Inclusion of private entrepreneurs raises the class issue

Private entrepreneurs have replaced model workers as the celebrities of the 16th party congress. Young, affable and smartly dressed, they exude confidence and relish the limelight to show off their success.

When Jiang Xipei of the Yuan Dong (Far East) Group in Jiangsu province talked about his enthusiasm about becoming a delegate to the party congress, the media treated him like a rock star. His position of party secretary in his enterprise gives him the coveted legitimacy and social status that until now has been withheld from people like him.

But the complicated and emotion-laden issue of class struggle has not been fully sorted out, according to experts.

In his opening speech to the 16th party congress, President Jiang Zemin said entrepreneurs should be judged by their contribution to society and not penalised by the holding of private property. It was a clear affirmation of the legitimacy of the propertied class in the Communist Party and a bold recognition of the changes that had taken place in Chinese society.

How to reconcile the interests of the new class with the rest of the party remains an open question, said Li Lulu, chairman of the sociology department at the People's University.

'The inclusion of the new entrepreneurs sharpens the issue of how to get various groups to work together,' he said.

'The Theory of the Three Representatives does not provide a blueprint.'