90 per cent of China’s rich are communist party cadres/ENG

2011. szeptember 18./Phayul.com/TibetPress

DHARAMSHALA, September 18: In the second largest economy in the world, 80 to 100 million Chinese are on the waiting list to join the elite group of 85 million Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members for no nationalistic reason.

CCP membership has its privileges as it is proving to be a prerequisite for climbing the social ladder.

A September 14 commentary on forbes.com by Dr John Lee reveals that more than 90 per cent of the 1,000 richest people in the Forbes China 400 Rich list are either officials or members of the Chinese Communist Party.

Calling the findings a “troubling sign in a country where the ruling clique claims to serve the people selflessly and with a spirit of service,” the scholar at the Hudson Institute in Washington DC said “a closer look at how wealth is actually created and distributed in China completely dispels the notion that its authoritarian model is beneficial for the majority of Chinese people.”

Dr Lee notes that private domestic firms in China are at a heavy disadvantage against the preferential state policies and support granted for the state-owned-enterprises (SOEs), which own two-thirds of all fixed assets in China while their revenues amount to about half of the revenues generated by all Chinese firms each year.

“The most important and lucrative sectors of the economy are reserved for SOEs ...It comes with no surprise that two-thirds of board members, and three quarters of senior executives of SOEs are either CCP officials or members,” the commentary reveals.

Taking a dig at the socialist ideals of equality that CCP proclaims, Dr Lee in his commentary pointed out that one billion Chinese people have little prospect of sharing in the fruits of the country's economic growth as China’s corporate state ensures the accumulation of wealth in the hands of only the ruling clique.

“Since the rise of the corporate state, China has gone from being the most to the least equal society in all of Asia in terms of wealth distribution. The net incomes of over 400 million people have stagnated over the past decade, and absolute levels of poverty have actually increased over the same period,” Dr Lee said.

The commentary said that 80% of China's poverty reduction had actually taken place during the first ten years of reform from 1979 to 1989 – before the Chinese corporate state reasserted its grip on the economy.

The Forbes China 400 Rich list revealed a record number of 146 U.S.-dollar billionaires this year, compared to 128 in 2010. Among the 146 billionaires on the list, 12 are female and eight are under the age of 40.