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Sichuan’s aftershocks in Beijing

Now that the aftershocks of the devastating Sichuan earthquake seem to have subsided, it is time to gauge what shocks, if any, the earthquake delivered to China’s political system. Has the quake given birth to any new, positive political force that could accelerate reform?

It has happened before. After all, dramatic political changes — the fall of the “Gang of Four” and Deng Xiaoping’s (鄧小平) consolidation as China’s supreme leader — did follow shortly after the devastating Tangshan earthquake in 1976.

Given the sharp contrast between Premier Wen Jiabao’s (溫家寶) caring attitude during the earthquake and President Hu Jintao’s (胡錦濤) mediocre political performance, some people could not help but imagine that the earthquake may have tipped the balance at the Chinese Communist Party’s highest levels, pushing the liberal forces represented by Wen to the center of power. But this is naive.

Unlike 30 years ago, today no strong force for political reform exists in China’s vast bureaucratic system. Back then, Mao’s Cultural Revolution had forced large numbers of his revolutionary comrades onto a reformist path. In today’s China, the overwhelming majority of bureaucrats like the status quo and have enough resources to protect themselves. Although Wen won popular support through his tireless efforts for earthquake victims, he remains isolated in official circles. And although Hu can barely disguise his mediocrity, bureaucrats are unconcerned. After all, they don’t want someone controlling them who is both able and serious.

But the Sichuan earthquake was not completely irrelevant to China’s political progress. Wen, who was bogged down by the bureaucracy, had been seeking to counter it by expanding the media’s openness and transparency. He attempted to take advantage of the Beijing Olympics to give the foreign media unprecedented freedom, but bureaucrats succeeded in reversing his decision.

The earthquake gave Wen an unexpected second opportunity. He used TV and his outstanding performance to prove that modern media and information tools can counter China’s bureaucracy. This precedent will not be easy to roll back and will have a far-reaching positive influence on China’s political progress.

The earthquake, together with the media transparency that accompanied it, has made bureaucrats more accountable. Thousands of people, including nearly 10,000 schoolchildren whose parents will not be easily placated, lost their lives. Millions of displaced people must be housed in a process that will last for several years. Bureaucrats must not be allowed to spend the huge donations collected and the state funds allocated for relief in an arbitrary manner. As a result, a new political culture conducive to accountability may have a realistic opportunity to grow.

But this does not mean that someone will emerge from the party who has the courage and ability to assume bold political leadership. In fact, I believe China’s future leaders are more likely to come from its burgeoning, but still limited, civil society than from the bureaucracy.

One source of China’s future political leadership could well be its growing NGO sector. Although the party uses various means to suppress its development, the Sichuan earthquake demonstrated that it has failed to eliminate NGOs as a social force. The quake gave civic groups an opportunity to be seen and an unprecedented number of people had a chance to perceive this nascent civil society as a positive force that serves their own interests.

There is an even greater silent force that may produce a new generation of political leaders: the rapidly growing army of Christian believers, now estimated at 20 million.

With a population of 1.3 billion, China has no lack of people with leadership potential, and I believe that an increasing pool of this talent is found outside the party bureaucracy in NGOs, start-up enterprises, philanthropy and even missionary work. In today’s mostly closed environment, they largely lack awareness of their political skills and vision. A more open and transparent public environment will help awaken their sense of political mission.

Yet we are left with the question: When will the time for major political change come?

Wen wrote recently in Sichuan that “more hardship will arouse the country,” evidently believing that the Chinese may still need to suffer further in order to realize political progress. That may be true, but I also believe that a new generation of political leaders could emerge from a society with greater access to information. And, in any coming showdown, we must hope that all leaders will refuse to use innocent people’s lives as bargaining chips.



Liang Jing is a pseudonym for a senior Chinese policy researcher in one of former Chinese Communist Party secretary general Zhao Ziyang’s think tanks.

Copyright: Project Syndicate
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