Do not underestimate the CCP
Minxin Pei makes a very good point about the nature of political reform in the comments to my first posting. He argues that even though the party-state has successfully resisted change so far, pressure on the system for political liberalization is building. When change comes, he suggests, it may be quick and sudden instead of gradual. Capitalism and economic growth may not have resulted in democracy in China yet, he seems to be saying, but it has unleashed forces that may eventually too great for even the Chinese Communist Party to contain.
I don't disagree with this analysis. I would add, however, that China would probably be better off with a more gradual transition, one that is lead by the party itself. I would also add a cautionary note. I think it's important not to underestimate the ability of this remarkably resilient party-state to adapt and survive. It has been on the brink of collapse many times in its nearly 60-year history, and it has always found a way to make it through. It survived the violent upheavals and disasters of Mao's misrule. It survived the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Most recently, perhaps, it managed to abandon its cover-up of the SARS epidemic just in time to contain the disease.
This last episode is the subject of one of the middle chapters of Out of Mao's Shadow, and I think it is instructive, and not just because it shows us how one individual with the courage to speak truth to power -- the semi-retired military surgeon Jiang Yanyong -- can change the course of history. The party's success in defeating SARS also offers a lesson in what at first glance can seem a contradictory phenomenon: Even when those pushing for change score a victory and the party is forced to retreat, the authoritarian system often comes out stronger. This is because a more open, transparent and democratic government is often a more effective government. When the party-state is forced to retreat -- by ending its SARS cover-up for example -- people gain more freedom. But the party-state itself also becomes more efficient -- it gets better at governing and at addressing the public's demands. I saw this pattern again and again, for example in the Sun Zhigang case.
Of course, this could be only a short-term dynamic. At some point, one imagines, the party might retreat so far that it actually surrenders its monopoly on power. If it is careful, though, -- and it is -- it might keep this game going for some time. I'm sitting at JFK International Airport and they are calling my flight to Moscow. I'll respond tomorrow from Moscow to Orville's excellent posting, and especially on how the questions he raise relate to the struggle to define history. In the mean time, I recommend everyone read his excellent recent piece in the New York Review of Books.
Philip Pan will be appearing on Bill Moyers Journal this week to discuss the emerging power of China and his new book, Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggled for the Soul of a New China (check local listings).
We can hope the changes will be slow, measured - and peaceful. A nuclear power navigating chronology fractionally as violent as China's in the first half of the 20th century would be cataclysmic for the entire world. Here's one vote for eating the buffalo one bite at a time.
And isn't it strange China is moving closer to democracy and openness while the West - burdened with counterintuitive nightmares like torture dungeons and speech restrictions - is moving away from them?
August 22, 2008 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I have mentioned before the CCP lucked out by the way that the West handled the break up of the Soviet Union. The West humiliated Russia, after it started politcal reform, through the expansion of NATO. As Orville Schell has written in his article for the New York Review of Books, the Chinese have an inferiority complex and are afraid of being humiliated by Western powers like they were in the nineteenth century. I believe that the way Russia was treated in the nineties only reinforced these fears and stifled political reform in China. It appears to me that the CCP is just running on these fears of Chinese nationalism and really does not have a coherent claim for political legitimacy. If China goes through a downward economic spiral, the CCP could find itself in trouble.
August 22, 2008 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
John, my boy, excellent summation!
August 22, 2008 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I disgaree. The party is incapable of leading in the way you suggest. The only change that has ever occurred has been through traumatic political events. Were it not for those occurrences it would never change.
August 22, 2008 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
But given sufficient time the person(s) who control an authoritarian political party tend to change -- from the Maximum Leader and his surrounding sycophants to a collective of his hitherto shaded out contemporaries to a younger cohort no longer responsible for or wedded to the birth doctrine -- Stalin - Krushchev - Gorbachev, for example.
Perhaps, China is in the Brezhnev Era, and a "changing of the guard" may be all that is necessary.
August 22, 2008 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just finished watching Philip Pan on "Bill Moyer's Journal" on PBS.
Mr.Pan displays that brillance which so few share. Taking complex situations and making them understandable to the masses in a few sentences.
