State and Society in China's Democratic Transition: Confucianism, Leninism, and Economic Development (East Asia (New York, N.Y.).)

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Author: Xiaoqin Guo

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EAST ASIA HISTORY, POLITICS, SOCIOLOGY, CULTURE Edited by

EDWARD BEAUCHAMP UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII A ROUTLEDGE SERIES

MOST RECENT BOOKS IN THIS SERIES: STATUS POWER Japanese Foreign Policy Making Toward Korea Isa Ducke WORDS KILL Destruction of “Class Enemies” in China, 1949–1953 Cheng-Chih Wang THE TRIFURCATING MIRACLE Corporations, Workers, Bureaucrats, and the Erosion of Japan’s National Economy Satoshi Ikeda STATE FORMATION, PROPERTY RELATIONS, & THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE TOKUGAWA ECONOMY (1600–1868) Grace H.Kwon OPENING THE DOOR Immigration, Ethnicity, and Globalization in Japan Betsy Brody THE POLITICS OF LOCALITY Making a Nation of Communities in Taiwan Hsin-Yi Lu JAPAN’S FOREIGN POLICTY MATURATION A Quest for Normalcy Kevin J.Cooney ENGINEERING THE STATE The Huai River and Reconstruction in Nationalist China, 1927–1937 David A.Pietz

JAPANESE DIRECT INVESTMENT IN CHINA Locational Determinants and Characteristics John F.Cassidy SHOKO-KEN A Late Medieval Daime Sukiya Style Japanese Tea-House Robin Noel Walker FROM TRANSITION TO POWER ALTERNATION Democracy in South Korea, 1987–1997 Carl J.Saxer HISTORY OF JAPANESE POLICIES IN EDUCATION AID TO DEVELOPING COUNTRIES, 1950s–1990s Takao Kamibeppu A POLITICAL ECONOMY ANALYSIS OF CHINA’S CIVIL AVIATION INDUSTRY Mark Dougan THE BIBLE AND THE GUN Christianity in South China, 1860–1900 Joseph Tse-Hei Lee AN AMERICAN EDITOR IN EARLY REVOLUTIONARY CHINA John William Powell and the China Weekly/Monthly Review Neil L.O’Brien BETWEEN SACRIFICE AND DESIRE Nationaly Identity and the Governing of Femininity in Vietnam Ashley Pettus NEW CULURE IN A NEW WORLD The May Fourth Movement and the Chinese Diaspora in Singapore, 1919–1932 David L.Kenley

ALLIANCE IN ANXIETY Détente and the Sino-American-Japanese Triangle Go Ito

STATE AND SOCIETY IN CHINA’S DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION Confucianism, Leninism, and Economic Development

Xiaoqin Guo

ROUTLEDGE NEW YORK & LONDON

Published in 2003 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 www.routledge-ny.com Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE www.routledge.co.uk Copyright © 2003 by Taylor & Francis Books, Inc. Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group. This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge's collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Guo, Xiaoqin. State and society in China’s democratic transition: Confucianism, Leninism, and economic development/Xiaoqin Guo. p. cm.—(East Asia: history, politics, sociology, and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-203-51550-1 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-57669-1 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-94504-6 (alk. paper) 1. Democracy—China. 2. Bureaucracy—China. 3. China—Politics and government— 1976- I. Title. II. East Asia (New York, N.Y.) JQ1516.G86 2003 320.951—dc21 2003000176

For My Family

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Tables and Figures Preface

x xii 1 17

Chapter 1 State-Society Configuration: Strong State vs. Weak Society Chapter 2 Chinese Communist Party and Bureaucratic Elite in Post-Mao Reform Chapter 3 Problems of Political Opposition in Inducing Democracy in China Chapter 4 The People and the Intelligentsia in Post-1989 China Chapter 5 China’s Newly Emerging Private Entrepreneurial Classes Chapter 6 Top-down Transition to Democracy in China Chapter 7 China’s Democratic Development in the Twenty-first Century

53 95 134 155 192

Appendix A: List of Interviews in China (Summer 2000) Appendix B: Interview Questions Bibliography Index

210 215 220 232

TABLES AND FIGURES

Figure State and Society in China’s Democratic Transition 1.1 Table 1.1 Specification of Types and Levels of Democratic Transition Table 1.2 Hypotheses Assessments by Chapter Sections Table 4.1 Selected Democratic Values Table 4.2 Political Trust of Chinese Citizens Table 4.3 Party Membership and Education of Village Committee Chairs and Members Table 4.4 Distributions of Legitimacy of Political System Table 4.5 Levels of Satisfaction and Confidence

9 10 14 101 103 106 115 117

PREFACE Some years ago before I left China for education abroad, a newspaper article written by someone who had lived in the United States impressed me by saying that if you want to know about China, you should go to America; if you want to know about America, you should come to China. Studying political science in an American university for nine years, I arrived myself at this same conclusion. I learned a lot. The more I learn about the West, the more I understand my own country. I had little knowledge of democratic theory and few experiences with democracy when I first lived overseas. I learned democracy and democratization in the United States. I learned the definition of democracy from my first undergraduate political science textbook, which said that democracy means rule by the people. I remember how I felt when I first watched So You Want to Be the President in class, a documentary about the American presidential campaign. I was shocked and thrilled while seeing the Democratic candidate Gary Hart stand alone in the snow asking people for support, because it was something I never could have imagined in China. Nevertheless, it was through my studies of Western politics and democracy and by comparing China with the United States that I came to understand how China emerged historically as a non-democratic society, how democracy might be developed in China, and why China’s transition to democracy is likely to come from the top down through a long, evolutionary process. I wrote this book to share my views with my readers. During my nine years’ study of political science at Georgia State University, I benefited from the professionalism and friendliness of my professors in the Department of Political Science. In particular, I would like to thank Dr.Albert S.Yee, Dr.Jennifer McCoy, and Dr. Michael Binford for the assistance and encouragement that they gave me through my years of studies. October 8, 2002

CHAPTER 1 State-Society Configuration Strong State vs. Weak Society In September 1997, Jiang Zemin, secretary-general of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), announced at the Fifteenth Party Congress that the goals of the People’s Republic of China for the twenty-first century are to achieve modernization, build a prosperous, democratic socialist country, and realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. More recently, in an interview with the Times of London in October 1999, Jiang announced these same goals of China for the new millennium. China has pursued modernization and national rejuvenation for over a century. The abiding goal of Chinese leaders and reformers since the late nineteenth century has been to make China “rich and powerful.” The successful post-Mao reforms and opening to the outside world have begun finally to fulfill the wish of generations of Chinese people. The party leadership has now set forth modernization and democratization as China’s goals for the new millennium and has expressed confidence that, under the CCP leadership, China will achieve its goals by the middle of the century. As Jiang Zemin declared: “History has entrusted a colossal responsibility to our Party, and the people place high hopes on it. Having led the people in writing a glorious chapter in the annals of the 20th century, it can certainly write another one in the 21st century” (1997:30–1). “By the middle of the next century when the People’s Republic celebrates its centenary, the modernization program will have been accomplished by and large and China will have become a prosperous, strong, democratic and culturally advanced socialist country” (ibid.: 12). In the West, many observers perceive China’s future in a very different way. Especially in the United States, they anticipate crises rather than achievements for the CCP leadership. A recent report titled “Global Trends 2015” by the U.S. intelligence community claimed: “Estimates of developments in China over the next 15 years are fraught with unknowables.” Political, economic, and social pressures will “increasingly challenge the regime’s legitimacy, and perhaps its survival” (New York Times December 18, 2000). Some scholars have even come to predict that in ten years (from 1998) there will not be a People’s Republic governed by the Communist Party because the political system is in a disfunction crisis. “China requires a new government” and “must change.” It will experience a Soviet-style “real change” that is “rarely incremental.” The result will be the end of Communism either through a federalist evolution or a civil war (Waldron 1998:43, italics in original). Since the Tiananmen events of 1989, many China observers have alternated between anticipating crises in China that would cause the collapse of Communist rule and hoping for a “peaceful evolution” that would lead to democratic transition. Immediately after Tiananmen, Nicholas Kristof assumed that “China might be on the same road as Eastern

State and society in China's democratic transition

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Europe.” By 1994, he had changed his mind and come to see a gradual peaceful evolution, such as that in Taiwan, as “the more likely scenario” for China than a rapid collapse (Kristof and WuDunn 1995:440). Andrew Nathan suggested shortly after Tiananmen that China might opt for “a democratic transition guided from the top down along the lines of Taiwan’s experience.” A few years later, he found that democracy in China was still remote enough to be seen, and a more evocative vision was “the Chinese volcano” (1997:12). In 1995, Minxin Pei cheered “creeping democratization” in China, that is, “endogenous—and usually incremental—institutional changes [that] may unexpectedly pave the way for genuine democracy” (1995:66–7). Four years later, he warned that China’s political system had “identical weaknesses” with those in Indonesia. Without political reforms within the next decade, the “economic and political crisis that hit Indonesia and brought down Suharto could likewise strike China and its leaders” (1999:95). In a recent book, Shaohua Hu optimistically predicted that, with the generational change, China by 2011 will end one-party rule and become a democratic polity (2000:160). In a more recent book, however, Gordon Chang presented a chilling overview of China’s present and near future, forecasting that, with “the symptoms of decay” everywhere, “Beijing has about five years to put things right” before China collapses (2001:xvi, xviii). The contrasting views about China’s future advanced by the Chinese leadership and many China observers suggest that the CCP’s possible realization of its goals of modernization and democratization will remain politically and scholastically controversial. The alternating views of some China observers, meanwhile, indicate the complexity and unpredictability of China’s transition to a more democratic structure of rule. Such controversy and unpredictability pose, to use Richard Baum and Alexei Shevchenko’s phrase, “a compelling challenge to the scholarly imagination in the posttotalitarian era” (1999:360). What seems clear, however, is that Chinese leaders and most China observers would agree that China’s democratic development is likely to be a project of the political leadership. That is to say, China has a greater chance for a leadership-initiated (i.e., a top-down) transition to democracy. This is the focus of this study. The main theme of this book is that China is likely to have a top-down democratic transition initiated and guided by the party leadership, as opposed to a bottom-up transition imposed by societal forces, given its state-society configuration in which state domination over society has emerged and is likely to endure. STATIST AND SOCIETAL EXPLANATIONS FOR THE LIKELIHOOD OF A TOP-DOWN DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION Observers of China tend to agree that China’s transition to democracy is likely to come from the top down (Carney 1999; Han 1993; Harding 1998; He 1997; Kristof and WuDunn 1995; Liu 1996; Nathan 1993, 1998; Oksenberg 1998; Pei 1995; Scalapino 1998; Zhao 1998; Zheng 1994). The prevalent view indicates that China’s path to democracy is likely to resemble the Hungarian model (which is similar to Taiwan’s transition). This model has two features: first, the Communist elites “never resign from power,” and second, the system is transformed through reform of the Communist party

State-society configuration

3

rather than a replacement of it (Liu 1996:232; also see Harding 1998; He 1997; Kristof and WuDunn 1995; Nathan 1997; Su 1994). This mainstream top-down approach, however, has been challenged by some analysts. Baum and Shevchenko, for example, argue that whether China’s political system can cope with the effects of marketization is uncertain. “There are, after all, no historical precedents for the successful, self-induced institutional transformation of a Leninist system under Communist Party auspices—let alone a system as vast and heterogeneous as China’s” (1999:360). Meanwhile, Shiping Zheng indicates that the Chinese polity is becoming a “segmented state” in which “multiple centers of power emerge among” various political institutions. This “institutional crisis” could be an opportunity (as well as a danger) for the political opposition to “discover and pursue various actual and potential institutional alternatives to the Party rule” by “separating the state from the Party” (1997:264–5). Merle Goldman and Roderick MacFarquhar also point out that China’s new groups have moved into the spaces previously occupied by the state. “In time, as the party-state continues to decline and as these spaces expand further, a growing and diverse middle class may organize itself politically as an alternative to the party-state” (1999:28). Despite these dissenting views, most China scholars believe that China is likely to have a top-down democratic transition. They have identified a number of factors that provide China with a better chance for a transition guided by the leadership than otherwise forced by societal actors. Nathan, for example, observes that China’s democratic transition “is likely to take the form of an apertura—a political opening controlled by the reformist elite, with democratizing reforms carried out from the top down” (1993:37). He explains China’s likelihood of a top-down transition as due to a host of statist and societal factors: (1) the CCP’s high degree of self-confidence, (2) the relative strength of the reformist faction within the ruling bloc, (3) the absence of an alternative leadership, (4) a moderate political opposition, (5) a weak civil society, (6) the lack of private sector domination in the economy, and (7) habits of deference in the Chinese political culture (ibid.). Why is China’s democratization more likely a project of the party leadership? From the above factors, we can infer two explanations, one statist, one societal. On the statist side, the likelihood of a top-down transition can be attributed to the strength of the state. The Communist Party remains the sole political entity capable of undertaking and managing a systemic transition that entails uncertainty and indeterminacy. On the societal side, the unlikelihood of a bottom-up transition can be traced to the political weakness of the society. Chinese society has not fostered an actor independent of the state, let alone an alternative leadership with ability to compete with the CCP and induce democracy from below. Both sides are necessary for a top-down transition: a regime-initiated transition is possible when a strong, self-confident, and relatively successful authoritarian regime chooses to embark on democratization (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986). Conversely, no opposition-induced transition will occur in the absence of an alternative regime that presents individuals with a choice of leadership and promotes a transition from authoritarian rule to democracy (Przeworski 1986). China’s democratic transition is conditional to its state-society configuration of state domination over society. Stemming from the power imbalance between a strong state and a weak society, China’s democratic transition is unlikely to be forced into being by societal actors. It is instead more likely for the leadership to usher China into a transition to democracy.


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Prevailing accounts of a likely top-down democratic transition emphasize the striking contrast between the strong state and the weak society that constitute China’s sociopolitical configuration. However, they do not explain what has created and sustained the power imbalance between the state and the society, and why this power structure is likely to persist. Moreover, although the literature has proposed various explanations for China’s tendency toward a top-down transition (e.g., political, institutional, societal, and economic), there is a lack of systematic and detailed studies on the key factors that explain both the likelihood of a top-down transition and the unlikelihood of a bottom-up transition in China. In addition, the existing literature is based on primarily Western perceptions of China’s democratic development. Chinese perspectives have yet to receive adequate share of scholarly attention and treatment. Analyses of China’s democratization need to go beyond merely identifying the existence of a strong state and a weak society by examining the spe-cific factors that have contributed to their strength and weakness. Unless we know what has produced and facilitated state domination over society in China, we cannot know whether this power structure will shift to favor the society over the state and make possible a bottom-up transition. Analyses of China’s democratization also need to explore the relevant Chinese perspectives that help illuminate the subject. Thus, an explanation of the determinants of state domination over society in China and the implications of this state domination for China’s democratization is needed. Similarly, an examination of the Chinese perspectives that help our understanding of China’s democratic development is also needed. Without these necessary studies, analyses of China’s democratization remain incomplete. This book undertakes an analysis of China’s democratic transition that differs from analyses that emphasize a possible bottom-up transition advanced by societal forces. It offers an interpretation that supports the prevailing top-down approach and provides extensive empirical evidence of a leadership-initiated transition that is already occurring in China at different levels. This study seeks to fill existing gaps in the scholarly literature by presenting a comprehensive and detailed examination of the factors that have created and sustained state domination over society in China. It explores the implications of this state-society configuration for China’s democratic transition. This study also examines Chinese perspectives on China’s democratization in order to develop a more complete explanation. To capture the essence of a top-down democratic transition in China, this book undertakes a detailed examination of three determinants of China’s strong state and weak society: (1) the Confucian tradition, (2) the Leninist institutional legacy, and (3) the economic development imperative. These three factors will be used to explain the strength of the state and the weakness of three societal actors: the political opposition, the people (plus the intelligentsia), and the entrepreneurial classes. This book will show how the Confucian tradition, the Leninist institutional legacy, and the economic development imperative have created and facilitated China’s state-society configuration of state domination over society. In addition, this study will examine other relevant factors that are needed to more fully explain the strength of the state and the weakness of the three societal actors. By conducting a comprehensive analysis of the major factors that have produced and sustained China’s strong state and weak society, this study explains why democratization in China is likely to be initiated and guided by the leadership from the


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top down rather than to be advanced by societal forces from the bottom up. Finally, this book explores China’s likely level of democratic development in the twenty-first century by examining recent political developments in China and by presenting Chinese perspectives on China’s democratic development. HYPOTHESES, SOURCES, AND METHODS Hypotheses I divide my research project into four hypotheses: (1) the Confucian tradition hypothesis, (2) the Leninist institutional legacy hypothesis, (3) the economic development imperative hypothesis, and (4) state domination over society hypothesis. For the first three hypotheses, the dependent variable is state domination over society, and the independent variables are the Confucian tradition, the Leninist institutional legacy, and the economic development imperative. For the fourth hypothesis, which is based on the first three hypotheses, the dependent variable is the likelihood of a top-down transition and the unlikelihood of a bottom-up transition, and the independent variable is state domination over society. In the following discussions, references to these four hypotheses will be marked as H1, H2, H3, and H4. H1. Confucian tradition hypothesis: The Confucian tradition, which granted a “mandate of Heaven” to the ruler and empowered the scholar-bureaucratic elite to rule but denied “self-evident” rights for individuals, has persisted in modern China and is still playing a major role in determining the domination of the state over society. If Confucian values continue to exert influence in Chinese society, then state domination over society will endure. Confucianism was the moral code and the intellectual heritage in traditional China. It was concerned primarily with building a happy, orderly society in which individuals were required to behave properly according to the defined relationships between people of different class identities and stations of life (Stavrianos 1991). Confucian China was ruled by a hierarchy of the educated, the best and the brightest in the society, with effectiveness, efficiency, and political loyalty to the ruler. Confucian tradition also encouraged intellectuals to take social responsibilities and to oppose power abuses by officials. However, Confucian tradition preponderantly emphasized society over individuals and rites and obligations over rights. Intellectuals and the general public, who were unconcerned with individual rights, registered little desire to challenge or limit the power of authority. Confucian tradition has provided a philosophical foundation for state domination over society throughout Chinese history. Aspects of Confucian tradition remain in contemporary China, among all the groups of actors in this study. The basic norms of Chinese society continue to emphasize community over individuals and social responsibilities over individual rights. The Chinese bureaucratic elite is still composed of those who are well-educated and professionally competent, and who are politically reliable, which ensures and sustains the strong state by providing the CCP leeway to maintain effective control over an efficient and cohesive administration. The po-litical


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dissidents, on the other hand, remain peaceful and moderate, retaining a faith in the party reformers. The general public, including entrepreneurial classes, maintains a mentality of deference and political apathy. Chinese people, while they are indifferent to political dissent, generally agree that China’s economic and political well-being depends on the party leadership. Most Chinese intellectuals, though deeply concerned with political reform, are disinclined toward taking real actions to press for democratic change. Instead, they hold high expectations that the party leadership will carry out democratic reforms. H2. Leninist institutional legacy hypothesis: The Leninist institutional legacy has sustained state domination over society in China by maintaining a ruling bloc in which all powers are held in the hands of the Communist Party and by blocking the emergence of civil society essential for a bottom-up transition. If the Leninist institutional legacy continues to persist in post-Mao China, then state domination over society will endure. The People’s Republic under Mao created a Leninist political system in which the Party enjoyed monopoly of power over both the state administration and the military. This Leninist state reconstructed all group life, prohibited autonomous social groups essential for the emergence of civil society, and achieved the totality of state domination over society. The Mao leadership adopted the people’s commune system in rural China and the danwei (work unit) system in urban China. Party organizations exercised unified leadership in both systems, and through such arrangements, the Party maintained a highly centralized political structure, extending its control to grassroots governments in the entire society. Maoist China also denied the legitimacy of private interests and property rights and required individual Chinese to commit wholly to Communist construction. This situation of totalitarian rule began to change since the reforms took off in the late 1970s. However, the Leninist institutional legacy has persisted into post-Mao China. The political system remains “essentially Leninist,” in which the Party continues to control the state administration and the military through leadership selection (Burns 1999). The Party also remains strong in the basic-level government and community development in both rural and urban China. Although there is much more freedom in people’s economic, social, intellectual, and personal lives than at anytime during the Maoist era, civil society in a conventional sense is still poorly developed (Fewsmith 1999; Frolic 1997). Most social organizations, including private entrepreneurial associations, either remain officially organized or work through the state. Autonomous professional groups are not generally involved in political affairs, and independent political institutions rarely exist. Chinese society has not fostered a group independent of the state, let alone an alternative leadership with the ability to compete with the Communist Party and induce democracy from below. H3. Economic development imperative hypothesis: China’s compelling need for economic development has reinforced state domination over society by demanding a strong developmental state to manage the economy and maintain stability. If economic development remains the highest priority in China and a strong state authority is needed to achieve it, then the state will remain dominant over society. As a country that is poor and populous, China’s need for economic development is compelling. The post-Mao leadership ended Mao’s class struggle and replaced it with economic reform. Under Deng Xiaoping’s patronage, Zhao Ziyang, party secretary from 1987 to 1989, pursued neo-authoritarianism, which rejected implementing simultaneously


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economic and political reforms and emphasized rapid market reform under a strong developmental state. The advocacy of neo-authoritarianism declined after June 4 of 1989 with Zhao’s removal from power. But the emphases on economic development and on the need for a strong state authority to manage the economy and maintain stability have continued to prevail in post-Tiananmen China. China in the reform years has witnessed a successful combination of economic boom and authoritarian rule. The CCP and its leadership, credited with their successful reforms, have enjoyed performance legitimacy and remain a strong, self-confident governing elite. Constrained by China’s reality as a less developed country, the 1980s generation of democratic elites (the loyal opposition) distrusted the less-educated mass majority in building democracy in China and favored an elite democracy, as opposed to a mass democracy. The overseas Chinese dissident movement has received little support from the people back home, who are too absorbed by the pursuit of material well-being to demand political reform. A developmental consensus between the party leadership and the general public has emerged, which prioritizes economic development and political stability over democratic reform (Wan 1998). A majority of the intellectuals have come to agree with the leadership that China at this stage of development cannot achieve democracy through a rapid transition. China needs instead a strong state authority for fast and stable economic growth. Chinese entrepreneurs have focused on economic gains, remain little concerned with political reform, and are fearful of social instability that jeopardizes economic prosperity. The economic development imperative has required state penetration into society to promote socioeconomic changes, thus allowing state control over society to maintain an administrative order that is inconsistent with a democratic transition driven by societal forces (Zheng 1994). H4. State domination over society hypothesis: State domination over society has emerged from and is sustained by China’s cultural, political institutional, and economic conditions. If this state domination over society persists in China and a transition to democracy occurs, then it will most likely be a democratic transition initiated and guided by the party leadership from the top down rather than imposed by societal forces from the bottom up. China’s strong party-state and weak society have emerged and are likely to endure due mainly to the effects of Confucianism, Leninism, and the economic development imperative. This established power structure suggests that democratization in China is likely to be a project of the leadership. A bottom-up transition is unlikely because none of the societal actors has developed the attributes of a viable alternative leadership with the ability to dismantle party rule and establish a new system of democracy. The Communist Party remains the sole political entity capable of uniting China, maintaining stability, and carrying out needed but potentially destabilizing reforms. China’s process of democracy is conditional to its sociopolitical configuration of state domination over society. Given this state-society configuration, democracy in China is unlikely to be forced into being by societal actors. It is instead more likely for the leadership to usher China into a transition to democracy. Such a leadership-guided transition would be implemented in a restricted, partial, and gradual manner that allows the party elites to control the speed and scope of the transition (see figure 1.1). In fact, there is evidence for a likely top-down transition and an unlikely bottom-up


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transition in China as shown in table 1.1. While a bottom-up transition has not occurred at any level in the society, significant democratic progress at different levels has been made under the party leadership. Since the early 1980s, democratic elections have been introduced at lower levels of government on the Party’s own initiatives. Deputies for people’s congresses at the township, county, city district, and city (without districts) levels are selected through popular votes. Democratic elections are practiced in villages, urban neighborhood communities, as well as many factories. Experiments with direct elections of township chiefs have been conducted in some areas. The democratic electoral system has even been introduced at the vice bureau level in the central, provincial, and city party and government organs. Chinese leaders have affirmed the possibility of extending the system of democratic elections to higher levels. Proposals for direct elections of deputies for provincial people’s congresses and the National People’s Congress are reported to be circulating in the intellectual community (Tanner 1999). It seems reasonable to anticipate that general elections will be carried out at the provincial and congressional levels in the not very distant future.


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Figure 1.1 State and Society in China’s Democratic Transition: Confucianism, Leninism, and Economic Development


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Table 1.1 Specification of Types and Levels of Democratic Transition (Dependent variable of hypothesis #4)

TYPES OF TRANSITION

LEVELS OF DEMOCRATIZATION (DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS)

Village

Top-down Transition

Provincial Municipal City

Local Township

County

Province

Urban Neighborhood Community

City District

Factory

City (no districts)

City (with districts)

Yes

Yes

Yes

People’s Congress Deputy

People’s Congress Deputy

(In future)

Yes

National

Municipality Bureau

Yes

NPC State Deputy Leader

Yes

Vice (In Bureau future) Director

NA

Township Chief(in experiment) Bottom-up Transition

No Occurrence

No Occurrence

NA

Sources and Methods The concept of democracy can be defined according to different models. A liberal democracy, according to Larry Diamond, requires “regular, free, and fair electoral competition and universal suffrage.” In addition, it requires constitutional constraints on the government such as the separation of powers, checks and balances, freedom of speech and press, and a political pluralism that allows citizens to form and express their policy preferences (1996a:23–4). Meanwhile, an electoral democracy, by a minimalist definition of democracy, recognizes “the need for minimal levels of civil freedom in order for competition and participation to be meaningful.” Both liberal and electoral models acknowledge the need for free, competitive elections. Electoral competition, Diamond indicates, is explicitly embraced by scholars such as Samuel Huntington and by Western politicians who “track and celebrate the expansion of democracy” as the “essence of democracy” (ibid.: 21). The Chinese conceptions of democracy emphasize a system of socialist democracy. The essence of socialist democracy, according to Jiang Zemin, is that “the people are the masters of the country.” The Chinese definition of socialist democracy also acknowledges people’s “exercising the power of running the state, holding democratic elections, making policy decisions in a democratic manner, instituting democratic management and supervision, ensuring that the people enjoy extensive rights and


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freedom endowed by law, and respecting and guaranteeing human rights” (1997:24). For my purposes, I follow the definition given by Deng Xiaoping, who equated democracy with general elections. I choose to use this definition for four reasons. First, this definition is consistent with the essence of democracy emphasized by both liberal and electoral models. Second, it serves my purpose of explaining a likely top-down transition in China by illustrating the leadership’s recognition of the necessity for democratic elections. Third, this definition is consistent with recent political development (i.e., democratic elections at lower levels) in China. General elections in different countries are held at different levels. Given China’s population size, current economic and institutional development, education level of citizens, and communication infrastructure, it seems reasonable and realistic to define democracy as general elections at the provincial and congressional levels, instead of at the presidential level. General elections for national leaders by mid-century might still be beyond China’s reach as a practical matter due to the lack of educational, financial, and communication conditions needed for a successful electoral process (see table 1.1). Finally, this definition is also consistent with my argument that China’s transition to democracy is likely to be carried out by the leadership in a restricted, partial, and gradual fashion. Theorists of democratization have published excellent works on transition from authoritarian rule to democracy. Scholars of China have also conducted extensive research on state-society relations and democratic development in post-Mao China. Their publications have provided this study with indispensable foundations by allowing me to address my topic in light of the democratic transition theories and to use recent research findings and survey results (supplemented with primary Chinese sources and my own interviews) as empirical evidence to support my argument. Although these survey results and primary interviews must be evaluated with caution, they provide valuable data to indicate the likelihood of a top-down transition in China. This book delineates in detail China’s state-society configuration and explores the implications of this configuration for China’s democratic transition. I emphasize Chinese perspectives on China’s democratization because they help us understand the topic more accurately. By bringing these perspectives into the literature, this study will provide some useful findings that help improve the analysis of China’s democratic transition. In conducting my field research in China (two to three times a year from 1997 to 2000, usually for one to two months each time), I interviewed government officials, intellectuals, entrepreneurs, and ordinary people on issues regarding economic and political reforms. In the summer of 2000, I spent four months interviewing central and local party and government officials, scholars, editors and journalists, entrepreneurs, and ordinary people in Beijing, Hong Kong, and along the Yangtze River from Chongqing to Wuhan. Altogether, I interviewed 99 people, of which there were 40 officials and military officers (30 are from central party, state, and military organs), 16 intellectuals (scholar, editor, journalist, lawyer, and scientist), 18 entrepreneurs, and 25 others, including 3 urban neighborhood cadres, 2 village cadres and 1 peasant, 7 taxi drivers and 1 local government driver, 1 retired worker, 3 soldiers, 3 office workers, 1 tourist guide, and 3 tourists (see appendix A). My research focused on people’s views about economic and political reforms, human rights, democracy, the strength of party rule, the post-Deng leadership, official corruption, the June 4 events, political dissidents, China’s future


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economic and political development, and other topics (see appendix B). My interviewees were not randomly selected. Random sample selection for interviews on democratization in China is not possible because people are unwilling to discuss sensitive political subjects with people they do not know. To receive relatively balanced views, I adopted the following criteria for selecting my interviewees. First, I selected both central and local officials at different levels (ministry, bureau, division, section, and ordinary staff member) based on the assumption that local officials tend to be less optimistic about China’s reality because they see more suffering at the grassroots level. Moreover, lower level officials tend to be less satisfied with the status quo because they have smaller stakes in the system. I also included retired officials, scholars, and workers, as well as laid-off cadres and workers, who are less satisfied with the results of the reforms and are also less constrained by the system to voice criticisms. Futhermore, I selected a number of officials and intellectuals whose involvement in the Tiananmen events either caused the loss of their jobs or delayed their promotions. I also included independent scholars, including those who resigned from official institutions or left China after the June 4 incident. Finally, knowing that the living standards in Beijing are higher than most Chinese regions, I took a tour along the Yangtze River and interviewed some non-Beijing residents, including officials, entrepreneurs, and ordinary people. The interview data I use in this study are taken from my notes. I paraphrased or reconstructed the comments of my interviewees from my notes of their responses to my questions. Given the political sensitive nature of my topic, I did not use a tape recorder when doing the interviews due to my fear that it might intimidate people from expressing their real beliefs. On a couple of occasions, I took notes with my interviewees’ permission and found that my note taking prompted them to give me more official facts than their own views. My primary technique, therefore, was to recall the interviewees’ comments as accurately as possible immediately after the interviews. I wrote down the interviewee’s comments verbatim as accurately as my memory would permit. When translating these interview quotes into English, I do my best to make the translations as near the original meanings as possible. With regard to the representativeness of my interviewees’ views (i.e., whether they are accurate reflections of their social groups), I asked my interviewees whether their views were majority or minority views. If it was a majority view, I then asked them what the minority views were, and vice versa. I asked different people the same questions in order to identify the majority views and to estimate the representativeness of these views. In addition to the scholarly literature and personal interviews, major Chinese sources for this work are speeches of Chinese leaders, publications of Chinese political dissidents, Chinese media materials, and other Chinese language information. I use speeches given by Chinese leaders to show their attitudes toward the reforms, democracy, and the rule of law. I use the works of political dissidents to show their problems in developing an alternative leadership and inducing democracy in China. Leadership speeches and dissidents’ publications, which reveal the strength of the Party and the weakness of the political opposition, provide supportive evidence for my hypothesis that if China democratizes, its transition most likely will be initiated and guided by the party leadership from the top down. Finally, I use information from relevant Chinese books, articles, and press reports. Data from various English media sources will also be collected


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and applied. THE PLAN OF THE BOOK I organized my book according to successive chapters on the state and three major actors in the society: the political opposition, the people and the intelligentsia, and the private entrepreneurial classes. I discuss these statist and societal actors sequentially in chapters 2 to 5. Each chapter will examine my four hypotheses (and additional factors when needed) with regard to one of these major actors (see table 1.2). I then devote chapter 6 to discussions about the likelihood of a leadership-guided transition in China. Finally, I explore in the concluding chapter 7 China’s level of democratic development in the twenty-first century. Chapter 2 focuses on the party-state, discussing the strength of the party-state with an examination of the intimate post-Mao leadership-bu reaucracy relationship. I analyze this leadership-bureaucracy relationship to show the effective political control by the Party over the effective bureaucracy. I trace the attributes of the Confucian bureaucracy, the development of the Leninist state system, and the success of the post-Mao reforms to explain why Chinese bureaucratic elites remain faithful and confident in the party leadership and administer China with effectiveness, efficiency, and political loyalty. Examining the bureaucrats’ self-interests in the system and their concern with China’s unity and stability, I explain why Chinese bureaucratic elites are likely to support the leadership in a top-down transition rather than join with social forces to press for democracy from below. The intimate leadership-bureaucracy relationship, I argue, is what accounts for the absence of bureaucratic fatigue in China’s one-party system. This leadership-bureaucracy relationship secured party rule from the 1989 political storm and has sustained the strength of the Party in post-Deng China. The continuation of this leadership-bureaucracy relationship indicates the perpetuation of the strong party-state and thus a greater chance for a leadership-guided democratic transition in China. Chapter 3 analyzes the political opposition, explaining the problems of the opposition in developing an alternative leadership and inducing democracy in China. I explore the impact of Confucian tradition on the Chinese intelligentsia, the democratic elites’ excessive enthusiasm for Western democracy, and the attributes of the Communist Party to explain why China’s political dissidents remain moderate and retain faith in the party reformers. Comparing Maoist China with the Communist states in Eastern Europe, I identify the institutional and philosophical consequences of Mao’s Leninist totalitarian system and the impact of these consequences on the 1980s generation of democratic elites and the Tiananmen movement. I then discuss China’s reality as a less developed country to explain why the democratic elites found the less-educated mass majority unaware of democracy and politically unreliable for building democracy in China and pursued an intellectual oligarchy rather than a democracy in the 1980s. Revealing the exiled dissidents’ inability to overcome internal conflicts to


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Table 1.2 Hypotheses Assessments by Chapter Sections Hypotheses

Chapter 2 The State

Chapter 3 The Political Opposition

Chapter 4 The People and the Intelligentsia

Chapter 5 The Private Entrepreneurial Class

H1. Confucian Tradition Hypothesis

Confucian Tradition and Chinese Bureaucratic System

Impact of Confucian Tradition on Chinese Intelligentsia

A Deferential People Intellectual Elites’ Attitudes toward Democracy

The Traditional New Rich

H2. Leninist Institutional Legacy Hypothesis

Development of Leninist State System

Well-entrenched Totalitarian State System in Maoist China The Democratic Elite and the Tiananmen Movement

Party Strength in Basic-level Government and Community Development Intellectual Elites’ Attitudes toward the Party Leadership

State Power and Entrepreneurial Dependence on Officialdom

H3. Economic CCP and the Post-Mao Development Reform Imperative Bureaucratic Hypothesis Elites’ Image of the Post-Mao Party Leadership

A Restricted Democracy and An Economic Explanation Across the Ocean

Popular Endorsement of the Party Leadership and Reform Intellectual Elites’ Attitudes toward the Party Leadership Intellectual Elites’ Views about China’s Future

Economic Priority of the Entrepreneurial Classes

H4. State Domination over Society Hypothesis

From Loyal Courtiers to A Loyal Opposition Chinese Dissident Movement Abroad Conclusion

Post-Tiananmen Developmental Consensus Intellectual Elites’ Attitudes toward Democracy Conclusion

Understanding Private Entrepreneurs’ Role in China’s Political Process Conclusion

The Role of Bureaucracy in China’s Democratic Process Conclusion

form an opposition party and their isolation from the Chinese people, especially the intellectuals, I conclude that the overseas dissident movement’s ability to reach into China and further democracy in the country is very doubtful.


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Chapter 4 explores the general public and the intelligentsia. I start the discussion by examining the mentality of deference and political apathy among the mass majority stemming from the Confucian political culture, low level of education, and Mao’s countless mass political upheavals. I then discuss the people’s commune system in the countryside and the danwei system in cities to illustrate the Party’s unified leadership and its highly centralized control over the society under Mao. I also examine recent village elections and urban neighborhood elections to estimate the continuing strength of the Party in the basic-level government and community development in both rural and urban China. With survey findings, I explain the popular support for the party leadership and the political system as a consequence of people’s relative satisfaction with the reforms and their developmental consensus with the leadership that prioritizes development and stability over democratic reform. Next, I analyze the intellectual elites’ views about democracy, the Party, and China’s future to show that a majority of the intellectuals have come to believe that China’s democratic development should proceed from Chinese reality and be achieved under the party leadership in a gradual, peaceful manner. Given that a bottom-up transition requires both intellectuals and the people to play a significant role in pressing for democratic change, I contend, China’s chances for a bottom-up transition are rather limited because neither the intellectual elite nor the general public is ready or willing to take real actions for democracy at this stage. Chapter 5 is devoted to China’s newly emerging private entrepreneurial classes. I discuss the entrepreneurs’ attitudes toward the Tiananmen events to illustrate their mentality of deference and political apathy as a result of the Confucian political culture and their low level of education. I examine state supremacy and entrepreneurial dependence on officialdom to explain why the new rich have cultivated and maintained close relationships with authorities for political protection and economic facilitation. This entrepreneurial-official alliance is also a result of the entrepreneurs’ economic priority, which I attribute to two factors: the entrepreneurs’ origins in the Chinese sociopolitical context and China’s low level of economic development. As beneficiaries of the reforms, those who have gained their wealth by exploiting the business opportunities brought to them by the development of market economy and by their networks with officials, Chinese entrepreneurs, I argue, are attached by and large to the existing system and would not demand change in the status quo as long as they continue to benefit from that system. They are unlikely to challenge the Party for power and demand democratic reform in the foreseeable future, especially not at the expense of economic prosperity and political stability. In chapter 6, I explore the likelihood of a leadership-initiated democratic transition with an examination of political developments in the reform years and Chinese leaders’ attitudes toward democracy and rule of law. Recent political changes, I will show, suggest that political liberalization in China has begun and possibly can progress into democratization. Although it may take a while to achieve significant democratic breakthroughs, the interaction between economic and political reforms is driving the post-Deng leadership toward a democratic direction. China at present still lacks the necessary means to embark on democratic transition because of its low level of socioeconomic development. As the economy and other factors of social mobilization conducive to democracy develop further, China will be better positioned for the transition


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to democracy. In this respect, the leadership’s goals to achieve modernization and democratization by mid-century suggest that China’s reformist leaders anticipate the consequences of the market economy and social mobilization and are willing to accept those consequences. Chapter 7 discusses China’s democratic development in the twenty-first century, based on Chinese perspectives. I identify three factors to explain the optimism of Chinese bureaucratic and intellectual elites about China’s future democratic development: their image of democracy as a historical trend, their high expectations for the leadership to press for further reforms, and their anticipation of an acceleration of political reform as a means to combat official corruption. I then explain why Chinese officials and intellectuals remain rational and patient about China’s actual democratic process by examining their views about at what level democratic elections may be held by 2050, when the system of direct elections could be extended to the township level, and what an appropriate electoral system would be under the Chinese conditions. Finally, I conclude the chapter by contending that China’s journey to democracy is going to be long, rocky, and tortuous. China is likely to witness a leadership-guided transition and one-party domination during its prolonged transition to democracy. This leadership-guided transition will be conditional, partial, and gradual and will not necessarily be identical to Western liberal democracy.

CHAPTER 2 Chinese Communist Party and Bureaucratic Elite in Post-Mao Reform In a view presented by Fred Riggs, the underlying reason for the disintegration of Communist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe is “bureaucratic fatigue,” which is the inherent inability of officials to carry out their administrative duties. Bureaucratic fatigue occurs when administrators become totally exhausted due to the prolonged harsh political control of the Communist state. Such states do not allow their bureaucracies to exercise administrative power and to control sufficient resources to carry out their functions efficiently. When it goes to extremes, bureaucrats under such control “become too demoralized and passive to be able to organize any coherent or energetic response. Instead, they fail to act, and this failure becomes, then, a motor for the crash of regimes” (1997:13). In this view, the political crash of Communist rule in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe is “caused by the failure of party leaders to sustain their own enthusiasm for the system.” The single-party dictatorship imposes harsh control over its bureaucracy, and “the bureaucracy becomes inanimated” (ibid.: 26). Ideally, therefore, effective public administration needs to exercise real power while remaining subject to the control of the constitutive system that animates it. And “only democratic constitutive systems are able to animate bureaucracies enough to assure effective public administration while also retaining political control over them” (ibid.: 28). For this view, events in China are highly ironic. Chinese bureaucracy has been in the hands of the CCP throughout the Communist history. Particularly during the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao targeted bureaucratization with devastating mass movements and reinforced total political control over the state administration. In post-Mao China, the party leadership has granted the bureaucracy greater power to perform effectively, but its control over the bureaucracy remains effective. Despite this prolonged political control by the Party, the Chinese bureaucracy does not appear to have fallen victim to bureaucratic fatigue and become a motor for the crash of the political system. Instead, China is the country where Communist rule survived the political storm of 1989 and has moved into the twenty-first century with great success. This suggests that single-party rule in a Communist state does not necessarily result in bureaucratic fatigue, and effective political control over effective bureaucracy is possible in a non-democratic system. How can this lack of fit between the bureaucratic fatigue model of Communist collapse and the Chinese situation be explained? The answer lies in the strength of China’s party-state, which may be attributed to the intimate relationship between the Chinese bureaucracy and its political leadership in post-Mao China. The post-Mao years have witnessed an intimate leadership-bureaucracy relationship. This leadership-bureaucracy relationship, which is characterized by the effective political control by the Party over the effective bureaucracy, both civilian and military, is the


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essence of the strong party-state in post-Mao China. This leadership-bureaucracy relationship is due mainly to three factors: the Confucian tradition, the Leninist political structure, and the CCP’s performance in implementing economic reforms that has created a positive image of the post-Mao leadership among the bureaucratic elites. This leadership-bureaucracy relationship is due also to two additional factors specific to the bureaucratic elites: their self-interests in the political system and their concern with unity and stability in China. This chapter explores China’s strong party-state with an examination of the intimate leadership-bureaucracy relationship and the factors that have created this relationship. The chapter consists of three sections in addition to the introduction and conclusion. In the first section, I analyze the post-Mao leadership-bureaucracy relationship to show why in China effective political control over effective bureaucracy is possible under CCP oneparty rule. I explain in the second section the strength of the party-state as a consequence of the Confucian tradition, of the Leninist political structure, and of the successful postMao reforms. The third section discusses the bureaucratic elites’ self-interests in the system and their concern with China’s stability, explaining what role they are likely to play in the democratic process. In the concluding section, I argue that the continuing intimate leadership-bureaucracy relationship and the resulting perpetuation of the strong party-state suggest that when China’s democratic transition occurs, it will most likely be guided by the leadership from the top down. THE POST-MAO LEADERSHIP-BUREAUCRACY RELATIONSHIP: EFFECTIVE POLITICAL CONTROL OVER EFFECTIVE BUREAUCRACY Different Approaches to Post-Mao Leadership-Bureaucracy Relationship Studies of Chinese politics show that, as a result of Deng Xiaoping’s policies of reform and opening to the outside world, the post-Mao political system is more fragmented and diversified than it was during the Mao period, and the central leadership has lost much control over the state system. As David Lampton (1987) observes: “With Mao Zedong gone, greater foreign access to Chinese society at all levels, the proliferation of publications and statistics, and many Chinese voices speaking, what now strikes the observer is the diversity of the Chinese system and the tenuous hold that Beijing has over the hinterlands” (in Li 1994:68). One approach to the post-Mao leadership-bureaucracy relationship presented by Kenneth Lieberthal and Michel Oksenberg is the “fragmented authoritarianism” model. According to this model, “the fragmentation of authority is a core dimension of the Chinese system” in the reform era. “What on paper appears to be a unified, hierarchical chain of command turns out in reality to be divided, segmented, and stratified” (1988:137). The post-Mao bureaucracies at different levels have gained great power. Beijing’s ability to oversee how policy is being implemented has declined. “Thus, central decisions often only set forth goals or prescriptions on what should be done…. The protracted bureaucratic negotiations that ensue from high level ‘decisions’ often transform these bold initiatives into modest programs or turn them, in reality, into non-

Chinese communist party and bureaucratic elite

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decisions” (ibid.: 27). Whereas the fragmented authoritarianism model claims that the Chinese structure of authority is rapidly fragmenting, a different image sees a continued domination of the Party over its governing system. In this view, Deng’s reforms, while they have relaxed the control over the economy by the Party, continue to “keep political authority in the hands of a few top Party leaders.” Likewise, Deng’s idea of separating the functions of the Party from those of the government “remains unrealized because the Party does not want to relinquish the sources of its ultimate political control: its domination of all mass media, the judiciary, and, in fact, the whole structure of government.” As a consequence, “changes of administrative procedure, even in the economy, remain limited” (Kleinberg 1991:58–9). Neither of the two perspectives provides a full picture of the post-Mao leadershipbureaucracy relationship when compared with a more balanced view presented by Wei Li. According to Li, the Chinese bureaucracy of today is more fragmented and diversified than it was under Mao. Yet…the Chinese leadership, both Central and local, still holds some powerful organizational tools to exercise its authority. This is particularly the case with regard to the matters of personnel, ideology, public security, and foreign affairs, though the Chinese leadership’s control over the economy has been considerably liberalized (1994:69). Li’s observation is based on his study of China’s General Office (hereafter, GO) system. The study shows how the GO system “plays a significant part in strengthening the capacity of the Chinese leadership to control, coordinate, and integrate the Chinese bureaucracy” (ibid.: 2). It provides evidence of the CCP’s effective political control over its bureaucracy and the bureaucracy’s effectiveness, efficiency, and political loyalty to the party leadership. The General Office System In China, Wei Li observes: “every Party or state organ at all levels has a General Office” (ibid.: 2). GOs serve and assist their leadership squads with two basic categor ies—political/administrative and logistics/personal—of services. Their staff services “affect each and every member of the Chinese political leadership” (ibid.: 8). GOs are responsible for coordinating, on a day-to-day basis, virtually every aspect of the work and the interpersonal relations among political elites and between the leading and the led, reconciling differences, cushioning clashes, and synchronizing separate actions. GOs are supposed to draft, review, edit, and censor all official documents to guarantee their conformity with the guidelines and policies of the Party and the state and the intentions and instructions of the superior leadership and to ensure their consistency with each other. And GOs are known to be responsible for arranging all conferences and meetings, which are an important arena for bargaining and consensus building for the Chinese bureaucracy (ibid.: 2–3).


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The most important and powerful GO in the system is the Party Central Committee GO. The Central GO is responsible for maintaining contact and conducting information coordination with all provinces, all central party and state organs, and the Central Military Affairs Commission and its departments and district commands (ibid.: 18). Besides the Central GO, the State Council GO is also important and powerful. The State Council GO provides its leadership squad with similar staff services, except that the personal life of all the State Council leaders is taken care of by the Central GO. Whereas the Central GO is defined as “the working body of the Center,” the State Council GO is defined as “the comprehensive administrative body of the State Council” (ibid.: 20). A similar arrangement exists at the provincial level of government. “Given the indispensability of GO support for the personal livelihood to every Chinese leader, Party or governmental,” Li states: “this arrangement, at both the Central and provincial levels, is an important factor contributing to the Party’s domination over the government” (ibid.: 22). One example of the party leadership’s ability to maintain effective control over its governing body through the GO system is the information system. GOs are said to be the principal source of information for the leaders with regard to the people and the work under their jurisdictions. Every GO at all levels is obligated and empowered to “report regularly all important information about its immediate leadership squad to the higherlevel GOs” (ibid.: 47). According to Wang Zhaoguo, director of the Central GO in the mid-1980s, The GOs of all the provinces, autonomous regions, directly governed municipalities, and Central ministries and departments have the right and obligation to report to us [the Central GO] in a timely manner the information [about their units or localities] in terms of major work plans, leading comrades’ activities, measures taken to implement Central policies, new local policies, public opinions, important social trends, etc., so that we can pass it on to the Central leaders (see ibid: 47). Li’s research also reveals the power, effectiveness, and efficiency of the GO system. One example is the monitoring function, which is “a routine part of GOs’ responsibilities at every level” of government. The Synthesizing Division of the Mishu (secretarial/staff) Bureau handles the monitoring function in the Central GO. Every year, in the name of the Central Committee, the Central GO directly supervises several thousands of cases dealt with at lower levels. Virtually all GOs at the provincial and prefecture levels have set up a special division (cuiban chu) for this monitoring function. Because hundreds of problems in every province or city are directly or indirectly solved through this method each year, “the GOs’ monitoring function is widely applauded as being of ‘extremely significant consequence’ for ‘overcoming bureaucratism, improving the work style, pushing forward the fulfillment of various tasks,’ ‘enhancing efficiency, and quickening the work tempo.’ Under extreme circumstances, the GO may even take over the jurisdiction of a subordinate department” (ibid.: 44–5). The power and effectiveness of the GO system is also evident in its relationship with the political leaders. For example, Premier Zhu Rongji relies heavily on the assistance of


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the relevant divisions in the Mishu Bureau of the State Council GO. The GO mishus (secretaries) are said to “have a very close working relationship with the State Council leaders.” The relationship between the State Council GO members and the premier and vice-premiers is very relaxed and informal. Those leaders don’t put on airs in front of the GO members, who can freely argue back. As a matter of fact, this happens a lot, particularly when the GO members are convinced that they have a better idea than the leaders (ibid.: 60). “Functioning as a ‘counterbureaucracy’,” Li concludes, “GOs are apparently equipped with the institutional capacity to constantly monitor and supervise subordinate departments and units in actual policy implementation in favor of centralized control and coordination” (ibid.: 3). “Therefore, we cannot accurately assess the allocation of power between the leadership and the bureaucracy without bringing the role of staff personnel into the equation” (ibid.: 70). The findings of Li’s research provides “an antidote” to the assumption that Deng’s reforms have uniformly altered the authority structure in the system in favor of subordinate units over the Center (ibid.: 72). It also gives little support to the claim that “Chinese bureaucrats often have shied away from using their authority to implement reforms announced by the Communist leadership” (Kleinberg 1991:60). By bringing the role of the GO system into the equation, Li’s study presents a more balanced view of the power distribution between the leaderships and the bureaucracies at various levels in the political system. It shows that the post-Mao leader ship-bureaucracy relationship is characterized by the effective political control by the Party over the effective bureaucracy. EXPLAINING THE POST-MAO LEADERSHIP-BUREAUCRACY RELATIONSHIP Confucian Tradition and the Chinese Bureaucratic System There is a number of factors that help explain the intimate post-Mao leadershipbureaucracy relationship, the first of which is the Confucian tradition (i.e., the Confucian tradition hypothesis). Confucian China was ruled by a hierarchy of the educated in accordance with the philosophy that those who worked with their intellects should rule, and those with their hands should be ruled. “The Confucian system was virtually unique among traditional cultures in that it institutionalized a socially accepted and even honored channel for upward social mobility” (Inglehart 1990:61). This channel was education— by studying hard to pass a series of difficult academic examinations at the local, provincial, and national levels, a man of talent could gain entrance into the upwardly mobile world of officialdom, and thus acquire power, status, and wealth. The Confucian bureaucratic elite, therefore, consisted of the best and the brightest of the society, “providing China with an efficient and stable administration that won the respect and admiration of Europeans” (Stavrianos 1991:344).


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In addition to their talent and training, the power potential of Confucian bureaucrats, according to Riggs, “is quite high and it correlates directly with administrative capabilities.” Confucian bureaucrats were “career generalist administrators.” They were given tenure in office and rotated among various agencies and regions of the country. These gave them the opportunity not only to develop the competence needed to conduct public affairs and policies, but also to establish personal connections that strengthened their power position. The “power to act autonomously” allowed Confucian bureaucrats to “combine a high level of administrative capability with great power” (1997:36–7). Such aspects of the Confucian tradition remain in the contemporary Chinese bureaucratic institutions. “The Chinese national civil service system has inherited the strength of imperial examination created and implemented in the history of China.” The recruitment of national civil servants follows “the principles of publicity, equality, and competition, selecting and recruiting through examinations,” which makes it possible for those eligible to be employed and utilized according to their capability (Huang 1993:101). Consequently, the Chinese bureaucratic elite continues to comprise those who are well-educated and professionally competent. Accord-ing to a 1998 report by the China Central Television, 21 percent of the central government employees hold graduate degrees. In the Department of Basic-Level Government and Community Development at the Ministry of Civil Affairs, for example, 40 percent of the seventeen staff members in 2000 had graduate degrees. Only one person graduated from junior college, others were college graduates, and two of them were working on a master’s degree. The manner in which the State Council General Office selects its employees provides a good example of civil servant recruitment. As cited in Wei Li’s study, all the members of the Mishu Bureau of the State Council GO are given “a strict scrutiny check” before being selected. To be qualified, a person has to be politically reliable, well-educated, competent, and aged between thirty and forty. “It is said that anyone under thirty is considered ‘too young’ and anyone over forty ‘too old’ for the position” (1994:21). Because the criteria for recruiting new GO members are very high, the State Council GO is still under its authorized size. The idea is that it is better to leave “the openings unfilled than letting in unqualified people” (ibid.: 58). Like their predecessors, GO members, those at the central and provincial levels in particular, have strong administrative capability with great power potential. According to Li, Chinese leaders rely heavily on their secretaries and GO members to communicate with one another at work and “even in their personal communications.” As a consequence, the Central GO members are “constantly in touch with each other, with the Central leaders, and with the line departments and subordinate units involved.” Technically, the Central GO is a “working body” of the Central Committee for daily operations rather than a decision-making body. Its role is “confined to collecting and processing information and formulating policy options” from which the final decisions are to be made. In practice, however, the Central GO makes typically “‘administrative decisions’ dealing with concrete and detailed issues.” Because decision is “inseparably intertwined” with information and advice, the GO’s role may go beyond providing information and formulating options in the decision-making process (ibid.: 33–4). A portrayal of Yang Shangkun, former director of the Central GO under Mao, by Harrison Salisbury (1992) illustrates the power potential of the Central GO officials:


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There was hardly a secret Yang did not know and no one of consequence in the Party with whom he was not on familiar terms…. Yang liked people and people liked him…. In Zhongnanhai he was never too busy to pass the time of day or do a favor. Children [of the top leaders] adored him…. Yang Shangkun did not control access to Mao, but he made a point of knowing Mao’s secretaries, Tian Jiaying and the rest, so well that he usually could advise others on when and how best to approach the chairman and on which topics could be brought up and which were to be avoided. As the years went by Yang became a walking encyclopedia of Party personnel and Party policy. He was the insider’s insider (in Li 1994:37–8). Because of his role, a GO head is said to have “great influence over the interpersonal relationship among various leaders. Since he is in frequent contact with all of the leaders, a good part of the communications among them are conducted through him, and many tasks have to be carried out through him” (Hou 1990, in Li 1994:38). The power potential of the Central GO officials seems to confirm that “mandarin bureaucracies typically gain so much power that they can dominate any regime” (Riggs 1997:36). But if this is the case, how can effective political control by the Party over the bureaucratic system be explained? Part of the answer also lies in the Confucian tradition, a factor that produced not only a powerful bureaucratic elite, but also a special relationship between this elite and its political leadership. Providing China with “a philosophy of government,” Confucianism equated administration with ethics, making no distinction between authority and moral principles. Confucian tradition regarded the emperor as “the Son of Heaven,” who received a mandate to rule from Heaven. Accordingly, Confucian tradition required the subjects to be subordinate to the emperor, and the emperor in turn “set an example of benevolent fatherhood,” providing for the happiness and welfare of his subjects (Stavrianos 1991:345). Public officials should also be “moral beings,” and because “they were moral beings, they should be empowered to rule for the emperor.” The Confucian bureaucracy, as such, “was to be a moral institution; the ultimate yardstick for assessing the acceptability of bureaucratic behavior was ethical norms, and the criteria for evaluation were sincerity, loyalty, and reliability, all of them more important than administrative efficiency and effectiveness” (Zhang 1993:7). Such criteria—sincerity, loyalty, and reliability—have been used for bureaucratic recruitment throughout Chinese Communist history. During the Mao period, the Party made political loyalty to its leadership a principal criterion for the recruitment and promotion of public officials. The post-Mao administration law also emphasizes ability and political integrity. Public personnel are being employed “by their merits and the criteria of revolutionization, professionalization, intellectualization, and youth” (Li Kangtai 1993:89). The criterion of “revolutionization” refers to political loyalty to the Party. Recall that all the members of the Mishu Bureau of the State Council GO are believed to be “politically reliable.” It is observed that the Confucian bureaucrats “struggled for centuries against the emperorship” without eradicating “the magic of the emperorship entirely.” The emperorship was regarded as “divine” in the Confucian world, because “the Confucian


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mandarins could not rule without the emperorship” due to “both the political and cultural integration of the vast multitudinousness of China” (Glassman 1991:198). As Ronald Glassman states: It was, after all, the emperorship that made sacred the political bond of the Chinese people. No notion of nationhood existed in the modern sense nor were there tribal or ethnic bonds of a transcendent character. In fact the ethnic differences would have divided the Chinese and fractionated their society. The divine kingship had arisen precisely to minimize ethnic and regional differences, and to unite all of China into one single political unit. The emperorship had successfully accomplished this political integration. Therefore, if the emperor could not rule this vast kingdom without the mandarin officials, the officials could not rule without the emperorship (ibid.: 198). This explanation can be applied to the contemporary leadership-bureaucracy relationship. The CCP has the loyalty and support of the bureaucracy because it is perceived by the bureaucratic elites as the sole political entity capable of uniting China and maintaining stability. Chinese leaders have always stressed the irreplaceable leading role of the Party in the cause of China’s liberation and construction. Mao Zedong claimed in 1957: “The Chinese Communist Party is the core of leadership of the whole Chinese people. Without this core, the cause of socialism cannot be victorious” (1977:447). More recently, Jiang Zemin stated at the Fifteenth Party Congress: Our conclusion drawn from the great changes over the past century is as follows: Only the Communist Party of China can lead the Chinese people in achieving victories of national independence, the people’s liberation and socialism, pioneering the road of building socialism with Chinese characteristics, rejuvenating the nation, making the country prosperous and strong, and improving the people’s well-being (1997:11). As party members and cadres, Chinese bureaucratic elites share the leadership’s belief that only the Communist Party has the ability to unite the people, govern China, and carry on the reforms, both economic and political. In their view, a country cannot do without a leadership, especially in a country as large, complex, and populous as China. Without the CCP, Chinese people would not know to whom they might turn for leadership, and they would resemble “a sheet of loose sand” as they did in the past. Without the CCP, the Chinese nation would collapse, falling into a chaotic situation resembling “a host of dragons without a head.” Should they lose the party leadership, the Chinese would lose the chance of fulfilling their wish to build a rich and powerful China. Their hopes would be shattered, and their efforts and struggles would be “thrown into an eastward flowing stream.” Hence, to further understand the post-Mao leadership-bureaucracy relationship, it is necessary to examine the bureaucratic elites’ image of the post-Mao leadership. I will return to this point later in the discussion. Here I examine a second factor that has created and facilitated China’s intimate leadership-bureaucracy relationship—the Leninist structure of state system (i.e., the Leninist institutional legacy hypothesis).


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The Development of the Leninist State System The Leninist Political System Rod Hague, Martin Harrop, and Shaun Breslin noted after the Communist collapse in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe that, in a Leninist political system, The relationship between party and state was central to communist rule. In theory, the state in socialist society was separate from the ruling party. The party laid down the policy guidelines which the government then implemented…. In practice, the divide between party and state blurred through interpenetration and supervision. At higher levels of government, there is joint membership of party and state. Leading state positions are filled by party members, and leading state officials concurrently hold key party posts…. To reinforce its control, the ruling party has always shadowed and supervised the work of state administrations through its own organisations, right down to the local level (1992:55). As a product of the Sino-Soviet relationship in the 1950s, the Chinese political system is not dissimilar to those in the Soviet bloc. The state is not independent of the Party; the two are intertwined, overlapping “wherever power is wielded” (Kleinberg 1991:33–4). The role of the CCP in governing China is written in the Constitution, which says that the working class exercises leadership over the state through its vanguard, the Chinese Communist Party. Accordingly, it is the Party that sets forth overall national goals and priorities. The Party makes important decisions and then mobilizes public support through propaganda for the policies of the state. The government implements party policies to carry them out. Every public administration at each level (center, province, prefecture, county, and township) has a party committee that exercises effective control over decisionmaking. This party committee also supervises the work of the government to ensure that party policy is firmly followed. There is joint membership of party and state at higher levels of government. Officials who hold leading posts in the Party are the same persons filling leading positions in the state. Jiang Zemin for example at this writing is head of the Party, the state, and the military, holding the posts of party secretary general, state president, and chairman of the CCP Central Military Commission. In the government, the premier, vice premiers, and members of the State Council are all central leaders sitting on the Party Politburo. This party-state relationship, to a lesser degree, also exists at lower levels of government. Governors and deputy governors are generally members of provincial party committees. Because party officials typically occupy most important positions in public administration, there is no clear dividing line between politicians and professional bureaucrats. Moreover, as Paul Godwin observes, in the Chinese political system, the Communist Party “is neither military nor civilian, but the supreme political institution” that “dominates both the state and the military.” Like all other government institutions, the


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Chinese military comes under the “absolute leadership” of the Party. The military is “an extension of the party.” An overwhelming majority of officers are party members and “their primary loyalty should be to the party” rather than “to the military as an institution.” The top office that makes policy for the military is the CCP Central Military Commission (CMC). The CMC is currently chaired by Jiang Zemin and subordinate to the Party Politburo. “The Politburo determines the relationship of the armed forces to the state, which is itself subordinate to the party. Thus the party-army parallels the party-state as one of the principal avenues of CCP control over the Chinese polity” (1999:78–9). Development of the Leninist Political System China’s Leninist state system was first created after the liberation in 1949, under the influence of the Soviet Union. Mao deemed the USSR as “a great and advanced socialist country” and the “closest ally” of China and believed that China must “draw on the advanced Soviet experience.” The state system Mao created was a “people’s democratic dictatorship,” which was to be exercised by the working class and the people under the Communist Party leadership. In the early 1950s, China persisted in its people’s democratic dictatorship and sought solidarity with other countries in the Soviet bloc to suppress internal enemies and protect the country from external aggression (Mao 1977:17). With the worsening of Sino-Soviet relations in the late 1950s, however, China could no longer rely on the “firm unity” of the Communist states but could only stand alone in the international system. The people’s democratic dictatorship (i.e., the Leninist state system), according to the Party, became the only bulwark against the plots of domestic and foreign enemies to restore capitalism. China began to split with the Soviet bloc after the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1956, in which the CPSU denounced Stalin, and Khrushchev stated that it was possible to seize state power by the parliamentary road. The sweeping denunciation of Stalin and Khrushchev’s statement caused great concern among the CCP leaders. The two sides began to wrangle over the questions of Stalin and peaceful transition. The Chinese thought the CPSU had gone too far in attacking Stalin and had abandoned Leninism and the idea of the October Revolution (ibid.: 341–2). The Twentieth Soviet Party Congress led to unrest in Eastern Europe, which Mao found deeply alarming. Through the years, Mao had consistently stressed the importance of the part) leadership and the people’s democratic dictatorship, warning that China otherwise “would not be able to suppress the counter-revolutionaries, resist the imperialists and build socialism” (ibid.: 297). The 1956 events in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe reinforced Mao’s perception. Deeming the Hungarian incident as a case of the conspiratorial operation between domestic and foreign counterrevolutionaries, Mao tried to avoid a Hungarian-style-incident in China by strengthening the party leadership and the people’s democratic dictatorship. Internationally, China regarded national security and sovereignty as the highest forms of national interests. Before splitting with the Soviet Union, China deemed the United States as its major foreign enemy because of the Korean War, U.S. support of Taiwan, and MacArthur’s threat of atomic war against China. When the CPSU changed its Leninist nature to revisionism, the Soviets were no longer China’s friends but “revisionist


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socialist imperialists,” who were pushing “great-nation chauvinism” and stirring up trouble on China’s borders (ibid). Until the liberation of 1949, China suffered an endless series of humiliations at the hands of foreign invaders. The darkness of the Old China under the “oppression of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism” taught the people that there would not have been the New China had there not been the Communist Party, and that “Only socialism can save China” (ibid.: 394). The threats and sanctions from the United States and the Soviet Union gave rise to the memories of the century-long humiliations and of China’s revolutionary history under the CCP leadership. The Chinese, who had been bullied by others in the past century, felt that they needed to “enhance [their] national confidence and encourage the spirit typified by scorn” for American imperialism and Soviet socialist imperialism. In their struggle with the imperialists, Mao and his people believed, the Party must hold onto power firmly, uniting with all national forces to build a powerful socialist country (ibid.: 305–6, 329). According to a central party official I interviewed, One of the reasons why China developed a powerful, decisive party leadership and a strong state system is external. During the Cold War, for example, both the Americans and the Soviets isolated us. They applied political and economic sanctions against us, and their purpose was to destroy our New China. We Chinese struggled to survive when the imperialists gripped our throat. When the international conditions were critical like that, how could we do without the Communist Party? How could we do without a powerful party leadership and a strong central government to unite our people? We Chinese would otherwise once again resemble “a sheet of loose sand,” and our nation would once again fall into the hands of foreign bullies as a lamb to be trampled upon (interview in Beijing, May 17, 2000). Internally, Mao focused on avoiding a Hungarian-style incident. He believed that the fundamental problem with the Soviet Union and some East European countries was the failure to wage class struggle and China could only avoid repeating their mistakes by acting decisively to wage class struggle (Mao 1977:377–8). A loyal Marxist-Leninist, one who was fully committed to revolution and socialism, Mao was determined to protect China from a Hungarian-style crisis by waging class struggle through mass movements. One year after the events in Eastern Europe, Mao started the Anti-rightist Campaign in 1957, and he later launched the ten-year Cultural Revolution in 1966. The 1957 Anti-rightist Campaign attacked all those who had spoken up to criticize the errors of party officials during the period of the Hundred Flowers. In the Hundred Flowers period, Mao encouraged argument and criticism among people holding different views. However, he would not allow anyone to challenge the socialist state and the party leadership. Consequently, when some intellectuals questioned the CCP’s monopoly of power, Mao thought they had posed a big danger to party rule, and he suppressed the critics with the Anti-rightist Campaign (ibid.: 440–1). The launch of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, as Kenneth Lieberthal observes, was a consequence of Mao’s political apprehension of “the possibility that China could follow” the Soviet path to


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revisionism after his passing. This fear of Mao resulted from the Soviet degeneration into revisionism under Khrushchev and his distrust in his successor Liu Shaoqi, then chairman of the People’s Republic. From 1962 to 1965, Liu had focused on economic rehabilitation after three years of famine that China had recently suffered. By 1966, Mao came to worry that economic rehabilitation would “steer the country away from revolution” and see Liu as a “Khrushchev type” and the “biggest capitalist-roader who wielded power within the Party.” He intended to dislodge Liu as his successor and pick someone who would carry on the cause of revolution. Moreover, Mao intended to discipline the bureaucracy with his proletarian revolutionary line through mass movement and “expose China’s youth to a revolutionary experience” by “battling with revisionism,” “overthrowing China’s Khrushchev,” and “yanking out the small handful of capitalist roaders in the Party,” including Deng Xiaoping (1995:110–3). To that end, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, during which he and his supporters waged class struggle to the extreme, pushing the Leninist state system to its zenith. China became a “well-entrenched” totalitarian polity in which the state achieved total control over the society (Zhang 1994). The Leninist Institutional Legacy The situation of totalitarian rule began to change in the late 1970s when the CCP, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, abandoned class struggle, implemented economic reforms, and opened China to the outside world. As the reforms progressed, Beijing’s role in China 5 economic and social life declined. This decline in large part stemmed from Deng’s conscious decision to facilitate economic reform by restructuring the political system. Deng knew from the beginning that China’s political structure did not meet the needs of the economic reform. When he first raised the question of reform, he had in mind reform of political structure (Deng 1994). He promoted the separation of the Party and the government and the power decentralization of the central authorities. He proposed that the Party replace the direct involvement in economic affairs with more macroeconomic control and the central government transfer some of its powers to the local governments. Deng also believed that political reform should aim at developing socialist democracy and stimulating the initiative of the people. He proposed that the Party withdraw from the economic and other nonpolitical arenas to release peasants, workers, and intellectuals’ initiatives by delegating to them powers of decisionmaking in production and democratic management (ibid.: 181). Deng also took some initiatives to reform the political system that had allowed Mao’s virtually unbounded political power, which led eventually to the disaster of the Cultural Revolution. Deng and his allies introduced institutional procedures to limit personal political power and ensure collective leadership and decisionmaking. They ended the life-long tenure of government officials to let younger, better-educated, and more professionally competent people fulfill leading positions. It should be pointed out that Deng’s political reform was not to “reorganize” the Party but to “rebuild” it. His goal was to make the Party “work better” in order to strengthen its leadership (Shambaugh 2000, italics in original). “We should be firm about leadership by the Party,” Deng affirmed. “The Party should lead well, but its functions must be separated from those of the government…it should deal only with major issues and not


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with minor ones” (Deng 1994:179). As David Shambaugh observes: Deng Xiaoping was a quintessential organization man. He believed in a strong Leninist party and worked hard to rebuild party organizations and discipline from their atrophied condition following the Cultural Revolution. Not only did he want to rebuild and strengthen the party; he particularly wanted to change the normative ways in which it functioned. It was not so much the structure of the party that concerned him, as it was the process of decision making and policy implementation. Organizationally Deng did not tamper much with the party structure he inherited from Mao. This meant the continuity of several core elements of (Chinese-style) Leninism (2000:172). Despite the continuing Leninist nature of the political system, the relaxed control by the Party in the economy and over virtually all aspects of life set in motion processes in the social and cultural arenas. Even in the political sphere, the relations between the state and society have been transformed by the reforms and opening to the outside world. However, the political reform came to an end in 1989 when the Tiananmen uprising erupted. The collapse of Communist rule in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe sounded a warning to the party leadership that loosening control by the Party over the government and society could lead to the loss of state power. The result was a return of overlapping functions of party and gov ernment officials. The post-1989 leadership strengthened party control in the state administration by establishing, for example, the party working committees of the state enterprises and of the state financial sector. Although the Fifteenth Party Congress renewed the call for political reform in 1997, political reform has lagged behind the economic reforms in the beginning of the new millennium. To date, “China’s political system continues to exhibit the characteristics of a mature Leninist state.” The Communist Party “continues to rule through its control of leadership selection not only of government agencies at all administrative levels but of the legislature, judiciary, the military, strategic economic enterprises, the media and mass organizations” (Burns 1999:580, 582). The CMC continues to reinforce the principle of “the party’s absolute leadership over the army.” The “military ethic remains primarily based on the PLA’s heritage as a party-army” (Godwin 1999:80). “Though weakened, the Leninist structure remains intact and can suppress any direct challenge that party leaders see as a political threat” (Goldman and MacFarquhar 1999:10). On the other hand, the CCP has begun to show a new look through the reforms and opening to the outside world and has won itself performance legitimacy from the majority of Chinese people, especially the bureaucratic elites. In the eyes of Chinese bureaucratic elites, the policies of reform and opening up reflect the CCP’s willingness to correct its own mistakes. The very success of the market reforms in the past 20 years, meanwhile, demonstrates the Party’s capability to lead China to strength and prosperity. These have created a positive image of the Party among Chinese officials and enhanced their faith in the party leadership (i.e., the economic development imperative hypothesis).


