TNAG-2717-FCO40-3923-House-of-Commons-Select-Committee-on-Foreign-Affairs-enquiry-1993 — Page 40

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are by and large content with the way in which things åre going. I do not mean that they are rich and happy; there are still about 100 million people bordering on starvation in China, but they are impressed and glad of the way things are going, and by and large support the Party. There have been incidents of unrest in the countryside, and people were paid with IOUS instead of proper money, and there has been corruption which they did not like, but broadly speaking the rural population still supports

the Government.

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The third point is that there is no alternative power centre in China at the moment to the Party that is governing, and even if there were a change supposing you could by a magic wand spirit away the Communist Party of China and replace it with something else, the hierarchical structures which are there are very Confucian and very much in the Chinese tradition.

It enabled the Communists in the beginning to take over because they slipped easily into this bureaucratic hierarchy. Something of the same kind would have to be used for the very large population of China.

The fourth point is that the Party in power at the moment knows that its best chance of staying in power is to go on delivering the economic goods, so whoever is going to be there will have to press on with economic modernisation.

These are four quite big and significant differences between what has happened in the former Soviet Union.

Question: Notwithstanding the fact that the Communist Party of China would appear to be monolithic, even by comparison with the former Soviet Party, you two gentlemen know the personalities better than most. Are there any factions that you know of inside the Communist Party which would suggest that the initiatives which have been taken by Deng Xiaoping will in some way stop or alter in some fashion after he goes?

Sir Alan Donald:

My impression at the moment is that the seven members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau all favour economic reform, but it is perfectly true that in almost any society and any

government

there will be

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