CHINESE COMMUNISTS
Suggested Link: It wasn't so long ago that Communism it seemed, would go the way of the dinosaurs. The Soviet Union was collapsing, and Eastern Europeans were rolling their dictators one by one. But more than a decade after the iron curtain disintegrated, China remains communism's enduring bastion. It's a place though, Chairman Mao would hardly recognise. Today's China is crawling with capitalists, workers are now toiling for the company as much as the state. Our China correspondent Eric Campbell reports on the Communists long march down the capitalist road.
00:00 - Music
00:07 - Tourists at Yanan
Campbell: If Communism were a religion, this would be its holiest place - Yanan, where the heroes of the Revolution ended the Long March. Mao Zedong led his peoples army here through nearly 10,000 kilometres of enemy territory. And its from here that they launched the counterattack to liberate China.
Music
00:31
Campbell: Every month, thousands of tourists come for some revolutionary nostalgia. Ive come here to meet the Long Marchs last surviving woman.
00:48 - Campbell visits Wu Jian Zhen
Wu Jia Zhen is 88 years old. She stayed on with Maos revolutionaries and still lives in a one-room house cave house with a lifetime of memories.
01:00
Wu: The good thing about the Communist Party is equality. You could talk about your differing opinions, everyone got the same to wear and to eat. Chairman Mao was wearing the same clothes as us and he was treated as we were. Everyone was treated the same, no matter if you were an officer or a normal soldier.
01:35 - Souvenir shops
Campbell: But these days Marxist revolution has been consigned to museums and souvenir shops. Chinas new heroes are the very figures Chairman Mao used to fight.
Music
02:02 - Yue in helicopter
Campbell: Zhang Yue is one of the countrys most successful capitalists - ranked by Forbes magazine as Chinas 27th richest man. He doesnt need to march anywhere - he has his own private jet and a state-of-the-art helicopter.
Music
02:22
Campbell: It gives him a godlike view of his private domain - the huge air-conditioning factory that made his fortune - the giant pyramid hes built next to his luxury villas - even his very own French chateau.
Music
02:41 - Air-Con factory
Campbell: Down here hes creating the new workers paradise.
02:48
Zhang: The more money rich people spend, the more opportunities there are for poor people to get jobs and make money. Its not a contradiction.
02:59 - Zhang
We want every employee here to benefit, to enjoy, and to be grateful to the company.
03:09 - Zhang with employees
Campbell: Capitalists were once class enemy number one. But these entrepreneurs are the Partys own creation. Zhang Yue was a teacher when the Government encouraged workers to start their own businesses.
03:23
Zhang: The economic activities in China are not very different to Western countries. Its very open.
03:36 - Interior of factory
Campbell: Over the past 10 years hes built up a manufacturing empire exporting to 16 countries, with a turnover of 200 million U.S. dollars a year.
03:50 - Zhang with employees
And theres no doubting whos the boss.
Zhang: I will come tomorrow. I will be back tomorrow.
Assistant: You only need to sign these papers - there are some problems.
Zhang: What? This? There are no such problems! Its all in the companys development plans - its all R & D dont be confused.
Assistant: If you dont sign, they wont authorise.
Zhang: It doesnt matter if they authorise it. Remember not to get entangled with these things. You know? Ha! No problem.
04:19
Campbell: Now the communists want men like him to join the party.
04:24
Huan: We see the private entrepreneur as one of the builders of the countrys socialism.
04:34
Campbell: Chinas communists have embraced capitalism with open arms.
04:44 - Zemin
Party leader and President, Jiang Zemin, has been cloaking himself in the mantle of revolution.
State media have hailed him as the peoples comrade.
05:03
On giant billboards he stands beside the revolutions titans, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. But some believe this emperor has no clothes.
05:15 - Dai Qing
Dai: We really thought that Mao Zedong was God. But now, no one thinks Jiang Zemin is God. Only he himself is trying to make himself as a new god in this country. So hes very stupid.
05:29 - Dai in teahouse
Campbell: Dai Qing is one of Chinas few intellectuals still game to criticise the party. We met her in this teahouse because her home is under police surveillance. Shes been targeted since 1989, when she was jailed for 10 months for supporting the democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.
05:49 - Dai Qing
Dai: There is no Communist Party at all. Right now, we only have a corrupted party. It holds the army and propaganda. No one wants to say something for the workers, for the poor peasants. No one wants to, on behalf of them.
