Three senior members of China’s ruling Communist Party (CCP) published an open letter on Chinese social media with their real names right before its twentieth party congress. They called for the deletion of the words “CCP leads everything” from the party constitution and punish any member for practicing a cult of the leader.
Dong Hongyi, Ma Guiquan, and Tian Qizhuang, who now live in Handan City of Hebei Province, posted their open letter on Aug. 25 on weiquanwang.com, a website established by Chinese legal experts to advocate for citizens’ rights based on law.
They stated in the letter that the Chinese constitution stipulates that “all political parties” must abide by the constitution and the law, and the constitution authorized the CCP limited power. However, in the last paragraph of the general outline of the amendment to the CCP’s party constitution passed by its 19th party congress in 2017, the CCP added the phrase “the CCP leads everything including party, government, military, civil and academic affairs, in every sector and everywhere in the country.”…