China's Political Reforms: A Net Assessment

Abstract

China's leaders since the death of Mao Zedong have tried to reform the political system so as to reduce the level of political coercion, increase the use of rational/legal processes, put talented individuals into responsible positions, enhance their capacity to base decisions on pragmatic criteria, and restore and strengthen the legitimacy of the polity. Their efforts to further these goals have produced important results, but the reforms still have not taken root. The reforms have been hedged in by fundamental untouchables, resisted by uncooperative cadres, and undercut by the inherent incompatibility of different components of the reform package itself. The prognosis for the various elements of the reform effort depends both on keeping the initiative in the hands of the reformers at the top of the Communist party and on achieving good results in the economic arena.

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References

1. Good overviews of the economic reform effort and its results are available in, for example, the symposium published in the China Business Review, pp. 8-27 (Nov.-Dec. 1983).

2. Richard Krauss analyzes this system of political labels in his Class and Class Conflict in Chinese Socialism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981).

3. On Chinese factions, see, for example, Lucian Pye , The Dynamics of Chinese Politics (Cambridge, MA: Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain, 1981).

4. See, for example, Samuel Huntington , Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 59-71.

5. This is confirmed, for example, by the Commentator article in People's Daily, 14 Feb. 1984, trans. in Daily Report: People's Republic of China, 15 Feb. 1984, pp. K1-3.

6. Barrett McCormick , of the University of Washington, provides a good analysis of this problem in his “Leninist Implementation: The Election Campaign,” in Policy Implementation in Post-Mao China, ed. David M. Lampton (n.p., forthcoming).

7. At the height of the Cultural Revolution, the State Statistical Bureau had only 14 people left in its central office. On the rehabilitated statistical system, see the series of articles in Daily Report: People's Republic of China, 17 Feb. 1984, pp. K17-K21.

8. See, for example, the speech given by General Secretary Hu Yaobang on a tour of Sichuan and Guizhou Provinces, where he said, “What do the people want the Communist Party to do? First, to gain liberation. Second, to get rich.” Sichuan Radio, 8 Feb. 1984, trans. in Daily Report: People's Republic of China, 9 Feb. 1984, p. K11.

9. There have also been related publications of the selected works of Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, and Chen Yun.

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10. These leaders are also influenced by China's long tradition of statecraft, which is likewise profoundly nondemocratic.

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11. This is the major lesson to be drawn from David M. Lampton's careful study of the careers of six major Chinese officials: Paths to Power: Elite Mobility in Contemporary China (Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan China Center, forthcoming).

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12. See Lawrence Sullivan , “The Role of the Control Organs in the Chinese Communist Party, 1978-1982” (Paper delivered at the Conference of the New York State Political Science Association, 1983).

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13. This analysis draws from Kenneth Lieberthal , “Reform Politics,” China Business Review 10(6):10-12 (Nov.-Dec. 1983).

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14. Of these four, the Central Advisory Commission is clearly the least powerful. Nevertheless, it does to some extent further disperse authority at the apex of the Chinese system.

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15. For an excellent discussion of consensus and reform, see Christopher M. Clarke , “Changing the Context for Policy Implementation: Organizational and Personnel Reform in Post-Mao China,” in Policy Implementation in Post-Mao China, ed. Lampton ; and David M. Lampton , “Water: Challenge to a Fragmented Political System,” in ibid.

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16. See Michel Oksenberg and Richard Bush , “China, 1972-1982: From Revolution to Reform,” Problems of Communism (Sept. 1982).

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17. Frederick Teiwes has wrestled with the legitimacy issue in his Leadership, Legitimacy, and Conflict in China (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1984), esp. pts. 2 and 3.