China's ‘Singapore Model’ and Authoritarian Learning

Stephan Ortmann, Mark R. Thompson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781032400358
• eBook ISBN: 9780429758348
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Arms Control
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book explores to what extent China has drawn lessons from Singapore, both in terms of its ruling ideology and through the policy-specific learning process. In so doing, it provides insights into the opportunities but also the challenges of this long-term learning process, focusing attention to how non-democratic regimes deal with modernization.

The stellar line-up of international contributors, from China, Singapore, Europe, and the US, offer a variety of perspectives on Singapore as a model of "authoritarian modernism" for China. The book discusses how the small Southeast Asian city-state became a major reference point for China, how mainland observers often misunderstood the nature of Singapore's governance and instrumentalized it to bolster the CCP's legitimacy, and why the Singapore model appears to be in decline under Xi Jinping. The chapters also analyze policy-specific learning processes, including bilateral mechanisms of policy exchange, the Chinese "mayor's class" in Singapore, and joint industrial projects and lessons in social welfare provision.

The book will be of interest to academics working on Chinese politics; development in China; state society and economy in the Asia-Pacific; international relations in the Asia-Pacific; and Southeast Asian politics.

Part 1

Ideological lessons

1 The origins of the “Singapore fever” in China

1978–92

Yang Kai and Stephan Ortmann

Introduction

Following the reform and opening-up in 1978, the Chinese leadership launched a large-scale and comprehensive outwards learning program to seek useful lessons from other countries (Vogel 2011; Zheng 2014; Lee 2015). While Deng Xiao-ping, the reformist leader, who transformed China from a totalitarian to a post-totalitarian developmental state, had already shown interest in Singapore at the time, it was in fact only in 1992 that he singled out the city-state as the primary country from which to learn (Zheng and Lye 2015). As such, the city-state played only a minor role during the initial stages of the reform process. During this period, Chinese officials and scholars showed interest in an array of foreign “models” that were perceived as relevant to China’s transformation. That Singapore became the predominant model after 1992 was the result of a highly contested process in which different schools of thought vied over which kinds of lessons should be learned. For instance, left-leaning intellectuals preferred Sweden’s social democratic model while liberals were attracted by the economic and political liberalism of the United States (Li 2015). While these models competed for the attention with the Chinese leadership, Singapore eventually triumphed over its peers. How did this happen? What made Singapore, a tiny city-state, the model China became so fascinated by? Drawing on a historical perspective, this chapter aims to decipher this transitional era and shed light on the emergence of the Singapore fever in China and also the Chinese reform process.

This chapter takes a historical perspective, which has so far been less explored, although it is critical to probing China’s motivations of learning from Singapore. Even those who take a historical approach, such as Cao Yunhua in this volume, generally assume there was a constantly growing interest in the city-state. Cao thus identifies three consecutive phases of increasing Chinese interest in Singapore starting in 1978, the early 1990s, and finally peaking in 2007. This, however, suggests that Singapore enjoyed immediate popularity following Deng’s visit in 1978, which neglects the complexity and volatility of the ideological conflicts in the initial reform phase. A more accurate historical scenario, as this chapter argues, needs to critically assess China’s exploration of Singapore prior to 1992, which was neither consistent nor unwavering both in quantity and quality. The statistical evidence indicates a discernible rise and fall pattern instead of a continuously growing and deepening process. This pattern to a large extent reflects and was influenced by conflicts between different interest groups that arose in post-Mao China.

The following study relies on primary and secondary archival sources, such as published memoirs of major political figures, both in Chinese and English, which are triangulated with other sources of information, including personal interviews. The aim here is not primarily to draw causal inferences but to establish the facts about the interest shown by Chinese observers in the Singapore model.

