As China gears up to focus on stability at its National People's Congress, overseas activists will be holding a conference in Washington to plan for the country's future transition to democracy, they told Radio Free Asia.
The ruling Chinese Communist Party's 24-member Politburo has already met to set the tone for the proceedings of the rubber-stamp body, where government business is usually nodded through unanimously, agreeing that the government's annual work report to delegates will focus on "pursuing progress while maintaining stability," state media reported.
And as delegates get ready for the set-piece political event in Beijing, where police are busy clearing away anyone who might even think about criticizing the government, some of China's veteran pro-democracy activists will be debating how to ensure a democratic transition in the event of the collapse of Communist Party rule, which marks its 75th anniversary this year.
Titled a "National Affairs Conference" in a nod to high-level policy-making conferences that sowed the seeds for Taiwan's democratic transition in the 1990s, the event is being run by exiled former political prisoner and 1979 "Democracy Wall" movement leader Wei Jingsheng, former 1989 Tiananmen Square student protest leader Wang Dan and Wang Juntao, who heads the U.S. branch of the China Democracy Party, which was banned in China after its members tried to register it through official channels.
They will then be sharing their plan with the rest of the world -- including people living in China, Wei told reporters.
In a closed-door seminar that runs from March 2-3, the activists will be hashing out a "blueprint for a democratic China" that seeks not to overthrow the current regime, but to hit the ground running to ensure a democratic future, in case of its collapse.
"We're having this conference to come up with a programme to let everyone know what kind of democratic system we want to set up, and how it ties in with different people's interests," Wei told RFA Mandarin in an interview ahead of the conference.
Wei said he believes that Chinese Communist Party rule is "on the verge of collapse," and that democracy advocates in exile need to be ready with a plan.
"The one-party dictatorship of the Chinese Communist Party must collapse, for it to be possible to start the democratization process," Wei said, adding that the blueprint wouldn't amount to a constitution, which could only be voted through by a democratically elected parliament.
‘Blueprint for China’s future’
He said the organizers had spent the past 20 years gaining "a more in-depth understanding" of Western democracies, and they believe they can improve on them.
"It's a blueprint for China's future, and also for a system that is a bit better than that of the United States and some European countries," Wei said.
Fellow conference organizer Wang Dan said the conference would focus on "democratic nation-building."
"We want the new China to be built on the basis of constitutional government and democracy, but it will need to be built from scratch," Wang said. "That's why this first session will aim to outline a basic blueprint for governance ... including the legal system, education, and the political and economic systems."
For Wang Juntao, the conference is about building a republic in which the government has far less control over people's daily lives and activities than it does now.
"The government we want to set up will be a limited government, regardless of the form that its democracy takes," he said. "The government will have limited responsibilities, and basically won't interfere with problems that have no impact on citizens' rights, and which can be solved or operated by the private sector."
"It won't be allowed to intervene too much," he said.
Back in Beijing, a recent meeting of the Politburo called on the one-party state to "seek progress while maintaining stability," in a meeting that commentators said would set the tone for the National People's Congress, which opens in Beijing on March 5.
"Government work reports at the parliamentary sessions in recent years have been entirely based on the Politburo meeting that happens right before the sessions open," U.S.-based political commentator Ma Ju said.
Lacking ideas
He said Communist Party leader Xi Jinping appeared to be out of fresh ideas.
"Judging from a condensed version of the ... government work report, we see that Xi Jinping is no longer capable of exploring new directions for [economic] development," he said. "It also shows us that the authorities are indifferent to the actual situation in China."
Late last year, Chinese state media started pumping out positive propaganda about the state of the economy, and this week dismissed reports of an economic downturn as a "smear campaign" from Western media.
According to an independent scholar in China, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, the fact that China is marking the 75th year of Communist Party rule this year means that it can only continue to pump out positive propaganda about the economy, despite a burst property bubble, crippling government debt and dwindling confidence.
"The economy is on the verge of collapse ... huge amounts of foreign capital have pulled out, and social unrest is intensifying," the scholar said. "But the central government is focusing on political stability."
"This year can only bring more intensified crises ... as people are just like they were back in 1976 [at the end of the Mao era], hoping for change," they said, adding that "stability" had been mentioned several times in Thursday's report on the Politburo meeting published by state news agency Xinhua.
Australia-based writer Yuan Hongbing said there appeared to be little of substance in the Politburo that might help the economy.
"The deteriorating economic situation isn't going to change -- it's caused by Xi Jinping's key policy, which is to advance the state sector at the expense of the private sector," Yuan said.
"This has led to a steady economic decline ... they talk about opening up ... but that has no practical meaning."
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.