The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : Engaged in a new mission in China

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 26, 2006

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Engaged in a new mission in China

Harish Khare

The three women profiled represent the new mindset of the provincial political elites.

YAO WENLEI's visiting card gives her official designation as "Deputy Director of Office of SIPAC and CPC SIP Working Committee" and "Director of Publicity (Spiritual Civilisation) Office." SIPAC stands for Suzhou Industrial Park Administrative Committee, and CPC, of course, stands for the Communist Party of China.

Ms. Yao receives us at Xiandail Building, the corporate headquarters of Suzhou Industrial Park, which showcases the new China dedicated to the pursuit of economic development and prosperity. Flanked by an assistant and two mobile telephones, Ms. Yao sits sat across a long, gleaming conference table and competently plunges into what to her must be a very familiar spiel: the advantages and attractions that Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) has to offer to entrepreneurs and investors, mostly foreigners.

As she makes her sales pitch, Ms. Yao, aged around 40, speaks softly but clearly. Her body language conveys a sense of power and control, of a competent businesswoman at work. Ms. Yao Wenlei talks of four reasons why SIP has emerged as one of the most successful industrial zone in China. First, the importance accorded to attracting foreign investment. Secondly, scientific planning for infrastructure with Singapore as the model. "Advanced concepts and ideas learnt from Singapore" were applied. Thirdly, "putting people, particularly workers, first" in the urbanisation process. Fourthly, while learning from Singapore, combining it with China's own experience and requirements.

Ms. Yao talks with pride about SIP's "considerate pro-business services." A set of 64 rules and regulations, all designed to make it easier for a foreign investor to bring in his or her money. She details SIP's autonomy in decision-making, authority to issue visas directly, its own independent Customs. While she is talking her two mobiles keep flashing, she checks the caller's identity and hands over the offending one to the assistant on her left.

She is ready for questions. Of course, there are no contradictions in her wearing two hats — an information official and a party apparatchik. The Communist Party of China, after all, has "a leading role" and whatever is happening in China is "under the leadership of the party and under its direction."

Ms. Yao invites us to continue the discussion over lunch. The lunch is a 12-course meal in the sparkling corporate dining room, dominated by a giant window overlooking the vast expanse of the SIP's industrial estate. She is not reluctant to answer personal questions but is not very forthcoming either. She has been a party functionary for 15 years. She was trained as a teacher but since there was a dearth of trained professionals, she was invited to undertake the "spiritual civilisation" work for the party. No, her husband is not a party member. Yes, over the next ten years she does want to climb up the party hierarchy.

Lunch over, mementos offered, the visitors are escorted out, but not before the obligatory group photograph. She excuses herself. Her next assignment is three minutes away. And as the visitors wait for their car, they realise that they have just met one of new China's new women.

Gu Jianying's visiting card identifies her as Member of the Standing Committee and as Director of the Propaganda Department of Wuzhong District in Suzhou province. She receives us at China's Fruit Exposition Park. Her entourage includes the local party boss, a middle-aged man who retired a year ago from the army to take up the organisational assignment.

After preliminary welcoming remarks, Ms. Gu beckons an assistant to start a DVD presentation. Her expensive business trouser-suit and western haircut complete the picture of a successful party executive who has made the transition to the new economic development model.

"The role of the party is to help people grow rich," she notes matter-of-factly in response to a question on the new role of the Communist Party in China. She is driven around in a gleaming black Honda Accord. Not a day younger than 50, she also seems completely at ease with the idea of control and how that control has deepened as China undertakes industrialisation at a furious pace.

Ms. Gu graciously escorts us to the Yan Garden in the historic town of Mudu nearby. It is drizzling. Trying to avoid a puddle, Ms. Gu trips. Her expensive suit is dirtied. Seemingly unperturbed, she shoos away entourage members.

Time for dinner. Ms. Gu is hosting dinner at the picturesque Taihu New World restaurant, along the fabulous fresh-water Taihu lake. While the guests proceed separately to the elegant restaurant to soak in the gorgeous scene and to sip a very expensive tea, Ms. Gu disappears. She makes her appearance half-an-hour later. The stains on her expensive suit have been wiped away. She shows, with obvious satisfaction, an SMS message of self-criticism received from the garden administration.

At the sumptuous dinner table, Ms. Gu orders a wine bottle to be uncorked. Proposes a toast to the guests. And she is pleased when a toast is proposed to her next promotion in the party hierarchy. After dinner, she hands out exquisitely produced reading material, "Wuzhong district image," published by the People's Government of Wuzhong district of Suzhou.

The third woman in this narrative, Wu Wei, is Minister of Publicity of the Wujiang CPC. She welcomes us in the Sheng Ze textile market, one of the biggest of its kind in China. Then, we drive over to the hyper-modern textile plant of the Hengli Group, a vibrant shrine of the nascent private enterprise in China. Hengli's owner, Chen Jian Hua, is China's youngest CEO, ranked 218 among China's richest men.

Ms. Wu, fortyish, western business suit, presides over the spin session. The incongruity of a party functionary holding forth — that too with a rather proprietorial mien, in a corporate boardroom is all-too-obvious. Vigorously presenting the new managerial ethos, Ms. Wu surprisingly disclaims any interference in the working of the textile plant. "We have no say in the management; have no intention to want a say. The party functions as a nanny to private enterprise, providing a propitious external environment of conducive public security order, and local infrastructure."

Will the party get involved in hiring and firing of the work force? Ms. Wu replies, "we stop outside the company compound. Law is there on hiring and firing. There is no room for us to get involved."

Ms. Wu invites us to lunch. On way to Hongsheng Homey Hotel, she explains that the Communist Party's motto is economic development. "Party leaders are judged by the superiors on the basis of economic development in their area; no one advances up the hierarchy by shouting slogans."

Over lunch, Ms. Wu self-assuredly concedes that the great change in the last two decades has been that "the party has become more open; earlier it thought it knew all the answers and did not make any mistakes; now it is learning from openness, from people."

Ms. Wu drives a luxury Passat. She seems to have all the time in the world for us. Unhurriedly she escorts us to the historic town of Tongli, known as the Venice of the East, joins us in a boat ride in the canal, and tops up the evening with a banquet for us at a very expensive hotel.

The three women all became Communist party members when China had decided to change over to state-sponsored capitalism. Uninhibited in their new role as "nannies," they bring conviction and confidence to their job. All three represent a collective mindset that is receptive to the world of private enterprise. Life in the new China has been good for all of them, and they in turn have joined the search for prosperity and economic growth. The party gives them a feeling of control and direction; they help the party retain control and authority as China inexorably moves towards a new age of abundance.

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