remains the front-runner - despite not being named vice-chairman of the Communist Party's central military commission at this month's central committee plenum - and attracted much attention when he publicly declared, just as Beijing's former ambassador to Germany did, that he's fed up with the world preaching to China.

And just like the ambassador, he did not bother couching his anger in the soft plaint we usually hear from Beijing officials.

Instead, in an extraordinarily candid speech in Mexico last winter, Xi complained: "Some foreigners have nothing better to do after filling their stomachs. They keep picking on things Chinese. Yet China does not export hunger and poverty and it won't make trouble for others."