澳媒：太子黨聚會 吐露心裡話

China's princelings break their silence
John Garnaut
October 17, 2011

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WHEN Ma Xiaoli arrived this month at the Hall of Many Sages with the sister of China's likely next president, she had no intention of speaking what was on her mind. After all, the Chinese Communist Party usually does not permit disgruntled citizens to gather in large numbers and challenge the party line.

But as she heard other children of former leaders push back at what they saw as the party's moral decay, its attack on civil society and its revival of destructive Cultural Revolution politics, she found that when she started talking she could not stop.

''The Communist Party is like a surgeon who has cancer,'' Ms Ma told this almost unprecedented unofficial gathering of powerful families that took place in a conference room at the China World Trade Centre on October 6. ''It can't remove the tumour by itself, it needs help from others, but without help it can't survive for long.''
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Ms Ma was able to dispense with discretion because of her father's prestige as a leading revolutionary and because her family has long been intertwined with other elite families represented in that room, especially that of the anointed next president, Xi Jinping. The gathering was the starkest demonstration to date of how ''princelings'' are networking and rallying to influence personnel and ideology ahead of Mr Xi replacing Hu Jintao at the helm of the Communist Party at it's five-yearly congress a year from now.

Princelings are taking sides in the battleground of ideologies and interests but they are united, it seems, by a conviction that their party has lost its way.

''In today's China we are facing tremendous challenges that range from the rapid decline of moral standards, to poisonous and genetically modified food, to rampant official corruption,'' Ye Xiangzhen, daughter of Marshal Ye Jianying, who had emerged from the Cultural Revolution as the most important figure in the People's Liberation Army, said. The Ye family remains one of China's most powerful in both politics and business.

The event was ostensibly a private tribute to the leaders who had closed the door on the Cultural Revolution exactly 35 years before by arresting the widow of Chairman Mao Zedong and three other radical politburo members who were later labelled ''the gang of four''.

All the major figures of that momentous historical disjunction were represented by their children including the then party chief Hua Guofeng, Marshal Ye, Mao's chief bodyguard, Wang Dongxing, and Li Xiannian, who was later promoted to president. Also present that evening were children of the then head of China's intelligence network, the Navy and assorted vice-premiers, ministers and generals.

Marshal Ye's nephew, a powerful princeling in his own right called Ye Xuanji, hosted the event and highlighted the unsung achievements of Mao's successor, Hua Guofeng. Assisting him was Hu Deping, the eldest son of Hu Yaobang, who was the famously open-minded Communist Party boss who mentored a team of promising cadres in the 1980s, including the current president.

Hu Deping highlighted absurdities of contemporary Chinese politics including the fact that the phrase ''civil society'' has now been banned from mainstream media discourse.

''Their motive was that there are more and more people claiming they can use methods from the Cultural Revolution to solve the problems of contemporary China,'' Wu Si, editor of the party history magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu, said.

''They felt they need another force to fight back and balance the voices,'' Mr Wu, who was at the gathering, said. ''But it went further than that: there were very strong voices calling for democracy and rule of law and bringing the party under supervision.''

Lu De, whose father Lu Dingyi had headed the propaganda department, told the gathering that party and government officials spend a third of all government revenue on their own luxury cars, travel, healthcare, banquets and other perks.

''And yet we still call it the Communist Party and socialism,'' he said.

Ma Xiaoli, whose father headed the party school and was the boss of Shaanxi province, said Mr Lu's comments had prompted her to break her silence. ''In the '80s when the party faced criticism we defended it and explained its actions,'' she said.

''In the '90s we sympathised with the critics but today we almost want to join them.''

She went as far as to hold up the example of Taiwan's Chiang Ching-kuo, who she said had transformed dictatorship into a prosperous democracy.

Ms Ma had arrived at the conference together with Mr Xi's elder sister, Xi Qianping. Her father, Ma Wenrui, had been a close ally of Xi Jinping's father, Xi Zhongxun, since the 1940s.

