Communist Party to ease off on 'Mao thought'

A crucial document setting the Communist Party's direction for the next five years came to light yesterday after general secretary Hu Jintao convened a meeting of the elite Politburo.

The meeting by the 24-strong body will finalise the draft of a report to be submitted for approval by the central committee of the Communist Party, to be held on November 1, which will be the final preparation before the convening of the 18th party congress on November 8.

A dispatch from the meeting by Xinhua said the final report from the party's 17th national congress would make "plans and strategies on our country's reform and development from an all-round perspective".

While highlighting several guiding tenets of party doctrines by President Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin and Deng Xiaoping, one key term missing from the Xinhua report was "Mao Zedong thought", an absence that led some China watchers to wonder whether the party might be moving to play down the philosophy of its late patriarch in the 18th national party congress.

The ideas associated with the loosely defined term - such as class struggle, commune living and continuous revolution - seem ever more remote in modern China and party leaders have been under pressure to diminish them in the party constitution.

But the term retains significance as a founding party doctrine and Mao continues to be revered by many, a fact demonstrated by disgraced Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai's controversial campaign to revive "red" songs and culture.

"Bo's red campaign and his popularity for the endeavour might have triggered fear among some reform-minded leaders that Maoism might still be popular among those left in the cold in Deng Xiaoping's capitalistic economic reform," said Zhang Ming, a political scientist at Renmin University.