Jiang made the announcement on the 80th anniversary of the founding of the party in 1921 and in advance of a party leadership meeting next month. Central Party School official Li Junru hailed the move as a "major breakthrough and innovation in theory."

Attacking the proposal, Deng Liqun, leader of an opposition faction and former head of the propaganda department, said, "Somebody wants to change the color of the party. Somebody wants to take away the hammer and sickle from our flag--and replace them with a computer and satellite." A colleague of Deng stated that a person who employs more than 10 workers is an "exploiter," adding, "There is no way we can let exploiters join the party."

In China, party membership is a prerequisite to holding most senior state positions. The ban on bosses joining the CP was imposed in 1989 in the wake of student-led protests that year and shortly after Jiang became the central party leader. Today, although there are already some 113,000 party members who run businesses even by official count, most have started their private enterprises after joining the party, according to press reports.

The dispute is one of many in the privileged ruling stratum that runs party and state affairs and controls local and regional governments in the world's most populous nation. The frictions arise over how best to try to keep working people out of political life and maintain social stability as the bureaucratic layer--unable and unwilling to lead workers and peasants to advance production and economic growth along lines that deepen their collective control over all aspects of economic and social life--seeks to open the economy more and more to the world capitalist market system.

A report commissioned by the top leadership of the CP on spreading unrest by workers and farmers was released last month. It exposes the extent of protests in the country and highlights what underpins the divisions in the party around the admission of exploiting layers in society to the CP.

The report notes a growing number of "collective protests and group incidents" in the country and says that relations between party officials and the masses of working people are "tense, with conflicts on the rise." It says the protests have been "expanding, frequently involving over a thousand or even ten thousand people."  
 
Widening disparities
The New York Times summarized a section of the report this way: "The income gap is approaching the 'alarm level,' it says, with disparities widening between city and countryside, between the fast-growing east coast and the stagnant interior, and within urban populations. The report describes corruption as the 'main fuse exacerbating conflicts between officials and the masses,'" and adds that "China's plans to accelerate the opening of its markets to foreign trade and investment are likely to mean even greater social conflict."

According to the report, protesters "often block roads, storm party and government offices, coercing party committees and government [officials] and there are even criminal acts such as attacking, trashing, looting, and arson." It adds that such actions are "expanding from farmers and retired workers to include workers still on the job, individual business owners, decommissioned soldiers, and even officials, teachers, and students." Demonstrations involved workers protesting layoffs or failure to receive pensions and farmers angered by rising taxes and brutal treatment at the hands of officials.

A Washington Post article said the report "spoke about the collapse of state-owned industry, a social safety net incapable of dealing with millions of unemployed, strained relations with China's ethnic minorities, a restive peasantry and an unjust legal system."

One response by the government, the report noted, is a national "strike hard" campaign, which includes a jump in arrests and prison sentences of those involved in such actions. There have also been some highly publicized arrests and prosecutions of party officials accused of corruption, a clamp-down on the press, and a decision to increase government spending in western regions.  
 
 
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