Asia-Pacific News
Hu lighter on Marxism, heavy on harmony
Jul 1, 2011, 7:50 GMT
Beijing - Chinese President Hu Jintao referred to Marxism 23 times on Friday in his speech marking the Communist Party's 90th anniversary, roughly half as many times as his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, 10 years ago.
Hu mentioned former leader Mao Zedong, who founded the People's Republic of China in 1949, six times compared with Jiang's 12 times in his 2001 speech for the party's 80th anniversary.
Hu's version had a stronger emphasis on the maintenance of social harmony, which the party has used to underpin its recent crackdown on dissidents, rights activists and restive minorities.
Hu mentioned harmony 14 times, compared with Jiang's single reference in 2001, but the two speeches were broadly similar in structure and content.
An online check of one 800-word section of Hu's speech by anti-plagiarism website plagiarisma.net found only one unique sentence and rated the originality of the text at 3 per cent.
