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The Art of Governance: Managing Rising Expectations
Introduction
CHEN Gang
Although Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao have more political room to manoeuvre in their second term following the 17th Party Congress in 2007, a spate of unexpected disasters, events and strong vested interests have prevented the Party-state from making substantial progress in their policy initiatives. The global financial tsunami triggered by the US subprime-loan crisis in 2008 has not only undermined the dominance of pro-market and small-government neoliberalism in China, but also consolidated the leadership's paluan (fearing instability) mentality, thus preventing the leaders from making breakthroughs in their journey towards democratisation. The Chinese leadership has sidestepped the shockwaves of the western debt crisis, curbed inflation and deftly tackled social protests in different parts of the country. Despite the quiet confidence, the Chinese leadership is keeping a close tab on the mushrooming of disgruntled social groups and an increasingly vocal and politically more conscious intelligentsia. The internet age has globalised protests from the âArab Springâ to âOccupy Wall Streetâ. Chinese citizens today are no longer apolitical or passive; their deft usage of social networking sites like Weibo (or Twitter-like mini-blogs) to challenge China's political establishment testifies that China has entered a new age. The global financial crisis has proven to be a double-edged sword for the Chinese government. On the one hand, the party-state has successfully minimised exposure to the western economic downturn through the massive launch of Keynesian-type stimulus measures and reinforced state sectors in the national economy; on the other hand, the enhanced state capitalism has sparked a domestic backlash on issues of guojin mintui (the state advances, the private sector retreats) and guofu minqiong (the state is rich, the people are poor).
The paluan (fearing instability) mentality has prevented the government from scaling back economic development plans that will create more resources for it to muddle through. When China was celebrating the 30th anniversary of Deng's economic reform in 2008, Hu assured the Chinese Community Party (CCP) that âit will not go back to the old road and will also not side-track into changing its flagâ.1 In the face of a string of challenges such as runaway inflation, rampant corruption and social unrest, the CCP's major preoccupation in recent years has been to ensure political and social stability in the lead-up to the leadership transition in 2012.
Though political reform has not been showing much progress, the Hu-Wen leadership is still making insistent efforts to improve the quality of governance. It has also demonstrated to the world its strong state capacity by successfully mobilising resources to cope with natural and man-made disasters, and to pull off spectacular events like the Beijing Olympics and the Shanghai Expo. Besides, the CCP has seemingly institutionalised its crucial leadership succession first with the change of leadership from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao and now with the fifth generation of leaders coming on board at the coming 18th Party Congress scheduled in the later part of 2012. In an attempt to expand âintra-Party democracyâ through combining the mechanisms of election and consultation, the CCP Central Organisation Department for the first time held a tentative polling in 2007 to vote for candidates to the Politburo Standing Committee among provincial/ministerial-level-and-above officials. Xi Jinping got the most votes, followed by Li Keqiang, He Guoqiang and Zhou Yongkang. This kind of internal polling, despite being opaque and lacking in supervision, is an important step towards âintra-Party democracyâ proposed by the 17th Party Congress in 2007. The four generations of PRC leaders illustrate a consistent trend towards a more collective leadership, away from âstrong-manâ politics.2 It is foreseeable that for the fifth generation of leaders led by Xi and Li, all the Politburo Standing Committee members will be vested with equal political authority, so more power-sharing with checks and balances, and more pluralistic decisionmaking processes can be expected.3
At the top level, Vice President Xi Jinping's and Vice Premier Li Keqiang's ascension to the respective positions of Party secretary in 2012 and premier in 2013 is a certainty. According to the unwritten rule of âseven-in and eight-outâ (qishang baxia, an arrangement adopted by the Politburo in which the 67-year-olds and below will stay, and the 68-year-olds will exit), all the other seven existing Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) members including Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao will retire after the next reshuffle, while eight incumbent Politburo members under the age of 68, plus potential âdark horsesâ like State Councillor Meng Jianzhu (64), CCP Central Secretariat Secretary Ling Jihua (55) and Wang Huning (56) are eligible to vie for the remaining seven seats.
Over the years, the CCP leadership transition has evolved from a âtwo-frontâ model to a generational-transfer model. The âtwo-frontâ model adopted by Mao and Deng had the two leaders semi-retire to the âsecond frontâ to be strategists while the successors remained at the âfront-lineâ to run the day-to-day state affairs. However, the model failed to produce suitable successors. After the Tiananmen Incident in 1989, Deng decided to change the mode of succession from the âtwo-front arrangementâ to a generational-transfer model whereby political leaders are divided into successive generations. According to Deng, the first mature CCP leadership started with Mao, while the second generation referred to the CCP leadership that initiated reform and opening up policies, i.e. Deng's generation. Deng's purpose of rewriting CCP history in such a way was meant to introduce a new leadership â the post-Tiananmen leadership â which would take over from his generation and move forward. Over a span of more than one decade, the baton was passed on from Jiang Zemin's third generation leadership to Hu Jintao's fourth generation leadership. Now, the baton is to be handed to the fifth generation leadership headed by Xi Jinping. It is unlikely that this new leadership would introduce major political reform measures within its first five years in office probably because the fundamental ideologies of the CCP will restrain the Party from carrying out any political reforms. The top priority of the new leadership will be social reforms rather than economic growth. Externally, instead of an âassertiveâ China, the new leaders are likely to try their utmost to restore the image of China as a peaceful, rising major power which is willing to operate within the confines of the current international order as a stakeholder.
