Yanhuang Chunqiu [炎黄春秋]—the
liberal monthly magazine whose name alludes to annals describing the
brief and unhappy Chunqiu period of
Chinese imperial history (777-476 B.C.)—is a great read for those
interested in how and why Chinese politics turned away from democracy and
openness at various points since 1949.
And, it must be added, how the road to political reform in
China remains largely impassable today.
The magazine—which is thick enough to be called a “journal”,
especially since its advertising is minimal and its articles are well-sourced
and strident--has been around for 25 years. Its contents range from critical
discussions of episodes in the Cultural Revolution to missed opportunities for
China’s constitutional development, and they always push the political
boundaries. The various contributors reflect the disappointments of veteran liberal
elites in the Chinese Communist party who are still trying to shake their
comrades out of their slumber. Fairly or not, Yanhuang Chunqiu portrays party conservatives as Neanderthals, and hints
that hardliners are just ideologues more interested in holding power than
helping the country achieve political progress. In a political system where
every hold seems barred, this is a journal where the exact opposite takes
place.
While Beijing newsvendors often reported that distributors
wouldn’t always provide them with copies to sell when a particular edition was
especially sensitive, the magazine is both popular and plentiful here in
Nanjing, and can often be found at the odd newsstand in the city’s far-flung
suburbs. Visitors to workplaces and homes of government officials and even the
reception rooms at military installations here are often astounded to see
well-thumbed copies of Yanhuang Chunqiu
on tables and shelves. Many party cadres have returned to their ancestral homes
in Jiangsu upon retirement, and more than a few read Yanhuang Chunqiu regularly these days as a counterpoint to their
copies of People’s Daily. The
magazine’s views aren’t part of China’s political mainstream, but its fans often
are.
The standard Western portrayal of political opposition in China
is of young anti-party activists seeking to change a system that they don't
believe in. That’s only rarely been true in China’s current century and it
isn’t the case with Yanhuang Chunqiu.
The editorial board isn’t made up of young Turks, but party elders (including 93 year
old publisher Duo Daozheng) and politically-connected publishers (Hu
Dehua, a son of late Communist party reformer Hu Yaobang) who often scold the
Communist party they belong to for what they see as its failure to admit and
correct past errors and its reluctance to get back on a reformist path.
Because of the magazine’s stance, many readers feared
at various points that its days were numbered. Political
pressures led to the resignation of 2 editors in less than a year, and a
recent attempt to devote an entire edition to the unresolved questions of the
Cultural Revolution on the 50th anniversary of its outbreak led to
the May issue being delayed by half a month.
Despite those controversies, Yanhuang Chunqiu seemed to be surviving, with just enough space to
operate in. Under Party leader Xi Jinping, who encourages internal debate, political reformers within the
Communist party weren’t always voiceless; they just weren’t allowed to be very loud.
But now someone wants that interregnum to end.
Recent
news reports indicate that major changes are being forced upon Yanhuang Chunqiu. There are shakeups in
the editorial board with Duo being apparently pushed out, as well as other members
who have been responsible for the journal’s direction and content. Reasoned
dialogue about the Communist party’s past and its future was always seen by
China’s party fundamentalists as unreasonable. Now, it appears that they’ve
gotten their way.
The timing of this editorial purge is revealing, because it shows
that China’s hardliners want to prevent any pushback of Xi’s political program
at the
upcoming annual summer meetings in Beidaihe. Historically, that’s when
showdowns over party strategy have occurred, and this year’s shootout is
between reformers and fundamentalists.
Reformers believe that China’s strength rests on economic
success; that without major financial and administrative restructuring—in other
words, decentralization of power—the Party’s authority will be challenged by a
population that wants both modernization and political protection of the gains
they’ve earned (or been granted) thus far. If economic growth can’t be
guaranteed, then perhaps it’s time to start thinking about new
strategies—perhaps less social and political control, for a start. They’ve
begun to concede privately that it may not be able to fashion a new economy for
China without some shift in politics.
Fundamentalists—party conservatives--are of a different
mind-set: They’re centralizers, who argue that the country is better off with
more political power in Beijing than less. They believe that what China really
needs is a smarter Communist party, commanding support because it offers
society a vision of a China becoming greater because of its one-party political
system. To get that message across, the message itself needs to be better—which
is why Xi's allies spend so much time primping and pumping up Xi's profile
and the Communist party and country he leads. For fundamentalists, controlling
the medium is the message. And Xi's been swinging that way for a while now.
Fundamentalists loathe Yanhuang
Chunqiu because they think it spends too much time on the inglorious past
and courts social upheaval by embracing political reform. They’d like to see it
asphyxiated.
Reformers admire the magazine because it emphasizes where
the Communist party missed opportunities for deeper change in and progress for China.
They want Yanhuang Chunqiu preserved
in its present form, to remain as a platform to hint at a new politics for a
new China.
Notably, this political rift is also present in the lower
party ranks, raising the question about how local officials and cadres will
react if Yanhuang Chunqiu shifts its editorial
approach or simply shuts its doors. In looking to prevent one political conversation,
party conservatives may end up producing enough resentment to give rise to
other, less forgiving ones.
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