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Ed Zhang

In the teeming central metropolis of Chongqing it's as if the clock has been turned back in the last few years.
'Red' themes dominate television programming, university students go to work on farms and in factories to learn social values, and city leaders are trying to bring back the singing of decades-old revolutionary songs. 
Led by its Communist Party boss  Bo Xilai, the city of 30 million has also been busy churning out new campaigns and slogans. 
Chongqing is the country's new leftist base and - as China gears up for the Communist Party's 90th anniversary - it seems to be showing the way for the rest to follow.
On the mainland 'leftism' describes highly centralised control of the economy and society, as well as the ruthless crackdown on dissent and criticism seen during the years of chairman Mao Zedong . 
Its advocates can be found on neo-Maoist websites like Utopia (wyzxsx.com). 
'Today's China, after all, is not the old China. It is a country that has rich revolutionary experience, endowed by its many revolutions. Once its people have woken up, they will rise with unstoppable waves of revolution. China is turning left,' an author proclaims in one typical column. 
One sign that the left is on the rise is the talk that Bo has stolen the lead from Guangdong party boss  Wang Yang in their bids to secure a seat on the Politburo standing committee. The party's national congress is expected to rubber-stamp the decision next year.
Time was that Guangdong and its special economic zone of Shenzhen led the way in economic development. But on club.china.com, a forum in a popular internet portal, one commentator suggests the southern province is being ignored. Instead, recent visits by top central leaders to Chongqing indicate Beijing's concerted endorsement of Bo's policies.  
Yao Bo, a Beijing-based independent commentator on social and economic development, said he believed there was a competition between two models: one was the 30-year-old SEZ of Shenzhen, which represented reform and opening-up but was facing the task of upgrading itself, and the other was the one that Bo  was promoting in Chongqing. 
But, Yao said, regardless of which model local officials promoted they needed to consider where the funding would come from. 
They had to rely on more dynamic and competitive economies to finance their social programmes and cultural activities.
On Tianya.com, a generally liberal online community, one contributor lamented that 'turning left, we may become like North Korea. while turning right, we may fall even more deeply into a society of corruption'.
Rampant corruption and a lack of freedom were each singled out for blame on the rise of mainland 'radicalism' by another contributor on the open online forum Kdnet.net. Radicalism' and 'leftism' are often interchangeable terms on the mainland.
However, there also commentators who insist that the country has little room to turn left.
Veteran Beijing-based journalist Li Datong  described Chongqing's leftist moves as political stunts by Bo to gain a seat on the Politburo Standing Committee. 
'Suppose he [Bo] succeeds,' Li said. 'Bo would leave Chongqing for Beijing, and once he leaves Chongqing, will the city go on singing the 'red' songs? I doubt it.' 
But Peking University law professor He Weifang said the red revolutionary songs should not be conflated with leftism. 
He said the musical activities were a natural occurrence as the mainland prepared to mark the Communist Party's 90th anniversary and seeing them as an indication of the coming dominance of leftism was amateur political commentary.
As for development models, Huang Weiping, director of Shenzhen University's Contemporary Chinese Politics Research Institute, said they could not be judged over the short term. 
Models needed a long time to grow and establish themselves. 
And even if there were competing models, the competition would be a healthy way to reflect society's diverse interests, Huang said.



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