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| ISBN-13: | 9781442277366 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Publication date: | 12/08/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 542 |
| File size: | 24 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
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China's Political System
By Sebastian Heilmann
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc
Copyright © 2017 Rowman & LittlefieldAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4422-7736-6
CHAPTER 1
Analyzing Chinese politics
1.1 Historical foundations
Sebastian Heilmann
China is a fascinating country, both because of its long tradition as an immensely influential East Asian civilization and because of its rapidly growing global importance in the contemporary world. The legacy of China's history has had far-reaching effects on the attempts at political renewal undertaken during the Mao era (1949–76) and on the policy of reform and opening pursued by the Chinese government since 1978–79 (Klein 2007; Kuhn 2001). Nevertheless, the often-cited claim about China having a five-thousand-year history should not distract from a number of facts that lead one to question the notion of an uninterrupted tradition of statehood.
During most of its history, China's national territory encompassed only parts of what is now known as the People's Republic of China (PRC). Large regions, such as Tibet, Xinjiang (known as "East Turkestan" among the Uyghurs), and even the island of Taiwan, were incorporated into the Chinese Empire only temporarily or at a relatively late point in time, and do not belong to what is traditionally regarded as the heartland of Chinese culture. Furthermore, Chinese history has been repeatedly shaped by phases of territorial division, foreign dominance, disintegration, and major cultural, social, and technological upheavals. The widespread view of Chinese culture being unchanging or continuous fails to take into account these historical disruptions and fault lines (Gernet 1996; Osterhammel 1989; Rawski 2015).
1.1.1 Political destabilization in modern history
The encroachment by the Western powers in East Asia and Japan's rapid rise in the late nineteenth century destroyed the traditional self-image of imperial China as a culturally superior civilization at the center of the world order. The Chinese Empire proved to be unable to undergo political renewal and economic modernization in reaction to the foreign challenges and social unrest that it was confronting. The empire had completely collapsed by the time of the Revolution of 1911 and the proclamation of the Republic of China in 1912. For a period following these dramatic events the empire was broken up into a number of disparate regimes governed by warlords. Growing political rivalry between the Guomindang (or the Nationalist Party) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the 1920s led to violent clashes. This enmity was temporarily put aside and replaced by a period of superficial cooperation from 1937 to 1945 when China was challenged by war with Japan. However, the end of the Japanese occupation was followed by a bloody civil war, from which the CCP eventually emerged victorious in 1949. Led by Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), the Republic of China (ROC) (under the Nationalist Party) was forced to flee to the island of Taiwan, where it subsequently set up its own government. Today, Taiwan is still officially known as the Republic of China, even though the ROC actually no longer existed on the mainland after 1949. The problem of China being divided into two separately governed entities remains unresolved to this day.
When the PRC was founded on October 1, 1949, the new Communist leaders confronted seemingly insurmountable hurdles: the population, economy, and administrative sector had all suffered immeasurably due to the many years of armed conflict, first during the war against Japan and then during the civil war. In their daily lives people generally struggled for survival. Yet by the beginning of 1957, the CCP had managed to achieve a number of major accomplishments: a strong, centralized state ensured both national sovereignty and political unity; high economic growth and progress in terms of industrialization generally improved the livelihood of the people.
Ten years later, however, when the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" was at its height, China was again on the verge of civil war as violent political clashes erupted and affected the state, the economy, and indeed the entire society. The country seemed to be on the brink of jeopardizing everything it had achieved in the early 1950s.
It was only after the death of the leader of the revolution, Mao Zedong, in 1976 that there occurred a fundamental change in direction. Beginning in the early 1980s, this period was characterized by exceptional economic dynamism, unusual from both a historical and an international perspective. The high rate of economic growth that China maintained for more than three and a half decades created conditions for a large share of the Chinese population to benefit from better living standards as well as for bringing about an enormous boost in the modernization of the industrial sector, infrastructure, education, technology, and military armaments, among others. At the same time, however, this rapid economic growth also produced some politically undesirable side-effects that have continued to threaten the stability of the system. These destabilizing factors range, among others, from social inequalities and widespread corruption to degradation of the environment (see Table 1.1.A).
1.1.2 Formative developments and traumatic experiences in recent history
Contemporary Chinese politics is saddled by a series of historical burdens that influence the behavior of the country's political representatives. It is impossible to gain a sound understanding of China's current problems unless the historical circumstances in which they arose are also taken into account (Schmidt-Glintzer 1997, 1999; Spence 1990; Vogelsang 2013). In the following section, several developments and traumatic experiences that have shaped the country will be outlined (see Table 1.1.B).
