Zhao Ziyang and China's Political Future

Guoguang Wu, Helen Lansdowne, Guoguang Wu, Helen Lansdowne

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134038817
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política

What legacies have previous reformers like Zhao Ziyang left to today's China? Does China have feasible political alternatives to today's repressive 'market Leninism' and corrupt 'state capitalism'? Does Zhao's legacy indicate an alternative to the past and for the future?

For those who are familiar with the development of Chinese politics since the reform years, Zhao is now widely regarded as a major architect of the nation's profound transition. His contributions to China's post-Mao development are rich and multi faceted, includingthose on rural and urban economic reforms extending to accountable governance, liberal policies concerning domestic affairs and China's foreign relations.

Featuring contributions from leading experts in the field such as Richard Baum and Xiaonong Cheng this book explores the historical development of China's political reform issues, and how his political legacies are relevant to China's political development since the 1980s to the future. Using recently translated recollection articles by veteran reformers who worked with Zhao in the 1980s, like Du Runsheng, An Zhiwen, Li Rui, Bao Tong, Zhao Ziyang and China's Political Future is a valuable contributionfor students and researchers interested in the Chinese politics, Asian politics and political development in Asia.

1 Introduction

Guoguang Wu and Helen Lansdowne

From the time of his last appearance in public on the early morning of 19 May 1989 in Tiananmen Square, when he appealed to the students demonstrating for democratic political reform, until his death in January 2005, Zhao Ziyang vanished from Chinese political life. Formerly premier of the Chinese national government from 1980 to 1987, and Communist Party general secretary from 1987 to 1989, Zhao is now widely regarded as a major architect of the nation’s profound transition from the state-planned economy and, with the failed attempts under his leadership and following this, the totalitarian political system. Although since the Tiananmen crackdown of 1989 his name has been virtually banned from publications in mainland China, histories of contemporary China, academic studies of Chinese reforms, and the ongoing political and policy discussions around “whither China” that are recorded, researched and conducted in the spheres beyond the control of the Chinese Communist Party-state still frequently mention this notable figure.¹ In particular, his proposal for political reform to the Thirteenth Party Congress, held in 1987, continues to attract attention even beyond the field of China studies whenever future China’s democratization is under consideration;² while, before his passing away, some had even expected his reappearance on the scene some day to push forward China’s democratic transition.³ Controversies over his political legacies aside (to be discussed later in this introduction and in the text), Zhao Ziyang was, beyond dispute, closely associated with the post-Mao Chinese experience of liberalization reforms in the 1980s, an era which witnessed the difficult but inevitable start of Chinese and worldwide transitions from communism. Since then, he has also become a political symbol of overall change in both the economic and political domains, an option in contrast with single-minded market reform that has been practiced in post-Tiananmen China.

Studies of Zhao (and of Hu Yaobang, the Party chief preceding Zhao, also a major leader of the post-Mao Chinese reform, purged by the Party because of his liberal political attitudes) are virtually absent, however, despite those rich statements scattered in the publications on Deng Xiaoping and Chinese reform.⁴ In particular, two of the political actions that defined Zhao’s position in contemporary Chinese history are under-researched: his program of political reform, which, after twenty years, still stands at a pinnacle among official policies to transform the Chinese political system; and his political decision in 1989 to call for “democracy and rule of law” for settling social turmoil and to reject the military crackdown of students, which cost him civic freedom for nearly sixteen years. Worldwide democratic transitions since the Third Wave, however, have taught that strategic interactions among political elites are often vital for such a transition, and that those regime leaders like Zhao who choose moderate lines can contribute tremendously to peaceful change of authoritarian institutions if there is cooperation between such leaders and social forces.⁵ The political significance of Zhao’s reform experience, therefore, is obvious, as its study may reveal much for such questions as: Under what conditions is the Chinese leadership motivated to carry out political reform? What kinds of political reforms are likely to emerge in the country and fit into the institutional and cultural characters of the nation? What legacies have previous reformers, including Zhao, left to today’s China, and what do those legacies mean for the unfinished transition? Does China have feasible political alternatives to today’s repressive “market Leninism” and corrupt “state capitalism?” Does Zhao’s legacy indicate the possibility of an alternative to the past and for the future? For those who are familiar with the development of Chinese politics since the reform years, these are significant questions to ask when attempting to understand Chinese politics and China’s future.