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CCP and the Post-Mao Reform In China Wakes, Nicholas Kristof expressed his early view about the Communist Party: The Communists had begun with a devastated country, where few people could read, where inflation was so high that prices sometimes rose daily, where landlords were free to rape their tenants’ daughters, where rickshaw boys froze in the streets during the winter, where pimps sometimes blinded young girls because it was thought that this improved their tactile senses and made them better prostitutes. The Communists took this wreck of a nation and transformed it. They halted the inflation, divided up the land, ended opium addiction and prostitution, banned child marriages, campaigned to raise the status of women, and breathed new hope into the people. The Chinese scholar Zhu Xi had proposed back in the twelfth century that a universal public education system be established, but it wasn’t until the 1950s that many peasant children had an opportunity to go to school. For many poor peasants, the 1949 revolution really was a liberation (Kristof and WuDunn 1995:61). Kristof later lost his “early faith that the party had started off right” (ibid.: 62). But his description helps explain why many Chinese intellectuals “gave up [their] youth for the Communist Party in its struggle to seize state power” (Liu Binyan 1990:282). Why until the Cultural Revolution, intellectuals and the general public supported the Party with their full hearts and believed that, without the CCP, there would not have been the New China and, without the CCP, China could not fulfill the wish of generations of Chinese since the late nineteenth century: to make China independent, rich, and powerful. The Cultural Revolution and other serious mistakes the Party had previously made, such as the Anti-rightist Campaign and the Great Leap Forward, contributed to the alienation of the people, especially the intellectuals. But the post-Mao leadership was willing and able to correct these mistakes. Because of the failures under Mao, Deng Xiaoping believed that “the suffering caused by Mao’s upheavals entitled the Chinese people to a dramatic improvement in their well-being” (Kissinger 1997:46). For that, he replaced Mao’s dictum “politics in command” with “economics in command” and set China on its way to economic liberalization. Under Deng’s patronage, Zhao Ziyang, party secretary from 1987 to 1989, pursued neo-authoritarianism, which emphasized rapid economic growth and a strong developmental state to maintain stability and manage the economy. The notion of neo-authoritarianism declined after June 4, 1989, with Zhao’s removal from power. But the emphases on economic development and on the need for a strong state authority continued to prevail in both the government and society. The postTiananmen leadership has placed economic growth and political stability as its two top priorities. The shift from class struggle to economic development ended the economic stagnation and political chaos of the Cultural Revolution and sparked an unprecedented economic boom in post-Mao China. During over 20 years of reform and opening up, the Party has achieved “one of the century’s great economic miracles” (Zuckerman 1993:76). Since 1978, the per capita GDP has quadrupled. One fifth of mankind has been raised above


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dirt-poverty and given a chance to prosper. Over 200 million have been elevated into the middle class. China’s economy has grown at an annual rate of 9.8 percent in the past two decades. By 1999, its GDP had surpassed US$1,000 billion, the seventh in the world. China’s foreign trade has increased each year; the total value of imports and exports has risen to tenth from thirty-second in the world. China’s foreign currency reserve has reached US$154.7 billion, the second in the world following the United States. People’s income has risen notably, with an annual increase of 8.1 percent in the countryside, and 6.2 percent in the cities in the past two decades (Qiushi 2000.12). Economic reforms have enabled the Party to reverse two centuries of decline, pull China out of the abyss, and set the country on the path to growth. “The rise of China, if it continues, may be the most important trend in the world for the next century” (Kristof 1994:73). In addition to its economic achievements, the Party has maintained stability and kept the country united. It introduced the principles of “peaceful reunification” and “one country, two systems” and resumed the exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong and Macao. The return of Hong Kong and Macao to their motherland wiped out a century-old humiliation of the Chinese nation, made every Chinese elated, and won universal acclaim from the international community. Internationally, China has a greater presence than at any other time in the twentieth century, and its influence on global affairs has been increasing. A strong sense of national pride among the Chinese public has grown out of China’s rapid economic growth in the reform years and the rise of Chinese power in the international system (Zheng 1999). There have been some significant political changes as well (see chapter 6 for detailed discussion). In the early years of reform, the Party took some steps to reform the party and state system by replacing personal political power with collective decisionmaking and leadership, separating the activities of the Party and the government, and decentralizing power from the center to the local governments. The Party introduced democratic elections for the lower levels of people’s congresses and promoted grassroots self-government in both rural and urban China. The Party has pursued the establishment of a legal system and has gradually empowered the National People’s Congress. These political initiatives and changes have energized the government and accelerated the economic reforms. They have also ameliorated the political atmosphere, in which people enjoy a higher degree of freedom in their personal, economic, social, cultural, and intellectual lives than at any time under Mao. “For the first time since 1949, individuals and groups voice their own views and pursue their own interests rather than echo and follow the dictates of the party-state” (Goldman and MacFarquhar 1999:7). Bureaucratic Elites’ Image of the Post-Mao Party Leadership In late 1995, a survey of Beijing residents found strong popular support for the party leadership (see chapter 4 for the data). The survey also showed that “popular support for the regime is most likely to be found among those who are optimistic about the country’s economic and political futures, who are most satisfied with their life, who give high evaluations of incumbent policies, who often follow public attairs, and who are older” (Chen et al. 1997:45). This popular support for the party leadership still remains today, particularly among the bureaucratic elites. I learned this from my recent visits to


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China during the past few years and from my research in Beijing and along the Yangtze River from Chongqing to Wuhan in the summer of 2000. Faith and Confidence in the Party Most of the party and government officials (23 out of 28) I interviewed have faith and confidence in the Party. Their faith and confidence in the Party may first be attributed to their satisfaction with the post-Mao leadership’s policies and performances, especially in economic development. They are proud of the progress China has made in the post-Mao years, which they believe have gratified the Chinese people and won praises from the international community. In their view, the success of the post-Mao reforms is selfevident, and the policies of reform and opening up are evidently correct. These achievements indicate that the CCP has the ability to lead the country, manage the economy, and bring China to strength and prosperity. If the Party continues to carry out the reforms and develop the economy, China without question will have a bright future, becoming rich and powerful in another 20 to 30 years. As one official from the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference cheerfully remarked: Have you visited Shanghai lately? You ought to if you haven’t. You’ll be amazed and thrilled by what you see. Pudong Development Zone can compare favorably with metropolises in the West. It’s better than New York and is catching up with Hong Kong. You should also travel along the coastline, from Dalian to Yantai, Qingdao, to Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Shanghai, to Fuzhou, Xiamen, and to Guangzhou and Shenzhen. You’ll be stunned to see so many modern cities emerging on the horizon all the sudden. You’ll be very proud of our China because we have done something none of the world’s countries could have done in just 20 years. When you see this, you feel proud and confident of our motherland, you feel full of hope for China’s future (interview in Beijing, June 26, 2000). In addition to their satisfaction with the post-Mao leadership’s policies and performances, Chinese bureaucratic elites remain faithful and confident in the Party also because they believe that, despite its shortcomings and defects, the party leadership is willing to admit these problems and to address them. One of the most serious concerns among the bureaucratic elites is official corruption. Virtually all the central officials I interviewed pointed to this problem. They complained that corruption has grown very bad, yet the Party has not done enough to combat it effectively. The problem is undermining the Party’s credibility and spreading cynicism among the general public. Many people criticize the CCP by saying “absolute power results in absolute corruption.” They have come to doubt the Party’s resolution and ability to battle corruption. The Party has to punish corruption more forcefully and effectively, or it will lose the support and confidence of the people and destroy itself from within. Albeit dissatisfied and apprehensive, the concern with official corruption among Chinese officials has not shaken their faith in the Party for three reasons. First, in their view, a majority of the party and government officials are good or fair; real corrupt


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elements are only a small proportion of the cadre team. At the center of government, most of the top leaders are clean and honest. Premier Zhu Rongji once expressed publicly that he would be “very satisfied” if the people would deem him as a “clean and honest” official after his retirement from his position (China Daily March 16, 2000). Below the top, according to the officials, a majority of officials in the central party and government organs are also honest and self-disciplined. Particularly in the leading party organs, which have little direct involvement in the economy and are often being termed as “plain water yamen” (qingshui yamen),1 corruption is more limited and party officials are selfdisciplined on the whole. At the provincial level, a large proportion of party and government officials are also good or fair. Even at the local level, where corruption is considered to be worse than at higher levels, the proportion of corrupt officials is also smaller than the good ones. According to a central party official, who was on a one-year training program as deputy mayor in a city in Shandong, Corrupt cadres are only a minority. I worked in Shandong for a year, I know local officials have their difficulties. For example, they are tired of official banquet, but they can’t get away with it. When central or provincial officials come to their city, they have to entertain them. First, there’s a matter of courtesy; we Chinese are a hospitable people. Second, for the sake of their city, they have to look to higher level officials for help. Because I lived on my own [his family remained in Beijing], I held city banquet many times for other city officials so they could spend their evenings and weekends with their families. When it was for central officials, I told them I couldn’t drink, and I didn’t drink with them. We were all from Beijing, they would understand. But when it was to entertain provincial officials, I had to be more polite and drink some with them. I was a bureau director-general from Beijing, I didn’t want them to think we central officials were arrogant (interview in Beijing, July 5, 2000). The official then explained why local officials would want to develop connections with their superiors for public interests by offering some examples. One example is that, as a less developed country, China’s level of hygiene is low by the standards of the more developed societies. The central government has launched a program to promote hygiene in urban areas. Cities that meet the criteria for hygiene are granted a certificate that enhances their credibility to attract investment. Each city has to mobilize all its residents to clean up every corner of the city, from buildings to streets and from hospitals to restaurants. The central government, government, for its part, has to select experts from all relevant sectors, such as urban affairs, environment protection, water, air, and the like, and dispatch them to individual cities to examine and judge their work. The hygiene certificate is hard to receive, because the criteria are high and the timing of the government inspections is difficult to coordinate. It is often the case that when a city is ready for the inspection, the government inspectors are not ready to come. If a city fails the examination the first year, it has to mobilize its residents the next year and do all the cleaning again. To avoid this problem, city officials who personally know the relevant central government officials use their connections to invite government inspectors to their


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cities at the right time. Those who do not have such personal networks may have to find some way to develop them for the sake of their cities. According to some central party and government officials, corruption is most serious and visible among cadres at lower levels, especially in small towns and villages. On average, village and town cadres are less qualified as public servants (village cadres are not bureaucrats). They are less educated and their level of understanding of government policy is lower. They receive less supervision from the top because they are farther away from the center, so they are less constrained by party discipline, government policies, and the state laws. On the other hand, they are the closest to the masses and have most direct contact with them. Their power abuses and corruption of government policies are most visible among the mass population because those harm the masses directly. Corrupt cadres at lower levels have done great harm to the Party, some central officials assert, because when they violate peasants’ rights with wrongdoings, people do not blame them as individuals but criticize the Party as a whole. The best way to make sure that lower-level party members and cadres are clean, honest, and self-disciplined is to select them through direct elections. The system of democratic elections has been adopted at the village level and has been a great success in many areas. Direct elections have also been experimented at the township level in some places and are likely to be introduced to the whole country when the conditions have matured. A second explanation why, despite the official corruption, Chinese bureaucrats remain faithful to the Party is that they see corruption as a phenomenon inherent in a society that is in a period of transition. Corruption is more commonplace when a country is transforming from an old economic model to a new one. Some of those who are in control of state assets find it tempting and easy to allocate in a way that transfers public money to their own hands, especially while the income for government employees is very low. Such phenomenon is unavoidable and is to be limited by deepening the reforms. As one central government official argued: Corruption is an unavoidable phenomenon in a period of economic transformation. It’s not unique to our Party; any political parties would be corrupt during such a period. At least our Party is willing to fight against corruption. It would be even worse if we had somebody else. Human beings have desires. Didn’t Clinton have an affair when he could? Corruption is unavoidable at present, what we have to do is to figure out how to deal with it. FBI has high skills to fight against crimes because American criminals are highly skilled. The key for us is to find effective means to combat corruption. We need to encourage an honest and clean government by high pay. But we don’t have that kind of money to do so for the time being (interview in Beijing, June 22, 2000). It is a common view among the public personnel that one necessary means to limit official corruption would be to encourage a clean and honest government by offering high pay. Pointing to Hong Kong as an example, many officials argue that public servants’ income should be high enough for them to resist bribes. If they received high salary as their counterparts do in Hong Kong, corruption would be much less because the


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risk would be too high. However, China cannot raise government salaries just yet, the officials acknowledge. Chinese peasants are still suffering from poverty, and many laidoff workers are struggling for daily survival. If the government offers public servants higher pay while many ordinary people are sacrificing for the reforms, it will arouse public indignation and lose the support of the people. It is all because China is still too poor. The government has so many demands to meet, but it does not have enough money for them. All it can do is to deepen the reforms. As long as China continues to reform, as long as it continues to progress, it will develop a stronger economy and build a better country. The reforms also will bring changes in the political system and win eventually the battle against corruption. Thirdly and most importantly, despite the official corruption, China’s officials remain faithful in the Party because they believe that the party leadership is aware of how badly the corruption has grown and is making efforts to deal with it. Beijing recently cracked down on smuggling in Zhanjiang and Xiamen and executed droves of corrupt officials, including a deputy governor of Jiangxi Province and a vice chairman of the National People’s Congress, the highest-ranking official executed since 1949. According to the work report by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate to the 2001 session of the NPC, 45,000 corrupt cases were investigated in 2000 and seven corrupt officials at the ministerial or provincial level were punished, in addition to thousands of lower-ranking officials. These numbers, many NPC deputies believed, show that “the anti-corruption campaign has produced noticeable results,” and “the ongoing battle would greatly frighten officials who dare to violate the rules” (China Daily March 13, 2001). “We all know that corruption is getting worse, and so does the Party Central Committee,” one central party official commented. “Our people are very unhappy about it, because we haven’t punished corruption as forcefully as they have expected. Now the center is getting tougher on the battle. We are expecting to see some good results” (interview in Beijing, July 5, 2000). Another central party official said: We should be confident of our Party. There is nothing the Party cannot do. The Party can certainly limit the corruption if it is determined to do so. Corruption is not a matter of whether or not one wants to be corrupt, nor is it a matter of whether or not one dares to. It’s a matter of whether or not one has a chance to do so. If we have the will to battle against corruption, if we can come out with some method that makes corruption less possible, we should be able to limit the problem (interview in Beijing, May 23, 2000). In addition to corruption, major concerns among China’s bureaucratic elites include poverty, unemployment, and inequality. Many feel compassion for the suffering of peasants and urban laid-off workers. They are worried about the widening gap between the wealthy and the poor. They want to reduce unemployment and minimize inequality. Otherwise, they reason, these problems will continue to undermine the Party’s credibility and lead to a loss of popular support for the Party. Already, many people, including some officials, have lost confidence in the Party, and some party members have wished to quit their membership. The problems could also get out of hands, causing great unrest and instability that would jeopardize the reforms.


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Despite all the problems they see, most bureaucratic elites remain faithful and confident in the Party for a simple reason: they believe that the party leadership acknowledges these problems and is working hard to correct them. “Life in the countryside is still quite difficult,” said a deputy county commissioner from Hunan Province, referring to the situation in his hometown. “Though food and clothing are not a problem any more, peasants’ income is still very low. Grains don’t sell for good money; a grown pig can only sell for 50 yuan (US$6). The government tells peasants to grow crops without a guarantee of buying them, which makes it very hard for the peasants. Despite the problems,” he went on, “there’s still some hope. The Party and the government are trying actively to carry out good policies to solve the problems, the tax-for-fees policy, for example. So we should be hopeful. As we Chinese often say, the prospects are bright, the road is tortuous” (interview in Beijing, June 6, 2000). This view that the Party and the government are acting positively to solve these major problems is a common one among the bureaucratic elites. Six of my interviewees pointed to recent government initiatives to show that Beijing is fulfilling responsibilities. For example, the central government has carried out policies to reduce the burdens on the peasants and to provide the basic daily expenses of laid-off workers. China’s peasantry in many rural areas suffered from heavy burdens put on them by the local governments. Deprived of formal taxation authority by the central government, local officials collected all sorts of fees from the peasants using various justifications. Beijing has recently acted to stop these local governments’ practices by replacing the payment of fees with legalized taxes to relieve the burdens on the peasantry. This reform was implemented first in Anhui Province in 2000 and freed peasants from a long list of exorbitant fees. For example, before this tax-for-fees project, peasants in Huaiyuan County paid 80.8 million yuan (US$9.7 million) in fees a year. The reform abolished 50 fees and other revenue-raising levies and reduced the payment by peasants to 26.6 million yuan (US$3.2 million) annually. The reform has “brought immense satisfaction to farmers and [is] instrumental in improving the once strained relations between the farmers and the local governments” (China Daily March 8, 2001). In urban areas, the central government has required local governments to find reemployment for laid-off workers. In Beijing, for example, more than 900 reemployment service centers had been established by 1998 to provide these workers with monthly allowance and training programs. The Beijing government spent 147 million yuan (US$17.7 million) on reemployment services in 1998, and more than 102,000 laid-off workers found reemployment (China Daily July 6, 1999). According to a Beijing subdistrict director, officials and staff members in his subdistrict have been working hard to find jobs for their laid-off workers. They offer three job opportunities to each laid-off worker. Those who do not like the jobs the government finds for them and refuse to take those jobs remain on welfare until they find reemployment (interview in Beijing, May 18, 2000). The central and local governments have also worked on a social security system for laid-off workers. Zhu Rongji recently promised that the government would “use all channels possible to raise money for the building of a social security network” and would soon introduce a social security law (China Daily March 16, 2000). According to the Beijing Labor Bureau and the Beijing Statistics Bureau, in 1998 the Beijing government


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allocated 10 million yuan (US$1.2 million) to help families living under the poverty line, increased the minimum monthly salary from 190 yuan to 210 yuan (290 yuan in 2002), and raised pensions by 50 yuan on average. The number of workers and pensioners covered by medical insurance increased by 12 percent to 2.2 million, and the number covered by unemployment insurance increased by 9.7 percent to 22.3 million (China Daily July 6, 1999). “We have quite a few problems and difficulties at present, some of which we haven’t been able to pay enough attention,” one ministry-level party official said: But the center is soberly aware of these problems and doing all it can to solve them. Premier Zhu has warned the officials by pointing out that “oppressive government drives the people to rebellion” (guanbi minfan). The NPC and the Party Central Discipline Inspection Commission are working on methods of supervision, seeking to establish an effective supervision system to combat against corruption. We are very confident that we can overcome the difficulties facing us. Our country will be very well in 30 to 40 years (interview in Beijing, June 10, 2000). Similarly, another ministry-level party official said: We have many problems. To solve these problems, we should first improve our party building. Corruption must be attacked, or we will destroy the Party ourselves. At the same time, we want to maintain stability and develop the economy, progress smoothly and steadily. We are doing our best for China. People like me [high-ranking officials] all want to do well for our country (interview in Beijing, June 1, 2000). Views about the Party Strength and Post-Deng Leadership Some China scholars have pointed out that the death of Deng Xiaoping marked the end of China’s revolutionary generation of leadership and has weakened further the CCP’s authority. Post-Deng leaders lack Deng’s personal stature and military background for holding onto power and may not be able to manage the forces of change unleashed by Deng without institutional reform to “regulate China’s accelerating informal federalism” (Goldman and MacFarquhar 1999:26). Some predict that by 2008 (ten years from 1998) there will not be a People’s Republic governed by the Communist Party because the “current system is simply inadequate to the challenges it is creating for itself” (Waldron 1998:43). Others conclude that China is in crisis because of the demise of the Party and the ineffectiveness of state institutions. Shiping Zheng, who rejects the “prevalent” concept of party-state and attempts to distinguish the state from the Party, argued that “China is in crisis because the Party organization…is now in disarray” and the state institutions lack the capacity to govern 1.2 billion people (1997:4). “Once the paramount leader is gone, the revolutionary ideology becomes bankrupt, and the organizational discipline erodes, the Party as we know it is over” (ibid.: 263). Most China observers, in contrast, believe that China and its party leadership remain


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stable and resilient. In January 1998, the Journal of Democracy invited ten China experts to contribute to a symposium on the future of democracy in China.2 Eight contributors indicated that, with or without notable democratic progress, the People’s Republic would still be intact in ten years and the Party would still be in power.3 Thomas Metzger, for example, argued that “there has been a strong tendency to underestimate both its stability and the degree of legitimacy it enjoys.” The Chinese state today remains an “inhibited center” (i.e., authoritarianism), which achieves stability by promoting prosperity and by forbidding free political activity that “the vast majority of Chinese are not interested in anyway…. Since the Chinese have traditionally been accustomed to this kind of authoritarianism, the inhibited center tends to be stable…chaos or territorial disintegration is not in store for China” (1998:19–20). Robert Scalapino also contended that While the problem of leadership and that of structure are important, neither poses a real threat to the regime, at least at present. As long as its policies— especially its economic policies—are mostly successful, China should be able to 1) make the adjustment from charismatic to technocratic rule, and 2) manage the ever-shifting balance of power among central, regional, and local levels of government (1998:37). How do Chinese bureaucratic elites respond to the predictions that China’s political system might collapse? How do they assess the post-Deng leadership in terms of party unity and strength? Apparently, they would not deny that the third generation of leadership lacks the prestige and popularity that the Mao and Deng leaderships enjoyed. However, they do not seem to find it a problem. The officials see the current top figures as qualified political leaders, who were already governing China long before Deng’s passing and have been able to maintain stability and keep the economy growing. The officials also are soberly aware of the importance of keeping the Party united, and they remain firmly protective of the Party’s interests as a whole. “Nobody can replace Mao and Deng’s historic positions in China,” one central party official observed: Nor can any other policy replace Deng’s policy of reform at present. However, it is our Party’s tradition to uphold a core of leadership, not any individuals. China needs a core of leadership, so does the Party itself. For the sake of China’s stability and the unity of the Party, party members should safeguard the authority of the Party Central Committee. Particularly in the central party and government organs, party members must be in conformity with the party leadership on ideological and political matters. We can debate different views, but we must listen to the Central Committee for the final decision (interview in Beijing, June 1, 2000). Like civilian party members, military leaders and their fellow army officers are also strikingly disciplined along party line and strongly supportive to the party leadership. As a middle-aged high-ranking army officer argued: Of course we must adhere to the party leadership. At least my generation will remain faithful to the Party. Who else can lead if the CCP could not? Which


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leadership can if the current leadership could not? We PLA pay absolute obedience to the Party Central Committee, and we are very stable. The West wants to see us fall into chaos, fighting among ourselves, we mustn’t let it happen. Russia’s lessons are far too alarming. We must maintain stability, so we can achieve our goal of building a powerful China (interview in Beijing, July 12, 2000). In terms of party unity and strength and the possibility that the political system might collapse, the officials’ response is similar to the previous question. They do not deny that China might collapse, but they say it would happen only if China lost the party leadership. Otherwise, the idea is opposite to what has been predicted or observed. Most Chinese officials believe that the Party is rather strong because, they reason, it consists of almost all the best and the brightest in Chinese society. As one central government official asserted: Why can the CCP sustain its leading position? Because the talented, the elites all wish to join it. After all, it’s ruling party, which has absorbed so many great people. Other political groups have no comparison with the Party; they lack great personnel. The CCP is not vulnerable, not a bit. It’s not a handful of persons, but a large group of people at all levels from the top down to the bottom. Most party members are good or fair, plus the fact that the masses desire stability and would still choose the Party for leadership if they got to choose. “The force at the core leading our cause forward is the Chinese Communist Party.”4 It just won’t do without the party leadership (interview in Beijing, June 22, 2000). A similar view is shared by the military. One retired professor from the PLA National Defense University argued: We have serious problems within the Party; the corruption has become a big malignant tumor. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the CCP is going to collapse. Some people die from cancer quickly; some survive after the operation. The Central Committee is dealing with the problem; it’s not doing nothing at all. Isn’t it that there are high-raking officials have been caught? We should see the two sides of a matter. The Party has its problems, but it has achieved great accomplishment. How much progress have we made in the past 20 years? Isn’t that self-evident? Westerners should not expect the CCP to collapse; the Party is very strong. Remember we have a two million member military standing behind the Party, which is very stable and under the absolute leadership of the Party (interview in Beijing, July 8, 2000). A scholar of modern Chinese history, who is a former party official and now a permanent U.S. resident and a critic of the Chinese system, assessed the party strength with a simple calculation. The CCP at present has 64 million members. If each member has a fivemember family, that will be 320 million, about one quarter of the population. Each party member also has relatives, friends, and supporters, making it even a larger group. A large


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proportion of the party members consists of the most talented and competent in China. Even in rural areas, party members are better educated than the mass peasantry on average. This large elite group occupies virtually all the leading positions in the Party, the government, and the military at every level from the top down to the bottom. It enjoys popular support from a majority of the people and has a two million member military standing behind it. “I once had a conversation with this man in California,” the scholar named a high-profile dissident and said. “He argued with me that the solution to China’s problems is to get rid of the Communist Party. I showed him this calculation and asked him who else had the strength and leadership ability to govern China if not the Party. He quit the debate” (interview in Beijing, July 3, 2000). It is not unlikely to hear some party members in business circles say that they have not paid their party dues, or have not participated in the party organizational life, for months and even years. Nor is it uncommon to find that in some villages, party branches no longer function, as most party members have moved to elsewhere for jobs that pay more. However, in the higher levels of party and state organs and the military, the picture is quite different. Party committees and branches remain active and effective, playing an irreplaceable role in political life and administrative process. Party organizational life and studies of party documents and leaders’ speeches take place on a regular basis. Young people strive enthusiastically to join the Party. They are usually lower-ranking bureaucrats, blue-collar workers, and soldiers because most middle and high-rankings of officials and military officers are already party members. Party members remain quite disciplined, cautious about their words and deeds, and protective the Party’s interests as a whole. They do not deny the problems facing the Party, and they complain about those problems. But this has not shaken their party spirit or stopped them from observing party discipline. Instead, they draw clear distinctions on cardinal issues of right and wrong according to party principles. They remain hopeful for the Party and for China’s future under the party leadership. As John Burns points out: “Party discipline may have declined in recent times, undermined for example by corruption. Still, given its vast size, in comparative terms the CCP is still relatively tightly disciplined” (1999:581). The view of Chinese officials about the post-Deng leadership and the possibility that China might collapse may be summarized with Yan Mingfu’s comment:5 “Things haven’t been easy for the current leaders. But they’ve been able to maintain stability and keep the economy growing. China is facing many problems, some of which are bad old practices that are hard to change. But the leadership is working on these problems, and this is where people from Taiwan see the CCP different from the KMT.” In terms of the possibility that China might collapse, Yan asserted: China must adhere to the party leadership. Without the strong leadership of the Party, China will definitely fall into chaos. The Soviet Communist Party collapsed, resulting in extremely painful situation in the country. Should that happen in China, the chaotic situation would be much more devastating. The people would surge to the neighboring countries resembling terrifying waves. China won’t collapse unless we lose the party leadership. I’m optimistic about our future. The reforms and opening up and economic development are the right way to go. If we keep going forward, we’ll have an optimistic future. People


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used to call us “the old ox pulls the broken cart” (laoniu la poche). Now the ox is younger, and the cart in bet-ter shape. Even if it is still a broken cart, it’s not a sank boat; it’s still moving ahead (interview in Beijing, July 10, 2000). The views and comments of the officials provide an explanation for the intimate postMao leadership-bureaucracy relationship. These views and comments should not be accepted as their true beliefs without evaluating and cross-checking them. We should not be beguiled by the fact that officials will talk to us. We should be skeptical about whether they are telling us what they really believe or what they think we want to hear or what they think is safe to say. They have a big stake in the system, and they have learned how to protect it against outsiders. On the other hand, however, precisely because they have a personal investment in the system to protect, neither should their views and comments about the Party and its leadership be seen as echoes of party propaganda (as they were in the Maoist era). Instead, their views accurately reflect their self-interests in the system and their concern with unity and stability in China. The bureaucratic elites express faith in the Party because they have a stake in the system, and because they are deeply concerned with China’s unity and stability. THE ROLE OF BUREAUCRACY IN CHINA’S DEMOCRATIC PROCESS Joseph LaPalombara wrote in Bureaucracy and Political Development: If, as many of us hope, political development is to move in a generally democratic rather than anti-democratic direction, it is essential that we know in greater precision what patterns of bureaucratic organization and behavior aid or handicap the achievement of this goal. If, finally, we ever expect to be able to deal comparatively and scientifically with the process of political development as a generalized phenomenon, we simply must accord greater attention than in the past to the bureaucracy as a critical variable that both affects and is conditioned by the process itself (1963:5– 6). This raises one more question this chapter seeks to answer: What role is the bureaucracy likely to play as China forges her rocky road to political liberalization, given its relationship with the party leadership? Different Images of Chinese Bureaucracy in the Political Process Some scholars are optimistic about the role of the bureaucrats in China’s political transition. Ronald Glassman, for example, claims that China’s new middle class (i.e., the educated bureaucrats as a class) is different from “its mandarin counterparts from the past” but is “basically similar to its cultural counterparts in the West” (1991:17). As a result of experiencing Mao’s despotism and studying in the West in the reform years, this new middle class has developed a “rational scientific world orientation” and “has come to carry the values that support legal democracy” (ibid.: 60–1). Although not a capitalist middle class, the new middle class “rejects the Leninist role of the Communist Party [and]


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desires a multiparty democracy” (ibid.: 138). It can ally with other social groups for democracy in China. On the other end of the spectrum, there is a pessimistic view about the bureaucratic elite’s ability to bring political change in China. Robert Kleinberg, for example, argues that “the ability of the Chinese bureaucracy to promote social change is difficult to determine. There is considerable question as to whether it has had the will to accomplish such change” (1991:73). Kleinberg sees Chinese bureaucracy as corrupt and nonprofessionalized, operating based on “networks of guanxi” rather than on “the legally defined relationships.” Such a bureaucratic system has to be changed by external forces because the bureaucrats “have distinguished themselves more by resistance to change than by a desire to bring it about” (ibid.:74). However, the effort by external forces (i.e., by the CCP) to devise institutional checks on bureaucratic power has been limited because “the Party has become as bureaucratized as the state it dominates, and Party and state are so intertwined that all of their problems are shared” (ibid.: 76). Neither of the two arguments is convincing. Although in conformity with the common belief that sees the growth of the middle class as a driving force for democracy, Glassman’s argument is problematic because it is based primarily on Western experience rather than on evidence from the Chinese case. It is true that China’s new middle class has some similarities with those in the West, and that many young government employees have studied in the West. However, growing out of a sociopolitical context differing from the West, China’s new middle class is constrained by many factors in that context. An accurate analysis of the new middle class cannot afford to overlook the factors that have produced this class, including those factors discussed in the present work. Moreover, a troubling problem with China’s new middle class is that it has difficulty forming alliances with other social groups (see chapter 3 for detailed discussion). The educated elite has a negative attitude toward the mass majority, whom they believe to be either unaware of democracy or likely to produce a threat to a peaceful democratic transition (see Goldman 1994; Gunn 1993; Kelliher 1993; Kraus 1989; Selden 1993; Tyson and Tyson 1995). Kleinberg’s view of Chinese bureaucrats is also questionable because it cannot explain the post-Mao leadership-bureaucracy relationship as revealed for example by Wei Li’s study of the GO system. Undeniably, connections and corruption are major problems in China’s bureaucratic system, but they mostly occur among the officials staffing lower levels of public administration. In the center, public officials constitute a network of the best and the brightest. It is not difficult to argue that if the bureaucracy is so corrupt and non-professionalized, and if the Party itself is as corrupt and bureaucratized as the bureaucracy, how can the party-state remain so powerful and continue to receive popular support from the bureaucratic elites and the general public? Another problem with Kleinberg’s view is that it fails to recognize that the majority of the post-Mao bureaucratic elites are well-educated and open-minded technocrats and, among them, those who have developed democratic values and ideas would prefer democratic change rather than resist such change. As Xiaoxing Han posits: In the case of China, members of the People’s Liberation Army are “insiders”; so are members of the Communist Party and millions of young bureaucrats who


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have been promoted to various middle and high positions in the last decade and who are technically and organizationally quite competent. Many of these people, especially in the last category (which is not mutually exclusive of the other two), have a substantial stake in the system; still they are for a gradual transformation. Some of them will not be too ready to give up whatever privileges they have enjoyed under the current regime. But by and large, they are better educated, better informed, more independent thinking, and closer to social reality than many other elements of the ruling elite. In contrast to a relatively few who are well entrenched in their positions and who link their destinies with the perpetuation of the current dictatorial regime, many “insiders” do not emphatically rule out significant changes. They may not foresee all future stages of the transformation, and they may not like what they will see when they realize how far the democratic transformation will go, but such an attitude is not what matters most. The significance of these people lies rather in the likelihood that they will accept the transformation and facilitate it in some way when they see clearly its inevitability and its benevolence. By “benevolence” I mean the peacefulness of the general transition and ultimate forgiveness of those who have been affiliated with the official camp (1993:234–5). Han’s image of Chinese bureaucratic elites is more accurate because it points out not only the factors that encourage the elites to contemplate democratic change but also those that constrain them to undertake the initiatives. This latter category of factors includes the bureaucrats’ stake in the political system and their concern with China’s unity and stability. These two factors are perhaps the most critical for understanding the strength of the party-state and the likelihood of a top-down transition in China because they help explain not only the intimate leadership-bureaucracy relationship but also the bureaucratic elites’ role in China’s democratic process. Bureaucratic Elites’ Self-interests in the Political System As Han points out, those bureaucrats who have enjoyed the privileges in the existing system “will not be too ready” to give them up. To understand why this is the case requires an understanding of the origins of the majority of Chinese bureaucratic elites. China is an agricultural country, and 80 percent of its population are rural. This large number of residents is bound by the hukou (residence) system to remain rural. They have primarily two formal ways to obtain permanent urban residence. One is to join the Army and become an officer, the other is to enter universities and get a job in cities after graduation. The resident system also confines people in small cities and towns to their places of birth. Small town inhabitants also need to attend universities in order to obtain permanent residence in major cities. In big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and the provincial capitals, ordinary people also have little chance to get good positions in the public administration without higher education. Because the Confucian culture regards public service as an honorable way to social mobilization, employment in the government is for university graduates an indicator of success. For both employment in state administration and promotion to army officer, party membership is an important criterion


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used by the employers. A person with party membership has political advantages to gain employment and promotion. However, gaining party membership is by no means an easy task. As described by Hague, Harrop, and Breslin: Communist parties invariably placed great emphasis on discipline and ideological unity. One way of ensuring this unity was through strict control of recruitment to the party. Unlike Western parties, joining the communist party was a difficult task. Prospective members did not simply sign up and send off their annual subscription, but had to prove themselves worthy of membership. The usual recruitment ground was the party’s youth organisations, although the armed forces also proved to be a way into the party at times. If a prospective member proved that he or she had accepted the party’s ideals, and was recognised as a loyal follower, then he or she would be allowed to join the party. This was, however, subject to a period of probation (1992:243). The necessity and difficulty of joining the Party mean that, after going through all the trauma of being accepted into the Party, a person tends to be jealous of the “psychic and material benefits” and “the feeling that you [are] part of the in-group” brought by the party membership (ibid:243–4). Especially for those who have been promoted to middle and high government and military positions, any significant change in the system would mean uncertainty in their career and life. It makes much sense that they would contemplate such change with caution and would want to make sure that their interests would be taken care of with a more democratic structure of rule. Presumably, therefore, Chinese bureaucratic elites would prefer democratic change from the top down rather than from the bottom up, and from within rather than from outside the system, because the former is more predictable and less uncertain. As a matter of fact, the bureaucratic elites are not shy about admitting that they endorse the party leadership because their self-interests are related to the Party’s. They recognize China’s needs for a more democratic rule, but they believe that democratic reform in China should be under the party leadership and should be carried out in a gradual, peaceful manner. They are fearful that too rapid change may cause the system to collapse. If that happened, as insiders, they would lose their “iron rice bowls” (tiefan-wan), as did many Communist party officials in the former Soviet Union. “Why do we want to be in conformity with the Party Central Committee?” a bureaucrat from a state ministry reasoned: We have our self-interests in the system. Although we [government employees] receive only middle or low levels of income among the Chinese public, still we are much better off than laid-off workers. Besides, we have other benefits, such as public housing and free health care. In Hong Kong, a person with a monthly pay of HK$40,000 has to “freeze” himself, with no food and no drink but only work, for 10 years, if he wants to buy an apartment with a value of HK$4–5 million. Here our housing is public-funded. We have good benefits as government servant, and we value and care a lot about what we have (interview in Beijing, June 16, 2000).


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Bureaucratic Elites’ Concern with Unity and Stability in China Concern with Unity and Stability Another factor that helps understand the post-Mao leadership-bureaucracy relationship and the bureaucratic elites’ role in China’s democratic process is their overriding concern with China’s unity and stability, which, they say, provide an indispensable guarantee for continued reform and development. China has experienced too many wars, upheavals, and chaos in the past and has wasted too much time during those chaotic periods. A loss of unity and stability would mean an end of reform and development, and thus a loss of the chance for a better life once again. As one central party official observed: For centuries, we Chinese nation divided and then united over and over again. The past 50 years under the Communist Party have been the most united period in our history. But we suffered from a series of political campaigns and chaos under the Mao leadership. Only in the past 20 years have we had both unity and stability. History has taught us that only the Communist Party can keep China united and stable. Without the party leadership, we would lose unity and stability, and thus the chance for our goal of building a rich and powerful China. Chairman Mao once said that as a product of history, the Communist Party will disappear one day in history, and “it is just fine that one day we will be able to do away with the Communist Party.”6 This is to say that the CCP leadership and one-party rule will not be prominent phenomena. But at present we cannot do without the party leadership. Who else can hold the country together and carry on the reforms that may produce instability? (interview in Beijing, May 17, 2000) Such concern with stability also explains why a majority of the party and government officials chose to stand by the Party in the Beijing Spring of 1989 and disapproved of the protest movement. The protest movement reminded them of the Cultural Revolution. It interrupted the economy, threatened social stability, and created a negative image of China in the international community. The officials believed that the protests had to be ended because they were causing great damage and bringing chaos to the country. Chaos would halt China’s progress toward economic modernization and hold the country back for many years. Moreover, according to Chinese officials, the Taiwan issue is another reason why China must adhere to the party leadership. China has made it clear that it will not give up Taiwan under any circumstances. Beijing has introduced the principles of “peaceful reunification” and “one country, two systems” to achieve its cause of “complete reunification of the motherland.” However, the leadership and its entire governing group are soberly aware that, to reunify with Taiwan, China must be strong and powerful, and only if China remains united and stable can it be strong and powerful. Because the bureaucratic elites perceive the Party as the only credible political leadership in China, they believe that China must uphold the party leadership if it is to achieve reunification


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with Taiwan. “China must adhere to the party leadership, otherwise, we won’t be able to take back Taiwan,” one central party official stated: Only with the party leadership can we maintain unity and stability, and only with unity and stability can we safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity. We lost too much territory in the past; we cannot lose any more. It is imperative to maintain stability so we can achieve our goal of reunification with Taiwan. After that, we will be able to speed up with political reform (interview in Beijing, May 17, 2000). Views about Democracy Concerned with China’s unity and stability, Chinese bureaucratic elites tend to prefer a democratic transition guided by the leadership from the top down because it is likely to keep the country united and stable. They have drawn a conclusion from the chaotic situations of the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen uprising that “great mass democracy” (daminzhu) leads China not to democracy but to chaos, and that China can only rely on the party leadership to carry out the transition in a peaceful manner if it is to achieve democracy. According to one central party official, who recalled the ten-year political upheaval, China during the Cultural Revolution experienced the most “democratic” period in the recent history, but it also experienced the most chaotic period in the recent history. Everybody had the rights to “make revolution,” to “bombard the headquarters” [authorities], and to “destroy the old and establish the new.” “Great mass democracy” did not bring China to democracy; it instead brought the country into political chaos and economic stagnation. In the end, China’s economy was at the edge to collapse. Experiences have told us that democracy in China depends on the party leadership, because it can only be achieved through an orderly manner, step by step and stage by stage. Only the Communist Communist Party party has the ability to control the speed and the scope of such transition (interview in Beijing, May 17, 2000). Another experience that has convinced the officials that China’s democratic development depends on the CCP leadership is the Tiananmen uprising. Many blame the June 4 crisis for causing the delay of political reform, arguing that if there had not been the Tiananmen protests, the political reform would not have been interrupted but would likely have produced significant results. Before June 4 of 1989, these officials recall, Deng and his supporters realized the need for political reform and began to take important initiatives. Deng proposed the separation of activities of the Party and the government, stressing that the Party should not be involved in those things it should not run, could not run, and could not run well. But the leadership’s move in that direction came to an end when, during the Tiananmen events, some people challenged the party leadership. The June 4 tragedy and the political storm sweeping out Communist rule in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe alarmed the leadership, leading to the realization that the CCP would lose


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power without a strong emphasis on its leading role. As a result, post-Tiananmen China has witnessed tighter political control by the Party and a delay of political reform. “The June 4 has set back democratic process in China for 10 years, even 20 years,” complained a central government official. “The students and the democratic activists bear responsibility for this. Now we have to start over again. How difficult is the process going to be?” (interview in Beijing, June 16, 2000) This view that China must adhere to the party leadership while seeking to advance democratic process has also been reinforced by the experiences of the newly industrialized democracies in East Asia. The East Asian new democracies, some officials point out, have showed a similar pattern of transition. First they achieved modernization under authoritarian rule. Once modernization was achieved, people no longer accepted the authoritarian regime, but replaced the ruling party with the opposition party. South Korea and Taiwan (it could be argued that the KMT’s loss of power in Taiwan resulted primarily from its internal splits) both followed this path. Their experiences provide a textbook for China, which reminds the CCP of the necessity and importance of upholding its leadership in a period of transition. For the Chinese leaders and bureaucratic elites, the party leadership has to be upheld, and democratic progress has also to be made. China wants both. As one central party official commented: How to develop democracy while upholding the party leadership is a serious subject, we are working on it. Some people say that political reform has lagged behind since the June 4.1 would say that we have become more realistic. We have learned that we cannot weaken the party leadership at present but should only strengthen it. Democracy can only be developed under the party leadership. Democratic change that undermines the party leadership should not be undertaken (interview in Beijing, July 13, 2000). In addition to their view that China should develop democracy under the CCP leadership, the bureaucratic elites tend to agree that democracy in China should first be developed from within the Party and the system rather than from outside the party-state framework in a large scale. They recognize China’s needs for political reform and for a more democratic rule, and they acknowledge that some of the most difficult problems facing China are due to the lag of political reform and the lack of a democratic system. They say that for a society to progress, its production relations have to fit with the productive forces. China now has a pluralist economy but still one voice in politics, which is against the laws of social development. It is imperative that China speeds up the process of political reform. Without political reform, the economic reforms will be slowed down. However, because they see the needs for both the party leadership and a gradual, orderly democratic change, Chinese officials believe that a process from within the system would be a sensible method under the present conditions, because this would allow China to uphold the party leadership, while moving cautiously toward a democratic direction. In their view, inner-party democracy is a necessary means to strengthen the party building and enhance supervision. More democracy within the Party would mean more ideas and discussions, and thus could help improve the Party’s leadership ability. More democracy within the Party would also mean more supervision, and thus could help


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limit corruption and degeneration. If ordinary party members have the power to supervise leading officials, and if party discipline inspection commissions have the power to supervise party committees at the same levels, the corruption would be limited more effectively. “Democracy should be developed within the Party first, and within the system first,” one party official said. “In terms of organizational reform, we’ve begun to select cadres through scrutiny check to make sure that young cadres are selected to leadership positions openly, through organizational instrument rather than personal ties” (interview in Beijing, July 13, 2000). While a majority of Chinese officials acknowledge that China needs to develop democracy, very few agree China should build a democracy based on the Western model. They point out that Western democracy does not have real meaning for the Chinese people. Chinese people want a peaceful and secure life, which the adoption of Western democracy would not facilitate. Democracy in China has to be built on Chinese “grounds.” A copy of Western democracy would not work in China, where political culture is very different from that in the West. “China should find its own path for democratic development,” one official said. “It is meaningless to go on the streets to protest for democracy. Democracy is a matter of interests. A de-mocracy that is not related to economic interests does not draw attention from the mass population.” Another official reasoned: “We know that liberal democracy works well in the West. But things in China are different, much more difficult and complicated. We have to be realistic about what can be done under the Chinese circumstances. We are ‘elementary school students’ in terms of democratic development. Can you expect an elementary school student to do trigonometric function?” Another official commented: “Those who wish to build a Western-style democracy in China may have some expectation for it. Otherwise, we do not think much about it. It’s beyond China’s reality. It would be good enough if we had democracy within the Party for now.” Still another said: “It’s no easy a task to develop democracy in China. It’ll take a very long period. Democracy cannot be built alone; it has to come along with developments in the economic and legal arenas” (interviews in Beijing, May-June 2000). CONCLUSION China’s party-state remains strong. The strength of the party-state results from the intimate post-Mao leadership-bureaucracy relationship, which is characterized by effective political control by the Party over the effective bureaucracy. This leadershipbureaucracy relationship may first be attributed to the Confucian tradition. Confucian tradition granted the mandate of Heaven to the emperor and, at the same time, provided China with an efficient, powerful scholarly-bureaucratic elite. Confucian tradition, therefore, created a special relationship between the bureaucratic elite and the emperor— the bureaucratic elite ruled the vast kingdom for its ruler, whose role in uniting all of China into a single cohesive polity was indispensable (Glassman 1991). These attributes of the Confucian bureaucracy have remained in the contemporary Chinese bureaucratic system. The Chinese bureaucratic elite remains a network of well-educated and competent professionals, providing China with an effective and efficient public


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administration. Like their predecessors, Chinese bureaucrats are incapable of maintaining the political integration of China without a strong political leadership. They defer to the Communist Party for leadership while administering the country with effectiveness, efficiency, and political reliability. The Leninist institutional structure, moreover, has created and facilitated the intimate leadership-bureaucracy relationship by intertwining the Party and the state into a cohesive power bloc. This political system was created in 1949 under Soviet influence and was further stabilized and reinforced during subsequent decades of the Cold War. Although the success of the post-Mao reforms has eroded some of the Leninist state system, the legacy of Leninist institutions remains in the current political system. By allowing the Party to control the government and the military through leadership selection and by allowing party elites to occupy most important leadership positions at all levels of governance, this Leninist institutional legacy has ensured effective political control by the Party over the state administration and sustained the strong party-state. The third determinant of the intimate leadership-bureaucracy relationship is the economic development imperative, which was discussed in two subsections of this chapter concerning the CCP’s performance in implementing the economic reforms and the bureaucrats’ image of the post-Mao leadership. This economic development imperative has driven the post-Mao leadership to pursue a development strategy for rapid economic growth and to pressure a strong state authority to maintain stability and manage the economy. The economic success of this strategy has contributed to the intimate leadership-bureaucracy relationship by restoring to the Party the faith and support of the bureaucratic elites. A majority of Chinese officials remain confident in the party leadership, as they are satisfied with the leadership’s policies of reform and opening up and its performance in implementing these reforms. The bureaucratic elites also believe that, despite the shortcomings and defects in its work, the Party is willing to deal with these problems and is capable of leading China to strength and prosperity. Finally, two more factors—the bureaucrats’ self-interests in the system and their concern with China’s unity and stability—also explain why Chinese bureaucratic elites support, rather than compete against, the Party in China’s democratic process. With their self-interests in the system, the bureaucratic elites remain in agreement with the party leadership on issues of political reform. They would contemplate democratic change with caution and would want to make sure their interests would be protected under a more democratic structure of rule. They would prefer a democratic transition guided by the leadership from the top down than otherwise pushed by societal forces from the bottom up because the former is more predictable. Moreover, concerned with China’s unity and stability, Chinese bureaucratic elites share an apprehension with the leadership and the public that forceful political change may cause instability, and thus jeopardize development and reform. They have drawn lessons from the chaotic situations of the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen upheaval that “great mass democracy” leads China not to democracy but to chaos, and that China can only depend on the party leadership to carry out the transition in a peaceful and orderly manner. The post-Mao intimate leadership-bureaucracy relationship explains in large part the absence of bureaucratic fatigue in China’s one-party system, the success of Communist rule after the 1989 political storm, and the continuing strength of the party-state. If, as


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Riggs (1997) observes, the underlying reason for the political demise of Communist states in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe is bureaucratic fatigue resulting from the prolonged harsh political control of Communist rule, then the continuation of the intimate post-Mao leadership-bureaucracy relationship may suggest the perpetuation of China’s strong party-state. To date, the Party remains resilient and self-confident, maintaining effective control over the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy, for its part, while it remains an effective and competent administrative elite, gives strong support to the Party. With all the best and the brightest it has absorbed, the CCP has become a modernizing force in China. As Nathan observed: despite the battering that it has sustained at the hands of history, the CCP remains the preserve of a surprisingly resilient and self-confident elite. No longer an ideologically disciplined cadre, it has become a network of “the best and the brightest”—those with the training and connections to get things done…. Vigorous and imbued with a sense of mission, this group does not feel burdened by the crimes of Mao, the shootings in Beijing, or the bankruptcy of orthodox ideology. On the contrary, they can point to the solid contributions that they have made to reform and prosperity at both local and central levels. The collapse of Chinese socialism as an idea and a system has empowered rather than tarnished this group of party members, many of whom came on the scene as Maoism was fading with an ambition to rescue the party from its past (1993:38). Nathan’s portrayal is still true for today’s party and government organs, especially at the central and provincial levels. The Party continues to be the preserve of a surprisingly strong, self-confident, and resilient elite. As Jiang Zemin proudly claimed: the CCP has “a tremendous organizational advantage.” “Never in China has there been any political organization like our Party that has absorbed so many advanced elements, that is so well organized and broadly based” (1997:30–1). The success of reform and opening up has proved that the “Party is capable of handling complex domestic and international situations.” This will encourage the Party, shouldering “a lofty historical responsibility for the destiny” of China, “to win new victories with greater confidence and enthusiasm” (ibid.: 10, 13). The continuing intimate leadership-bureaucracy relationship indicates that Chinese bureaucratic elites, both civilian and military, are likely to support the leadership in a topdown transition rather than join with societal forces to push for democracy from below. This bureaucratic support for the Party in turn indicates the continuing strength of the state and the resulting perpetuation of state domination over society. Both of these indications support my fourth hypothesis that if a democratic transition occurs in China, it is unlikely to be a bottom-up transition fostered by societal actors. It is instead most likely to be a transition initiated and guided by the party leadership from the top down.

NOTES 1. The term refers to a party or government institution with limited funds and welfare


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facilities. 2. The Journal of Democracy’s questions concerning China and the CCP leadership’s stability: Ten years from now, will there still be a state that calls itself the People’s Republic of China and that is governed by the Chinese Communist Party? If you do not believe that China will make notable democratic progress, do you believe that the regime can nonetheless remain stable over the medium and longer term? 3. Arthur Waldron argued that Communist China and its party leadership would end in either a federalist evolution or a civil war. Yizi Chen indicated that urban unrest caused by the state enterprise reform would threaten the Party’s popularity and legitimacy and may pressure the reformist leaders to democratize the system. 4. Quotation from Mao Zedong, see Mao 1977:149. 5. Yan Mingfu was a member of the Secretariat of the Party Central Committee from 1987 to 1989. He was removed from his position after the Tiananmen events. Yan was later appointed as vice minister of the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MOCA). He is currently the chairman of the China Charity Federation, a governmental organization associated with the MOCA. 6. Quotation from Mao Zedong, see Mao 1977:297.

CHAPTER 3 Problems of Political Opposition in Inducing Democracy in China The key factor that leads an authoritarian system to collapse, according to Adam Przeworski, is the presence of a “preferable alternative” rather than the “loss of legitimacy” by the authoritarian regime due to poor performance. “A regime does not collapse unless and until some alternative is organized in such a way as to present a real choice for isolated individuals.” In a society where “no loss of legitimacy is suffered by the authoritarian system,” the transition to “a more legitimate regime” should occur if there exists a preferable alternative (1986:51–2). This is to say that the political opposition, which seeks democratic transition in an authoritarian society, must present itself as a preferable alternative. Apparently, such an alternative is absent in China. In China, while the party leadership remains strong enough to maintain legitimacy and popularity, the political opposition appears too problematic to develop a more legitimate alternative and induce democracy from below. This chapter focuses on China’s political opposition, explaining the opposition’s problems in inducing democracy in China and its difficulties in overcoming these problems. By the “opposition” I mean the intellectual and student exiles who make up the overseas dissident movement (there has not emerged a political opposition inside China). The intellectual dissidents are sometimes referred to as “the 1980s generation of democratic elites” (minzhu jingying) (Goldman 1994; Goldstein 1994a), because they were the most notable advocates of democratic reforms in the 1980s. By “intellectuals” I refer to those who, during the Tiananmen events, were scholars, editors and journalists, writers, and scientists, and by “students” I mean graduate and undergraduate students. I refer to other people who participated in the Tiananmen demonstration as “other protesters.” I divide the chapter into four sections, and each section deals with one of the four problems with the political opposition in developing an alternative leadership and promoting democracy in China. These include: (1) the dissidents’ middle-of-the-road attitudes toward the CCP, (2) their inability to organize an opposition party, (3) the democratic elites’ beliefs in elitism and their negative attitudes toward the mass population, and (4) the exiled dissidents’ isolation from the Chinese people. These problems are associated with my three hypothesized factors: the Confucian influence, the Leninist totalitarian system under Mao, and China’s reality as a less developed country. Moreover, the dissidents’ moderation may also be attributed to two additional factors: the democratic elites’ enthusiasm for Western democracy and the role of the Communist Party in China. Meanwhile, their isolation by the people is in large part due to another critical factor: the exiled dissident movement’s dependency on external forces for support.


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In the first section, I explore the impact of Confucian tradition on Chinese intelligentsia, the democratic elites’ excessive enthusiasm for Western democracy, and the attributes of the Communist Party to explain why China’s political dissidents remain moderate, retaining their faith in the party reformers. I trace in the second section the institutional and philosophical consequences of Mao’s “well-entrenched”1 totalitarian system to reveal the democratic elites’ inability to develop a civil society and a liberal democratic view prior to 1989. The third section discusses in detail the impact of the philosophical consequence of Mao’s political system on the 1980s generation of democratic elites and the Tiananmen movement of 1989. In addition, the section presents an economic explanation to the democratic elites’ elitist mentality and their distrust of the less-educated majority in building democracy in China. The fourth section focuses on the Chinese dissident movement abroad, examining the exiled dissidents’ inability to form an opposition party due to factional struggle and their inability to advance democracy in China due to their isolation by the people, especially by their intellectual colleagues. I contend in the concluding section that China’s democracy is unlikely to be pushed from below because the political opposition has neither the intention nor the leadership ability to mobilize the population into action and to organize a new political system in which democracy can stabilize and sustain. I refer to the works of the political dissidents to show their motivations, beliefs, and goals, which in turn reveal their limitations, vulnerabilities, and dilemmas. The greatest part of these quotations is from the publications of three members of the 1980s generation of democratic elite, Fang Lizhi, Yan Jiaqi, and Liu Binyan.2 A brief background of each of them is given in the following paragraphs. I also quote some other dissidents or take them as examples. Where those people are involved, I identify them briefly. Fang Lizhi is an astrophysicist and former vice president of the Chinese University of Science and Technology. He was accused of agitating the student unrest of 1986 through his speeches on university campuses and expelled from the Party in January 1987. Fang and his wife, Li Shuxiang, sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing after the Tiananmen incident. They were released by the Chinese government in June 1990 and flew to England. They later moved to the Untied States. Yan Jiaqi is former director of the Institute of Political Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He was appointed one of the four deputy directors in the Political Structure Reform Research Group of the Party Central Committee in 1986 and served as an aide to Zhao Ziyang, then-party secretary. He was a leading intellectual in the Tiananmen movement and fled to France afterward. Along with some others, Yan launched the Federation for a Democratic China (FDC) in Paris and served as the first chairman of the FDC. He later came to the United States. Liu Binyan was a nationwide recognized journalist of the People’s Daily, the party newspaper. He was dismissed from the Party in January 1987 and moved to the United States afterward. Liu remained in the United States when the 1989 events occurred. After the incident, Princeton alumnus John Elliot donated $1 million to found the Princeton China Initiative (PCI), and Liu became the head of the PCI.

Problems of political opposition

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FROM LOYAL COURTIERS TO A LOYAL OPPOSITION Middle-of-the-road Observers of China have found the Chinese political opposition moderate (Goldman 1994; Kraus 1989; Nathan 1993). Before Tiananmen, in contrast to political oppositions in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the Chinese opposition was “simply less dissident.” According to Merle Goldman, most leading intellectuals in the 1980s generation of democratic elite belonged to a reformist elite and were associated directly or indirectly with Hu Yaobang, party secretary from 1980 to 1987. This elite group, which consisted of Marxist theorists, editors and journalists, writers, and scientists, began to emerge in the early 1980s when the Party sought to correct the mistakes of the Cultural Revolution by “seeking the truth from the facts.” The intellectuals shared a conviction that the Party was to be blamed for creating the Cultural Revolution. They addressed the need to limit its power and prevent the recurrence of such a political disaster by introducing democratic institutions. Both Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang (party secretary from 1987 to 1989) were supporters and protectors of the democratic elite. But their patronage “was fraught with tension, because the elite sought to push political reforms much faster and further than did their patrons” (1994:1–2). Although the democratic elites, as party “insiders,” tried to push China toward a more liberal and pluralist polity, they urged the party reformers to implement change from above and retained their faith in democratizing the Party from within. “In contemporary China,” Yan Jiaqi stated in 1988: “the building of democratic politics must start from the establishment of an adequate democratic mechanism within the ruling party so that the transfer of power in the core leading organization of the party is based on predetermined procedures” (1991:106). Fang Lizhi stressed the “need to change the nature of the Party” by absorbing new members, especially intellectuals, and he encouraged university students to “join the Party and change it from within” (1991:231, 225). Moreover, according to Goldman, despite their influence on university students through writings and speeches, members of the democratic elite did not participate in any student protests until relatively late in the Tiananmen events. “But their role in the 1989 demonstration was in no way comparable to that of their East European counterparts.” Only two democratic activists, Wang Juntao and Chen Ziming, were actively involved (1994:302–3). In addition, Yan Jiaqi became a leading intellectual on the eve of the June 4 crackdown. Compared with the events in Eastern Europe, the Tiananmen demonstration was moderate. The demands of the students were for political reform, not for the overthrow of Communist rule. The students rarely questioned the legitimacy of the Party. Instead, they believed that, as a poor country with a large population and scarce resources, China could not do without the Party. “Without the Communist Party, China couldn’t be governed; we need the party,” Gao Qixin, a student activist from the University of Politics and Law stated during the demonstration. “But without a reformed party—an end to corruption and democratic freedoms—our nation can’t survive” (see Tyson and Tyson 1995:318).