Political models amid China’s ideological struggle

The main ideological struggle in the reform period has been shaped by the need to find a new ideological justification for the Chinese regime, which was considered necessary for achieving social control and maintaining the legitimacy of the Communist Party. After the Cultural Revolution, China’s period of reform and opening-up created an intense but short-lived fascination with the US’s market economy and its democracy among intellectuals, which, however, was discredited in the aftermath of the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in 1989. Similarly, interest in Sweden, a social democracy, rose until the early 1990s but was subsequently eclipsed by an unparalleled obsession with Singapore (Yang and Ortmann 2018). This suggests that the search for possible role models for Chinese reformers was a consequence of heated ideological conflicts.

From an ideological perspective, a foreign role model was supposed to be able to provide a useful reference for the development of the official ideology to overcome the apparent contradictions between the traditional leftist and rightist conceptions of socialism. Although the conflict between the leftists and rightists is still a major feature of ideological debate, there is growing agreement that a middle road between the two must be found, which has been called “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”. The debate has thus focused on which kind of alternative should be implemented.

Even though some liberal Chinese reformers envisioned a democracy, hardly anyone demanded the overthrow of the Communist Party. Even the democracy movement in 1989 initially started as a reform movement that mainly wanted political reforms within the one-party state (Thompson 2001; Zhao 2009). The search for possible models thus was always influenced by the condition how, at least in a first stage, it could help reform the one-party rule (Shambaugh 2008). This is reflected in the search for models, which shows a general preference to single dominant party regimes rather than multi-party systems. The reformist approach thus led many to choose countries that have been ruled by dominant parties over long periods, rather than multi-party states such as Germany or France. There was a belief that the successful experience of these ruling parties can provide important lessons for the Communist Party in maintaining power while introducing major economic and political reforms (Li 2015).

While Singapore offered itself as an ideal role model in 1978, the impact of Singapore lessons at that time should not be exaggerated given the constraints of domestic political conditions. Following the 11th Plenum of the CCP Central Committee in December 1978, the CCP leadership had reached the consensus necessary to set in motion the reform and opening-up project. This process initially focused on economic areas, while the political structure remained largely untouched. This doctrine of the reform, as summarized by then-premier Zhao Ziyang in 1987, was “one central task and two basic points”. According to this blueprint, economic development is the central task of the government, while sticking to the two basic points, which were the four cardinal principles (the socialist road, the people’s democratic dictatorship, the leading role of the Party, and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong thought) and the policy of reform and opening-up (see China.org.cn 2009).

In terms of economic reform, regarding the scope, the pace and the extent, there were two competing groups: one side led by Deng Xiaoping who proposed to liberalize the economy as fast as possible and another side dominated by conservative party elders, Chen Yun and Li Xiannian, who cautioned against any undue liberalization process and the consequences that may ensue (Vogel 2011). These economic debates, however, inevitably expanded to ideological and intellectual fields, which, in return, provided the theoretical foundation for legitimizing economic practices. The debates were between two uncompromising groups led by respective national leaders. The group deemed “rightists” was led by the general secretary of CCP, Hu Yaobang, who was backed by a number of prominent liberal intellectuals advocating bold reforms and political democratization. The competing side was headed by Hu Qiaomu and Deng Liqun, who firmly stuck to Maoist doctrine and lamented the “pollution of bourgeois thought”. Both sides displayed no signs of willingness to make concessions and firmly held to their beliefs.

At this stage, Deng had just reentered the decision-making circle, and his influence was still checked by the other party leaders, especially the party elder Chen Yun. Determined to avoid the personalization of power of the Maoist period, veteran party leaders like Chen Yun tried to limit Deng’s power to ensure that there would be collective leadership (Tsang 2014, pp. 78–79). A deeper theoretical understanding of this era was that the political and economic system were constructed around dichotomous systemic categories (Heilmann and Perry 2011, p. 2), seen as a monolithic entity, either liberalism or communism in both political and economic fields. This allowed little political opportunity to search for a “third road”. Against this backdrop, Singapore’s system, a combination of authoritarian politics with a liberal economy, was not welcomed or even criticized by both sides as it was considered “impure” by both liberals and communists.

