Eric Eckholm reports on the bad news for commies: Zhao Ziyang's unending detention

as well as the total secrecy and back-room dealing involved in choosing China's next leaders have only underscored, some restive party loyalists say, just how far the country's top-tier politics remain from law and democracy.....most of the successful entrepreneurs, the kind being courted by the party, feel that they do well in the cronyish system as it is and see no need to push for major reforms.

Damn straight. Letting the money-makers into the party without any independent mechanism to curb their power is a recipe for lots more corruption. Or as the AP says,

corruption will flourish while the party refuses to open up a political system built on personal ties that lets people with the right friends escape punishment...."The whole Politburo would be behind bars if they were to seriously investigate corruption,'' said Bruce Gilley, co-author of "China's New Rulers: The Secret Files.'' The party that came to power in part by criticizing the corruption of the former Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek fiercely guards its monopoly on power, imprisoning activists who call for democratic elections. And in a country where most people live on less than $700 a year, the cost of such resistance to reform is huge -- in lost economic growth, the added expense of bribes for businesses and stolen government money that would have paid for roads and public services....at upper levels, Chinese leaders regard corruption charges as just another political weapon, Gilley said. "The decision whether to press a corruption case is entirely arbitrary and depends on whether the senior leaders want to end this person's career,'' he said....There are no graft accusations against Hu and others expected to be named this week to the Standing Committee, Gilley said.But that doesn't mean they're clean. Instead, "allegations have been ruthlessly erased from official memory because there was already a decision that these people were going to be promoted,'' he said.

Although this article says it's social inequality that is causing the problem, I agree that the risk

is that China may aim to recreate the dictatorships of South Korea and Taiwan and miss, becoming Marcos's Philippines or Suharto's Indonesia instead. Those two countries also tried to combine capitalist economies with strongman rule, but were felled by economic stagnation and corruption.

Anyway, as Jianying Zha writes, it's no surprise that the Chinese are not interested in current politics.