HU'S THE NEW BOSS? SAME AS THE OLD BOSS

China's new premier, Hu Jintao, isn't impressing anyone with any reformist agenda. He said in a recent address that the most important goal that the ChiComs should pursue is...the same old goals they were pursuing under the old premiere. So much for liberalization.

But the Times' story contains a howler. Here it is:

Mr. Hu did not mention the notion of introducing democratic elections within the Communist Party, an idea embraced by some left-leaning intellectuals as a way of enlivening the political process. (emphasis mine)

Left-leaning intellectuals? The standard political lexicon puts Nazis and fasicsts on the far extreme right, and Communists on the far extreme left. There isn't actually much difference in practice between a Nazi and a Commie--both are brutal, one-party systems that police thought and kill "undesirables" and political opponents. But that's how political forces are generally understood--you can't get to the right of a Nazi or to the left of a Commie. The Times' assertion that China's left-leaning intellectuals want democracy within the party seems to imply that the ChiComs who favor the status quo are to their right. Huh? Is the Times trying to reshuffle the political deck, to turn hardened Communism into just another vile right-wing ideology? Or am I missing something here?

The point is, the Communists (ultra-left) rule. Any reformist who wants to open up democratic elections--even within the party itself, which is what these "intellectuals" apparently favor--would have to lean to the right of Communists who don't by definition. The farther left you go into Communism, the more authoritarian you are. If you move right even within the party, you see some room for intra-party democratic action. The Times' formulation has it all backward, to the extent that "left" and "right" even apply to the Chinese Communist party.

This reminds me of how the Times and other media outlets described the Communists who tried to overthrow Boris Yeltsin in the early 90s. They kept calling Yeltsin a "liberal," which was fine as far it goes I guess, but they annoyingly also constantly referred to the Communist insurgents as "conservatives." You could make the argument that they were "conservative" in the sense that they were trying to restore the old Communist order, but hardly anyone in the States would take it that way. To us, a conservative is perhaps the most reliable anti-Communist you can find, and a liberal tends to become more closely aligned on policy with socialism (and eventually Communism) as he moves left. Calling the Russian Communists "conservative" turned all that on its head, confusing the audience. I had more than one friend remark to me during those days that they'd run into people who were denouncing Rush Limbaugh because, as a conservative, he must also be a Communist.

Heck, you'd almost think that the Times does this sort of thing on purpose.