| The Implications of
the 16th Communist Party Congress
HONOLULU —
On December 2, the special advisor to the president
for global affairs at the University of Hawaii gave a special lecture
to the Japan-focused and China-focused MBA students on the 16th
Communist Party Congress of China.
Michael Lestz expounded on China’s past and
the future in respect to the leadership changes decided in the congress
held in November. The congress has been long anticipated in bringing
about promised reform as a younger generation comes to power. Lestz,
however is not as optimistic.
“The problem with reform in China is that you
have perestroika, you have building, without a similar process of
glasnost, a fundamental searching into the way political business
is done in China,” Lestz said, “I think little help
will come from this group of people ascended to power as a result
of the 16th Party Congress. I think their approach will be business
as usual.”
However, he commented that despite corruption, enduring
problems, and confusing rhetoric of the government, China is flourishing
economically and it will be interesting to see how its increasing
abundance will affect the Communist Party.
“It’s going to be a long time before the
Communist Party begins to pry apart as the parties of the Soviet
Union and others did, but it’s certainly a party that needs
to think in a very careful and self-conscious way about how it will
incorporate other voices into the political life of China,”
he said.
China’s Communist Party convenes a congress
every five years to pick a new group of leaders to serve in various
top ruling bodies, such as the Central Committee, the Politburo,
the Politburo Standing Committee, and the party general secretary.
Michael Lestz was a founder of Trinity College’s
International Studies Program and holds a doctorate in Chinese history
from Yale University. Lestz was responsible for introducing Chinese
and Japanese language to the Trinity curriculum and served as the
first director of the Asian Studies major. He speaks eight languages
and is currently special advisor to the president for global affairs
at the University of Hawaii.
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