http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=3D/news/2008/04/19/wchina119.=
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China's last Maoists submit to capitalism
By Richard Spencer in Beijing
Last Updated: 3:26am BST 19/04/2008
China's last Maoist collective, where villagers held out against
capitalism, is to privatise after its prosperity was found to have
rested on a mountain of hidden debt.
While the rest of the country abandoned the commune, pursued personal
fortunes and dismantled state industries, the village of Nanjie in
central China renationalised its land, set up factories and paid all
residents =A320 a month.
Advertising was banned and instead, propaganda banners hung in
streets which led to a 30ft statue of Mao built in 1993. Annual
"profits" from the 26 village businesses paid for a mass wedding
ceremony and honeymoons in Beijing.
Nanjie also provided free housing, schooling and health care,
sup****ting a standard of living so much better than surrounding towns
that many who visited were awestruck by its egalitarianism.
Ten years ago, The New York Times noted its well-kept apartments and
spacious schools - although it added that the state of its finances
could not be verified.
More recently, one of the nostalgic Chinese tourists attracted to the
village as its fame spread enthused to the BBC: "Mao's slogan 'Serve
the people' is really put into practice here. It's not just empty
rhetoric."
Unfortunately, few of the visitors were accountants. In the past two
months, newspapers in Hong Kong and Guangzhou have unravelled a tale
of Enron-style woe.
The village's triumphs were built on =A3120 million of secret loans
from the Agricultural Bank of China, which is now calling in its
loans as it prepares to list its shares on the Hong Kong stock
exchange.
According to one re****t, the bank had been instructed to sup****t
Nanjie at all costs by a conservative in the Communist Party
leader****p after the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests in
1989.
The village had already begun to unravel when the village head died
with the equivalent of a million pounds in cash in his safe, along
with the deeds to several properties. A number of women came to his
funeral, claiming to be his mistresses and dem-anding a share of his
wealth.
In a late effort to save Nanjie's struggling noodle factory and its
livelihoods, the village committee has finally bitten the bullet of
privatisation and turned its holdings into equities. The irony will
not be lost on Nanjie's party secretary, Wang Hongbin, who has ended
up with nine per cent of the shares.
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