The Communist Party and Chinese Politics in the Reform Period

1
The Communist Party and Chinese Politicsin the
Reform Period

• Lauri Paltemaa
• University of Turku
• Department of Contemporary History
• 1 / 2005

2
The 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

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Figure 1. The Party-State Structure of the
Chinese Government
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The 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.

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• 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
  )

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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)
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Picture 2. Chairman Mao is still watching from
the Tiananmen Gate (Foto Vaclav Laifr)
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• 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

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• 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

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• 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

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Figure 5. The Organization of The Party Centre
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Party 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

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• 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    

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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
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- 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
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• 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

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• - 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)

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TThe 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
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• 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)

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• -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.

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• 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

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Present 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

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• 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

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Attempts 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)

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• 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

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• 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.