It is often an insurmountable challenge for studies of such important topics to get access to necessary information on national policy-making and the behind-door operations of the Chinese leadership. This has been remarkably improved in recent years, however, by various developments. The 1989 split of the Chinese regime forced some leading intellectuals and former high-ranking Party-state officials to live in exile thereafter. It also, in the years that followed, motivated some regime insiders to release documents about the tragedy as a way of expressing their discontent over the military crackdown.⁶ Credible materials particularly are disclosed through Hong Kong, a significant Chinese information marketplace with freedom of the press, where retired CCP cadres, active journalists and well-trained historians have managed to get their recollections, reportage and research published as they were not able to do on the Chinese mainland.⁷ As the authors’ identities are in no doubt, and as their real-life or research experience of Chinese politics is highly acclaimed, their statements provide useful historical records, information pieces, or at least clues and hints, for puzzling out the jigsaw of contemporary Chinese politics. In the case of Zhao Ziyang, those recollections published in Hong Kong by the veteran reformers of the 1980s – men like Du Runsheng, An Zhiwen, Li Rui, Bao Tong, to name but a few – disclosed their first-hand contact with Zhao.⁸ To write a history becomes so attractive an idea to Chinese leaders that even conservatives, including some of Zhao’s rivals and critics, have now jumped on the bandwagon, and their memories are equally useful.⁹ To make use of these raw materials for further research on contemporary Chinese politics is a new task for students of the field.

This volume is a collective attempt in regard to both historical research and political studies in the context of reconnecting Zhao Ziyang with Chinese transitions. Empirically, as many of the contributors have demonstrated, it is an effort to utilize the recently available materials, mainly in the Chinese language, and take a historical approach to those previously often rhetorical controversies concerning the politics of Chinese reform and Zhao’s role in it. This does not mean that the controversies are settled. Rather, there are contending re-examinations of Zhao’s political legacy and its relevance to China’s ongoing change, as we shall see in the following chapters. Some contributors argue that Zhao’s legacies cannot be highly evaluated in terms of their reform orientation; while most authors agree that, based on their solid research, China’s future political development will not be able to avoid the political and policy reappraisal of Zhao’s ideas on political reform. They contend that, despite the economic prosperity China has achieved, the disparity between economic liberalization and political repression will cause, sooner or later, political changes; and such changes will, in various ways, and inevitably, benefit from Zhao’s legacies. As a collective scholarly work, this book’s specific contributions lie in its topic, its historical approach to the topic, its in-depth investigation of the historical development of China’s political reform issues, and its balanced analyses of China’s political development since the 1980s to the future.

Contending interpretations of Zhao’s political legacies

Zhao’s legacies to China’s development are rich and multi-dimensional, including those on rural and urban economic reforms, political reforms centered on accountable governance, democracy and rule of law, decision-making and crisis-management mechanisms, high-technology revolution, liberal policies concerning domestic affairs and concerning Hong Kong, Taiwan and China’s foreign relations, and moral principles of humanitarianism. In terms of economic reform, Zhao was a pioneer of rural reform and agricultural development,¹⁰ an initiator and major architect of urban economic reform ranging from enterprise reform to the economic opening of China to the world.¹¹ For the decision-making mechanisms, he was among the first Chinese leaders to introduce think-tank consultation to reforming the authoritarian leadership.¹² Social crisis management in China is still a huge problem, but in 1989 Zhao had already proposed “democracy and rule of law” as basic ways to settle government–masses disputes.¹³ For many fields of domestic policy, he is remembered, as is Hu Yaobang, as a leader who tolerated and, when political reality permitted, promoted freedom of expression, of the press, and of discussion, in sharp contrast with most CCP leaders who believe in the status quo and repression.¹⁴ In foreign affairs he started the application of China for membership to the World Trade Organization, initiated the coast development program that deeply involved China in globalization, and proposed other cosmopolitan policies directing China to learn from worldwide human experiences. In the capacity of head of the Chinese National Government, with his UK counterpart, Margaret Thatcher, he signed the Sino-British agreement on the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty (which is now omitted from the official Chinese history). His action in Tiananmen has been cited since as a symbol of humanitarian courage.

This volume focuses on his political legacies, particularly on his practices, policies and programs in the 1980s on reconstructing the authoritarian Chinese political institutions. These legacies, however, are often the subject of controversial interpretations, and the readings in this collection may be viewed from two principal directions. As some chapters (Baum in Chapter 7, and Burton in Chapter 8, for example) of this volume argue, Zhao still belongs to those leaders with authoritarian ideas, although the assessments of this authoritarianism vary substantially according to different scholars’ opinions on its connections with post-Tiananmen Chinese development. In the transitional context of China, Baum argues, this “new,” or “soft,” authoritarianism can be seen as great progress of political transformation from the Maoist totalitarian system. Its successful implementation might lay down institutional foundations for the future march toward democracy. In any case, the scholars who view Zhao as a new authoritarian leader agree that the policy package he proposed to the Thirteenth CCP National Congress, and the relevant practice under his leadership, implied an alternative direction China might take in order to have less governmental corruption and political repression while still maintaining a powerful momentum of economic growth. It would lead China to a path different from what Deng Xiaoping and his post-Tiananmen Beijing colleagues practiced, and the difference lies in healthier political development. Through such a gradual transition via “soft authoritarianism,” China would incrementally march toward democracy and the rule of law while maintaining social stability.