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The demands for democratic reform were specified in the Hunger Strike Manifesto by four young intellectuals: “all [sectors of] society should establish lawful, autonomous citizens’ organizations, and gradually develop these organizations into citizens’ political forces that will act to check government policy making, for the quintessence of democracy is the curbing and balancing of power” (Liu et al. 1990:351). Although this declaration challenged “the party’s monopoly of power,” Mark Selden indicated that it was still a demand for a form of checks and balances “within a context of continued Communist Party rule” (1993:113). Despite their definitive break with the government and the radical statements they made after the crackdown, most members of the opposition, especially the intellectuals, remain “strikingly middle-of-the-road,” showing little intention to overthrow the Party (Nathan 1993). In China is Hardly a Republic, Yan Jiaqi called Deng Xiaoping “an emperor without the official name and a dictator worthy of the title,” predicted the downfall of Li Peng as a scapegoat, and condemned China as “neither of the people nor a republic” (1989–90:163–5). “Despite his resentment against Beijing’s rule,” however, the editor of World Affairs observed that “Yan seemed to retain confidence that the Chinese Communist party would eventually revise its past mistakes” (see ibid.: 163). Liu Binyan also imputed the crackdown to “a handful of tyrants [who] have betrayed the Party” (1990:282). But he anticipated that “pushed by the increasing social crises and waves of popu-lar opposition, the relatively moderate forces within the Communist Party will replace the hard-liners in the government” (1989:183). Fang Lizhi stated that it was unnecessary for the Front for Democracy in China (an exiled dissident organization) to organize itself as a party because, he reasoned: “The key point is to exert influence in China. Whether you call it a party or not does not make any difference” (1991:293). Yan Jiaqi and Chen Yizi, both are former senior advisers to Zhao Ziyang, believed that “the role of the overseas-democracy movement must be to seek out liberal elements within the power structure and combine with popular pressure for change from below” (Goldstein 1994b: 26). During President Jiang Zemin’s state visit to the United States in 1997, Wang Juntao, a high-profile intellectual dissident, claimed that what the exiled dissidents “can do is provide a vision.” They “try to give alternatives for China, a democratic idea about policy that is different from the Government’s” (New York Times November 3, 1997). This goal to present alternative ideas is still far from the goal to present an alternative leadership. To date, the dissidents have attempted to convey their ideas to China through websites and radio broadcasts. But they have not organized themselves into an opposition party to lead the overseas dissident movement and promote democracy in China. The Impact of Confucian Tradition on the Chinese Intelligentsia Why does China’s political opposition remain moderate and shy away from presenting itself as an alternative leadership? The most important factor that helps answer this question is the impact of Confucian tradition on the Chinese intelligentsia (i.e., the Confucian tradition hypothesis). Confucian tradition has greater respect for the intelligentsia than for any other social groups, regarding everything as inferior to learning. In Confucian China, to learn implied to rule. Confucian tradition also encouraged intellectuals to take responsibility for the society. “A scholar should be the


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first to become concerned with the world’s troubles and the last to rejoice in its happiness” (Fan Zhongyan, in Liu 1957:111). This famous aphorism of Fan Zhongyan, the great reformer of Song China (A.D. 960–1279), has been “an article of political faith deeply imprinted in the mind” of generations of Chinese intellectuals (ibid.). It is still taught in high school in contemporary China. Confucian tradition valued activist scholars for taking responsibility to speak out against power abuses of officials. “A literatus might be considered more loyal when he opposed an unjust ruler than when he gave him unquestioning loyalty” (Goldman 1994:21). However, Confucian culture emphasized society over individuals and responsibilities over rights. Intellectuals and the general public were concerned with social rites and obligations rather than individual rights and had little desire to limit the power of authority. When an individual spoke out against an unjust ruler, he was trying to persuade that ruler to do good on behalf of the society rather than to challenge his rule. As a consequence of their special position in Chinese society, “Chinese students and intellectuals have played two important but contradictory political roles throughout the twentieth century: as social and political critics, and as emissaries of the state. In both roles they have sought to project—at times successfully—the image of serving higher national interests” (Selden 1993:111). Turning into “a loyal opposition” from “loyal courtiers” (Goldman 1994), the impact of Confucian tradition may be the most fundamental explanation for the moderation of China’s political opposition. Like their predecessors, the intellectual dissidents shared a strong sense of social responsibility. However, each person may have different motivations and value judgments. Fang Lizhi An internationally known astrophysicist and a hero to many Chinese university students in the 1980s for his vigorous advocacy of democracy, Fang Lizhi’s political ambition reveals a mixture of the pride of a successful scientist and “the beliefs of an old-fashioned mandarin,” who “long felt both a duty and a right to moral and political leadership” (Kraus 1989:299,302). Fang claimed that intellectuals “are the main force for pushing society ahead. They…ought to play a big role” (1991:211). “Intellectuals have a little broader perspective than many of the leaders, are a little more sensitive, and a little more precise. As a basis for how to proceed with our modernization, their opinions are more reliable. Without them our efforts will lack vitality, and our reforms will not be democratic” (ibid.: 133). Fang (1987a) urged university students to take responsibility as intellectuals to serve their country: “History has bestowed on you a leading place but have you risen to claim it?…. Since we say that intellectuals are the leading force, responsibility for China thus falls on our shoulders” (in Kraus 1989:299). A person “who has knowledge also has influence, and cannot be disregarded by the government.” Those “who have completed their study successfully…must open their mouths” (Fang 1991:212). Fang claimed that scientists, by the nature of their profession, were full of virtue. “Since physicists pursue the unity, harmony and perfection of nature, how can they logically tolerate unreason, discordance and evil? Physicists’ methods of pursuing truth make them extremely sensitive while their courage in seeking it enables them to


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accomplish something” (Fang and Dai 1986:17). On the other hand, Fang criticized social scientists for lacking a standard of value and independent mentality. There is also a tendency within the social sciences themselves toward pedantic, hidebound interpretations of Marxism that have no relevance to dealing with real issues. Another tendency is to quote the leaders, especially the leaders who are currently in power (1991:152). This use of quotations is utterly worthless; its only possible function is to intimidate people. What we should be doing instead is searching for the truth and drawing our own conclusions, on which the policies of the leadership can then be based (ibid.: 133). In Fang’s view, “Almost invariably it was natural scientists who were the first to become conscious of the emergence of each social crisis.” Clear-thinking scientists “should consider themselves responsible to the entire society.” They “must express their feelings about anything in society, especially if unreasonable, wrong and evil things emerge” (Fang and Dai 1986:16–7). Accordingly, Fang challenged Marxism, which, according to Yan Jiaqi, “in China almost no one dares voice agreement with him” (see Fang 1991:196). Fang criticized political leaders and viewed such ability to challenge the leadership as “a mark of democracy, and he refers to his own 1985 public criticism of Beijing Deputy Mayor Zhang Baifa as evidence of his own credentials as a fighter for democracy” (Kraus 1989:297). Liu Binyan Compared with Fang Lizhi, who claims the superiority and legitimate leadership of intellectuals, Liu Binyan is more like “the principled literati” who “saw themselves as a conduit through which the political leaders learned of the defects of their policies and heard about the wishes of the people” (Goldman 1994:6). Liu believed that China’s “hope lies in having good people in the Party” (see Fang 1991:231). As a journalist of integrity and courage, he felt obligated to write about both the good and evil of officials and, through those stories, “to explore the social crisis, as well as point out a path of hope for China” (Liu 1990:208). Liu felt that “China seemed like a monstrous mill, continually rolling, crushing all individuality out of the Chinese character…. Individuality was crushed, conscience was stifled, and people followed the rule ‘better safe than brilliant’.” Although feeling that he could not “blame those others who sacrificed their identities in order to save their skins,” Liu felt he “certainly couldn’t admire them.” They had lost the qualities of the really human. They had to train themselves not to be angered at injustice, not to be moved by suffering, not to be roused by crisis, not to see that their country was in peril, and not to feel responsible. In a word, they learned not to be concerned with anything except their own official position, while still maintaining a clear and unruffled conscience (ibid.: 200–1). Instead, Liu respected “a special type of person, one who sees the world through his own heart and his own eyes and does not follow the herd, one who thinks with his own head,


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who stands up to injustice and doesn’t just protect his own skin” (ibid.: 195). He regarded this as “a higher kind of loyalty.” He wrote what he was convinced his readers wanted to hear, and he would not give up. “I felt a growing force pushing me forward, and that force came from my readers, readers from all levels of Chinese society. I could feel their breath on my back. By then, I could not stop, I was defiant,” Liu said (ibid.: 209). Yan Jiaqi Belonging to a younger generation of intellectuals and influenced by Western political theory and practices, Yan Jiaqi’s political outlook appears to be more “modern” and radical than Fang Lizhi and Liu Binyan’s. But it also reveals “the historical burden Chinese intellectuals feel on their shoulders” (Bachman and Yang 1991:xxxii). As David Bachman and Dali L. Yang point out: “Impelled by a moral outrage at the Chinese leadership and a strong sense of social obligation, Yan’s role more clearly resembled that of a moral critic of the regime. He expounded on the lack of social justice in China and advocated that democratic politics is the politics of responsibility” (ibid.: xxii–xxiii). “With regard to the varieties of problems of inequality in society,” Yan contended: first, they must be acknowledged; second, “equality of opportunity” and “equality of outcome” must be clearly distinguished; the concept of “equality of outcome” must be discarded in favor of the concept of “equality of opportunity”; third, the market economy must be strenuously developed to serve as the mechanism for “fairness”; fourth, we should build our country into one ruled by law, making “the law is supreme” the basic principle of our country, and guaranteeing that “all are equal before the law” (1991:149–50). Democratic politics is also the politics of responsibility. In democratic politics, the highest decision-making stratum is, directly or indirectly, responsible to the people (ibid.: 153). As a political scientist and a senior aide to the party leaders, Yan deemed reform, political reform in particular, as China’s top priority and his own mission. He gave serious thoughts to democratizing the political system so that the Cultural Revolution would not recur. “The occurrence of the ‘Great Cultural Revolution’ was related to the lack of a highly democratic political structure,” he argued. “Whether a country is democratic or not has a direct bearing on the state’s important decision making and economic development” (1991:49). Promoting political reform, Yan advocated limited terms of office, the separation of power in the government, the institution of the rule of law, the expansion of the private sector, and the development of democracy. All was to “ultimately come down to one fundamental purpose—the expansion of civil society at the expense of the omnipotent party-controlled state” (Bachman and Yang 1991:xxviii). “Wholesale Westernization” Another explanation for the moderation among members of the political opposition is that their split with the government was driven by a strong belief in Western democracy rather than by an intention to overthrow party rule. Such enthusiasm about Western democracy,


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or the West, differentiated them from the reformist party leaders. It made them confused about, to use Bachman and Yang’s words, “being” and “becoming” a democracy and led their effort to promote democratic reform from within the Party to proceed too far and too fast and beyond the leadership’s willingness to tolerate. When the Party refused to tolerate their challenge and acted to repress them, they responded by breaking up with the government and leaving China for exile. In fact, after the Cultural Revolution, both the intellectual elite and the Deng leadership sought to reform the political system that had allowed Mao’s unbounded personal political power and led eventually to the disaster of the Cultural Revolution. Deng Xiaoping addressed to the Party Politburo in 1980: It is true that the errors we made in the past were partly attributable to the way of thinking and style of work of some leaders. But they were even more attributable to the problems in our organizational and working systems. If these systems are sound, they can place restraints on the actions of bad people; if they are unsound, they may hamper the efforts of good people or indeed, in certain cases, may push them in the wrong direction. Even so great a man as Comrade Mao Zedong was influenced to a serious degree by certain unsound systems and institutions, which resulted in grave misfortunes for the Party, the state and himself. Some serious problems which appeared in the past may arise again if the defects in our present systems are not eliminated. Only when these defects are resolutely removed through planned, systematic, and thorough reforms will the people trust our leadership, our Party and socialism (1984:316). Although they both pursued political reform, the party leaders and the democratic elites differed on the model of democracy they desired and on the speed of the democratization process. For Deng Xiaoping, China should “develop socialist democracy, but it would be no good for us to act in haste. And it would be even worse for us to adopt Western-style democracy. If we conducted multiparty elections among one billion people, the country would be thrown into the chaos of an all-out civil war as during the ‘cultural revolution’” (1994:277–8). Yan Jiaqi, by contrast, argued that “a nation or region without political democracy may experience temporary economic prosperity, but its longterm development will inevitably be hindered” (1991:49). Yan saw Western democracy a superior political system to China’s and advocated fundamental changes in Chinese political structure. “From a longterm perspective, political structural reform involves chiefly the following four aspects: the horizontal division of power; the vertical division of power; the division of power between government and social organs; and the degree of people’s participation in political decision making” (ibid.: 53). Compared with Yan Jiaqi, who viewed the Chinese political system as inferior to Western democracy, Fang Lizhi’s enthusiasm about the West was more excessive. Fang (1989b) saw China as inferior to the West in all aspects. He “openly and proudly” called for “wholesale Westernization” (Kraus 1989). Today our Chinese economy is no good, nor are our culture, education, and


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science any good. We need modernization in each aspect; people’s consciousness about these aspects is already high. Our so-called spiritual civilization and culture is no good, our level of so-called virtue is no good and our politics are also no good…. I myself appreciate the standpoint of wholesale Westernization. My understanding is that we must open up completely and in all aspects. What is the meaning of this? This is to say our culture is not backward in one aspect, but in all aspects (in ibid.: 303). Apart from the ideological cleavage, another major factor that contrasted the intellectual elite with the political elite is that the former was advocator or talker, and the latter practitioner or doer. The result of this difference is that the democratic elite could afford to ignore the difference between being and becoming a democracy and call for Western democracy without thinking much about the daunting nature of this task for China, as they did not have to actually carry out the reform themselves. As Bachman and Yang pointed out: Yet the skepticism Westerners might have about Chinese democracy on philosophical grounds is compounded by the failure of scholars like Yan Jiaqi to distinguish between “being” and “becoming.” It is one thing for Yan to argue that democracy and the rule of law are what China needs to modernize. Few would find this argument objectionable. The problem lies in the fact that China does not become democratic merely by proclaiming itself a democracy and laws do not become authoritative merely by their promulgation. Certain norms and expectations must be established if democracy and the rule of law are to take hold, such as impartiality in legal proceedings, equality among citizens, minority rights, etc. In the West, the struggle against traditional authority in the form of feudalism or the divine right of kings took centuries. It would be naïve to expect that traditional sources of power and authority will disappear in China merely through the formal establishment of new institutions and sets of rules (1991:xxx–xxxi). Democracy is easier to be called for than to be carried out. Yan Jiaqi could advocate the rule of law without discussing “how the rule of law can become institutionalized” (Yan 1991:124). Deng Xiaoping had to carry out a reform unprecedented in human history by “touching the stone to cross the river” (mozhe shitou guohe). Fang Lizhi could call for “wholesale Westernization” without thinking about 900 million Chinese peasants, whom he “for a long time…had no contacts with” (Fang 1991:292). Deng Xiaoping had to ensure that China adhered to socialism in order to feed the 1.2 billion people and enrich not just the minority, but the major ity, of the population (Deng 1994). Put differently, the talkers had the “luxury” to be chimerical about China’s democracy; Deng did not. They could afford to be unrealistic about what could be done under the Chinese circumstances; Deng could not. Enthusiasm about Western democracy drove some democratic elites to demand what was beyond China’s capacity to bear and the government’s willingness to tolerate. As a result, they split with the leadership and left China for exile.


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Role of the Communist Party In addition, there is a third factor that helps explain the dissidents’ middle-of-road attitude: the role of the CCP as the sole credible political leadership for China. In chapter 2, I quoted Nicholas Kristof’s description of the Party to show why so many Chinese intellectuals like Liu Binyan devoted their youth to the Party for its struggle to seize state power, and why they supported the Party with full heart and believed that without the Party, there would not have been the New China. I detailed the success of the post-Mao reforms and opening to the outside world to explain why Chinese bureaucratic elites believe that China cannot be governed without the Party. Apparently, the fact that the Party is the only political entity with the ability to unite China and carry on the reforms has left the dissidents little choice other than to recognize the CCP’s leading role. It should come as no surprise therefore that, despite all they have been through, most members of the opposition retain their faith in the party reformers. For them, acknowledging the party leadership may be uneasy, but “the bitter truth of China today is that it has been almost completely defoliated of credible leaders. And should the Chinese Communist Party collapse, as Communist parties have in so many other socialist-bloc countries, it is hard to imagine to whom the country might then turn for leadership” (Schell 1991:xxxviii– xxxix). It is probably for that reason, some high-profile dissidents are worried about a future, democratic China. Liu Binyan, for example, has expressed such concern on various occasions. In one, he said: “We are worried about what will happen then. Immediately 3,000 political parties will emerge” (see Kirkpatrick 1991:A22). In another, he said: “I’m afraid that when China does become democratic, there will be a thousand political parties” (see Hoh 1999:27). “Anyone who cares for our motherland and is responsible for China’s future should be filled with confidence in the future of China,” Yan Jiaqi stated in 1988. We believe that the CCP and the Chinese government are capable of solving China’s problems and we do not condone certain people being irre-sponsible, using certain political actions (not just opinions) to cause turmoil in Chinese politics. Despite much confusion, the Chinese people support the party and government to advance further reform (1991:134–5). Regardless of what they have said and done abroad, the remaining moderation among the exiled dissidents attests that most members of the opposition have not completely departed from their previous position. Instead, they expect “the first sign of change to be at the top of the central government’s hierarchy, when moderates replace hardliners,” anticipating “more fundamental reform” in post-Deng China (Kirkpatrick 1991:A22). In addition to their middle-of-road attitude, another problem with Chinese dissidents in inducing democracy in China is their inability to organize themselves into an opposition party for their goals. This failure of organizing a political party in pre-1989 China resulted in large part from the legacy of Mao’s totalitarian Leninist system that prohibited social organizations independent from the CCP, let alone opposition political parties. In the next section, I examine Mao’s totalitarian system and the institutional and


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philosophical consequences of such a system. WELL-ENTRENCHED TOTALITARIAN STATE SYSTEM IN MAOIST CHINA Scholars of Europe have attributed the Communist collapse in Eastern Europe to the emergence of civil society, which became an arena for political dissent in the 1970s. Civil society is said to bring political transition. “It is here that ideas and values inimical to the system of state and economy domination incubate and develop, and eventually lead to the creation of a new ‘historic bloc’ [blocco storico] which challenges the old ‘bloc’” (Pelczynski 1988:368). The historical events in Eastern Europe and the tragedy in Tiananmen Square have led to research on civil society in China. Many have tried to explain the contrasting outcome of the Tiananmen demonstration to the European events. Why did democratization succeed in Eastern Europe but not in China in 1989? Did there exist a civil society in China by the East European standards? A comparison between Maoist China and East European Communist states may help answer these questions. Leninist State System in Maoist China and Eastern Europe Like the Communist states in Eastern Europe, China under Mao was identified as a totalitarian Leninist state. For this reason, it is necessary to define the totalitarian regime. Totalitarian regimes in the Soviet bloc, according to Hague, Harrop, and Breslin, were…extreme forms of ideological dictatorship, in which the regime sought to control all aspects of life. Interest articulation by freely organised groups was inconceivable under totalitarianism. The communists re-constructed all group life, destroying opposition and harnessing all organisations as “transmission belts” for party policy. Trade unions, the media, youth groups, professional associations—all served the party in the great cause of communist construction (1992:227). In reality, this interpretation of the totalitarian regime is less relevant to the Communist states in Eastern Europe than Mao’s China because, with the exception of the Stalin era in Soviet history, the totality of state dominance over society was less developed in the Soviet bloc—some aspects of pluralism existed. “Particularly in Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia, and in a more limited way in the Soviet Union…distinct interests could be expressed under communist rule…independent groups did eventually emerge. In fact, they played an important role in challenging communist authority in Eastern Europe” (ibid.: 227–8). In Mao’s China, by contrast, “totalitarianism achieved its fullest expression in practice. The principle of the total state became a real way of life” (Zhang 1994:123). As illustrated by Kenneth Lieberthal: “Mao Zedong was a political leader of extraordinary daring” (1995:111). The system Mao created sought to isolate social groups as part of its strategy for limiting potential challenges from below. Numerous policies worked toward


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this end: peasants could not link up with urban groups; a system of residence registration prevented peasants from moving into cities…. Within cities, most residents after the Great Leap disaster were locked into their units, the places of employment or study assigned them by the party…. The intelligentsia, normally a bridge between various social groups… became especially isolated. The 1957 Antirightist campaign and the virulent antiintellectualism of the Cultural Revolution made members of the intelligentsia a despised, outcast group with no social standing…. Even within the governing bureaucracies, Mao utilized rectification campaigns and other methods to prevent power centers from developing. In the system he sought to create, administration would be decentralized and flexible while power would be highly centralized under his personal control (ibid.: 120– 1). This situation of totalitarian rule began to change in the late 1970s. However, the legacy of the Leninist political system persisted in post-Mao China, and as a result of such a legacy, autonomous social institutions were still not allowed under Deng Xiaoping. Deng, as many depict, “was authoritarian but not autocratic” (Shambaugh 2000:180). Deng was not an evil man, but the thought of “bourgeois democracy” frightened him. He saw in it Kerensky firing on the workers of Moscow and Chiang Kaishek and his family amassing a private fortune while brutalizing his troops and their families. He saw in it disorder and class divisions, and he had just lived through the anarchy and near civil war generated by the Cultural Revolution. Deng, more than any leader since early days of 1948, was committed to the reestablishment of order in China (Glassman 1991:48–9). “Returned to power a second time in 1978, he was in no mood for further political experiments; his goal was to improve the lives of the Chinese people” (Kissinger 1997:43). For that reason, Deng ordered the suppression of the Democracy Wall movement of 1978. He decided in 1985 to launch the campaign against “bourgeois liberalization” and ordered the suppression of the student unrest in 1986. Deng argued: Those exponents of bourgeois liberalization who have violated state law must be dealt with severely. Because what they are doing is, precisely, “speaking out freely, airing their views fully, putting up big-character posters” and producing illegal publications—all of which only creates unrest and brings back the practices of the “cultural revolution”. We must keep this evil trend in check (1994:129). As a result, although China under Deng was no longer a totalitarian polity, organizing independent social institutions was virtually impossible. The landscape of civil society remained flat prior to 1989. Compared with Maoist China, East European Communist states were semi-totalitarian polities where “there remained free and uncontrolled areas in the private sphere from which citizen dissent arose” (Radojković 1995:21). The less-entrenched totalitarianism in


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Eastern Europe may be attributed to the absence of Stalinist political leaders like Mao. As Lieberthal posits: “Mao’s own character was central to this latest upheaval, because without his actions the Cultural Revolution would not have occurred. Put differently, there was nothing inherent in the PRC system of governance that would have led to the Cultural Revolution had not Mao guided the system in this direction” (1995:111). Moreover, while Communist rule, by and large, was imposed on Eastern Europe by the Soviets, it was chosen by the Chinese Communists as a solution to their country’s problems. Presumably, therefore, political leaders in Eastern Europe were less determined to commit themselves to Stalin-style of rule than Mao was, which prevented totalitarianism from achieving full expression in practice. Thus, the most crucial factor that differentiated the East European Communist states from Maoist China was the extent to which totalitarianism had developed. While the East European Communist states were semi-totalitarian, China under Mao was an over-entrenched totalitarian polity. This totalitarian system had both institutional and philosophical consequences, and both consequences had tremendous impact on the 1980s generation of democratic elite and the Tiananmen movement (i.e., the Leninist institutional legacy hypothesis). The Institutional Consequence of Mao’s Totalitarian State System The institutional consequence of Mao’s totalitarian system was the absence of civil society resulting from individuals’ inability to organize autonomous social institutions. Without organized independent social groups, the Tiananmen uprising occurred as a noninstitutionalized, spontaneous mass protest movement that was bound to be chaotic and self-destructive. This absence of civil society can be identified by comparing the factors that constituted East European civil society with those in pre-1989 China. The concept of civil society can mean a variety of things and has inspired a wide range of interpretations and definitions. For my purposes, I follow the definition given by Thomas Gold. Gold refers to civil society as “a whole range of social groups that seek to operate independently of the state and the communist party, such as private business enterprises, labor unions, trade or professional associations, religious bodies, student organizations, artistic or intellectual groupings, and publications” (1990:20). This definition allows me to compare a variety of factors in Eastern Europe with those in China—the social groups in Poland, samizdat in Czechoslovakia, and the private entrepreneurial class in Hungary—to show the absence of a Chinese civil society by the European standards. Social Organizations in Poland The Communist elite in Poland is said to have “never been able to come down on the side of either totalitarianism or paternalism.” The regime “to some extent [gave] way to the pressures from society,” and the country was “the freest” in the Soviet bloc in the late 1950s and early 1960s (Vajda 1988:352). As a result, small-scale land ownership in rural Poland survived Stalinism. The Roman Catholic Church, recovering its autonomy in the mid-1950s, “acted as an independent body in social, cultural and religious matters and, on select issues, even as a political opposition.” There also emerged many intellectual


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groups, which published samizdat books and periodicals and organized academic seminars and sometimes discussions with the workers. In the early 1980s, Solidarity arose and, with the support of the Church, accelerated the collapse of the Communist state (Pelczynski 1988:366–8). Similar social organizations also existed in other East European Communist countries. In Czechoslovakia, for example, there were more than 10,000 strike committees. Many people registered as members of Civil Forum (Radojković 1995). Thus, in Poland, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, the union, the Church, and the intellectual groups gathering in journals, universities, clubs, and concert halls were “the focal points of a collective uprising which, in a few months, brought dreadful colossi crashing to the ground” (Ardigó 1995:170). In the Chinese case, churches have played an insignificant role in the society since the liberation in 1949. During the Cultural Revolution, churches and temples were shut down as the remants ants of capitalism and feudalism. Communist ideology became the sole “religion” to be practiced by the state and the entire society: family, school, the media, and so on. In post-Mao China, although the government recognizes various religious beliefs, officially recognized religions remain passive, and religious practices that are perceived by the leadership as a political threat are banned. Also in the Chinese case, mass organizations—the Federation of Trade Unions, the Communist Youth League, and the Women’s Federation—are officially organized, playing a supporting, not a competing, role for the Party. Professional organizations are also officially organized. Among them, groups that are mostly outspoken—the associations of writes, journalists, and scientists—are categorized as party organizations, rather than state organizations, under the direct control of the Party Central Committee. Even the National Association of Individual Entrepreneurs is organized by the government and under the supervision of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce. One example of independent organizations often cited in the literature is the independent think tank, the Beijing Social and Economic Research Institute (SERI). The SERI was organized by democratic activists Wang Jun-tao and Chen Ziming in the late 1980s and was shut down by the government after Tiananmen. The SERI organized seminars and published Economics Weekly centered around the subject of political reform. Members of the SERI joined the 1989 demonstration in the later stages and tried to form an alliance among reformers, students, and workers. Despite its attachment to the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Association (an official organization), the SERI was independent from the authority. However, only a couple of this sort of intellectual groups existed at the time of the Tiananmen events.3 To claim that they represented the emergence of civil society would be an exaggeration. Moreover, the SERI did not seek to overthrow party rule or engage in direct confrontation with the government. Its organizers and the intellectuals associated with them “did not want to do anything that would provoke the leadership’s retaliation and put an end to their independent activities” (Goldman 1999:301). Wang Juntao, for example, declined to sign the May Seventeenth Manifesto drafted by some leading intellectuals during the Tiananmen events, which called for Deng Xiaoping and Li Peng to step down (Goldman 1994). Like most of the Chinese democratic elites and activists, members of the SERI consumed their energy in trying to persuade the Party to reform


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itself, “rather than overthrowing it through the creation of a parallel polis. This strategy was in keeping with the Confucian tradition that intellectuals should serve the state, and Communist practice that reinforced their subordinate position” (Frolic 1997:51). (Frolic’s point supports both my first and second hypotheses). Another example of independent organizations cited in the literature is the student organizations in Tiananmen Square. This appearance of nu-merous student organizations is claimed to be “an undeniable watershed” of civil society (He 1997:27). Such a claim, however, seems to have overlooked the situation in which these groups were formed. What happened during the 1989 uprising, as Josephine Khu observes, was that the Beijing student union that led the movement “did not set out to be anything more than a temporary policy-making and coordinating body.” The rise of the Tiananmen Square Unified Action Headquarters was a potentially destabilizing element in the student movement. Had it not been for the fact that the leaders of the Beijing federation and the headquarters were in general accord, the existence of the group could have led to the emergence of a serious rival faction. In the end, the differing aims of the Beijing and nonBeijing students were a crucial factor in undermining the unity of the student movement and in changing its direction (1993:170). Late in May, about 80 percent of the demonstrators in Tiananmen Square were nonBeijing students. These students, as described by student leader Shen Tong of Beijing University, “didn’t have an understanding of and perspective on the whole movement” and had “no place to go, no plans at all” (1990:303, 307). But they were “reluctant to leave Beijing without achieving something.” They formed 168 “self-claimed” groups, and all wished to “command the square” (Khu 1993:169–70). Shen Tong commented: Every few minutes someone else came up to us and said he represented the hunger strikers, and at some point a number of these people called another joint conference with the Dialogue Delegation and the federation (1990:276). There were so many of us, so many groups, often going off in different directions, that the government couldn’t possibly have been sure what we were asking for and who was asking for it (ibid.: 228). The chaotic situation demonstrated that, unlike the events in Eastern Europe that were “an evolutionary outcome of the emergence of civil society during the preceding decade” (Wank 1995:56), the Tiananmen uprising was largely a non-institutionalized, spontaneous mass protest movement. It illustrated an observation of this kind of movements made by Anthony Oberschall: “If one puts broad social movements and revolutions under the microscope, one will often observe a loose structure. Hundreds of groups and organizations—many of them short-lived, spatially scattered, and lacking direct communication, a single organization and a common leadership” (1980:45–6). Samizdat in Czechoslovakia Another notable aspect of civil society in Eastern Europe is the rise of a system for the


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illegal (unofficial) circulation of various publications—literary, historical, sociological, and political. The Czechoslovakian samizdat illus-trates this system and how the system served to promote the growth of civil society. Data shown in a study on the Czechoslovakian samizdat by Miloslav Petrusek are impressive. Between 1969 and 1989, the circulation of samizdat included more than 80 journals and periodicals. Twenty percent of the population had some contact with samizdat, and 5 percent participated in the production network of samizdat publications. Because it had been “an organic part of Czechoslovakian social and spiritual life for the past 20 years,” Petrusek stated that samizdat had been “a factor in social change and that it made a decisive contribution to the passage from totalitarianism to democracy” (1995:73–4). “The enormous significance of samizdat,” according to Petrusek, is that “it was really independent,” as “it was subject neither to the pressures of political censorship nor to those of the free market” (ibid.: 75). An important feature of samizdat was the “dissident ghetto.” The samizdat texts, particularly those produced by dissidents, discussed a variety of important topics prohibited by the state and Communist ideology. “At times, the debate became extremely heated, but it was always, of course, confined to the social network of the persons involved.” In terms of its social impact, therefore, samizdat “had a substantial and long-lasting effect on a relatively small section of society: the intellectuals” (ibid.: 79–80). This social impact was critical, because it was the intellectuals “who first attained their individual identity and subsequently became the seeds” of civil society (Radojković 1995:24). No samizdat or a similar system for unofficial publications arose in China in the late 1980s. Although scholars have tried to identify autonomous cultural organizations or independent publications after Tiananmen, such organizations and publications were rare and were quite different from those in Eastern Europe. A commonly cited example of independent publications in pre-1989 China is the World Economic Herald, which was created by some party intellectuals in 1980 and was closed down by the government in 1989. According to James and Ann Tyson, who wrote a story on the Herald, the paper was “neither funded nor directly controlled by the state” and thus was relatively independent (1995:269). Despite the “unique status” that allowed it to enjoy “far greater editorial leeway” than the official press, however, the Herald was hardly unofficial. It fell under the World Economic Research Institute at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and the China World Economics Society in Beijing, and its publication was permitted by the Department of Propaganda of Shanghai Party Committee. Qin Benli, the chief-editor, was deputy director of the World Economic Research Institute. As a party official, his appointment and removal were subject to the decisions of the Shanghai Party Committee, and he was removed by that committee in 1989. Moreover, according to Tyson and Tyson, the Herald had many patrons in Beijing. Its “most influential backer” was Qian Junrui, head of the China World Economics Society, who became the Herald’s publisher. Qian was a former secretary of Premier Zhou Enlai and was also close to Party Secretary Hu Yaobang and Premier Zhao Ziyang at the time. Besides Qian, the Herald received patronage “from a broad range of the party’s powerful” (ibid.: 269) When, for example, the Shanghai Party authority decided in February 1987 to fire Qin for violating party discipline, Zhao Ziyang, then party secretary, “intervened and allowed Qin to stay.” In May of that year, one of Zhao’s


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secretaries sent the Herald a message: Zhao would “protect the Herald, but the Herald must support [him] politically” (ibid.: 273–4). In terms of dissent, the Herald did not attempt to challenge party rule or to develop an independent civil society. Instead, it “fulfilled Qin’s mission of ‘playing a critical role at a critical time’ by printing reports that swayed the leadership in favor of faster, more profound reforms” (ibid.: 270). The paper had “a valuable channel to the top leadership”—its internal report (neican) was sent directly to Deng and other party leaders. “Like many elderly intellectuals, Qin had been reared on the Confucian doctrine that a man should submit to his ruler for the sake of social harmony” (ibid.: 270–1). As a party official, he deemed Zhao Ziyang as “the best hope for reforming the Communist Party. Pragmatically, he estimated that Zhao’s support was worth the awkward compromises” (ibid.: 274). (This again supports my first hypothesis). Private Entrepreneurial Class in Hungary The growth of civil society in Hungary is said to have followed an economic course. It was the revival of private business that gave individuals autonomy from state control. “Hungarian economic thinking (by no means confined to the democratic opposition) identifies the economy with society and calls for its independence from the Party-state.” The Hungarians demanded an autonomous economic sphere, and the Hungarian economy prior to 1989 moved toward a direction that was more and more independent of state control (Rupnik 1988:285). The Hungarian case shows that private enterprise can be a force for political transition “by horizontally integrating civil society, empowering it visà-vis the state” (Wank 1995:60). The causal logic is that “it is the articulation of economic interests and their diffusion in society (but not only these) that provide society with an important stimulus for self-organization” (Zotti 1995:150). At first glance, it seems possible for an economic civil society to exist in China. China in the 1980s “was widely held to be at the forefront of the wave of liberalization sweeping the communist world. China’s emerging market economy was second to none in the communist world” (Wank 1995:57). Millions of people have become private businessmen or employees in the private sector since the reforms took off. The growth of private sector has created a fast growing entrepreneurial class. However, unlike those in Eastern Europe, Chinese private entrepreneurs have rarely partici-pated in the political process. They made only a limited appearance during the Tiananmen events, and they remain politically inactive in the beginning of the new century. I will return to this point and discuss it in detail in chapter 5. In sum, civil society in Eastern Europe consisted of a broad range of social groups, including labor unions, churches, professional organizations, unofficial publications, and private business classes. Compared with these social institutions, China prior to 1989 did not possibly develop a civil society according to European standards because individuals, including the democratic elites, were unable to organize autonomous social groups essential for a civil society to emerge. Nor did the Tiananmen uprising by any means represent the existence of civil society that would wipe out Communist rule and bring democracy into being. Rather, the uprising was a non-institutionalized, spontaneous mass protest movement that became chaotic and self-destructive. As Khu asserts: “In view of


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the disunity and disorganization in the student movement, it seems that the guns of June 4 were unnecessary to break up the student movement. It was already in such disarray that it would have collapsed of its own weight” (1993:171). The Philosophical Consequence of Mao’s Totalitarian State System In addition to its institutional consequence, Mao’s well-entrenched totalitarian system also had a philosophical consequence. It isolated China from the West and constrained the Chinese public, including the intellectuals, from exposing to Western democracies to develop a liberal democratic view. In the East European case, an indispensable factor that helped the growth of civil society under Communist rule was “the role of the European Community as an object of admiration and imitation” (Zotti 1995:155). The presence of the West and the role it could play helped sustain and accelerate the process by which the East European civil society emerged. As a result, while this process took the West a “decades-long period” to develop, it took much less time in Eastern Europe (ibid.: 146). Moreover, the presence of the West helped legitimatize the emergence of civil society in Eastern Europe. As Oleg Yanitsky observes, prior to 1989 a wide range of social movements took place in Eastern Europe, among which modern movements such as ecological movements were identical with those in the West. The ecological problems shared by the East and the West and the contacts between the two sides provoked “attempts to ‘impose’ one or another of the concepts of ecological (environmental) movement developed by Western sociologists in the East European context” (1995:193). Because environmental issues were the most professional, science-based, and international, the shared ecological movements by the East and the West allowed the two sides to exchange information and take joint action. Such movements, because they were “not a rigid or politicized ideology but one that actually [united] the most varied of people,” helped create the East European civil society by legitimating its emergence (ibid.: 197). Compared with its influence in Eastern Europe, the West played little role in Maoist China. Particularly during the Cultural Revolution, the West could hardly have a presence in Chinese society, except for being condemned by the official media. In those days, nonofficial contacts with the outside world were prohibited, and receiving foreign radio broadcasts was risky. Most of those who returned to China from overseas after the liberation or had families and relatives in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or abroad suffered from such political disadvantages. Many of them were branded and attacked as U.S.-Taiwan special agents, USSR spies, or elements having illicit relations with a foreign country. With little influence from the West, the Chinese public, including the intellectual elite, was “immune” from Western values and ideas to develop a liberal democratic view. As a result, although members of the democratic elite embraced Western democracy with enthusiasm after China opened to the outside world, their understanding of democracy was based on Chinese perceptions. According to these perceptions, the educated elite should govern even in a democracy (Goldman 1994; Kelliher 1993; Nathan 1997; Schell 1991). Moreover, the modern movements similar to those in the West did not take place in China, and thus the linkages between China and the West that would legit-imatize the formulation of societal organizations did not have a chance to develop.


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It should also be pointed out that, in the modern European movements, “True ecologists perceive themselves as a brotherhood, as a community united by shared (ecological) values and a common way of life” (Yanitsky 1995:196). This perception of brotherhood or community united by shared values did not grow in Chinese society, as evident by the splits among the student groups and the absence of elite-mass alliances during the Tiananmen events. Thus, Mao’s once-entrenched totalitarian system also had a tremendous philosophical impact on the 1980s generation of democratic elite and the Tiananmen movement. The lack of an understanding of liberal democracy led the democratic elites to strong beliefs in elitism and negative attitudes toward the mass majority. Without a perception of brotherhood united by shared values, the educated elites split among themselves and refused to ally with the less educated majority in the Beijing Spring of 1989 (Kelliher 1993; Khu 1993; Tyson and Tyson 1995). Such elitist mentality was further reinforced by China’s reality as a less developed country. The democratic elites found the less-educated mass majority unaware of democracy and politically apathetic and thus concluded that the masses could not be counted on for building democracy in China (Kelliher 1993; Kraus 1989). THE DEMOCRATIC ELITE AND THE TIANANMEN MOVEMENT Theorists of democratic transition indicate that although an opposition-induced transition usually begins with intellectuals’ action, it is the collective action of the general public that poses the “greatest challenge” to authoritarian rule (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986). For a protest movement to evolve into a democratic movement, the gap between educated elite and mass protesting groups “must be overcome.” Intellectuals, who lead the movement, “must adopt a conception of democracy” that ensures the principle of rule by the people and unite diverse groups of people in a compact for democracy, regardless of their social status and education level (Kelliher 1993:379–80). In this respect, the strong beliefs in elitism and the negative attitudes toward mass populace were fatal weaknesses of the 1980s generation of democratic elites. These weaknesses led them to pursue elite democracy, as opposed to mass democracy, and prevented them from allying with the less educated majority and from leading the 1989 movement in a democratic direction (ibid.). A Democratic Movement? The conventional liberal view sees the Tiananmen uprising as a democratic movement, a struggle against dictatorship for democracy. Several China observers, however, have questioned this view. Daniel Benjamin, for example, observed that At the heart of the Tiananmen spectacle were some troubling questions: What exactly did the hunger strikers and their supporters want? Did they even know? …. Democracy, the rallying cry of the demonstrators, is an ambiguous word. For some of the protesters, who have no experience and little knowledge of democratic practices in other countries, democracy meant the opposite of


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everything associated with Communist Party rule (1989:44). Richard Madsen argued that “they [the protesters] did not want just what we [the Americans] have. Indeed, many of them were not at all clear about what they wanted” (1995:17). The Tiananmen movement, as Daniel Kelliher defined it, was really a “protest movement”—“a broad-based protest with the potential to crystallize into a conscious effort at democratic change” (1993:379). For Kelliher, “However heartrending and inspiring the Chinese protests may have been, they never quite evolved into a democracy movement.” The Chinese failed to achieve two “basic conditions for transforming a protest movement into a push for democracy.” The first condition was for the intellectuals, who led the movement, to “commit themselves to an inclusive conception of democracy.” The second was for them to “join with other citizens in an elite-mass alliance for democracy” (ibid.: 390–91). Instead of an inclusive conception of democracy, the “students were attracted to a rights-based conception of democracy that could combat restrictions on both their personal liberty and their freedom of expression as intellectuals.” The goal of the Tiananmen movement was, in essence, liberalization rather than democratization (ibid.: 381–2). Albeit calling for democracy, members of the “opposition” in the late 1980s actually aimed at liberalization by demanding individual freedom and rights. This rights-based conception of democracy resulted from their belief that human rights had not been recognized in China and that it was about time to change. “In China, no one has ever valued the individual—‘a human life isn’t worth a cent.’ In China, no one has ever heeded the groans of the common people. It’s about time, my fellow Chinese! We do not want to live our lives in this manner any more!”4 Rather than defining democracy as a principle of rule by the people, the students interpreted democracy as “a concrete way of conducting your life. It means that you can choose your own path in life.”5 They hoped the promotion of personal liberty would free them from official domination through such institutions as the fenpei (job assignment) system that prevented university graduates from choosing jobs on their own (Kelliher 1993), and the hukou (residence) system that bound people to their birth place (Selden 1993). Moreover, the students stressed their freedom and rights as intellectuals, such as the rights to express ideas and write books. For example, student leader Wang Dan of Beijing University argued in On Freedom of Speech of the Opposition about “the right to advance new thinking and express new ideas” (1989– 90:145). The focus on intellectual rights was more obvious in the words of some democratic elites. Fang Lizhi’s most consistent claim in the 1980s was intellectual freedom and independence. Intellectuals “should be independent and free” (1991:211). “The emergence and development of new theories necessitate creating an atmosphere of democracy and freedom in the university, an atmosphere promoting the cultivation of intellectual ideology” (Fang and Dai 1986:17). For Yan Jiaqi, “the question of how to build a highly democratic socialist political system is both political and academic. Without full academic freedom, there will not be the study and investigation of what is politically highly democratic, let alone the actual construction of high levels of democracy in the political sphere” (1991:39). Whereas liberalization was the focus of the Tiananmen movement, few calls for


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democratization were heard. Although some students, who had better understanding of democracy, appealed for free elections, checks and balances, or a multiparty system, they addressed these issues in an abstract way. On the whole, the “protest movement never embraced” a liberal democracy conception (Kelliher 1993:382, 384; Selden 1993). Decrying this omission, Liu Xiaobo, a young radical intellectual, lamented the Chinese people’s struggle for an “empty democracy:” In the last hundred years, the great majority of the Chinese people’s struggles for democracy has remained at the level of ideological battles and slogan shouting. Enlightenment is much talked about, but little is said about the actual running of a democracy. Goals are discussed, but not the means, the procedures, or process through which they will be achieved (Liu et al. 1990:352–3). A Restricted Democracy and an Economic Explanation The educated elites’ “narrow conception of democracy,” Kelliher indicated, was a consequence of China’s lack of an “indigenous democratic tradition” and “limited exposure to foreign ideas of democracy” (1993:386). China never had a democratic tradition. Although Chinese intellectuals began to learn democratic ideas early in the twentieth century, they had rarely experienced genuine democracy before the 1980s. Deng Xiaoping’s open-door policy enabled the intellectuals to explore the West, but in a ten years’ period their exposure to Western democracies was only limited. By the late 1980s, members of the democratic elite did not have a clear vision of democracy as rule by the people. “In defining democracy…they plunged their newly acquired foreign theories into a much stronger current of ideas from their own experience and political culture.” Having experienced the Anti-rightist Campaign and the Cultural Revolution, which they believed had forced intellectuals to the lowest level and held China backward, the democratic elites believed that these calamities could only be prevented from reoccurring by instituting a democratic system. Moreover, being the group that had searched alone for democracy for decades, the educated elites “believed that they were the only force capable of bringing democratic change to China.” “Democracy needed them,” and so did China (ibid.: 384–5). Chinese history did not create a bourgeoisie for the Chinese people which could hasten the victory of science and democracy; Chinese culture did not nurture a sense of citizenship. On the contrary, it taught a subject mentality. A subject mentality can only produce obedient people who meekly submit to oppression on the one hand and madmen who act recklessly on the other. But History did give the Chinese people an entirely unique group: its intellectuals. …. It is they who can conduct a direct dialogue with “sea-faring” civilization; It is they who can channel the “blue” sweetwater spring of science and democracy onto our yellow earth! (Su et al. 1991:217–8) My mission for China is “democratization,” Fang Lizhi vowed in 1987. “Without democracy there can be no development” (1991:207). “Now is the time for them [the


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intellectuals] to show their strength. Nobody should be intimidated. That is democracy. If we fail to achieve this, China will hardly become a truly developed, modern country” (ibid.: 211). “Having placed themselves at the center of democracy,” Kelliher noted, “many intellectuals were reluctant to admit other groups inside the circle.” They viewed the idea of mass democracy as “idealistic folly” and “democratic romanticism,” saying that peasants in China did not have sufficient education to understand democratic theories and thus were unable to practice democracy (1993:385). Fang Lizhi’s statement summed up this view (1987a): You can go travel in the villages and look around; I feel those uneducated peasants, living under traditional influence, have a psychological consciousness that is very deficient. It is very difficult to instill a democratic consciousness in them; they still demand an honest and upright official; without an official they are uncomfortable (in Kraus 1989:298). For the educated elites, democratic practice (i.e., free elections) among Chinese peasantry was a two-fold problem. In one, illiterate peasants, who accounted for approximately one-third of Chinese adults, “could not possibly understand democracy” and “would cast their votes blindly.” This would lead to “random, meaningless” election outcomes. In the other, if peasants voted in a concerted way and succeeded in putting their own candidates in office, “no political opposition would be able to compete with them” (Kelliher 1994:390). Thus, the “dilemma” confronting the intellectuals, noted Richard Kraus, was how to create elite democracy that would strengthen their influence over the government, while avoiding mass democracy that would empower the rural majority to outvote the educated elite (1989:299). The solution? “A restricted democracy.” Of course, we do not expect to achieve a perfect and beautiful democratic society at once The dictatorship of thousands of years, particularly that of the last several decades, has made most people unable to adjust quickly to a democratic society. But this is no excuse for not having a democracy. Certainly, at least urban citizens, intellectuals, and Communist Party members are as ready for democracy as any of the citizens who already live in democratic societies.6 For the time being, according to the educated elites, China’s democracy was to exclude the large majority of peasantry. For many Western liberals, Chinese intellectuals’ pursuit of “democracy without the demos” was due largely and primarily to their lack of an overall liberal democratic view (Nathan 1997). They say that like many third world intellectuals, Chinese intellectuals’ “eyes were trained on New York, Paris, and perhaps to some extent, the Moscow of Gorbachev and perestroika and certainly not on China’s hinterland” (Selden 1993:124– 5). It is true that for many within the educated elite, especially university students “who avidly tuned in the Voice of America and looked to the West for new ideas, foreign nations were less remote than the Chinese countryside” (Kel-liher 1993:388). It is also true, however, that no matter how far away from China’s hinterland, the educated elites were less remote to rural China than most Westerners. To be fair, however startling to


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Western liberals, the intellectual elites did not exaggerate China’s reality as a country of poor people. Rather, they were further constrained by this reality from developing a liberal democratic outlook. In this regard, China’s reality as a less developed country provides an economic explanation for the democratic elites’ elitist mentality and their advocacy of an elite democracy (i.e., the economic development imperative hypothesis). A Chinese journalist may tell us countless stories like the following: In the hillside in China, a journalist sees a fangniuwa (boy who pastures cattle) pasturing cattle. The journalist asks the boy why he does not go to school, the boy says he has to pasture cattle for his family. After the boy tells the journalist his father pastured cattle for a living, and so did his grandfather, the conversation goes on: “What are you going to do when you grow up?” “Jiehun (getting married).” “Getting married for what?” “Yangwa (rearing children).” “Rearing children for what?” “Fangniu (pasturing cattle).” For the fangniuwa and his early generations, the cattle matters, but the state does not. They accept whichever leaders the system brings, having no desire to choose them. They have little or no education. They do not know about democracy, nor do they care about it. All they know and care about is raising cattle because that is all they have for survival, because “how can people appreciate democracy on empty stomachs?” (Gibney 1992:196) It is not an exaggeration to say that Chinese peasants do not have sufficient education and other necessary means to develop democratic knowledge and conduct, consciously, democratic elections for state leaders. However, they are not themselves to be blamed. We cannot blame them for not knowing democracy, nor can we expect them to practice it. We cannot expect people to know and do something that has to be learned, but they have never had a chance to learn. Democracy has to be learned. It has to be learned in some certain ways. Whether China’s less-educated mass peasantry is ready to practice democracy and whether China as a LDC is ready for a transition to democracy will be discussed in chapter 4 and chapter 6. The problem with the democratic elites, as Kelliher observed, is that their beliefs in elitism led to both a “philosophical consequence” (i.e., a rights-based conception of democracy) and a “practical consequence” (i.e., the inability of the 1989 movement to form an elite-mass alliance for democracy) (1993:386). One may argue, as did some democratic elites, that liberalization comes before democratization: “without the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, and the freedom of publications, there is no democracy to speak of” (Yan 1991:152). The “proper strategic move” is to struggle for human rights first, then for democracy (Ding Chu 1989, in Kelliher 1993:381). No one can deny that democratization is preceded by liberalization (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986). However, neither can one deny that forces which join together to seek democracy must not only dismantle the old regime but must create simultaneously conditions that would favor them in the newly established political system. Hence each group must struggle on two fronts: to abolish the old authoritarian regime and to create conditions that would be most conducive to the realization of its interests in the future conflicts against its current allies (Przeworski 1988:63).


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In this regard, the strong beliefs in elitism and the negative attitudes toward the mass majority were for the democratic elites fatal weaknesses, which put in doubt their willingness and ability to establish genuine democracy in China. The “Democratic” Elite While embracing Western democracy with enthusiasm, the democratic elites’ outlook on democracy was “an all-too-Chinese view” (Schell 1991). This view held: “those who governed, even in a democracy, should belong to an educated elite” (Goldman 1994:2). The democracy they sought was actually what may be called an “intellectual oligarchy” (Kelliher 1993). The democratic elites’ emphasis on intelligentsia comprised three components. First, they claimed intellectuals’ position of leadership. Intellectuals are an “independent stratum occupying a leading place” (Fang 1987a, in Kraus 1989:299). “The only hope for the resurgence of the Chinese nation lies in the few millions of intellectuals.”7 “A guiding group must be established, a group unique in the world, comprising specialists and scholars. This group should be completely free of political prejudice, and science should be the standard by which the policies they formulate are judged. As soon as they issue a policy, it should undergo repeated scientific testing and proving by specialists and scholars.”8 Second, the educated elite prioritized intellectual status, rights, and interests. “Intellectuals, who own and create information and knowledge, are the most dynamic component of the productive forces, this is what determines their social status” (Fang and Dai 1986:17). “If someone wants to argue seriously about which class should occupy the first rank, I’ll give them an argument…. I say intellectuals should be put at the top” (Fang 1991:109–11). Chinese intellectuals, like any others, have the right to explore such questions as they see fit within their own professional spheres; they have the right to think freely about any social or political issue that they feel demands consideration; and they have the right to challenge any belief that they find dubious, no matter how sacrosanct (ibid.: xivi–xivii). Under economic conditions that preclude large-scale literacy campaigns, there is only one road to the preservation of civilization: first, the pay scale of all intellectuals employed by the government, from assistant professors to full professors, must be raised so that monthly salaries fall between 500 yuan [sic] (the amount sufficient to maintain a family of three) and 7,000 yuan (the international standard for a research assistant).9 Third, the educated elite regarded intellectual interests as the interests of Chinese people. “Because the new guiding group would be composed exclusively of intellectuals, it would naturally place great emphasis on education and the rule of law, and therefore would undoubtedly receive the support of the Chinese people.”10 The nature of the intelligentsia, its status in the working class and its role in the drive for modernization should be fully and accurately affirmed in China’s constitution and law, thereby creating an atmosphere where knowledge and


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talent are truly respected. This is where the interests of the working class and the Chinese nation lie (Ni 1986:18). The virtually exclusive emphasis on intellectual leadership, status, rights, and interests made the 1980s generation of democratic elites sound undemocratic but self-serving. “I am determined to create intellectual and academic freedom—this will be my top priority” Fang Lizhi claimed (1991:xxii). Such elitist mentality has led to some criticisms, raising doubt about the democratic elites’ sincerity about democracy. Richard Kraus, for example, depicted Fang Lizhi as “less an advocate for democracy than a spokesman for a group of intellectuals who are resentful that they do not have greater privileges in China today” (1989:295). Xiaoxing Han criticized that “those intellectuals who are not sensitive to the interests and demands of a less educated majority are actually not all that insightful and not all that democratic either” (1993:231). Edward Gunn also questioned that “why should Chinese intellectuals needing a strong voice have presented themselves as a selfselecting group so preoccupied with the rhetoric of polemical refutations that they also seem openly self-serving and privileged?” (1993:256) During the Tiananmen events, one of the messages that the workers sent to the students was “do not emphasize the treatment of intellectuals and the budget for higher education, and do not demand impractical democratic change; for this will alienate the workers and farmers” (Letter to the Students, see Yu and Harrison 1990:110). During my recent research in China, a number of my interviewees (five officials and four scholars) argued that things would be even worse if the democratic elites were able to replace the Party for leadership, because there would be more dictatorship and less political freedom in China. “The June 4 democratic activists were not really democratic,” one central government official remarked. “They would be more dictatorial, if they came to power. There would be no democracy in China for sure” (interview in Beijing, June 22, 2000) (see next section for more discussion). In discussing transition from authoritarian rule to democracy, Przeworski warned that democratization is not only about how to dismantle the authoritarian regime, but also about how to establish a new democratic system. One must not forget that forces which join together to destroy a particular authoritarian regime often represent specific interests and offer distinct plans for the society…. The problem of democratization, therefore, is to establish a compromise among the forces which are allied to bring down the authoritarian regime, not only to bring this regime down. Otherwise, the “anti-authoritarian alliance” quickly enters a second phase during which the weaker members are purged and a new authoritarian system is established (1988:63–4). This gives rise to the question: If the 1989 movement had succeeded, would it be possible for those, who saw themselves at the top of the society and prioritized their interests as intellectuals, to compromise with the less educated majority and establish a genuine democratic polity? The Elite-Mass Cleavage It may have been unnecessary to make the above point, because there was no “anti-


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authoritarian alliance” between the educated elite and any other social groups in the 1989 upsurge. Self-image and self-respect separated the educated elite from the less-educated majority, the elites refused to ally with other protesters and kept “democracy safe from the masses.” The practical consequence of such elitism was the failure to create an elitemass alliance for a real democratic movement (Kelliher 1993:379). During the demonstrations, the bureaucracy and the military were with the party leadership. The peasantry was rarely seen, except for the rallies organized by the authority to counter the movement. The fledgling private entrepreneurial groups had very limited appearance in the scene. Their virtual absence may be explained as due to their insignificant role in China’s political process. Because the make-ups of the urban entrepreneurial groups prior to 1989 were small business operations, they had been “largely excluded” from political participation (Pei 1994). The only major social group that organized itself to join the student movement was workers. On the surface, students and workers seemed to have worked together. In fact, the students had never accepted and treated the workers as equal partners. They looked down on the workers, showing doubts that workers were knowledgeable of democracy and fit to participate in their movement (Selden 1993; Tyson and Tyson 1995). Student leader Wang Dan, for example, stated that “the movement is not ready for worker participation because the principles of democracy must first be absorbed by students and intellectuals before they can be spread to others” (New York Times June 3, 1989). In The Railway Worker, a story of Han Dongfang, China’s only internationally known worker dissident in the 1989 movement, James and Ann Tyson wrote: Over several weeks he urged students to rent trucks, acquire loudspeakers and megaphones, and drive to the neighborhoods and factories in Beijing. He told them that they would never bring lasting change unless they broadened the base of the demonstrations by rousing workers. But the students disregarded Han, showing the deeply rooted bias against workers in Chinese society. During the 1989 Beijing Spring, student leaders often excluded Han and other labor leaders from meetings and rallies or assigned them to a subordinate role. For weeks they barred Han, other activists, and common Chinese from the monument by organizing students to stand arm in arm in concentric rings around the site. While talking of democratic reform, the student leaders perpetuated the ancient hostility of the scholarofficial toward members of the working class. Like many Chinese, students believed that workers like Han could not offer any useful ideas. They viewed workers with a mixture of distrust and fear. They saw labor as a wild force bent on violent revolution and sure to provoke the party into a brutal backlash. Finally, student leaders spurned workers because as they defied the world’s largest Communist Party, they wanted the limelight and power all to themselves, Han said (1995:216). It may be true that some individual dissidents have developed a better understanding of liberal democracy and have become more willing to join with the less-educated majority for building democracy in China, after living in the United States for some years. Yet to


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call for democracy is one thing; to carry it into practice is quite another. As a group, the exiled opposition does not seem to have developed the credentials to promote democracy back home due to two factors: its inability to form an opposition party and its isolation from the Chinese people. THE CHINESE DISSIDENT MOVEMENT ABROAD A Dilemma The Chinese overseas dissident movement became visible in 1989 when a group of the intellectual and student dissidents fled to the West after the June 4 crackdown. Over the past decade, instead of succeeding in promoting democracy in China, the movement has generated little influence on events in the country. This inability to reach into China to foster democracy there is natural, because “domestic factors play a predominant role in the transition” (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986:19). Taking place in an adopted country (i.e., the United States), it is only natural that the exiled dissident movement is “doomed to irrelevance” (Goldstein 1994a). Two vital factors have contributed to the irrelevance of the dissident movement. First, the dissidents have been unable to develop a cohesive or-ganization and a common strategy for their goals. Second, they have lost ground in their homeland, as they are forgotten by a majority of Chinese people and despised by their intellectual colleagues. These two problems result in large part from the dissidents’ dependency on international forces and Taiwan for moral and financial support. Such dependency has led the dissidents to compete among themselves for influence and for money, which has obstructed the dissidents from uniting into an opposition party (Goldstein 1994a, 1994c). Such dependency has also led the dissidents to play a damaging role in U.S.-China relations, which has alienated the dissidents from the Chinese people. After Tiananmen, many intellectual and student dissidents who fled to the United States were granted fellowships at the most prestigious universities. Fang Lizhi, for example, was offered financial support by both the Federation of American Scientists and U.C.Berkeley when he was still taking refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing (Science June 23, 1989). For a couple of years, reported Carl Goldstein of the Far Eastern Economic Review, the Tiananmen student leaders “were showered with money from well-wishers.” Various foundations “vied” to issue funds to the dissident groups. The U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED) (a government-funded organization) “opened the financial taps to a host of organisations and asked few questions—until it was too late—about how the money was to be used.” Taipei, the KMT government, and Taiwan’s private groups provided money so “massively” that the island became “the No. 1 source of funds” (1994c:26–7). Relying on foreign and Taiwanese funding has put the dissidents in a dilemma. They need money to keep their movement alive. But to get money, they have to criticize the Communist government on issues of human rights and democracy. The dissidents who recognize China’s post-1989 developments and try to address them from a more concrete perspective find it difficult to gain support. “If you just sing out about democracy, you can still get money from foreigners,” acknowledged Chen Yizi, founder of the Center for


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Modern China. “But if you describe real, complex problems, it’s much more difficult to get support” (see ibid: 27). Moreover, foreign and Taiwanese funding has intensified the infighting of the dissident movement, as “most of the leading figures have dissipated their energies in factional struggles and an unending search for funding” (Goldstein 1994a:23). Unable to be independent of external support, the dissidents are used by those who criticize China’s human rights policies. Especially in the United States, some Congressmen and newspeople have used dissident criticisms to condemn China. The “biggest achievement” of the overseas dissident movement, said Ding Xueliang, has been keeping China’s human rights high on Washington’s agenda. “Without their activities abroad, many things might perhaps have occurred [in China] without any notice by the international community” (see ibid.). But the Chinese, especially the intel-lectuals, have a strong patriotic sentiment and resent what they perceive as efforts by some American politicians and newspeople to humiliate China. By helping to keep China’s human rights record high on the U.S. political agenda, which in turn damages China and U.S.-China relations, the exiles have alienated themselves from their own people, especially their intellectual colleagues. Internal Splits The first problem of the exiled opposition in promoting democracy in China is its inability to organize a political party. So far, the dissidents have not united into a cohesive organization for their goals but have instead divided into numerous groups struggling among themselves. According to Erling Hoh, the dissidents are divided into three generations: the 1957 “Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom” generation, the 1979 Democracy Wall generation, and the 1989 Tiananmen generation. “Each extols the virtues of democracy, yet all are largely unschooled in the political arts of compromise and consensus.” Each generation of dissidents is split into various groups, with 18 organizations in 1999 (1999:26–7). Internal splits have “become the rule rather than the exception” in the dissident movement. In 1993, the dissidents held a conference, in which the Federation for a Democratic China and the Chinese Alliance for Democracy tried to form a single party. But the unity conference turned into a battle: “By the end of the conference’s first day, there was not one but three organisations, each claiming the mantle of leadership of the movement” (Goldstein 1994a:22–3). When Wei Jingsheng, the first activist of the 1979 Democracy Wall movement who spent 19 years in jail for his actions, arrived in New York in late 1997, many hoped that he would achieve overall leadership and begin a new era of the overseas dissident movement. However, while Wei became “the international face” of the exiled movement, he did not become an overall leader of the dissidents but a target of some of his rivals. Wei pointed to his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize as the prime cause of the conflict, because other dissidents thought he was unknown to the majority of Chinese people and could not “be compared to people like Nelson Mandela.” Moreover, Wei did not support the China Democracy Party (CDP), whose founders were sentenced to prison in January 1999. Wei’s disinterest in the CDP, in the eyes of some dissidents, reflected a fear of “new leaders arising in China” and a desire to “remain the leader” of the dissidents (Hoh 1999:26–7).


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In addition to factional struggles, most leading dissidents have spent their energies competing for funding. It seems odd that the dissidents would fight for money, since they received massive funding when the exiled movement first began. “But that was then,” Goldstein concluded, “these days, the exiles are getting cold lessons in self-reliance and the rules of the marketplace” (1994c:26). Several factors have caused the exiles’ financial difficulty. Language difficulty makes some scholars “no longer hot commodities” in American universities. New, more shocking events in the world draw people’s attention away from what happened 13 years ago in Tiananmen Square. The exiles have also given “the whole movement a bad name” with their “publicly conducted feuds and financial scandals.” The NED has imposed tighter conditions on funds and stopped funding “the more stunts-oriented groups.” Taipei, meanwhile, is “less eager to fund mainland opposition groups,” as the ethnic-Taiwanese political wing grows more powerful on the island. China’s rapid changes have also made it difficult for those dissidents who want to “present a more nuanced view of developments” in post-1989 China, because the external supporters favor empty talks about democracy over addressing real issues (Goldstein 1994c:27). “It’s tough to survive in America,” said Ruan Ming, a former aide to Hu Yaobang: “Everybody is fighting for money” (see ibid.: 26–7). Funding from foreign sources and Taiwan has also become the exiles’ weapon against their “comrades.” For example, Goldstein noted “the spoiler’s role” taken by Wang Ruowang in the 1993 unity conference. Wang was dismissed by the Party in January 1987, along with Fang Lizhi and Liu Binyan. As an exile, now his “battles are with his ostensible comrades” in the movement abroad. He was seen by those who attended the conference as “a prime cause” of that failed attempt at unity (1994a:23). But Wang could not have played an effective role in spoiling the conference “without some financial muscle [US$80,000 in Taiwan’s currency] to back him up” (1994c:27). Unable to achieve unity and improve cooperation, the overseas dissident movement has been pictured as “a tangled web of factionalism” (Hoh 1999). As Guo Luoji, a veteran dissident of the 1957 generation, lamented: “The only thing that unites us is our opposition to the Communist Party. What is democracy? How do we make China more democratic? All questions like these divide us” (see ibid.: 27). Across the Ocean A second factor resulting in the opposition’s inability to promote democracy in China is the dissidents’ isolation from the Chinese people, especially the intellectuals. This problem has been pointed out by China watchers and the press. “The only people in China I know who still care about what they [the leading dissidents] are doing overseas are their close friends or relatives, and the state security people,” said Ding Xueliang, a scholar of China from Hong Kong (see Goldstein 1994a:23). “Among Chinese outside the exile community and non-Chinese analysts of China,” reported Richard Bernstein of the New York Times, “there is a good deal of skepticism about the possibility that the exiles can have much impact in China itself” (1997:A11). Many dissidents, however, believe that their presence is still felt in China through radio broadcasts such as the Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, and the BBC, and through websites such as China News Digest (CND), an Internet news group. They have some


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supportive evidence. Nathan, for example, commented: “People I meet from the mainland seem to have a polite curiosity about them. There’s a sort of sympathetic celebrity interest in them, especially for the senior people” (see ibid.). Yet those who can feel the exiles’ presence through foreign broadcasts and the Internet are merely the educated, especially the educated youths. Would Chinese intellectuals, whose patriotic sentiments are extremely strong, remain interested in these exiles if they continue to criticize China and to harm U.S.-China relations? One of my interview questions in China was on what the Chinese people think about the June 4 incident and the exiled dissidents. I raised the question to a number of my interviewees (six officials, seven scholars and journalists, and five ordinary people). My findings show that the June 4 events and the exiled dissidents have faded from most people’s memories, and few in China remain interested in the dissidents positively. The most positive answers to my question were from two intellectuals. The first said: “Having experienced the June 4, during which people opposed official corruption and advocated honesty and cleanness among government officials (fanfu changlian), the government is now more willing to listen to the people. In that sense, the June 4 was a good thing.” The second said: “Some people still talk about redressing the June 4, but no one would take it into action.” Otherwise the responses of my interviewees are mostly negative. One said: “People have almost forgotten about the June 4 and forgotten about the democratic activists (minyun fenzi).” Another observed: “The democratic activists are hopeless (meixile). Once [they] left China, they are gone.” A third declared: “The exiled democratic activists are worthless after being used by Western anti-China elements. Some of them are even berated by American congressmen.” Finally, a fourth concluded: “They are finished. They cannot even return [to China]” (interviews in Beijing, MayAugust 2000). Beneath the faint memories of the June 4 events and the negative attitudes toward the exiled dissidents lie a number of factors. First, ordinary Chinese people desire for economic well-being and a peaceful life and are deeply concerned with political stability, they do not care about a democracy (or a democratic movement) that is irrelevant to their needs (i.e., the economic development imperative hypothesis). As many have observed: “most people in China are too swept up in the race for economic gain to be paying much attention to a small and faraway group in this country [the United States]” (Bernstein 1997: All). “Chinese society appears to be largely content with the country’s economic performance…. As a result, the current regime enjoys significant popular support while the dissident movement attracts little sympathy” (Wan 1998:362). “People didn’t care much about what was going on during the June 4 events, because it didn’t have direct relevance with their lives,” explained a deputy county commissioner from Hunan Province, referring to people in his hometown. They’ve long since forgotten about the June 4 and forgotten about the democratic activists. Nobody mentions them any more. Laobaixing (common people) want a good and peaceful life. They don’t care about democracy if it doesn’t bring them a good life. They are fearful of instability, and they know from their past experiences that whenever there is chaos, those who suffer most and worst are laobaixing like themselves (interview in Beijing, June 6, 2000).