It wasn't exactly how I thought I'd spend my Friday night. But I'm not complaining.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index-flash.html
August 22, 2008 10:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does the CCCP resist change? That is one loaded question, as are the images that accompany any discourse about China? I mean, why show an image of the PLA when there's so much more to China? What would Americans think if every political article about America, including one about American political change, is accompanied by an image of Abu Ghraib?
The one great big glaring answer to the question is of course China itself, has China change since Mao? China is probably the fastest changing country on planet earth if you have visited China even 10 years ago and have compared it to today's China. And if you think that this change is possible while the political structure remains static, authoritarian, top-down, centralized, rigid, undemocratic, then you should seriously consider the lens through which you consider China. Reform, change, restructure, these have been the mantra for the past decades since Deng, the effects of which are most discernible in China's economic structure, more gradually in its social structure, and since it has happened under the name of the One Party, much less apparent in its political structure to foreigners. This doesn't mean that intra-party reform, rivalry, change and adaptation are not occuring, there have been a few key changes in the political leadership but the trend is progressively more liberal with each successional handover, and yes, it is more like a handover, a passing of the torch, often accompanied by the body politicking.
There are no political campaigns by different rival parties promising different approaches in running the government, and for the majority of the Chinese, it's a no brainer because they have always wanted the same thing - a better life, food on their table, a better future for their children, more justice, freedom, economic development, public infrastructure, etc., i.e. the same trajectory since Deng, and the government's mandate is to deliver all that and to manage the exponential growth and change in a way that doesn't bring about inflation, huge income discrepancies, speculation, corruption, etc.
As long as the one-party system delivers, there will not be strong pressures for a multi-party system. It is also extremely difficult for China to evolve alternative parties, not just due to the government's intolerance for dissidents but also to the immensity of the country which requires formidable organizational efforts, almost impossible for those who are not already entrenched.
It is probably easier for the EU to evolve its own monetary system than for an alternative major party to evolve across the vast provinces of China, even if we were to assume the absence of political impediments.
China is still beset by problems and is facing some of the worst economic challenges ahead when the global slow-down really hits its over-supplied factories. It has a long way to go in terms of economic, judiciary, social, environmental and infrastructural development. China will continue to change and evolve to meet all of these domestic challenges, as to its global impact, I have no idea what that might portend for the rest of the world.
August 22, 2008 11:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen,
I would estimate that while they may want to change, the impetus for doing so is often eradicated by events. I offer recent events in Eastern Europe that have made Russia revert to what appears as the former state we once knew.
The issue is clouded because within the Chinese state we have, just as in the U.S., two groups who are in disagreement. The one in power is determined to remain in power and under the system in question the way to do that is to be certain not to give the appearance of weakness. Just examine the Olympics and what was observed and commented upon. Westerners saw a very tightly controlled social and political environment. There was absolutely nothing left to chance that would indicate to the people of China or an outsider even the slightest lessening of control. The Olympics was a big deal for China but the message here was unmistakable.
One question I have is what if China were more open or even a democracy? Is it even possible to administer a nation of 1.3 billion people without very tight central control? We struggle to balance our freedoms with issues of security, our economy, tax equity, health care and all manner of other things. Imagine if we quadrupled our population? Bigger in this case would greatly magnify the complexity of mananging it all. And what if you wanted to provide all the amenities we enjoy. What if, in China, everyone had a car? Is it possible to have a nation as big as China and have per capita productivity high enough to support a democratic state in the way we know it? It would be absolutely necessary to artificially regulate the scheme of income distribution and socialize health care for starters. In the end the notion of freedom or a western democracy would be, out of necessity, compromised. Perhaps you could achieve this with advanced technologies but we are nowhere near that and woun't be for some time to come. Until we greatly improve the efficient use of global resources these things are not possible. Everybody simply can't have a house, a car and a big screen TV. Right now the dollar and environmental cost of that is not within our reach. And unless we get a lot smarter it may never be.
August 23, 2008 5:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
High population rates in China do not require central rule, however, central rule uses that fact to justify central rule. European and US experience shows that industrialized democratic states, albeit more often social democracies, see birthrates decline.
You make important points about the pollution issue and population density in China. However, this has already been a problem with a central power in place. At present it remains an issue whatever gov system emerges.
Central power tends to give in to industry where industry helps it hold on to power in changing times. So improved working conditions and environments aren't the top goal of state.
