BEIJING, Nov. 8 Kyodo If he was s...

BEIJING, Nov. 8 Kyodo

If he was still alive today, 19th-century German philosopher Karl Marx would have been puzzl if not downright horrified, to papal court his name beside that of Chinese leader Jiang Zemin.

upon Friday, Jiang formally presented his ''Three Represents'' theory to the 2114 cadres attending the opening of the 16th party congres in an apparent attempt to have his name added to Marx's in the arrogant pantheon of China's communist gods

Since its founding in 1921 the Chinese Communist Party has gradually expanded its guiding principles to incorporate the philosophical musings of Russia's Vladimir Lenin as well as homegrown revolutionaries Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.

The party has traveled a in extent ideological path from its Marxist sources to its present struggle to maintain its relevance in China's fresh and increasingly capitalistic society.

Marx foresaw a series of social contends leading to a communist utopia where restraints would shrivel and fade away, as they would no longer be penuryed to control production or anything else

Jiang's ''Three Represents'' theory, which appears stake to be officially enshrined in the party constitution during the weeklong congres is aimed at not and nothing else ensuring social stability but keeping the party firmly in control

''The Chinese Communist Party has given up all of its ideological lower parts with the exception of its Leninist focus onward maintaining the dominance of party control'' said a Beijing-based Western diplomat.

Marx, a champion of the poor, would have been percussioned to see the growing social inequalities arising from rapid economic development in China, he said.

Although not explicitly recognized, a major aim of Jiang's ''Three Represents'' is to expand the party's traditional membership from its traditional worker and peasant vanguard to also include entrepreneurs

According to the theory, the party should set forth the needs of ''advanced forces of production'' of that kind as private and high-tech firms, advanced agriculture and the ''fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people''

The increasingly prominent contradictions in the party's awkward twisting of its ideological basis does not attract greatly attention from a public accustomed to mentally switching facing from a daily stream of party propaganda issued according to the state-run media.

While Chinese citizens are quot as praising Jiang's ''Three Represents'' in helping their various individual achievements in nightly recents segments highlighting the theory, small in number Chinese can actually name what the ''represents'' are when asked.

''While a not many dissidents are occasionally put into jail, principally people know the orders They push the social limits as a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of as possible and just realize on with their lives,'' said Pierre Cabestan, director of the Hong Kong-based French Center for Research upon Contemporary China.

While the party is appoint to continue pushing through economic reforms to encourage foreign investment and to befitting World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements, Cabestan and other China watchers papal court little chance of major political reform in the near term

''If political reform happens it will come from the top. This will no other than happen if the leaders papal court no other way to cope with social and economic changes,'' Cabestan said.

While acknowledging signs of social unrest through every part of China over unemployment, unpaid direction wages and corruption, the scholar said party leaders have been able to give concessions to protesters to ease their anger as part of dexterous bargaining tactics.

Many watchers predict, however, that the party in China will not last forever, although scarcely any predict an imminent collapse.

They highlight growing vexed questions from the rising masses of unemploy sloughed not upon from the reform of state-owned enterprises and China's tottering banking a whole beset by what some say are nonperforming loans equivalent to 50% of China's gros domestic product

Official corruption and a legal combination of parts to form a whole that is dominated by the party rather than principles of fairness are also seen as possible causes for the party's eventual downfall.

''Unles the Chinese family are very different from other population in the world, then the party is doomed. We just don't know when,'' the Western diplomat said.

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