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The faint memories of the June 4 crisis and the negative attitudes toward the exiled dissidents among the Chinese people may also be attributed to the post-1989 developments inside and outside China. The post-Tiananmen economic boom and the economic and political turmoils in Russia have led to the realization that a bottom-up transition through mass upheaval is not a desirable way to bring democracy to China. The Chinese government’s more prudent option is to focus on economic reform and forgo political reform until the economy is further developed. The June 4 democratic activists, on the other hand, pursued a democracy that did not have a real meaning to the people’s interests, except for bringing China to chaos rather than democracy. “Looking back, now I know that democracy is not an easy task that can be brought into being by an uprising like the June 4,” commented one party official, who participated in the Tiananmen events, which delayed his promotion for a few years. Democratization takes time and requires a certain level of economic development. The June 4 was not the right way for bringing democracy to China because it would have brought China into chaos, such as that in Russia. The right way is to develop the economy first so that to build a foundation for democracy. I think we are heading toward the right direction (interview in Beijing, May 17, 2000). According to another party official, The democratic activists may not really understand democracy. They didn’t know what democracy would mean to the Chinese masses. Laobaixing want secure and peaceful life, would democracy bring them such a life? If democracy does not bring them peaceful life, why would they care about it? To develop democracy one has to have purposefulness that fits in with actual circumstances. It is blind if he is to develop a democracy for the democracy itself (interview in Beijing, July 5, 2000). Similarly, a university professor of economics observed: The way those democratic activists pushing for democracy wouldn’t work. Genuine democracy is now emerging from the village elections. Village elections are building up the basis for democratic development in China, as millions of Chinese peasants are learning democracy through grassroots selfgovernment (interview in Beijing, May 17, 2000). A third factor that has led to the negative attitudes toward the exiled dissidents is their own deeds. They have isolated themselves from the people, especially from their intellectual colleagues, by doing harm to China and to Sino-U.S. relations. The strongest negative attitudes toward the exiled dissidents have grown out of the Internet active intellectual community. The dissidents are right in saying that they still have their presence felt in China through websites and radio broadcasts. The problem, however, is that Chinese intellectuals do not seem to have “a polite curiosity about” and “sympathetic celebrity interest” in the exiles. Instead, they find the dissidents disappointing, and they


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are offended by what the exiles have done to China. “I’ve known this man since he was a boy. He was no good when he was young,” a senior woman professor of Chinese literature described a leading intellectual at the Tiananmen demonstration. “When I heard that he had become a leader in the June 4, I wondered how could we depend on these guys to solve China’s problems? It later turned out that he and a bunch of other democratic activists were very disappointing. They’ve accomplished nothing, and I don’t see they can do anything meaningful” (interview in Beijing, May 24, 2000). Similarly, a young bureaucrat, who holds a graduate degree, said: “I was really sympathetic with Wei Jingsheng when he was in China. But after he went to America, he opposed China’s WTO membership, helped Western anti-China activists attack China, doing great harm to U.S.-China relations. Like many exiled dissidents, he has set himself against his own country. He is now looked down by his own people” (interview in Beijing, June 1, 2000). “Democracy in China has to come from the top down, from within the system and through reform,” concluded a middleaged scholar of modern Chinese history, who moved to the United States after Tiananmen and remains critical of the Chinese system. “Throwing out the CCP all the sudden and replacing it with another party would be even worse. A mass uprising like the June 4 would certainly not work. To let Chai Ling and Wuerkaixi [the Tiananmen student leaders] rule China? I’d be the one myself to get them out of the way” (interview in Beijing, July 3, 2000). A Double-edged Sword Why and how did the exiled dissidents end up being isolated from their own people? A principal explanation lies in the contradiction between the dissidents’ dependency on the United States and the Chinese public’s anti-American sentiment. Soon after fleeing abroad, the exiles founded numerous political groups and human rights organizations against the Chinese government. Some dissidents called on state leaders in the world to “Adopt all means to continue the condemnations and necessary economic sanctions against the current regime in China, and cancel all high-level exchanges and visits at the head-of-state level with the Beijing regime” (Yan and Su 1991:175). Others warned that unless Washington responded Beijing’s intransigence on human rights with the termination of MFN, Chinese leaders would view the United States as a “paper tiger” as Mao always called it (Houston Chronicle May 26, 28, 1994). The contacts between the exiled dissidents and some Congressmen, human rights groups, and labor unions became a powerful weapon in the Democrats’ campaign against the pro-China President George Bush and his China policy (Goldstein 1994a). Accusing Bush of coddling Chinese dictators during the presidential campaign, Bill Clinton came to the White House with human rights at the forefront of his China policy and threatened the revocation of MFN whenever the administration felt necessary. For several years after the Tiananmen incident, the United States refused to have high-level dialogue with China—“a measure never employed against the Soviet Union even at the height of the Cold War” (Kissinger 1994:830). When the time came for the White House to receive the first state-visit by Jiang Zemin since 1979, some in the opposition acted vigorously to ruin Jiang’s visit. According to the press, Jiang was confronted with protests in most


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cities he visited. A group of dissidents planned to follow him “around the East Coast in minivans decorated to look like jails” (New York Times October 28, 1997). One dissident wrote an article on the New York Times, urging Clinton to send Jiang a message that “America won’t trust a Government that doesn’t trust its own people” and to take “real action toward encouraging the growth of a free and democratic China” by “demanding the release of Wei Jingsheng and all other political prisoners in China” (Tong Yi 1997:A15). Until the reciprocal state visits in 1997–1998, the exiled dissidents, along with American human rights advocates and “ideological warriors in search of a new Evil Empire,” made use of moral and emotional power to raise public reaction against China and put the White House under pressure. As Washington “takes each step toward better relations with China, there is no question that the critics’ ranks are growing—and their voices growing louder” (Myers 1997:A6). The dissidents may not have been able to keep China’s human rights high on the U.S. political agenda without support from the Congress and the media. On issues such as human rights, MFN, and the Beijing 2000 Olympic bid, the dissidents cooperated with some congressmen who “would destroy the relationship if given the opportunity to do so” (Lieberthal 1996:185). While Beijing’s Olympic bid was supported by the Chinese people and intellectuals, in the United States, it was opposed by many Chinese exiles, American human rights activists, and members of Congress who passed a resolution opposing Beijing for the 2000 Games (Los Angeles Times September 21, 1993). On the day when President Jiang arrived in Washington, Congress convened a hearing on human rights abuses to listen to a group of the exiles. Representative Christopher H.Smith declared that the summit “should never have happened without preconditions on human rights. We don’t want nice-sounding words and sound-bites. We want meaningful action for the victims of this dictatorship, which understands only power” (New York Times October 27, 1997). Senator John Ashcroft criticized the White House’s “pragmatic policy of engagement,” arguing that “Betraying our country’s heritage of leadership in defense of freedom and a stable international environment is not the way to establish a relationship with China” (New York Times October 28, 1997). By criticizing China’s human rights policies, the dissidents also drew a great deal of attention from the media. For a few years before the reciprocal state visits, the press seemed to have besmirched China out of habit, ignoring positive economic and political developments in post-1989 China. In an article on Clinton’s China policy, Kenneth Lieberthal began his discussion with the following paragraph: The People’s Republic of China has been in the news this year for a number of disturbing reasons. It has mounted muscular military actions to back its diplomacy regarding Taiwan and the South China Sea, allegedly transferred M11 missile technology to Pakistan, sold nuclear technology to Iran, conducted nuclear weapons tests, and augmented its military budget when most other countries have been cutting back in the wake of the Cold War. It has continued the repression of political dissidents, displayed gross insensitivity in its handling of the U.N.-sponsored Fourth World Conference on Women and Nongovernmental Organization Forum, and become a prickly interlocutor at


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many international negotiations (1996:177). In another article, Robert Pastor revealed the same problem with the news coverage on China: Reports of China’s attempts to influence U.S. elections, imprison political dissidents, harass Taiwan and increase arms spending have led some Americans to view China’s spectacular economic growth—about 10 percent a year for the past 20 years—as ominous (1997:R3). Some statesmen and politicians inside and outside the United States, according to Li Xiguang (1996a), a Chinese journalist, also expressed “their strong aversion to US media’s demonizing of China and…condemned the endeavors.” Lee Kuan Yew, senior minister of Singapore, held that such acts of Americans are ridiculous. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed warned that the United States should not regard Asian countries as devils…. Even James Sasser, US ambassador to China, felt puzzled about the US media’s biased coverage on China…complained of being unable to see from the US press any information about China’s progress in the fields of protection of human and intellectual property rights, prohibition on nuclear proliferation and democracy (in Dai 1997:10). When some congressmen and newspeople helped the dissidents keep China’s human rights policies high on the U.S. political agenda, they greatly irritated the Chinese public, especially the intellectuals. Congress’s repeated condemnations of China and the media’s extensive negative coverage of China exacerbated the differences that led to the conflict between the dissidents and their intellectual colleagues. Whereas the dissidents depended on Congress’s actions and on news coverage to keep their movement alive, Chinese intellectuals outside the exile community in China and in the United States found both to be intolerable and outrageous. Since the mid-1990s, there has grown a strong anti-American sentiment among the Chinese public and the intellectuals, particularly among the younger generations. According to Ming Zhang, the Chinese public image of the United States in the post-1989 years “has deteriorated compared to what it was” before Tiananmen (1999:150). Opinion polls conducted by China Youth Daily in 1994 and 1995 found that “the United States was ranked first among the most disliked foreign countries,” 31.3 percent and 57.2 percent, respectively. The Daily’s 1995 survey revealed that 80 percent of the respondents believed that what the United States really wanted to promote in the world was hegemony rather than democracy, and 90 percent believed that the U.S. government had pursued “a hegemonist and unfriendly policy toward China.” The survey was conducted in Beijing, Shanghai, and provinces of Shandong, Jiangsu, and Anhui among workers, intellectuals, bureaucrats, and college students under the age 35. Many of those polled worshipped the United States a few years ago, and their changed images indicate that “the pro-U.S. Chinese public in general and intellectuals in particular changed their attitudes to resent the United States” (ibid.: 141–2).


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In recent years, many Chinese intellectuals have published books such as Behind the Scene of Demonizing China, China Can Say No, Speaking Up for China, Who is Threatening China’s Security, U.S. Hegemony and China’s Security, U.S. World Hegemony and China’s Destiny, and so on, to defend China and give voice to their resentments against the United States. “This tendency to criticize the United States,” observed John Byron, “is not the product of Party propaganda. The books that have questioned American attitudes toward China in the past year are not the work of communist hacks: They express the passionately held views of intellectuals who speak for a significant slice of their countrymen” (1997:4). In China Can Say No, a “hot political best seller,” the authors urged “Chinese to stand up to America and ‘say no’ to any and every effort by the U.S. to put pressure on China to change its ways” (Sly 1996:3). China Can Say No was written by a group of young people who had not been to the West. The authors’ proposal for China’s policy toward the United States has drawn some criticisms. Behind the Scene of Demonizing China, however, was written by eight journalists and scholars who have all worked or studied in the United States. The authors condemned American media for demonizing China in “a systematic, organized and planned way…to defame China and depict the country as an autocratic ‘evil empire’, so as to isolate China in the world” (Li 1996a, in Dai 1997:8). Li Xiguang, one of the key authors, highlighted Chinese intellectuals’ patriotic sentiments and their resentment against the United States: Right, Chinese intellectuals long for freedom and democracy and want human rights. But the Americans [i.e., critics of China in politics and media] have forgotten that Chinese intellectuals’ patriotic sentiment is higher than that of intellectuals in any other countries. When compared with intellectuals in other countries, Chinese intellectuals love their country more and love their national spirit more. They cannot, absolutely, tolerate the Americans who bully China, damage China on issues such as WTO membership, MFN status, intellectual property, human rights, and Tibet. The Americans think that they can draw Chinese intellectuals with communication and slogans of freedom and human rights and foster pro-America wings. But they never have the idea that on the issues of WTO membership, MFN status, intellectual property, and China’s bid for the Olympic Games, they have completely lost the support of the Chinese intellectuals (Li 1996a:60–1). Many Americans may find it difficult to understand why Chinese intellectuals, both inside and outside China, become so emotional and resolute while defending their “nondemocratic” motherland. Li Xiguang (1996a) gave one explanation for the stance of Chinese intellectuals: But in fact, the seeds of hatred for the United States among the Chinese youths, especially the young intellectuals, have been planted by the US media themselves. It is their defaming the Chinese people that has hurt their basic sense of self-respect. Not only them, but many Chinese scholars and students studying in the US,


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who used to admire America, also begin disliking US politics and its media. A survey of status of those studying in the US shows that the reason for 22.5 percent of them who intend to return to China originates from the fact that they have a strong feeling of racial discrimination, lack of cultural recognition and emotional solitude due to the US media’s pursuing cultural hegemony. It is the US media that enable them to gain a more profound knowledge of the quality and limitations of the US politics, diplomacy and news circles, thus deepening their love for their own motherland (in Dai 1997:9–10). Even some former dissidents have turned a “new leaf,” according to Liz Sly of Chicago Tribune. Zhang Xiabo, once a student radical and “an uncritical admirer of all things American,” became “angry with what he regards as America’s bullying of China and the malevolent spread of American cultural influence” (1996:3). In 1996, Zhang and a group of angry young people published China Can Say No to express their anti-American views. “Americans respect nobody because they believe they are the closest nation to God, and that God whispers in America’s ear to tell the world what to do,” Zhang stated. “Ten years ago we believed everything American was positive. We tried to copy it. We were walking containers of Western ideas and ideology. But looking back now, we think all of that was unnatural” (see ibid.). Although aimed at some Americans, Chinese intellectuals’ patriotic sentiment and their anti-American resentment could be messages to the exiled dissidents, given their objections to China’s bid for the 2000 Games and WTO membership, and given their relations with foreign anti-China forces, Taipei, and the Dalai Lama.11 In fact, some messages to the dissidents are even harsher. In 1995, for example, a Chinese person (apparently an overseas student or scholar) who named himself Taishigong (Greatgrandfather of history) sent a letter to a group of dissidents called Zhongguo Zimindang (the Chinese Liberal Democratic Party) on the Internet. Taishigong condemned these dissidents for using with their “foreign father’s imperial sword” to slash China on issues such as MFN, Taiwan, and Tibet and for betraying their motherland. He called the dissidents “political prostitutes” who received “flesh money” from Taiwan and thus had to work themselves to the bone. Playing a damaging role in U.S.-China relations, the dissidents have created a gulf between themselves and their intellectual colleagues. For the dissidents, the Voice of America, on which some of them are regularly interviewed, is an important means “for the exile community to have an impact back home” (Bernstein 1997:All). For many Chinese intellectuals, by contrast, the Voice of America is “one of the main US media demonizing China and…concocting false news” (Li 1996b, in Dai 1997:11). This latter group criticizes the media for favoring dissidents. “Chinese mostly appearing in the US media are normally that small number of ‘dissidents’, ” wrote Xiong Lei (1996), a journalist who came to the United States as visiting scholar in 1983 and 1988. “But they [the media] shut their eyes to, and don’t publish any articles objectively reporting on, China’s human rights improvement and social advances, even though [the articles] are written by their own reporters” (in ibid.). Perhaps the most suggestive indicator of the gulf between the exiled dissidents and their people and intellectual colleagues back home is their divergent attitudes toward the


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NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in May 1999. In China, a wave of public demonstrations erupted against the United States and NATO. Many intellectuals joined with students and ordinary urban residents in the protests against the bombing, which they saw as a deliberate attack on their country. Outside China, however, some dissidents took an opposite view. They viewed the deaths as China’s own fault and blamed the bombing for having occurred too soon and thus ruined their plans for commemorating the tenth anniversary of the June 4 by drawing away people’s attention. “National sentiment has been very strong in China these days, especially since the NATO embassy bombing last May. People are anti-America, observed a scientist from the Institute of Atmosphere Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences: After the bombing, even some middle-aged people in my institute went to the U.S. Embassy protesting. They carried bricks, inks in their bags and threw them on the buildings. They were fanatical followers of Gorbachev ten years ago and supporters of the Tiananmen movement. Now they are strong anti-American activists. When Wang Dan [the Tiananmen student leader] hinted after the bombing that the Chinese had asked for it by leaving all those people in Belgrade when there was an ongoing war, people felt outrage and were extremely offended by him. Now the exiled democratic activists and Li Hongzhi [leader of the Falun Gong] have joined together doing harm to China. Chinese people denounce them, calling them traitors (interview in Beijing, August 5, 2000). According to a private company executive, The overseas democratic activists were also mad at the U.S. and NATO. But they were not mad at the bombing itself; they were mad because NATO did it too soon. They had announced a petition campaign to commemorate those who died at the June 4, but the bombing blew up their plans. So they had to say: “Look, we don’t care why you did it and how many died. But if you wanted to do it, you should have done it after our tenth anniversary of the June 4 events. You ruined our plans by enraging the people and switching public attention away from our events.” For the democratic activists, it was like “the flood lashed the Dragon King’s palace.” They were ruined by their Western allies (interview in Beijing, January 2000). The Dissidents’ Dead End It should also be pointed out that Chinese intellectuals look down on the dissidents because they find the exiles not only harmful, but also pitiful. They see the dissidents as victims of Western politics and media, who have been pushed to a dead end by some politicians and newspeople. In their view, the dissidents have become worthless after being used by those Westerners who do not care about China’s human rights and democracy as much as they seem, but only used the dissidents to serve their own interests when China’s human rights issue was hot on the Western political agenda. In analyzing the Americans’ support for Fang Lizhi, Richard Kraus depicted Senator


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Jesse Helms as an “enthusiast for right-wing brutality,” who “hypocritically championed Fang’s case” to attack the CCP’s criticism of Fang. “The right’s fondness for Fang has nothing to do with his human rights, and everything to do with embarrassing China’s government,” Kraus noted. This occurred when China refused to allow a portrait of Douglas MacArthur to be displayed in China in an American painting show, because MacArthur had attempted to drop atom bombs on China during the Korean War. Avowing that “there is absolutely no way that we can yield to censorship,” the Americans canceled the exhibition scheduled to travel around China (1989:311). Some newspeople, meanwhile, seem to enjoy the dissidents’ campaigns against the Communist government because these bring them professional and ideological satisfaction and fascination. Richard Madsen posed an interesting question in China and the American Dream: On June 4 of 1989, three other events, which “had potentially greater, more direct implications for the United States’ self-interest than the China tragedy,” occurred: the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, the first free elections in Poland, and the resignation of the Speaker of the House, Jim Wright, due to scandal. “Why then did Americans focus most of their attention on China?” (1995:3) Apparently, this had much to do with the media. According to a Time report in June 1989, For the U.S. journalists who have spent the past three weeks covering the historic protest in Tiananmen Square, the mixture of curiosity, awe and fascination was mutual. “Long ago, when I dreamed of being a reporter,” said CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather…“this is the sort of story I dreamed of covering” (Zuckerman and FlorCruz 1989:64). For some journalists, the China story may have been something that was less about China than about themselves. As described by the mainstream of American media, the heroes in Tiananmen Square were the students—the best and brightest of the Chinese youth. They had developed a longing for democracy by learning Western democratic ideas and taken to the streets to get it at the risk of their lives. However, the media seemed to have arrived at this conclusion based on their own beliefs and goals. “I watched dozens of hours of broadcast coverage and read every article published about the events in China in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Time, and Newsweek without finding a single story about the ideology and political goals of the protest movement,” said media critic Mark Hertsgaard. “It was as if journalists had become so enthralled by what the protestors were against—an authoritarian regime that called itself communist— that it didn’t matter what they were for” (in Madsen 1995:19). Such omission, concluded Madsen, was due to “the pressure of having to create a vivid story centered around an easily understandable conflict between good people and bad people…. To American reporters, expending a lot of effort trying to understand what the protesters were for would only detract from a very good story. Better to spend one’s time on things that amplified rather than dampened that dramatic story” (ibid.). Such self-interests shared by some Western politicians and newspeople have been harmful to the dissidents, making them political victims rather than heroes. Xiong Lei, a woman journalist and a fellow student of Wei Jingsheng in junior high school, had the following comment on Wei’s case:


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I am very sympathetic for him…. I think he has been praised by Western press to a dead end. The press has artificially made him an idol, so he has to endure for his stands. Or he would be worthless. To tell the truth, Western media and some Western politicians have made him a barometer of Chinese politics— whenever something happens, they talk about him, which is indeed harmful to him (1996:109). Apparently, Wei Jingsheng is valuable to some Americans because he can be used as a “permanent” case of human rights against Beijing. A search for the term “Chinese dissident” on the Galileo database found 936 newspaper articles dated from 1986 to 1998, and for “Wei Jingsheng” on the same database for the same time period found 670 articles match the search.12 According to Tong Yi (1997), Wei’s assistant in 1994 who arranged the meeting with Wei for John Shattuck, U.S. assistant secretary of state for human rights, five days after his meeting with Shattuck, Wei was arrested again. It seems to make sense that had the Americans left Wei alone, he would not have had to suffer prison life for a second time. But if he had been left unnoticed, he would be valueless for some Americans. Fang Lizhi seems to have suffered from the same harm and pain brought on by foreign forces. Although an internationally known figure in Chinese politics, Fang is reticent about becoming a politician. “Each time he has appeared in the limelight, he has been thrust into it more by circumstances than by any obvious eagerness to capitalize on it for his own gain” (Schell 1990:xxxix). Such experience is exemplified by the following conversation between Fang and Tiziano Terzani former Der Spiegel China correspondent: Question: Don’t you feel that many Chinese today expect you to play a more active role now that you are free? Fang: I think that if the Chinese people are expecting the appearance of a hero, it had better not be me. This expectation in itself is very unhealthy. Question: China has always needed an emperor; maybe now she expects one who can bring democracy. Fang: That is exactly what I call dangerous…. Of course I do not mean to avoid my responsibility…but this does not mean that I want to be a leader. Question: Isn’t it strange? Here you are, the most famous Chinese dissident. Thousands of people have been waiting for you as a sort of Messiah of dissent who would give them the ten commandments of democracy, who would lead the way, who would tell people what to do—and you just plan to avoid doing this? Fang: If you ask me what to do next in China, I find it very difficult to answer. I am not one who knows everything, who can do everything. I am not God…. Question: The recent history of China is one of ambitious leaders struggling for power. You seem to be reluctant in the face of power and not to have much ambition. Fang: My personal ambitions are in the scientific world, and even there they are not too big.


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…. Question: And with all this in front of you, you insist on refusing the political role that people thrust upon you? Fang: I feel that I have been thrust into the middle of politics by circumstances, but the fact is that each time I could have avoided a commitment, I have had to say what my heart was telling me. That got me involved ever more deeply. Three years ago you asked me about the Four Basic Principles. I could not say that I supported them. That brought me some trouble and got me even more deeply involved in politics. You are one of the people who pushed me into this (Fang 1991:295–7). If members of the opposition won a great deal of popular support in the Beijing Spring of 1989, they have alienated the people subsequently, especially the intellectuals, by what they have done abroad. It is true that the dissidents hold different views on different issues, and some of them are more cautious and rational than others. According to President Clinton (2000), some dissidents supported China’s accession to the WTO and believed that economic development and participation in the world community would help China’s legal and political process. However, the disappointing behavior of some in the exile community has ruined the opposition as a whole and put in doubt its ability to foster democracy in China. Moreover, with China’s accession to the WTO, the dissidents have lost much significance on the Capitol Hill and in the news community, as human rights becomes a much less powerful impetus for imposing economic sanctions against China. While it is fading from China’s political scene, the exile community also is losing value and visibility in the United States. “For the exiled dissidents, the game is as good as lost,” said a scientist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (interview in Beijing, August 5, 2000). CONCLUSION There are four major problems with the political opposition in inducing democracy in China. The first of such problems is the opposition’s middle-of-the-road attitude toward the CCP leadership. The most fundamental explanation for this moderation is the Confucian influence on the Chinese intelligentsia, which puts a historical burden on the shoulders of the educated elite to serve and save their nation. Like their predecessors, the democratic elites were motivated by a sense of social responsibility rather than by a desire for state power when they urged the leadership to implement democratic reforms. They were, as Goldman observed: “trying to influence the government to do good” (see Goldstein 1994a:23). Moreover, without an intention to challenge party rule, the democratic elites’ split with the government was driven by their excessive enthusiasm for Western democracy. This enthusiasm differentiated them from the reformist party leaders and led their push for democratizing the Party from within to an extent beyond the leadership’s willingness to tolerate. In addition, the fact that there is no alternative leadership to the Party with the ability to govern China and carry on the reforms leaves the exiled dissidents little choice other than retaining their faith in the party reformers.


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In addition to its moderation, China’s political opposition lacks an organization and a platform of democratic reform to present an alternative leadership. This omission of an organized opposition party prior to 1989 stemmed from the legacy of Mao’s overentrenched totalitarian system that prohibited social organizations independent of the Party. This totalitarian system had both institutional and philosophical consequences, and both had tremendous impact on the 1980s generation of democratic elites and the Tiananmen movement. The former prevented the democratic elites from organizing autonomous social groups to develop a civil society from which the Tiananmen events might have emerged as an institutionalized democratic movement rather than a spontaneous protest movement. The latter constrained them from developing a liberal democratic view and drove them to believe in elitism and refuse to ally with the less educated majority during the 1989 movement (Kelliher 1993). The democratic elites’ elitist mentality was further reinforced by an economic factor: China’s reality as a less developed country (LDC). Because the Chinese masses lacked sufficient education and necessary means to learn and practice democracy, the democratic elites believed that the less-educated majority unaware of democracy and politically unreliable for building democracy in China. As a combined result of their lack of an understanding of liberal democracy and their concern with China’s reality as a LDC, the democratic elites pursued an elite democracy, which put in doubt their willingness and ability to establish genuine democracy in China (Kelliher 1993; Kraus 1989). Finally, taking place in an adopted country, the overseas dissident movement has generated little significance in promoting democracy in China and has instead become irrelevant. Such irrelevance is due to two factors: the dissidents’ inability to organize an opposition party to achieve their goals and their isolation from the Chinese people. These two problems result in large part from the dissidents’ dependency on the international forces and Taiwan for moral and financial support. Because they cannot survive without external support, the dissidents have to struggle among themselves for influence and for funding, which has produced splits in the exile community (Goldstein 1994; Hoh 1999). Such dependency has also led the dissidents to play a damaging role in U.S.-China relations by being both a factor in the disputes over human rights between China and the West, especially the United States, and a “card” some in the U.S. Congress and the media play against China. But the Chinese, especially the intellec-tuals, have grown a strong anti-American sentiment due to what they see as America’s bullying of China. As a consequence, by helping to keep China’s human rights record high on the U.S. political agenda at a cost to China and the bilateral relations, the exiled dissidents have alienated themselves from their own people. The problems with the political opposition in inducing democracy in China are related largely to China’s cultural, political institutional, and socioeconomic conditions. For the opposition, the difficulties in overcoming these problems are as tremendous as the problems themselves. This supports my fourth hypothesis that China’s democratization is unlikely to be an opposition-driven undertaking because the political opposition does not have the leadership ability to compete with the Communist Party, unite the people, and promote democracy from below. Instead, it is dependent on the party leadership to carry out democratic reforms and to usher China into democratic transition. While economic, social, and even political changes are sweeping China, the exile community is fading


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from the Chinese political landscape. As many China observers have concluded: “The overseas movement, as a political rival to the Communist Party, is very insignificant. If it destroys itself in factional fighting, it isn’t terribly important” (Perry Link, see Hoh 1999:27). “Whether any of the current exiles will ever be able to return to China, much less play a political role there, remains doubtful, especially given the apparent stability of the current Chinese Government and the success of its economic reforms” (Bernstein 1997: All). “The time has passed for that whole generation” of democratic elites (Merle Goldman, see Goldstein 1994a:23). “In the future, the power will belong to those who stayed and rose to positions of authority within the system, not to the ones outside China” (James Lilley, see ibid.: 23–4). NOTES 1. Baohui Zhang (1994) used the terms “well-entrenched” and “once-entrenched” to describe China’s totalitarian political system under Mao. 2. Merle Goldman listed 32 members of the “democratic elite,” Fang Lizhi, Yan Jiaqi, and Liu Binyan were among them (1994:xii–xiv). 3. Another well-known independent think tank was the Stone Social Development Research Institute (SSDRI). The SSDRI was created by the Stone Group, a private computer company, and was shut down by the authority after Tiananmen. 4. “It’s about Time, My Fellow Chinese” (essay written on a banner posted at Tiananmen in May 1989), see Han and Sheng 1990:293. 5. Ibid.: 292–3. 6. “China’s Only Way Out” (small-character poster at People’s University in April 1989), see ibid.: 35. 7. “Under the Banner of the People’s Revolution, Let Us Make A Final Effort to Save the Chinese Nation” (big-character poster in May 1989), see ibid.: 283. 8. “A Discussion of How Science Can Save China” (small-character poster at People’s University in May 1989), see ibid.:281. 9. See note 7. 10. See note 8:282. 11. See Shen Tong’s comment on the Dalai Lama (1990:337). 12. The searches were done on the ProQuest Newspapers of Galileo, a State of Georgia-funded database system, on March 13, 2001.

CHAPTER 4 The People and the Intelligentsia in Post-1989 China In 1986, Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe Schmitter identified a pattern of political transition from authoritarian rule to democracy in Latin America and Southern Europe, which began with intellectual actions and eventually emerged into a “popular upsurge” encompassing the entire civil society. Usually, they found, “artists and intellectuals are the first to manifest public opposition to authoritarian rule, often before the transition has been launched” (1986:49). “But the greatest challenge to the transitional regime is likely to come from the new or revived identities and capacity for collective action of the working class and low-ranking, often unionized, employees…. Of particular importance…has been the literal explosion of grass-roots movements” (ibid: 52–4). This observation indicates that both the intellectual community and the general public will need to play a significant role in pressuring for change, if there is to be a democratic transition from below. Given these criteria for democratic change, China’s chances for a bottom-up transition are rather small because neither the intellectual elite nor the mass population seems to be ready or willing to press for a transition at this stage. This chapter examines China’s intelligentsia and the general public, seeking to understand their roles in China’s democratic process. The chapter focuses primarily on the general public, adding a short discussion of the intellectual elite in one section (a detailed analysis of Chinese intellectuals in and out of the dissident community has been given in chapter 3). This chapter is composed of four sections. The first three sections focus on the general public, and the fourth section is devoted to the intellectual community. The Chinese public’s unwillingness to press for democracy may be attributed to three major factors: the Confucian political culture, the state strength in the basic-level government in both rural and urban China, and the people’s developmental consensus with the leadership. In addition, the low education level among the mass majority and the legacy of Mao’s mass political upheavals have also contributed to the lack of political interest and passion of the Chinese public. This chapter starts by discussing the Chinese Confucian political culture, the low education level among the mass majority, and the legacy of Mao’s mass political movements to explain the lack of political interest and passion by the general population. It illustrates in the second section how Maoist China adopted the people’s commune system in the countryside and the danwei (work unit) system in urban areas to maintain control over the society. It also discusses recent village elections and urban neighborhood elections to estimate the continuing strength of the Party in the basic-level government in both rural and urban China. With survey results, the chapter shows in the third section the popular support for the post-Mao leadership that gives legitimacy to party rule. It then


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explains, in light of the human needs approach, why the Chinese public has reached a developmental consensus with the government that prioritizes development and stability over democratic reform. Finally, with an analysis of the intellectuals’ attitudes toward democracy and the party leadership, the chapter explains in the fourth section the role of the intellectual elite in China’s democratic process. A DEFERENTIAL PEOPLE After the June 4 events, China scholar Xiaoxing Han calculated that there was a relatively low rate of participation in the movement. Slightly more than 10 percent of the residents (some 1 million) in Beijing and less than 1 percent of the population on the national level ever became involved. One explanation for the low rate of mass mobilization was the large rural population, which counted for 80 percent of the national total. If China’s peasantry ever participated in the 1989 movement, their “participation” was a real irony. They were participants in the officially organized rallies outside Beijing to counter the demonstration in Tiananmen Square. At one of these rallies, they burned Fang Lizhi’s effigy (1993:228–9). Apart from their absence from Tiananmen Square, the Chinese peasantry denounced the protest movement according to the official government assessment. This was reported by a number of Western China watchers. Richard Madsen, for example, wrote that “in the minds of the many Chinese I have talked with about this event, there is much more of a worry about the kind of disorder that might have been unleashed by the protests than is found in popular, dramatic American accounts” (1995:22). He quoted a resident of Chen Village in a wealthy area in Guangdong as evidence: “Despite seeing all the footage of the Beijing massacre on Hong Kong television, the older men in the village argued that the demonstrators had gone too far, and that they deserved what they got” (ibid.). James and Ann Tyson reported a similar view in a poor area in Hubei. De-spite his son’s participation in the demonstration, Peng Min, a village doctor, “dismisses the massacre of student protesters in Beijing in 1989. He accepts the leadership’s decision to order the army to fire on his son and other unarmed demonstrators. Brutal retribution was inevitable because the upstart youth had humiliated senior leader Deng. The students merely got their comeuppance for becoming involved in politics” (1995:30). In urban areas, people’s response to the events also suggested that many were fearful of the disorder that would undermine economic development. Andrew Nathan heard about this fear from three bus drivers when he traveled with them from Guangdong to Fujian. The drivers complained that the students “had asked for too much democracy and had nearly pushed the country into chaos” (1993:39). “If that had happened,” the drivers questioned, “how could we conduct our business?” (ibid.) David Wank found a similar view among a group of private entrepreneurs in Xiamen, Fujian. The entrepreneurs declared that “the students demanded too much, too quickly. Political change should be gradual and initiated by policies from above in an orderly reform (gaige) rather than forced by popular pressure from below in a potentially chaotic transformation (gaizao)” (1995:67). One of them said: “We must go slowly generation by generation…. country’s stability is connected with its order. Only by having normal order can people

The people and the intelligentsia

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have a normal life” (ibid.: 67–8). Apparently, a majority of Chinese people (the old and young, the rich and poor, and the rural and urban) would agree that the protest movement had to be ended because it was bringing chaos to the country. This fear of chaos was understandable because it would halt China’s progress toward economic modernization and hold her back for several decades. But why would people blame the students for getting involved in politics and believe the protesters deserved harsh punishment for their actions? Why would people’s attitudes toward the movement go beyond unease to hostility? Such negative attitudes toward the student movement are inherent in a society in which there are a number of factors discouraging individual political involvement. The first of such factors is the non-democratic Confucian political culture that provides little ground for political dissent (i.e., the Confucian tradition hypothesis). From Confucian Culture Confucian tradition “was concerned primarily with the establishment of a happy and well-organized society,” in which there were “proper social relationships between people of different stations of life” and class identities. The first principle of Confucian tradition was that “every man in his place: Let the ruler be a ruler and the subject be a subject; let the father be a father and the son be a son.” It was perceived that “if each individual acted in accordance with his or her station, the family would be orderly, and when the family was orderly, the state would be peaceful and all would be harmonious under Heaven” (Stavrianos 1991:345). The Confucian idea of “being human” or “behaving as a human being,” notes Daniel Kwok, “reveals a preponderant concern with ‘rites,’ rather than ‘rights’” (1998:83). A person “from birth heads into a network of clan and kin relations guided by the spirit of interpersonal or interhuman regard (ren).” His or her “self-awareness is occasioned by the need to ‘behave as a human being’ (zuoren), which in turn means to fulfill the five Confucian cardinal relationships: parent and child, ruler and minister, husband and wife, elder and younger, and friend and friend.” This “way of ‘behaving as a human being’ allows little room for the individual to make any special claim on behalf of his/her own rights and privileges. The only way to be a ‘good person’ (haoren) is within this network of behavioral rites” (ibid.: 85). “Classical Chinese Confucianism,” as characterized by Samuel Huntington, emphasized the group over the individual, authority over liberty, and responsibilities over rights. Confucian societies lacked a tradition of rights against the state; to the extent that individual rights did exist, they were created by the state. Harmony and cooperation were preferred over disagreement and competition. The maintenance of order and respect for hierarchy were central values. The conflict of ideas, groups, and parties was viewed as dangerous and illegitimate. Most important, Confucianism merged society and the state and provided no legitimacy for autonomous social institutions at the national level (1994/95:244). Coming from a Confucian political culture, the Chinese masses are a deferential people who passively acquiesce in the running of their country. They do not have a tradition of,


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or real desire for, self-government but are accustomed to accepting whatever leadership the political system brings to power. Over the years, only relatively small groups of political dissidents have advocated the Western model of democracy. A majority of the general public has never experienced democratic government and has retained a mentality of deference and dependence, which help to stabilize and reinforce the legitimacy of authoritarian elite rule. In 1990 Andrew Nathan and Tianjian Shi conducted a nation-wide survey on political behavior and attitudes in China. The survey, which adapted political-cultural variables from Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba’s The Civil Culture, revealed relatively low levels of awareness of the government’s impact, of system affect, and of tolerance for people with different political views. Despite the relatively total control over their daily lives by the state, most Chinese citizens were unable to identify such control. Only 5.4 percent of the respondents perceived their local government as having great effect on their daily lives, 18.4 percent perceived it as having some effect, and 71.6 percent perceived it as no effect on their lives. The numbers for the impact of the national government on people’s lives changed slightly, with 9.7 percent of the respondents seeing it as having great effect, 11.7 percent seeing it as having some effect, and 71.8 seeing it as no effect. The data also showed that at each level of educational attainment, Chinese respondents had weaker awareness of the government’s impact than similarly educated respondents in the five Civil Culture nations. On the other hand, among the less-educated Chinese population there was “a reservoir of confidence in the government.” Fifty-seven percent of the respondents with less education expressed expectations for equal treatment by the government, while only 24.2 percent did not expect it. “Together with the widespread ignorance of the government’s impact,” the authors noted, “the reservoir of confidence in the government among less-educated Chinese may have helped the authoritarian regime to survive” (1993:111). With regard to political tolerance, only 17.4 percent of the respondents were willing to allow people with different political opinions to express their views, and only 10.3 percent were willing to allow those unpopular views to be taught or published. Again, at each education level, Chinese respondents were less tolerant than the respondents in the five Civil Culture nations. The survey results indicate “potential difficulties” in China’s democratic development, the authors concluded. “Relatively low levels of awareness of government’s impact, system affect, and tolerance may pose impediments to democratization. People may be unmotivated to engage in politics and may favor the repression of ideas that they do not agree with” (ibid.: 114–5). Education Level and Political Awareness The low levels of political awareness and tolerance among the Chinese people are associated with their level of education. This education affect is evident in the Nathan-Shi study, which showed that while China’s educated people were most likely to be aware of the government’s impact on their lives, they were least likely to expect equal treatment from official authorities, presumably due to the severe political campaigns against the intellectual community under Mao (ibid.). The education affect is also evident in two more recent surveys by Yang Zhong, Jie Chen, and John Scheb in 995 and 1997.


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The 1995 survey was conducted among both rural and urban residents, while the 1997 survey was conducted only among urban residents in Beijing. The two surveys revealed a high level of political interest among Beijing urban residents, with two-thirds of the respondents saying that they were interested or very interested in political affairs. This finding led the researchers to claim that “the perception of a low level of political interest may not be the case with Beijing urban residents.” However, the high level of political interest in urban Beijing, they explained, may not be representative of the national average for two reasons. First, as China’s capital, Beijing is the most politicized city in the country. Second, urban residents in Beijing are better educated and informed and thus tend to have stronger political awareness than the rural mass majority (Zhong et al. 1998:766–7). This statement that people in urban Beijing have better education and a higher level of political awareness than the mass population elsewhere in China seems to be accurate. This is evident by Beijing urban residents’ relatively high rate of participation in the 1989 demonstration. More than 10 percent of the residents (1 million) in Beijing participated, compared with less than 1 percent of the population at the national level. The low rate of mass mobilization at the national level was due primarily to the huge less-educated rural population (Han 1993). In interviews conducted along the Yangtze River in August 2000, I talked with some non-Beijing people about the June 4 crisis and found no residents in other cities reacted as saliently as did people in Beijing. In Chongqing, two taxi drivers recalled that the residents there observed the events with little reaction. This sort of quietude was due to a fear of the violence they had experienced during the Cultural Revolution and to the loss of interest in great mass movements after that violent political storm (interviews in Chongqing, August 11, 2000). In Sanxia, three Nanjing tourists remembered that residents in their city did not go on the streets during the 1989 events, and they explained such inaction as due to dullness. “Nanjingers are kind of fools,” one said. They are docile citizens who do not challenge official authorities. When the university students went on the streets to support the events in Tiananmen Square, they marched quietly. Some residents watching them asked “Why don’t you shout slogans? You should shout slogans.” Then the students began to shout slogans. But those onlookers who had told the students to shout slogans would not join the protest themselves (interviews in Sanxia, August 12–13, 2000). Although better educated and more politically-oriented than average people elsewhere in China, there is a gap between political orientation and participation among Beijing urban residents. Their interests in politics remain more cognitive than behavioral. They pay attention to political issues and talk about them, but they tend not to engage in political actions. In their 1997 survey, Zhong, Chen, and Scheb asked the respondents about their contact with government officials and deputies of local People’s Congresses (PCs). They found that although two-thirds of the respondents said that they were interested in politics, only 1.4 percent among 696 reported having written letters to government officials (including work unit leaders) and 15.7 percent voiced their opinions to


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authorities. Only 3.2 percent of 691 respondents reported to have contacted local PC deputies. Another survey conducted by Tianjian Shi (1999) in 1996 also revealed a gap, though narrower, between political interest and participation among Beijing residents. Zhong, Chen, and Scheb attributed the respondents’ low level of political participation to their low level of perceived political efficacy. The re-spondents felt that individual political action does not have an impact on the political process. Their 1997 survey showed that over two-thirds (72.2 percent) of those surveyed agreed with the statement that “suggestions and complaints made by the public to the government are often ignored.” The survey also showed an insignificant difference between local cadres and ordinary people in this regard, suggesting that local political elites also “felt powerless when facing the formidable party hierarchy” (Chen 1999:204). “Beijing laobaixing (common people) still care about politics. They talk about political issues, grumble, and tell political jokes. But they don’t engage in politics because they don’t feel they have much influence,” explained a local official in Beijing. Our system does not encourage individual political participation. Cadres are selected by higher levels of authorities rather than by laobaixing. They cannot remain in office if laobaixing say they are good but their superiors say they are not. They are held by the system to do what their superiors want rather than to listen to the people. Laobaixing don’t bother to voice their concerns because they think no one is there to listen to them (interview in Beijing, May 18, 2000). Does a relatively high education level affect Beijing urban residents with regard to democratic values? Zhong, Chen, and Scheb found in their 1997 survey that over 85 percent of the Beijing respondents were willing to tolerate people with different political opinions. A majority (93.2 percent) of them agreed that the press “should be given more freedom to expose wrong doings such as corruption,” and 94.5 percent supported selecting local government officials through democratic methods. Meanwhile, 79.7 percent believed that China needed more political reform. On the other hand, the survey revealed habits of deference and dependence among urban Beijingers. Specifically, 71.2 percent of the respondents agreed that the “well-being of the country is mainly dependent upon state leaders, not the masses,” while 68.7 percent showed unwillingness to challenge the authorities. Indeed, 94.3 percent preferred stability and order to a freer society (see table 4.1). These “two sets of results seem to be contradictory,” observed the authors: Apparently, Beijingers are in favor of the general and abstract principles of civil liberties and democracy, yet their cultural and behavioral patterns are still marked by elitist orientation, deference to authority, and a preference for order. We suspect that the contradiction results from the gap between the two levels of political culture: the cognitive and the behavioral. On the cognitive level, such buzzwords as “democracy,” “freedom,” and “liberty” are quite acceptable to the general public…. At the deeper behavioral level, though, much longer periods of socialization and experience are needed to change people’s cultural traditions and habits (1998:772).


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Table 4.1 Selected Democratic Values (%)

Strongly Agree Disagree Agree

Strongly Disagree

N

Regardless of one’s political beliefs, he or she is 40.8 45.5 entitled to the same legal rights and protection as is anyone else.

11.9

1.8

1,256

The press should be given more freedom to expose 66.7 26.5 wrong doings such as corruption.

6.0

0.7

1,259

Elections to local government positions should be 53.0 41.5 conducted in such a way that there is more than one candidate for each post.

4.5

1.0

1,254

The well-being of the country is mainly dependent upon state leaders, not the masses.

31.8 39.4

23.9

4.9

1,257

In general, I don’t think I should argue with the 26.6 42.1 authorities even though I believe my idea is correct.

24.5

6.9

1,258

I would rather live in an orderly society than in a freer society which is prone to disruptions.

3.8

1.9

1,255

55.8 38.5

Source: Zhong, Chen and Scheb, “Mass Political Culture in Beijing.” Asian Survey Vol. 38, August 1998:771. The Regents of the University of California.

Many citizens in Beijing also share political apathy with the mass population elsewhere in China. As one Beijing taxi driver remarked: What do laobaixing care about? We care about making money, supporting our families, and sending our kids to good schools. What else can we care about? Did you say politics? No, we don’t care about politics because what we say is useless. If I say “That is no good, we ought to change it,” nothing is going to change. Politics is dangguande’s (official) business. We laobaixing only mind our own business (interview in Beijing, July 10, 2000). A similar view was expressed by a supervisor from a publicly-owned real estate and construction company. Unlike I was young, I’m not ambitious any more. I don’t think much about anything nowadays except for my family. I’ve bought us a car. I’m trying to trade our apartment for a bigger one. After that, what I’m going to do is to get along with my family, invest in stocks, and play sports. The rest of my life is going to be just like that. I don’t see something else I can do in this lifetime. I used to write newspaper articles on local affairs, but I stopped doing that long ago. I’m a xiaoshimin (plebeian) now. Xiaoshimin don’t have that kinds of


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interests, they don’t care about public affairs. Xiaoshimin just drift along one day after another (interview in Beijing, July 28, 2000). The Legacy of Mao’s Mass Political Movement The phrase “to drift along” (hunrizi) is a common one among many Chinese people, even among many of those with good education and good careers. This lack of political interest and passion among China’s public resulted in large part from the endless radical mass political campaigns in which Mao and his supporters urged popular participation in support of their power struggles against their opponents. The fealty to Chairman Mao by the Chinese masses during the Cultural Revolution was epitomized by the spectacle of the Mass Meeting Celebrating the Cultural Revolution in Tiananmen Square on August 18, 1966, in which Mao greeted a million Red Guard representatives from all parts of the country: About 5:00 A.M., shortly after sunrise, Mao Zedong, followed by Lin Biao and Zhou Enlai and clad in a grass-green People’s Liberation Army uniform with a red star emblem on the cap, walked over the Goldwater Bridge beneath Tiananmen (Gate of Heavenly Peace), smiling and waving to the crowds…. In an instant, the sea of red flags covering Tiananmen Square became an ocean roaring with the sounds of “Long live Chairman Mao!” At the conclusion of the meeting, Mao inspected the million-person parade from the top of Tiananmen. Chinese leaders on this reviewing stand waved to the masses, whose eyes searched for a glimpse of Mao Zedong…. Shortly after 11:00 A.M., the parading columns all left Tiananmen Square. Mao Zedong again received groups of Red Guard representatives and took souvenir photographs with them. The Red Guards presented Mao with all kinds of Red Guard armbands and Mao buttons. Such activities atop Tiananmen caused great anxiety among the tens of thousands of Red Guard representatives in the viewing stands down below. Facing the high loft, craning their necks, and waving little red books, they rhythmically chanted, “We want to see Chairman Mao!” Such scenes touched the whole country via the media. Then Mao waved first to the east and then to the west at the throng in the viewing stands below, military cap in hand. The viewing stands erupted in excited shout-ings of “Long live Chairman Mao!” drowning out all other sounds…. (Yan and Gao 1996:62–3). Chinese today are no longer idolaters of individual political leaders. As one party official, who is also a scholar, commented: “One thing good about the Cultural Revolution is that it did away with our blind faith in individual political leaders. We no longer feel our hearts beating faster when we see our leaders today. We feel we are equal with them as human beings, even though they are party and state leaders” (interview in Beijing, August 5, 2000). While the Cultural Revolution did away with Chinese people’s blind faith in individual political leaders, it also did away with their interests in public participation, leading many to the loss of political interest and passion.


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Post-revolution China witnessed extensive popular participation operating under the firm hands of Mao. Mao believed that “class struggle must be addressed every year, every month, and every day” in order to perpetuate the revolution. He used mass political campaigns as weapons in his power struggles against his critics. Mao also felt that Chinese masses were too fatalistic and passive, which made China vulnerable to external aggression. He attributed this internal weakness in part to the Confucian notion of proper relationships between people of different class identities and the sense of dependency nurtured by a hierarchical society. He encouraged the people to reject the traditional culture by “smashing the old and establishing the new” (Lieberthal 1995). This leadership-guided popular political participation did not nurture civil and democratic awareness among the people, nor did it bring China to a more open and democratic system. Instead, such popular participation fostered people’s blind devotion to individual political leaders and contributed to the ascendancy of the Gang of Four and its wellentrenched totalitarian rule. Tossed by the endless political campaigns in which they were mobilized and educated by Mao and his supporters for their own political power, Chinese masses, who had fanatically followed Mao, eventually felt they had been manipulated and fooled. Many developed an abhorrence of mass political campaigns, while many more lost interest in politics altogether (Tao and Chen 1998). As a result of the endless radical mass political campaigns, especially the Cultural Revolution, many people today tend to be doubtful about political life, showing an indifference to political matters. A 1987 survey conducted by Min Qi (1989), for example, revealed that 46.18 percent of the respondents believed that politics was full of dishonesty and deceit, 53.57 percent thought political struggle was merely power struggle, and 22.17 percent deemed politics to be evil. Moreover, 50.65 percent of the respondents agreed with the statement “do not talk about political issues freely, be careful somebody may make you suffer.” Indeed, 62.41 percent said they were very careful about discussing political issues, and 63.69 percent believed that it would be wise not to be involved in politics (see Tao and Chen 1998:218–9) (see table 4.2). In daily practice, it is not uncommon to find many people giving empty stereotyped views about political issues

Table 4.2 Political Trust of Chinese Citizens (%)

Agree

Disagree

Political struggle is filled with dishonesty and deceit.

46.18

53.82

Political struggle is merely power struggle.

53.57

46.43

Politics is a kind of evil.

22.17

77.83

Do not talk about political issues freely.

50.65

49.35

I am very careful about discussing political issues.

62.41

37.59

It is better not to be involved in political affairs.

63.69

36.31

Source: Min Qi 1989, adopted from Tao and Chen, Dangdai Zhongguo Zhengzhi Canyu, 1998:220–1.


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in public without proposing real policy suggestions and demands. Some people simply stay away from politics because they see politics as dangerous (ibid.). This lack of interest in politics and caution about political issues were exacerbated by the Tiananmen tragedy. The public, including the intellectuals, has drawn sobering lessons from the incident. People have become very realistic nowadays. They focus on making money and living in harmony. Those who still talk about political issues such as redressing the June 4 would not take action to achieve it. The script of Beijing Spring 1989 seems unlikely to replay. As a Beijing journalist remarked: “There won’t be another June 4 in China because people have lost the enthusiasm and passion they had ten years ago. They won’t protest on the streets, not even university students” (interview in Beijing, June 20, 2000). “China won’t have another June 4 because lessons from the tragedy are far too extreme,” said a central government official. “Government bureaucrats won’t go on the streets to protest. University students are not as enthusiastic as the Tiananmen generation ten years ago. Their interests are no longer focused on political activism” (interview in Beijing, June 16, 2000). “University students today are very realistic, even selfish,” said a college professor. “They focus on studies and think about going to school overseas. Some want to join the Party to advance their self-interests and personal futures, such as to get a good, well paid job” (interview in Beijing, May 17, 2000). PARTY STRENGTH IN THE BASIC-LEVEL GOVERNMENT AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT Observers of China indicate that the success of economic reforms has created new problems in Chinese society and the Party has difficulties dealing with these social ills. While the transition from a command economy to a market one “released suppressed energies and entrepreneurial skills… these forces also engendered a discontent lying beneath the surface, which periodically expresses itself in” social unrest (Goldman and MacFarquhar 1999:25). On the other hand, “it is apparent that Chinese society today remains very much dominated by the state, so much so that many specialists are reluctant to apply the term ‘civil society’ to China at all” (Fewsmith 1999:70; also see Gu 2000; Liu 1996; Metzger 1998; Nelsen 2000; Shambaugh 2000). How, and to what extent, has the state-society relationship changed in the reform years? Can the Party maintain its domination over the society? This section assesses the evidence for the continuing strength of the Party in the basic-level government and community development in both rural and urban China to evaluate my second hypothesis—the Leninist institutional legacy hypothesis. Party Strength in Rural China The People’s Commune System The people’s commune system was an essential component of the Leninist political structure that the Mao leadership adopted to govern rural China. Mao believed that


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cooperative organizations would expand the size of land and scale of agricultural activity, and that political effort could create the conditions for rapid economic growth. The commune was an all-round development of farming, forestry, animal husbandry, sideline production, and fishery. It was also a mutual integration of workers, peasants, merchants, students, and soldiers (militia). A commune was generally equal to a township, with 2,000 households on average (sometimes more than one township, with as many as 6,000–7,000 households). The commune was an organizational system encompassing political, economic, social, and cultural functions. It was a basic-level rural community entitled to control over both administrative management and social productive management. Power was highly centralized in a commune. The party organization exercised unified leadership over administration, finance, and cultural and economic affairs. Publicly-owned assets were allocated from the top down. Agricultural operations were planned and were achieved by constraining peasants’ freedom. The commune exercised control over peasants’ productive labor, political activities, as well as their family lives. Through these arrangements, the CCP maintained a highly centralized political system in rural China. However, as a product of the leadership’s unrealistic pursuit of a centrally planned and publicly owned economy, the commune system produced detrimental consequences for China’s economic development. With its highly centralized power structure, the commune became an obstacle to economic growth on the one hand, and an excessive sociopolitical control over the peasantry on the other. As a result, devastating poverty emerged in the countryside throughout China. The relations between rural cadres and peasants deteriorated. Power centralization led the people’s commune toward the direction opposite to the expectation of its designers, contributing eventually to the demise of the commune system (Cheng 2000). CCP and Grassroots Self-government in Rural China In late 1978, the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Party Congress began the rural economic reforms with the household responsibility system (i.e., family contract farming), which ultimately led to the abolition of the commune system. To create a new administrative system, improve village leadership quality, and deter rural instability, the party leadership introduced village elections to allow peasants to select and supervise village cadres. Peasants in many regions have participated in four village elections since the Organic Law of Villages Committees (Trial) came into effect in November 1987. By late 1997, there were 905,804 village committees and 3,788,041 committee chairs and members in rural China, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MOCA) (see Liang et al. 2000). How have village elections affected the Party’s strength in rural China? Have they strengthened or weakened the party leadership? Data reveal a relatively high percentage of party member among village committee chairs and members, suggesting that the CCP remains strong and dominant in grassroots governments in rural China. For example, data from the 1997 village elections in Hebei show that there were 50,201 village committees in the province, and 49,069 committee chairs were selected through village elections. Among these village chairs, 40,010 were party members, accounting for 81.5 percent of the total. The data also showed that 34,155 (69.6 percent) committee chairs were incumbents, while 30.4 percent were newly elected. Moreover, 13,578 (27.7 percent)


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were entrepreneurs or specialized household members. The average age of the village committee chairs and members was 44.3, which was 3.2 years younger than the previous age average. With regard to education, 351 received junior college or higher degrees, and 183,289 were junior high or high school graduates (together accounting for 93 percent of the total) (ibid.). The more recent data show that in the aftermath of the promulgation of the Organic Law of Villages Committees in October 1998, 19 provinces (or autonomous regions) held a new-round of village elections in 1999. Among the newly elected village committee chairs and members in those provinces (autonomous regions), the percentage of party members was rel-atively high. In Henan, 59.2 percent of village committee chairs and members were party members, 2.2 percent higher than that of the previous committees. The data also show that 63.1 percent were able persons from specialized households, 88.4 percent owned junior high or higher degrees, and the age average was 42.5. In Guangdong, 78.7 percent of village chairs and committee members were party members, and 85.3 percent held junior high or higher degrees. In Xinjiang, 57.4 percent of village cadres were party members, and 70.5 percent had a junior high or higher education (see Zhan 2000) (see table 4.3). Nationally, on average 50 to 70 percent of the committee chairs and members are party members, according to Zhan Chengfu, director of the Rural Work Division at the MOCA in 2000. The high percentage of party membership among village committee chairs and members seems to indicate the continuing strength of the CCP at the basic-level of government in rural areas. It is especially suggestive, when one considers that, with a loss of the office by 30.4 percent of the incumbents in the 1997 elections, 81.5 percent of village committee chairs in Hebei were still party members.

Table 4.3 Party Membership and Education of Village Committee Chairs and Members

Province or Autonomous Region

Year

Party Membership (%)

Junior High School or Higher (%)

Hebei Province

1997

81.5 (chair only)

93.0

Henan Province

1999

59.2

88.4

Guangdong Province

1999

78.7

85.3

Xinjiang Autonomous Region

1999

57.4

70.5

Sources: Data from Liang, Shi and Li, Cunmin Zizhi. 2000:125; Zhan, “Xin Cunweihui Zuzhifa Guanche Shishi Yizhounian Huimou.” 2000:7.

In addition to the high percentage of party membership among village committee chairs and members, the relationship between the party branch and the village committee also reflects the continuing strength of the Party in rural China. Party organizations generally remain powerful in their villages, and their maintenance of control over village management is due to a number of factors. First, the village committee law clarifies that “the CCP’s basic-level organizations in the countryside function in accordance with the Party Constitution, give play to their role as the core of leadership; [the party


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organizations] follow the Constitution and the laws, support and ensure villagers to perform self-government and directly exercise their demo-cratic rights.” In reality, many rural party secretaries believe that to have party organizations as the core of leadership in grassroots self-government is equivalent to upholding the party branch’s leadership. In their view, the party secretary is still the most politically powerful man in a village, and the village committee chair should listen to the party secretary. In a survey conducted in Tianjin, one party secretary from a well-developed county said that the village committee was a subcommittee of the party branch. This idea that the party secretary is still first in command stems in large part from the prolonged unified village leadership exercised by the party branches under the old commune system. The legacy of such unified leadership has persisted in most areas. As a result, many party secretaries still take control of everything in managing village affairs, including the budget and expenditures, which has made rural self-governing bodies such as village assemblies and village committees into mere formalities (Cheng 2000; Zhan 2000). Another factor that has enabled the party branches to maintain control over village management is the relatively high education level among peasant party members. As Xiaoxing Han observes, the capacity of the CCP to control rural China “does not stem solely from its monopoly of power. Another important reason is the disparity between the poor education of the general peasantry and the comparatively high literacy and technical skill of the rural cadres and Communist Party members” (1993:229). Han points out that in the late 1980s, 39.5 percent of the overall CCP members were peasants, but only 7.7 percent of the party members were illiterate. If one assumes that all the illiterate party members were peasants, the literate peasant party members would still count more than 80 percent of the total rural membership. Compared with the illiteracy and semi-illiteracy that are widespread among the rural population, the relatively high education level among the party elites is politically significant. It enables the party elites to remain in power because the potential for the less-educated majority to challenge the political status quo and take over control in rural China is meager (ibid.). Indeed, this educational disparity between the general peasantry and the rural party elites may be an important explanation for the relatively high percentage of party members among village committee chairs and members. The party branches’ continuing strength in rural China may also be attributed to their ability to bring social stability and economic prosperity to villages. According to some Chinese writers, A great many outstanding party members joined village committees. A group of those who are honest, competent, willing to work for villagers, young, and knowledgeable were elected into village committees. This gave new blood [to rural leading body], solved the problem of lacking qualified people in the countryside, and thus promoted social stability and economic development in rural areas (Liang et al. 2000:125–6). Democratic elections sent those who have integrity, knowledge, competence, and the willingness to work for villagers into village committees, which strengthened those good leading bodies, improved the average ones, and reorganized the weak ones. Popular reactions in different areas have showed


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that the majority of newly elected village cadres are responsible, hard working, and popular among villagers (Zhan 2000:7). The Case of Longwangtang Village in Beijing The continuing strength of the CCP in rural China can be illuminated by examining in greater detail the case of Longwangtang village in suburban Beijing. Longwangtang is a municipal-level model village in Chaoyang District and the party branch there is a model village party branch in Beijing. The governing body of Longwangtang village consists of three parts: the party branch, the village committee, and the economic cooperative (enterprise). The party organization in Longwangtang has 55 members and five branch members. The average age of the party branch members is 40, and all five have attended secondary specialized school or higher education. The party branch is in control of village management, and the party branch secretary is the first in command in village affairs, with direct control over the budget. The village committee chair and four members are all party members, and the chair is also a party branch member. The party secretary and the village committee chair also serve as the directors of the economic cooperative. The village has a population of 1,165 and a labor force of 782. Villagers are organized into 25 groups, 70 percent of village group chiefs are party members. Longwangtang has 22 village enterprises and share-holding enterprises. In 2000, only some 30 households were engaged in agricultural production by growing vegetables. The village economy has increased significantly in the reform years. In 1999, the total income reached 191,320,000 yuan (US$23,050,600). The per labor income was 18,241 yuan (US$2,198) (an amount similar to the salary earned by a bureau-level official in Beijing), and per capita income 9,921 yuan (US$1,195), which was nearly 50 percent higher than the national average ($800). Most families have built new houses in recent years, and each of these families receives an additional 10,000 yuan or more from renting out rooms. The village has adopted an urbanized management and a welfare system. The annual spending on welfare in recent years is more than 3,000,000 yuan, with 2,000 yuan for each person and 5,000 yuan for each senior person. The village provides villagers with health insurance or medical subsidies. It provides retired peasants (women 50, and men 55, years old) with pensions and provides the handicapped with treatment similar to that received by the retired etired. Families with military personnel receive a subsidy of 5,000 yuan each year from the village. Every one-child student receives an annual subsidy of 90 yuan from the first grade to the twelfth grade. The village leadership also en-courages young people to pursue education by offering a reward of 1,000 yuan for each secondary specialized school graduate and of 2,000 yuan for each junior college graduate. Each year, the village offers villagers welfare funds for three main Chinese holidays. The industrialized village economy and the urbanized management have transformed Longwangtang into a modern urban community. Many families are equipped with computers, in addition to other electronic goods such as TV set, refrigerator, and air conditioner. Except for the vegetable green houses, the appearance of the village no longer looks rural. In terms of party building, Longwangtang party branch reported in June 2000 that the party branch has set up and used rules to regularize an honest, dedicated, and democratic


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style of work. Particularly on major issues such as economic decisions and personnel changes, the party branch makes collective decisions through discussion, not allowing one person to unilaterally decide. Since 1997, the party branch has adopted a system of villager evaluation of party branch and village committee members and enterprise managers. The evaluation is democratically conducted, and the results are publicly posted on the village affairs bulletin board. Those cadres who were seriously criticized by the villagers have lost their positions. The party branch recruited ten young or middle-aged new members from 1997 to 2000 and has selected young, well-educated party members to staff the leading positions. Every four months, the party branch reports to villagers about village affairs, including the rules, publicly-owned assets, the use of land, the budget and expenditures, enterprise operation, investment, cadre evaluation, and so on. The openness and transparency of village affairs have disciplined the cadres, improved cadre-villager relations, and enhanced the cohesion and appeal of the party branch (Longwangtang Party Branch 2000). In conformity with the general situation elsewhere in rural areas, the Longwangtang case shows that the CCP remains strong and dominant in grassroots government in rural China. Its strength is reflected in the high percentage of party members among village cadres and the relationships between the party branches and village committees. The Party’s continuing strength stems in part from the legacy of the prolonged unified village leadership exercised by the party branches during the people’s commune period. It is also a result of the relatively high education level among peasant party members. Moreover, the experience of the Longwangtang party branch demonstrates that well-organized and disciplined party branches with educated and competent members are capable of bringing social stability and economic prosperity to villages. When they are open to people’s supervision and representative of villagers’ interests, they can win the support of their people. “On a scale of 1 to 10,1 give 10 to the popularity of our party branch among the villagers,” the deputy party secretary estimated, with pride and confidence. In our village, economic growth is the core of our party work, but economic development is under the absolute leadership of our party branch. Economic growth and material well-being have won us endorsement from our villagers. Our welfare system is very attractive to people. Young women sustain their registered residence in Longwangtang for welfare after marriage, even though they no longer live in the village. Likewise, those who moved into Longwangtang through marriage stay here if their marriages break up. The success of our economy is due to a stable cadre team [the two party secretaries have been partners since 1990], which is experienced and knowledgeable and has a long-term plan for village development (interview in Beijing, July 15, 2000). Party Strength in Urban China The Danwei (Work Unit) System Paralleled to the rural commune system, the danwei system was an essential component


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of the Leninist political structure that the Party adopted to govern urban China. The danwei system was “a hierarchy of state-owned workplace units” such as party, state, and military organizations, the media, factories and enterprises, schools and research institutions, hospitals, and so on (Lü and Perry 1997). In the absence of a real labor market, urban residents were assigned their danwei by the government in the public sector. Most spent their entire careers in the same danwei. A person could not transfer to another danwei without the permission of his or her unit. Without market distribution of basic goods and services, the danwei was essential to the material needs and daily life of its employees, providing them with permanent employment, public housing, free medical care, retirement pension, and other benefits. A danwei was often a small, self-contained society with its own service system, including apartments, assembly hall (for both meetings and movies), shop, clinic, kindergarten, and the like. Many work units were compounds, with half of the space used for work, and the other half for residences. While the danwei guaranteed employees many economic benefits, it also controlled their professional careers and sociopolitical well-being. The party organization at each danwei maintained a unified leadership. Party organization leaders decided each employee’s promotion and raise in salary. The party organization encouraged political loyalty with rewards and punishments. Its pervasive political control and monitoring of its employees’ public and private lives made political and personal autonomy virtually impossible. With both its political and social functions, the danwei served as an instrument with which the Party organized and controlled urban society, maintaining a high level of social order in urban China (Lü and Perry 1997; Whyte 1999). The danwei system has decayed to some extent in the post-Mao reform years, because numerous state enterprises can no longer guarantee their workers a lifetime income and other benefits due to their poor performance in the market economy. Nevertheless, “the danwei system remains the central organizing feature” in urban China and continues to “conflate state and society” (Fewsmith 1999:70). Although employees in the public sector enjoy unprecedented freedom in their private lives, they remain dependent on their danwei for political and social well-being, because danwei leaders are still in control of their job assignment and promotion. Thus, the danwei system continues to sustain the CCP’s strength in urban China by allowing the Party to control leadership selection in all strategic work units, from the state and military bureaucracies to official-sponsored mass organizations. CCP and Grassroots Self-government in Urban China Apart from the danwei system, the Party has recently sought to maintain urban social stability by reinventing a venerable institution—the neighborhood committee system. The neighborhood committee system was established in the Mao years. When class struggle was the guiding principle of Chinese political life, the neighborhood committees were empowered to watch over households, scrutinize visitors, and report antisocial activities. In addition, they also organized residents to clear up the environment, sorted out disputes among neighbors, watched out for burglars and other problems, and so on. Members of the old neighborhood committee were generally illiterate or semi-illiterate housewives and retirees, mostly working on a volunteer basis. In the post-Mao era, the neighborhood


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committees no longer play a role centered around class struggle. They now function as watch patrols and service teams. In recent years, neighborhood committees were selected by residents from their neighborhoods. But because the posts were unpaid or low paying jobs, neighborhood committee elections had not attracted much attention from urban residents. The recent reinvention of the neighborhood committee system was designed to remedy the economic woes in urban areas. Since the overall reform of the state sector began in 1997, numerous state enterprises have shut down and their social services to their workers evaporated. Millions of urban residents have become unemployed and less organized as well. The Party introduced the new neighborhood elections to allow urban grassroots self-government and let the people take care of themselves within local organizations. The newly elected neighborhood committees were initiated to perform some of the tasks left unfulfilled by the decay of the danwei system in state enterprise. Candidates for neighborhood committee posts are officially nominated, with party membership, youth, and education level major criteria for selection. With bettereducated, more professional, and younger staffs, the new neighborhood committees operate to link up residents with social services such as job training and placement, elderly school programs, environment clean up and beautification, and other efforts to promote culturally advanced neighborhood communi ties. They also perform tasks such as family planning, crime control, organizing cultural events, and responding to resident complaints. The new neighborhood committees do not have independent powers and budgets. They are guided by the local governments and function as liaisons with official authority (Eckholm 2000). In Beijing, for example, neighborhood committees in each subdistrict receive funds from the subdistrict office of the government. The subdistrict office directs the works of neighborhood committees, assigning persons specially for contact with each of its neighborhood committees. Neighborhood Committee Elections in Zhongguancun and Gucheng The neighborhood committee elections take place in particular ways. In Beijing, candidates for neighborhood committee positions in the 2000 elections were recommended by the subdistrict office. Both the committee chair and member are paid positions, with monthly stipends of 1,000 yuan for the chair and 400 yuan for each member. In two neighborhood committees (the 11th neighborhood committee in Zhongguancun and the 1st neighborhood committee in Gucheng), candidates were selected from three groups of people. The first group was young people who had recently left school and were usually non-party members, and some were youth league members. They passed the examination for employment in the government bureaucracy and became public personnel on the permanent staff. The second group was middle-aged laid-off cadres and workers. All passed the examination for neighborhood committee posts, and all had party membership. The third group was relatively older neighborhood cadres who had served on their neighborhood committees prior to the new policy. Some of them were party members, while others were not. The first two groups of candidates were recommended by the subdistrict office and sent to the neighborhood they would be working in three months before the elections. Representatives of residents in the


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neighborhood evaluated these would-be candidates and decided their nominations for committee chair or members. Voting for the committee in both neighborhoods was carried out by an assembly of household representatives, often retirees, who were chosen by their immediate neighbors. Typically, this consists of the households sharing an apartment building entrance. In the 11th neighborhood committee of Zhongguancun subdistrict, 15 representatives voted, and each represented 18 to 24 households. The new chair was a young woman who was a youth league member (a first group candidate), and one of the two committee members (33 percent of the committee) had party membership. In the 1st neighborhood committee of Gucheng subdistrict, 90 representatives from more than 700 households voted. The new chair was a middle-aged male party cadre (a second group candidate), who left his previous position to work in the neighborhood due to the reductions in his government bureau. The deputy committee chair and one of the three members were also party members, and another committee member was going to be recruited into the Party the week following the election, which would add the percentage of party members to 80 percent of the committee (interviews in Beijing, June-July 2000). Neighborhood elections appear to be less attractive to urban residents than are village elections to peasants. Most residents consider neighborhood committees as less relevant to their lives than their danwei because their economic and political well-being is associated far less with their neighborhood community than with their danwei. Yet the new elections evidently attracted laid-off cadres and workers, many of whom competed for the neighborhood committee posts, and the voter participation was higher than it had been in the past. Officials from the Ministry of Civil Affairs (the central government organ supervising village and urban neighborhood elections) explain the different situations in rural and urban areas as the result of economic interests. Villagers pay close attention to village elections (many of those who work in cities return home to vote on the election days) because their economic interests are with their villages. Publiclyowned assets (sometimes more than 100 million yuan) in their villages belong to every one of them, they want to select a village chair they trust in order to make sure that their collective assets are properly allocated and used. Urban residents, on the other hand, do not have public assets in their neighborhood communities. Their well-being is instead associated with their danwei. “People don’t care about democracy if it’s not related to their economic interests. That’s why neighborhood elections do not draw much attention from residents,” one official reasoned. If we had a chance to vote for our ministry leaders, I would for sure participate enthusiastically because my interests are in my ministry, not in my neighborhood committee. More people participate in neighborhood elections nowadays than previously because the posts are now paid jobs and hence are attractive to many laid-off workers. People have a need for income, it’s still the economic interest that matters (interview in Beijing, June 16, 2000). In addition to the salary incentive, local officials and neighborhood cadres attribute the increasing participation in the new elections to the role played by neighborhood party branches and to the greater attention to the elections from higher level authorities. The


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story of Chang Zongjie, party secretary of Gucheng 1st neighborhood committee, exemplifies the role of party members in the neighborhood development. Chang was also the neighborhood committee chair prior to the new election. When he was first selected for the post, he had a job in a state enterprise and earned 800–900 yuan monthly. His wife and children did not want him to trade his job for the neighborhood position and told him such a trade would be crazy. But he quit his job to work in the neighborhood where he received 80–90 yuan per month. He worked very hard for his neighborhood and won great popularity among the residents. His committee became a model committee in the subdistrict. Chang recalled that he was able to do a good job because he relied heavily on the party members. He had 102 employed and 47 retired party members in the neighborhood, and all hard manual labor tasks such as garbage collection had been done by these party members in their leisure times. At his early sixtieth, Chang was elected deputy committee chair, and he remained on the committee to “walk with the new chair part of the way (song yicheng)” (interviews in Beijing, July 18, 2000). Local officials noticeably paid great attention to the new elections. One official from the subdistrict observed the election in Zhongguancun 11th neighborhood committee. Some ten officials from the municipality, district, and subdistrict observed the election of Gucheng 1st neighborhood committee (apparently because it was a large model neighborhood committee). In addition to maintaining social stability and building culturally advanced neighborhood communities, officials also cited promoting democracy and global integration as important purposes of the new neighborhood elections. “China is integrating with the world,” one official from Guangning subdistrict office explained. “The neighborhood elections are meant to build grassroots democracy in urban areas to meet the needs for global integration. The voter participation this time was uneven in different neighborhoods; some took the elections more seriously than did others. But on the whole, people’s democratic and legal awareness is growing” (interview in Beijing, July 18, 2000). As a young woman bureaucrat from Zhongguancun subdistrict office said: “We’d like to learn from others about community development and grassroots democracy, including from the outside world” (interview in Beijing, June 9, 2000). Skeptics might argue that “grassroots democracy” and “to return power to the people” are “lofty words.” The new neighborhood elections are “firmly intended to promote party loyalists” and to “save these street-level organizations to help keep tabs on an increasingly mobile and independent population” (Eckholm 2000:A3). Likewise, skeptics argue that “village elections are a farce. The Chinese government knows fully well that any real change to its power structure must come from the top. It is only to give foreign democracy-advocates the impression that it is reforming is [its] permitting these village ‘democracies’ to function” (Hsieh 2000:53). Criticisms aside, however, what seems clear is that when the Party sets in motion policies of grassroots democracy to strengthen its leadership in both rural and urban China, it has the ability to implement its policies by mobilizing the mass population to achieve its goals. This suggests that the party leadership remains powerful in China. The continuing strength of the party leadership helps to explain why, despite the creation of a “zone of indifference” around individuals over the course of reform, “Chinese society today remains very much dominated by the state” (Fewsmith 1999:70).


