There has been some criticism in the Ottawa Press Gallery that the prime minister’s office is not sufficiently transparent. Now, Canadian journalists have reason to hope that one unexpected consequence of the recent rapprochement between Ottawa and Beijing will be a decision by Prime Minister Harper to follow the example of the Communist Party’s new policy towards its Central Party school in Beijung.
This training ground for the Party’s elite is now offering foreign journalists a rare but still carefully scripted peek at the leafy campus where the country’s Communist elite are trained. The tour is part of a drive by the Communist government to show it’s becoming more open. Since, no doubt, Ottawa will note that this new openness will have tangible results, it will therefore be persuaded to emulate this practice.
“In recent years, the Central Party School and indeed the whole Communist Party system have not had much interaction with the outside world but this is something we are trying to change,” Chen Baosheng, vice president of the school, told reporters. “Our party has nothing to hide.”
China’s top leaders are under pressure to show more of the government’s inner workings amid public anger over rampant corruption in its ranks and demands for accelerated political reform to help deal with sweeping social changes.
The tour was also part of activities marking the 89th anniversary of the founding of China’s Communist Party.
During the four-hour visit to the campus in Beijing’s northwestern university district, journalists got a glimpse of a lively lecture on how to manage people while fostering innovation, a gym where officials whacked at pingpong and tennis balls, and a hotel-style dormitory complete with dry cleaning and CNN.
Each room was stocked with a small library of Chinese Communist classics, including the collected works of revolutionary leader Mao Zedong. The campus bookstore offered a wider selection, including several books on the leadership style of President Barack Obama and Who Am I, The Autobiography of Bruce Lee. Founded in 1933, the school is a training ground for China’s middle and senior-ranking officials. While long closed to outsiders, it has opened up in recent years, welcoming guest lecturers from overseas, such as U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who recently paid a visit.
Source: Associated Press
Eric Koch’s new book, The Golden Years: Five Stories, was launched on Saturday, March 16. The book is available from the 
Could any novelist circa 1975 ever have dreamt up modern China? Mao on the bookshelf and Adam Smith in the streets.
You are absolutely right – another demonstration of the obvious truth that it’s pointless to be either optimistic or pessimistic about the future since the point about the future is that it is the future.