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China's Communist Party Turns Ninety

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    A look at country's political past and future

  • Duration 5:02
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All right well today is the ninetieth anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party in China and we have a very interesting article right now on foxnews.com.

Saying that that the party is going through a lot of changes and it is somewhat weakening.

It's an article you should definitely check out and joining us right now is the -- -- the author of that article Gordon Chang he is also the author of nuclear showdown.

North Korea takes on the world Gordon Chang thank you for joining us thank you.

So you say that right now the Communist Party in China is barely operational or that's quote from most of the people that you've talked to you.

-- essentially in the countryside.

On the Communist Party is organizations drill every week it's been taken over by clans in gangs.

And essentially the party is is nowhere to be seen and that's a real problem because this is a leninist organization top down supposed to control everything.

But in the countryside and a lot of China is still the countryside you have a party organization that is barely functional.

Yeah and you say that many of the top Communist officials really have -- -- loyalty.

To the party.

Yeah that that's pretty clear you know you see that you know when the party was for -- years ago people held lot of fervor that was very revolutionary.

But you know 62 years in power came in power in 1949 essentially what you have right now is an old age party very corrupt.

You know it stays in power only because of repression is really lost the ability to sort of convince the Chinese people.

Of its ideals and what is trying to do so that's a problem for China because you have this top down organization.

Which really no longer has the same strength it once had.

Right and one of the obvious signs of that is the dramatic increase in the number of protests by civilians -- write what we have you know we don't really know the exact number because China tries to hide that but.

According to one report there were 280000.

Mass incidents last year.

That's way up from the sixty to seventy to 80000 that we saw just about five years ago so clearly -- Chinese society is much more volatile these days.

At and largely is because the Chinese people realize that a one party system is no longer appropriate.

For -- modernizing society so while the Communist Party can stay in power through the use of repression.

Nonetheless they can't convince the Chinese people.

Yes so what had given that scenario where the people are rising up and the party is weakening now what do you see happening down right.

Yeah I see the Communist Party failing because essentially what you have entire societies -- most volatile on earth.

Give the Chinese people moving forward very best.

You of the Communist Party moving backwards and I didn't California for a little while and you had these two tectonic plates moving in opposite directions.

That's really an earthquake yeah but obviously they feel threatened by that and you mentioned the repressive tactics yeah.

And and it's really gotten a lot worse.

Since the middle of 20032004.

Hu Jintao the current leader has really led the Chinese political system backwards.

And especially since the end of February with this unprecedented crackdown.

Where they're throwing everybody in jail tightening up -- -- controls on the media and on society.

This -- has not played very well they can get away with this for a limited period of time.

But nonetheless I actually think that this just we're talking about years where we're gonna see the Communist Party fail and it's going to be obvious.

Is the -- playing a role MS.

You it is true.

Has what's called the great firewall and -- the most sophisticated set of controls of the government has been able to impose on the Internet but nonetheless Chinese people have had these incredibly.

Important conversation -- the Chinese people for the first time in two decades are having national conversations and mostly ideas are completely incompatible with the Communist party's -- you know it's not just that they.

Reject marxism and leninism.

They just reject the nature of the party is that you see all of these comments that just show that the Chinese people really do want something more you know they want what everybody else wants which is more say in their lives.

Right what are you into thinking you mentioned in the article is this new change in philosophy to this three represents.

-- that -- China's Communist Party like all Communist parties when they came into power we're revolutionary ones really mean you change society.

Tongues -- men who was the leader before the current one Hu Jintao.

John -- said look this is no longer appropriate.

We your of governing party not a revolutionary one source said that the Communist Party in China should represent everybody in society.

Without represented of governance so it's very hard for them to try to represented both -- -- and exploited you know peasants workers owners of capital.

And so essentially what's happened is the Communist Party doesn't represent anybody in society anymore.

And we see -- also in the Soviet Union where the Soviet party tried to become.

A party of the whole people under Gorbachev that became a party -- nobody.

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