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POPULAR ENDORSEMENT OF THE PARTY LEADERSHIP AND REFORM Recent Survey Results It would be simplistic to attribute the continuing strength of the Party solely to its grasp of power and domination over society. Indeed, this continuing party strength is in large part a result of the successful reforms that have changed the state-society relationship by creating a space between state and society in post-Mao China. This change has benefited the Chinese public by allowing people to work for their own well-being. It has also benefited the Party by regaining it legitimacy and popular support. As David Shambaugh asserts, the “space” created between state and society in post-Mao China is a good measure of the profound changes in the nature of the state itself. Its writ is not large. By giving society such space, Deng succeeded in his goal of enlivening society and thereby unfettering cultural and commercial impulses. The direct beneficiaries have been the citizens of China, but the state has benefited indirectly as it has provided China with a new basis of legitimacy (2000:185). Recent research reveals that the Chinese public endorses the party leadership and the political system, which gives the CCP “a good chance of remaining legitimate among a majority of the Chinese people” (Chen et al. 1997:45). A survey in 1987 among the Chinese population revealed that when asked “Do you think the CCP’s leadership is necessary?” nearly 60 percent of the 1,321 respondents said it is always necessary, 30 percent said it is necessary now but not in the future, and only 10 percent said it was necessary in the past but not any more. Also 74 percent of the 1,718 respondents agreed with the statement “we should trust and obey the government because the ultimate goal of the government is to serve us,” and 69 percent stated they “have confidence in the central government” (Min Qi 1989, see Zheng 1994:254–5). Another survey in 1990 showed that while 54 percent of those surveyed believed that “China needs more democracy now,” 76 percent believed “China’s democracy depends on the CCP’s leadership” (see Nathan 1993:39). In 1995, a survey of Beijing residents found strong popular support for the political system. The survey found 95.4 percent of the respondents strongly agreed or agreed that they are “proud to live under the current political (socialist) system.” It found 97.5 percent of those polled strongly agreed or agreed that they “feel an obligation to support our current political system,” and 93.2 percent strongly agreed or agreed that they “respect the political institutions in China today.” On the issue of human rights and democracy, the survey showed that 86.7 percent of the respondents strongly agreed or agreed that “the basic rights of citizens are (relatively well) protected by the Chinese political system” (Chen et al. 1997:49)


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Table 4.4 Distributions of Legitimacy of Political System (%)

Strongly Agree

Agree Disagree

Strongly Disagree

N

I am proud to live under the current political (socialist) system.

53.8

41.6

3.7

0.9

675

I feel an obligation to support our current political system.

62.2

35.3

2.5

0.0

675

I respect the political institutions in China today.

44.9

48.3

5.5

1.3

673

I think the basic rights of citizens are (relatively well) protected by the Chinese political system.

23.9

62.8

11.4

1.9

677

(In general,) I think the courts in China guarantee a fair trial.

16.2

66.0

14.2

3.6

671

I believe that my personal values are the same as those (advocated by the government) of our political system.

19.0

61.0

18.2

1.8

669

Source: adopted from Chen, Zhong and Hillard, “The Level and Sources of Popular Support for China’s Current Political Regime.” Communist and PostCommunist Studies Vol. 30, 1997:49.

(see table 4.4). Another recent survey in Jilin Province revealed that 27 percent of the respondents believed that China has truly realized democracy (i.e., the people are the masters of the country), and 45.5 percent believed that democracy has been basically realized but has yet to be improved (Yu and Zheng 1998:118–9). Some have claimed that two decades of economic reform have caused the Party’s loss of “the two pillars of its political support: the peasantry and urban workers” due to the dismantling of communes and the reform of state-owned industry. “Meanwhile, the CCP has failed to reach out and secure the political support of newly emerging societal forces such as private entrepreneurs, professionals, and religious groups” (Pei 1999:107). The above survey findings, however, provide little evidence for such claims. It is necessary that one should be cautious about using these survey data because in the aftermath of Tiananmen, they might not reflect people’s real beliefs about democracy and the political system. Moreover, previous survey data might not be an accurate reflection of the people’s views today. Nevertheless, it is even less credible if one claims that the Party has lost the political support of peasants, workers, and other social groups without empirical evidence. Moreover, other recent research shows that, with few exceptions, China’s social groups tend to maintain positive relations with the state. Although there has been substantial progress in the growth of civil society from the Mao period (with no civil society then) to the present, “the overwhelming fact is that in today’s China social groups pursue their


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interests through the state rather than against the state” (Fewsmith 1999:71). “Social and political systems are becoming more open, particularly at the local level. This trend, however, is being led by the community of interest that encompasses the party-state and the new middle classes, from the top down rather than through the exploitation of any hypothetical political space between them” (Goodman 1999:261). This state-society association has led to the identification of a “state-led civil society,” which is characterized as “the recent creation by the state of literally hundreds of thousands of organizations and groups that serve as support mechanisms to the state” (Frolic 1997:56). One might ask whether or not China’s state-led organizations and groups can be defined as civil society. The truth, however, is that China’s state and society today are still closely related rather than divided, and that there are very few societal forces that are strong and independent of the state. Given the existing relationship between the state and the society and the absence of a civil society in the conventional sense, democratization in China is more likely to be a project of the state than a project of the society. Post-Tiananmen Developmental Consensus Human Needs Approach and People’s Satisfaction with Life Improvement The human needs approach seeks to integrate the concept of human needs into the study of political processes. John Burton, for example, focuses on human needs to explain the legitimacy of a regime. “Conventional thinking appears not to make any clear distinction between that which is ‘legal’ and that which is ‘legitimized’,” Burton posits. What gives a regime the legitimacy to rule “is performance in satisfying needs rather than the processes by which authorities are selected or self-selected” (1979:130). “The historical process is a search, not for a structural ‘ism’, but for one that concentrates on processes by which structures can change and evolve in the quest for the fulfillment of needs: process and needs are the ingredients of the ideal ‘ism’” (ibid.: 199). According to the human needs approach, the post-1989 popular support for the current leadership, which gives legitimacy to party rule, has to be a result of the leadership’s performance in satisfying the needs of the people (i.e., the economic development imperative hypothesis). Recent research indicates that the post-Tiananmen popular support for the current leadership is positively related to people’s satisfaction with life improvement and the prospects for China’s future. Jie Chen, Yang Zhong, and Jan William Hillard, for example, found that popular support for the government is most likely to be found among those “who are most satisfied with their life” and “give high evaluations of incumbent policies” (1997:45). According to a 1997 survey conducted by the State Economic Structure Reform Commission, 83.9 percent of the urban population supported the reforms, and 65.9 percent were happy with the results (see Burns 1999:585). Another 1997 survey among Beijing urban residents also revealed a relatively high satisfaction with the improvement in their living standards and social status. Specifically, 88.4 percent of the respondents strongly agreed or agreed that their “living conditions have noticeably improved” since 1978. Also 65.2 percent strongly agreed or agreed that their “social status has noticeably improved” as well. The survey also found a high level of


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optimism about China’s future. Among those polled, 84.2 percent did not think “China will experience political and social turmoils in the next ten years,” and 90.1 percent were “confident that China will become an economic power in the 21st century” (Zhong et al. 1998:779) (see table 4.5). Along with people’s confidence in China’s future, there is a strong sense of national pride that has resulted in large part from China’s rapid economic growth in the reform years and the rise of Chinese power in the international system. According to Yongnian Zheng, in contrast to the crash of the Soviet Communist camp, China in the past two decades has achieved high economic growth. “Individual Chinese have received enormous economic and other types of benefits in the course of this rejuvenation. A strong sense of national pride comes to average Chinese citizens, a sense probably as strong as, if not stronger, than what they felt when Mao Zedong declared the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949” (1999:2). The public’s relative satisfaction with life improvement and its confidence in China’s future help explain why Chinese people do not challenge the Party for democratic change. This lack of action by the people presents another contrast to what happened in Eastern Europe. One important factor that opened spaces for civil society in Eastern Europe was the economic decay of the Communist system. During the 1960s, for example, the Communist Party in Poland began to lose control over the populace due to the stagnant living standards, inequality, official corruption, and the decline of social mobility. “The widespread belief that socialism equalized social positions and

Table 4.5 Levels of Satisfaction and Confidence (%)

Strongly Agree Disagree Strongly Disagree Agree

N

Suggestions and complaints made by the public to the government are often ignored.

31.5

40.7

24.0 3.8

1,253

Currently what China needs more is political structural reform.

30.4

49.3

17.8 2.5

1,245

Since the reforms in 1978, my living conditions have noticeably improved.

36.7

51.7

9.8 1.8

1,260

Since the reforms in 1978, my social status has noticeably improved.

19.1

46.1

27.6 7.2

1,255

It is unlikely that China will experience political and social turmoils in the next ten years.

29.5

54.7

13.5 2.2

1,258

I am confident that China will become an economic power in the 21st century.

36.9

53.2

8.3 1.7

1,257

Source: Zhong, Chen and Scheb, “Mass Political Culture in Beijing.” Asian Survery Vol. 38, August 1998:779. The Regents of the University of California.


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opportunities for advance, perhaps the one part of the Party’s ideology which the population accepted wholeheartedly, turned in the end against the institutional system of ‘real socialism’” (Pelczynski 1988:367). The economic decay opened new opportunities for market and privatization, leading many in Poland, as well as in Hungary and Czechoslovakia,to call for economic independence from the state and “to reformulate the idea of the autonomy of civil society” (Rupnik 1988:284–5). In contrast to Eastern Europe, post-Mao China is for most Chinese people a more hospitable and prosperous place. It is true that China is still a low-income developing country, and economic development in different regions has been uneven. It is also true that much of the social discontent and unrest in recent years has stemmed from people’s frustration with economic inequality and official corruption. Nevertheless, the Chinese people remain relatively satisfied with their life improvement and supportive of the government and the policy of reform. Popular Demand for Development and Stability Some scholars have argued that, as a result of the exhaustion of “the old ‘buy-off’ approach to securing stability,” urban discontent will grow to threaten the government’s legitimacy and authority (Chen 1998:10). Yizi Chen, for example, questioned: “How can a communist regime, long accustomed to buying obedience with jobs and welfare, maintain its legitimacy even while it takes jobs and benefits away from its subjects?” (ibid.: 9) Others, by contrast, believe that “large-scale chaos should not be expected…. Most Chinese live in the relatively better developed regions, and thus have little incentive to oppose the government” (Wang 1998:51). “At the grassroots, the main trend is not hostility but political indifference. There is lively expression of specific grievances, to be sure…. In general, however, political activism is at a low ebb and political concerns have low priority” (Scalapino 1998:37). My research findings are closer to those who emphasize the likely continuation of stability. The overall impression is that social unrest is not likely to occur in most parts of the country, especially in the major cities. A recurrent theme among average people from Beijing, Chongqing, Wuhan, and Nanjing was their concern with the large size of laid-off workers. Some even expressed the yearning for the job security and economic equality under Mao. Yet very few believed that the problem had caused sociopolitical instability, and most indicated the so ciopolitical situation in their cities remained stable. The relatively stable sociopolitical situation may be attributed to three factors, which are consistent with the human needs approach that “societal stability and change are actually dependent on the satisfaction of individual human needs” (Coate and Rosati 1988:7). First, the post-Mao reforms are beneficial to the population at large. An overwhelming majority of the people has experienced an improvement in living standards in the reform years. People’s income has risen at an annual increase of 8.1 percent in the countryside, and 6.2 percent in the cities when adjusted for inflation. Percapita income for the rural population in real terms has climbed from 133.6 yuan in 1978 to 2,250 yuan in 1999. For the urban population in the same period, it has increased from 343.5 yuan to 6,130 yuan (Qiushi 2000.12). According to the Information Office of the State Council, Chinese people’s total savings deposits rose from 21.06 billion yuan (US$2.54 billion) in


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1978 to 4,627.98 billion yuan (US$557.59 billion) in 1997, up 218.8 times. The per capita savings deposits increased from 22 yuan (US$2.65) to 3,744 yuan (US$451), a rise of 169.2 times. People’s housing conditions have also improved. For urban residents, per capita living space augmented from 3.6 square meters in 1978 to 8.8 square meters in 1997, and that for rural residents expanded from 8.1 square meters to 22. 46 square meters. According to a comprehensive calculation of economic development, living standards, quality of people’s cultural life, and environmental living conditions, by 1997, 86.52 percent of the population “had reached the preliminary standards of a comfortable living” (China Daily April 14, 1999). In Beijing, the poverty line for urban residents in 2002 is 290 yuan per month (3,480 yuan yearly), which is over 50 percent of the national average (6,130 yuan in 1999) for the urban population. As one taxi driver playfully said: “It’s strange that everybody says he is short of money, but nobody has really eaten less or drunk less. It looks like that everybody is crying about how poor he is (kuqiong), while all have some money in their pocket” (interview in Beijing, June 29, 2000). In many rural areas, life has changed tremendously. One central party official remarked about the phenomenal improvement of living standards among his relatives in rural areas outside Beijing and in Shandong. Ten years ago, he and his wife had so many poor rural relatives that they had to save every penny they could to support their families. Three of his wife’s sisters lived in rural Beijing and came for help frequently, and his father-in-law stayed with them every winter. He also had to send money to his mother in Shandong each year. But today, the economic condition of rural China has improved. “It’s only ten years, life in the countryside has improved tremendously,” the official said, very pleased. All three of my sister-in-laws are well-to-do now. Each family lives in a new house with TV set, refrigerator, washing machine, and gas stove. The only difference between us [Beijing peasants and a bureau-level party official] is that they use electric fans and we have air conditioning. My family in Shandong is also well-off. Every family has an orchard, a new house, and all kinds of electric stuff. My youngest brother’s got a new truck (interview in Beijing, July 5, 2000). In the most impoverished areas, though life is still very hard, people are also better-off than they were prior to the reforms. An example is the Shennongxi (Shennong River, a tributary of the Yangtze River) area in Sanxia. According to the tourist guide I interviewed, Shennongxi is a Tujia minority area, and people there live on the hillsides along the river. For generations, Tujia men make a living with a very hard job—towing boats. Most of them today are still boat trackers. But despite their hardships, life in Shennongxi is better than it was before. The boat trackers make about 1,000 yuan a year these days, 10 times more than they made a decade ago. They seem to be accustomed to and happy with their lives, working hard and occasionally singing folk songs (interview in Shennongxi, August 13, 2000). According to some central officials, corruption has gone worse than it was when the June 4 demonstration occurred, and the burdens on the peasantry are very heavy. “But Chinese masses are timid and simple-minded, want no


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more than a secure and peaceful life. As long as they have food to eat, they will not rebel,” one official said (interview in Beijing, August 5, 2000). The current sociopolitical stability may also be attributed to the job opportunities brought to the general public by the reforms. China under Mao did not have a labor market. Chinese peasants were confined to the fields by the residence system, and urban residents were “locked” in their danwei. Post-Mao reform China, on the other hand, is an open, diverse society that allows people to release their energies and to make full use of their material and human resources to meet then personal needs. The transformation to a market economy has created many more opportunities for individuals to work for their own well-being. Millions of rural residents have moved to cities for material fortunes. Meanwhile, for an urban individual or family, the loss of the “iron rice bowl” in the state sector no longer means the end of the world. A recent survey in Shanghai showed that 81.1 percent of the respondents agreed that freedom of occupation selection is sufficient or relatively sufficient in today’s China, and 66.3 percent said it was very limited 20 years ago (Beijing Review December 28, 1998-January 3, 1999). Job opportunities are available for those who are willing to work hard. For example, most taxi drivers in Beijing are ex-factory workers from the outskirts of the city because the job is so toilsome and time-consuming that most urban laid-off workers do not want to take it. One taxi driver complained that the laid-off workers in urban Beijing are lazy, arrogant, and do not work hard themselves but look down on hard-working labors from somewhere else (interview in Beijing, May 29, 2000). The taxi driver’s view may not be true, but it seems to suggest that rather than complain about the government for their loss of jobs, people tend to blame those who do not try hard to find reemployment. In another example, a rickshaw driver in Nanwenquan Park in Chongqing, who earns 1,000 yuan a month during the high season of tourism, 400–500 yuan a month otherwise, did not blame the government for his hardships. Instead, he cheerfully said: “We are grateful to the government because it’s due to the government’s good policy, we have this chance [working in the park] to make money other than working in the fields and to make our lives better” (interview in Chongqing, August 10, 2000). According to residents from different cities, a common idea among the people is that, rather than waste time complaining and making trouble (e.g., going on strikes), one would be better off to spend time finding something to do for money. Apparently, many Chinese have come to believe that, in a market economy, it is individuals’ responsibility to take care of themselves, because the opportunities are open to them if they are willing to work hard. A third factor that has contributed to the relative stability in China is people’s desire for sound and secure life and their fear of social disorder. For that, most people prefer an orderly and stable society so they can have their basic needs met. A 10,000-sample survey conducted by the China Mainland Marketing Research Company in 22 cities across the country in 2000 found people put three immediate personal needs—having a job, better living conditions, and medical insurance—on the top of their major concern list. The three personal needs were followed by two public priorities: economic development and public order. Other concerns that made the top ten priorities were anticorruption, environmental protection, social security for the elderly, stable prices, and education (China Daily Feb-ruary 27, 2001). Related to people’s desire for a good and secure life is their desire for social order and stability. A 1997 survey among Beijing


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urban residents found an overwhelming majority (94.3 percent) of the respondents indicated they “would rather live in an orderly society than in a freer society which is prone to disruptions” (Zhong et al. 1998) (see table 4.1). A similar view is expressed by people from other cities. In Chongqing, for example, residents described the city as the most chaotic and violent city in the whole country during the Cultural Revolution. Yet precisely because of that legacy, residents there remained inactive when the 1989 Tiananmen uprising occurred. “We were afraid of violence,” a taxi driver explained. “We had just gone through the bloody period of the Cultural Revolution and had just begun to have a peaceful life. We didn’t want to go back to chaos, because we knew during chaos, we laobaixing (ordinary people) suffer first and most” (interview in Chongqing, August 11, 2000). Having experienced the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen tragedy, very few Chinese today are still in the mood for further political campaigns. As many have indicated, it is the trauma of the Cultural Revolution, “still fresh for well over half the Chinese population, that has especially haunted the urban sectors and made them fearful of rapid and large-scale changes from the bottom up” (Han 1993:230). The Tiananmen tragedy further dramatized the tension between freedom and order and “has forced many Chinese to make a choice between” the two (Madsen 1995:15). The post-Tiananmen population is also in no mood for further democratic experiments. A recent study of Chinese opinion on human rights by Ming Wan found little readiness and willingness among China’s “silent majority” to pressure for democratic change. Instead, the study revealed a broad “developmentalist consensus” within both the government and the society on the importance of stability for economic growth. The study also found that the post-Tiananmen popular support for the party leadership has resulted from people’s support for the leadership’s goals of developing the economy and building a strong Chinese nation. The public agrees with the government that political stability is critical to the realization of these goals (1998:371). “Optimism must be tempered by a realization that Chinese society is neither ready nor willing at this stage to push for democracy and human rights,” argues Ming Wan: For despite serious social and economic problems, Chinese society appears to be largely content with the country’s economic performance. A broad developmentalist consensus has emerged, within the government and society alike, that emphasizes stability as a precondition for economic development. The concern for stability and growth on the part of ordinary Chinese conditions their cautious and even suspicious views on human rights and democracy. Even most Chinese intellectuals have adopted an instrumentalist view, asking what these Western ideas and institutions can do to improve the lives of the people. Average Chinese are not convinced that their country is now ready for democracy (ibid.: 362).

THE INTELLECTUAL ELITE IN POST-1989 CHINA In any given society, one of the most distinctive characteristics that differentiate


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intellectuals from the mass population is the intellectuals’ high level of political interest and awareness. This is clearly the case in China. Contrary to their fellow countrymen, who remain politically apathetic, Chinese intellectuals are deeply concerned with political reform. Many believe that political reform is the key to combating official corruption and facilitating economic reform. On the issue of the June 4, unlike the general public who has largely forgotten about the incident, a few intellectuals still contemplate on the matter. Some look at the positive aspects of the movement, such as opposing corruption and advocating honesty among officials. Others indicate that the crackdown was so drastic that it damaged the image of the Party. Still others complain the uprising for causing the delay of political reforms. As Goldman and MacFarquhar observed: “Several Chinese intellectuals have bemoaned the fact that among the casualties of the June 4 tragedy was any opportunity for gradual political democratization within the party-state framework” (1999:15). Attitudes toward Democracy Drawing lessons from the June 4 tragedy, Chinese intellectuals appear to have developed a more rational view about democratic development in China. Cao Siyuan,1 one of the 1980s generation of democratic elites and the director in the 1980s of an independent think tank funded by Stone Group, China’s largest private computer company, has proposed that China should develop a socialist parliamentary democracy through nonviolence. “For the Chinese people, who experienced ten years’ chaos of the Cultural Revolution and a full-scale internal war and paid a price with blood, following the road to peaceful reform is a self-evident truth,” Cao affirmed (1996:249). “Any responsible reformers would not want chaos to occur because it holds society backward. In chaos, reformers and reformist objects are the first to get hurt. Establishing a public gallery in the National People’s Congress would be a choice for promoting democracy in a larger scale without causing disorder” (ibid.: 205). The Tiananmen generation has also learned from the June 4 tragedy. According to James and Ann Tyson, Gao Qixin, a Tiananmen student activist “laughs today when he recalls his flamboyant declaration of guerrilla war. He has left behind the intense, selfless devotion of Tiananmen Square” (1995:311). “Unlike in his university days, Gao believes that Chinese cannot create democracy in a sudden blossomtime burst of youthful zeal.” Instead, “economic development and increasing prosperity will help China steadily outgrow its tyrannical political tradition” (ibid.: 323). “It’s naïve just to say, ‘Overthrow the Communist Party’!” Gao said. “Young people must realize that history progresses incrementally. When people have enough food to eat and clothes to wear, then we can make significant prog-ress toward democracy” (see ibid.: 322). Another example of this change in views is an intellectual officer at the PLA National Defense University, who was the most active and radical military personnel in the 1989 movement (to my knowledge). After the June 4 crackdown, he retired from the Army and became a private entrepreneur. No longer a radical political activist, he acknowledged that China could not achieve democracy through protest movement like the June 4 uprising, and that there had to be some peaceful way (interview in Beijing, May 26, 2000). Apart from their realization that China cannot achieve democracy through mass


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movement, the intellectual elites have realized that China should develop democracy within the Chinese context. Many have come to agree with the official view that China’s “development of socialist democracy must proceed from the reality of our own country, based on our own advantages, and cannot copy the Western model of political system” (Qin 1999:84–5). As Mo Jihong, a law professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, recently commented: “Improving the congressional system needs time. Only this way can the construction of democracy move forward. We can’t directly import the Western system. That isn’t practical” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution March 4, 2001). According to a well-known former CCTV anchor, who was removed from her position after the June 4 incident, Unknowing about the overall situation during the June 4, my view about the movement was too emotional under the unclear circumstances. Now I understand that, though a historical trend, the development of democracy takes a very long time period. The United States was founded on a land of freedom. American democracy was created by those who had come to the New World from the Old World for freedom. China has a completely different political culture from America’s. It won’t work if China is to copy Western democracy. It would even be more hopeless if Clinton were to run China. China has to develop its own democratic system based on the Chinese conditions (interview in Beijing, June 22, 2000). Moreover, Chinese intellectuals hold diverse views about how democracy should be developed and how it might work in China. Some go as far as to advocate general elections at the national level, contending that important national decisions should be made through popular vote by the entire population. “Deng Xiaoping said democracy is too costly, demanding big spending,” one scholar of public administration argued. “But without democratic elections, official corruption is serious enough to be more costly. Big national decisions such as the Three Gorges Project should be voted by the whole population, not just approved by the NPC.” Others readily disagree with the more radical view. They question how general elections can be held at the national level, given China’s large rural population and the low levels of education and communication. They are skeptical that China can depend on the popular vote for decisions as important as the Three Gorges Project because the mass majority has no knowledge about the subject matter (interviews in Beijing, June 28, 2000). Most intellectual elites, meanwhile, tend to agree that China should develop democracy first from within the Party and the system and should propel mass democracy by developing inner-party democracy. As Zhu Manliang asserts: Under the socialist conditions, especially in the early stage of socialism, innerparty democracy and the people’s democracy are closely related and affect each other, and the democratization of the Party plays a key role in the socialist democratic development…. The CCP’s leading position in China’s political life stems from the prolonged revolutionary history and is clarified by the Constitution…. This position of the Party in China’s political life, along with other factors, is what determines the close relationship of the inner-party


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democratization with the socialist democratic development. It can be said that the democratization and legalization of the country are dependent on the democratization of the Party. In other words, without the inner-party democratization, there cannot be democratization and legalization in China (1997:72; see also Gao Fang 1999; Hu Wei 1999; Sun Guanhong 1999; Wang Changjiang 1998). The diverse views about democracy among the intellectuals are reflected also in their attitudes toward village elections. Some give high praise to village elections, calling village self-government a “political revolution on the yellow earth.” “Who says peasants are ignorant, knowing only eating and making money, not what democracy is?” they argue. “[Who says] peasants have a strong sense of dependence, cannot govern themselves, but can only be ruled by officials? Evidence has told us again that peasants are the ones who have the most wisdom. Their imagination and creativity are by no means less than that of the so-called elites looking down on the peasantry” (Liang et al. 2000:74–5). According to a professor of economics, Real democracy in China has appeared in the countryside. The peasantry does not care about who the state president is, but they care about who their village chair is. They want to select a good village chair who is willing to work for them. They are very serious about their democratic rights. They discuss concrete election issues over and over again, such as the distance between each voting booth. Local officials are pleased with village elections now. They say to peasants who come to them to sue their village cadres: “Look, the chair and the members were chosen by you guys. If you think they are no good, vote them out of the office.” Peasants are learning democracy through practice. They are learning to be responsible for themselves. Village self-government is gradually forming the foundation upon which democracy can be built in China (interview in Beijing, May 17,2000). Some educated elites, on the contrary, have a skeptical attitude toward village elections. They are suspicious of the credibility of village elections, questioning whether the peasantry has sufficient democratic awareness and knowledge to choose good village cadres who can serve their interests. They believe that intellectuals should be allowed to exercise more demo cratic rights at work (i.e., they should be allowed to select their danwei leaders). “In those danwei where intellectuals are concentrated and the employees’ education level is high, free elections should be held to choose danwei leaders,” said a professor of philosophy. “There have been elections in our school to select department chairs, which is not very meaningful. Department chairs are scholars rather than decisionmakers. What we need is to elect our danwei leaders because they are the ones who make decisions for their employees” (interview in Beijing, June 14, 2000). Some intellectuals (and officials) also believe that there should be more intellectual delegates in the parliament. They see the current method of NPC delegate selection as problematic, because it spreads seats among people of all social groups (peasants, workers, minorities, and the like). As a result, those who are knowledgeable and capable of decisionmaking have no chance to be selected (interviews in Beijing, June 28, 2000).


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This elitist view has been pointed out by some China observers. Based on a study by O’Brien and Li, Murray Scot Tanner indicated that “there is chillingly strong support among a number of intellectual reformers for an elitist ‘democratic’ vision of the legislature. In an effort to strengthen its institutional influence, they advise the NPC to focus on recruiting delegates of ‘high quality’—that is, intellectuals” (1999:127). Another aspect of the intellectual elites’ diverse views about democracy in China is their generational differences. According to a scholar of Chinese modern history, China’s intellectuals can be roughly classified into two generational groups. Those who are older than 40 tend to be democrats, and those who are younger tend to be neo-authoritarians. The democrats believe that China needs more democratic rule. Time is long overdue for the launching of political reform and political reform must be set forth to combat official corruption. The neo-authoritarians, on the other hand, believe that, given its low levels of economic development and education, China should focus on implementing market reforms. Economic development and the growth of a middle class will eventually lead to political change (interview in Beijing, July 3, 2000). While Chinese intellectuals are divided among themselves with respect to how democracy should be developed and how it might work in China, they acknowledge that there is a gap between the mass population and the intellectual community. The mass majority does not share the intellectuals’ concern with democratic reform, paying little attention to the concerns of the educated elite. “Laobaixing do not care about democracy, all they want is a good life. It’s only the intellectuals who are talking about political reform,” remarked a college professor. “The distance between the intelligentsia and the public is huge. If the intellectuals call for democratic change, the mass majority will not respond” (interview in Beijing, May 17, 2000). Attitudes toward the Party Leadership Contrary to their counterparts in Eastern Europe, Chinese intellectual elites, who are often party members, remain generally supportive for the Party rather than pose a threat to its rule. Like the mass majority and the bureaucratic elites, the intellectual elites generally agree that China’s unity, stability, prosperity, and democracy depend on the party leadership. Within the intellectual community, some are more critical of the leadership than others. The critics accuse the leadership of using people’s fear of social disorder to hold onto power rather than to serve their interests. They question why some leading officials cannot be self-disciplined, since they already have the power and nobody wants to remove them. They argue that if the Party believes it must maintain control in China, it should at least democratize within its own framework. Despite their criticisms, most intellectuals remain cautious about what they say in public. Scholars who seek more academic freedom and autonomy are clear about the limits set by the government and rarely test these limits. Those who express radical ideas on issues concerning political reform and privatization sometimes receive warnings from the authority. Some have lost their jobs in official-owned institutes for their public statements. Those who sought to organize political parties or academic conferences including dissident writers are imprisoned or detained. As Goldman and MacFarquhar observe:


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Although hundreds of supposedly nongovernmental associations have sprung up in the 1990s to deal with a wide range of social, environmental, and intellectual questions, they can survive only as long as they stay away from political issues. Chinese in the 1990s can change jobs, travel abroad, criticize the potholes in the street on talk radio, and vote their village leaders out of office, but they cannot express political criticism of the party-state or its leaders publicly. Those who do are put in prison (1999:16). Nevertheless, for the majority of Chinese intellectuals, post-Tiananmen China is a relatively free environment in which to do independent research and scholarly work. Almost any issue can be discussed in private, even in an academic environment, and even radical views can be published in academic journals when expressed in appropriate language (Nathan 1997). American scholars attending academic conferences in China have marveled at the open intellectual atmosphere and been told by their Chinese colleagues that it is fine to discuss virtually everything academically in an academic environment (private communication, January 6, 2001). Although a handful of scholars have been warned by the government or lost jobs for expressing radical ideas, such punishment is minor in the eyes of many intellectuals when compared with the way they were treated under Mao. Thus, the intellectuals’ refusal to challenge the Party should not be explained as due solely to state repression of political dissent. As a matter of fact, there are very few intellectuals who truly believe that China can do without the Party and the party leadership should be challenged. Although the intellectuals, particularly social scientists, are more critical of official corruption and more concerned with political reform than other social groups, they are no less supportive of the Party than other groups. “Some people want to rebel. If they really rebel, that will be bad for China,” Mao Yushi, head of nongovernmental Unirule Institute of Economics (Beijing Tianze Jingji Yanjiusuo),2 argued in a recent symposium. “Who is going to rule [China] after the rebellion, can he do better than the CCP? This is a big issue, so we want to oppose firmly this kind of political reform that lacks tolerance [by the people]” (2000:2). Similarly, an economist also from Unirule said: “If someone is really threatening to overthrow the Party, we will not allow it to happen” (interview in Beijing, July 12, 2000). For many intellectual elites, political reform should take place under the party leadership and within the framework of the Constitution. They believe that China at this stage cannot adopt a Western parliamentary system, with multiparty campaigns, elections, and the like. For example, scholars at Unirule Institute of Economics argue that the key to political reform is not to change the political system, but to ensure the basic rights, freedom, and justice of the people (Mao 2000). They believe that China’s democratic development depends on the party reformers because, one of them reasoned: The CCP consists of a great many brilliant people, and there is no such force outside the Party that is capable of carrying out democratic reform. The party leadership remains strong and stable. What allows the Party to maintain control is its willingness to acknowledge and correct its own mistakes, even such mistakes as the Cultural Revolution. Our reforms are forced by crises. Political


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reform has lagged behind because the problems are not yet a crisis. When it comes to the point that we cannot do without further reform, it would be good if the Party could adopt new policies to meet the demands of the people. A leadership is a good one if it would carry out reform when being pushed by the people (interview in Beijing, July 12, 2000). This idea that China’s democratic development depends on the party leadership is the mainstream view among Chinese intellectuals, nine of my intellectual interviewees made the point (see chapter 7 for more discussion). It provides a key explanation of why members of the intellectual community make few attempts to generate societal pressures for democratic change. Moreover, because they are concerned about China’s low level of economic development, many intellectuals believe that China’s current economic conditions prevent the achievement of democracy in the short run. They argue that democracy in China has to be developed through a cumulative, gradual, and orderly process. As Qin Gang states: Generally speaking, democratic development is restricted by the level of economic development and social conditions. Only economic development can provides necessary means for the realization of people’s democratic rights. Under conditions of the underdeveloped and unevenly developed economy, democratic development can only be progressed in a cautious manner. Historical experiences of socialist development show that it is unhelpful for socialist development without emphasizing on democratic development; [however], outpacing social conditions to push democratic process blindly can only lead to just the contrary. The development of socialist democracy therefore must proceed in an orderly way and step by step, which is conditioned by the objective law of social development (1999:84). These sentiments are shared by Mao Yushi. Mao points out that hardly any of the world’s poor countries is a successful democracy. Poor countries suffer from the harms of democracy rather than benefit from it. In his view, a democracy like this is worse than not to have one. “We are not saying that the reforms of political system can be done within three years or through a popular movement. That is not possible…. It will take China 30 to 50 years to transform into a legalized country. Without a long sight, [we] cannot get things done properly. Only if we set up both short-term goals and long-term goals, can [we] achieve the transition smoothly” (2000:1). This concern with China’s low level of economic development has led most intellectuals to agree with the government that China at present should prioritize political stability and focus on economic development. As Yongnian Zheng observed: “The state’s measures for economic and political stabilization and their relative success have led scholars and many politicians, both old and young, to conclude that China needs an authoritarian regime for fast and stable economic growth” (1994:235–6). For the Chinese intellectual elites, the success of the economic reforms has finally begun to fulfill their wish of making China rich and powerful. This success would not have been possible without political stability. It is therefore imperative for China to maintain stability so that the reforms can proceed further. As an educator from the Central Party School


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commented: “Reform, stability, and development are like three required essays. We want to write all these three essays, and we want all three to be well written. At present, stability is above anything else. Only if we keep the country stable can we further carry on the reforms and develop the economy” (interview in Beijing, July 13, 2000). Chinese intellectuals’ support for the Party also results in part from their satisfaction with the reforms. As beneficiaries of these reforms, they have become less critical and more optimistic about China’s reality and their lives (Huang 2000). “Intellectuals are the beneficiaries of the reforms,” commented a scientist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences: In the Academy of Sciences, we have scientific creative projects, participants receive a monthly salary of over 2,000 yuan, plus research grants, 100,000 to 200,000 yuan from the institute and much more (over 1 million sometimes) from the state. Academicians earn 4,000 to 5,000 yuan a month, university professors earn even more. Middle school teachers also make more than 2,000 yuan a month, only elementary school teachers make a little bit less. For intellectuals, now it’s a good time to make a successful career and good money as well. Moreover, the competition is tough. The scientific creative projects make adjustments in participants every four years, and the rate of elimination is 20 percent of the participants. Whoever does not achieve results will be replaced. So everybody is working hard to make a good career. Surely we are dissatisfied with official corruption, but our resentment is not as strong as laidoff workers’. They are the victims of the reforms, while we are the beneficiaries of the reforms (interview in Beijing, August 5, 2000). The reforms have opened great opportunities for Chinese intellectuals and the public alike to make full use of their human resources. For example, a professor of economics who works two jobs and earns two salaries playfully said: China has a policy of “one country, two systems.” I’m myself “one person, two systems.” I have a job in a public school and a second job as editor in a nonofficial journal. My second job allows me to do independent scholarly work and make extra income. But I enjoy teaching and when I’m retired, I receive pension and other benefits from my school. The reforms give people great opportunities to release their energies. Our economy has great potential because there is a great deal of material and human resources that have yet to be fully used (interview in Beijing, May 17, 2000). Views about China’s Future Outside China, some observers indicate that China is haunted by the specter of political instability. Minxin Pei, for example, argues that the economic costs of corruption in China are very high. It is difficult to imagine that China can maintain high rates of growth (upon which the party’s legitimacy precariously rests) if the costs of corruption are not


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cut through reform. The resulting low growth or stagnation will lead to higher levels of popular frustration and the resurfacing of political problems previously concealed by the economic boom (such as inequality). The level of political instability may also rise as tensions build up between the state and society, between the ruling CCP and frustrated social groups, and between reformers and conservatives within the CCP…. In the worst case, the political system could become so brittle that it is unable to withstand a major shock. A leadership split, an economic crisis, or an external setback could set off a chain reaction leading to a Suharto-type collapse (1999:108). Inside China, however, members of the intellectual community take a quite different view. Most are optimistic about China’s future, especially about economic growth. They believe that China’s economy is likely to keep growing at a relatively high rate for a few decades, and it is very unlikely that the Party will disintegrate and the country will fall into disorder. Fan Gang, a leading economist, recently forecast that even with a lower growth rate, the Chinese economy is likely to continue growing at 7 to 8 percent per annum for 20 to 30 years. Fan addressed the issue on July 2, 2000, when he gave a talk to a group of people, mostly young intellectuals, in Changsha (Hunan Television July 2, 2000). Without exception, all the economic experts (university professor, journal editor, and scholar from nongovernmental think tank) I interviewed indicated that Fan is a cautious economist and they agreed with his prediction. They pointed out that China’s economy has great potential, and admission into the WTO will stimulate economic growth at least for a few years. Chinese intellectuals are also skeptical about the possibility of a Suharto-type collapse in China. Although they readily acknowledge that corruption in China is serious and China needs democratization, they do not believe this corruption will damage the economy and the Party to the point where a Suharto-type collapse will occur. According to a Unirule economist: Such saying about a Suharto-type collapse in China does not have good grounds. The economy will not stop from growing, nor will the Party easily be overthrown. The economy has great potential and will continue to grow for 20 years. The people-run enterprises, joint ventures, and foreign businesses are very dynamic. Moreover, the technology of Chinese industry is still backward. When China becomes more technologically advanced, the economy will grow greatly. The corruption is serious. But some people who returned from Southeast Asia say the corruption in those countries is even more serious than ours. Political reform has been difficult to progress. With the elder leaders gone, the process will accelerate. We should be optimistic about China’s future. Keeping economic growth for 20 years, China will change tremendously by then (interview in Beijing, July 12, 2000). It should be pointed out that a minority of intellectuals is pessimistic about China’s future. These intellectuals see all sorts of problems facing China, but they do not see cures for these problems. They say the problems will sooner or later get out of control, and some


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even foresee social disorder in the next five years. Among intellectuals who believe China can find a way to solve its problems, some propose a Russian-style “shock treatment” in order to achieve a democratic transition quickly. They argue that such rapid political change will be painful, but a long pain will be more devastating than a short pain. The majority of intellectuals, however, do not support this view. They see a Russian-style shock treatment as too risky because it may produce chaos and cause the public to suffer. These in-tellectuals point out that the collapse of the Soviet Union caused a 50 percent drop in GNP (the remaining 50 percent is still higher than China’s). One economist commented, after his recent visit to Russia: In Russia, there are so many beggars on the street. When you give one person some money, there comes a crowd. The situation is very bad and is very sad too. When the Russians come to Shanghai, they are astonished by what they see. “Where on the earth do the Chinese get so much money to build all these sky towers?” a girl asked her father (interview in Beijing, July 12, 2000). Chinese intellectuals fear that China would not be able to maintain even 50 percent of its GNP should it experience a Russian-style transition. They conclude that China should instead maintain stability first and carry on the reforms within a stable sociopolitical environment. Political reform should be accelerated, but it cannot be carried out too drastically, and the problems should be dealt with in a cautious and gradual manner. As one Unirule scholar asked rhetorically, Looking around the whole world, is there a [liberal] democratic country whose per capita income is below US$1,000? There is not. Is there a developing country that does not have corruption? There is not either. This is a fact; it is not a defense for corruption. We cannot expect to transform China into a democratic country in three to five years or ten years, it is not possible. We want to achieve this transition step by step. It is a big job to change Chinese masses from subjects to citizens. Unirule has worked on it, on the project of village selfgovernment, to let the peasants know they are people who have civil rights (Mao 2000:3). The Unirule scholars believe that Chinese intellectuals should be responsible, realistic, and work to enhance the well-being of society as a whole. With that in mind, when someone came to them for cooperation in an attempt to organize a democratic party and claimed that it would recruit tens of thousands members within three years, the Unirule scholars declined. They deemed the initiative as unrealistic and doubtful. The organizer was arrested, while some intellectuals gave him moral support. Later the supporters admitted that the whole event was a political fraud. It was meant to put the person in jail so he could draw international attention and go abroad through political asylum. “The man was motivated by self-interests rather than social responsibility,” commented one scholar. “A responsible intellectual should proceed from the Chinese reality and work on what is meaningful for his country. It is unrealistic to create a democratic political party at present. Such pursuit of democracy is empty and meaningless” (interview in Beijing, July 12, 2000).


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Complementing the intellectuals’ sense of social responsibility is their sentiment of patriotism. This patriotic sentiment is reflected in a recent remark by economist Fan Gang. When asked by a group of young intellectuals in Changsha, why he had chosen to return to China after studying in the United States, Fan recalled one of his experiences in America. One day, while he was listening to a symphony in his car, an American came to him and asked with a disdainful tone: “Do you also listen to symphony?” “I was strongly affected by the incident, which reinforced my determination to return,” Fan sighed emotionally. “The longer one stays abroad, the more one loves his motherland. The more one studies abroad and knows about the world, the more one wants to carry forward China’s splendid traditional culture” (Hunan Television July 2, 2000). CONCLUSION As members of a Confucian society that is traditionally non-democratic and lacks the ground for political dissent, Chinese masses are a deferential people who passively acquiesce in the running of their country. This lack of both democratic tradition and desire for self-government has fostered a mentality of deference and habits of dependence among the Chinese public, which in turn help to stabilize and reinforce the legitimacy of authoritarian elite rule. Such mentality and habits are also associated with the low education level among the general public. The limited education has constrained the rural majority from developing democratic awareness and knowledge. Among the educated urban population, however, there is a gap between their interest in politics and their willingness to become politically involved. In other words, their political awareness does not necessarily produce real political action (Zhong et al. 1998). This political apathy among the general public also resulted from the endless mass movements under Mao and was further exacerbated by the June 4 tragedy. People have become cautious about political issues, and many have lost political interest and passion all together. The public’s political passivity may also be attributed to the legacy of the Leninist political system in both rural and urban China. The Mao leadership adopted the people’s commune system to govern rural China, extending its control to grassroots governments. The party committee exercised unified leadership in the commune and maintained a highly centralized organizational system in the countryside. The commune system disintegrated during the agricultural reforms. The Deng leadership introduced village elections to govern post-commune rural China. The Party remains strong and dominant in the rural grassroots self-government. This continuing strength stems in part from the legacy of the prolonged commune system and is also due to the relatively high education level among peasant party members. Moreover, consisting of educated and competent members, the rural party branches, when well-organized and disciplined, are capable of bringing stability and prosperity to villages and thus wining the endorsement of their people. Paralleled to the commune system, the Mao leadership adopted the danwei system of state-owned work units to govern urban China. While the danwei provided urban residents with a lifetime income and other material benefits, it also exercised control over their professional career, sociopolitical well-being, and private lives. With its political


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and social functions, the danwei served as an instrument with which the Party organized and controlled urban China with a relatively high level of social order. Despite its relative decay in the reform years, the danwei system remains essential in the Chinese urban society and continues to sustain the Party’s strength by allowing the Party to control leadership selection in all strategic work units. Moreover, as a remedy for the decay of the danwei system, the CCP has recently introduced new neighborhood elections. The newly elected neighborhood committees serve to link residents with social services and function as liaisons with the local governments. The public’s political passivity has been accompanied by its endorsement and support of the Party, which is due primarily to the leadership’s performance in satisfying the needs of the population. People are generally satisfied with the improvements in their lives brought by the reforms. They have reached a developmental consensus with the leadership, which prioritizes economic gains over political gains (Wan 1998). Having just begun to enjoy a good life or still struggling to rise above poverty, Chinese masses remain little concerned with democratic reform. Despite their profound concern with political reform, Chinese intellectuals have developed a more rational view about China’s democracy after the June 4 crisis. They have come to conclude that democratization in China should follow the road of peaceful reform, should proceed from the Chinese reality, and should develop first from within the Communist Party. They generally agree that China’s stability, prosperity, and democratization depend on the party leadership and remain supportive of party rule. They have drawn lessons from the Russian experiences and come to agree with the leadership that China at this level of development cannot achieve democracy in the short run. China should instead prioritize stability, focus on market reform, and carry out political reform in a cautious and gradual manner. As beneficiaries of the reforms, most Chinese intellectuals are optimistic about China’s future economic and political development. And as they always do, they possess a strong sense of social responsibility and patriotism. They believe that the intellectuals should work on what is meaningful to the enhancement of the well-being of society as a whole rather than pursue a democracy that is inconsistent with China’s reality. The prospects for a bottom-up transition in China are small because neither the intellectual elite nor the general public is ready or willing to press for democracy at this stage. The mass majority is generally absorbed by the pursuit of material well-being and consumerism. The educated elite, albeit highly interested in politics, does not act to convert their political awareness into real action. There is not a group of democratic advocates similar to the 1980s generation of democratic elite. Those who are deeply concerned with political reform share with the leadership and the public a fear of political chaos and caution about democratic appeals. There is a general agreement among the intellectual elite and the mass majority that China’s democratic development depends on the party leadership. Presumably, therefore, they are likely to support or deferentially follow the Party should the leadership carry out a democratic transition. This suggests a greater chance for a top-down transition, which supports my fourth hypothesis that China’s transition to democracy is more likely to be initiated and guided by the leadership from the top-down than advanced by societal actors from the bottom up.


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NOTES 1. Cao Siyuan is one of the 32 members of the 1980s generation of democratic elite listed by Goldman in Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China (1994:xiii). 2. Unirule Institute of Economics (Beijing Tianze Jingji Yanjiusuo), one of the very few well-known nongovernmental organizations in China, was founded in July 1993 by five economists from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who wanted to do independent economic research and policy consultation rather than serve official political purposes. Some of the founding members were educated in the United States. Some have become internationally well-known, frequently appearing at international conferences. Unirule aims at promoting Chinese modern economics, conducting research in economic theories and practical economics. Since 1993, Unirule has established a network of more than 100 research fellows from institutes and universities across China. It became a registered consultant firm at the Asian Development Bank in 1996, and it also registered at the African Development Bank in 1997. As reported by a number of media agencies such as Time and Business China, Unirule has become one of the most prestigious and widely recognized independent think tanks in China.

CHAPTER 5 China’s Newly Emerging Private Entrepreneurial Classes As discussed in chapter 3, the emergence of civil society in Hungary followed a more economic course. It was the revival of private business that gave individuals autonomy from state control and facilitated the growth of civil society. The Hungarian case reveals that private enterprise can emerge as a force for political transition by articulating and diffusing “egoistic economic interests” in the society. The articulation and diffusion of such interests present the society with a motive for self-organization, and thus for the growth of civil society (Wank 1995; Zotti 1995). Therefore, “the key question regarding economic civil society,” observes David Wank, is “how the egoistic economic interests of individuals become the collective group interests of political civil society” (1995:60). Borrowing from Ivan Szelenyi, he concludes that individuals become entrepreneurs in order to gain independence and freedom of choice denied them in public employment. Therefore entrepreneurship is by definition an active “strategy of resistance” to state control. Entrepreneurs will…eventually enter into horizontal alliances with other “subordinated” groups (i.e. intellectuals, workers, etc.), thereby enhancing the capacity of civil society to extract further concessions from the state (ibid.). At first glance, it seems possible for an economic civil society to exist in China. Since Deng Xiaoping raised the slogan “to get rich is glorious” twenty years ago, millions of Chinese people have acted to ride the tide of economic reform, undertaking ventures of private enterprise. With an annual growth rate of 20–30 percent until the late 1990s, the private enterprises and non-state collectives became the most dynamic driving force for the fast-growing economy. This growth of the private sector has created an entrepreneurial class, which some claim, “has enhanced the new middle classes’ quest for increasing free-market operation and political democratization” (Glassman 1991:56). However, this claim is questionable because, despite their significant role in shaping China’s economy, Chinese private entrepreneurial groups have been inactive in the political process. The most notable indicator of their political passivity is that they were rarely seen during the Tiananmen events. One explanation for their limited appearance is that the intellectuals, who led the movement, did not attempt to mobilize the private sector because they believed that China, without a sufficient bourgeoisie in the 1980s, could only turn to intellectuals for democracy (Gunn 1993). But there is reason to believe that the new private entrepreneurial classes may not have joined with other social groups in an alliance for democracy, if such alliance had emerged. Studies show that not only did the entrepreneurs rarely participate in the Tiananmen demonstration, they disapproved of

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the movement and supported the government (Nathan 1993; Tyson & Tyson 1995; Wank 1995). According to the New York Times, in Wenzhou, “a city of go-getters” where private sector is the mainstay of the economy, a number of entrepreneurs sent donations to the troops in Beijing to show their support for the June 4 crackdown (January 27, 1993). On the other hand, studies suggest that there is an entrepreneurial-official alliance in support of reforms in China. “In particular, there has been little evidence of the political space and subsequent potential for conflict between the state and the middle classes that was a major source of the drive to democratization in the European experience” (Goodman 1999:241). Why, unlike those in Eastern Europe, do China’s private entrepreneurs remain little concerned with political change? Why do they forge an alliance with the state rather than other social groups? There are three major factors that help explain the entrepreneurs’ political apathy and their support of the political status quo: (1) the entrepreneurs’ mentality of deference as a result of the Confucian political tradition, (2) the state dominance over private sector and the entrepreneurs’ dependence on officialdom,1 and (3) the entrepreneurs’ economic priority and their desire for political stability essential for conducting business. In addition, the entrepreneurs’ political apathy is associated with their low level of education that constrains them from developing political awareness. This chapter analyzes Chinese private entrepreneurs’ political indifference and their relationship with the state. I divide the chapter into three sections. In the first section, I discuss the private entrepreneurs’ attitudes toward the Tiananmen demonstration to show their political apathy resulting from China’s Confucian tradition and their low level of education. I explain in the second section the entrepreneurial-official alliance by examining the state dominance over the private sector, the entrepreneurs’ dependence on officialdom, and their economic priority. In the third section, I take into consideration the entrepreneurs’ relationship with official authority to explain what role they are likely to play in China’s democratic process. I conclude the chapter by arguing that Chinese private entrepreneurs have benefited from the market reforms and have established and maintained close relationships with the state for economic facilitation and political protection. They are, by and large, attached to the existing system and therefore unlikely to challenge the status quo and demand for demo cratic change, especially not at the expense of stability and prosperity. THE TRADITIONAL NEW RICH Studies show that the insignificant role played by the private entrepreneurs during the Tiananmen events was in large part due to their disapproval of the protest movement. Wank, for example, interviewed 29 entrepreneurs in Xiamen during and after the incident and found little tendency of the new rich to forge an alliance with the educated elite for democracy. Instead, the economic elites’ attitudes toward the protest movement “ranged from unease to hostility.” The variation in their attitudes was related to different sizes of business, with those who run the largest firms showing the greatest antipathy to the movement. Even when they were reminded that an end to official corruption, which was one of the movement’s goals, could create a better business environment, the


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entrepreneurs remained unsympathetic. They complained that the students had demanded democracy too much, too soon, and had nearly pushed China into chaos. “To the extent that the entrepreneurs desired political change at all, it should be initiated from above in an evolutionary fashion” (1995:69, 73). Confucian Prejudice against the Merchant Class The private entrepreneurs’ antipathy to the student movement may first be attributed to their mentality of deference resulting from China’s Confucian political tradition (i.e., the Confucian tradition hypothesis). As discussed in chapter 4, Confucian tradition was concerned primarily with building an orderly society in which individuals were required to behave properly in accordance with their class identities. Confucian tradition disregarded private interests, claiming that “when the Great Tao prevails, the whole world is one community.” Confucian culture was prejudiced against merchants, seeing them as “inferior and undesirable” and their minds “avid for profit and greedy of gain” as the “worst of all dangers” (Stavrianos 1991:391, 393). The Confucian state barred merchants from taking the academic exams that were essential for access to officialdom. Private interests in Confucian China were subordinated to the public good, and it was the Confucian scholar-officials, not the middle class merchants, who served as “the guardian of the public good” (Parris 1999:263). As a creature of Confucian culture, Chinese private entrepreneurial elite lacks a rightsbased orientation. For them, public affairs are the business of government officials, ordinary people, who are subjects, should mind their own business rather than get involved in politics. As a result of such mentality, China’s new rich distinguish themselves from the general population with their wealth and “an apparently high degree of self-consciousness” in a cultural sense, but they continue to demonstrate a disinterest interest in political issues, not unlikely that shared by the mass majority. “They are flamboyant in small ways in their newfound identities and develop public obsessions or hobbies that cover a wide range of unusual activities,” from driving expensive cars to taking snuff they import from Thailand at a high price (Goodman 1999:259). But they remain unconcerned with political reform, showing little desire for influencing public policy. According to Wank, Chinese private entrepreneurs declined to support the 1989 movement because they deemed “the students’ goal of democracy [as] incompatible with Chinese political culture” (1995:68). This attitude of the entrepreneurs was dramatized by the following comment: Chinese want a good emperor, not a democratic environment. Chinese always think that things will be better if they change the emperor. At the founding of each dynasty, the emperor gives a little, improving people’s lives. For a while people are content but then become dissatisfied. Everybody welcomed Deng Xiaoping when he came to power because he opened things up. But after a few years, people again became dissatisfied and wanted to change the emperor (see ibid.: 68–9). I interviewed with three Hong Kong business people (one man and two women) the night


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before the legislature election in September 2000. All moved to Hong Kong from the mainland and have done well with their businesses. The two women said they did not register to vote. When asked why they did not value their right to vote, especially since they had not had it before, they said disinterested that they did not think the election meant much to their lives. The man named a candidate he was going to vote for, but he did not know which party the candidate belonged to. “Well, I don’t know his party and what he stands for,” he explained why he would vote for someone without knowing his party identification. “But I heard his speech four years ago. I know he is a well-known lawyer” (interviews in Hong Kong, September 9, 2000). Low Education Level and the Lack of a Rights-based Orientation The entrepreneurs’ disinterest in politics also stems from their low level of education that reduces their chance to develop political awareness. Prior to 1988, China’s entrepreneurial classes comprised individual businessmen (getihu) and small operations with less than eight employees. The passage of a constitutional amendment by the NPC in 1988 legalized private enterprises (siying qiye) with more than eight employees. But the most highly publicized business classes remain the owner-operators on a very small scale, such as street traders and proprietors of small shops and eateries. According to China Daily, China’s 1.04 million private enterprises are mostly located in small cities or rural areas (January 14, 1999). The size, business type, and location of most private businesses suggest that the majority of entrepreneurs are less-educated or illiterate. This is because education in China is a socially honored channel for upward social mobility. People with good education tend to move to major cities and work in the bureaucracy, the intelligentsia, and large-scale, high tech corporations. A 1995 national survey of private entrepreneurs showed that 45 percent were aged between 35 and 45. Only 5 percent were university graduates, and some 30 percent had high school education.2 The middle-aged belong to the Red Guard generation, whose education was interrupted during the Cultural Revolution. According to the official Jiangsu Legal Newspaper in Nanjing, there were more than 5,000 millionaires across China in the mid-1990s, 70 percent of them were illiterate or semiliterate (see Tyson and Tyson 1995:52). Although many private entrepreneurs have put themselves in the ranks of the wealthiest, as a consequence of Confucian influence and the low education level, the new rich generally remain traditional in many ways. One strong characteristic of the new business classes, according to David Goodman, is their “intense parochialism.” They are overwhelmingly natives of their hometowns, and “their careers provide evidence of remarkably limited social mobility, either upward or across country” (1999:259). Moreover, the new businessmen “are in the vanguard of the consumer frenzy that China has experienced in the 1990s,” buying houses or apartments, luxury cars, fine jewelry, and brand-name clothes. They eat at expensive restaurants where they make business deals and develop personal ties (Parris 1999:281). Even in the urban areas, the new rich tend to have more than one child, often three or four, with the elder children being girls and the youngest a boy (Goodman 1999). An example of the traditional new rich is Zuo Zongshen, head of Zongshen Motorbike Company and one of the most successful private entrepreneurs in Chongqing. Zuo is a


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former convict. After he was released from jail, he opened a small motorbike repair shop. Later he tried to make motorbikes himself, as he foresaw a bright prospect for the market for motorbikes. Though a successful entrepreneur, Zuo remains a traditional Chinese man in many ways. He has no interest in politics and stays away from it. He is particular about his dress and resplendent with jewels. He tries to enhance his social status by relating himself with Zuo Zongtang, a high-ranking official of the Qing dynasty, according to their names. He wants more children and sends his wife to Hong Kong to deliver them. One of Zuo’s methods to discipline his employees is to have them carrying a small gourd at work. When an employee breaks the rules or makes a mistake, Zuo punishes the person by replacing his or her small gourd with a bigger one to humiliate the person. The more serious the problem is, the bigger the gourd, and the more humiliation one suffers (interviews in Chongqing, August 10–11, 2000). In addition to spending lavishly on homes, cars, and so on, the new rich also spend a large amount of money on their children’s tuition, partly because of the Chinese traditional emphasis on education, and partly because of their own loss of education opportunities during the Cultural Revolution. They are convinced that their children should have access to the education opportunities many of them did not have. Many entrepreneurs send their children to the best public schools or private schools that have grown rapidly in recent years. It may be promising that their children will be exposed to democratic ideas in school and might support a drive for democracy in the long run. At present, however, one seems to have little ground to expect significant change by the new business classes in a political sense. As Goodman observes: Politically, the new middle classes, far from being alienated from the party-state or seeking their own political voice, appear to be operating in close proximity and through close cooperation. As long as the CCP maintains its commitment to economic growth there are few if any grounds for structural conflict between the new middle classes and the party-state. Almost all categories of the new middle classes—large- and medium-size owner-operators, the state capitalists, the social capitalists, the suburban executives, and most service providers— depend heavily on the party-state (1999:260–1).

EXPLAINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PRIVATE SECTOR AND THE PARTY-STATE State Power and Entrepreneurial Dependence on Officialdom Chinese private entrepreneurs’ cooperation with the state and their support for the political status quo may be attributed to state domination over the private sector. The state has the power—both political and economic—to determine the rise and fall of private enterprises (i.e., the Leninist institutional legacy hypothesis). Entrepreneurs build and maintain connections with the state as “a solid political foundation” for their businesses. They also rely on the state to ensure that their enterprises grow and prosper. Concern with political safety and desire for economic gains lead entrepreneurs to stay


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away from politics. The economic elites support the Party rather than challenge its power because “they have not been able to build industrial and financial power free of government control and consequently must continually toady to their Communist patrons.” Ties with authorities can provide private entrepreneurs with political safeguards and release them from political pressures resulting from the unpredictability of policy in the government (Tyson and Tyson 1995:54). The Rise and Fall of Private Sector in China The entrepreneurs’ concern about political insecurity is deeply rooted in Chinese history. “Enterprising individuals…have faced hostile officials ever since the creation of China’s massive bureaucratic apparatus under the Han dynasty in 206 B.C.,” essentially because of the Confucian traditional prejudice against the merchant class (ibid.: 53). Until recently Mao’s China, like the Confucian kingdom, denied the legitimacy of private interests. But unlike the Confucian state that “subordinated private interests to the public good,” the Mao leadership applied Marxist-Leninist class analysis to its interpretation of socialist society. This analysis denied the legitimacy of private property rights and required individual Chinese to commit themselves wholly to the public good (Parris 1999:263). In addition to the Leninist political system, the Communist Party adopted a Sovietstyle economic system in which the state controlled the allocation and use of all social resources—financial, material, technological, and human—according to a centrally devised plan. In the 1950s, the Mao leadership “sought to get rid of private interests altogether,” beginning with a ban on private ownership. The state achieved control over virtually all industry and commerce, with the exception of “a marginal petty commodity economy.” During the later mass political campaigns, however, even these low-profile operations were denounced as the “tails of capitalism” to be cut off, and the state placed its entire economy under public ownership (ibid.: 263–4). The most haunting nightmare for the pre-1949 business classes was the Cultural Revolution. During this mass upheaval, former capitalists and private owners came under severe attack. Their homes were searched and property confiscated by the red guards and revolutionary common people. Many of them were tortured, and many were beaten to death. Their past records as exploiters also did great harm to their families and relatives, all of whom suffered terribly from their “exploitative class origins.” For example, a Beijing woman from a pre-1949 capitalist family was a high school student when the Cultural Revolution occurred. She was barred from joining the Red Guard because of her family background and went to the countryside in Shanxi as a school leaver (zhishi qingnian). Thanks to her talent as a Peking opera singer, she was found and taken by a military art troupe to play the lead in the revolutionary model Peking operas (those were created under the supervision of Jiang Qing, Chairman Mao’s wife, during the Cultural Revolution). As a gifted actress, she was quite popular in the army unit, but her family background blocked her from political advancement. When she was approaching 25 years old, which was the age limit for gaining membership in the Chinese Communist Youth League (CCYL), she tried as much as she could to join the League. “I’m asking to join the CCYL,” she said in tears at the league branch meeting for her membership. “Even if I


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turned 25 tomorrow, I would be completely satisfied if I could join the League today and be a member for just one day.” Later she explained to her close friends why she had wanted the league membership so desperately: “I know there’s no way for me to join the Party because I don’t belong to the proletariat. A league membership was how much I could get for some kind of political recognition that would draw me some red color on my record to counteract my political disadvan-tages a little bit. None of you would understand me, because you would not know how painful it is to be born in a capitalist family” (personal experience in 1973). In 1978, Deng Xiaoping rejected Mao’s de-legitimization of private interests and private property rights and called on individual citizens to work hard for their own material well-being. Deng’s slogan “to get rich is glorious” inspired the growth of private enterprises, which became the most dynamic sector of China’s reform economy. Although the rapid growth of private sector went beyond the leadership’s expectations, the government has managed to maintain control over economic development as well as the newly emerging entrepreneurial groups, in sharp contrast to the rise of the entrepreneurial classes in Eastern Europe. On the other hand, despite their ability to fast grow in the market economy, private enterprises continue to confront public scorn due to the legacy of the Confucian tradition and the more recent Maoist prejudice against business classes. Private businessmen have, from time to time, come under attack for evading tax, profiteering, speculation, and engaging illicit activities such as selling fake goods and pornography. They are seen by the Party and the public alike as a major cause of official corruption and social disorder. According to James and Ann Tyson, after the Tiananmen crisis, the Party accused private entrepreneurs of having become too wealthy and “stirred up unrest and were ‘ruining the atmosphere of society’.” As many as 800,000 private and collective enterprises were shut down, as the government deemed them “wasteful, redundant, incompetent, or merely unnecessary” (1995:55). For the first time since 1978, the number of registered private enterprise declined, and it did not rise until 1992 when Deng Xiaoping took a tour to southern China, during which he gave new life to the market economy by calling on the country to press ahead with the reforms (Parris 1999). Such state power over the private sector has caused deep concerns with political security among the private entrepreneurs, leading them to pay close attention to any change in the direction of the “political wind” (zhengzhi fengxiang). In the early reform years, private entrepreneurs frequently hesitated about reinvesting their profits into production due to insecure conditions. They were “far more ready to burn up profits in conspicuous consumption” (Kraus 1991:97). For example, before putting further investments into his business, a wealthy entrepreneur in Jinan first sought to ensure safety by funding a dowry of 80,000 yuan for each of his daughters, Hong Kong Ta Kung Pao reported on April 21, 1988 (see ibid.). For political safety and economic necessity, private entrepreneurs tend to set up their firms as “collectives.” The term “collective,” as a socialist label, can be “at the time…a form of insurance policy against any further change of mind by the CCP” (Goodman 1996:232). Economically, despite some collectives’ remaining private nature, they have a more relaxed tax environment as collectives, and they are better able to obtain land-use rights, bank loans, market opportunities, import-export powers, and access to resources in


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cooperation with local authorities. Beginning in the mid-1980s, there has emerged another category of enterprises—the “share-holding cooperatives” (gufen hezuo qiye), which is “officially considered public and therefore socialist.” Some of those enterprises are clearly public, and some are actually private, depending on whether the shares are held in common by residents of a locality (town or village), by both public agencies and private firms or individual citizens, or by a small group of relatives or friends. The difficulty of doing private business due to political risk and economic disadvantage and the institutional innovation of share-holding cooperatives “have given rise to a realm of the economy that has become known as the ‘people-managed economy’ (minying jingji)” (Parris 1999:269–70). People in China now use the terms of “people-managed economy” and “people-managed enterprise” rather than “private economy” and “private enterprise.” The Story of Zhang Guoxi James and Ann Tyson wrote a story on Zhang Guoxi, one of China’s wealthiest and most celebrated private entrepreneurs. The story reveals the supremacy of the state and the entrepreneurs’ dependence on officialdom. Zhang is the head of the Jiangxi Guoxi Industrial Conglomerate Group, a company of carving, real estate, securities, and trade in Yujiang. Setting off on his own as a carving entrepreneur in 1973, Zhang earned more than $50 million by the mid-1990s, and he also earned himself the title as “the king of carving” in China. “Although Zhang owns every mallet and wood chip at the factory, he keeps a socialist ‘red cap’ securely on his enterprise” by registering his business under the safe title of “collective,” the Tysons wrote (1995:56). Zhang’s painful dependence on officialdom is the first fact of his life to impress a visitor. At 6:00 every morning, the factory complex in Yujiang awakens to several loudspeakers blaring Beijing radio broadcasts of the national anthem and propaganda. Zhang built a large radio tower atop one of his buildings to reassure officials that his renegade capitalistic enterprise was firmly snared in the party’s nationwide web of power and propaganda (ibid.: 53). After the June 4 incident, like many of millionaires in China, “Zhang chose to stand behind” the official line in order to survive the temporary hard-line backlash. “China is too poor and overpopulated; it needs stability before democracy,” Zhang said (see ibid.: 55). For many years, Zhang has paid close attention to changes in official policy. He hires agents in Shanghai and Nanchang to do intelligence gathering and asks visitors from Beijing about political trends in the center. “While quietly gathering intelligence,” the Tysons wrote: “Zhang loudly flaunts the lavish menus that win the minds of officials by subduing their stomachs…. Most days he regales officials at a large round table in the dining hall of his headquarters” (ibid.: 57). He spends one-third working hours stabilizing a political foundation for his business. “Entrepreneurs in China must be politicians,” Zhang said, “if they don’t know how to be politic, they fail” (see ibid.: 54). By the mid-1990s, Zhang had donated $2 million to Yujiang County for schools, roads, and so on, and had brought running water to the county’s 30,000 people. He had given


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more than $400,000 for building schools to train carvers throughout the area and offered jobs to all the unemployed in the county. With his economic success and contributions to the people, authorities of different levels have rewarded him more than 20 times honorary titles such as County Model Worker, Provincial Model Worker, and May Fourth Model Worker. In 1985, he was offered a full-time position as vice mayor by the City of Yingtan, but he declined. Zhang was also a five-year term delegate to the National People’s Congress in 1988 and 1993. “The approbation reached cosmic heights in 1993 when” an asteroid discovered by the China Zijinshan Observatory was named after him as Zhang Guoxi Asteroid. “My springtime of opportunity has come,” Zhang claimed. “I’m no longer just Zhang Guoxi—I’m a symbol of reform. So it would be very difficult today for officials to remove and eliminate me” (see ibid.: 57–8). Though limited, Zhang possesses a realm of freedom in his native town. At higher levels, however, his subordination to political authorities is more obvious. In 1989, Zhang signed a memorandum with Governor George S. Mickelson of South Dakota for a joint venture to train and employ Native Americans and handicapped people as wood-carvers. The deal would allow Zhang to exploit South Dakota’s absence of state taxes by locating his American headquarters there. He would later open branch offices in other U.S. cities. Despite the promising partnership with the State of South Dakota, Zhang could not make his plan work for political reasons. The Chinese Embassy in Washington rejected the deal because it was concerned that “if the venture failed, it would damage China’s image,” and that “the hiring of Native Americans and the handicapped would appear exploitative” (ibid.: 48). Economic Power of the State over Private Sector Apart from political power, the state also holds economic power over the private sector. This economic power is due to the Chinese system where the state remains central in economic development and maintains control over the allocation and use of state-owned assets. Such state control results in entrepreneurial dependence on authority concerning licenses, land-use rights, bank loans, business opportunities, taxation, and other matters. The Chinese press is not shy about revealing private businesses’ economic disadvantages. The official Beijing Review reported in 1993 on the case of private owner Shi Shanlin. Shi was a delegate to the Eighth Na-tional Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). When he was selected into the CPPCC in 1993, his Changning Group was China’s largest private business consisting of 19 enterprises located in eight provinces. Despite his economic and political success, Shi was still concerned with his economic, as well as political, disadvantages as a private business owner. “As a private businessman, I am reluctant to apply for government loans for my projects because the loan policy doesn’t regard us as an equal with public-owned enterprises,” he said. “We are also very hesitant to invest in risky projects such as real estate, which are often subject to mandatory regulations and political whims” (April 19– 25, 1993). In another example, China Daily recently reported private businessman Jiang Minde’s problems in getting government loans for business expansion. Early in 1999, Jiang needed a bank loan to buy an idle processing line to expand production of his popular


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“Future” brand infant cereal. The local government believed that Jiang’s business was doing well and supported his new project. However, because local governments could no longer give orders to banks after the 1998 banking reform, and the banks were very cautious about new lending due to the mounting number of bad loans, Jiang had difficulty getting a loan. “Jiang’s business is in good shape and his new project is sure to make profits,” said the Fuyang mayor. “But the city government cannot order any bank to help him. Nor can the government give him any official support. We can only help him lobby the banks” (January 14, 1999). In Jiang’s case, things would be easier if he had connections with the banks. According to a restaurant owner, to open a restaurant in Beijing requires 16 seals (approvals) from a variety of government agencies, including industry and commerce management, taxation, public security, real estate management, hygiene and city appearance, birth control, and so on. After the business is set up, there is an investigation by the same government agencies each year. If the business fails the examination by any of these agencies, it will have to stop operating to work things out or close the business. The government agents are generally more strict on non-Beijing owners than on their local businessmen. This occurs partly because of the higher frequency of rules violations by non-Beijing businessmen and partly because of Beijing natives’ discrimination against non-Beijing people. In order to get a renewal of business license, many restaurant owners treat the bureaucrats frequently, particularly those who have no roots in Beijing but have broken the rules. These owners seek to get away with their problems by establishing personal networks with the local bureaucrats (interview in Beijing, June 7, 2000). “It’s difficult to do business on the mainland. Those who are in control of public budget are not easy to please,” said a businesswoman in Hong Kong, who imports medical equipment to China from Europe. Hospitals in China are public-owned. A hospital chief of staff, who is officially ap-pointed, is in control of the budget. When they buy equipment for their hospitals, the chiefs of staff choose from different sellers and make deals that can reduce their expenditures. Some of them also look for deals that can bring them personal benefits, such as a tour to Hong Kong. “When that happens, it costs us more, thus reducing our profit,” the woman explained. “Sometimes when the equipment is itself not really profitable, we won’t make any money after the cost. Then we have to drop the deal after all the travels and negotiations. We get better deals if we know those chiefs of staff. So we try to build and expand our personal ties with them” (interview in Hong Kong, January 2000). “Do you want to know why we keep close ties with officials? You should pose the question to Li Jiacheng [Hong Kong’s richest man] and let him tell you,” said a Hong Kong businessman. Li is always the closest to authorities. When the British were here, he was their favorite. Now it’s the CCP in power, he is still the favorite. You don’t want to do business, especially big business, if you don’t have good relations with authorities. How could Li get the contract to build Dongfang Square in Wangfujing [the busiest shopping street in Beijing] without pleasing the authorities? Why didn’t Beijing give the offer to somebody else? Officials and merchants have always collaborated with each other since ancient times, what is


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there to be surprised at? Don’t the U.S. government and business community collaborate with each other? Surly they do. It’s just that they have better legal system and less corruption than us (interview in Hong Kong, September 9, 2000). Self-interests of the CCP The entrepreneurial-official alliance may also be attributed to the Party’s self-interests. The Party has promoted the private sector and controlled over it to promote its own advantages. After the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese were destitute and embittered toward the Gang of Four who had pushed the economy to the edge of collapse. The Party launched the market reform and liberalized private business to rescue the economy and regain its legitimacy, as the leadership deemed “the freewheeling drive of capitalists…as a force for building socialism, not as an end in itself” (Tyson and Tyson 1995:45). Deng argued that a planned economy did not equate socialism. Likewise, the market did not equate capitalism. Whether a move was “socialist” or “capitalist” depended on whether or not it would increase the living standards of the people. In the early years of reform, the Party opened its door to successful private entrepreneurs and recruited them into its own ranks. This practice stopped after the June 4 incident, when the Party officially barred private owners from joining its organization because they did not belong to the proletariat. But the Party continued to recruit successful individual entrepreneurs, who were recognized as part of the “working people,” and entre-preneurs from nonstate collectives and share-holding enterprises (Parris 1999:271, 275). The Party has recently once again welcomed private entrepreneurs to its bosom after Jiang Zemin raised the notion of “three representatives.” The Party has also recruited the business elites as representatives of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). In 1993, for instance, 8 NPC representatives and 23 CPPCC representatives were selected from the private sector. At the county level or above, over 5,400 PC representatives and 8,600 PPCC representatives were private entrepreneurs (Zhang Houyi 1996, see Parris 1999:274). In 1998, according to the National Industrial and Commercial Federation, about 50 private or non-state entrepreneurs (including those from Hong Kong and Macao) were selected to the Ninth NPC. According the National Committee of the CPPCC, 49 private entrepreneurs were selected to the Ninth CPPCC. In addition to incorporating the business elites into its own ranks, the Party has sought to control the private sector by incorporating the new rich into organizations under its leadership. Individual businessmen in all provinces, cities, and towns have set up their own organizations to protect the legitimate rights and interests of their members. However, these organizations stand under the leadership of the CCP and the supervision of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce. In 1986 the National Association of Individual Entrepreneurs was founded. The president of this national union of individual businessmen was the head of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, and the secretary-general was the head of the department for individual business of this same administration. Another official organization to represent the interests of private enterprise is the National Industrial and Commercial Federation


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(NICF). Most members of the NICF are high-profile, successful private entrepreneurs. The NICF is currently headed by a ministry-level party official. It functions under the auspices of the United Front Department of the Party Central Committee. Economic Priority of the Entrepreneurial Classes Another factor that has produced the entrepreneurial-official alliance in the reform years is the economic priority of private entrepreneurs (i.e., the economic development imperative hypothesis). The entrepreneurs have prioritized material wealth over political liberty and have achieved economic gains through their connections with the political elites. For example, when asked what people in the business circle care about, a restaurant owner in Beijing simply said: “Making money.” The restaurant owner was a college student at an elite university in northern China before the Cultural Revolution and was assigned a job in a central government agency early in the 1970s. Like many Chinese bureaucratic elites, he left the bureaucracy for enterprise in the reform era and became a bureau-level man-ager at a state-owned company in the mid-1990s. In 1998, he opened his own restaurant. As he explained: “I worked for the state for the most part of my life. Now I’m getting old. I’ve got to make some money for myself.” Albeit a well-educated and a former central government bureaucrat, he did not show any interests in politics. “My ambition is to open a chain of restaurants under my family name throughout Beijing and maybe the country,” he said (interview in Beijing, June 7, 2000). Similar views were expressed by other businessmen. Their enthusiasm about business and their unconcern with political reforms often make it awkward to talk among them about China’s democratic development. It is true that many private business people, those who are well-educated for example, are very interested in politics. But they usually tell political jokes rather than discuss serious public issues. They are always so busy with their businesses that they do not have time to be concerned with political reforms. Why is it that China’s private entrepreneurs have prioritized economic gains over political power? There are two factors that help explain the entrepreneurs’ economic priority: their origins in the Chinese sociopolitical context and China’s low level of economic development. Insiders and Outsiders The private entrepreneurs’ economic priority has much to do with their origins in the Chinese sociopolitical context. China’s private entrepreneurial classes consist of basically two types of people: the elite and the common people. In the first category, there are former party, government, and military personnel, including many offspring of the old revolutionaries. In the second category, there are peasants and ordinary urban residents. Entrepreneurs in the first category are exclusively “insiders” (i.e., they have sprung from the party-state or remain part of it). In the second category, while most entrepreneurs are “outsiders” (i.e., those who have been outside the system), a great many of them are also insiders—they are former party and government cadres at the local level mostly in rural areas. Most private entrepreneurs in the elite category did not engage in private business early


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in the reform years because they were in the relatively affluent occupations and professions and were much better off than average Chinese people. They began to dive into the sea (xiahai) of business after the Fourteenth Party Congress following Deng’s tour to southern China in 1992, which created a new momentum for economic reform and raised a wave of business activity. Benefiting from their family ties with other political elites and their personal networks established while they were in the bureaucracy or the military, these insiders have found their path to fortune more easily and quickly than average private businessmen, because they confront fewer difficulties in gaining supplies and credits. More important, their political influence has also provided them with a higher degree of protection for their businesses. Springing from within the system, this group of elite entrepreneurs has been able to grasp business opportunities in more profitable and higher technological sectors such as oil, real estate, and information technology, which has filled their pockets more quickly and given them brighter business prospects. In the second category, a large proportion of private businessmen are also insiders. According to Minxin Pei, in rural China, “the most fascinating aspect of the politics of privatization…the transformation of a large number of former rural party and government cadres into what might be called the ‘pioneers’ of the private sector.” One study showed that nearly one-third of rural private entrepreneurs were party members, and many were former commune cadres and local officials. These rural elites engaged in private industrial activities after the disintegration of the commune system to help themselves back on the track (1994:110). Like the elite insiders, these rural insiders have also benefited by their connections with the local governments and their political influence in their native localities to do better than ordinary business people. In contrast to both elite insiders and rural insiders, many outsider entrepreneurs engaged in private business early in the reform years and in urban areas. They were urban residents typically without roots in the system and without other options. These outsiders were mostly old, illiterate people, or else they were the “socially idle” and former convicts. Because of the low status of the private sector, relatively few young people were registered in private business, counting less than 5 percent of the total in the early 1980s (Parris 1999:266). The non-elite businessmen are mostly individual entrepreneurs or business owners on a very small scale. Without roots inside the government, the outsiders are dependent on local authorities for economic facilitation and political protection, especially when they seek to expand their businesses and to advance technologically. They need official assistance for supplies and loans, and they need official protection from discriminatory government regulations and from punishment when they have violated these regulations. Thus, the close relationship between private entrepreneurs and officials has emerged in large part from within the system. The transformation of the elite insiders from former party, government, and military personnel into private entrepreneurs “converted a formerly politically powerful group into an economically privileged one” (Pei 1994:112). This transformation provides an easy explanation for the lack of political articulation and participation by the economic elites: Those who are insiders have no need to seek political power. For the outsiders, who have little background in the system, motivation to build networks with the authority is also simple: to produce, expand, and protect their


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private wealth. As Goodman observes: Those who have come from or remain part of the party-state do not need to chase political goals. Those, and they are the minority, whose back-ground is outside the party-state have so far concentrated on the search for wealth and status rather than political power, not least because of the entrenched political position of the established elite (1996:231). Level of China’s Economic Development The entrepreneurs’ economic priority also has much to do with China’s low level of economic development. Until recently Mao and his supporters prioritized class struggle over economic development and people’s lives. The Gang of Four, who ruled China under Mao’s patronage, claimed loudly that “we would rather want the socialist grass than the capitalist seedling.” By the time this group of evil fell in late 1976, China’s economy was on the verge of collapse, and the people were extremely destitute. Deng Xiaoping ended the mass political campaigns and launched the market reforms. He told the people “poverty is not socialism” and encouraged them to work hard for their private interests and own wealth. The market reforms have given Chinese individuals great opportunities to rise above poverty and move toward prosperity. Private entrepreneurs have focused exclusively on material gains because they, like their countrymen, have suffered from a deep fear of destitution during the Maoist period, and they do not want to return to that poverty. In the early 1980s, Hans B.Thorelli did a survey among 148 Chinese managerial and professional elites. The survey found a very low living standard among the respondents, who were relatively affluent and were much better off than average Chinese urban residents. The managers and professionals were participants in a managementdevelopment program at the Dalian Institute of Technology in northern China. They came from urban areas throughout China, most were men (90 percent) and older than 40. They were well-educated; 73 percent received 16 or more years of education. Among them, 32 were government bureaucrats, 50 were factory managers, and 64 worked in academia. Many of them were party members. Although belonging to an occupational elite, the respondents’ daily life was typical of average Chinese urban residents. Most of them rented two-room apartments from their work units and shared them with their immediate families and relatives. Many shared their kitchens and bathrooms with other families. Their income was much higher than the general population. Eighty percent had annual incomes of more than the national average of 750 yuan, while 30 percent reported wages more than 50 percent above average. Only 8 percent of this group owned refrigerators, 75 percent had television sets (5 percent for the general population), 53 percent had tape recorders, and 30 percent had cameras. None of the respondents had telephones.3 None owned a car; the primary mode of their transportation was the bicycle. Such was the living standards of China’s relatively affluent occupational elite in the early 1980s, which was “clearly much better off than the average” urban Chinese (see Bridgwater 1984). Given the low living standards of the Chinese population in the early reform years, the


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private entrepreneurs’ placement of economic gains as their top priority is only natural. Having experienced the chaotic mass upheavals of the Cultural Revolution and the June 4 crisis, the entrepreneurs, like most Chinese people, are in no mood for further political movements. Their goals are to enrich themselves and their families. They have dived into the sea of business to compensate for lost time and to exploit the opportunities brought to them by the reforms and the rapid growth of the market, especially in the post-Tiananmen years. Moreover, despite their common goal of material gains, the size of entrepreneurs’ wealth has been uneven. Some are quite wealthy, others barely earn enough to get by from month to month, and still many others failed because the ventures were too risky. As Barry Naughton observes: so there are not yet private Chinese business groups of a scale comparable to the largest Russian groups. But one may hypothesize that there is greater continuity in China between the former political elites and the new business elites. It is only in China that the children of the former top political elites—the so-called princelings—have emerged as key economic elites (1999:37). This also explains why China’s entrepreneurs remain focused on economic gains rather than searching for non-economic goals (i.e., political power and democratic change). Notwithstanding their uneven wealth, private entrepreneurs are a group of Chinese who are beneficiaries of the post-Mao reforms. They have benefited from not only the market economy, but also from their connections with official authorities. As a result, they are, by and large, attached to the system and therefore are unlikely to demand change in the status quo as long as they continue to benefit from that system. In this respect, the entrepreneurs’ lack of demand for political reform and their limited appearance in the 1989 movement are not at all unusual. “While the reforms and opening up have benefited the majority of Chinese people, they have, in particular, enriched some people like the new entrepreneurs,” observed an elite Beijing businessman. “They have, on the other hand, sacrificed some others such as the laid-off workers, who used to be part of the leading class when Chairman Mao was here” (interview in Beijing, January 2000). If there were any Chinese social groups that would want to change the political status quo, it would be those groups that have suffered from the reforms rather than those that have benefited from them. The beneficiaries are too busy exploiting the business opportunities brought to them by the market reforms and by their networks with official authorities. It only makes sense that they would remain supportive of party rule rather than challenge the existing system that serves their interests. “Why do we remain close to official authorities but don’t want change in the status quo? Because the CCP is the ruling party” one business owner said in my inter-view. “Because the progress China has made in the past 20 years, especially the post-Tiananmen economic boom, has proved that the Party’s policies of the reforms and opening up and with economic construction at the core are correct,” said another. Both moved to Hong Kong from the mainland and have maintained their connections with the mainland officials (interviews in Hong Kong, August 24, 2000).


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UNDERSTANDING PRIVATE ENTREPRENEURS’ ROLE IN CHINA’S POLITICAL PROCESS China’s private entrepreneurs have not emerged as an independent social actor representing the development of a free capitalist economy. Instead, they have cultivated and maintained close relationships with political authorities for political protection and economic facilitation. This raises the question as to what role they are likely to play in China’s political process, given their untypical character compared with their counterparts in other countries. A few are optimistic about the political role of China’s private sector, saying that the growth of the private business class is likely to have significant implications for China’s democratization (Glassman 1991; Pei 1994). Minxin Pei, for example, asserts that The rapid growth of the private sector has been accompanied by the emergence of a new social group potentially capable of penetrating the political system and accumulating political power in rural China. This may already be happening in some parts of the country…. Eventually, it may be possible for China’s fledgling democratic opposition to build a coalition encompassing these new entrepreneurial groups. Such an alliance will provide momentum for the transition from a market economy authoritarian system to a market economy polyarchy (1994:116–7). Pei’s estimation of the private business groups’ ability to penetrate the political system in rural China is based on a survey of 74,000 villages in Zhejiang early in the 1990s. The survey revealed that in 1990–1991 over 40 percent of the village committee chairs and 70 percent of the committee members were village entrepreneurs. This development, Pei claimed: apparently caused the government much concern, for the Central Committee’s organization department reportedly issued a document in late 1991 banning the owners of private businesses from the Party and putting severe restrictions on party members who were owners of private firms (disqualifying them from becoming heads of party branches) (ibid). Albeit in conformity with the common belief that the growth of private business classes can emerge into a driving force for democracy, Pei’s argument is not convincing. He overestimated the private business groups’ ability to penetrate the political system in rural China, and his speculation of a possible coalition of political opposition encompassing the entrepreneurial groups lacks supportive evidence. Penetrating the Political System? There is a number of reasons to believe that the private business groups do not yet have the ability to penetrate the rural political system and cause “the government much


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concern.” First, the Party barred private owners from entering its organization because “they were not part of the proletariat and their income derived from exploitation” (Parris 1999:271; see also Tyson and Tyson 1995). Moreover, the rural new rich are not necessarily private entrepreneurs. Most of them are able people from specialized households (i.e., families specializing either in growing grain, vegetable, tobacco, etc., or in breeding livestock, poultry, seafood, etc.). According to Zhan Chengfu, director of the Rural Work Division at the Ministry of Civil Affairs in 2000, able persons (nengren) from specialized households (zhuanyehu) are more likely to run for village committee chair or members than are entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs are often too busy running their businesses to become involved in village management that is very time-consuming, and they would rather concentrate on running their enterprises (interview in Beijing, June 16, 2000). Members of specialized households are individual peasants and are permitted to join the Party because they are part of the working people. Most village enterprises, meanwhile, are non-state worker-owned collectives or share-holding cooperatives. Entrepreneurs from these enterprises are also permitted to join the Party because their businesses are considered to be public and hence socialist. Moreover, the Party has recently reopened its door to successful private entrepreneurs. Another reason why the private business groups do not yet have the ability to penetrate the rural political system is the remaining strength of the Party in the vast countryside. Recent research indicates that the party leadership remains strong in rural grassroots selfgovernment. The Carter Center sent two delegations to observe village elections in 1997 and 1998. The delegations found that although “the village committee represents an alternative, elected power base,” the party branch “is still in charge of overall policy,” and “no one can oppose the leadership of the party or the socialist system” (Anne Thurston, see Christian Science Monitor March 26, 1997). The election “process encourages independent individuals to come forth, but not alternative political parties” (Tan Qingshan, see ibid.). Moreover, “the party has begun recruiting elected officials, many of them rural entrepreneurs, into its own ranks” (ibid.). On the whole, according to the Carter Center studies, the party leadership remains powerful in rural China rather than being challenged by the growing force of private entrepreneurial groups. Like elsewhere in China, the Party’s role “may have changed, but it is far from having withdrawn” (Goodman 1996:240). The persistence of rural party strength is corroborated in interviews with the director and three other staff members of the Rural al Work Division at the MOCA, which is the central government organ supervising village elections. On the question whether village elections have strengthened or weakened the party leadership in rural China, they believed that the elections have generally improved and strengthened the party leadership rather than weakened it. They indicated that strengthening party leadership does not mean that the party branches should run things all by themselves, ignoring the election law and the villagers’ interests. Instead, party branches should find suitable working methods that meet people’s needs and conform the party leadership to the election law. “Some party branches adopt democratic and legal methods to educate and persuade villagers, which help them win support from the people,” commented Zhan Chengfu, the division director. “The election law was established by the NPC under the party leadership. Strictly implementing the election law is for a village party branch adhering the party leadership,


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it is then a good party branch” (interview in Beijing, June 16, 2000). Similarly, one of the staff members observed: “Improving and strengthening party leadership means that party members take the lead in participating in the elections and complementing the election law. Party branches play an active role in village chambers and make sure the Party’s interests and villagers’ interests conform with each other so that to improve party leadership” (interview in Beijing, June 1, 2000). Chinese scholars also agree that village elections have “greatly improved and strengthened the party leadership” for three reasons. First, the party leadership in the new era is mainly political and organizational rather than interventionist in administrative affairs. Party leadership means three things: to convert the party line and policies into the wills of villagers through self-governing organizations, to support and ensure village selfgovernment according to the law, and to improve party building and macro-management. Without doing everything all by itself, the Party can focus on self-improvement and enhancing governing skills. “Democratic development and party building, therefore, should not be seen as conflicting goals.” Second, the goal of the Party is to develop a modern, democratic, and legalized country. Village self-government is an important practice of grassroots democracy. “The essence of upholding village self-government is equivalent to adherence to the Party’s fundamental purpose. The realization of village self-government means the achievement of the Party’s goal, and thus strengthening the party leadership.” Third, village self-government has changed traditional power sources and enhanced peasants’ initiative through political participation. Many village cadres who are elected and supervised by peasants have joined the Party, which has “improved the relations between the Party and the masses, broadened the basis of party rule, and strengthened the party leadership.” In reality, “in most villages where village selfgovernment has been properly implemented, party building has improved as well” (Liang et al. 2000:202–3). Joining the Political Opposition? There is as yet very little evidence to suggest a possible coalition of political opposition encompassing the entrepreneurial groups. As discussed earlier, China’s private entrepreneurs rarely participated in the 1989 movement and showed little tendency to forge an alliance with the educated elite. Instead, they have sought and maintained an alliance with the government for both economic gains and political safety. This entrepreneurial-official alliance and the factors that have created such relationship do not suggest the possibility of a coalition between entrepreneurial groups and the political opposition. Rather, they suggest the likelihood of a continuing entrepreneurial alliance with official authorities. This is particularly noticeable with entrepreneurs running larger firms. As Wank observed, “entrepreneurs running larger enterprises are more likely to seek alliances with officials in the bureaucracy and have little need for horizontal alliances in civil society.” [They] already enjoyed institutionalized bureaucratic support through cooperatives and other business partnerships with the bureaucracy, and through personal ties, as many were the offspring of officials…. [They] wanted to


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maintain the stability of the bureaucratic support that constituted profit and protection. They worried that the student movement would result in a state crackdown that would disrupt this support. They particularly opposed policy measures to halt corruption because these would target precisely the kinds of personal ties that they were so assiduously cultivating with officials (1995:72– 3). Moreover, many wealthy private entrepreneurs have come from the party and state ranks. A growing number of the business elite who did not join the Party when they were poor has joined, and many have applied to join. It would be wrong to think that the Party’s recruitment of successful entrepreneurs is just a strategy to serve its own interests. Members of the upstart entrepreneurial classes have tried to join the Party, and many have failed. In their view, becoming a party member is “an important avenue of success” (Burns 1999:587). Because the CCP is supreme, private entrepreneurs “must work within the system if they [want] to work at all” (Tyson and Tyson 1995:55). As James and Ann Tyson report, At the height of reform the party considered opening its doors to millionaires who had not joined in their poor days…. Many applied to join the party but failed. For example, Li Xigui, a peasant millionaire who was once so poor that he had to sell his blood to a local hospital to get by, almost made party membership. He made solemn statements about Maoism and liberally sprinkled some of his $1.3 million fortune from a fleet of trucks used in various philanthropic projects. Still, his application was re-jected. In the end only one tycoon came close to parlaying his fortune into party membership, according to official accounts. Xu Jizhu, the director of a metal factory with a $2.1 million fortune, was accepted on a probationary basis (ibid.). According to an official from the CPPCC, private entrepreneurs complained about the ban on their recruitment into the Party, especially after the 1999 passage of the constitutional amendment, which changed the original clause “the private economy is a supplement to public ownership” to “the non-public sector, including individual and private businesses, is an important component of the socialist market economy.” Private entrepreneurs were trilled by the change in their status, “overwhelmed with joy and excitement.” “I feel excited because these changes will equalize the status private businesses with that of State-owned firms,” said Zheng Zhuohui, head of Jinli Group with net assets worth 200 million yuan ($24 million) and a deputy of the Ninth NPC. “I am sure that with the protection of the Constitution, individual businesses will become even bolder in their business affairs” (China Daily March 11, 1999). Encouraged by the change in their status, private entrepreneurs argued vigorously for permission to join the Party. According to Zhan Chengfu, 50–70 percent of village chairs and committee members are party members on national average. Among non-party member village cadres, 80 percent want to join the Party. “Many want to join the Party after being elected into village committees,” said Zhan. “Party membership is a political resource that can be used to serve one’s self-interests or to serve the people or both” (interview in Beijing, June 16, 2000).


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The Communist Party remains strong. Chinese private entrepreneurs want to join the Party, and their wish is motivated by self-interests or the more honorable reason “to serve the people,” or a combination of both. Since their self-interests are at stake and given the unbalanced power distribution between the Communist Party and its exiled political opposition, it makes sense for the new rich to go along with the Party rather than to join a coalition in opposition to the government. Presumably, therefore, they are likely to be supporters or deferential followers of the Party in a leadership-guided democratic transition rather than challengers to the Party in a bottom-up transition imposed by the political opposition. CONCLUSION Despite their significant role in shaping China’s economy, Chinese private entrepreneurs remain little concerned with political reform and inactive in the political process. Like their countrymen, the entrepreneurs continue to demonstrate a mentality of deference and a disinterest in politics. This political apathy results in large part from the Confucian political influence that discouraged the middle class merchants from public administration and political involvement. This political apathy is also due to the entrepreneurs’ low education level that reduces their chance to develop political awareness. To date, Chinese entrepreneurial classes have not emerged as a social actor independent of the state. Instead, they have cultivated and maintained close relationships with official authorities for political protection and economic facilitation. The entrepreneurial-official alliance may first be attributed to the Lenin-ist institutional legacy, which I referred to in this chapter as both state supremacy and the entrepreneurs’ dependence on officialdom. Until recently Mao’s China, like Confucian China, denied the legitimacy of private interests and private property rights. The Mao leadership banned private ownership all together and attacked the private entrepreneurial classes with severe political campaigns. Although the post-Mao reforms gave a new life to the private sector, private entrepreneurs remain deeply concerned with political and economic insecurity due to the strong prejudice against business classes stemming from the Confucian and Maoist legacies (Parris 1999; Tyson and Tyson 1995). As a result, the entrepreneurs have sought to build and expand their networks with officials as a political foundation for their businesses, and they have also relied on such networks to produce, increase, and protect their private wealth. Another factor that has produced the entrepreneurial-official alliance in the reform years is the private entrepreneurs’ economic priority, which may be explained as due to their origins in the Chinese sociopolitical context and China’s low level of economic development. Chinese upstart entrepreneurial classes consist of both insiders and outsiders of the system. Those who spring from officialdom have no need to chase political goals and have gained material fortune through their roots in the system. Those who have no roots in the system are dependent on official backing for material fortune and have sought to achieve and increase economic gains through their connections with authorities (Goodman 1996). Moreover, China’s low level of economic development has conditioned the entrepreneurs to focus on material gains to rise above poverty and to


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enrich themselves and their families. The entrepreneurial-official alliance provides little supportive evidence for the observations that the growth of private entrepreneurial groups has enhanced the middle classes’ quest for democratization, and that it may be possible for the political opposition to build a coalition encompassing the entrepreneurial classes. Instead, it gives support to a less optimistic view. According to Goodman, there is as yet very little evidence to suggest that these new rich represent the development of an independent capitalism. On the contrary, the conditions of operation for most enterprises, and the structures of ownership and control in the economy as a whole, point to the continued importance of the party-state in economic development, and particularly industrialisation (1996:240). Similarly, Wank concludes that “changes in the power distribution are not zero-sum. Expansion of the market economy and its institutions such as private enterprise does not necessarily empower civil society at the expense of the state” (1995:75). As beneficiaries of the post-Mao reforms, China’s private entrepreneurial classes are unlikely to challenge the political status quo and demand for democratic change, at least not in the foreseeable future. In the long run, whether the new rich would search for noneconomic goals depends on several factors: strength of state power, levels of socioeconomic development, amount of entrepreneurs’ wealth, and the extent to which the economic elite is exposed to democratic ideas. For now, one seems to have little ground to be optimistic about the role of private entrepreneurial classes in fostering democracy in China, particularly not at the expense of stability and prosperity. To the extent the new rich would desire democratic change at all, it should be guided by the political leadership from above in an orderly reform rather than forced by popular pressure from below in a widely sweeping movement (Wank 1995). These assessments support my fourth hypothesis that China’s transition to democracy is unlikely to be an undertaking advanced by societal forces from the bottom up. Rather, it is more likely to come from the top down under the party leadership. NOTES 1. James Tyson and Ann Tyson used the phrase “painful dependence on officialdom” in their story on private entrepreneur Zhang Guoxi (1995:53). 2. “1995 Nian Zhongguo Dierci Siying Qiye Chouyang Diaocha Shuju ji Fenxi” (China’s Second Sample Survey and Analysis of Private Enterprise). Zhongguo Siying Jingji Nianjian (1996) (China Private Economy Year Book), see Parris 1999:266. 3. Telephones in individual household were provided by the government to higher level officials at the time.

CHAPTER 6 Top-down Transition to Democracy in China Theories generalize various cases of democratic transition into two types: regimeinitiated and opposition-induced (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986). Of the two types of transition from authoritarian rule to democracy, China apparently has a greater chance for the former. A bottom-up transition is unlikely because Chinese society has not fostered an alternative leadership with ability to compete with the CCP and induce democracy from below. The Communist Party remains the sole political entity capable of governing China and carrying out needed but potentially destabilizing democratic reforms. This established state-society configuration in which there is no alternative to the Party, but instead there is state domination over society, suggests that China’s transition to democracy is unlikely to be forced into being by societal actors. It is instead more likely for the party leadership to usher China into democratic transition. In the previous chapters, I examined the strength of the party-state and the weakness of three social actors: the political opposition, the people, including the intellectuals, and the private entrepreneurial classes. I used three specifics—the Confucian tradition, the Leninist institutional legacy, and the economic development imperative—to explain how in China state domination over society was established, and why this power structure is likely to endure. In addition, I examined other relevant factors that help explain more fully the strength of the state and the weakness of the three societal actors. This chapter summarizes the preceding discussions to evaluate my fourth hypothesis that, given its established power structure of strong state and weak society, China’s transition to democracy is most likely to be initiated and guided by the party leadership from the top down rather than imposed by societal forces from the bottom up. The chapter then discusses China’s recent political development and Chinese leaders’ attitudes toward democracy and the rule of law to explore the likelihood of a top-down transition in the country. ESTABLISHED STATE-SOCIETY CONFIGURATION—A SUMMARY Strength of the Party-state China’s party-state remains strong, so much so that it survived the political storm of 1989 and has moved into the twenty-first century with great success. The essence of China’s strong party-state, as discussed in chapter 2, is the intimate post-Mao leadershipbureaucracy relationship, which is characterized as the effective political control by the Party over the effective bureaucracy. This leadership-bureaucracy relationship is a function of three major factors: the Confucian tradition, the Leninist political structure, and the CCP’s performance in implementing the reforms. This leader-ship-bureaucracy


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relationship may also be attributed to two additional factors specific to the bureaucratic elites: their self-interests in the system and their concern with unity and stability in China. The intimate post-Mao leadership-bureaucracy relationship may first be attributed to the influence of Confucian tradition. Confucian tradition provided China with a powerful bureaucratic elite and a special relationship between this governing elite and its political leadership. The bureaucratic elite governed the vast kingdom for its ruler, whose role in uniting all of China into a single cohesive polity was indispensable (Glassman 1991). These attributes of the Confucian bureaucracy have remained in the contemporary Chinese bureaucratic system. Chinese bureaucratic elite remains a network of the welleducated and professionally competent. This bureaucratic elite administers China with effectiveness, efficiency, and political loyalty to the party leadership, which ensures and sustains the strong state by providing the CCP leeway to maintain effective control over an efficient and cohesive administration. The Leninist structure of political system, moreover, has created and sustained the intimate leadership-bureaucracy relationship by intertwining the Party and the state into a cohesive power bloc. This political system was created in 1949 under the influence of the Soviet Union and was further stabilized and reinforced during subsequent decades of the Cold War, when China was isolated by both the Soviets and the Americans and their allies. The success of the post-Mao reforms has undermined the Leninist state system. However, by continuing to allow the Party to control leadership selection in the government and the military and allow party members to occupy most leadership positions at all levels of governance, the Leninist institutional legacy has ensured effective political control by the Party over the state administration and sustained the strength of the party-state. The intimate leadership-bureaucracy relationship may also be attributed to an economic explanation, which I referred to in chapter 2 as the CCP’s performance in implementing the reforms that has created a positive image of the post-Mao leadership among the bureaucratic elites. The post-Mao reforms and opening to the outside world ended the economic stagnation and political chaos of the Cultural Revolution and sparked an unprecedented economic boom in China. They have also ameliorated the political atmosphere, in which people enjoy a higher degree of freedom in their economic, social, intellectual, and personal lives than at any time during the Maoist era. These have contributed to the intimate leadership-bureaucracy relationship by restoring to the Party the faith and support of the bureaucratic elite. A majority of the bureaucratic elites remain faithful and confident in the party leadership, as they are satisfied with the leadership’s policies of reform and its performance in implementing the reforms. The bureaucratic elites also believe that, despite the shortcomings and defects in its work, the Party is willing to address these problems and capable of leading China to strength and prosperity. Two final factors, the bureaucrats’ self-interests in the system and their concern with China’s unity and stability, have also contributed to the intimate post-Mao leadershipbureaucracy relationship. With their own interests in the system to protect, Chinese bureaucratic elites remain in conformity with the party leadership. They would contemplate democratic change with caution and would want to make sure that their interests would be protected with a more democratic structure of rule (Han 1993). They

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would prefer a democratic transition guided by the leadership from the top down than otherwise pushed by social forces from the bottom up because the former is more predictable. Moreover, concerned with China’s unity and stability, the bureaucratic elites share an apprehension with the leadership and the public that forceful political change may create instability, thus jeopardize reform and development. They have drawn lessons from the chaotic situations of the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen uprising that “great mass democracy” leads China not to democracy but to instability, and that China can only depend on the party leadership to carry out democratic transition in a peaceful and orderly manner. As a political entity that is well organized and broadly based and guided by a reformist-oriented leadership, the Communist Party remains decisive and powerful. With all the best and the brightest it has absorbed, the Party has become a ruling elite network and a modernizing force in China. This ruling elite occupies virtually all the leading positions in the Party, the government, and the military from the center down to the basic levels. It continues to enjoy popular endorsement and support from the people and has a two million member military standing behind it. If the Party cannot find China the right way to democratization, no other political forces can do any better. China’s democratic development depends on the party leadership, because the CCP is the sole political entity with the ability to govern China, keep the country united and stable, and carry forward the reforms—both economic and political. Weakness of the Societal Actors The Political Opposition As identified in chapter 3, there are four problems with the political opposition in inducing democracy in China, namely: the dissidents’ middle-of-the-road attitudes toward the Party, their inability to organize an opposition party, the democratic elites’ beliefs in elitism and negative attitudes toward the mass majority, and the exiled dissidents’ isolation from the Chinese people. These problems may be attributed to three major factors: the Confucian influence on the Chinese intelligentsia, the Leninist totalitarian system under Mao, and China’s reality as a less developed country. In addition, the opposition’s moderation is also associated with the democratic elites’ excessive enthusiasm for Western democracy and the role of the Communist Party in China. Meanwhile, the exiled dissidents’ isolation from the people is due largely to the overseas dissident movement’s dependency on external forces for support. The first impediment against the political opposition developing a leadership to advance democracy in China is its “strikingly middle-of-the-road” attitude toward the Communist Party (Nathan 1993). Such moderation results first from the Confucian influence on the Chinese intelligentsia, which puts a historical burden on the shoulders of the educated elite: to serve and save their motherland. Like their predecessors, the 1980s generation of democratic elites were motivated by a sense of social responsibility rather than a desire for state power when they urged the party leadership for democratic reform. Moreover, without an intention to challenge party rule, their split with the government was driven by their excessive enthusiasm for Western democracy. This enthusiasm


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differentiated them from the reformist party leaders and drove their effort to democratize the Party from within to proceed too far and too fast and beyond China’s capacity to bear and the government’s willingness to tolerate. In addition, the truth that there is no alternative to the Party with the ability to govern China and carry on the reforms leaves the exiled dissidents little choice other than retaining their faith in the party reformers. Apart from their moderation, Chinese dissidents lack an organization and a platform of democratic reform to compete with the Party for leadership and promote democracy in China. This lack of an organized opposition party prior to 1989 resulted from the legacy of Mao’s totalitarian system that prohibited social organizations independent of the state. Compared with the Communist states in Eastern Europe, China under Mao distinguished itself with a well-entrenched totalitarian system. Such a system had both institutional and philosophical consequences, and both consequences had tremendous impact on the 1980s generation of democratic elites and the Tiananmen movement. The former prevented the democratic elites from organizing autonomous social groups to develop a civil society from which the Tiananmen events might have emerged as an institutionalized democratic movement rather than a spontaneous protest movement. The latter constrained the democratic elites from developing a liberal democratic view and led them to believe in elitism and keep “democracy safe from the masses” during the 1989 movement (Kelliher 1993). The democratic elites’ elitist mentality was further reinforced by China’s reality as a less developed country (LDC). Because the Chinese masses lack sufficient education to master democratic knowledge, the democratic elites found the less-educated mass majority unaware of democracy, politically apathetic, and politically unreliable for building democracy in China. As a combined result of their lack of understanding of liberal democracy and their concern with China’s reality as a LDC, the democratic elites pursued what may be called an intellectual oligarchy, which put in doubt their willingness and ability to establish genuine democracy in China (Kelliher 1993; Kraus 1989). Finally, taking place in an adopted country (i.e., the United States), the overseas dissident movement has become irrelevant as a result of the dissidents’ inability to organize an opposition party for their goals and their isolation from the Chinese people. These two problems are due primarily to the dissidents’ dependency on international forces and Taiwan for moral and financial support. Such dependency has led them to factional struggles for influence and competition for funding, thus resulting in splits that rack the exile community (Goldstein 1994; Hoh 1999). Dependency on external support has also driven the dissidents to play a damaging role in U.S.-China relations by being both a factor in the disputes over human rights between China and the West, especially the United States, and a “card” some in the U.S. Congress and the media play against China. The Chinese, especially the intellectuals, have developed a strong anti-American sentiment due to what they see as America’s bullying of China. Consequently, by helping to keep China’s human rights record high on American political agenda at a cost of China and the bilateral relations, the exiled dissidents have alienated themselves from their own people. The problems with the political opposition in developing a leadership and inducing democracy in China are largely related to China’s cultural, political institutional, and socioeconomic conditions. For the opposition, the difficulties in overcoming those


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problems are as tremendous as the problems themselves. Democratization in China, therefore, is unlikely an undertaking to be forced from below, because the opposition is not a political entity which can unite the country and carry out democratic reform, and to which the people can turn for leadership. The People and the Intelligentsia China’s prospects for a bottom-up transition are rather limited because neither the intellectual elite nor the general public is ready or willing to take real actions to press for democratic change at this stage. As discussed in chapter 4, the Chinese public’s unwillingness to challenge the Party for democracy may be explained as due to three factors: the Confucian political culture, the Party’s strength in the basic-level government in both rural and urban China, and the people’s developmental consensus with the leadership. In addition, two other factors—the low education level among the mass majority and the legacy of Mao’s mass political upheavals—have also contributed to the lack of political interest and passion by the Chinese public. In a land of hierarchy and obedience, Chinese Confucian political culture has fostered a deferential people who have little desire for, and experience of, self-government but a mentality of deference and dependence. This mentality of deference and dependence in turn helps to stabilize and reinforce the legitimacy of authoritarian elite rule. This mentality is also associated with the low education level among the huge rural majority. Among the educated urban population, however, there is a gap between people’s interest in politics and their willingness to become politically involved (Zhong et al. 1998). The public’s lack of political interest and passion also resulted from the endless political movements under Mao and was further exacerbated by the June 4 tragedy. The people, including the intellectuals, today are in no mood for another Tiananmen uprising. The public’s political passivity may also be attributed to the legacy of the Leninist political system sustaining the Party’s strength in the entire society. China under Mao adopted the commune system in the countryside and the danwei system in urban areas. In both systems, power was highly centralized; the party organization exercised unified leadership. The commune exercised control over peasants’ productive labor, political activities, as well as their personal lives. The danwei exercised control over its employees’ professional careers and sociopolitical well-being and monitored their public and private lives. Through such arrangements, the CCP maintained a highly centralized political system and a relatively high level of social order in both rural and urban China. The commune system disintegrated as a result of the post-Mao agricultural reforms. The Deng leadership replaced the commune with village elections. The relatively high percentage of party members among elected village cadres and the relationship between the party branch and the village committee indicate the Party’s continuing strength in the rural grassroots self-government. In urban areas, despite its relative decay due to the reforms of state industry, the danwei system remains the principal organizing feature of urban China and continues to sustain the Party’s strength by allowing its control over leadership selection in all strategic work units. Moreover, the Party has recently introduced the new neighborhood elections as a remedy for the decay of the danwei system. With better-educated, more professional, and younger staffs, the newly elected


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neighborhood committees function as liaisons with official authority under the guide of the local governments. While they remain politically apathetic, Chinese people are relatively satisfied with their life improvement in the reform years and continue to give support to the Party. They have reached a developmental consensus with the leadership, which prioritizes economic growth over political reform. They support the government’s goals of developing a strong economy and building a powerful Chinese nation and agree with the leadership that political stability is critical to the realization of these two goals (Wan 1998). Having just begun to enjoy a good life or still struggling to rise above poverty, most ordinary Chinese remain little concerned with democratic reform. Despite their profound concern with political reform, Chinese intellectuals have drawn a lesson from the June 4 tragedy and developed a more rational view about democracy in China. They have come to conclude that democratization in China should follow the road of peaceful reform rather than through protest movement, should proceed from the Chinese reality rather than copy the Western model of democracy, and should begin from within the Party rather than from outside the system. Concerned with China’s reality as a LDC, most Chinese intellectuals agree with the leadership that China at this level of economic development cannot achieve democracy in the short run. China should instead prioritize economic development and social stability and carry out political reform in a cautious and gradual manner under the party leadership. Neither China’s intellectual elite nor the general public is ready or willing to press for democracy at this stage. The mass majority has generally been absorbed by the pursuit of material well-being and consumerism. The educated elite, albeit highly interested in politics, does not act to convert their political awareness into real political action. Those who are deeply concerned with political reform share with the leadership and the public a fear of political chaos and caution about democratic appeals. Very few would push for rapid political transition at the cost of development and reform. The intellectuals and the people alike generally agree that China’s democratic development depends on the party leadership. Presumably, therefore, they are likely to support or deferentially follow the Party should the leadership carry out a democratic transition. Private Entrepreneurial Classes Despite their significant role in shaping China’s economy, Chinese private entrepreneurial classes, as discussed in chapter 5, remain little concerned with political reform and inactive in the political process. Like their fellow countrymen, the entrepreneurs continue to demonstrate a mentality of deference and a disinterest in politics. This lack of political interest results in large part from China’s Confucian political tradition, which discouraged the middle class merchants from public administration and political involvement. Such political apathy is also associated with the entrepreneurs’ low level of education, which has handicapped them from developing democratic awareness and knowledge. To date, Chinese entrepreneurial classes have not emerged as a social actor independent of the party-state. Instead, they have prioritized material wealth over political liberty and have cultivated and maintained close relationships with official authorities for political protection and economic facilitation


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(Goodman 1996; Wank 1995). The entrepreneurial-official alliance may first be attributed to the Leninist institutional legacy, which I referred to in chapter 5 as both state supremacy and the entrepreneurs’ dependence on officialdom. Until recently Maoist China, like Confucian China, denied the legitimacy of private interests and private property rights. The Mao leadership banned private ownership all together and attacked the private entrepreneurial classes with severe political campaigns. Although the post-Mao reforms gave a new life to the private sector, private entrepreneurs remain deeply concerned with political and economic insecurity due to the strong prejudice against business classes stemming from the Confucian and Maoist legacies (Parris 1999; Tyson and Tyson 1995). As a result, the entrepreneurs have sought to build and expand their networks with officials as a political foundation for their businesses, and they have also relied on such networks to produce, increase, and protect their private wealth. The entrepreneurial-official alliance is also due to an economic factor—the private entrepreneurs’ economic priority. This results first from the entrepreneurs’ origins in the Chinese sociopolitical context. China’s upstart entrepreneurial classes are composed of both insiders and outsiders of the state system. Those who spring from officialdom have no need to chase political goals and have gained material fortune through their roots in the system. Those who have no roots in the system are dependent on official backing for material fortune and have sought to achieve and increase economic gains through their connections with authorities (Goodman 1996). The entrepreneurs’ economic priority is also a result of China’s low level of economic development. They have focused on material gains to rise above poverty and to enrich themselves by exploiting the business opportunities brought to them by the market reforms and their networks with authorities. As a consequence, they are, by and large, attached to the existing system and are unlikely to demand change in the political status quo as long as they continue to benefit from that system. The private entrepreneurs’ alliance with the party-state suggests that China’s newly emerging entrepreneurial classes have not emerged into a driving force for democracy. They are unlikely to challenge the Party for power and demand democratic reform, especially not at the expense of stability and prosperity. To the extent that the new rich would desire democratic change at all, it should be guided by the political leadership from the top down in an orderly reform rather than forced by popular pressure from the bottom up in a widely sweeping movement (Wank 1995). Established State-Society Configuration and Top-down Democratic Transition China’s sociopolitical configuration consists of a strong state and a weak society. This power structure is a function primarily of three major factors: the Confucian influence, the Leninist institutional legacy, and the economic development imperative. Confucian tradition has provided China a philosophical foundation for state domination over society by empowering the elite to rule and by denying individuals the right to political dissent. The Leninist institutional legacy has strengthened the party-state by maintaining a ruling bloc in which all powers are held in the hands of the Communist Party and by blocking


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the emergence of civil society essential for a bottom-up democratic transition. China’s economic development imperative has reinforced the state’s power by requiring a strong state authority to manage the economy and to maintain stability. Both requirements are inconsistent with a democratic transition driven by societal forces (Zheng 1994). This established power structure suggests that China is unlikely to experience a bottom-up transition because Chinese societal forces are too weak to challenge the state and implement democracy from below. Yet if these three factors have created and facilitated China’s strong state and weak society and made unlikely a bottom-up democratic transition in China, one might ask why Confucian tradition did not prevent popular uprisings that toppled state power during other periods of Chinese history? Moreover, why did other Confucian societies transform from authoritarian rule to democracy? Why did the Leninist states in Eastern Europe collapse and become democratic polities? And why did the economic development imperative lead to a strong civil society and a weak Communist state in, for example, Hungary? Confucian tradition did not prevent the overthrow of state power in Chinese history because it allowed people to abandon a degenerate dynasty. As a philosophy of government, the Confucian tradition granted the “mandate of Heaven” to the emperor, but required him to be a “benevolent” ruler who was expected to provide for the happiness and welfare of his people (Stavrianos 1991). Accordingly, Confucian tradition allowed the overthrow of the emperor by withdrawing the mandate of Heaven from him if he was believed to have degenerated to a despot. Confucian tradition, meanwhile, valued education and empowered the educated elite to rule with moral principles. It hence does not necessarily halt a top-down democratic transition if the ruling elite believes democracy is a desirable political system and chooses to embark on democratization, such as seen in South Korea and Taiwan. Moreover, while Communist rule, by and large, was imposed on Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union, it was chosen by the Chinese Communists as a solution to their country’s problems. Consequently, political leaders in Eastern Europe were less committed to Stalin-style rule than Mao was, and their Leninist states were less entrenched compared with Maoist China. The East European semi-totalitarian system left certain free and uncontrolled areas in the private realm from which civil society emerged (Radojković 1995). The economic decay of the Communist system, meanwhile, opened new spaces for the market and privatization, leading to economic independence from the state in Hungary and some other countries (Pelczynski 1988; Rupnik 1988). Thus, the Communist states in the Soviet bloc collapsed under the pressure of social forces. The newly empowered civil society wiped out Communist rule and brought democracy into being. It should also be pointed out that, unlike China, the three determinants of the strong state and weak society did not exist simultaneously in any of the new democracies in East Asia or Eastern Europe, Confucian South Korea and Taiwan did not develop a Communist system or a command economy. Communist Eastern Europe did not have a Confucian tradition that discouraged political dissent. Moreover, South Korea and Taiwan did not democratize until they had achieved tremendous economic success under strong authoritarian rule. Eastern Europe overthrew Communist rule and transited to


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democracy at a time when their middle-level economies were suffering serious decay. Also unlike China, in both cases, external factors played a significant role in promoting the transition. South Korea and Taiwan democratized under American influence and pressure (Kristof and WuDunn 1995), and the presence of the European Community provided a role model that helped sustain and accelerate the process by which Eastern Europe democratized (Zotti 1995). China’s state-society configuration has emerged from and is sustained by its Confucian tradition, the Leninist institutional legacy, and the economic development imperative. This established power structure suggests that China is unlikely to witness a bottom-up transition because major societal actors—the political opposition, the people and the intellectuals, and the entrepreneurial classes—lack the strength to challenge party rule and impose democracy from below. It is conceived not only by the governing elite but also by the general public, the intellectual elite, as well as the political opposition that the Communist Party remains the sole political entity capable of governing China and carrying on the reforms. China’s transition to democracy is conditional to its state-society configuration in which state domination over society has emerged and is likely to perpetuate. Given this established power structure of strong state and weak society, democracy in China is unlikely to be forced into being by societal forces. It is instead more likely for the party leadership to usher China into democratic transition. There is evidence for a likely top-down transition and an unlikely bottom-up transition in China. While a bottom-up transition has not occurred at any level in the society, significant democratic progress at different levels has been made under the party leadership (see table 1.1). Since the early 1980s, democratic electoral system has been introduced at lower levels of government on the Party’s own initiatives. Popular direct elections are carried out in villages, urban neighborhood communities, as well as many factories. Deputies for people’s congresses at the township, county, city district, and city (without districts) levels are selected through popular votes. Direct elections are even practiced at the vice bureau level in the central, provincial, and city party and state organs. Chinese leaders have affirmed the likelihood of the extension of the democratic electoral system to higher levels. It seems reasonable therefore to anticipate that general elections will be carried out at the provincial and congressional levels in the not very distant future. LlKELIHOOD OF A TOP-DOWN DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION Leadership-initiated Political Change Over the past two decades, China has impressed the world with a two-fold story. In one, with an average 10 percent economic growth rate annually, it is the most dynamic and fastest growing economy in the world. In the other, it is the largest Communist country left virtually untouched by the third wave of global democratization. In fact, however, China’s economic development has been accompanied by changes in the political arena. Since the reforms took off in 1978, a series of important political initiatives has been undertaken by the leadership, as the Party seeks to facilitate the economic reforms by


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constituting a new political order. Early in the reform years, the CCP reevaluated its history, criticized the political models under Mao, and reversed its ideological course. It took substantive steps to reform the political system by formulating a collective central leadership, separating the functions of the Party from those of the government, and decentralizing power from the center to the local governments. The CCP also ended its tenure system, arranging for elder revolutionary officials to retire from top leadership positions to make way for younger, better-educated reformist technocrats. Promoting grassroots self-government, the Party introduced democratic elections at the local level in both rural and urban China. It has also sought the rule of law and placed the establishment of a legal system at the top of its agenda. These political initiatives have energized the government and the society and accelerated the market reform. These have also ameliorated the overall political atmosphere, in which people have an extensive degree of freedom in their economic, social, intellectual, and private lives. These new developments indicate that the transition to political liberalization in China has begun. Empowerment of the National People’s Congress One of the most significant political institutional reforms in China is the growing strength of the National People’s Congress (NPC). Early in the Deng era, the CCP initiated a legal system to facilitate economic reforms. This initiative, observes Murray Scot Tanner, empowered the NPC, which has since emerged to clamor for greater “assertiveness and autonomy under fairly general party leadership” and to move away from its old model of being a mere “rubber-stamp” (1999:105). There has been strong support among the central leadership for empowerment of the NPC and looser party control over the legislature. The 1982 State Constitution granted the NPC Standing Committee the power to enact many laws without the vote of the full NPC. In 1991, a Party Central Committee document “suggested that certain categories of less ‘important’ laws might not need Politburo review and approval.” The document also required the state ministries to report to the NPC major political laws before drafting them (ibid.: 111, 115). Over the years, the NPC has progressed toward institutionalizing its influence in lawmaking and supervising government agencies. The “institutional assets and capacity” of the NPC for lawmaking have grown rapidly (ibid.). For example, in March 2000, the NPC deputies put forth 3,794 proposals, which were then transferred to 157 institutions by the General Office of the NPC Standing Committee. By March 2001, nearly threequarters (2,787) of the proposals had become government policies or regulations. The disposal of 697 proposals was delayed on the ground that it was not the right time to carry them out. The remaining 310 proposals were to be handled by related government departments (China Daily March 5, 2001). The empowerment and the increased autonomy have led the NPC to progress toward a more independent body that is no longer bound to ratify every party and government legislative proposal quickly and unanimously. They have eroded “the norms of obedience to party discipline” and led many delegates to rethink whom in Chinese society they represent (Tanner 1999:106,112). In 1992, one-third of the NPC deputies voted against or abstained from the $25 billion Three Gorges Project (Atlanta Journal-Constitution March


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4, 2001). In 2001, nearly one-third of the NPC deputies cast opposing or abstained votes on the work reports of the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate at the NPC session to register their dissatisfaction with the government’s anti-corruption work, and the number of no-votes and abstentions was even greater in the 2000 session (China Daily March 16, 2001). The NPC has also become “a court of appeal” through which citizens seek assistance in various problems. It receives each year more than 100,000 letters from citizens and intervenes in some individual cases of official power abuse. Beginning in the early 1990s, the NPC and local PCs have granted themselves some power to choose government officials. Local PCs, from time to time, have been able to vote out candidates nominated by the Party Central Committee and elect their own candidates to major government positions. In 1993, for example, two local PC-nominated candidates for provincial governorships (in Guizhou and Zhejiang) defeated two candidates put forward by the center (Pei 1995). China’s press has recently carried a number of reports on how the local PCs “are exercising their powers by demanding more accountability, rejecting candidates and recalling officials.” The Guangdong People’s Congress, for example, recently passed a regulation requiring the government to report in detail its public spending (Atlanta Journal-Constitution March 4, 2001). Albeit minor steps, these changes “represent a welcome and promising trend toward functioning institutional pluralism in China” (Pei 1995:72). In March 2001, an unthinkable event happened in Shenyang, China’s fifth-largest city with a population of 6.8 million. To register people’s anger over corruption, the municipal People’s Congress voted down the annual work report from the Intermediate People’s Court. The vote “stunned Chinese legal experts,” reported the Atlanta JournalConstitution, because it was “the first time a work report—a summary of the previous year’s work—[had] been voted down by a congress of any level” (March 4, 2001). Seeing hope in the Shenyang vote, Chinese journalists and scholars highlighted this new development. The official Xinhua News Agency quoted Wang Ce, deputy director of the Law Institute of Shenyang Social Sciences Academy, who remarked that the vote would “spark more reforms in China’s democratic and legal systems.” The China Youth Daily, the Communist Youth League newspaper, criticized those PCs passing reports which people do not approve, arguing that “this kind of behavior not only makes people suspicious of the purpose and status of the congress, it also makes people ask whether deputies who pass everything are capable of representing the people.” Hu Jinguang, a law professor at the People’s University in Beijing, indicated that, as China changes “from a planned economy to a market economy…people’s understanding of democracy and rule of law grows,” and they demand the delegates reflect their views. In the future, “there may be many more cases like Shenyang. It won’t just be the court report that doesn’t pass. Maybe one day the government report won’t pass” (see ibid.). Establishment of A Legal System Another important political development in the reform era is the establishment of a legal system, a step the government has taken to facilitate the market reforms and economic growth. According to Li Peng, head of the NPC, the NPC and its Standing Committee


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have promulgated more than 390 laws since the reforms took off, and local people’s congresses have enacted more than 8,000 local laws (China Daily March 10, 2001). The State Council had also adopted more than 800 administrative regulations and ordinances from 1979 to 1999 (China Daily April 14, 1999). The existence of a legal system allows ordinary Chinese citizens to go to court to settle disputes over property rights, debts, contracts, and the like, and in many cases to sue the government agencies that violated their personal or group legal rights. In 1998, for example, people’s courts throughout China concluded 1,431 cases of state compensation according to the State Indemnity Law and ensured citizens’ legitimate rights and interests (ibid.). According to a 2000 report by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the number of lawsuits has soared in the past 20 years, up from zero to more than 5.7 million in 1999. Many cases are being filed under the Administrative Procedure Law of 1990 that gives ordinary citizens the right to bring suits against rapacious, arbitrary officials. In the past 10 years, the number of suits against government agencies has increased steadily, approaching from zero to 100,000 in 1999. Official statistics show that citizens win 40 percent of cases. The development of a legal framework has changed the way of life in Chinese society where people long ignorant of their rights have developed legal awareness and become politically active primarily to protect their newly gained civil liberties and property rights (October 15, 2000). Although there is not yet a sign that China will develop an independent judiciary, the reformist leadership has shown its recognition of the rule of law and has set it as a goal to be achieved, as China is forcing its way to an open economy and to integration with the world. According to Li Peng, the NPC Standing Committee adopted 14 new laws in 2000 to meet the requirements of the World Trade Organization, and another 12 bills were being reviewed (China Daily March 10, 2001). James Feinerman, China legal expert, believes that the changes implemented in the reform years “are not merely cosmetic but truly substantive, they represent a definitive step in the creation of a stable and predictable legal system that may eventually meet Western standards with respect to the rule of law” (1997:278). Grassroots Self-government Perhaps the most significant political development that has demonstrated the interactions between economic and political processes and has drawn great scholarly attention inside and outside China is the grassroots democratization in rural China, where 80 percent of the population live. In the early 1980s, as the rural economic reforms brought the commune system to an end, the administrative system in the countryside broke down. To deter rural instability and improve leadership quality, the CCP promoted village elections to allow peasants to elect village leaders. Peasants in many regions have participated in three to four village elections since the trial election law came into effect in 1987. In regions where the election law is closely followed, the elections contain all the elements of a democratic elec-tion such as open competition, multiple candidates, and secret ballots (The Carter Center 1997, 1998; Carney 1999). By 1999, 60 percent of villages had established the system of village self-management in a preliminary fashion, reported China Daily. “The practice of open and transparent village affairs [had] been established in most villages.” In eleven provinces and municipalities, more than 90 percent of the


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villages had adopted this practice (April 14, 1999). Grassroots democratization has empowered 900 million Chinese peasants with the democratic right to self-government. Popularly elected village committees are more accountable to villagers than the administrative bodies under the commune system, as villagers have the right to elect and replace village leaders (Manion 1996). Grassroots self-government, along with the economic reforms, has restored stability and accelerated progress in rural areas and improved the peasants’ living standards. It has enabled the Chinese peasantry to learn democracy through practice and provided China with a concrete way to widen and deepen “its technical capacity” to conduct free elections (The Carter Center 1997). As a Japanese newspaper observed: “For China, open election for village chiefs is top-down democratization under the party leadership” (see Liang et al. 2000:140) The most fundamental significance of rural grassroots self-government is that it is gradually constructing a broad and solid basis upon which democratic elections can be expanded to higher levels and on a larger scale. Through years of learning and practicing at the village level, some local governments now have moved to introduce the electoral system into the party rank by adopting democratic voting in village party elections. Some have experimented direct elections at the township level. In 1991, peasants in two townships in Hequ county, Shanxi Province, created a two-vote system in village elections. The system allows villagers to cast their first votes in a primary election to nominate whichever candidates they choose. The villagers then cast their second votes in the final election for the village committee among candidates wining the most votes in the primary. Inspired by the success of the two-vote system, the Hequ county leadership “adapted” this method in village party elections to let villagers recommend candidates for the party branch by casting a “trust vote.” Party members who receive less than 50 percent of the “trust vote” are disqualified to run for the party branch (Liang et al. 2000). “The link between the two elections is significant,” stated Susan Lawrence. “The Communist Party has traditionally resisted answering to any body other than itself. But by conditioning party appointments on popular support shown for candidates in local elections, the party appears to be moving toward accepting the notion that the population at large should have a voice in deciding who should hold party posts at the grassroots level” (2000:17). The two-vote method has gained great support from villagers, as it shortens the distance between party members and ordinary peasants. The method has spread to other counties and cities in Shanxi and other provinces. By allowing ordinary vil-lagers to supervise party members, it has enhanced the party branches’ accountability to the peasants. This new development, because it helps promote good relationships between the Party and the people, has expanded the mass basis for party rule (Liang et al. 2000). This provides another piece of evidence for my fourth hypothesis that the Party remains strong, if China transits to democracy, its transition is likely to be initiated and guided by the party leadership from the top down. There has also been a handful of experiments with direct election at the township level. In January 1999, the party committee and the government of Longgang District, Shenzhen, decided to experiment in Dapeng Township with democratic elections for town chief with a three-round two-vote system. In the first round, 5,048 out of 5,259 voters named candidates (each could only name one) for township chief through a method of secret ballot recommendation. The township party committee selected the top


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five winners of the popular recommendation votes as candidates for the primary. In the next round, the candidates gave campaign speeches at a meeting of 1,068 voter representatives. The voter representatives then cast their votes of evaluation (each with a single vote) for the final candidate. Li Weiwen, the incumbent candidate, won 76 percent (813) of the evaluation vote. The township party committee recommended Li to the township people’s congress as the nominee for town chief and reported the nomination to the District for approval. On April 9, 1999, 45 deputies of the township people’s congress voted Li Weiwen the new chief of Dapeng Township (by the Constitution, township chiefs are elected by township PCs) (Huang et al. 2000). Chinese scholars speak of the Dapeng experiment with high praise, saying that it moved beyond the framework of a decade-long village self-government by introducing the system of democratic elections into the basic-level of government development (township government is the lowest level of government in rural China). The Dapeng elections changed the candidate nomination procedure and made a positive attempt to associate the Party’s will with the people’s will and to broaden the basis for party rule. Dapeng’s new electoral system has been recognized by the Guangdong Province PC and the NPC. This means that China’s grassroots democratic development has gained a new “pass,” which will provide more space for political reforms in the micro-dimension (ibid.; also see Liang et al. 2000). Moreover, the success of the Dapeng experiment indicates that economic development could very well be the way to gradually lead China to a democratic transition. Across the border from Hong Kong, Dapeng is one of the rural coastal towns that have witnessed the most rapid economic growth and the most tremendous social transformation. The democratic breakthrough in Dapeng is not accidental. It is consistent with the modernization theory that higher socioeconomic development provides favorable conditions for democracy to develop and sustain (Lipset 1959; Dahl 1971). The system of grassroots democracy is also in practice in urban China. The recent conduct of the neighborhood elections was designed to create the urban equivalent of the village elections that allows residents to practice self-government through local organizations. Also in many enterprises, workers select enterprise leaders through democratic elections. They also complete a democratic appraisal on their directors and have democratic auditing and examinations of account books (China Daily March 20, 1998). A recent study on transformation of Chinese factories in Shanghai by Doug Guthrie reveals that more than 60 percent of the factories have adopted grievance-filing procedures and mediation committees as formal avenues through which workers can file complaints against superiors in the workplace. “It is strange,” Guthrie states, “that we seem to know least about those changes, despite the fact that they directly affect a far greater number of citizens than any other area of Chinese democratization” (2000:B11). Perhaps the most progressive democratic practice, but the least known to the outside world, is the open competition and democratic election for leading posts in the party and state organs. The CCP has recently introduced a democratic method of leadership selection in the central, provincial, and city party and state organs by allowing open competitions and direct elections for leading positions at the vice bureau level. Many party and state organs have adopted the new method. Some have the competitions and elections among employees within their units, while others open these competitions to


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outsiders to recruit the best candidates from society and even from abroad. In 2001, for example, the Shenzhen government adopted open competition to recruit candidates from China and abroad for 17 positions at the vice bureau level. Chinese officials and scholars welcome this new development. During my research in Beijing, six of my interviewees pointed to the initiative (some described it in detail) as evidence of real democratic progress. Although they have yet to be improved and be extended, democratic elections are in practice in China, and the significance of Chinese grassroots democratization is not to be slighted. As Chinese intellectuals indicate, it is important and meaningful to build up democracy from the basic-level of Chinese society, beginning with rural China where the mass majority lives. China at this stage of development can only gradually make democratic progress through the most practical democratic training. “The process by which grassroots democracy develops and improves is the process by which Chinese masses learn democratic ideas. It is through this process of democratic practice and learning, that citizens develop democratic awareness and habits and learn democratic governance” (Zou 2000:143). China’s economic and political reforms have interacted with each other in the past two decades. Economic reforms, as Christopher Carney posits, “have brought an easing of repressive policies and a greater respect for civil and political rights. China’s leadership is fully aware that free market economic reform necessitates a more open, less-repressive society” (1999:238). Political progress may not have been as tremendous and impressive as economic growth, but it is no less significant and fundamental. As Mao Yushi (1999), head of the nongovernmental Unirule Institute of Economics, points out: the best way to understand what political reform is would be to recall the political influence brought about by the 20 years of economic reforms. Such influence is enormous indeed, only because it is silent, achieving in a gradual manner, and has never been on grand scale, it has not been noticed by everybody. But if we compare the political rights we had 20 years ago to what we have now, everyone of us would conclude that the expansion of our political rights is great and unimaginable before the reforms. This change is no less than our economic improvement (in Huang 2000:273). Theories distinguish liberalization from democratization. Liberalization is the process whereby certain rights of both individuals and groups are protected from interference of the government. Democratization, on the other hand, is the process whereby political participation of individuals and groups is permitted by the state based on the principle of citizenship. The former can exist without the latter; however, it is highly likely that liberalization will develop further into democratization (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986). Albeit not aimed at pluralist democracy, China’s leadership-initiated changes in political institutions are likely to have profound implications for real democratic breakthroughs. Political changes are gradually constructing effective institutions of authority and strengthening the rule of law for the expansion of political participation. They are creating a broad and solid basis of self-government among the mass majority for more profound reform of Chinese society and for the future democratic development.


