A classic issue in the study of Chinese politics is the "governing bargain" made between the Communist Party and the Chinese people. In short, the idea is that the government will offer prolonged economic growth and improvement of living standards in exchange for an effective monopoly on political power. As the Carnegie Endowment for Int'l Peace puts it on their China summary page:
"China continues to defy the oft-repeated belief that economic openness leads to political liberalization, and combines an open, robust economy with one-party rule that appears durable for the near future. Having staked its legitimacy on its ability to deliver continued growth and stability, however, China must balance the paramount importance of economic expansion with its growing role in international affairs..."
As the quote points out, this bargain implicitly risks the perceived legitimacy of the government by putting such heavy focus on economic factors beyond its immediate control. On the other hand, the CCP has a sixty year history of rule, and builds its legitimacy from many sources including resistance to Japan and the West, China's increasing international prestige and effective if not liberal-democratic rule.
As the severity of the current crisis has become clear, many have predicted that the CCP will face greater and greater challenges, perhaps directly to its authority or at least to overall societal stability. One scholar and official, however, has taken the crisis as an opportunity to make his case for political reforms in China and a closer relationship between democracy and governmental legitimacy. Yu Keping is a professor at Peking University and current deputy chief of the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau. He offered the following article last week, published on the official state media outlet, Xinhua. I've translated it in full, but if you can read Chinese please check out the original here.
Download the translation.
Please post any thoughts below. I'll comment further on what I found specifically interesting in my next post.
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3 comments:
You make an interesting point and observation (pun not intended).
When I was at the Tianjin CDC, the officials who were with us would freely talk about many things. One of them, Dr. Liang, mentioned how the CCP is so much more open now than like 30 years ago. She actually feels that China is a pretty "free" country. And many people like how the government "takes care of them" in a sense.
Also, she said that most people in China are apolitical as long as the government doesn't directly interfere with people's daily lives. For many people (including the lower officials in the CDC), it seems that as long as "the government doesn't bother me, I don't really care." As long as things are being taken care of, it's all okay (she loved sayind that, haha). So she thought it strange to hear about protests and such in the US.
I don't know if that view is generally true in China, as I've only her account and I was in China only for about 8 days. Perhaps you can assess her statement with your experiences and views. But it does seem to be somewhat in line with what you've said in this post (if I read it right) - that if there are "real" troubles that the government can't handle (or can't handle well), then the citizens will become more political and demand change.
It's interesting that the Carnegie Endowment mentioned China's defiance of the ideal that economic openness leads to political liberalization. The more I think about it, the more I question the validity and value of that sentiment. Russia underwent their economic opening and supposed liberalization at a breakneck pace in the last two decades of the 20th century. However, the product that we see today is probably not what Gorbachev and Yeltsin envisioned. Though I'm a big fan of open economies, I feel like that has contributed to the economic growth of Russia far less than the growth and exploitation of oil/gas resources. Plus, we can't forget about the wars in Chechnya and Georgia, the mysterious silencing of government critics and the spike in nationalism.
Don't get me wrong, I like political liberalism, too. I just think that the West needs to be careful what they wish for. Instead, why don't we hope, or work actively, for China to use its growing influence to support global growth and stability instead of supporting genuinely questionable regimes like Sudan and Myanmar.
@Alb:
I think your experience is pretty typical, though I must say I agree with what someone else one wrote about Chinese views on these subjects. He argued they tend to have an A and B side: A is the side you described, supportive of government and buying into the bargain. Side B is the one that I've seen much less frequently (only from Chinese people who I know fairly well, or occasionally outspoken cabbies who know they won't see you again.) This is the side that is fed up with corruption, pollution and the lack of legitimate venues for the expression of displeasure and redress of grievances. So, as always, it's hard to make an all-encompassing statement or know just how far people buy into these ideas.
@Dan
Well, you've hit the nail on the head. The CCP definitely looks to Russia (and to some extent the later color revolutions) as exactly the example to avoid. And your last sentence is very evocative of Robert Zoellick's "responsible stakeholder" line: we don't care too much what they do at home as long as they help out in a productive way globally.
Personally, I think over the long haul the tie between economic and political liberalization will still hold. IMO, the links between the government and the economy are just too numerous and important for people to obtain economic freedom while remaining essentially divorced from political decision-making.
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