The very high rate of population growth, a development that was to have particularly far-reaching consequences, began in the mid-eighteenth century. This trend was due to changes in the agricultural sector that were accompanied by periods of peace both at home and abroad. The increase in the size of the population confronted the government with numerous challenges that called for political countermeasures. The severity of the government's birth-control policy, which was a direct result of the population growth, has frequently been criticized. It has been in force since the 1980s but was relaxed somewhat in 2013 (Section 5.1.2). In October 2015, the controversial one-child restriction was abolished, even as the National Health and Family Planning Commission maintained that the birth-control regime would remain a "fundamental state policy."
The Chinese repeatedly experienced traumatic events after the existing political order collapsed; in the twentieth century alone, such events led to numerous famines, rampages of violence, and drastic economic setbacks: China's war with Japan, 1937–45; the civil war, 1945–49; the "Great Leap Forward," 1958–60; and the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution," 1966–76. Fears of the collapse of internal stability have had a strong influence on the political leadership over the years.
Another psychological factor that is frequently underestimated is the collective trauma experienced as a result of Western and Japanese military and economic superiority. Beginning at the end of the nineteenth century, this led to large sectors of the population developing a highly sensitive national consciousness that has been subject to political manipulation. The traditional Chinese self-image as the cultural and political center of the world — the "Middle Kingdom" — was truly destroyed. This traumatic experience left an indelible mark on the populace and it shaped attitudes toward both the West and Japan, as seen repeatedly even today in terms of Chinese foreign policy, in particular with respect to its territorial disputes with Japan and its rivalry with the United States.
Closely connected to these historical traumas and experiences has been the political leaders' ongoing search, with repeated setbacks, for a workable modernization strategy. Tragic social experiments of a catastrophic nature, such as the "Great Leap Forward" — a policy that resulted in the most serious famine in the entire twentieth century, with 20–40 million people dying of starvation (Yang Jisheng 2012) — and the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" — with its social rifts verging on civil war — were the outcomes of radical experiments intended to bring about a new economic and political era.
1.1.3 Persistent and transformed political traditions
China's recent political history has not only been shaped by the country's own traditions and by domestic developments. In the twentieth century, in particular, "imported" notions of political order and organizational patterns have also had a considerable effect on Chinese politics. After the socialist revolution, ideologies originating in Europe and the Soviet Union became part and parcel of Chinese state doctrine. In practice, however, they underwent substantial changes and Chinese adaptations. What is the proportion of "inherited" characteristics to "imported" characteristics in the existing political order? For that matter also, what is the share of "Sinicized" elements in Marxism-Leninism?
The dominance of the Communist Party, which is not checked by any independent bodies to monitor its activities, is not only due to the typical characteristics of a Communist Party dictatorship, but also due to traditional Chinese concepts of social and political order. In the course of China's political history, no nationwide institutionalized constituencies or rival autonomous organizations (churches, regional authorities, etc.) were tolerated as legitimate counterweights within the existing order so as to create any form of a separation of powers such that existed in the West. Instead, the Emperor reigned supreme over the entire country, with unlimited authority.
In many ways, this autocratic tradition was retained by the Chinese Communists, but they used it to pursue their own political goals. The rather bewildering political dominance of Mao Zedong (in power from 1949 until his death in 1976) and of Deng Xiaoping (in power from 1978 until 1993, then no longer able to participate in the decision-making process due to health reasons [he died in 1997]) can largely be explained by the charismatic authority traditionally enjoyed by the Chinese Emperor. Both of these modern-day leaders generally steered the country from behind the scenes without having to depend on the support of any official bodies or formalized procedures. Xi Jinping's rapid assumption as the dominant party leader between 2012 and 2016 can also be attributed to this historical pattern of autocratic personal rule.
Nevertheless, disruptions in the development of steady patterns of political order and in the establishment of fundamental institutions are just as important as historical continuities. Such breaks were particularly obvious in connection with the socialist transformation of society during the Maoist period. The comparison provided in Table 1.1.C conveys the relationship between historical and socialist patterns and notions of political order in the PRC. The table reveals that a number of traditional patterns continue to exist in present-day China, whereas others have either been transformed by new patterns or have been completely abandoned.
