From Hong Kong Standard
Qiao challenge to Jiang power
01/04/1997
By Cary Huang, China Editor
A VEILED challenge to President Jiang Zemin's authority over the three-million strong People's Liberation Army (PLA) has been thrown down by China's No 3, Qiao Shi.Mr Qiao, chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, made the challenge in remarks to the French newspaper Le Figaro in which he suggested that Mr Jiang, in his role as chairman of the Central Military Commission, should be answerable to China's parliament.
His remarks run counter to those of Mr Jiang who, since the death of Deng Xiaoping, has said repeatedly that the Communist Party has ``absolute control of the army''.
Mr Jiang has also called for loyalty from all levels, with himself as the core.
Mr Qiao, who is visiting France, said: ``The People's Liberation Army, founded and led by the Chinese Communist Party, is an army belonging to the state since the founding of the people's republic.
``According to the Chinese constitution, the state set up the Central Military Commission (CMC) to lead the national armed forces and the chairman is given the responsibility to chair the CMC.
``The CMC chairman is elected by the National People's Congress, and thus is responsible to the NPC and its Standing Committee.''
Mr Qiao said the constitution clearly laid down the Communist Party's leading role over state affairs.
``However, all the party's major policy decisions requiring adoption by the NPC and its Standing Committee should be passed by them through legal procedures before they become state policy,'' he said.
Since the death of Deng on 19 February, some people have suggested that the PLA is a national army, not a military appendage of the Communist Party.
In an open letter last year, dissidents Liu Xiaobo and Wang Xizhe called for the impeachment of Mr Jiang for his unconstitutional claim that the PLA was the army of the party.
They also called for stronger legal controls over the party.
Liu was sentenced to three years in a labour camp and Wang was forced to seek exile in the United States.
In recent weeks Mr Jiang has stepped up his campaign to consolidate his grip over the army.
He has made repeated appeals to the army to swear absolute loyalty to the party central committee, which he heads, in the year since Deng's influence began to wane.
The party-run media has been churning out long commentaries and editorials urging the army to unite ``around the party central committee with Jiang Zemin at its core''.
Most senior PLA generals and heads of services have sworn allegiance to Mr Jiang, as have all but one of the members of the CMC.
In the current power structure, Mr Qiao ranks behind Mr Jiang and Premier Li Peng, but he is considered a serious rival in the post-revolutionary era.
From South China Morning PostApril 2, 1997
Willy Wo-lap Lam
Qiao's case for place as Deng's heir Qiao Shi has trumped Jiang Zemin in the twin contest as to who is Deng Xiaoping's disciple and who can best hoist the standard of reform again.
It is a reflection of the nature of post-Deng politics that Mr Qiao, the high-profile National People's Congress chairman, chose to make his point overseas.
While visiting France last weekend, Mr Qiao laid out a taboo-smashing vision of reform in an interview with Le Figaro.
The politburo standing committee member revived the goal of the "separation of party and government", which was the leitmotif of the 13th Party Congress conducted under ousted party chief Zhao Ziyang.
At that 1987 conclave, Mr Zhao noted that administrative efficiency, as well as accountability, would be improved if the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were to concentrate only on broad political principles, leaving governance to the state council and other non-party organs.
At that time, however, Mr Zhao was only repeating a surprisingly liberal statement Deng himself had made in an internal discussion.
The chief architect of reform pointed out that party leadership should mainly manifest itself by the CCP determining "political principles, political orientation, and major policies . . . and recommending important cadres to state organisations".
In the Le Figaro interview, the NPC chief repeated Deng's instructions almost verbatim, though without citing the name of the departed patriarch.
As expected, Mr Qiao also sought more clout for the legislature, the putative "organ of supreme power".
He told the French newspaper that major decisions by the CCP would only become "the will of the nation after going through the legal procedures [of endorsement by] the NPC and its standing committee".
What raised eyebrows, however, was the reappearance of the credo of the separation of party and government, which had been mothballed after the June 4, 1989, crackdown.
One of Mr Jiang's accomplishments has been to ensure that party committees and secretaries become the "leadership core" of not only government departments but factories, farms and universities.
In his interview, however, Mr Qiao put the spotlight back on the old ideal of Mr Zhao and Deng.
The leader of the CCP's moderate camp also parted ways with Mr Jiang over one of the latter's most sacrosanct principles: the party's "absolute leadership" over the People's Liberation Army (PLA).
Mr Qiao told Le Figaro that while the CCP had "created" the army, the PLA had become a guojun, or an "army of the state" once its troops had entered and settled in the city.
"The state has set up a central military commission to lead the nation's armed forces," Mr Qiao said. "The commission chairman is elected [into office] by the NPC, and he reports to the NPC and its standing committee."
"It is necessary to appropriately define the status of the army within the hierarchy of the state," he added.
Such views would seem heretical given the heavy propaganda campaign Mr Jiang has sponsored in the past few years on the imperative that the party must have authority over the gun.
After all, the PLA is run by the party, not the state, military commission. And the NPC had no role to play in the selection of Mr Jiang as chairman of the party commission.
Moreover, lieutenants of Mr Jiang's, such as General Zhang Wannian, have savaged exponents of the guojun ideal as selling out to the bourgeois-liberal principles of the West. Mr Qiao, however, is on firm ground. No less an authority than Deng, a veteran chairman of the party's military commission, had outlined the principles of a guojun in the early 1980s, when the state military commission was set up.
Again, in private conversations, Deng had raised the possibility of weaning the PLA from total party control through vesting some military powers in civilian institutions, including the Ministry of Defence.
In what is seen as a direct challenge to Mr Jiang's bid to boost his "core status" within the leadership, Mr Qiao hinted that the rule of personality must be subsumed under democratic systems.
Even as Mr Jiang risked being upstaged by Mr Qiao, the "leadership core" has had to contend with a power bid by the party's leftist, or the remnant-Maoist wing. Diplomatic analysts said the Maoists had put together a broad coalition to force Mr Jiang to give them a "big say" over personnel and policy issues at the 15th Party Congress.
Veteran leftists such as Deng Liqun, a former propaganda chief, and Yuan Mu, a former State Council spokesman, have circulated petitions to counter Deng-style reform, which Mr Jiang has indicated he will pick up.
For example, Mr Yuan has attacked the "theory of the two new whatevers" - "Whatever Deng Xiaoping has done cannot be undone; and whatever Deng Xiaoping has said cannot be changed".
Although most of the criticisms were apparently aimed at liberals such as Mr Qiao, the real target was Mr Jiang. After all, one of Deng's major decisions was to appoint Mr Jiang as the next helmsman. And to prove his status as heir apparent, the President has made himself out to be a worthy custodian of Deng's legacy.