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China’s political developments and their implications for democracy are widely recognized by China observers. In January 1998, the Journal of Democracy published a symposium on “Will China Democratize?”1 Ten leading China experts were invited to address China’s future democracy. All but one believed that China would progress toward a more open and pluralist polity in ten years and would evolve into a democracy over the longer run (a couple of them indicated chaos would also be possible).2 Five contributors believed that the transition would come from above in a gradual manner (Harding 1998; Nathan 1998; Oksenberg 1998; Scalapino 1998; Zhao 1998). Two suggested the process would involve sociopolitical unrest that would pressure the Party to opt for democratic change (Brzezinski 1998; Chen 1998). One argued that the pattern would “be sequential, with an attempt at change from above” and with power passing from the Party to the military, intellectual, and economic elites (Waldron 1998:43). Still another indicated that because both the people and the rul-ing elite were self-interested and neither was able to control the other, the two sides would have to “agree upon rules to regulate the political process” and thus achieve a “hazy” or “gray” democratization (Wang 1998:51). Of the ten scholars, one of the most optimistic was Harry Harding. Harding observed that recent political developments “have been slowly but steadily transforming the character of Chinese politics over the past two decades” (1998:12). One optimistic, yet highly plausible, assessment is therefore that over the next ten years mainland China will continue to evolve in ways similar to Taiwan. The state would still be known as the PRC…and the CCP would still be the ruling party…. But under this scenario, China’s political system would be characterized by even greater political and social freedom; incipient social and political pluralism, albeit still within limits; and a more responsive and accountable political system, although not yet a genuinely democratic one (ibid.: 13–4). A similar view was presented by Suisheng Zhao. He asserted that the current trend of political liberalization will continue over the next decade, and that certain small but important steps toward democracy will be taken…. Although these [the reforms since the early 1980s] have not brought about any notable democratization, they have generated and will continue to generate greater political pluralization and openness, and lay a foundation upon which democracy may one day be built. It is not impossible that the CCP regime will gradually open the political system to limited competition, though it could also try to muddle through without democratizing the political process (1998:54). China’s progress toward a more open, pluralist, and democratic polity is also recognized by many politicians in the West. In a press conference in Beijing on March 26, 1997, Vice President Al Gore talked about China’s village elections to indicate that Chinese leaders are moving “in the right direction:” We talked, for example, about the recent round of village elections in China, quite a remarkable set of elections. The Carter Center participated in observing


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these elections, and the Chinese official who is in charge of this process recently stated just last week that he can now anticipate a time in the not-too-distant future when direct elections will move from the village level up to the county level…they move direct elections up to that level, [then] you’re talking about a significant advance in the process of democracy here in China (information provided by the Carter Center). President Clinton expressed a similar optimistic view in October of the same year: over the past two and a half decades, as China has emerged from isolation, tensions with the West have decreased; cooperation has increased; prosperity has spread to more of China’s people. The progress was a result of China’s decision to play a more constructive role in the world and to open its economy…. Change may not come as quickly as we would like, but, as our interests are long-term, so must our policies be. We have an opportunity to build a new century in which China takes its rightful place as a full and strong partner in the community of nations, working with the United States to advance peace and prosperity, freedom and security for both our people and for all the world (1997:16). The economic success and political development in the past two decades demonstrate that China is moving in the right direction to modernization and democratization. Despite this significant progress, however, democracy in China still has a long way to go. This is the case because China is still restricted by its reality as a less developed country. At this stage of economic and social development, China still lacks the necessary means to carry out a democratic transition. As Huntington argues: “Poverty is a principal and probably the principal obstacle to democratic development” (1991:311). This is precisely why it is impossible to accelerate democratic process in a country as large, poor, and populous as China, and why it would be unpromising to have a hasty democratic transition in such a country. Economic Development Makes Democracy Possible Modernization, Democratization, and Less Developed Country It is widely recognized that “democracy is related to the state of economic development… the more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it will sustain democracy” (Lipset 1959:75). The higher a country’s socioeconomic level, the more likely that it would be a democracy. “A high level of socioeconomic development not only favors the transformation of a hegemonic regime into a polyarchy but also helps to maintain—may even be necessary to maintain—a polyarchy” (Dahl 1971:62). Modernization and wealth are essential for democratization because they are accompanied by a number of factors of social mobilization conducive to democracy: higher levels of education and communication, urbanization, and the growth of a large middle class. In a well-developed economy, the majority is likely to be “a relatively satisfied middle class,”


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which makes democratic governance (i.e., the majority rule) possible (Huntington 1984:199). The experiences of Western democracies demonstrate a positive relationship between economic development and democratic process. These democracies were “the product of an early transition to economies based mainly on private ownership.” The development of a market society promoted a liberal political order. “Democratisation, by and large, came later” (Hague et al. 1992:46–7). This relationship between economic development and democratic process is further demonstrated by the newly industrialized democracies (NID) such as South Korea and Taiwan. Taiwan is one of the NIDs in East Asia that experienced an economic boom in the 1960s followed by a political liberalization in the 1980s-1990s. Taiwan’s success in transforming itself from impoverished dictatorship to prosperous democracy resulted in large part from its modernization and wealth. By the early 1990s, Taiwan’s per capita income had reached $11,000. Economic growth created a solid foundation for democracy by fostering a middle class that demanded greater political participation. It also increased the levels of education and communication. By the early 1990s, all children in Taiwan attended high school, and the number of university students increased more than 40 times from the enrollment in the 1950s. Taiwan’s leadership was especially well-educated; more than half of the cabinet members held doctorates from American universities (Kristof and WuDunn 1995). The same can be said of South Korea. South Korea also achieved democratization in the early 1990s when its economic boom facilitated a transition to democracy. Compared with the NIDs, Haiti provides an example of the difficulties in democratizing a country without a certain level of wealth and modernization. Haiti began to practice democratic elections in the late 1980s. Despite all the support and effort of the United States and the United Nations over the past decade, Haiti has not yet achieved the least difficult model of democracy (i.e., an electoral democracy) and still holds “the worst peacetime human rights record” among all Latin American countries (Carey 1998:142). Haiti’s unsuccessful democratization may be attributed to its low level of economic development and the lack of other factors of social mobilization conducive to democracy. “Since the 1989 vote, Haitians have become increasingly disenchanted with their floundering democracy, an experiment that has produced an endlessly squabbling tangle of political parties and left many Haitians as poor and hungry as ever” (Atlanta JournalConstitution November 27, 2000). “Although one hesitates to conclude that a country is not ready for democracy, it does appear that Haiti requires a clearer consensus among elites and a longer period of economic modernization before it can stage fully free and fair elections” (Carey 1998:162). By most measures, China’s socioeconomic development is stronger than Haiti’s, and its political system is more robust. Nevertheless, China’s population is over 300 times larger than that of Haiti and 80 percent of that population remain rural. It is not difficult to imagine and understand “the daunting nature of the task” to develop democracy in a country as large, poor, and populous as China (The Carter Center 1997). As Robert Scalapino argued: A central obstacle to democracy in China is, and will remain, the country’s sheer scale. Can 1.2 billion people (there may be 1.6 billion before the middle of


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the next century), representing diverse subcultures and spread over a vast territory, be permitted to choose their top leaders, enjoy the full range of freedoms, and accept law as their ultimate guide? (1998:39) “Although China is beginning to be seen as a superpowcr, its rural areas reflect a very poor, developing country that is struggling to emerge from the feudal ages,” Robert Pastor wrote after leading the Carter Center delegation to observe village elections in China (1997:R3). Though impressed by the elections they observed, the delegation acknowledged the exceeding difficulty in teaching peasants to conduct legitimate democratic elections (The Carter Center 1997). China introduced village elections in the late 1980s. Over the past decade, despite all the sincere commitment and hard push of the central and local governments, of some one million villages, 40 percent have failed to establish in a preliminary fashion the system of village self-government. According to officials from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, poverty, among other things, is a major factor that has handicapped the implementation of the election law. In many poor villages, people do not want to serve on the village committee because they do not receive any pay for the job. With poor education, poor communication and information in rural China, plus passivity and fear brought on by daily life, it is difficult to know how to initiate and organize 900 million peasants for a free and fair election at the national level. Fifteen years ago, when the National People’s Congress enacted the village election law, Deng Xiaoping said China would need 50 years to develop full democratization—“general elections could be held on China’s mainland half a century from now, sometime in the next century” (1994:219). “As a result of this visit,” stated the Carter Center delegation, “we are much more aware of the daunting nature of the task for a country as populous and large as China” (The Carter Center 1997:10). Because the development of human rights and democracy requires a certain level of economic development, economic backwardness has handicapped the acceleration of democratic process in China. With 80 percent of its 1.3 billion population remain rural, China is still struggling to emerge from feudal society. Despite the tremendous economic flowering in the past 20 years, China remains a massive anomaly. China’s per-capita GNP of $800 places it among the poorest countries in the world. By late 1998, 42 million people still lived below the U.N. poverty line ($77). About 10 percent of those who “have gotten out of poverty in previous years are expected to return to it each year” due to for example natural disasters (China Daily April 24, 2000). The poor population was 22.2 percent in 1995 when measured by the World Bank’s definition of poverty at $1 a day. It was 18.5 percent by the $1 definition in 1998, according to the World Development Report 2000/2001. Accompanied the low economic development level is the low education level, which is another factor restricting democratic development in China. China has a large proportion of illiterate and semi-illiterate population. The U.N. Human Development Index shows that the average rate of adult illiteracy in 1997 was 17.1 percent. According to President Jiang Zemin, there were 20 million intellectuals in China early in the 1990s, less than 2 percent of the population (People’s Daily May 4, 1990, see Han 1993). By late 1995, less than half of the cities and counties in China had achieved nine years of schooling, covering less than 40 percent of the population. Only 30 percent of middle school


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graduates had a chance to enter high school, and 40 percent of high school graduates could enter university (Zhu Manliang 1997). By 2001, 47 percent of high school graduates had access to higher education, which “means people with a further education account for only 6 percent of young people in the same age group” (China Daily March 10, 2001). Although nine years of education is compulsory in China, it falls very much in short in implementation. In many poor rural areas, poverty is keeping an increasing number of children out of school. In Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (one of the lessdeveloped western regions), for example, 25 percent of students drop out after first grade and less than 50 percent complete sixth grade to finish elementary school. “In the conflict between subsistence and education, subsistence is the priority and compulsory education is beyond talking about—the goal of realizing compulsory education by the year 2000 is for us a beautiful dream,” said a local official of the Communist Youth League (New York Times November 1, 1999). According to the tourist guide I interviewed with in Shennongxi, there are five Tujia villages on the hillsides along the river in Shennongxi and only one elementary school for all children from five villages. The school has only one class for students from the first grade to the fifth grade. All students study in the same classroom, and each grade sets in one line from the front to the back. There is one teacher teaching all five grades one at a time. When the teacher is teaching students of one grade, students in other grades are assigned to read or write on their own. There are no sixth or higher grades in Shennongxi. Kids there have to go to somewhere else outside the mountains if they wish to have further education. Hardly any of them wish to do so, not even the boys. The girls’ lack of desire for education reflects both an old bias and a practical reason: married daughters in rural China move away to their husband’s community. The boys do not desire education because they find it costly but useless. For generations, Tujia men make a living with a very hard job—towing boats. Most of them today are still boat trackers. Boys in Shennongxi do not seek education because they are readily to follow their elders to be boat trackers. If they have any ambition at all, that is to have their own wooden boat and become the chief crewman of that boat (interview in Shennongxi, Sanxia, August 13, 2000). China’s low level of socioeconomic development and its large size of rural population suggest the difficulties for the country to develop democracy. Democratization in China therefore may take a longer time period. It is true that electoral democracy can be practiced in less developed countries, and people often point at India to show that poverty is not necessarily an obstacle to democracy. However, India’s democracy is “an elitedominated democracy” that is “‘unwilling to carry out substantive reforms that address the lot of the poor citizens” (Sorensen 1993:81). The Indian democracy, according to Georg Sorensen, “was achieved by an elite-dominated coalition” constituting roughly 20 percent of the population at the top. This elite coalition consists of three major social groups: the industrial capitalist class, the rural landowner class, and the urban professionals. The Indian elite democracy shapes and sets the limits of what can be done with regard to economic development. “The process of economic development has mainly served the interests of the elite groups in the dominant coalition” but “has offered much too little to the mass of poor people” (ibid.: 80–1). Such “frozen democracy,” which is Terry Lynn Karl’s term for restricted elite democracy (ibid.), is undesirable for


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poor countries like China because it gives the ruling elite the legitimacy to implement policies that serve their own interests. Given its elitist nature, an India-model of democracy is undesirable for China for two reasons: first, at the local level, China has more democracy than India, and second, China is doing better economically than India. As Sorensen observes, the 50 years of democratic development in India has not brought democracy to the local level, because the congress party attains its domination in vast rural India through its alliances with landowners and caste-leaders. The rural elites decline to promote democracy in the local level because they have “no desire to jeopardize their positions” by changing the status quo. As a result, India’s democracy has had negative effect at the local level: “making the poor majority even worse off and strengthening the traditional structures of dominance and subordination.” China, on the other hand, has promoted democracy at the local level. “The authoritarian Chinese government has pushed structural reforms and systems of local participation that have done more for democratic change at the micro level than the so-called reforms attempted by democratic India” (ibid.: 22–23). Moreover, Sorensen indicates, the overall results in economic development “put authoritarian China ahead of democratic India” and make it “possible to argue that there is a trade-off between democracy and development because the authoritarian developmentalist regime performs better in development than the elite-dominated democracy does” (ibid.: 74,85). China is capable of promoting growth as well as welfare because the strong, reformist-oriented leadership “enjoys a high degree of autonomy from vested elite interests” (ibid.: 75–6). This state autonomy allows the leadership to carry out radical reforms that pave “the way for economic development, which has provided a decent level of living for the large majority” (ibid.: 74). It is based on this judgment, seldom do any Chinese officials, intellectuals, and ordinary people appreciate the Indianmodel of democracy. In the Chinese view, India has suffered from all the harms of a democracy but has not benefited much from it. To have such a democracy, in which the mass majority remains so poor after some 50 years of democratic rule, is worse than not to have one at all. Democratic Transition and Less Developed Country In addition to the difficulties in developing human rights and democracy in LDCs, a hasty democratic transition in poor countries can be very problematic. In chapter 3, I compared the factors constituting civil society in Eastern Europe to those of China to show that China in the late 1980s did not have a civil society. Whereas events in Eastern Europe stemmed from the civil society that had emerged during the preceding decade, the Tiananmen uprising was a spontaneous mass protest movement that was bound to fail. For many, this was a misfortune for China. The question, however, is that whether it would be a blessing had China undertaken an East European-style of transition, given its level of socioeconomic development that is much lower and its population that is much larger than East European countries’. There is reason to believe that it would not be a blessing. The present phase of the transformation processes in Eastern Europe suggests that such a forceful, rapid transition could be devastating for China for a number of reasons.


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First, an essential precondition for the growth of civil society is the development of a positive attitude toward the future by the people. “Civil societies start to exist when people go beyond their immediate interests and think about the future. When public opinion has the capacity to transcend current concerns, it begins to develop systems of values” (Sandi 1992:114). This development of values is crucial because, as Miloš Zeman posits, it is what brings real change in the post-Communist countries. In Zeman’s view, if this process of change does not occur, there is a danger that the transition will fail because, borrowing from Michel de Montaigne, “after the evil, the good does not necessarily follow. A new, different evil, even worse than what went before, may also possibly emerge.” To some extent, this is the situation in the post-Communist Eastern Europe. Although “the structure of political power has changed…the deeper behavioral patterns of the population are nearly the same.” As a result, there exists “a fertile hunting ground” for what Zeman calls “a populistic syndrome,” that is, “the totalitarian heritage” (1992:118–9). This consideration raises the following questions: Is civil society “a necessary good?” Is it “effectively necessary that the economic transformation currently in progress should be so closely attended by the growth of civil society?” (Zotti 1995:154) Presumably then, an implication of the East European experience for China may be that it would be better for civil society not to manifest itself immediately and too forcefully. The advancing of over-aggressive social demands may undermine the basis of an economic change that can last as long as the peo-ple are willing to sustain it and which great sacrifices for the majority of the population. If, however, by civil society one means an associationism tied to particular interests which advance aggressive social and trade-unionist demands, or which seek to direct economic choices toward the particularist ends of certain sections of the population at the expense of more general and effective economic change, then it is to be hoped that, at least at the beginning, economic change will come about without the birth of a civil society. Otherwise there is the risk that a myriad of social actors will appear, vying among themselves to cut up a “cake” which still does not exist and which they will find extremely difficult to create (ibid.). A related implication of the East European experience for China can be presumed from Kris Deschouwer’s argument about democracy. Deschouwer argues that while democracies are good at boosting political demands by providing individuals opportunities to speak out their minds, they must have the necessary means to respond to these demands. The first of such means is money, because most public policies require financial resources for implementation. Moreover, no political system can be sustained without limiting the input of demands; some selection is necessary. While democracy “lowers the thresholds for entry,” it requires, borrowing from David Easton, “the value of moderation, of being able to postpone, of being able to lose, of being able to accept that for the time being a number of demands will have to stay on the waiting list” to avoid overloading the system. New democracies, which do not have the resources to meet the high demands, and which have not had the time to develop democratic values, are


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therefore unlikely to sustain (1996:266–8). Deschouwer’s argument helps explain why India, after 50 years of democratic rule, remains a restricted elite democracy that is unwilling to address the lot of the poor mass majority. India is too poor to satisfy the needs of its large population. The resources are so scarce that the elected elites readily implement policies that serve their own interests and put the demands of the poor majority on the waiting list possibly forever. Haiti’s would-be democracy has suffered from the same problems. Its wealth is so limited and values of tolerance and consensus so weak that, “since the 1990–1991 elections, all of the country’s elected and unelected political leaders have been unwilling to sacrifice their narrow, personal interests for the good of the country, and this is something that international election observers have been unable to change” (Carey 1998:165). Such resources and values are precisely what China is lacking to build and stabilize democracy. China does not have the wealth to meet the demands of its large population. Entirely lacking are democratic traditions and institutions in which citizens can develop democratic attitudes and mentalities, and recognize, coordinate, and express their particular interests. If, as Giovanni Delli Zotti said, civil society manifested itself “immediately and too forcefully” under China’s current conditions, the advancing of unlimited social demands would undermine the basis of economic development. Under these circumstances, neither civil society nor the market would be able to survive, let alone to grow and strengthen. This points to a third implication of the East European experience for the Chinese situation: Could a new democracy stabilize and endure, if the Tiananmen uprising had set the stage for democratization in 1989? As stated earlier, the role of the West is important in the East European transition because it provides the new democracies with moral and economic support (Di Palma 1993; Ivan 1992; Zotti 1995). An important difference between East European democracies and the others is that “the countries of the East can legitimately reclaim their place within the dominant global civilization constituted by the West” (Zotti 1995:159). Moreover, their geographical position, as Gabriel Ivan indicates, helps them “receive important Western financial or logistical support which will allow them to perform the function of a cordon sanitaire against the ‘slums’.” East European countries are well aware of their advantages and have taken good use of them. The countries of the “Central European alliance” (Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary), for example, “intend to monopolize the transit operations between the west and the east of Eurasia and, for a short time, to draw all the capital investments from the West” (1992:147). Moreover, the process of real change from Communism to democracy, according to Ralf Dahrendorf (1990), consists of three types—institutional-constitutional, economic, and social—of changes. The problem with this process is that whereas a constitution can be written in six months and economic reforms can be accomplished in six years, genuine social change takes 60 years at the minimum (see Zotti 1995:144–5). In the East European case, the process has been more rapid than expected due to two important conditions. One is that “fragments of civil society were already present under the communist regime,” the other is that “an important role in this case can be performed by processes of imitation, diffusion, or explicit collaboration by the West” (ibid.: 146). However, not many countries in Eastern Europe are as lucky as Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary to have received larger amounts of moral and financial


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support from the West than has anybody else. Many new democracies in Eastern Europe have rarely enjoyed the benefits of democratization that they hoped would occur. Romania, for example, has not developed a strong market economy and a vibrant democracy but is still “stuck in the past.” Over a decade after the bloody overthrow of the Ceausescu dictatorship, Romania’s economic and political development has not advanced. The GDP has declined in recent years. Weekly salary on average was $28 in 2000. In 1999 while the inflation rate dropped to 46 percent, unemployment reached above 7 percent (about 20 percent among people younger than 25). Politically, corruption is serious and systemic. Racial discrimination against the Gypsies is intense. In the 2000 presiden-tial election, Romanians faced a choice between a former Communist leader and an ultranationalist who railed against minorities. Fear that the presidency of an ultranationalist “would further isolate Romania from Europe and the world economy,” Romanians elected the Communist’s top ex-lieutenant (Atlanta Journal-Constitution December 10, 2000). Compared to the well-to-do new democracies in Eastern Europe, Romania’s misfortune may be explained as due to both economic and political reasons. Among Communist countries in Eastern Europe, Romania was one of those that had a weaker economy but a stronger dictatorship and was more isolated from the West. With socioeconomic and political conditions less favorable for democratization, Romania was less prepared and less ready than its Communist cousins for even a peaceful transition. Indeed, it experienced the most severe and bloody political transition in Eastern Europe. As a result, the task of stabilizing and sustaining democracy in Romania is more difficult and requires more help. Unfortunately, however, Romania is farther away from the West than other more favorable East European countries in terms of descent, geography, and ideology. Lagging behind other aspiring members of the European Union, Romania is not the one those in “a club for the privileged,” to use Zotti’s phrase, would willingly offer support. According to a report by the European Children’s Trust in October 2000, the number of children living in “genuine poverty” exceeded 50 million in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (40 million in the former Soviet Union). These children were exposed to tuberculosis levels similar to those in the third world. The total number of people living in poverty counted 40 percent of the population (more than 160 million). Over 10 years since the demise of the Communist system, “poverty in the region had increased more than tenfold” due to reduced spending on social programs. “Since the breakup of the Communist system, conditions have become much worse—in some cases catastrophically so,” the report stated. “For all its many faults, the old system provided most people with a reasonable standard of living and a certain security” (New York Times October 12, 2000). For China, the Romanian case and the overall situation in Eastern Europe have much to teach. China’s level of socioeconomic development is lower, and the influence of the West is more limited. The Western economic support received by Eastern Europe is for China an unimaginable “luxury.” Western democracies would not have the willingness and ability to help rescue China both from the vagaries of global economics and politics and from domestic crises if China suffered from economic and political difficulties caused by an East European-style of transition. This is evident in the Russian case. Russia


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after the disintegration of Communism has been economically weak, and the support it gains from the West has been rather limited. Moreover, because the process of real change from Communism to democracy involves changes in values and mentalities, the process by which civil society is to emerge will be particularly slow in a traditional society like China. “When millennia of traditions still count, it is too much to think that fundamental transformation can occur within a single generation” (Frolic 1997:49). The experience of Eastern Europe after 1989 suggests that an East European-style of political transition could be devastating for China. China may be better off to develop the economy and political institutions first and achieve a transition to democracy at a later stage. Indeed, the successful pairing of market economy and authoritarian rule in post1989 China and the difficulties of economic and political reforms in post-Communist Russia have convinced many inside and outside China that A more plausible scenario is the “authoritarian” state which fosters capitalism and allows democracy at a later stage when capitalism is suitably developed…. A new version of this demonstrates tacit approval of the Chinese Communist Party which is believed to be establishing capitalism far more effectively than it is being established in the former Soviet Union. But the plausibility of that scenario can now only be a regret for those who are living with the depressing mixture of chaos and stagnation which is the post-Soviet condition (Allison 1994:23). Recent studies show that there is a “political transition zone” in which countries with a mid-level of economic development are most likely to transit to democracy (Huntington 1994/95). To be more precise, a country is most likely to democratize when its per capita GNP reaches the level between $4,000 and $6,000 (Przeworski and Limongi 1997). “The future of democracy depends on the future of economic development” (Huntington 1991:311). Given that the principal obstacle to China’s democratic process is poverty, China will have a better chance for human rights improvement and democratization, as it goes on to develop and prosper further. In fact, such a trend has been seen in village elections in more prosperous areas. According to officials from the MOCA, Guangdong, one of China’s wealthy provinces, until recently used a civil servant system rather than a village committee system in most parts of its countryside. When the new village election law was promulgated in November 1998, the Guangdong government decided to hold village elections on the provincial scale. The elections proceeded successfully, more so than many other regions that had held the elections three to four rounds. “Guangdong’s success in village elections may be attributed to its high level of socioeconomic development,” said Zhan Chengfu, director of the Rural Work Division of the MOCA in 2000: Wealth gave people confidence, and the enriched peasants grew a democratic impulse that motivated them to participate in public affairs. Wealth also made the conduct of elections easier as a practical matter by providing greater campaign finance. With a higher level of socioeconomic devel-opment than most other regions, Guangdong was able to implement the new election law with only one step and thus avoided ten years of tortuous road that others had


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struggled to walk through (interview in Beijing, June 16, 2000). The same can be said of Shanghai. Shanghai is the most developed city in mainland China and is said to be catching up with Hong Kong. Shanghai’s recent development has demonstrated a trend of progress from the economic sphere to the social and political arenas. At the NPC session in 2001, Shi Liwen, an NPC deputy and president of Shanghai Construction Corporation, proudly announced that few corruption scandals had been reported in Shanghai. He attributed this to the city’s improved supervision system and the citizens’ legal awareness. “In the city, from officials to citizens, people have become more accustomed to doing things according to the law,” Shi said. According to Xinhua News Agency, “Shanghai is ready to create a modern system under which the government’s function is to provide services to companies and citizens, and bureaucratism and authoritarianism, the hot bed of corruption, will be buried” (China Daily March 13, 2001). Political Leadership Makes Democracy Real Recognition of Democracy and Rule of Law In addition to economic development, an equally decisive factor affecting the development of democracy, according to Huntington (1991), is political leadership. It is the determined and skilled political elites who make democracy real by carrying out the transition in individual countries. This raises the question as to whether China’s political leadership has the belief in democracy and the willingness to implement it. There is reason to believe that China’s reformist political leaders from Deng Xiaoping down have had positive attitudes toward democracy and rule of law and would possibly choose to democratize the political system should the transition occur in a gradual, peaceful manner and at the right time. Deng Xiaoping recognized democracy and showed appreciation for some aspects of it. He talked about the need for democracy to the CCP Central Committee in 1978: It is also essential to ensure the democratic rights of the workers and peasants, including the rights of democratic election, management and supervision. We must create a situation in which not only every workshop director and production team leader but also every worker and peasant is aware of his responsibility for production and tries to find ways to solving related problems. To ensure people’s democracy, we must strengthen our legal system. Democracy has to be institutionalized and written into law, so as to make sure that institutions and laws do not change whenever the leadership changes, or whenever the leaders change their views or shift the focus of their attention (1984:157–8). Deng also recognized the needs for political reform and for the rule of law. He pointed out that China’s political structure that did “not meet the needs of the economic reform” should be restructured, and that China should “straighten out the relationship between the


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rule of law and the rule of man” through political reform (1994:178–9). Despite his awareness of the importance of political reform, Deng cautioned to carry it into practice. “Since every reform measure will involve a wide range of people, have profound repercussions in many areas and affect the interests of countless individuals,” he explained, “we are bound to run into obstacles, so it is important for us to proceed with caution.” First of all we have to determine the scope of the political restructuring and decide where to begin. We shall start with one or two reforms and not try to do everything at once, because we don’t want to make a mess of things. In a country as vast and complex as ours, reform is no easy task. So we must be very cautious about setting policies and make no decision until we are quite sure it is the right one (ibid.: 178). Deng was a pragmatic statesman rather than an ideologue. His well-known “cat theory” (i.e., white cats and black cats, whoever catches mice is a good cat) “sums up his pragmatic, technocratic bias” (Goldman 1994:18). He was not interested in “isms,” but focused instead on what he conceived as compatible with the Chinese character. His belief in socialism did not simply rest on an ideological basis but on a ground of reasoning that it was the most suitable system of governing a country of 1.3 billion people. If China, with its one billion people, took the capitalist road, it would be a disaster for the world. It would be a retrogression of history, a retrogression of many years. If China, with its one billion people, abandoned the policy of peace and opposition to hegemonism or if, as the economy developed, it sought hegemony, that would also be a disaster for the world, a retrogression of history. But if China, with its one billion people, keeps to socialism and adheres to the policy of peace, it will be following the right course and will be able to make greater contributions to humanity (Deng 1994:161). By the same token (i.e., to do whatever the best for his country), Deng opened China to the outside world and set it on the path to market reform, which made it possible for China to democratize in the first place. The reform Deng “sought did not aim at pluralistic democracy,” as Henry Kissinger indicated: Yet Deng was too wise not to understand that the changes he wrought had a momentum of their own. Clearly Deng’s revolution is irreversible. Deng’s economic reforms and the socialist market economy they have spawned will require predictability and therefore a growing constitution-alism, even if pluralistic democracy is not established Decentralization will spawn a kind of federalism. Yet alterations in leadership and institutions can affect emphasis, not direction (1997:47). It has been the goal of the reformist leaders to build a prosperous, unified, and democratic China. When Deng proposed the policy of “one China, two systems” for the return of


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Hong Kong, he clarified that Hong Kong would remain unchanged for 50 years. When the NPC passed the village election law in 1987, Deng expressed recognition of universal suffrage and anticipated that general elections in China could be held in 50 years. “One country, two systems” policy indicates that Deng anticipated that China would take 50 years to catch up with the special administrative regions (SARs), including Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. “The time for ‘one country, two systems’ to end is when the mainland becomes virtually indistinguishable from its SARs, rather than the other way around” (Ching 2000:30). Deng considered the final goal of his life to be reform, and by carrying out his reforms, he set China on its way to economic and political liberalization. “What this ultimately means for the sustenance of the CCP as a ruling party is difficult to predict, but there is no doubt that through these reforms Deng Xiaoping substantially altered the composition of the Chinese state,” and “few dispute that Deng changed more than he retained” (Shambaugh 2000:168, 185). “When the history of China’s tortuous road to political as well as economic modernization is written, Deng will be seen as the one who finally found the right way, even if he hesitated to go the full distance” (Goldman and MacFarquhar 1999:15). The post-Deng leadership has set up its goal to build a prosperous, strong, and democratic socialist China by the middle of the new century. Both President Jiang Zemin and Premier Zhu Rongji consider themselves as pursuers of a prosperous and democratic China. Jiang disclosed in a speech to the Fortune Global Forum in 1999 that he had “a deep sense of the poverty, backwardness and feebleness of old China” when he was a student in pre-1949 days. He decided to commit himself to the mission of building “an independent, free, democratic, unified, rich and powerful China” (see Ching 1999:33). Zhu told the U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in a conversation that when he was in middle school, he “had already learned from textbooks works by Rousseau of France, ‘Emile,’ ‘Confessions’ and ‘The Social Contract,’ that all people are born equal and that human rights are endowed by heaven.” Influenced by the May 4th Movement, he joined the struggle against dictatorship and human rights violations by the reactionary regime. “So today how possibly could we just reverse our position and suppress human rights?” Zhu argued. “And only we know best how we can best preserve and protect human rights in China” (China Daily March 16, 1999). The post-Deng leaders hold Deng’s theory that China should gradually institutionalize and codify socialist democracy “so that such institutions and laws will not change with changes in the leadership or changes in the views or focus of attention of any leader” (Jiang 1997:24). At the Fifteenth Party Congress in 1997, Jiang Zemin pointed to democratic development and strengthening the legal system as the main tasks of China’s political restructuring (ibid.). Zhu Rongji has repeatedly expressed in public that he is “in favor of democratic elections” and wishes to see free elections to be extended from the village level to higher levels sooner than later (China Daily March 20, 1998, March 16, 2000). Unquestionably, Chinese leaders no longer hold Communist ideology against democratic ideology. Instead, they recognize democracy and rule of law and have begun to address them “in more serious fashion than at any time” since Mao (Oksenberg 1998:29). This change in the Chinese elite political culture has been acknowledged by many China observers (Carney 1999; Ching 1999; Harding 1998; Kissinger 1997;


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Oksenberg 1998; Shambaugh 2000; Zhao 1998). Michel Oksenberg, for example, asserted that in the 1990s, China’s elite political culture has begun to change. Democracy has begun to be enshrined as an ultimate goal for China, and it is just a matter of time before discussions begin over the features of “socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics” and the methods that the nation should use to move toward this goal. Once such a debate begins, it will assume a life of its own and accelerate the process of change (1998:30). Recognizing democracy and the rule of law, Chinese leaders are willing to exchange views with foreign leaders and scholars on human rights and democratic development. According to the Carter Center delegation, Chinese officials are “open to exchanging views as to the best way to implement the [village] election rules,” and they repeatedly ask the international observers for “suggestions for improving the electoral process” (The Carter Center 1997:1, 7). China ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in February 2001. Chinese leaders have affirmed that China will ensure the full implementation of the covenant (China Daily March 1, 2001). This latest step, many human rights experts believe, will have real significance for China’s human rights and the rule of law (New York Times March 1, 2001). China has adhered to the transition to a market economy, which Chinese leaders know will inevitably lead to a political transition. I discussed the issue with a Chinese vice minister who visited Atlanta in the summer of 1996. He had no doubt that, as the economic reform progressed, political change would follow; it would be only a matter of time. I discussed the same issue with a vice secretary-general of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference during my visit to Beijing in the winter of 1997. He agreed with me that China needed democratization, and his main concern was just how to carry it into practice. It may be asked that when Chinese leaders talk about democracy and the rule of law: do they really mean what they say? I raised the question to nine of my official and intellectual interviewees in Beijing and received different viewpoints. One view holds that those statements are only talk. China by 2050 will have new leaders, so the development of democracy will be somebody else’s business. Another view indicates that the top leaders do mean what they say, but they have talked more about democratic reform than they have done and have addressed it more abroad than at home. A majority view (seven people) believes that Chinese leaders understand the importance and necessity of democratization and the rule of law and have good intentions to build a democratic and legalized China. But they are constrained by China’s conditions to carry out democratic reform. China is too big and things are too complicated and difficult. With a population nearly 1.3 billion, nothing could be easier than a situation of instability to arise out of runaway mass mobilization and participation. Instability would interrupt reform and development and discourage foreign investors. “Premier Zhu Rongji said the sooner the better to upgrade the democratic electoral system,” a young bureaucrat from a government ministry said. “I believe he meant what he said, and I think my opinion represents the majority view among the central government bureaucrats” (interview in


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Beijing, June 1, 2000). A local official from Hunan commented: I think the top leaders would want democracy. But democracy is not a matter one can say for certain. China’s democratic development cannot be done easily and quickly because things are too complicated and difficult. It’s like turning a boat around. You can turn a small boat around with no time, but you cannot do it with a big one. You can only turn a big boat around slowly, little by little, or you will lose control and turn it over (interview in Beijing, June 6, 2000). Moreover, according to the officials and intellectuals, there is also a matter of individual leaders’ personal responsibility. None of the top leaders can afford to have on his hands a revolutionary transformation that brings instability. Gorbachev lost power, the Soviet Union collapsed and fell into chaos. The KMT lost power in Taiwan, Lee Teng-hui was forced to resign as party chairman, and the island has been in economic and political turmoils since the Progressive Democratic Party took power. These are lessons for China. Individual Chinese leaders cannot afford such forceful transition and heavy losses that would tremendously devastate the life of China’s 1.3 billion people (interviews in Beijing, May-July 2000). Concern with Political Stability It is not uncommon among political scientists to argue that there is a tradeoff between democracy and development in the less developed countries. If the LDCs “are to grow economically, they must limit democratic participa-tion in political affairs” (Karl de Schweinitz 1959, in Przeworski and Limongi 1997:177). “Political participation must be held down, at least temporarily, in order to promote economic development” (Huntington and Nelson 1976:23). Richard Madsen drew a conclusion from the drama of Tiananmen: Capitalist economic development, especially in societies whose major resource is cheap, semiskilled labor, does not necessarily imply democracy, because it requires a kind of large-scale organization and social control that can be inconsistent with the desire for individual freedom. And modern governments must do more than enhance the freedom of their citizens; they must regulate the activities of millions of people in an efficient, predictable way. If citizens are divided by mistrust and lack traditions of voluntary self-discipline, an insistence on democracy may be inconsistent with the need for administrative order…. Tiananmen tragedy dramatizes this tension and has forced many Chinese to make a choice between freedom and order that most Americans do not have to confront—and would prefer not to contemplate (1995:15–6). Such is the rationale for the reluctance to carry out full democratic reform among Chinese leaders. In their view, as a large poor country feeding one-fifth of the world’s population, “China must give top priority to the basic needs of the greatest majority of people” and “lose no time in speeding up the development” (Jiang Zemin, China Daily July 21, 1999; October 23, 1999). According to Yongnian Zheng, the 1996 Chinese government’s longterm plan indicates that China’s GNP in the next 15 years will continue to grow at 7.4


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percent each year, which will make China an economic superpower in the world in early twenty-first century. “But the Chinese leaders are not as optimistic as many observers regarding China’s rise” because China will remain a poor country. By 2010, at least 10 million people will still live below the poverty line (1999:123–4). Because China needs to develop, because development requires a stable environment, for the Chinese leaders therefore, economic development is more urgent than political reform, and stability more critical than democratization. “China is now in a period when it must concentrate on economic development,” Deng Xiaoping stressed in 1989. “If we seek the forms of democracy, we won’t achieve the substance, and we won’t develop the economy either, but will only throw the country into turmoil and undermine the people’s unity” (1994:277). China has chosen to concentrate on economic development. In response to Western criticisms of China’s human rights policy, Chinese leaders argue that the most fundamental human rights in China are the rights to subsistence and development. “To succeed in ensuring the Chinese people these rights is, in itself, a major contribution to the progress of world human rights” (Jiang Zemin, China Daily October 23, 1999). At a press conference in Washington in April 1999, Premier Zhu addressed that China’s per capita income is 20 times lower than that of the United States. The percentage of American university students to its population is higher than the percentage of the Chinese illiterate and elementary school students combined to the Chinese population. With such different levels of education and different grass national income, they [the Chinese and the Americans] have different views about human rights. If you talk with some poor people about direct elections, [I’m] afraid that they care more about other rights, such as the rights to education, to subsistence and development, and to the enjoyment of culture, entertainment, and hygiene…. Every country has its own way to improve human rights, it cannot be dealt with by impatience (see Zhao et al. 1999:141). The Chinese leaders have a point. As Sheryl WuDunn contends: We in the West may wish that China’s citizens had ballots as well as bank accounts, but it would be wrong to dismiss the progress as meaningless because it is unbalanced. In impoverished hillside villages, a new factory to make hoes or hats may be as important in fostering dignity among the local peasants as a bill of rights would be. A few hundred more yuan a year means that poor families can go to clinics and count on mothers and infants alike surviving childbirth, can then inoculate the babies against polio, and finally can put behind them the trauma of hearing a child cry from hunger and have nothing to offer (Kristof and WuDunn 1995:447). It may be questioned that whether the needs for development and stability necessarily require CCP one-party rule. Under China’s current socioeconomic and political institutional conditions, there seems to be few other options. As discussed earlier, the economic situation in many East European countries and the former Soviet Union has changed from better to worse since the collapse of the Communist system. As a result of


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reduced spending on social programs, poverty has risen more than tenfold over the last decade. Russia after the Soviet disintegration fell into economic stagnation and political chaos. Some 250 political parties emerged, and the GDP dropped 50 percent. A recent report of the U.S. intelligence community predicted that Russia will continue to become economically, militarily, and socially weaker. “Even under a best-case scenario of 5 percent annual economic growth, Russia [by 2015] would attain an economy less than one-fifth the size of the United States’” (New York Times December 18, 2000). A 2001 New York Times editorial also indicated that Russia’s health care system has virtually collapsed. Without the most basic medicines and equipment, public hospitals “are nearly overwhelmed by an increasingly sick population.” The death rate now surpasses the birth rate. Male life expectancy is only 59.9 years, compared with 68.7 years in China. Infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria, and polio that were once tamed are spreading and threatening neighboring countries. “On top of this,” the editorial stated: “many Russians have responded to economic hardships with self-destructive forays into alcoholism and violence. The resulting erosion of the able-bodied work force threatens Rus-sia’s hopes for economic revival, and perhaps for political stability as well” (January 2, 2001). To some extent, similar problems have occurred in China. Recent reports show that as a consequence of the central government’s withdrawal of subsidies and the local governments’ inability to fill the gaps, health care and education systems in many poor rural areas have declined. Huge numbers of rural residents are without adequate medical care, and an increasing number of children is out of school, especially in less-developed western provinces. Despite these problems, China, unlike Russia and many East European countries, has remained politically stable and continued to attract foreign and overseas Chinese investors for its fast-growing economy. With a strong central government, China has been able to deal with the problems brought about by the marketoriented changes by redistributing wealth from the richer to the poorer regions. Statistics by the Rural Health Division at the Ministry of Health show that nearly 90 percent of Chinese villages have at least one clinic (New York Times March 14, 2001). In education, the government has launched the Hope Project run by the China Youth Development Foundation and the Spring Bud Project run by the Women’s Federation to solicit charitable donations to subsidize schooling (New York Times November 1, 1999). Zhu Rongji announced in 2001 that the government would spend 20 to 30 billion yuan on subsidies to the education system in poor areas (China Daily March 16, 2001). Since the late 1990s, the government has given priority to the central and western regions in arranging investment in infrastructure projects. By 2001, China had built 170,000 kilometers of highway and 10,000 kilometers of railway and consolidated the embankments along some rivers. In 2001 and 2002, announced Zhu Rongji, China would issue an additional 300 billion yuan (US$36.2 billion) of treasury bonds to support the ongoing and new infrastructure projects and complete the projected program of developing the western region (China Daily March 16, 2001). According to Raidi, an ethnic Tibetan and a top party official in Tibet, the central government has decided to spend billions of dollars in Tibet to raise annual rural incomes to an average of $240, up 50 percent, by 2005 (New York Times March 15, 2001). It is tempting to imagine that a Soviet-style collapse of Communist rule will produce a


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liberal democratic China. Far more likely, however, is that political disintegration would result in a much more devastating situation than has occurred in Russia. China has a lower level of socioeconomic development but a larger population than the former USSR. The cost of political disintegration would be very high for not only China but also its neighboring countries because it would mean large-scale bloodshed, famine, and substantial migration. Ding Xueliang (1994), a China observer, has predicted that “if an anarchic situation appears in China, the violence that Chinese will inflict on each other will far exceed the bar-barism inflicted by the Japanese army when it invaded in the 1930s” (in Fewsmith 1999:67). For this reason, virtually everyone, from Western critics to Chinese party leaders and political dissidents, is deeply concerned with the consequences of political instability in China. As Harvey Nelsen asked: “The CCP argues that only its rule can provide the stability and integrity required to keep its economic reforms working. Is the CCP wrong? If you were a Chinese citizen would you be willing to take a chance on sweeping change?” (2000:231) Christopher Carney has asked a similar question: “Many in the West believe that the pace of reform should match the rate of economic growth. But do they really want 1.25 billion people to make a rapid transition to Western-style democracy, especially if the social and political institutions to facilitate such change are not adequately developed?” (1999:237) Raising similar concerns, Nicholas Kristof has warned that even if the Communist dynasty is on the road to collapse, we may want to hold off on the champagne. What comes next could be worse. As officials from Deng Xiaoping down have warned, Westerners should not be so gleeful about the possibility of the Communist Party disintegrating. The officials suggest that such an event could trigger the largest human migration the world has ever known, with millions of people fleeing a war-torn China (Kristof and WuDunn 1995:144). By the same token, even those who are bitterly against the Party are profoundly concerned about the future. Liu Binyan, for example, has said on various occasions that China will produce more than 3,000 political parties when it becomes a democracy. Conceivably, the costs of a systemic change from one-party rule to a multiparty system under China’s current socioeconomic and political institutional conditions would be very high, and would almost certainly change China from better to worse economically and politically. Such a change would produce chaos and an interruption of the economic and political reforms. As many China observers have contended: “if American policy-makers press hard for policies designed to mitigate communist control over China, the most likely result would be to slow the reform process” (Nelsen 2000:236). “Had it not been for the 1989 popular protests in Beijing…it is quite likely that political reform under Deng and his protégé Zhao Ziyang would likely have been as far-reaching as the Dengist reforms in other realms” (Shambaugh 2000:163–4). Hence, for the Chinese leadership, if democratic reforms will undermine party rule and political stability, then the reforms are not worth taking. Democratization is not yet desirable because it will produce centrifugal forces that China cannot afford. “In China


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the overriding need is for stability. Without a stable environment, we can accomplish nothing and may even lose what we have gained,” Deng Xiaoping warned in 1989. “We shall develop socialist democracy, but it would be no good for us to act in haste…. Democracy is our goal, but we must keep the country stable” (1994:277–8). Such desire for economic development and political stability and fear of the centrifugal forces of democracy are well grounded. China is a low-income country with a population of 1.3 billion. According to the China Central Television, China’s surplus rural labor amounted to 100 million in 2000, and the number increases at a rate of several millions each year. It is estimated that some 60 to 80 million rural migrants have flocked to the major cities and coastal regions, together with a rapidly increasing number of laid-off workers (Tang 1999). Given the sociopolitical instability that millions of hungry people could create, the government is clearly aware of the imperative of providing a safe and adequate food supply for its population. “We have many poor people living in places of strategic importance and border areas, mainly inhabited by ethnic groups,” Jiang Zemin warned. “Failure to solve the food and clothing problem will jeopardize national unity, frontier stability and even the national security. It is the solemn commitment of the Party and the central government to the entire people to basically solve the food and clothing problem facing the impoverished population in rural areas by the year 2000” (China Daily July 21, 1999). The desire for stability and the fear of centrifugal democratic forces are widespread among Chinese officials. “What we want above all is stability,” an official in Beijing told Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times. “You Americans can just never understand how important stability is to us. Democracy would be nice, but it’s a luxury. What we care about most is just stability, so that we can get on with our lives” (see Kristof and WuDunn 1995:144). “I agree with our government that the right to subsistence should come first,” one official from the Working Committee of the Central Party Organs commented. “China is yet to ensure the basic right to subsistence, which is still under threat from economic backwardness and poverty. The right to freedom from hunger must come first because the right to food is a right to life. It’s the most fundamental” (interview in Beijing, July 5, 2000). “We should learn good things from the West and should learn good things from Taiwan, too. But we cannot copy whatever is good in the West,” a retired professor from the PLA National Defense University argued. “Isn’t the space shuttle great? But it’s useless for small poor developing countries. What the developing countries need is food for survival. They do not need space shuttles for a star war” (interview in Beijing, July 8, 2000). In addition to economic concerns, another factor that has made stability imperative is China’s wish for national reunification. After the peaceful returns of Hong Kong and Macao under the principle of “one country, two systems,” China has set reunification with Taiwan as its final goal of territorial integrity for the new millennium. Chinese leaders and officials believe that China lost much land in the past when it was weak, chaotic, and divided. “Today, the Chinese people have stood up. So how can it be possible that we will allow Taiwan—which has been a part of China’s territory—to be separated from the motherland?” (Zhu Rongji, China Daily March 16, 2000) To reunify with Taiwan, Chinese leaders and officials hold, China must maintain unity and stability. As one central party official argued:


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China must remain united and stable if it is to reunify with Taiwan. Only with unity and stability can China safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Once that goal has been achieved, we won’t be preoccupied with national reunification and will be able to speed up with political reform. At present, however, we must keep China stable. Stability prioritizes all. We must be clear about it (interview in Beijing, May 17, 2000). Conceivably, the Chinese leadership’s hesitation to go the full distance to democratization is due to China’s reality as a LDC and its need to maintain stability for economic development and territorial integrity. According to Chinese leaders, it is not that they do not do so (i.e., democratizing China) but instead it is that they cannot do so (bushi buwei, ershi bukewei) for the time being. As Li Ruihuan, chairman of the CPPCC, asserts, China’s democratic development is a complex process and is constrained by many conditions and thus cannot be achieved through a short period. Democracy must be consistent with a certain level of political, economic, and cultural development and can only be developed with the overall development of the society. Addressing democracy without conditions and processes, not only can the goal of democracy not be achieved, it will also lead to the contrary, resulting in socioeconomic instability…. China’s democratic process has not been long and is constrained by many things, so it is inevitable to be a complex process. It cannot depend on just good wishes, it cannot be attempted to achieve in one step, and it cannot be done in an oversimplified way. China’s process of democratic development must be guided and carried on step by step, must be progressed vigorously but steadily, and must be developed with the socioeconomic progresses and the enhancement of the cultural quality of the whole people (1997:1). Similarly, Zhu Rongji explained that because China has a prolonged history of feudal society and dictatorship and a period of semi-colonialism, it is impossible for the People’s Republic to “resolve all problems accumulated through several thousand years of feudal rule within such a short period of 50 years.” However, he expressed: “we are willing to solicit views from all sides and all walks of life from our people…. We are also willing to listen to the views and comments from friends abroad…. Foreign friends are welcome to criticize us in our job, but do not be too impatient. Actually, I am more impatient than you are” (China Daily March 16, 1999). Given their resolute commitment to market reforms, positive attitudes toward democracy, recognition of the rule of law, and profound concern with political stability, Chinese leaders possibly would choose for a democratic transition if such a transition could be carried out in a gradual, peaceful manner and at the right time. As Michel Oksenberg indicated: The logic of the situation is compelling. Such a course would contribute to China’s stability, increase the international respect according to China’s leaders, enhance their power, and improve the governance of China. China’s leaders


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may come to the same conclusion—provided they are not pressured to do so—at an earlier date than most outside observers now think possible (1998:33–4).

CONCLUSION China is likely to have a top-down democratic transition guided by the Communist Party leadership, as opposed to a bottom-up transition imposed by societal forces. A bottom-up transition is unlikely because there does not exist an alternative leadership in the society to compete with the Communist Party and induce democracy from below, and because the CCP remains the sole political entity capable of governing China and carrying out needed but potentially destabilizing democratic reforms. China’s transition to democracy is conditional to its state-society configuration in which state domination over society has emerged and is likely to endure. There is evidence for a likely top-down democratic transition and an unlikely bottomup transition in China. While a bottom-up transition has not occurred in the society, significant political progress has been made under the party leadership. China’s economic success in the past two decades has been accompanied by political changes. Political development may not have been as tremendous and impressive as economic growth, but it is no less significant and fundamental for an eventual democratic breakthrough. Political changes are gradually constructing effective social and political institutions and strengthening the rule of law for the expansion of political participation. They are also creating a broad and solid basis of self-government among the mass majority for more profound reform of Chinese society and for the future democratic progress. The leadership-initiated political changes suggest the likelihood of a top-down transition, show that political liberalization in China has begun, and indicate that it is possible to gradually and ultimately emerge into democratization. Despite significant economic and political progresses and their implications, democracy in China has yet a long way to go. The principal obstacle to China’s democratization is poverty. China is still constrained by its reality as a LDC and still lacks the necessary means to carry out a democratic transition. For this reason, Chinese leaders have hesitated to go the full distance to political reform. They have focused on economic development and prioritized political stability over democratic change. In their view, a hasty political transition will produce centrifugal forces that undermine political stability, and a loss of stability will interrupt the market reform and cost the gains in living standards in the reform years. Nevertheless, Chinese leaders recognize democracy and rule of law, and as evident in the recent political development, they are moving cautiously toward a democratic direction. In this regard, the leadership’s goal to achieve modernization and democratization by the mid-century should suggest that Chinese leaders anticipate the consequences of the market economy and are willing to accept those consequences. Presumably, therefore, it is possible that the leadership would choose for the transition to democracy if such a transition could be carried out in a gradual, peaceful manner and at the right time.


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NOTES 1. The Journal of Democracy’s questions concerning China’s democracy: If you believe that the PRC will endure for at least a decade: How significant do you believe that the reforms that China has already adopted have been in generating greater political pluralism and openness? Do you believe that China will make notable democratic progress in the decade ahead, and that over the longer term it may evolve into a genuinely democratic regime? 2. Thomas Metzger believes that China’s authoritarian rule will persist for many years.