Social reform aside, calls for political reform, a buzzword which had been dormant for decades after 1989, have recently re-emerged among Chinese intellectuals. These calls for political reform share certain commonalities. First, most of the discussions and deliberations occur mainly within the elite circle. They are not being discussed by the public. Second, many of the discussants are retired Party-state cadres and descendants of old revolutionaries who intend to persuade and influence the forthcoming Party Congress as well as the new leadership that will come to office at the Congress. The recent discussions on political reform are basically societal responses to the Hu Jintao leadership's failure to restructure Chinese politics, citing the five âno'sâ from Wu Bangguo, the No. 2 ranking party leader and China's NPC Standing Committee chairman, as a typical official refusal to genuine political reforms. CCP's promotion of the âChina modelâ is perceived by many as a kind of propaganda tactic to appease social demands for political reforms. Though Premier Wen Jiabao, CCP's No. 3 ranking leader, has displayed a sympathetic and even positive response to the growing demands for political reforms, his suggestions have not been openly endorsed by Hu Jintao or any of his colleagues. The 18th Party Congress is unlikely to adopt any kind of systematic plan for political reforms although the CCP is very likely to continue to appease the public with skilful rhetoric and slogans.
The new leadership headed by Xi Jinping is likely to promulgate some new political slogans as catchwords to increase its popularity, but genuine political reforms are not likely to be in the cards. The regime's continuous disregard for pressure to introduce political reforms will further widen the gaps between the Party-state and many of the intellectuals and the ordinary citizens; between governmental policies and social-political reality; and between the hidden crises China faces and the state capacity to cope with them. The disillusion with political reforms after the 18th Party Congress is likely to bring forth another wave of social tensions and political confrontations.
In response to the criticism that political reforms lag behind economic reforms in China, the CCP is trying to rely more on the contested intra-Party balloting system to select its high-rank cadres instead of via the opaque one-candidate-one-position appointment process. Three cities in Jiangsu province have introduced contested elections within local Party committees for their top Party positions in 2011. Jiangsu's practices are perceived as a kind of local experiment sponsored by the top leadership to promulgate the intra-Party balloting system to the municipal level. Since the balloting results in Jiangsu showed that the winners of the balloting are still the Party's favourites and that the provincial Party committee was involved throughout the entire process, competitive elections are only a means to help the Party single out capable and loyal officials. Nevertheless, Jiangsu's reform clearly evinces the Party's will to promote openness and competition, and to implement contested elections (cha'e xuanju) in cadre selection. Advocated by Li Yuanchao, the Jiangsu-born director of the CCP Central Organisation Department, the intra-Party balloting system may be a solution to rampant corrupt practices such as the selling and buying of government posts or the bribing of others to attain higher positions.
China's lower-level political governance, which includes township government line-up, functions, responsibilities, and exercise of power, has been riddled with incompetency and inefficiency to effectively govern vast localities. In recent years, the central government has been promoting township reform to redefine government functions and responsibilities in order to improve government services and governance of local affairs. Thanks to the nationwide township reforms since 2009, township governments are now expected to serve rather than control the people and such reforms can in the long run, reduce township administrative costs while increasing administrative efficiency. Township functions after reform will be more service-oriented rather than management- and production-oriented. Reformed township governments are supposed to shift the foci of their responsibilities from attracting business and investment, setting up commerce and production, and arranging planting and harvesting, to providing public service and guidance for economic crops production, and maintaining social harmony.
The marketisation of CCP grassroots organisations after they lost the monopoly of social resources and rewards has caused a subtle but fundamental change in the relationship between Party organisations and Party members. The increasing importance of professionalism, technical and technocratic competence and entrepreneurship â essential features of modernisation â diminishes the importance of Party membership in one's career success. Village elections have introduced new dynamics into village politics that tend to undermine the legitimacy and authority of the village Party. In the context of market economy, the Party's effort at rebuilding and maintaining an expansive network of grassroots organisations that penetrates every corner of society is costly and in many cases, impossible.
At the grassroots level, the increasing tension and friction in the Chinese society generated by income inequalities, land disputes, corruption, etc., has generated dissatisfaction and resentment among the general public, threatening regime legitimacy. The CCP's âstability maintenanceâ strategy in a narrow sense consists of five governmental departments or branches and one Party organisation: the Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of State Security, Ministry of Justice, the People's Court, the People's Procuratorate, as well as the Party's Politics and Law Committee. Maintaining status quo may actually lead to dissatisfaction and resentment build-up, or ...