The interpretation of Zhao’s political idea as “neo-authoritarianism” finds two kinds of evidence in 1980s Chinese politics. It is obvious that the evidence extended from political rumors, high-politics anecdotes, proposals from individual intellectuals who had policy connections, and the opinions of overseas scholars during the time are much weaker than those based on conceptual analyses of Zhao’s speeches, policy measures and, primarily, official proposals on political reform. The chapters in this volume that discuss Zhao’s soft authoritarianism belong to those employing the later methodology, which adds weight to their analyses and arguments.

A contending reading of Zhao’s political legacies depicts this leader as a liberal with democratic ideas, a view which most contributors to this volume share from their different angles of analysis. The examinations cover the evolving policies and practices of Zhao from the early economic reform period to the late 1980s when Zhao’s failed attempt resulted in his political demise. As Zhao’s points of view kept pace with real-life changes during the reforms, and also because of the different emphases of observation, scholars are also divided between liberal democracy and social democracy around which elements were dominating in Zhao’s political perspective. To read Zhao’s tremendous contributions to rural reform and urban economic reform, both Kate Zhou (Chapter 5) and Xiaonong Cheng (Chapter 8) found liberal political implications in economic reform programs. But Zhou emphasizes Zhao’s efforts to liberate farmers from state control, while Cheng pays more attention to Zhao’s policy implications to gain societal consensus for carrying out the marketization. In a similar vein, while both Hongying Wang (Chapter 2) and Guoguang Wu (Chapter 3) put Zhao’s political reform in perspective, they diverge, either focusing on Zhao’s legacies of governance reform (Wang) or interpreting Zhao’s programs as experiments in social democracy (Wu).

In terms of the extended political consequences of Chinese economic reform, it is often easy either to overstate or to underestimate them, depending on in which context and from what perspective such reading is conducted. Those who scorn any attempt at incremental change, particularly the changes from within the communist system, and those who find many problems of today’s China in the single-minded marketization, may blame Zhao’s early effort of marketizing China. The consequent political impacts, in their view, are actually translated into major resources of supporting, rather than undermining, the authoritarian regime that suppresses civic liberties. This CCP-led marketization is also responsible for rampant corruption, increasing social and regional disparities, a deteriorating natural environment, and the like. Merits of this argument aside, its problem lies in its unhistorical approach to the Chinese transition and its politics. As Zhou’s chapter vividly illustrates, the background and politics of reform, going back to the late 1970s and the 1980s, defined the historical function, and nature, of Chinese economic marketization as social and political liberalization, rather than as state repression as it often has been since 1989. Zhao’s attempt at economic reform was not from a technocratic spirit of getting business done but deeply rooted in the liberal ideals of getting rights for ordinary people. Only as history marched into the 1990s, when the marketization went to the stage marked by Deng’s southern China tour, was the economic reform turned to the current trajectory without political, or even social, checks. Economic reform since1989 has become the communist regime’s forlorn stand against the fate of collapsed world communism, through gaining political legitimacy from good economic performance. This is no longer the reform to liberate ordinary people; it is the reform to corrupt, first, Party-state officials, then even ordinary people. Cheng’s chapter raises this question from his sociologist point of view: the 1980s economic reform under Zhao’s management was in contrast with the 1990s economic reform initiated by Deng and implemented by Zhu Rongji, because the latter cared much less about social consensus on balanced development and its benefit distribution. The Deng–Zhu economic reform well implemented Deng’s “new authoritarian” ideal, after Zhao was wrecked. It is not a surprise, therefore, to learn that Zhao, under house arrest in the 1990s, worried about those social problems caused by this kind of marketization without political democratization, as revealed by a recently available record of his conversations with visitors, Zhao Ziyang ruanjin zhong de tanhua (Zhao Ziyang’s Captive Conversations) by Zong Fengming, and, in this volume, discussed by Perry Link through his thoughtful review of the book (Chapter 6). It seems that, while the Deng–Zhu reform is doubtless capitalist, Zhao’s economic reform is more socialist in the sense both of its being historically bound by the Maoist regime and of its idealist imprint of that ideational tradition of seeking justice and liberty in conjunction with balanced development.

On the other hand, the idea that economic liberalization naturally and unconditionally makes and benefits political liberties often triumphs over a more subtle analysis of the complicated relations between politics and the economy, and it usually leads to the aggregation of the political effect on human freedom of the economic marketization. From this perspective, economic reform per se becomes political reform, as such aggregation reaches a certain point, and political change, as well the societal and international pressures ...