In the first decade of China’s economic reform process, the new leadership searched for relevant lessons to achieve rapid modernization. The main purpose was to make up for the “lost decades” under Mao’s rule (Zhao 2009) and to catch up with developed countries as fast as possible. Initially the experience of Western countries was seen as most relevant to realizing this reform agenda. The destinations of the four highest-ranking delegations on the eve of the reform were Hong Kong, Eastern Europe, Japan, and Western Europe (Vogel 2011, p. 219). Conspicuously absent from this list was Singapore. In 1978, Chinese top leaders, of or above vice premier and vice chairman level, visited more than 51 foreign countries, not only socialist ones but also Western capitalist countries, all of which demonstrated the backwardness of China and strengthened the government’s resolve in the reform process (China.org.cn 2009). One of them was the visit of then-vice premier, Gu Mu to five European countries (France, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, and Belgium) in May and June 1978, which was considered the most important one because it provided the greatest impulse for China’s reform agenda. His visit provided new hope for cooperation with “capitalist” countries in Western Europe. His report received approval from the top leadership, and, immediately after, the state council hosted a meeting discussing the theory of the four modernizations as well as the practice and new opportunities for attracting foreign technology and investments (Gu Mu 2009, pp. 306–307, see also Gu 1998; Zhao 2009). Ezra Vogel (2011, pp. 221–225) even drew parallels between this and two other events, the 11th CCP National Congress in November and the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee in December, which he considered the three turning points that reoriented China’s reform direction.

Another underlying fact, albeit always ignored, was that Deng’s visit to Singapore in October 1978 was originally aimed at forging an alliance to counter the Soviet-Vietnamese threat in the region and was not meant to provide development lessons of any kind. This experience, as Lee Kuan Yew himself believed (Lee 2000, p. 720), might still have strengthened the resolve of Deng Xiaoping personally and thus may have had some impact on the third plenary session one month later but not on the whole Chinese leadership. Therefore, the role of Singapore and Deng Xiaoping’s positive remarks should not be overestimated in evaluating Singapore’s influence on the reform pace.

Lee Kwan Yew (2015) himself noted that Deng was primarily fascinated by all useful lessons, especially from Western developed states and the four “Asian Dragons” of which Singapore was only one. After the reform project was set into motion in 1978, the two most-cited countries of interest were Hungary and Japan. The former was a pioneer of the reform experiment in a communist country, while the latter was the first Asian country to have successfully achieved modernization (Zheng 2014). Besides, Chinese intellectuals in this period also proposed a variety of other models for China to emulate, in particular the American model (Li 2015). One of them was Sweden, which is shown in the relatively large number of publications during this period (Yang and Ortmann 2018). The 1980s proved to be an extremely exciting period of reforms, and various American scholars were sought out by reformers to provide advice and insights (Lieberthal 2010, p. 271; Lampton 2014, pp. 34–35).

Debates over political reform

The debate over the Chinese political reform process was marked by different ideological perspectives prior to 1989. While it was initially still a sensitive topic, many Chinese intellectuals began searching for a Third Way of Socialism that could counter the increasing social problems that were arising as a consequence of the economic modernization including the growing unemployment due to the end of the “iron rice bowl” –(铁饭碗 tie fanwan)which had provided job security – or the growing inequality. This had raised concern among many members of the Communist Party about the party’s legitimacy due to its claim to socialism.

One way to deal with these issues emerged from the new left who sought to develop an approach that could combine social policies with the market orientation to achieve a more equitable development. The Chinese supporters were particularly interested in an approach to social welfare, which did not hinder economic development. As a consequence, they were attracted to social-democratic Sweden. The scholars observed that from 1870 to 1970 the country had evolved from a poor agricultural nation to an economically advanced state, while its economic growth was the fastest among all industrial countries. At the same time, the country has maintained the most comprehensive social welfare system in the capitalist world (Pan 1988), which is v...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of contributors
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Introduction: China’s Singapore model and authoritarian learning
• Part 1 Ideological lessons
• Part 2 Policy diffusion: improving governance
• Index