Both traditional and socialist notions of order and organizational patterns have faced pressures since 1978-79 as a result of the economic and social upheavals precipitated by the government's reform and opening policy. The sweeping transformation of social life and the rapidly increasing influence of international patterns of economic organization and of Western models of a consumer society have created a difficult situation whereby the population is torn between traditional family values, collective socialist values, and individualistic values of a market-driven economy. Since the first decade of the twenty-first century, China's cultural and political histories have been attracting a growing amount of interest and have had a significant impact on cultural policy. Imperial China has now been rediscovered and revamped as an attractive and patriotic area of interest to provide a wealth of material for novels, movies, and video games. China's political leadership has put a great deal of energy into channeling the population's interest in Confucian traditions to legitimate its current dominance and to propagate those values and notions of order that it deems politically desirable. The great pride in national traditions felt by many Chinese citizens today has been fostered by the cultural sector and the media for both commercial and political reasons.
Thus, since 1978–79 China's historical legacy has been combined with its socialist institutions and its market-oriented modernization to create a unique blend of interdependent factors that have shaped the political culture of the PRC, theses that simplify issues, such as Jenner's "tyranny of history" (1992), the "renaissance" of cultural traditions, the dominance of elements of Marxist ideology, or the "Great Leap" in the direction of Western capitalism, are unable to account for the many factors that currently influence both political and social development in China.
1.2 How China is portrayed in Western media
Kristin Shi-Kupfer
The varied, and at times contradictory, dynamics of China's national development present specific challenges for foreign journalists. Personnel resources allocated for media coverage of China vary greatly, depending on the institutional and economic capacities of the respective media institutions and corporations. According to information provided by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in January 2015 320 foreign media institutions were accredited in the PRC, stationing in China some 700 journalists from 50 different countries.
Foreigners who work in China and who also write their own blogs are an important source of information with respect to international media coverage of China and have come to represent strong competition for the accredited foreign correspondents. Some bloggers have acquired specialist knowledge of environmental or financial issues, for example, whereas others focus on selecting Chinese-language Internet articles and translating them for international audiences. Foreign bloggers who travel to some of the more remote provinces of China are often able to write about trends that foreign correspondents based in Beijing or Shanghai cannot cover, or at best can only cover sporadically.
Currently, it takes at least one year for the accreditation process to be completed for a foreign journalist to be stationed in China (this procedure takes place under the jurisdiction of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Since 2010, the ministry has threatened not to renew the accreditations of those journalists who are "overly negative" in their China coverage (such as writings on the personal wealth of top-level Chinese officials and their families). In 2012 and 2013, two foreign journalists were forced to leave the country at short notice because the ministry refused to renew their residence permits. In 2014, the China correspondent for the German weekly Die Zeit hurriedly left Beijing — escorted by members of the German Embassy — after being repeatedly interrogated by state-security officers regarding anti-government protests in Hong Kong and her Chinese assistant was detained. In December 2015, a French journalist was forced to leave China after questioning comparisons between Islamist violence and unrest among the Uyghur community in Xinjiang.
In the aftermath of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, the Chinese government allowed foreign correspondents easier access to sources and information. Journalists no longer had to apply in advance to state authorities for permission to conduct interviews or to undertake field trips outside their place of residence. However, they were still required to apply for special permission to report from the Tibet Autonomous Region. Local police could also issue special regulations temporarily prohibiting media access to regions affected by unrest or natural disasters.
Nevertheless, access to official information and statements issued by authoritative bodies has improved somewhat due to the holding of regular press conferences and active media work by press officials and press departments of public institutions. Still, with the exception of when they hold formal press conferences, top-level Chinese politicians remain practically unreachable to the foreign media. Even when they are available, only limited questions are permitted and they must be vetted in advance.
According to reports by the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China, since the beginning of this decade state authorities and security forces have been exerting increasing pressures on Chinese sources and on Chinese employees of foreign correspondents. Officially, on the one hand, Chinese employees are only allowed to be recruited from licensed "personnel service corporations for diplomatic missions" ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) and are required to report to these corporations on a regular basis about the activities of their foreign employers. Chinese journalists, on the other hand, are not allowed to work for foreign media, nor are they permitted to share any work-related information.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from China's Political System by Sebastian Heilmann. Copyright © 2017 Rowman & Littlefield. Excerpted by permission of Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
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Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTSList of tables
List of figures
List of acronyms and abbreviations
Preface
Chapter 1 Analyzing Chinese politics
Chapter 2 The Chinese Communist Party and state institutions
Chapter 3 Political Leadership
Chapter 4 Governing China’s economy
Chapter 5 Governing China’s society
Chapter 6 Policy making: Processes and outcomes
Chapter 7 Perspectives on China’s political development
Glossary
References and sources
Index
Contributors