Title: The Communist Party and Chinese Politics in the Reform Period
1The Communist Party and Chinese Politicsin the
Reform Period
- Lauri Paltemaa
- University of Turku
- Department of Contemporary History
- 1 / 2005
2The Communist Party and Chinese Politics
- Anatomy of Power the "Party-State"
- The central political institutions in the
Peoples Republic of China (PRC) are the
following - The Chinese Communist Party (???, Gongchangdang,
CCP) - The Central Government
- The Peoples Liberation Army (???, Jiefangjun,
PLA) - Provinces and local governments
- Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and
Macao) - The Party pervades all other institutions
(except the HKSAR and Macao SAR)
3- China is governed by a "party-state
- All levels of government and also the villages
and state-run companies have a dual structure of
administrative organs and respective party cells,
party is the de facto leader on all levels - China has officially a multi-party system where
the Communist Party has a leading role - There are 8 other officially sanctioned smaller
parties, but the principle of mutual existence
and supervision is not carried out in reality -gt
China is an authoritarian one-party state
4Figure 1. The Party-State Structure of the
Chinese Government
5The Party Organization
- The Communist Party is the key organization in
Chinese politics, understanding how it works
paramount for understanding Chinese politics - The Party is more encompassing and has larger
membership that any other organization in China,
the state included - The Party has some 62 million members (c. 5 of
the population, c. 8 of adult population) - There are some 3.5 million local party
organizations at workplaces, housing committees,
etc.
6- Party membership is practically the only channel
to leading positions in China - China has some 500 000 persons strong leading
elite (i.e. in leading position in their
respective levels in the centre, provinces and
local level organizations) of which 95 are
party members - Chinese public administration is about 40 million
strong, 15 million of these cadres (??, ganbu,
state or party functionary) are party members (38
)
7 Picture 1. The Xinhuamen Gate to the party
leadership residence in Zhongnanhai in Beijing,
the text says wei renmin fuwu, Serve the
people (Foto Vaclav Laifr)
8Picture 2. Chairman Mao is still watching from
the Tiananmen Gate (Foto Vaclav Laifr)
9- Officially the leading party organization is the
Party Conference that is convened every 5 years
for a week or so with some 2000 members
representing local and functional party
organizations (no popular or free elections) - Has great symbolic significance as it makes
already decided policy and personnel decisions
official party policy - Elects the Party Central Committee, which is the
leading body in the PRC
10- The Central Committee has some 200 standing and
150 alternate members - Convenes yearly to make most important decisions
- Elects the Political Bureau (Politburo), which
has some 20 members
11- Politburo elects the Politburo Standing
Committee, that at the moment has 9 members - The politburo standing committee is the leading
organization in China - Headed by the party chairman (Hu Jintao)
- Other members all hold leading position in the
party-state the - president (Hu Jintao), prime minister (Wen
Jiabao), chairman of the parliament, chairman
of the party conference, leading ministers and
provincial heads also in the politburo
12Figure 5. The Organization of The Party Centre
13Party Policy Making
- The Party Centre practices nominally collective
leadership - The Party is a Leninist organization, that is, it
practices so called democratic centralism as the
rule the rank and file has to follow the
leadership decisions after intra-party debate on
policies, in practice the debate part is usually
missing - The formal organization of the party does not
tell much how decisions are made and policies
formulated in China - The Party is internally disunited on policy
issues, contains by and large same opinions that
can be found in the rest of population, but does
not possess democratic mechanisms of making
decisions based on the opinions
14- Usual explanation of the working of the inner
party decision making is to see the Party
leadership functioning after factional model
(with variations) - Factions are informal groupings of leading cadres
that centre around a leadership figure, based on
ties of mutual benefits, same place of origin,
patronage relationships, etc. - There are also genuine policy disagreements
between the factions, but usually cadre politics
(i.e. competition over leadership positions) is
also involved in factional infightings
15 Some other important points - Other important
party organizations are for example the Central
Committee Military Commission and the Central
Committee Secretariat - The party supervises
itself through Central Discipline Inspection
Committee - The PLA is the army of the party,
not the army of the state, led by the Central
Military Commission Picture 3. The Party
Secretary, President and the Head of the Central
Committee Military Commission Hu Jintao
16- Sometimes conflicts have been solved not
through compromise, but purges (especially under
Mao Zedong) - Factionalism destabilizes party
leadership, occasionally the Party has been on
the verge of collapse due to it (the Cultural
Revolution 1966-1976, 1989) - There are
indications that leadership in moving towards
more systematized and formalized procedures in
its internal decision making the party core more
stable, much of stability is still based on ad
hoc solutions and compromises
17- For example the reign of Jiang Zemin (1989-2002)
- - Jiang rose to power as a compromise candidate
between reformist and conservative factions after
the Tiananmen Square massacre in the summer of
1989 - - Turned out to be a comparatively skillful in
cadre politics and a strong leader capable of