Her father owed his job as head of the party school to Hua Guofeng and Hu Yaobang and she later worked with Mr Hu's son, Hu Deping, at the united front department.

Hu Yaobang's family, in turn, had helped shelter the Xi family after the Cultural Revolution, while Marshal Ye engineered Xi Zhongxun's appointment as party boss of Guangdong province and probably helped secure a career-building military post for his son Xi Jinping.

Rounding the circle, Ms Xi went to school with Marshal Ye's daughter Ye Xiangzhen. Clearly, Xi Jinping, currently vice-president, owes a great deal to the families of both Marshal Ye and Hu Yaobang, who are now taking a stand.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/chin ... .html#ixzz1is7UsLQs

據悉尼先驅晨報去年10月17日報道，當馬曉力和習近平的姐姐一起來到群賢廳的時候，她沒打算吐露內心的想法。畢竟，中共不允許心懷不滿的人大規模聚會，挑戰黨的紅線。

但當她聽到其他前國家領導人的孩子開始談論他們看到的黨的道德敗壞，對公民社會的打擊以及破壞性的文革政治的復興，她也開始交談，而且一發不可收。

10月6日，在中國國際貿易中心的一間會議室里，中國最有權勢的家庭舉辦了前所未有的非官方聚會。馬曉力對眾人說：「共產黨就像是一個得了癌症的外科醫生，自己已經不能切除腫瘤，它需要其他人的幫助，但是如果得不到幫助，它活不了多久。」

馬曉力講話可以不用太謹慎，因為她父親有革命領導人的威望，而且她的家庭已經和在會議室的其他精英家庭關係緊密，特別是與可能成為下任國家主席的習近平的家人。這次聚會凸顯了在明年習近平替代胡錦濤之前，「太子黨」是如何利用社交聚會來施加對人事和意識形態的影響的。

太子黨在意識形態和利益的角逐中在選擇站哪邊，但他們是團結一致的，看起來，他們認為黨已經迷失了方向。

葉劍英的女兒葉向真說：「今天的中國，我們面臨著巨大的挑戰，從道德水平的急速下滑，到有毒的或基因改造的食品，到猖獗的官員腐敗。」葉的家庭一直是中國政治上和商業上最有權勢的家庭之一。

參加聚會的有故領導人的孩子，如華國鋒，葉劍英，毛澤東的衛士長，汪東興，李先念。參加聚會的也有曾任中國情報機構的頭子，海軍，副總理，部長和將軍的孩子們。

主辦聚會的是葉劍英的侄子葉選基，一名有權勢的太子黨，他強調了華國鋒默默無聞的成就。幫助他主辦的是胡耀邦的長子胡德平。

胡德平強調了當代中國政治的荒謬，包括短語「公民社會」現在已經被主流媒體禁止使用。

陸定一的兒子陸德告訴參加聚會的人：黨和政府官員花了所有政府收入的1/3用於購買自己的豪華汽車，旅遊，醫療保健，宴會和其他津貼。 他說：「然而我們還叫它共產黨和社會主義。」

馬曉力的父親曾任黨校校長，也當過陝西省的頭，她表示陸德的評論讓她打開了話匣子。「在80年代的時候，當黨面對批評的時候，我們還為它辯護，解釋它的做法。90年代的時候，我們同情批評者，但到了現在，我們幾乎想要加入批評者。」

她用台灣的蔣經國舉例，她說他把台灣從獨裁轉型為民主。

馬曉力是和習近平的姐姐一起來的。她的父親，馬文瑞，與習近平的父親習仲勛自從1940年代就是親密盟友。她的父親是華國鋒和胡耀邦時期黨校負責人，她後來和胡耀邦的兒子胡德平一起在統戰部工作。

胡耀邦的家人，反過來，在文革后幫助了習近平的家人，而葉劍英則幫忙任命習仲勛為廣東省書記，很可能也幫助了他的兒子習近平穩固了在軍方的地位。

習近平的姐姐和葉向真一起上的學。顯然，習近平，欠了葉劍英和胡耀邦兩家很大的人情。

（譯文有刪節)