TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Retired Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials have issued a letter calling for actual free speech:

“This kind of false democracy of affirming in principle and denying in actuality is a scandal in the history of democracy,” said the letter, which was dated Monday and widely distributed by e-mail.

Great news, and they say they would have liked to reference Liu Xiaobo’s imprisonment, but didn’t for fear the government (or, more accurately, the CCP) would have stopped the letter’s circulation.

This story, moreover, provides an excellent example of just how twisted China’s system is:

Censorship has become so reflexive and restrictive that even passages urging political reform were expunged from official media reports on speeches by Premier Wen Jiabao, the letter said. Wen has drawn attention in recent weeks with a series of unusually direct calls for the communist system to evolve.

“Not even the nation’s premier has freedom of publication,” the letter said.

This sounds absolutely bizarre (and it is), but it’s because in China, the government itself (the PRC) is, more or less, a front for the CCP. The CCP decides what the government’s policy is, is and isn’t allowed to be discussed, whether party officials will be charged with crimes, and who will serve in state-owned companies. China doesn’t merely suffer from a quasi-totalitarian government; they suffer from party dictatorship.