creating a factional following of his own - - Other factions led by the prime minister Zhu
Rongji (reformist on economy) and Li Peng
(conservative) - Led to fluctuation of reform policies with
bold dashes and freeze-ups - - Reform policies of the 90s were result of the
competition of the factions
18- - The 16th Party Conference in 2002 brought a new
leadership to power - - The so called 4th generation of leadership led
by the Hu Jintao is seen to struggle with Jiang
Zemins factions, which is regarded more
conservative on social issues and maybe on
political reform (Hu appears to have upper hand
at the moment)
19TThe Party and the Challenges of the Reform
Period The Question of Political Reforms TThe
Reform Period began when Deng Xiaoping came to
power in 1978 after defeating the Maoist faction
within the party - Symbolically important was
the 3rd plenum of the 11th Central Committee in
December 1978 - Starting point of reform (kaige)
and opening up (kaifang) period - The policy of
four modernizations industry, science,
agriculture and defense must catch up with the
developed world - At the same time the party was
to uphold the four cardinal principles of
Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong thought, peoples
dictatorship, party leadership and socialism
Step by step the reforms have dismantled all but
the party leadership
20- The big issue has been how to sustain and
legitimate party leadership under changing
conditions of rapidly developing economy and
opening up to foreign influences - Economic reforms have remained the key issue in
Chinese politics throughout the reform period - Question of political reform has also remained
salient and political fluctuation between thaws
and freezes has been constant (1978, 1982, 1986,
1989, 1998, 2004)
21- -Despite its apparent success, the reform period
has also witnessed growing number of problems of - Rising crime rates
- Rising unemployment rates
- Growing corruption
- Growing income gap
- Growing regional disparities
- Worsening overpopulation
- Massive domestic immigration from the countryside
to cities (liumang, floating population) - Worsening environmental problems
- Steadily growing social instability
- Etc.
-
22- Problems are interrelated and have highlighted
the fact that economic reforms have outpaced
political reform - Other forces that work for political reform are
the needs of market economy, international
pressure and rising rights consciousness of the
citizens - Can the party that has been created to change
the society change itself? - Faces the dilemma of how to stay in power while
reforming itself
23Present competing policy lines
- Neo-authoritarianism
- Party leadership without Marxist ideology
- Primacy to economic development
- Gradual transformation of the society to more
liberal political system - Also called Neo-Realism
- Widely supported
- Many existing reform policies, like establishing
rule by law and village elections accord to this
line
24- Neo-Conservatism
- Maoism redefined the Party retains its Marxist
doctrine, but allows for economic liberties - Political reforms secondary, the ability of the
centre to control the society important - Has a following in the Party old guard (may die
when they die) - Argue that losing political control will lead
China into chaos
25- Liberal pluralism
- Transforming China to a competitive multi-party
system - Support in the democratic movement (minyun) and
academic circles, little following in the party,
most leading dissidents in labor camps or exiled
26- Debate over political reforms continues, but the
party tries to keep it confined to intellectual
circles and within the party - As long as the party makes the reforms, it will
define then so that itself stays in power
27Attempts to Reinvigorate and Redefine the Party
- Party has been challenged by weakening
organization and ideology - During the reform period the party has retreated
from interference in all aspects of citizens
every day life creating more liberties on the
grass roots level, but at the same time the
reform period has witnessed weakening of the
partys grass roots organizations - Many party cells are defunct in the countryside
and enterprises (1/3 in 1997, 2/3 new enterprises
do not have party cells)
28- Also challenge to the party from outside has
increased (religious movements, dissidence) and
crisis of faith has emerged, i.e. the party
finds it increasingly hard to legitimate its
monopoly of power - Legitimacy rests more and more on the ability to
deliver economic development and nationalistic
symbols
29- The Party has systematically prevented any
organized groups that could challenge its leading
position from emerging - There is no alternative to the party leadership
because the party takes care that no alternatives
emerge - The party has mainly undertaken administrative
and organizational reforms, not political reforms
to strengthen its rule (except the village
elections)
30- Reforms have been incremental and aimed at
creating more disciplined party and state
administration after the Cultural Revolution - Emphasis has shifted from political correctness
to educational merits in membership recruitment - In 1982 about 50 of the party members were
illiterate or had only the primary school level
education, at the moment the party recruits
predominantly college and high school graduates
31- Jiang Zemin and the Three representatives the
16th Party Conference adopted the definition that
the party represents workers, peasants and
advanced elements in the society - Means that the party is moving from the
justification acting as the Marxist vanguard to a
party of the social elite that accommodates the
new rising middle class - The risk of losing ideology is the risk of
losing legitimacy to rule, which is already low
some observers see the party only as an elite
network that aims at securing its economic
interests by staying in power.