MCLC: officials call for retirements

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: officials call for retirements
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Source: NYT (5/16/12):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/world/asia/retired-communist-party-member
s-call-for-2-top-chinese-officials-to-resign.html

16 Retired Chinese Communist Party Officials Call for 2 Top Leaders to
Step Down
By IAN JOHNSON

BEIJING -- In a rare sign of open opposition against two of China's most
powerful leaders, a group of retired Communist Party members have called
for the resignation of the country's security boss, Zhou Yongkang, and a
top propaganda official, Liu Yunshan.

In a petition that began to circulate Wednesday on social media and
overseas Web sites, the 16 signers -- all of them retired midlevel
officials in the southern province of Yunnan -- accused Mr. Zhou of
supporting the fallen party leader Bo Xilai, who was suspended from his
posts amid reports that he helped cover up a murder and abused power.

Mr. Bo, who was the head of the city-state of Chongqing in southwestern
China, advocated a return to old-style Communist propaganda and carried
out a heavy-handed crackdown on organized crime. Although he was popular
with many people for bolstering the economy, civil rights groups and
lawyers said he ran a virtual police state.

"We still care about the future of the country," said one of the signers,
Wu Zhibo, 84, a former vice head of a vocational school in the city of
Zhaotong.

Mr. Zhou is widely thought to have backed Mr. Bo¹s methods and opposed his
ouster. A member of the all-powerful nine-member Standing Committee of the
Communist Party Politburo, Mr. Zhou is also the head of the Central
Political and Legislative Committee. He is widely associated with the
"stability maintenance" program that has led to heavy online censorship
and tight control of the news media

The call for Mr. Zhou's removal comes as Communist Party leaders prepare
for a once-in-a-decade leadership transition this year.

Mr. Zhou is scheduled to retire anyway, but the call suggests the depth of
his unpopularity and possibly a desire among grass-roots members for more
far-reaching changes in the economy and the political system.

Mr. Wu said the signers were mostly in their late 70s and 80s and wanted
to express their support for Mr. Bo's dismissal. But they also think that
the men behind Mr. Bo should go.

Some reports have speculated that Mr. Zhou has already been stripped of
power, although many party insiders doubt this. He has appeared at all
major functions and recently made a major speech on the need for law to
serve stability that was carried in official news media.

Mr. Wu said that Mr. Liu, the propaganda official, also opposed calls for
political change and blocked them from being disseminated in the news
media. "We thought that such a person should not enter the next
Politburo," he said.

Mr. Wu said that police officials had visited him and other signers to try
to persuade them not to post the petition, saying that "anti-Chinese
Forces" would exploit it. But he said they decided to go ahead anyway
because of their strong feelings against the two men and their antireform
policies.

Shortly after its posting, the petition and associated search words were
blocked on popular social media sites.

Zhang Wei contributed research.