06:06 - Photos of Dai Qing and family and Music
Campbell: Dai Qing grew up in a revolutionary family. Her father was one of the first intellectuals to join the party. When he died, she was adopted by Marshall Ye Jianying, a revered party hero from the Long March. She believes they would be shocked by what the Party has become.
06:27
Dai: The generation before me has all been sacrificed, and my generation has been sacrificed too. What was this sacrifice for? It turned out to be for this new generation of greedy officials and corrupt bureaucrats. Im not happy and I dont like it.
06:50 - Mao Archival footage
Campbell: China realised in the late 70s that Maos socialist central planning was no longer sustainable. But the way reform was implemented has created a deeply troubled society.
07:05 - Shopping precinct
The gap between rich and poor is widening. Corruption is rife. Popular discontent is growing. The gap between rich and poor is widening. Corruption is rife. Popular discontent is growing.
07:15 - Wu Jia Zhen
The faithful like Wu Jia Zhen cant understand what has happened.
Zhen: What happened to the people with no special skills? Get laid off - and they have to worry about their food.
Archival footage and Music
07:37
Campbell: Little wonder the party is so keen to play on its glorious, romanticised history.
07:45
The generation that brought it to power has all but died out. But the party insists the new generation supports it, too.
08:06 - Sanlitun
This is the Sanlitun bar district in Beijing - the centre of the capitals nightlife. Its one long street party, and it has its very own party branch. The authorities set the branch up in March as part of a campaign to revamp the partys image. They chose the son of a party member, 25 year old bar manager Xu Jian, as the first communist secretary.
08:32 - Jian
Jian: I just thought it glorious to join the Party. If there wasnt a Communist Party there wouldnt be a new China.
Music
08:50 - Club-goers
Campbell: Its not clear how widely Chinas clubbers would share his views. Whats certain is that no club is more prestigious or exclusive than the party hes joined. It gives ambitious young Chinese an entrée into an organisation that dominates every aspect of society. But Xu Jian says its not about personal advantage.
09:14
Jian: Joining the Party is about something ideological spiritual. Its about seeking spirituality. Business is an economical a materialist issue. They are two different things.
09:31 - Guo-Guan
Campbell: But a former party insider, Wu Guo-Guan, says even the members themselves dont believe the propaganda . Wu joined the Party in the 1980s and became editor of the Communist journal, the Peoples Daily. He was expelled for supporting the Tiananmen Square protests and now teaches in Hong Kong, where he admits he was never a communist.
09:53
Guo-Guan: I can say that at least 70 to 80% of the 60 million members of the CPC dont believe in Communism -- nor do they think the Communist Party is a good choice. But you know, in China, where the CPC has monopoly in power, if you want to change the society and change the political system, it would be extremely hard if you didnt join the Party and gain some power.
10:22 - Beijing Party School
Campbell: These days young cadres come here, to the Beijing Party School. Its a college for Communists, training up-and-coming leaders in the mantra of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Yao Huan is dean of history at the Beijing Party School and a leading Communist ideologue.
10:45
He insists the Party is still committed to achieving Communism - just maybe not this century.
10:53 - Huan
Huan: By the middle of the century, around about 2050, we can say we will reach socialist modernisation. During this time we will work on socialist modernisation. After 2050, we will still build Chinese characteristic socialism - we will still work on socialism.
Music
11:34 - State Guesthouse and grounds
Campbell: In the meantime, the Party is moving ever closer to business. The State Guest House in Beijing used to be the preserve of Government leaders and visiting heads of State. This weekend, its been thrown open to the air conditioning magnate, Zhang Yue for a company forum. Before an audience of company managers, businessman and politicians - from Beijings vice-mayor to the head of the Foreign Trade Ministry - Zhang holds forth on his rise from rags to riches.
12:03 - Zhang giving address
Zhang: In any case you have to spend money to make money. We pay great attention to this. You might not see the success of the Yuanda group, but we are very stable. Very stable.
Music
12:20 - Banquet at guesthouse
Campbell: Then in the grounds of the State Guest House, a banquet fit for an emperors court followed by a concert from his very own dance troupe.
12:42
Men like Zhang are Chinas new merchant princes - as important to the Communist leaders as the leaders are to them.
12:53 - Guo-GuanSuper: Wu Guo-Guan (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Guo-Guan: As long as the economy is kept well, peoples resentment against the Party can be kept at a passable level, then the CPC is able to continue its rule.
13:13 - Factory workers in uniform
Campbell: Hard work for the company is seen as patriotic duty.
Back at Zhangs factory, the workers turn out each morning to raise the national flag. White collar workers to one side, blue collars to the other. Its the start of a long working week. The staff have to live on site - only seeing their families on days off.
