Speaking to the New York-based broadcaster New Tang Dynasty (NTD), two European politicians expressed hopes that Chinese leader Xi Jinping bring genuine political reform by giving up the regime’s Marxist ideology.
Gerard Batten, a British Member of European Parliament (MEP), urged Xi to abandon communism, calling it an “ideological yoke” that “nobody actually believes in anymore anyway.”
Henri Malosse, a Frenchman who recently served as chairman of the European Economic and Social Committee, said that Xi ought to follow in the steps of Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader who introduced political and economic reforms that led to the dissolution of that nation’s communist system.
“When you decide one day, that all the media will be free, then the communist system will fall apart, because the communist system is a lie in itself,” said Malosse, who has interest in Eastern Europe and learned the German, Polish, and Russian languages as a youth.
Batten, a member of the UK Independence Party, spoke positively of Xi’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign. But he believes that greater political reform is being held back by entrenched vested interests in the Communist Party.