August 23, 2008 8:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mike,
What I was referring to is the idea of parsing authority across multiple elements in a shared way with a nation as large and as populous as China. This introduces challenges that have never been attempted or fully considered. The functional elements and the scope of such an undertaking would require a vast infrastructure not yet invented. I'm going by the overall effectiveness of how well we manage this with 300 million people. There exists a staggering amount of interleaved information that is frequently not accommodated by legislation. With 1.3 billion people these problems are compounded. China is every bit as diverse, probably more so, than the U.S. For these reasons I think that for China a decentralization of authority is simply not practical. I'm a computer weenie and I think of this in terms of a data set so large and with so many variables that is boggles the mind. In those terms democracy doesn't 'scale' well. I can't imagine what would be the outcome of having the number of autonomous units decentralization would produce in this situation. We know we have a system where there are people working at cross purposes all the time. What would our system look like with 1.3 billion people. I suspect it would simply be too large to manage using a decentralized scheme. The inherent waste generated under such a system would be intolerable.
August 25, 2008 7:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
The problems with Pei's analysis is that he doesn't really tell us what the "pressures" are. I don't even know what it means for there to be pressures in a system that are building up.
Ultimately, only people will create the "pressures," and as such, it will be hard to tell if specific people are putting pressure on the regime because of economic liberalization or because of some other factor.
August 23, 2008 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Pan I had chance to watch you on Bill Moyers' Journal. China is seriously complicated. I will pick your book and try to get a better understanding of the situation. Thanks for your conversation on Friday night.
August 23, 2008 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
i saw you on bill moyers. nice interview. thank goodness you didn't talk about yourself in the 3rd person there :-)
August 23, 2008 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seriously though, your argument rests on the solid foundation that China has a history of violent revolution.
If we look at the SARS case, we can see some of the circumstances under which the CCP can be forced to "retreat," as you put it, thus generating conditions under which freedoms & liberties can expand.
-A whistleblower. That he was a citizen of the nation in which the epidemic & coverup arose, that he was medically educated, and that he was former military made him a particularly credible whistleblower. Documentary evidence along with expertise exposing the CCP's crimes/failings are highly desirable.
-Credible threat. Though the disease had a 98% survival rate, global travel & high transmission meant that the disease posed a real danger to people all over the world.
-International attention. In part because of a credible threat, and in part because of a whistleblower, the story was in the press and wouldn't leave. Disruption of economic activity and travel, panic-driven rumours, continuous coverage by the 'health' details of all the foreign press, and related distractions forced the CCP to acknowledge the epidemic.
The CCP learned very quickly that granting the press freedom in an emergency wasn't the worst thing in the world. In fact, it could actually be helpful in covering the benevolent Party's decisive action in the face of a natural disaster like a plague..
..Or an earthquake. To be honest, they played the Sichuan earthquake very nicely. The press was given free reign early on, and foreign aid and sympathy came pouring in. Now, though, hardly a story about the slew of poorly-constructed schools that collapsed, what with the Olympics to cover..
August 23, 2008 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
As ghostwriter/editor for retired Chinese diplomat Ji Chaozhu on his new memoir from Random House, "The Man on Mao's Right," my impression from what I learned in interviews with current and former government officials convinces me that Philip Pan is correct in his assessment. When you know all the political near-catastrophes in the short history of the PRC, you can't help wonder at the determination of the CCP. Having said that, the greatest threat identified by the international investment community is economic disparity and dislocation. Leading global mutual fund portfolio manager Roland R. Manarin has described the Chinese investment scene as "the next Enron," predicting a serious hangover from the recent period of rapid growth and inflating assets values. At an investment conference this Spring, sponsored by the Asia Society of Southern California, a noted and experienced China investor pointed out that an estimated 300 million Chinese still do not have potable water. Experienced China-watchers tell me that the government will need some lucky breaks to avoid political turmoil born of economic upheaval. It's worth noting that the Chinese in general are quite patriotic and, of course, concerned about appearances. Ambassador Ji, who worked for Zhou Enlai for 20 years, once told me that the religion of China is ancestor worship. I have often wondered if the ability of the CCP to hold China together is a reflection of a cultural reluctance to oppose authority.
Foster Winans
August 24, 2008 4:36 AM | Reply | Permalink