13:51
The blue-collars head off to the factory, white-collars to their offices, while Zhang Yue plans his next global expansion.
14:04 - Zhange
Zhang: We have already started doing it, maybe in three years when you turn this again you could see our products everywhere - on every colour, on every country you could see our logo.
14:20
Campbell: But for all the partys overtures, Zhang Yu has no intention of becoming a member.
14:28
Zhang: Its not necessary, I wont. I always keep out of politics. Now private entrepreneurs are allowed to join the party, but a successful entrepreneur wouldnt have time and energy for this for politics. Otherwise he maybe doesnt have enough business to do.
14:56 - Acrobatic troupe
Campbell: Explaining how men like that are really socialists, not capitalists, has forced the party into ideological contortions that would strain the supplest acrobatic troupe.
Huan: The people of this stratum, they are really not the same as the capitalists of the Old China. Many people used to be office cadres - some were workers.
15:27 - HuanSuper: Yao Huan (Dean of History Beijing Party School)
From the Governments view, these people are the beneficiaries of the opening reform polices. Therefore the support the general and specific policies of our Party line.
15:48 - Acrobatic troupe
Campbell: Its created a strange-looking creature indeed - a hybrid of socialist slogan and capitalist reality, of economic freedom and political repression. But someone it all manages to avoid crashing down.
16:05 - Guo-Guan Super: Wu Guo-Guan (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Guo-Guang: I think the thing called communism probably has never been important to the Communist Party of China. Whats important to them is whether the CPC has the monopoly of power.
16:24 - Zemin
Campbell: The Party leaders will begin to transfer power to a new generation. 76 year old Jiang Zemin is expected to stand down as general secretary to make way for his 59-year-old protégé, vice-president Hu Jintao, the man likely to succeed him as president in March.
16:44
It will all happen behind closed doors - party officials elected by no one but their party deciding the future of nearly a quarter of humanity.
Flag raising and Music
17:02
Campbell: Just ten years ago the sun was setting on communism around the world. But Chinas communists hope theyll be raising the red flag for centuries to come.
17:27 - CHINESE COMMUNISTS
Reporter: Eric Campbell
Camera: Terry McDonald
Editor: Stuart Miller
Producer: Inka Kretschmer
Suggested Link: It wasn't so long ago that Communism it seemed, would go the way of the dinosaurs. The Soviet Union was collapsing, and Eastern Europeans were rolling their dictators one by one. But more than a decade after the iron curtain disintegrated, China remains communism's enduring bastion. It's a place though, Chairman Mao would hardly recognise. Today's China is crawling with capitalists, workers are now toiling for the company as much as the state. Our China correspondent Eric Campbell reports on the Communists long march down the capitalist road.
00:00 - Music
00:07 - Tourists at Yanan
Campbell: If Communism were a religion, this would be its holiest place - Yanan, where the heroes of the Revolution ended the Long March. Mao Zedong led his peoples army here through nearly 10,000 kilometres of enemy territory. And its from here that they launched the counterattack to liberate China.
Music
00:31
Campbell: Every month, thousands of tourists come for some revolutionary nostalgia. Ive come here to meet the Long Marchs last surviving woman.
00:48 - Campbell visits Wu Jian Zhen
Wu Jia Zhen is 88 years old. She stayed on with Maos revolutionaries and still lives in a one-room house cave house with a lifetime of memories.
01:00
Wu: The good thing about the Communist Party is equality. You could talk about your differing opinions, everyone got the same to wear and to eat. Chairman Mao was wearing the same clothes as us and he was treated as we were. Everyone was treated the same, no matter if you were an officer or a normal soldier.
01:35 - Souvenir shops
Campbell: But these days Marxist revolution has been consigned to museums and souvenir shops. Chinas new heroes are the very figures Chairman Mao used to fight.
Music
02:02 - Yue in helicopter
Campbell: Zhang Yue is one of the countrys most successful capitalists - ranked by Forbes magazine as Chinas 27th richest man. He doesnt need to march anywhere - he has his own private jet and a state-of-the-art helicopter.
Music
02:22
Campbell: It gives him a godlike view of his private domain - the huge air-conditioning factory that made his fortune - the giant pyramid hes built next to his luxury villas - even his very own French chateau.
Music
02:41 - Air-Con factory
Campbell: Down here hes creating the new workers paradise.
02:48
Zhang: The more money rich people spend, the more opportunities there are for poor people to get jobs and make money. Its not a contradiction.