CHAPTER 7 China’s Democratic Development in the Twentyfirst Century At the dawn of the twenty-first century, China is taking its rocky, tortuous long journey to prosperity and democracy. The Chinese leadership believes that by the middle of the new century when the People’s Republic celebrates its centenary, China will have achieved modernization and become a prosperous and democratic socialist country. Having set forth democracy as a goal for the new century, will the Chinese leadership realize its goal and for what reasons? And to what level will China’s democratic development possibly reach by the mid-century? Part of my research was to find answers to these questions from Chinese officials and intellectuals’ viewpoints. My research shows that most Chinese bureaucratic and intellectual elites are confident and optimistic about China’s future democratic development. They are, on the other hand, rational and patient about the actual process. They are confident and optimistic because they believe democracy is a historical and virtually universal trend, and China is moving in the right direction. They are rational and patient because they understand that, given the current levels of economic, social, and political institutional development, China’s road to democracy is going to be long, rocky, and tortuous. What, then, can be speculated about China’s future democratic development from the Chinese viewpoints, in addition to its recent developments and the current conditions? This final chapter is an attempt to forecast China’s democratic development in the new century based on the Chinese perspectives. AN OPTIMISTIC FUTURE OF DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENT Along the Historical Trend Chinese officials and intellectuals are generally optimistic about China’s future democratic development and anticipate further progress in the polit-ical reforms for a number of reasons. First, they believe that democracy is a historical trend and China is moving in the right direction. China’s success in implementing reforms and opening to the outside world in the past 20 years is clear. The country has witnessed not only rapid economic growth but also substantial democratic progress at the local level, which is creating a broader basis for more profound reforms and for future democratic breakthroughs. If democracy is claimed to be a historical trend, China’s development in the reform era demonstrates that it is evidently moving along that trend from economic and political liberalization toward modernization and democratization. “I’m optimistic about China’s future democratic development,” commented a local official from Hunan


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Province who was on a training program at the MOCA. “I believe things that conform with the interests of the people, that are in conformity with the law of historical progress will prevail. It is our goal to build a prosperous and democratic country” (interview in Beijing, June 6, 2000). Moreover, Chinese officials and intellectuals believe that the party leadership is committed to deepening the reforms, which has created broader spaces for political reform. The continuing reforms and opening up will lead China toward greater progress and more thorough change. As Mao Yushi (1999) stated: “I believe most people would agree that if we follow the suit of past development to continue expanding citizens’ civil political rights, developing the market economy, China’s political and economic environment will change more thoroughly, and a democratic and legalized society will ultimately be developed” (in Huang 2000:273–4). According to Fan Gang and Zhang Xiaojing, China’s state economy has changed significantly in the past 20 years. As the reforms continue to progress, the problem of the state economy will “no longer be a problem” in 10 to 15 years. However, in the new century, China’s reforms “will be facing another challenge.” That is, with the progress of the market economy, and with further industrialization and modernization, “the entire society will experience fundamental changes unprecedented in the Chinese history,” including changes in the government institutions and the political system. The development of market economy will further change the relationship between the central and local governments and will fundamentally change the relationships between the government and enterprises and between the state and individuals. This will “increasingly require a legal system and a political system that protect property rights.” It will also increase the demands for the services provided by public goods and public institutions, for democratic decisionmaking, and for the efficiency and honesty of the government. “These can be called the process of government reform or the emergence of a modern state system.” The importance of a modern state system will gradually become clear. It will “replace gradually the reforms in the economic structure and become the core of the reform in state structure in the early twenty-first century” (2000:166). The government’s effort to join the WTO is both a pragmatic and normative factor that has contributed to the cheerfulness about China’s continued reforms and opening up and its future democratic development among Chinese officials and intellectuals. Many believe that the WTO will promote democratic development by obligating the government to deepen market reforms and enact laws, thus accelerating China’s progress toward an open economy, an open society, and the rule of law. The WTO will bring China to global economic competition and thus put China under greater pressure to privatize its state enterprises and to speed a process that is removing government from vast areas of people’s lives. The opening of China’s telecommunications market will expose Chinese people to information and ideas from the outside world and bring more international influence into the Chinese society. As a New York Times report indicated: “virtually everyone, from foreign critics to [Chinese] party leaders themselves, agrees that surging economic and social change and the spread of the Internet will be vastly stronger forces for political change than any diplomatic agreements” (November 27, 2000). When asked whether the government was concerned with foreign influence on the

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Chinese society after China’s entry to the WTO, a ministry-level party official said: We shouldn’t be afraid of information from the outside world by joining the WTO and opening our telecommunications market. We want to learn good things from the outside and educate our people to resist things that are unhealthy. The Qing dynasty was self-assured and self-contained but was only to be opened up by Western gun-ships. The price of centuries of comforting seclusion was institutional and technological backwardness. We want to adhere to the policy of opening up. Without integrating with the world community China cannot progress (interview in Beijing, June 1, 2000). Similarly, when asked whether they had problem to get on the Internet, a young bureaucrat from a government ministry responded: We have access to the Internet, and we are free to get online for information. How can China become rich and powerful by remaining self-contained and isolated from the outside world? Joining the WTO shows the government’s resolution to press on with the reforms and opening up and to integrate China with the world community. China will be even more open after entering the WTO (interview in Beijing, June 1, 2000). However, accession to the WTO means huge investments in new businesses and huge layoffs in the state-owned enterprises incapable of competing in an open economy. It means China is facing difficult tests, and the task of dealing with the consequences of its choices is challenging. Despite the painful shock of global competition their country has to endure, Chinese leaders have made it clear that China will not back away from its market-opening commitment but will press the reforms further and speed the transformation to an open, efficient market economy. The government has recently made another sharp economic shift by opening the state-run stock markets to private entrepreneurs. This change has both economic and political implications. Access to finance, together with the rule of law, will empower the private sector. An emerging powerful entrepreneurial class could gradually and ultimately become the main engine of China’s reform economy and a constituency independent from state power that demands a strong voice in the political process. Expectation for the Party Leadership to Press on the Reform Allowing the private sector to compete with the state for capital reflects the leadership’s firmness in pressing for further reforms and in integrating with the world. Such firmness of the leadership is perhaps the most important factor that explains the optimism about China’s future democratic development among Chinese officials and intellectuals. A majority of them have high expectations for the leadership’s sincerity in pushing the reforms forward. Even those who believe China’s political reform has lagged far behind its economic reform and call for a faster, revolutionary drive for political reform rarely deny the success of the reforms and remain optimistic about future political development (Huang 2000). Most officials and intellectuals I interviewed (32 out of 40) believe that


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Chinese leaders have the sincerity and good will to build a prosperous, democratic, and legalized China. A less positive view holds that Chinese leaders may not have necessarily become normatively committed to democratic change and receptive to new ideas for solving China’s problems, but they want to do well for their country, even if just for their own reputations and merits. A majority of officials and intellectuals (30 people), however, believe that Chinese leaders have chosen to join the WTO because they recognize free trade, the rule of law, and democracy as universal norms, and because they believe China should be a prosperous, democratic, and peaceful member of the world community. Mao Yushi’s (1999) statement sums up this view: The 20 years of reforms show that it is under the party leadership [China] made farewell to the command economy and moved on the track to a market economy. Surely it is uncertain whether economic development will bring democratic politics. The key point is the government’s attitude. Judging from China’s concrete situation, I am confident, because the CCP in the past 20 years has successfully led the economic reform, its pragmatic and flexible attitude and its constant acceptance of international rules will reduce obstacles to democratic progress. In particular, the central leaders have already expressed their resolutions to build China a democratic, legalized society…. People across the country all hope Chinese leaders exert with great courage and the spirit of creativity to build a mar-ketized country based on the rule of law, which China has never achieved through its thousands years of history (in Huang 2000:276). Two major factors have led Chinese officials and intellectuals to view the post-Deng leadership as genuinely reformist and distinct from the earlier generations of revolutionary leaders: the high education level and the lack of political seniority in the leadership. Since Deng Xiaoping ended the tenure system and arranged for elder revolutionary officials to retire from top leadership positions to make way for younger, better-educated reformist technocrats, the party leadership and its bureaucracy have been transformed from a revolutionary political elite to a bureaucratic elite of technocrats with higher education and professional competence rather than political seniority. According to Hong Yung Lee, who studied the transformation of the Chinese cadre structure, by the time of the Thirteenth Party Congress in 1987, the “process of elite transformation was nearly completed.” Virtually “all leading positions, from the highest level to the basic level, were filled by the bureaucratic technocrats” (1992:56). This transformation is exemplified by the personnel change in the Standing Committee of the Party Politburo. All seven members of the Committee are well-educated technocrats. Four graduated from the most prestigious Chinese universities, four studied or worked in the Soviet Union, and five were originally trained as engineers. President Jiang, for example, received education in Shanghai Jiaotong University and worked at the Stalin Automobile Works in the Soviet Union in the mid-1950s. Premier Zhu graduated from Qinghua (Tsinghua) University, the Chinese equivalent of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the eyes of Chinese bureaucratic and intellectual elites, these well-educated technocratic leaders are more pragmatic, less ideological, more open-minded, and less conservative. They are more willing to listen to their colleagues and the people because


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they have less personal power to unilaterally make decisions. They are more willing to reform because they have fewer vested interests in the system. Some of my interviewees for example praised Zhu Rongji, who once said that he was not afraid of losing his position as premier but could teach at Qinghua University if he lost his political position. Others conceived Jiang Zemin’s recent notion of “three representatives” (i.e., the Communist Party should represent advanced productive forces, represent advanced culture, and represent the fundamental interests of the people) as an indication of changing nature by the Party from the proletariat vanguard to a governing party. The idea of “three representatives,” they said, emphasizes advanced productive forces of science, technology, and economic development and advanced culture, which implicitly justifies greater openness to modern Western culture and gives further flexibility to the official ideology (interviews in Beijing and Hong Kong, June-August 2000). Chinese officials and intellectuals also have high expectations for the future leaderships. For example, five of my interviewees hoped to see new leaders at the Sixteenth Party Congress in November 2002. They also believed that future generations of Chinese leaders will be even more qualified and better prepared. They will be younger, better-educated, more liberal-oriented, and more willing to reform the political system. Because they do not have the prestige and popularity of their predecessors, they more likely will discipline themselves and pay closer attention to public opinion in order to gain popular recognition and support. They will need to rely on collective decisionmaking, established institutions and procedures, and the rule of law rather than personal power and personal networks. With the revolutionary generation of leaders gone, and as more favorable socioeconomic conditions develop, these future leaders will be less handicapped by China’s economic constraints and will be able to accomplish objectives that the earlier generations of leadership have not been able to achieve. According to an economist, The third generation of leaders does not have the prestige of the earlier generations. But high prestige is not a good thing, because it creates conditions for individual dictatorship. With less prestige and popularity, leaders are more likely to listen to the people. Political reform is likely to speed up after the old generation of leaders disappears from the scene. At present, those who are fearful of political reform are those with virtue of political seniority and low education. They are afraid of losing their vested interests under the current structure. The future leaders will be different from the older ones. They are likely to press for political reform (interview in Beijing, July 12, 2000). In recent years, some impressive changes have taken place in China’s governing body. Many young, highly educated people have been selected to leadership positions, and an increasing number of them have been Western-trained scholars who returned to China after studying abroad. For example, among 42 students in the training class for young and middle-aged cadres at the Central Party School in the spring of 2000, more than half had graduate degrees, and some held doctorates. One of them, who was a deputy mayor from Guangdong Province, had graduated from Harvard University with a master’s degree and was working on a Ph.D. at a prestigious Chinese university. Moreover, some government


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agencies have sent their officials to the West for training programs. The Ministry of Civil Affairs, for example, recently sent one of its bureau directors to study at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The official returned to China with a master’s degree and was promoted to a higher position. “The current top leaders all have higher education, some studied abroad. They are much more open-minded than Mao’s generation,” said a scholar party official. “Zhu Rongji said the sooner the better to extend the democratic electoral system to a higher level, that is a good wish. The future leaders will be even more open. Some will be returning scholars from America. They have been exposed to Western enlightening ideas and thus are likely to press for political reform” (interview in Beijing, August 5, 2000). “Many young people have been selected to leading positions in various locations,” said another central party official. These people have higher education and fewer traditional views. They are more likely to accept new ideas and new things. Their level of understanding of policy and their sense of flexibility are relatively high. They do things boldly but not blindly, according to government policy and local conditions, with a practical and realistic approach. They do good work in their localities, people are happy with them. Looking at these leading figures, I feel very confident. On the Fifteenth Party Central Committee, there are only four members under age 45. The Sixteenth Party Congress will see a group of young people forthcoming, and the center has a high expectation for them to carry on the reforms (interview in Beijing, July 13, 2000). Imperative of Combating Official Corruption Chinese officials and intellectuals’ anticipation for further democratic reform may also be attributed to a third and more pragmatic reason: the imperative of combating official corruption. Many believe that time is overdue for China to deal with corruption through bolder political reforms, and a forceful process of political reform is expected to be forthcoming. “Have you read Samuel Huntington’s Political Order in Changing Societies?” (see Huntington 1968:69) one party official asked in my interview. Huntington says corruption may be a lubricant at the early stage of modernization but an obstacle afterward. China’s development process has been exactly the same as Huntington observed. Corruption is now an obstacle to development. Corrupt practices will discourage foreign, Hong Kong, and Taiwan investors if they continue to worsen. Further economic progress will be very difficult without further political reform. Political reform must be enforced. It is not a matter whether or not one wants to enforce it; it is that one has to. The process of political reform is going to be speeding up, the leadership has the plan, and the people have the demand (interview in Beijing, June 26, 2000). Appealing for deepening political reform, many officials and intellectuals believe that what is mostly needed is an effective system of supervision, because it is due to the lack of such a system that corruption has grown so badly, and the corrupt officials have been


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so fearless. Xiao Gongqin (1998), for example, argues that the lack of an effective supervision system is a fundamental problem China is facing during its transition. Under the current system, the press and other active social forces cannot play an effective role in supervision. In the absence of such a system, official corruption, especially at the local level, has become aggravated. However, “China’s urban and rural mass majority, though large in size, is not an anti-corruption force due to its lack of a tradition of individual rights and social supervision. Many intellectuals, who are beneficiaries of the reforms, no longer play a role as value-defenders and critics for the society and thus are no longer an important force for effective supervision.” This suggests that unless the government combats corruption more forcefully and takes steady steps toward democratization, the problem will worsen and result in new social crisis. It is imperative to develop an effective supervision system so that China will not fall into the “trap of pervasive corruption” (in Huang 2000:272–3). Chinese officials and intellectuals have good reasons to anticipate further political reform and more forceful drives against corruption. The leadership has shown that it is soberly aware that corruption is widespread and threatens to endanger party rule. Premier Zhu “repeatedly came back to this theme” as he opened the 2000 NPC annual session. He vowed that corrupt officials must be “severely punished” and told leading cadres to “stay clean and honest and self-disciplined and be sure their relatives and office staff do the same” (New York Times March 6, 2000). Li Peng, head of the NPC, also warned that “failure in the fight against corruption and failure to build a clean government present major risks to the future of the Party and the State” (China Daily March 10, 2001). Chinese leaders understand that only by deepening the reforms can they “gradually eradicate the hotbed for the breeding and spreading of corruption” (Jiang 1997:32). They realize the importance of the rule of law in dealing with corruption. They also realize the importance of supervision and the need to publicize corruption cases through news coverage. As Zhu Rongji stated: “the cure to the problem is the establishment of a system of the rule of law and law enforcement.” The “Chinese are improving their coverage of corruption and more and more cases will be publicized” (China Daily March 16, 2000). Li Peng declared that the NPC would “fully institutionalize [its] supervisory function to stop corruption before it begins.” The NPC Standing Committee “has put the enactment of a supervision law on its agenda” (China Daily March 10, 2001). Wei Jianxing, a Politburo Standing Committee member, also stressed the need “to prevent and curb corruption from the source. Efforts should focus on…further promoting the reform of various systems so as to eradicate the root cause of corruption” (China Daily March 8, 2001). A LONG JOURNEY TO DEMOCRACY The Political Reform While Chinese officials and intellectuals are generally optimistic about China’s future democratic development, they tend to be rational and patient about the actual process, anticipating the journey to be long and gradual. Few appeal for a liberal model of


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democracy or for rapid political change. Most agree that the process must proceed from the Chinese reality and must be guided by the party leadership and carried on step by step, vigorously but steadily. Some argue that China should first be clear about the purpose of political reform and should be rational about what should be done and can be done with regard to political reform. Hu Angang (1999) posits that China is correct to promote political reforms aimed at facilitating economic development. Whatever can facilitate development we take it boldly, otherwise be cautious about it. We are not doing political reform for political reform…. We are having political reform for accelerating economic growth and advancing social progress. This is the different choice of political direction between China and Russia, which has led to different results in economic development (in Huang 2000:274) Liu Ji indicates that China’s democratic development is a generational task. One generation does one generation’s work. I think what our generation can do is perhaps two things. The first is to select, through a scientific and democratic system, leading cadres of different levels who combine ability with political integrity. The second is [to ensure] these outstanding leaders do not let just one person have all the say. [If we] can figure out how to achieve scientific and democratic decisionmaking according to the rule of law, then [we] have accomplished our historical missions. As for what democratic methods our later generations will choose, I think because they will stand on our shoulders to continue climbing, [they] can certainly stand higher, see farther than us and can be more intelligent, sensible, smarter, and can devise better methods to achieve higher quality of democracy (Luo and Xiao 1999, in Huang 2000:275–6). On the question as to how to deepen political reform, the officials and intellectuals tend to agree that political reforms should be deepened from within the system. Many have a high expectation for the Party’s own reform, saying that it is to China’s advantage to have political reform from within the system and to have inner-party democracy as a strategic choice of the political reform. Some consider the transformation of the Party from a revolutionary party to a governing party and of the party leaders from revolutionaries to bureaucratic technocrats and modern politicians to be the essence of China’s political reform. Gao Fang (1999) argues that China should actively and voluntarily undertake political reforms from within the system…. The main content of political reform should be, as Deng Xiaoping stressed, to separate the Party from the government, to not have the Party take the place of the government, to not have an over-concentration of power, to carry forward socialist democracy, to develop an effective system of supervision and constriction, and to truly realize the constitutional principle that the people are the masters of the country (in Huang 2000:269). Wang Changjiang (1998) indicates that “further economic reform depends on political


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reform. However, whether or not political reform can progress smoothly depends on the CCP. Thus, whether or not [we can] uphold the party leadership and at the same time reform the Party in accordance with the demand of socialist modernization will to a great degree determine the destiny of China’s reform. This is what is meaningful to raise the question of party modernization” (in Huang 2000:275). Hu Wei (1999) asserts that China at present should strive to exploit resources of democratization from within the system, that is, to find the point where democracy can grow within the existing political system and develop inner-party democracy first. This should be a strategic choice of China’s democratic development and political reform, because inner-party democracy, especially multicandidate elections, will bring along democratization in the political life of the whole country. This is determined by the CCP’s core position in China’s political life (in Huang 2000:269–70). Sun Guanhong (1999) contends that “reforming the inner-party electoral system should be the cutting point of political reform within the system. Election is an important feature of inner-party democracy, to develop party democracy therefore must improve the party electoral system. In reality, however, inner-party democracy has not been practiced according to the Party Constitution.” For example, there exist candidate selection by the higher levels of authority, restrictions on multicandidate elections, unclear terms of party branches at lower levels, and so on. These problems have damaged the image and reputation of the Party, undermined its leadership, and have also produced negative influence on the democratic process of the society (in Huang 2000:270). Thus, to proceed from China’s current political system, “it should come first to improve inner-party democracy in order to set the party democracy as the guide of democratization in the society” (Huang 2000:270). The Democratic Electoral System With regard to the electoral system, my research found different views among the officials and intellectuals about at what level democratic elections may be held by 2050, when the system of direct elections could be extended to the township level, and what an appropriate electoral system would be under China’s conditions. One view holds that China’s democra-tization will take at least 100 years. It will be difficult to extend the democratic electoral system even to the county level by 2050 due to the large population and the low level of cultural quality. Another view indicates that it should be no problem to hold direct elections for county officials by 2050. Village elections have exposed most problems in conducting democratic elections among the mass majority. When those problems have been solved at the village level, when the peasants’ democratic awareness and skills have improved, it should be fine to extend the electoral system to the township level and then to the county level. A more optimistic view believes that there are hopes to extend the system of direct elections to the provincial level. Democratic elections have been held in the party and government organs for leading positions at the vice bureau level. This significant progress should give China some hope to see direct elections at the provincial level by the mid-century. The most optimistic view estimates that it may not


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need 50 years before China could hold general elections at the national level. In Taiwan, the transition to democracy took only two decades after the death of Chiang Kai-shek. Democratization in China could come rather quickly, depending on enlightened future political leaders. Still an additional view says that it is hard to tell what China’s democracy would be like in 50 years. Deng Xiaoping said that general elections could be held in 50 years, but he did not specify whether the elections would be for the national leaders or for the representatives of the NPC. The current leaders have not clarified when the system of democratic elections would be extended to the township or the county levels. On the other hand, however, things could move very fast. Who had expected 20 years ago that China would have a socialist system combined with a market economy today? (interviews in Beijing, May-July 2000) Officials and intellectuals also differ in their views about the extension of direct electoral system from villages to townships. Some are optimistic about the progress, advocating vigorously for the system to be extended sooner rather than later. Others remain cautious about the progress, saying that there are still many problems in village elections, and conditions for upgrading direct elections to townships have not matured. According to officials from the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the implementation of the village election law has met with strong resistance in many areas due to a number of reasons. One is that the time period for the practice of free election has been relatively short. China has a prolonged feudal history and until the recent demise of the Gang of Four China did not have a legal system. The village election law went into effect in November 1987, and the actual process of democratic and legal development in rural China has occurred barely over a decade. Moreover, as a country with a long history, China bears many historical burdens, such as inertia, patriarchal clan system, paternalism, one person has all the say, and the like. Shadows of these problems, which are inconsistent with village self-government, remain in most Chinese villages, even in those where elections are conducted fairly well. There is also a cognitive problem among officials of higher authority. Some provinces have not carried out policies to implement the village committee election law. Many counties comprising hundreds of villages do not have personnel specially assigned for implementing the law or special funds for village elections. Many county and township officials still hold negative attitudes toward village elections, saying that it is too early to hold village elections because peasants are not qualified to exercise self-government. Some believe village self-government would undermine the party leadership in the countryside. Others think village self-government has weakened the township’s power because township governments can no longer select village cadres (interviews in Beijing, June 2000; also see Zhan 2000). “It’s not meaningful to artificially set up a timetable for upgrading direct elections to the township level because village elections are still ‘half-cooked rice’ (jiashengfan), the conditions are not yet ripe for an extension,” said one of the officials. When we have done the job properly at the village level, any problems would have been solved, then we can extend the electoral system to a higher level. It’s fine to experiment on direct elections at the township level and to pay scholarly attention to such experiments, but it would be very difficult to bring it into large-scale practice. This is not a matter of maintaining stability; it is a matter of


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combining the reform with the law. Extending the electoral system to the township level needs to publish a law first, and then bring the law into practice later (interview in Beijing, June 16, 2000). Some scholars also agree that it is unrealistic to have large-scale direct elections for township chiefs at present because the elected government would be in a dilemma of whether to be accountable to its superiors or to its voters. Zou Shubin, for example, argues that, as the lowest level of government, township must implement the policies carried out by higher authorities, and some of those policies may hurt peasants’ interests in a given area. On the other hand, as an elected government, the township should represent the voters and protect their interests. This dilemma township governments would face has an institutional reason, which cannot be solved through elections only. In well-developed areas, peasants are relatively wealthy, and townships have sufficient budget to carry out various public programs and accomplish, at the same time, projects required by higher authorities. Then the conflicts between the local governments and the grassroots society would be relatively fewer, and the sense of “democratic cooperation” relatively stronger. However, consider China’s uneven economic development, most at low levels of society are still struggling for food and clothing. Together with a patriarchal clan tradition and the differentiation in the level of village self-government, popularizing elections for township leaders seems to be unrealistic at present. Even if it could be popularized, whether or not it could straighten out the relationship between local government and village self-government is yet dependent on the further deepening of institutional reform (2000:152–3). With respect to what an appropriate electoral system would be under the Chinese conditions, among the officials and intellectuals, a radical view holds that democratic elections should be introduced at the national level. Another view indicates that direct elections should be held for work unit leaders. Still another view believes that China’s electoral system should combine direct elections at lower levels with indirect elections at higher levels. At the village and township levels, elections should be direct, but at the county or higher levels it would be more credible and practical to have indirect elections. The idea is that direct elections should be extended to the township level when the conditions have matured because, as the lowest level of government, township has direct contact with the mass population, and most problems between the state and the peasantry have emerged from conflicts between township cadres and peasants. Direct elections could, to a certain degree, ease tensions between the rural society and the local government by making officials more accountable to their voters, thus reducing peasants’ dissatisfactions for the state government. At the county or higher levels, however, direct elections for government officials are implausible as a practical matter due to China’s large population size and the low levels of education and communication. At the county or higher levels, a better option would be to improve the PC system and the party system, allowing the PCs and other political parties to supervise the CCP. As one official from the MOCA reasoned:


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I don’t stand for general elections for either national leaders or the NPC deputies because the campaigns and elections would be too costly. Unless we could reduce the number of the NPC deputies from over 2,900 to 200–300 we cannot have direct elections at the national level as a practical matter. We should combine direct elections with indirect elections because it is consistent with China’s reality as a populous developing country. At the county or higher levels we should adopt indirect elections. At the village and township levels we should have direct elections because village and township cadres have direct contact with ordinary people, and most problems between the Party and the people have emerged from conflicts between village and township cadres and peasants (interview in Beijing, June 16, 2000). This argument that, as a practical matter, general elections at higher levels are implausible under the Chinese conditions can be justified by the financial cost for fair election outcomes and China’s low level of economic development. According to the Washington Post, the U.S. total money for federal and state elections in 2000 is estimated to be $4 billion (November 6, 2000). This amount could feed tens of million poor people in a less developed country. China, for example, has an official number of 42 million people living under the poverty line of $77 per year. If each person receives an annual amount of $77, 7, the total is a smaller amount ($3.23 billion) than the U.S. total tab for the elections of 2000. To be sure, America’s spending on elections is exceptionally high among the world’s countries, so it may be inappropriate to explain the Chinese situation by comparing it with American campaign finance. But China has a large population and a large parliament (a total of 2,979 deputies for the Ninth NPC, each was selected among approximately 880,000 rural population or 220,000 urban population), and thus the cost for general elections at the national level would be very high. On the other hand, there is a more optimistic view about upgrading direct elections to the congressional level. At present, direct election for deputies of PCs is practiced at the county (urban district) level. Deputies of PCs above county level are elected by delegates at lower levels. According to Murray Scot Tanner, some advisors of the NPC predicted that, within two to three years after Deng’s passing, “proposals for direct, multicandidate elections for the provincial congresses, and later for the NPC itself, were likely to circulate among the top leadership.” Such proposals, some Western scholars reported late in the 1990s, were “already circulating in Chinese intellectual circles” (1999:126). The financial cost for fair election outcomes and China’s low level of economic development suggest that, for a long period, general elections at the national level would be for China a “luxury.” However, with 50 years of economic, social, and political development, China by mid-century should be able to upgrade the system of democratic elections to higher levels. China should be able to hold direct elections at the county level and, in a better scenario, it should be able to hold direct elections at the provincial and congressional levels. However, given its large population size (1.6 billion by 2030, China Daily July 21, 1999) and low level of communications, general elections at the presidential level may still be beyond China’s reach by 2050. Due to such practical concerns, some Chinese officials and scholars believe China should achieve democracy through means other than general elections. According to a ministry-level government


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official, China’s democracy cannot be achieved by elections. In many poor areas, peasants do not have televisions. Many only know there was a Mao Zedong but not even Deng Xiaoping, let alone the post-Deng leaders. General elections among the entire population would not produce decent outcomes because campaign messages cannot be broadly and effectively communicated. China’s realization of democracy should be dependent on an effective supervision system, the rule of law, media exposure, the implementation of the Constitution and the Party Constitution, and the effective role played by the NPC and the CPPCC (interview in Beijing, July 10, 2000).

The Role of the CCP in China’s Democratic Transition It is worth noting that Chinese bureaucratic and intellectual elites’ optimism about China’s democratic development is based on their expectations of sincerity on the part of the party leadership in carrying the reforms forward rather than on an expectation for a transformation from CCP one-party rule to a system of multiparty competition. The officials and intellectuals believe that it is under the party leadership that China has achieved great success in advancing reforms (Mao 1999, 2000). They have a high expectation for the leadership’s willingness to push the reforms forward and remain hopeful that a market economy, the rule of law, and democracy will ultimately be achieved in China (Huang 2000). They believe that China’s political reform should first aim at stabilizing the political leading group because, as Hu Angang (1999) observes: “political stability is the precondition for economic development. Maintaining political stability must first stabilize political leadership. Only with the stabilization of leadership can domestic and foreign investors remain confident in China’s future” (in Huang 2000:276). They criticize against the “handful of people [who] demand change in political leadership due to the past policy shortcomings or the existing irrational phenomena,” viewing such idea of changing leadership as “lopsided, with a leaf before the eye shutting out the forest” (Mao Yushi 1999, in Huang 2000:274). The officials and intellectuals’ support for the party leadership suggests that China is likely to see a continued one-party domination for quite some time during its long journey to democratization. This continuation, in turn, seems to indicate that China’s national unification will have a true meaning for its democratization because the reunification with Taiwan can help facilitate political transition on the mainland. Despite their strong condemnation of Taipei’s attempt at independence, Chinese officials and intellectuals recognize the significance of Taiwan’s new democracy. Six of my interviewees commented on democratization in Taiwan, calling it a great progress and a powerful indication that Chinese culture can transit to democracy. They believe that the reunification between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait will benefit China’s democratic development on two grounds. First, after the reunification, China will no longer be preoccupied by the pursuit of complete territorial integrity and thus should be able to focus on the reforms and speed up the political process. Second, Taiwan can help


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facilitate democratization on the mainland by bringing democratic influences into the mainland’s political system (interviews in Beijing and Hong Kong, May-August 2000). This second point is particularly meaningful for China’s democratic transition, given that real challenges to one-party rule on the mainland are unlikely to emerge from within the system. Beijing has made it clear that, as long as Taipei accepts the one-China principle, any issues can be discussed between the two sides, including political issues, and that Taiwan’s leaders can have leading positions in the Chinese government. Presumably, therefore, Taiwan’s democratic forces can influence China by becoming insiders and participating in governing China after the reunification. It is not impossible that eventually the competition for leadership could take place between the CCP and the major political parties from the SARs, especially from Taiwan. CONCLUSION China in the past 20 years has experienced significant progress in economic development and political liberalization. If it is “pretty much beyond dispute” that the higher a country’s socioeconomic level, the more likely it would be a polyarchy (Dahl 1971:65), then China is likely to progress from economic and political liberalization to democratization. Chinese leaders have set modernization and democratization as China’s goals to be achieved by the mid-century. They have demonstrated determination and firmness in furthering reforms and integrating with the world. As one central party official noted: The goal to build a democratic socialist country by the mid-century is consistent with our modernization plan. Our economic goal is to become a middle-level developed country by 2050. Economic development will inevitably bring about political progress because the production relations must be compatible with the growth of the productive forces, or they will fetter the productive forces. So we must have political reforms, and the central leaders are clearly aware of that. I’m optimistic about China’s democratic development. We are building the foundation for democracy with village elections. Once that foundation is built, we can proceed for further democratic reforms. When the water comes, a channel is formed (interview in Beijing, July 5, 2000). China’s journey to democracy is going to be long, rocky, and tortuous. China is likely to see indirect elections at the presidential level and one-party domination for quite some time during its long transition to democracy. By the criteria of Western liberal democracy, democratic reform in China may not be truly meaningful without holding general elections for national leaders and changing its one-party rule. However, given its established state-society configuration and its levels of economic and social development, China’s approach to democratization is not nonsensical for three reasons. First, theories and facts show that the most frequently observed and most often successful types of democratic transition are top-down transitions. “Here traditional rulers remain in control, even if pressured from below, and successfully use strategies of either compromise or force—or some mix of the two—to retain at least part of their power” (Karl 1990:9). “In


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the future as in the past, then, stable polyarchies and near-polyarchies are more likely to result from rather slow evolutionary processes than from the revolutionary overthrow of existing hegemonies” (Dahl 1971:45). The contrary consequences between the evolutionary transition in South Korea and Taiwan and the more revolutionary transition in the former Soviet Union and those in Eastern Europe (e.g., Romania) suggest that China, indeed the world, will be better off to allow the party leadership to undertake and manage a systemic transition that entails uncertainty and indeterminacy. As Christopher Carney posits: “If civil and political freedoms are going to expand in the People’s Republic of China, it is incumbent upon the leadership to develop governmental and societal institutions that can manage, for example, a multiparty system, free elections, labor unions, and political dissent” (1999:237). Secondly, theories and facts show that the elite’s initiation of a democratic transition is often in accordance with self-interests and thus is restricted and conditional (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1986; Przeworski 1988; Sorensen 1993). The transition is possible only “if there exist institutions that provide a reasonable expectation that interests of major political forces would not be affected highly adversely under democratic competition, given the resources these forces can muster” (Przeworski 1988:79). By the measurements of transition theory and the experiences of other countries, China’s conditional, partial, and gradual progress to a more democratic system is not exceptional. Likewise, the idea of developing democracy while upholding party rule is not irrational and is supported by Chinese leaders and a majority of the bureaucratic and intellectual elites. In general, it is anticipated that the party leadership will control the speed, scope, if not timing, of the transition. As Baogang He observed: The Party cannot completely disregard democracy, nor concede too much ground to it. Either of these choices would erode the party’s rule to a dangerous level. It appears that the solution is to strike a balance where legitimacy is challenged the least. Lee Kuan Yew stated in 1994 that Asian democracy is a different concept from Western liberal democracy. Perhaps for the CCP, the solution to the balance lies in this Asian concept; one which can placate the people’s desires and still allow the party’s rule, what some called “democracy with Chinese characteristics” (1996:214). Similarly, according to Michel Oksenberg, China’s leaders are likely to find introducing democracy at lower levels of the system and firmly committing themselves to the attainment of full democracy over a protracted period to be an increasingly attractive option. The commitment would have to be accompanied by a realistic plan for maintaining Communist Party dominance, and by a strategy for ensuring that the use of elections expands only gradually, while the ancillary institutions necessary to the maintenance of a vibrant democracy are put in place (1998:33). Lastly but most importantly, China’s democratic development should be measured and judged by what is meaningful for China in the Chinese context rather than by the criteria of Western democracy. As Chinese scholar Zou Shubin points out:


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Democratic rights are self-evident; however, the practice of democratic rights is conditional. As Marx noted: “rights can never go beyond the economic structure of a society and the social and cultural development constrained by that economic structure.” Only such models of democracy that are consistent with the levels of economic and cultural development, acceptable for the mass majority, and can be conducted as a practical matter are most positive and effective models of democracy…. Democracy in China’s primary stage of socialism can only be a primary form. This reality determines that [China can only] gradually make democratic progress through the most practical democratic training, especially in rural China, where the mass majority lives. Democracy can only be built through democratic practice (2000:143). China’s democratic development should be justified by the progress China has made, and will continue to make, under the Chinese circumstances. After all, it is China that is going to transit to democracy, it is the Chinese who most care about China’s transition that may make the difference between progress and catastrophe for their own country, and it is the Chinese who are building democracy in China. As many Chinese officials and intellectuals contend: “the election systems of China and the United States could never be exactly the same because the historical traditions, levels of education, cultural and economic development and social systems of the two countries differ” (Jiang Zemin, China Daily September 5, 2000). “China will achieve market reform and democratization with a unique, gradual, and evolutionary manner and with smallest social cost and price” (Hu Angang 1999, in Huang 2000:277). “The Chinese have the same right to evolve morally and politically, on their own terms and at their own pace, as the United States has done” (Wan 1998:374). Anticipatorily, therefore, China will find her own way of democratizing rather than copy a Western model of democracy. As many have observed: Democracy is the most widely admired type of political system but also perhaps the most difficult to maintain. Alone among all forms of government, democracy rests on a minimum of coercion and a maximum of consent. Democratic polities inevitably find themselves saddled with certain “built-in” paradoxes or contradictions. The tensions these cause are not easy to reconcile, and every country that would be democratic must find its own way of doing so (Diamond 1996b:111). [China’s political and social] institutions must be products of Chinese culture and values rather than an imported Western version of democracy. Creating such institutions takes time, perhaps decades. The prudent course for the West would be to continue urging China to reform its system by staying engaged in the human rights discourse but to give China the time needed to build enduring—and appropriate—democratic political institutions and social traditions (Carney 1999:237). Indubitably, China needs to democratize, but only through its own path and at its own pace. The process will have to be long, gradual, and peace-ful, and the model will not


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necessarily be identical to Western liberal democracy. Although the idea of democracy is Western, although China does not have a democratic tradition, still, China is unlikely to westernize, even if it is to develop democracy. After all, China, the longest continuous civilization in the world, has followed its own path for 5,000 years and is going to follow its path forward. Since democracy is a historical trend and is “our goal” (Deng 1994), since every country that would democratize “must find its own way of doing so” (Diamond 1996b), and since China is such a unique and complicated nation in the world, China will have to find and force her own path to democracy down the road.

List of Interviews in China (Summer 2000) No. Interviewee (official)

Place of Interview

Date of Interview

1

Bureau-level central party official

Beijing

May 17, 2000

2

Division-level local government official

Beijing

May 18, 2000

3

Bureau-level central government official

Beijing

May 22, 2000

4


Beijing

May 23, 2000

5

Division-level central government official

Beijing

May 27, 2000

6


Beijing

June 1, 2000

7

Central government staff member

Beijing

June 1, 2000

8

Ministry-level central party official

Beijing

June 1, 2000

9

County-level local government official

Beijing

June 6, 2000

10

Military officer (senior colonel)

Beijing

June 7, 2000

11

Division-level central party official

Beijing

June 9, 2000

12

Local government staff member

Beijing

June 9, 2000

13

Ministry-level central party official

Beijing

June 10, 2000

14


Beijing

June 10, 2000

15


Beijing

June 14, 2000

16

Ministry-level central party official (retired)

Beijing

June 14, 2000

17


Beijing

June 16, 2000

18


Beijing

June 22, 2000

19


Beijing

June 26, 2000

20


Beijing

June 28, 2000

21


Beijing

June 29, 2000

22


Beijing

June 29, 2000

23


Beijing

July 5, 2000

24


Beijing

July 5, 2000

25


Beijing

July 6, 2000

26

Military officer (retired senior colonel)

Beijing

July 8, 2000

27

Ministry-level central government official

Beijing

July 2000

Appendix A

211

28


Beijing

July 12, 2000

29


Beijing

July 13, 2000

30

Section-level local government official

Beijing

July l8, 2000

31


Beijing

July 18, 2000

32


Beijing

July 18, 2000

33


Beijing

July 20, 2000

34


Beijing

July 20, 2000

35


Beijing

August 5, 2000

36

Local government staff member

Beijing

August 5, 2000

37


Beijing

August 6, 2000

38

Bureau-level local government official

Wuhan

August 15, 2000

39


Wuhan

August 15, 2000

40


Hong

Kong Septem September 9, 2000

41

Professor of economics

Beijing

May 17, 2000

42

Professor of Chinese language (retired)

Beijing

May 24, 2000

43

Lawyer

Beijing

June 7, 2000

44

Newspaper chief editor

Beijing

June 9, 2000

45

Professor of philosophy

Beijing

June 14, 2000

46

Professor of mathematics (retired)

Beijing

June 14, 2000

47

Journalist

Beijing

June 20, 2000

48

TV anchor

Beijing

June 22, 2000

49

Professor of music theory

Beijing

June 26, 2000

50

Scholar of public administration

Beijing

June 28, 2000

51

Magazine editor

Beijing

June 29, 2000

52

Scholar of modern Chinese history

Beijing

July 3, 2000

53

News agency CEO

Beijing

July 10, 2000

54

Editor

Beijing

July 10, 2000

55

Economist

Beijing

July 12, 2000

56

Scientist

Beijing

August 5, 2000

57

Individual businessman

Beijing

May 26, 2000

58

Private business owner

Beijing

June 7, 2000

59

Individual Businessman

Beijing

June 7, 2000

60

State-owned company manager

Beijing

June 10, 2000

Appendix A

212

61

Individual businessman

Beijing

June 2 1,2000

62

Private company manager

Beijing

June 22, 2000

63

U.S. company division manager

Beijing

July 8, 2000

64

State-owned company department manager

Beijing

July 28, 2000

65

HK company division manager

Chongqing

August 10, 2000

66

HK company business representative

Chongqing

August 11, 2000

67

HK company deputy CEO

Sanxia

August 13, 2000

68

HK company division manager

Wuhan

August 14, 2000

69

Private company business representative

Wuhan

August 15, 2000

70

HK business owner

Hong Kong

August 24, 2000

71

HK business owner

Hong Kong

August 24, 2000

72

HK company manager

Hong Kong

September 9, 2000

73

HK business owner

Hong Kong

September 9, 2000

74

HK company department manager

Hong Kong

September 9, 2000

75

Neighborhood committee member

Beijing

May 30, 2000

76

Neighborhood committee chair

Beijing

July 18, 2000

77

Neighborhood committee chair

Beijing

July 18, 2000

78

Village party secretary

Beijing

July 15, 2000

79

Village deputy party secretary

Beijing

July 15, 2000

80

Peasant

Chongqing

81

Taxi driver

Beijing

May 29, 2000

82

Taxi driver

Beijing

June 29, 2000

83

Taxi driver

Beijing

July 10, 2000

84

Taxi driver

Beijing

August 3, 2000

85

Taxi driver

Chongqing

August 11, 2000

86

Taxi driver

Chongqing

August 1, 2000

87

Taxi driver

Chongqing

August 11, 2000

88

Local government driver

Wuhan

August 15, 2000

89

Retired worker

Chongqing

August 10, 2000

90

Soldier

Beijing

June 24, 2000

August 10, 2000

91

Soldier

Beijing

June 24, 2000

92

Soldier

Beijing

July 3, 2000

93

Office worker

Wuhan

August 16, 2000

94

Office worker

Wuhan

August 16, 2000

Appendix A

213

95

Office worker

Wuhan

August 16, 2000

96

Tourist guide

Sanxia

August 13, 2000

97

Tourist

Sanxia

August 12, 2000

98

Tourist

Sanxia

August 12, 2000

99

Tourist

Sanxia

August 13, 2000

APPENDIX B Interview Questions DEMOCRACY (1) Do you talk about democracy in China with others? Do you feel free or constrained to talk about it? (2) President Jiang Zemin stated at the Fifteenth Party Congress that China would become democratic by 2050. What is your expectation of democracy by 2050 (e.g., general elections, free speech and press, etc.)? (3) If, as Deng Xiaoping defined, democracy means general elections, at what level do you think general elections could be held by 2050, given the current conditions in China? County? Provincial? National: (1) congressional, (2) presidential? (4) Premier Zhu Rongji recently said that the sooner the better to extend the democratic electoral system from the village level to higher levels, how soon do you think this is going to happen? (5) What is your reaction when you hear Chinese leaders address democratization in China to foreign press? Do you think Chinese leaders mean what they say? (6) Do you think democratic development in China depends on (1) the Party, (2) the opposition (dissidents), (3) the intellectuals, (4) the people, (5) other (be specific)? Why? (7) What are the main obstacles to democratization in China? Do you think China is ready for some sort of democracy (e.g., elite democracy, electoral democracy, inner-party democracy, etc.)? (8) The government has made anti-corruption a top agenda, is it likely that it will speed up political reform (e.g., to extend direct elections to higher levels, to allow more freedom of press, etc.) for pragmatic reasons such as combating corruption? (9) Taiwan is a democracy now. Do you think reunification with Taiwan will facilitate democratization on the mainland? (10) Would it be possible that China will someday have free competition for congressional seats and even leadership between major political parties from the mainland and the special administrative regions, especially Taiwan?

Appendix B

216

(11) Are you optimistic or pessimistic about democratization in China? THE PARTY (12) Do you agree with the statement that taking measures to crack down corruption runs the risk that the Party will collapse, it otherwise runs the risk that the country will collapse? Why? (13) Do you agree with the statement that if the Party collapses, so does China? Why? (14) Corruption has grown badly and has undermined the Party’s popularity, is the Party getting weak, or does it remain strong? (15) On the scale of 1 to 10, how do you estimate the Party’s popularity? 0—1—2—3—4—5—6—7—8—9—10 (16) How do you estimate the popularity of the post-Deng leadership? (17) Do the central party and government organs remain in conformity with the party leadership? What about those at lower levels? (18) Compared with lower levels of government, is official corruption in the central party and state organs more serious, less serious, or about the same? (19) Is the military disciplined and stable? (20) What is the popularity of the current leadership in the military? (21) Accession to the WTO will open China’s telecommunications market and thus expose people to information, ideas, and debate from around the world, what is the official opinion about this? VlLLAGE AND NEIGHBORHOOD ELECTIONS (22) How do you evaluate village elections and their significance for China’s democratic development? (23) Do peasants care about their democratic rights? Are they growing democratic awareness through practicing village elections? (24) Official number shows that 40 percent of the villages have not implemented the election law, what are the problems? (25) What role does the party branch play in the election process? Have village

Appendix B

217

elections strengthened or weakened the party leadership in the countryside? (26) What is the percentage of party members on village committees? (27) What is the percentage of entrepreneurs on village committees? (28) When do you expect the system of democratic elections to be extended to the township level? Are there experiments? (29) What are the main purposes of the new neighborhood committee policy? (30) What are the criteria for neighborhood committee cadres? How are the candidates selected? (31) Are residents serious about the elections? Do they care about their democratic rights? (32) In general, is people’s democratic awareness growing? ClVIL SOCIETY (33) Is political atmosphere looser or tighter than before Tiananmen? (34) Are there many non-governmental organizations in China? Are there any nonofficial political institutions in China? (35) Is there a civil society emerging in China? (36) Are intellectuals satisfied with the results of the reforms? (37) What is the popularity of the Party and the current leadership among the intellectuals? (38) How active is the academia to address political reforms? (39) Are there topics that are too sensitive to discuss about? What are they? (40) Do you feel more or less constrained to write and publish on political reforms than before Tiananmen? (41) Is the press more or less controlled by the Party than before Tiananmen? (42) Are you encouraged or discouraged to report on official corruption? (43) Do you have problems (e.g., blocked by authority) to enter the Internet?

Appendix B

218

(44) Do you talk about the June 4 incident with others? Do you pay attention to the exiled dissidents? (45) It is said that the June 4 crisis interrupted the political reform and caused the delay of democratic development in China for many years, do you agree? (46) What do you think about those who attempt to organize an opposition party in China? (47) What do university students care about today? Are they interested in politics? (48) Is China likely to have another June 4 movement? Why? STABILITY AND FUTURE (49) What do ordinary people care about? Are they interested in politics? Are they satisfied with the results of the reforms? (50) How much has life changed in rural China in the reform years? Are peasants satisfied with the results of the reforms? (51) How serious is urban unemployment? Has it threatened social stability in your city? (52) Do you agree with the statement that Chinese people would challenge the Party against official corruption and economic inequality, but they would not do so for democracy? Why? (53) What do business people care about? Are they interested in politics? (54) Why do the entrepreneurs seek and maintain connections with officials? (55) Do you think China should (1) focus on economic development and forgo political reform until the economy is further developed, (2) proceed with both economic and political reforms? Why? (56) Is the notion of neo-authoritarianism still playing a role in designing China’s development strategy? (57) According to economist Fan Gang, China’s economy is likely to continue growing at 7 to 8 percent per annum for 20 to 30 years, do you agree? (58) It is said that the weaknesses of China’s political institutions are identical with those in Indonesia, without political reform within the next decade, China might

Appendix B

219

experience a Suharto-style collapse. Do you agree with this prediction? (59) Do you optimistic or pessimistic about China’s future? Why?

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Index Administrative Procedure Law, 166 Albright, Madeleine, 182 Anhui Province, 36, 86 Anti-rightist Campaign, 27, 30, 73 aperture, 2 Atlanta, 183 Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 165–6 Bachman, David, 59–61 basic-level government and community development, 10, 21, 23 danwei (work unit) system, 110,132– grassroots democracy in factories, 168 Longwangtang Village in Beijing, 108–9 neighborhood committee system, 110–1,132 neighborhood elections in Beijing, 111–3 party strength in rural China, 105–7–109,131, 149–51 party strength in urban China, 109–11,131–2 people’s commune system, 104–5,131 township elections, 201 village elections, 14, 105–6,131, 149–51,166200. See also Maoist China Baum, Richard, 2 BBC, 81 Beijing, 11–2, 86, 183 as Chinese government, 1, 18, 28, 34–6, 83–4, 143 businesses in, 142, 144–5 laid-off workers in, 36, 120 poverty in, 37, 119 residents in, 31, 99–101,114, 116, 119 Beijing 2000 Olympic bid, 84, 87–8 Beijing Labor Bureau, 36 Beijing Review, 141 Beijing Social and Economic Research Institute (SERI), 66 Economic Weekly, 66 Beijing Statistics Bureau, 36 Beijing University, 67, 72 Benjamin, Daniel, 71 Bernstein, Richard, 81 Breslin, Shaun, 25, 63 bureaucracy and bureaucratic elites:

Index

233

as new middle class, 41 attitudes toward democracy and human rights, 42, 46–8, 188, 203 attitudes toward political reform, 198–9 concern with China’s unity and stability, 44–7 elitist mentality, 41, 125 faith and confidence in the Party, 24, 31, 35–7, 183, 204 relationship with party leadership, 17, 48 satisfaction with reforms, 31 self-interests in the system, 42–4 view about China’s WTO membership, 193 view about elections and electoral system, 112, 199–203 view about future democratic development, 192–8,205 view about official corruption, 31–5, 197–8 view about party strength, 38–41 view about post-Deng leadership, 38, 183, 194–7 view about Taiwan, 45, 46, 183, 188, 204 view about Tiananmen events and democratic elites, 44–6, 76, 81–3, 103. See also opinions of interviewees bureaucratic fatigue, 17, 49 bureaucratization, 17 Burns, John P., 40 Burton, John, 116 Bush, George, 84 Byron, John, 87 Cao Siyuan, 122, 133nl Carney, Christopher P., 169, 187, 206 Carter Center, 150, 173, 183 Central European alliance, 177 Chang, Gordon G., 1 Chang Zongjie, 113 Changsha, 129, 131 Chen, Jie, 98–100,116 Chen, Yizi, 57n3, 56, 79, 118 Chen Ziming, 55, 66 Chiang Kai-shek, 64, 201 Chicago Tribune, 88 China and the American Dream (Madsen), 90 China Central Television (CCTV), 22, 122, 188 China Daily, 136, 142, 166 China Democracy Party (CDP), 80 China News Digest (CND), 81 China Wakes (Kristof and WuDunn), 29 China Youth Daily, 86, 136, 165 China’s reforms: economic success, 30–1, 118–9 political liberation, 15, 31, 163–71,189. See also leadership-initiated democratic changes

Index

234

Chinese Academy of Sciences, 89, 91, 122, 128 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 122 Institute of Political Studies of, 54 Chinese Communist Party (CCP): and bureaucracy, 17, 21–, 24–5 and democratic elections, 14 and general public, 104–7 and intelligentsia, 125–8 and military, 25, 38–9, and private sector, 138–44 and stability in China, 39–41, 118–21 Central Committee of, 38–9, 44, 51n, 66, 164 Central Military Commission (CMC) of, 25, 29 Central Party School, 127, 196 Congresses Fourteenth Congress, 146 Fifteenth Congress, 1, 24, 29, 182 Sixteenth Congress, 196 Third Plenum of the Eleventh Party Congress, 105 goals of the twenty-first century 1, 2, 24, 205 human rights policy, 185, 188 membership of, 188 one-party rule by 2, 44, 185–7,204–5 Politburo of the Party Central Committee, 24–5, 59, 164, 195, 198 relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 25–7 role in China’s democratic transition, 204–5 strength and self-confidence of, 37–41, 105–8, 110–3 United Front Department of the Party Central Committee, 144 Working Committee of the Party Central Committee, 188. See also post-Deng leadership Chinese dissident movement abroad: foreign and Taiwanese funding for, 79, 81 internal splits, 80–1, 93 irrelevance of, 14, 79–80, 91–3 isolation from the Chinese people, 6, 81–3, 92–3 organizations: Center for Modern China, 79 Chinese Alliance for Democracy, 80 Federation for a Democratic China (FDC), 54, 80 Front for Democracy in China, 56 Zhongguo Zimindang (Chinese Liberal Democratic Party), 88 three generations: 1957 “Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom” generation, 80 1979 Democracy Wall generation, 80 1989 Tiananmen generation, 80. See also political opposition Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), 31, 142, 144, 152, 182, 188 Chinese University of Science and Technology, 53

Index

235

Chinese volcano, 1–2 Chongqing, 11, 32, 99, 118, 120–1,137 civil society, 3, 5, 63, 65–7, 104, 115, 179 Clinton, William J, 34, 84, 92, 123, 171 Cold War, 26, 49, 84 Communism, 1 Communist construction, 6 Communist states in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 62–4 Confucian China, 5, 135, 139 Confucian political culture, 95, 97, 131 Confucianism and Confucian tradition: and Chinese bureaucracy, 21–4 and education, 21 and entrepreneurs, 135–6,138–9 and intelligentsia, 56–8, 66, 68 and top-down democratic transition, 161 as hypothesis and independent variable, 5, 12, 21, 56, 96, 135 Great Tao, 135 mandate of Heaven, 5, 23, 48, 162 principles and ideas of, 56–7, 97,135 Son of Heaven, 23 Corruption and anti-corruption, 17, 24, 128–30,197–8 creeping democratization, 2 Cultural Revolution, 28, 34 45, 49, 55, 59, 64–, 65, 70, 73, 137–9,144 bureaucracy in, 17 the launch of, 27 Czechoslovakia, 65, 67–8, 117, 177 Dahrendorf, Ralf, 177 Dalai Lama, 88, 94n11 Dalian Institute of Technology, 147 definitions of democracy: by Deng Xiaoping, 10 Chinese socialist democracy, 10 electoral democracy, 10 liberal democracy, 10 Democracy Wall movement of 1979, 64, 80 democratic elites: 1980s generation of, 53, 65 as party insiders, 54–5 elitist mentality of, 71, 73–5–77–8 enthusiasm for Western democracy, 59–61 view of democracy, 72, 73, 75–6 “Wholesale Westernization”, 59–60. See also political opposition democratic transition: project of the party leadership, 1–2, 3–4 bottom-up (opposition-induced) transition, 3–4, 7

Index

236

and civil society, 5 unlikelihood of, 3–4, 7, 14, 23, 50, 53, 93, 95, 132,154, 155–63,189–90 conditions for, 53 Chinese approach of, 205–8 Chinese perspectives of, 3–4, 11, 15, 192–204,205–8 in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, 161–2,175–9, 206 in Haiti, 172 in Latin America and Southern Europe, 95 in South Korea and Taiwan, 162,172–,204, 206 political transition zone, 179 top-down (regime-initiated) transition, 3–4, 7 factors for, 3 likelihood of, 2–4, 7, 15, 50, 93, 115, 132, 155–63,190 theories of, 2–3, 53, 72, 75, 77, 78, 95, 134, 155, 169, 171, 179, 197, 205–8 Deng Xiaoping: and Chinese people, 30, 61, 64 and democracy, 28, 59–61 and Leninist state system, 28, 63–4 and nco-authoritarianism, 6, 30 and NPC, 203 and party organization, 28 and political dissidents, 55, 66 and reforms, 18, 28, 31–, 47, 181–,195 and special administrative regions (SARs), 182 and Tiananmen, 96 cat theory, 180 in the Cultural Revolution, 27 on bourgeois liberation, 64 on democracy and democratic elections, 10, 59, 173, 179–80,187–8,200 on political system and reform, 59, 180 on socialism, 144, 147, 181 on stability, 184, 187–8 on the rule of law, 180 personal stature of, 37 policy of “one China, two systems”, 181, 188 policies of reform and opening to the world, 17, 73 slogan “to get rich is glorious”, 134, 140 tour to southern China, 140, 145 Deschouwer, Kris, 176 developmental consensus, 11, 21, 23 developmental state, 10 Diamond, Larry, 10 Ding Xueliang, 79, 81, 186 disfunction crisis of Chinese government, 1, 37 East Asian newly industrialized democracies (NIDs), 46, 171–2 Eastern Europe: and China, 1, 25–7

Index

237

and the West, 177 bureaucratic fatigue in, 17 civil society in, 63, 65–9, 134, 175–7 samizdat, 65, 67–8 Solidarity, 66 Communist collapse in, 29, 46, 49, 54, 117,140 entrepreneurial classes in, 69, 140 in the Soviet bloc, 25–7, 62 Leninist political system in, 24, 62–3 political dissidents and opposition in, 54 social problems in, 186 See also democratic transition in Eastern Europe economic development imperative: as hypothesis and independent variable, 5, 6, 11–2, 29, 74, 81, 115, 145 level of development, 147, 184 poverty and poverty line, 173, 184, 185, 203 Elliot, John, 54 entrepreneurial classes: alliance with officials, 134, 139, 148,151 and Confucian political culture, 14, 135–6,152 as beneficiaries of the reforms, 147–8 as social actor, 4, 12, 15, 134–5,152–4,160 attitudes toward the Tiananmen events and democracy, 96, 134–6 children of, 137–8 concern with political security, 138–41 dependence on officialdom, 138–43,143, economic priority of, 145–8,148, education level of, 137,137, growth of, 68, 134, 136, 140 hobbies of, 136–7 origin in Chinese sociopolitical context, 145–7,147, political apathy of, 68, 134–6,152 prejudices against, 139–40 role in China’s political process, 148–52,152,–4,194. See also opinions of interviewees European Children’s Trust, 194 European Community, 69 European Union, 69 Fan Gang, 129, 131,193 Fan Zhongyan, 56 Fang Lizhi, 54, 55–6, 57–8, 60, 72, 73, 75–6, 79, 81, 89, 91–,94n2, 96 fangniuwa, 75 Far Eastern Economic Review, 79 Federation of American Scientists, 79 fenpei (job assignment) system, 72 Feinerman, James V., 166 Fortune Global forum, 182

Index

238

fragmented authoritarianism, 18 frozen democracies Fujian Province, 96 Galileo database, 91, 94n12 Gang of Four, 144, 147, 201 Gao Fang, 199 Gao Qixin, 55, 122 General Office (GO) system, 18, 19–21, 41 Party Central Committee GO, 19–20, 22–3 State Council GO, 19–20, 22–3 general public (the people): anti-American sentiment of, 86 as societal actor, 4, 12, 15, 95,131–3,158–60 attitudes toward Tiananmen and overseas dissident movement, 81–2, 95–6 desire for stability and better life, 100–1,120–1 developmental consensus, 81–2, 121, 132 education level of, 74, 98–9,107, 131 mentality of deference and political apathy, 74, 97–8,100–1,102–3,131 optimism about China’s future, 116–7 personal needs of, 120 satisfaction with the reforms, 116–7,118–20,132 sense of national pride, 31, 116 support for the party leadership and the political system, 31, 114–5,116, 132. See also opinions of interviewees Glassman, Ronald M., 24, 41 “Global Trends 41,” 1 Godwin, Paul H.B., 25 Gold, Thomas B., 65 Goldman, Merle, 3, 55, 92, 94n2, 122, 126, 133nl Goldstein, Carl, 79, 80–1 Goodman, David S.G., 137–8,147 Gorbachev, 74, 89, 184 Gore, Al, 170 Great Leap Forward, 30 great mass democracy (daminzhu), 45, 49 Guangdong Province, 96, 106, 179, 196 Gunn, Edward, 77 Guo Luoji, 81 Guthrie, Doug, 168 Hague, Rod, 25, 63 Haiti, 172, 177 Han Dongfang, 77–8 Han, Xiaoxing, 42, 77, 95, 107 Harding, Harry, 170 Harrop, Martin, 25, 63 Harvard University, 196

Index

239

He, Baogang, 206 Hebei Province, 105–6 Henan Province, 106 Hertsgaard, Mark, 90 Hillard, Jan William, 116 Hoh, Erling, 80 Hong Kong, 11, 70, 81 and Deng Xiaoping, 181 and Shanghai, 32, 180 business people in, 136, 142–3,148 income in, 34, 44 return to China, 31, 188 Hu Angang, 198, 204 Hu Jinguang, 165 Hu Shaohua, 2 Hu Wei, 199 Hu Yaobang, 54, 68, 81 Hubei Province, 96 hukou (residence) system, 43, 72 human needs approach, 116, 118 human rights, 72, 75, 79–80, 84–7, 89–93 Hunan Province, 35, 82, 184, 192 Hungarian incident, 26–7 Hungary 2, 63, 65, 69, 117, 134, 162,177 Hunger Strike Manifesto, 55 Huntington, Samuel P, 10, 97, 171, 179, 197 India, 197–75,177 Indonesia, 2 intellectual oligarchy, 12, 76 intelligentsia (intellectuals): as societal actor 4, 12, 15, 95,131–3,158–60 attitudes toward the party leadership, 125–8,132, 150–24,183, 194–7,204 concern with economic development and political stability, 127 elite mentality of, 70, 123–4 patriotic sentiment of, 80, 82, 87–8, 131 publications criticizing the United States: Behind the Scene of Demonizing China, 86–8 China Can Say No, 86–8 Speaking Up for China, 86 U.S. Hegemony and China’s Security, 86 U.S. World Hegemony and China’s Destiny, 86 Who is Threatening China’s Security, 86 resentment against the U.S., 83, 85–9 satisfaction with reforms, 127–8 social responsibility of, 130, 132 view about China’s future, 128–31,132 view about corruption, 129–30,197–8

Index

240

view about democracy, 15, 82, 121–4,132, 192–8 view about democratic elections and electoral system, 150–1,151,–68,199–203 view about political reform, 198–9 view about Taiwan’s democracy, 204–5 view about Tiananmen and overseas dissident movement, 76, 81–3, 91, 103, 121 See also opinions of interviewees intellectuals in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 125 International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, 182 iron rice bowls (tiefanwan), 182, 120 Ivan, Gabriel, 177 Jiang Minde, 142 Jiang Qing, 139 Jiang Zemin: and democracy, 181–2 and military, 25 at Fifteenth Party Congress, 1, 24, 182 education of, 195 goals of the PRC for the twenty-first century, 1 in the Soviet Union, 195 on human rights, 185 on intellectuals, 173 on the Party, 1, 24, 50 on social problems, 188 on socialist democracy, 10 positions of, 25 state visit to the United States, 56, 84 three representatives, 144, 196. See also the Chinese Communist Party Jiangsu Legal Newspaper, 137 Jiangsu Province, 86 Jiangxi Guoxi Industrial Conglomerate Group, 140 Jiangxi Province, 35 Jilin Province, 115 Jinli Group, 152 Journal of Democracy, 38, 50–1n2, n3, 169, 190nl Karl, Terry Lynn, 175 Kelliher, Daniel, 71–2, 73–4 Khrushchev, 26, 28 Khu, Josephine M.T., 67, 69 Kissinger, Henry, 181 Kleinberg, Robert, 42 Korean War, 26, 89 Kraus, Richard C, 74, 76, 89 Kristof, Nicholas D., 1, 30, 62, 187–8 Kuomintang (KMT), 40, 47, 79, 184 Kwok, Daniel W.Y., 97

Index

241

Lampton, David M., 18 LaPalombara, Joseph, 41 Lawrence, Susan V., 167 leadership-initiated democratic changes: empowerment of the NPC, 164–5 establishment of a legal system, 165 grassroots self-government, 166–8 Dapeng Township elections, 168 Hequ two-vote electoral system, 166 See also China’s reforms Lee, Hong Yung, 195 Lee Kuan Yew, 86, 206 Leninist state system: development of, 25–7, 63 in post-Mao China, 28–9, 63–4 in Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 25 Leninist institutional legacy, 29, 49 as hypothesis and independent variable, 5–6, 9, 12, 24, 64, 104, 138 less developed country (LDC), 6, 12, 32, 70, 74, 92, 184, and democracy, 172–5,188–9 Letter to the Students, 76 Li Jiacheng, 143 Li Peng, 55, 66, 165–6,198 Li Ruihuan, 188 Li Shuxiang, 53 Li, Wei, 18, 19–21, 22, 41 Li Xiguang, 85, 87 liberal view of Tiananmen movement, 71 Lieberthal, Kenneth, 18, 27, 63–5, 85 Lin Biao, 102 Liu Binyan, 54, 56, 58–, 62, 81, 94n2, 187 Liu Ji, 198 Liu Shaoqi, 28 Liu Xiaobo, 73 loyal opposition, 12, 21 Macao, 31, 144, 182, 188 MacArthur, Douglas, 26, 90 MacFarquhar, Roderick, 3, 122, 126 Madsen, Richard, 72, 90, 96, 184 Mandela, Nelson, 80 Mao Yushi, 126, 127, 169, 193, 195 Mao Zedong, 18, 38, 117 and bureaucracy, 17 and the Cultural Revolution, 27, 101–2 and intellectuals, 125 and Leninist state system, 25–7, 59, 63–4

Index

242

and the Soviet Union, 25–7 and the United States, 26, 84 dictum “politics in command”, 30 on class struggle, 102 on the Party, 24, 44 quotations from, 51n4, n6. See also Maoist China Maoist China: class struggle, 10, 27, 30, 102 danwei system, 110,120, 132 economic system in, 139 institutional consequence of, 54, 65–9 mass political upheavals in, 101–2,131 neighborhood committee system, 110 people’s commune system, 104–5,131 people’s democratic dictatorship, 26 philosophical consequence of, 54, 70 private sector in, 139–40 totalitarian system of, 12, 53, 63–4. See also Mao Zedong Mass Meeting Celebrating the Cultural Revolution, 101 May Seventeenth Manifesto, 66 Metzger, Thomas A., 38, 191n2 Mickelson, George S., 142 Min Qi, 102–3 Ministry of Civil Affairs (MOCA), 51n5, 105–6,112, 173, 179, 193, 197, 201, 202 Department of Basic-Level of Government and Community Development of, 22 Rural Work Division of, 106, 149–50,179 Ministry of Health, 186 Mo jihong, 122 model Peking operas, 139 modernization theory, 139, 171, 205 Mohammed, Mahathir, 86 Moscow, 64, 74 most-Favored-nation (MFN) status, 84, 87–8 Nanjing, 99, 118,137 Nathan, Andrew J., 2, 50, 81, 96, 98 National People’s Congress (NPC) and people’s congresses: Guangdong PC, 165 local PCs, 99, 145, 165, 202–3 NPC, 31, 35, 123, 137, 141, 144, 152, 164–5,165,, 180, 198, 203 NPC Standing Committee, 164–6 Shenyang PC, 165 NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, 88–9 Naughton, Barry, 148 Nelson, Harvey, 187 neo-authoritarianism, 6, 30

Index

243

neo-authoritarians, 125 New China, 26, 30, 61 New York, 32, 73, 80 New York Times, 81, 134, 185, 188, 193 Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, 193 non-Beijing residents, 12, 99, 142 Oberschall, Anthony, 67 O’Donnell, Guillermo A., 95 Oksenberg, Michel, 18, 182, 189, 206 opinions of interviewees: on anti-corruption, 32–5, 37, 197 on China’s accession to the WTO, 193 on China’s future, 31, 37, 40–1 on democracy, 46–8, 82, 122–4,183, 192, 203, 205 on democratic electoral system, 113,136, 199–203 on entrepreneurial-official relations, 142–3 on general public, 100–1,102, 103, 120, 150 on human rights, 188 on life improvement, 119 on the Party and party leadership, 38, 39–41, 125–6,150, 183, 188, 194–7 on political system, 26, 100 on reforms, 128 on stability, 37, 45, 188 on Taiwan, 45, 188, 204 on Tiananmen and overseas dissident movement, 46, 77, 81–3, 88–9, 91, 104, 122 on the United States and the West, 38–9, 88–9 Organic Law of Villages Committees, 105, 150, 166, 179, 201 Paris, 74 party-state, 2, 7, 12, 17, 115, 121, 125, 155–6 Pastor, Robert, 86, 173 Peaceful evolution, 1, Pei, Minxin, 2, 129, 146, 149 Peng Min, 96 People’s Daily, 54 People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 29, 38–9, 42 PLA National Defense University, 39, 122, 179, 188 People’s Republic of China (PRC), 1, 5, 37, 116, 192 People’s University in Beijing, 165 perestroika, 74 Petrusek, Miloslav, 68 Poland, 63, 65, 117, 177 political dissidents and opposition: as social actor, 4, 12, 53, 92–3,157–8 inability to form opposition party, 13–4, 53 internal conflicts, 13 isolation from Chinese people, 14, 53

Index

244

moderation of, 12, 53, 54–7, 62, 92 people’s view about, 12 problems in inducing democracy in China, 53 publications of, China is Hardly a Republic (Yan), 55 On Freedom of Speech of the Opposition (Wang),72. See also Chinese dissident movement abroad Political Order in Changing Societies (Huntington), 197 Political Structure Reform Research Group of the Party Central Committee, 54 post-Deng leadership: attitudes toward democracy and the rule of law, 15, 188–90 concern with economic development and political stability, 188–90 education of, 195 goals for the twenty-first century, 181, 192. See also the Chinese Communist Party Princeton China Initiative (PCI), 54 principles of “peaceful reunification” and “one China, two systems”, 31, 45 program of hygiene city, 33 Przeworski, Adam, 53, 77 Pudong Development Zone, 32 Qian Junrui, 68 Qin Benli, 68 Qin Gang, 127 Qing dynasty, 137, 194 Qinghua (Tsinghua) University, 195 Radio Free Asia, 81 Raidi, 186 Red Guards, 102, 137, 139 Riggs, Fred W, 17, 22, 50 Romania, 178 Ruan Ming, 81 Russia, 39, 83, 130–79,186 Russian-style shock treatment, 129–30 Salisbury, Harrison E., 22 Sanxia, 99, 119 Sasser, James, 86 Scalapino, Robert A., 38, 172 Scheb, John, 98–100 Schmitter, Philippe C, 95 school leaver (zhishi qingnian), 139 Selden, Mark, 56 Shambaugh, David, 28, 114 Shandong Province, 33, 86, 119 Shanghai, 32, 86, 120, 168, 180 Shanghai Jiaotong University, 195

Index

245

Shanxi Province, 139, 167 Shattuck, John, 91 Shennongxi (Shennong River), 119 Shenyang, 165 Shenzhen, 165–9 Shevchenko, Alexei, 2 Shi Liwen, 179 Shi Shanlin, 142 Shi, Tianjian, 97–8,100 Sly, Liz, 87 social problems and government policies: education, 87, 186 health care, 186 laid-off workers, 35–6, 118, 120, 188 peasants and rural migrants, 35–6, 188 population, 203 poverty, 35, 173, 188 tax-for-fees project, 36 Sorensen, Georg, 174–5 South Dakota, 142 South Korea, 47, 162,172–,206 Soviet Union (USSR), 70, 84, and bureaucratic fatigue, 17 China’s relations with, 25–7 collapse of, 29, 44, 46, 50, 130, 184 political dissidents and opposition in, 54 political system of, 24, 63 Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party (CPSU), 25–6 Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China (Goldman), 132 Special Administrative Regions, 182, 205 Stalin and Stalin-style of rule, 25, 63–4 Stalin Automobile Works, 195 State Administration for Industry and Commerce, 66, 144 State Constitution, 24, 164 State Council, 118, 166 State Indemnity Law, 166 state-led civil society, 115 state-led mass organizations: Communist Youth League, 66, 139, 165 Federation of Trade Unions, 66 National Association of Individual Entrepreneurs, 66, 144 National Industrial and Commercial Federation, 144 Women’s Federation, 66 state-society configuration of state domination over society, 3–4 and top-down transition: 3–4, 161–3 as hypothesis and dependent and independent variables, 5–7, 50, 93, 133, 154, 155 continuation of, 48–50, 113, 115 factors for, 4

Index

246

strength of the state, 4, 155–6 weakness of the society, 5, 157–61 Stone Social Development Research Institute (SSDRI), 93n3 Suharto and Suharto-type collapse, 1, 129 Sun Guanhong, 200 Supreme People’s Court and people’s courts, 164, 166 Supreme People’s Procuratorate, 34, 164 Ta Kung Pao, 140 Taishigong (Great-grandfather of history), 88 Taiwan and Taipei, 70, 79, 81, 88, 184 and Deng Xiaoping, 181 and mainland China, 45, 188,204–5 and the U.S., 26 democracy and democratic transition in, 1, 3, 46, 161–2,171–2,200, 204, 206 Tanner, Murray Scot, 125, 164–5,203 Terzani, Tiziano, 91 Thorelli, Hans B., 147 Three Gorges Project, 123,164 three societal actors, 4, 12 Tianjin, 107 Tiananmen events of 107, 1, 65, 66–7, 69, 96 and delay of political reform, 29, 46, 121, 187 Tiananmen Square, 63, 66–7, 81, 90, 96, 102, 121 Tiananmen student leaders: Cai Ling, 84 Shen Tong, 67, 94n11 Wang Dan, 72, 78, 89 Wuerkaixi, 84 Tiananmen student organizations, 66–7, 69 Tibet, 87, 88, 186 Time, 90 Tong Yi, 90 Tujia minority, 119 Tyson, Ann Scott, 68, 78, 96, 122, 140–1,152, 154nl Tyson, James L., 68, 78, 96, 122, 140–1,152, 154nl U.C. Berkeley, 79 Unirule Institute of Economics (Beijing Tianze Jingji Yanjiusuo), 126, 129–30,133n2, 169 United Nations (U.N.), 172, 185 United States, 1, 26, 172, 202–3 Chinese dissidents in, 54, 78–80, 81–3, 84–9 Chinese public image of, 79, 86–9 Jiang Zemin state visit to, 56, 84 University of Politics and Law in Beijing, 55 U.S. and Western media, 79, 84–8, 89–91,92 U.S. Congress and congressmen: and Chinese dissidents, 79, 81, 84–9, 92

Index

247

Ashcroft, John, 85 Helms, Jesse, 89 Smith, Christopher H, 85 U.S. Embassy in Beijing, 54, 79, 89 U.S. intelligence community, 1, 186 U.S. National Endowment for Democracy (NED), 79, 81 Voice of America, 74, 81, 88 Waldron, Arthur, 51n3 Wan, Ming, 121 Wang Ce, 165 Wang Changjiang, 199 Wang Juntao, 55–6, 66 Wang Ruowang, 81 Wang Zhaoguo, 20 Wank, David, 96, 134, 135–6,151, 154 Washington (U.S. government), 79, 84 Washington Post, 203 Wei Jianxing, 198 Wei Jingsheng, 80, 84, 90 Wenzhou, 135 West and Westerners: 73–4 and China, 38, 41, 69–70, 187–8 and the East, 69–70, 177 view of China and the Party, 1 Western democracy, 15, 47–8, 59–61, 69–70, 205–8 Western politicians, 10, 89–90 White House, 84 World Affairs, 56 World Bank, 173 World Economic Herald, 68 World Trade Organization (WTO), 84, 87–8, 91, 129, 166, 193 WuDunn, Sheryl, 185 Wuhan, 11, 32, 118 Xiamen, 35, 96, 135 Xiao Gongqin, 198 Xinhua News Agency, 165, 180 Xinjiang Autonomous Region, 106 Xiong Lei, 88, 90 Yan Jiaqi, 54, 55–6, 58, 59–60, 61, 72, 94n2 Yan Mingfu, 40, 51n5 Yang, Dali L., 59–61 Yang Shangkun, 22–3 Yangtze River, 11–2, 32, 99, 119 Yanitsky, Oleg, 70

Index

248

Yugoslavia, 63 Yujiang County, 141 Zeman, Milos, 176 Zhan Chengfu, 106, 150,152, 179 Zhang Baifa, 58 Zhang, Baohui, 105nl Zhang Guoxi, 141,154nl Zhang Guoxi Asteroid, 141 Zhang, Ming, 86 Zhang Xiabo, 88 Zhang Xiaojing, 193 Zhanjiang, 35 Zhao, Suisheng, 170 Zhao Ziyang, 6, 30, 54, 68 Zheng, Shiping, 2, 37 Zheng, Yongnian, 117, 127, 184 Zheng Zhuohui, 152 Zhong, Yang, 98–100,116 Zhongnanhai, 23 Zhou Enlai, 68, 102 Zhu Manliang, 123 Zhu Rongji: and anti-corruption, 32, 198 and education, 186 and human rights and democracy, 181–2,184–5,188 and program of developing western region, 186 and Qinghua University, 195 and social security, 36 and State Council General Office, 20 education of, 195 on Taiwan, 188 Zotti, Giovanni Delli, 176 Zou Shubin, 202, 207 Zuo Zongshen, 137 Zuo Zongtang, 137

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