A SENIOR member of the leftist establishment has indirectly attacked Deng Xiaoping's reforms for exacerbating the ''inner contradictions'' among the people.
National People's Congress (NPC) legislator Xing Bensi, who is also vice-principal of the Central Party School, said yesterday failure by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to defuse these contradictions could spawn ''social turmoil and political instability''.
Mr Xing, a veteran ideologue, cited the phenomenon of polarisation of income levels as well as ''exploitation'' as signs of growing discontent among the masses.
''If in the 1950s and 60s, the inner contradictions of the people manifested themselves in the ideological arena, they can now be witnessed in the area of [the re-distribution of] economic benefits.'' Mr Xing, who is an ally of noted leftists such as former propaganda chief Deng Liqun, fingered the practice of officials paying farmers with IOUs instead of cash as ''a kind of exploitation of peasants''.
''Once a minority of party members and cadres have grasped power, they are concerned only with their own self-interests and they no longer care about the masses,'' the semi-official China News Service yesterday quoted Mr Xing as saying.
''In the end, they will meet with the opposition of the masses.'' At this NPC, the dominant faction of the party, led by President Jiang Zemin and Vice-Premier Zhu Rongji, had encountered intense criticism by deputies across the political spectrum.
