From March 26 to April 6, former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao wrote four articles in the Macau Herald, reminiscing and paying tribute to the memory of his mother who passed away. The content of the articles themselves were of little interest to outsiders, but what attracted attention was a sentence he wrote at the end of the article: “I sympathize with the poor and the weak, and oppose bullying and oppression. The China in my mind should be a country full of fairness and justice, where there is always respect for the human heart, humanity and the essence of human beings, and where there is always an air of youth, freedom and struggle. I have cried out and fought for this. This is the truth that life has taught me and that my mother has given me.” More strikingly, Wen Jiabao’s letter specifically mentions his own feelings about “being an official”: “I have retired and worked in Zhongnanhai for 28 years, including ten years as Premier. For a person of my background, ‘being an official’ is a matter of chance. I was ordered to be careful, like walking on thin ice, like facing the abyss, the beginning of the accepted service, that often do return to the plan”.
For this matter, the outside world has been debated. Some say that this is a manifestation of power within the Communist Party; some say that Wen Jiabao is still a “movie star” at his age; others say that this is another manifestation of Wen Jiabao’s enlightened thinking. What do you think about this issue? I would like to say my opinion.
First of all, I think simply using “performance” to characterize Wen Jiabao’s move this time is not objective. During his premiership, Wen Jiabao often made statements in favor of universal values, which is not unusual. Wen Jiabao came to the political arena gradually in the 1980s during the reform and opening-up period, and it is impossible for him to be an advocate of extreme leftist ideology from the bottom of his heart; he is not a “second generation Red”, nor does he have the authoritarian ideology of Xi Jinping. He wrapped himself in some pro-democracy language, most likely to gain personal fame. But to say that what he said was completely unacceptable to himself and that he was 100% lying is too simplistic a view.
Second, of course, we must also see that it is not objective to say that Wen Jiabao is an enlightened CCP leader, despite the fact that he keeps making these statements that are different from those of other senior CCP leaders. The reasoning is simple: when we look at a person, we should not only look at his words, but more importantly, his actions. Wen Jiabao has said so many nice things, but after decades in a high position, he has not done anything practical to advance democracy in China. This may be his cowardice, or perhaps he says one thing and does another, but in any case, without concrete action, he is just the “enlightened faction” that talks, and when Zhao Ziyang began to actually promote the political system reform or a big gap.
Finally, I think the point is not how Wen Jiabao as a person, the focus is this time he wrote an article on this matter is strange. When his mother died, he wrote an article reminiscing about it, which is a natural thing to do, but why didn’t he publish it in the domestic press, but found a little-known Macau Herald to publish it? This is a very good idea, but I think it’s a bit of a whine to Xi Jinping. Wen Jiabao does not have much power in the Party, so it may be an exaggeration to say that his article is a “power struggle,” but it does reflect that people like Wen Jiabao at the top of the Communist Party are indeed dissatisfied with Xi Jinping’s domineering power.
This is not the first time that Wen Jiabao has made such a small move after he stepped down, and I believe it will not have any impact on Chinese politics.
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