02:59 - Zhang
We want every employee here to benefit, to enjoy, and to be grateful to the company.
03:09 - Zhang with employees
Campbell: Capitalists were once class enemy number one. But these entrepreneurs are the Partys own creation. Zhang Yue was a teacher when the Government encouraged workers to start their own businesses.
03:23
Zhang: The economic activities in China are not very different to Western countries. Its very open.
03:36 - Interior of factory
Campbell: Over the past 10 years hes built up a manufacturing empire exporting to 16 countries, with a turnover of 200 million U.S. dollars a year.
03:50 - Zhang with employees
And theres no doubting whos the boss.
Zhang: I will come tomorrow. I will be back tomorrow.
Assistant: You only need to sign these papers - there are some problems.
Zhang: What? This? There are no such problems! Its all in the companys development plans - its all R & D dont be confused.
Assistant: If you dont sign, they wont authorise.
Zhang: It doesnt matter if they authorise it. Remember not to get entangled with these things. You know? Ha! No problem.
04:19
Campbell: Now the communists want men like him to join the party.
04:24
Huan: We see the private entrepreneur as one of the builders of the countrys socialism.
04:34
Campbell: Chinas communists have embraced capitalism with open arms.
04:44 - Zemin
Party leader and President, Jiang Zemin, has been cloaking himself in the mantle of revolution.
State media have hailed him as the peoples comrade.
05:03
On giant billboards he stands beside the revolutions titans, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. But some believe this emperor has no clothes.
05:15 - Dai Qing
Dai: We really thought that Mao Zedong was God. But now, no one thinks Jiang Zemin is God. Only he himself is trying to make himself as a new god in this country. So hes very stupid.
05:29 - Dai in teahouse
Campbell: Dai Qing is one of Chinas few intellectuals still game to criticise the party. We met her in this teahouse because her home is under police surveillance. Shes been targeted since 1989, when she was jailed for 10 months for supporting the democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.
05:49 - Dai Qing
Dai: There is no Communist Party at all. Right now, we only have a corrupted party. It holds the army and propaganda. No one wants to say something for the workers, for the poor peasants. No one wants to, on behalf of them.
06:06 - Photos of Dai Qing and family and Music
Campbell: Dai Qing grew up in a revolutionary family. Her father was one of the first intellectuals to join the party. When he died, she was adopted by Marshall Ye Jianying, a revered party hero from the Long March. She believes they would be shocked by what the Party has become.
06:27
Dai: The generation before me has all been sacrificed, and my generation has been sacrificed too. What was this sacrifice for? It turned out to be for this new generation of greedy officials and corrupt bureaucrats. Im not happy and I dont like it.
06:50 - Mao Archival footage
Campbell: China realised in the late 70s that Maos socialist central planning was no longer sustainable. But the way reform was implemented has created a deeply troubled society.
07:05 - Shopping precinct
The gap between rich and poor is widening. Corruption is rife. Popular discontent is growing. The gap between rich and poor is widening. Corruption is rife. Popular discontent is growing.
07:15 - Wu Jia Zhen
The faithful like Wu Jia Zhen cant understand what has happened.
Zhen: What happened to the people with no special skills? Get laid off - and they have to worry about their food.
Archival footage and Music
07:37
Campbell: Little wonder the party is so keen to play on its glorious, romanticised history.
07:45
The generation that brought it to power has all but died out. But the party insists the new generation supports it, too.
08:06 - Sanlitun
This is the Sanlitun bar district in Beijing - the centre of the capitals nightlife. Its one long street party, and it has its very own party branch. The authorities set the branch up in March as part of a campaign to revamp the partys image. They chose the son of a party member, 25 year old bar manager Xu Jian, as the first communist secretary.
08:32 - Jian
Jian: I just thought it glorious to join the Party. If there wasnt a Communist Party there wouldnt be a new China.
Music
08:50 - Club-goers
Campbell: Its not clear how widely Chinas clubbers would share his views. Whats certain is that no club is more prestigious or exclusive than the party hes joined. It gives ambitious young Chinese an entrée into an organisation that dominates every aspect of society. But Xu Jian says its not about personal advantage.
09:14
Jian: Joining the Party is about something ideological spiritual. Its about seeking spirituality. Business is an economical a materialist issue. They are two different things.
09:31 - Guo-Guan
Campbell: But a former party insider, Wu Guo-Guan, says even the members themselves dont believe the propaganda . Wu joined the Party in the 1980s and became editor of the Communist journal, the Peoples Daily. He was expelled for supporting the Tiananmen Square protests and now teaches in Hong Kong, where he admits he was never a communist.
