Here is Paolo Pietrosanti in Radio Radicale. We have the pleasure to be connected to Mr. Xiao Qiang. He is the executive director of Human Rights in China, one of the biggest organisations for fighting for democracy and human rights in China. Xiao Qiang is also known by the listeners, since it is not the first time that we have the chance to listen to his voice. In the last days we have had the chance to follow the Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, The results of this congress, based on what we have read in the newspapers and so on , are a substantial confirmation of the political line and the consolidation of the power of Yang Tse Min and Li Peng. Which is your opinion?

XIAO QIANG: I think, due to the nature of China's political system, all this processes are not transparent, we do not know what kind of inner struggle was taken to reach the conclusion of the personal affairs in the highest part of the Communist Party, and eventually the results of the Party's Congress. I want to stress that in China's political system it is not so, that you have a meeting to resolve over certain issues or problems, you somehow revolve them before that, and then have a meeting or conference to announce that, and this is what the 15th congress really is. All the arrangements are made before, and then they are announced to the party members and to the national population and to the world. So through several months Parliament mirroring was the result of President Yang Tse Min and Li Peng strengthening their power position, and they actually successfully purged their political rival Qiao Shi ??? out of the political scenario, and then at the Party's congress they announced that result.

PIETROSANTI: You have said one name, that was in all the headlines all over the world, the man who used to be number 3 in the hierarchy, Qiao Shi, current Chairman of the National Assembly, even if in spring his chairmanship will be taken by Li Peng.

XIAO QIANG: That's speculation.

PIETROSANTI: Anyway, Qiao Shi was fired.

XIAO QIANG: Physically...

PIETROSANTI: Yea. I have to say that if most analysts in the world say that he was fired because of some tendency of him, because he represented some openings of the regime, not everybody agrees on this approach. What is your opinion?

XIAO QIANG: I think there's many analyses: from Qiao Shi whose son committed economical crimes, so his father was affected by that, to Qiao Shi threatening the political power so he was purged, to the official explanation of the Party, saying that he was too old, 71, and so he had to retire; but of course Mr. Yang himself is 74. Age in the Chinese Politburo has never been a problem. But the real issue here is that in the highest body of China's decision body there is no democratic system mechanism whatsoever, not even inside that system. If Qiao Shi remains in that highest leadership, and he has a different in style in implementing his power, he can balance or at least give some kind of fraction to the leadership, is that good or bad? There is some kind of mechanism of power checking and balance to be developed with that kind of differences. But now he is purged out of power, and then the highest become very monolithic again. That seems like a strengthening of the highest leaders power, but definitely it is

not good for the internal democratising process of the Communist Party, and the whole process is not good for China's political reform.

PIETROSANTI: The management by Shao Shi of the National Assembly has been the most evident and even small element of some change in the Chinese political system. Are there other elements, other small elements of hope inside the leading class?

XIAO QIANG: Well, there has always been some active o passive effort to respond the changing social and economic conditions, which is leading China's system to an opening. There are in the economic area certain measures encouraging the privatising of enterprises, implementing the social welfare policy, which will facilitate the economic changes in China towards a more free-market economy. In the political or legal area there are initiatives, but the real issue here is different, that is the Party's Congress, which has just passed, failed to put political reforms into the agenda, failed to give an image in which the Communist Party is the only leading power in China, to develop the nation to a more democratic and freer country. The economic changes are not enough, because the political ones are much behind other changes going on in the country, and they are seriously jeopardising the economic development. Issues like corruption, the labour conditions, labour unrest, they are all directly linked with the lack

of free press, freedom of association, the Government tight control on the civil society; many of those cannot be resolved, and new issues like environmental degradation reflect the economic development, but at the same time there is no insightful plan to see where the country goes. The self-interest of the Communist Party is no good for the country, for the society and for the people.

PIETROSANTI: Before the end of the British administration we were speaking about the fact that entering Hong Kong with the two systems' system it would have caused a sort of example for other zones. After these very few weeks, what can we say about this?

XIAO QIANG: So far I think that most of the errors in Hong Kong remain unchanged. There are some actions taken by the Chief Executive appointed by China, trying to repress some political election freedom in Hong Kong. But by large Hong Kong remains completely separated by mainland China, and I would say during the last few weeks or months, China's Government has restricted its political authority and activities, so far there are not many changes at all, which I think is a kind of positive sign, that China will stay where they promised in the China and British bilateral agreement. If this tendency will continue, it will give Hong Kong a chance to continue its economy, and also eventually it will have a positive impact on China's political and social changes. The current Party's Congress did not make any significant decision on changing the policy in Hong Kong or Taiwan, so everything remains as it was, Hong Kong was not even allowed as a topic for discussion among the members, so I would say that if Beijing c

an restrict their actions in Hong Kong, it is a good thing both for them and in the long run for the whole of China.

PIETROSANTI: One of the main results of the Congress was the privatising of some of the big public state-owned enterprises. What is it going to provoke in the Chinese economy?

