This strategy of pre-emptive political decapitation has produced enormous dividends for the party. In the 1980s, its principal adversaries were the urban intelligentsia, who constituted the backbone of the pro-democracy movement that culminated in Tiananmen Square. Today, the mainstream of the Chinese intelligentsia is an integral part of the ruling elite. Many have joined the party and become government officials, and a large percentage enjoy various professional and financial privileges.
Predictably, the intelligentsia, usually the most liberal social group, is no longer a lethal threat to party rule. Worse, without support from this strategic group, other social groups, such as workers and peasants, have become politically marginalized and rudderless.
Although the CCP's carrot-and-stick approach has worked since 1989, it is doubtful that it will retain its efficacy for another 17 years. To the extent that China's authoritarian regime is by nature exclusionary (it can only incorporate a limited number of elites), the co-optation strategy will soon run up against its limits, and the party will no longer have the resources to buy off the intelligentsia or keep private entrepreneurs happy.
At the same time, selective repression can contain social frustrations and discontent only temporarily. As long as much of Chinese society views the current political system as unjust, unresponsive and corrupt, there will always be a large reservoir of ill will toward the ruling elites.
When things go wrong -- as is likely, given mounting social strains caused by rising inequality, environmental degradation, and deteriorating public services -- China's alienated masses could become politically radicalized. And, unlike past protests, which have usually been allied with students or members of the intelligentsia, popular disaffection might not have the virtue of rational leaders with whom the government could talk and negotiate.
So it may be premature for the party to celebrate the success of its adaptive strategy. China's rulers may have stalled democratic trends for now, but the current strategy has, perhaps, merely delayed the inevitable.
Pei Minxin is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of China's Trapped Transition.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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