09:53
Guo-Guan: I can say that at least 70 to 80% of the 60 million members of the CPC dont believe in Communism -- nor do they think the Communist Party is a good choice. But you know, in China, where the CPC has monopoly in power, if you want to change the society and change the political system, it would be extremely hard if you didnt join the Party and gain some power.
10:22 - Beijing Party School
Campbell: These days young cadres come here, to the Beijing Party School. Its a college for Communists, training up-and-coming leaders in the mantra of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Yao Huan is dean of history at the Beijing Party School and a leading Communist ideologue.
10:45
He insists the Party is still committed to achieving Communism - just maybe not this century.
10:53 - Huan
Huan: By the middle of the century, around about 2050, we can say we will reach socialist modernisation. During this time we will work on socialist modernisation. After 2050, we will still build Chinese characteristic socialism - we will still work on socialism.
Music
11:34 - State Guesthouse and grounds
Campbell: In the meantime, the Party is moving ever closer to business. The State Guest House in Beijing used to be the preserve of Government leaders and visiting heads of State. This weekend, its been thrown open to the air conditioning magnate, Zhang Yue for a company forum. Before an audience of company managers, businessman and politicians - from Beijings vice-mayor to the head of the Foreign Trade Ministry - Zhang holds forth on his rise from rags to riches.
12:03 - Zhang giving address
Zhang: In any case you have to spend money to make money. We pay great attention to this. You might not see the success of the Yuanda group, but we are very stable. Very stable.
Music
12:20 - Banquet at guesthouse
Campbell: Then in the grounds of the State Guest House, a banquet fit for an emperors court followed by a concert from his very own dance troupe.
12:42
Men like Zhang are Chinas new merchant princes - as important to the Communist leaders as the leaders are to them.
12:53 - Guo-GuanSuper: Wu Guo-Guan (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Guo-Guan: As long as the economy is kept well, peoples resentment against the Party can be kept at a passable level, then the CPC is able to continue its rule.
13:13 - Factory workers in uniform
Campbell: Hard work for the company is seen as patriotic duty.
Back at Zhangs factory, the workers turn out each morning to raise the national flag. White collar workers to one side, blue collars to the other. Its the start of a long working week. The staff have to live on site - only seeing their families on days off.
13:51
The blue-collars head off to the factory, white-collars to their offices, while Zhang Yue plans his next global expansion.
14:04 - Zhange
Zhang: We have already started doing it, maybe in three years when you turn this again you could see our products everywhere - on every colour, on every country you could see our logo.
14:20
Campbell: But for all the partys overtures, Zhang Yu has no intention of becoming a member.
14:28
Zhang: Its not necessary, I wont. I always keep out of politics. Now private entrepreneurs are allowed to join the party, but a successful entrepreneur wouldnt have time and energy for this for politics. Otherwise he maybe doesnt have enough business to do.
14:56 - Acrobatic troupe
Campbell: Explaining how men like that are really socialists, not capitalists, has forced the party into ideological contortions that would strain the supplest acrobatic troupe.
Huan: The people of this stratum, they are really not the same as the capitalists of the Old China. Many people used to be office cadres - some were workers.
15:27 - HuanSuper: Yao Huan (Dean of History Beijing Party School)
From the Governments view, these people are the beneficiaries of the opening reform polices. Therefore the support the general and specific policies of our Party line.
15:48 - Acrobatic troupe
Campbell: Its created a strange-looking creature indeed - a hybrid of socialist slogan and capitalist reality, of economic freedom and political repression. But someone it all manages to avoid crashing down.
16:05 - Guo-Guan Super: Wu Guo-Guan (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Guo-Guang: I think the thing called communism probably has never been important to the Communist Party of China. Whats important to them is whether the CPC has the monopoly of power.
16:24 - Zemin
Campbell: The Party leaders will begin to transfer power to a new generation. 76 year old Jiang Zemin is expected to stand down as general secretary to make way for his 59-year-old protégé, vice-president Hu Jintao, the man likely to succeed him as president in March.
16:44
It will all happen behind closed doors - party officials elected by no one but their party deciding the future of nearly a quarter of humanity.
Flag raising and Music
17:02
Campbell: Just ten years ago the sun was setting on communism around the world. But Chinas communists hope theyll be raising the red flag for centuries to come.
17:27 - CHINESE COMMUNISTS
Reporter: Eric Campbell
Camera: Terry McDonald
Editor: Stuart Miller
Producer: Inka Kretschmer