XIAO QIANG: It is a serious issue, it a step China cannot avoid to take, to move itself to establish a real free-market economy, and get the economy towards some new momentum. The state-run enterprises are left from the old socialist economic system, have been losing a tremendous amount of money in the last decades, it is becoming a very urgent issue for the Government. There are millions of urban residents who are employees of those state-run enterprises, and because they are so economically inefficient, losing money cannot guarantee even the basic salary to those workers, and their living conditions are getting worse and worse, whereas the private sector has been booming in the coast cities, which has created a sharp contrast of the living conditions and a cause of social unrest in China. During the last few months there were dozens of China's cities which had social unrest, with workers asking for better wages. Because of the serious problem of those state-run enterprises: to privatise them is definitely

a step to go, but the question is can this policy be implemented, can the transition be peaceful and without the price of some social uprising. Because China does not have a well established social system, millions of those workers cannot be just unemployed and thrown out on the street, without any guarantee on their life. In this economy policy decision process the workers' interests are not taken into account at all in China. They do not have the right to organise an independent Union, they don't have the right to express what they demand. This is a very serious issue for China: if one can smoothly privatise those enterprises, it will solve a huge problem to modernise society, if it failed to satisfy the workers' needs and guarantee the basics of social stability, China's economic change would suffer a great deal.

PIETROSANTI Do these protests, riots which were not so enormous, have some political content, do they represent the growing of some political awareness?

XIAO QIANG There is an increase in awareness of their own rights and demands in workers and residents. During the early 70s and even early 80s you would never see that protest, mainly because the Government still had a quite tight control on what the people did in their life, and the private citizen would not dare to uprise against the state. But now China is in quite a different stage, the private citizen has much more individual freedom in his daily life, the Government has much less control over that, but in the meantime they still do not have political rights to express the Government their needs, so there is a sharp contrast. The protest is very shocking in some way, because they are not organised, the Government does not allow any organised labour activities, and they are even easier to develop into a stage of violence. In many cities there are workers attacking the Government buildings, or the police stopping those protests with violent means. The society can hardly hear the incidents because the pres

s is entirely controlled. That gives a very worrisome picture of China's development today, and urban workers are in the centre of the issue.

PIETROSANTI How spread are these protests?

XIAO QIANG They are of different scales, from hundreds of protesters to hundreds of thousands in some cities. I give you an example: Shanghai is the largest city in China and one of the largest cities in the world, I think number two or three, it has approximately 300,000 virtually unemployed state-run enterprise workers in the city, it is a huge number. If these people cannot feed their families, these people cannot have a job in the city, imagine what kind of social consequence that is going to be. There are other large cities

like Shen Njan ???, whith the same number of unemployed workers in the state-run enterprises. That is on top of other 300,000 of those migrant workers coming from their country villages, who came into the city looking for a job; there is a huge unstable population, and unless the entire economic development can absorb those working forcers, and also guarantee the basics standards, it is seriously destabilising the Chinese cities today.

PIETROSANTI I read in a recent issue of the Far Eastern Economic Revue an article about the fact that there is a number of people associating to associations protecting the rights of consumers. They were writing about somebody protesting and also getting some money, because a Sony TV set was not working. So how real is this kind of phenomenon?

XIAO QIANG: It is happening, it is a trend in the consumer rights area, just because in the cities daily life the consumers rights become a more and more important issue. So there are initiatives in this area, however those organisations are under a restriction, they are extremely limited. You can demand for a re-compensation for a bad Sony tv set, but you cannot bargain with your employer about your salary or mistreatment or reimbursement for compensation of workers' bad conditions. It's still happening in a very limited area such as consumers' rights.

PIETROSANTI How can this phenomenon become a political one?

XIAO QIANG I think it adds to the general trend, that people organising themselves and protecting their own interests is becoming vitally necessary in this vibrant society, because the Chinese authorities are afraid of that development of social organisations, so they are facing enormous obstacles with administration. There is the social organisations administration rule which is very restrict on any organisations being legally registered, but in the mean time China has a constitution which has an article stating clearly that Chinese citizens enjoy the right to freedom of association and freedom of speech and all that. Of course all of this is on the paper, never being realised, those administrative rules are only focused on restricting those freedoms. And that has to be changed, and the change has to come from the National People's Congress, the legislative body, to relax those restrictive rules into a rule that facilitates the self-organisations rules. So the pressure will be on the National Peoples' Congr

ess to change those laws. With the Qiao Shi as part of the Congress there are some positive momentums in this area, but I am afraid that with the conservative back to power with Li Peng, that process will be seriously jeopardised.

PIETROSANTI Last time we had a chat for the radio, I remember that speaking about Hong Kong you said that one thing is the rule by law, and a very different thing is the rule of law. Your words were very effective. Anyway this Congress has not changed anything in terms of freedom, individual, civil and human rights, and so on. The situation is in absolute stagnation from this viewpoint.

XIAO QIANG That's right. If I can summarise. It actually reflects the non-transparency of China's political process, and no real participation even from their own party members. One man or leading power is not good for the political reform, it does not provide a vision or agenda for the political change in China today.

PIETROSANTI: I thank you very much, every time we have the chance to listen to your voice, it is very useful and also a very kind occasion, so thank you very much, have a good job, and of course we shall remain in touch.

XIAO QIANG Thank you, it is an honour to speak to you.