China’s Communist Party could reach out to dissidents in drive to mobilise allies, top political adviser says
Senior political adviser says lobbying targets are defined by social status, not ideology, but some common ground is essential for engagement
The Communist Party’s main outreach arm could consider engaging dissidents on a case-by-case basis, a former senior united front official suggested yesterday.
Zhu Weiqun, former deputy head of the United Front Work Department and Beijing’s one-time point man in the negotiations with the Dalai Lama, hinted at the possibility in an article in Global Times discussing the coming priorities in the area.
It comes after President Xi Jinping said in May that united front work – efforts to mobilise allies outside the party – was entering a new era centred on “making friends” to make the party stronger to strive towards common goals.
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Addressing discussion on whether united front work should be expanded to include dissidents, Zhu said targets of lobbying should be defined by social status – political affiliations, social strata, ethnicity, religions or geographic locations – rather than ideological position, which did not rule out dissidents as targets for engagement.
“Dissent is about ideology, not a social status … and it varies from time to time,” Zhu wrote.
Residents in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau had to support unification of the country while those outside China had to be in favour of the national revival of the Chinese people, he wrote.
“Any dissidence outside of the areas could be tolerated. If this could be achieved, then the united front is successful in ‘unifying all possible power’,” Zhu wrote in the tabloid affiliated with party mouthpiece People’s Daily.