Capitalists, unite! Closing the little red book.

• Author: Freund, Charles Paul
• Position: Citings

"THE WORLD is changing;" Chinese President Jiang Zemin told the 16th Communist Party Congress in November. "We must adapt ourselves." Jiang's adaptation, offered as his legacy on officially leaving office, was finally to junk Karl Marx, thus "free[ing] our minds...from the erroneous and dogmatic interpretations of Marxism."

Marx has gone missing in Chinese practice for years, but the party had maintained lip-service regard for the concept of class struggle. No more.Jiang's new dogma is called, in true Chinese party style, "The Three Represents," an awkward label that means the party now reflects all elements of society, including rich capitalists and foreign-owned companies. According to Jiang, it is now unacceptable "to judge whether people are progressive or backward by how much property they own." Indeed, Jiang said that "all legitimate income, from work or not, should be protected."

Of course, the new "Jiang Zemin Thought," adopted in the usual unanimous fashion by the congress, does not allow for the surrender of any power by the party, or for countenancing dissent; China immediately closed those left journals that complained about the rhetorical shift. Outside critics, including...