An article published in the the Taiwan News on Sept. 17 titled “PRC political reform is a mere mirage,” was correct in its assessment that it would be “impossible to avoid forever the task of political reform in the wake of China’s torrid growth and massive social change in the wake of the ‘reform and opening’ symbolized by the Shenzhen SEZ [special economic zone] without triggering potential social or political storms.”
In fact, political reform is already occurring in China, and has been for some time. Therefore, the task of political reform is already under way and should be treated in part as a historical event.
However, the article reveals a common misconception some Westerners and others living in democratic societies have when it assumes that if political reform is not democratic in nature, it is not reform. Although the political reforms which have occurred, and are still occurring in China, may not resemble what liberal democrats would consider reform, they nonetheless deserve examination and should not be brushed aside as “a mirage.”
Moreover, the main quote from Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) that appears in the Taiwan News article, which was made just prior to the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the Shenzhen SEZ, does not mention democratic reforms.
“[W]ithout the safeguard of the reform of political institutions, the fruits of the reform of economic institutions cannot be consolidated,” Wen was quoted as saying.
These statements are not new for the premier, who in the past associated with former Chinese general secretary and reformer Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦) and former premier and reformer Zhao Ziyang (趙紫陽). Both Hu and Zhao were, in turn, proteges of Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平).
However, Wen’s association with these reformers certainly does not make him a democrat. Hu was a long-time follower of Deng, who was no democrat himself, while Zhao’s performance as governor of Sichuan Province, particularly his successful economic reform policies there, won him Deng’s attention. Neither reformer can be accurately defined as a liberal democrat.
In fact, Kenneth Liberthal, in his authoritative Governing China: From Revolution through Reform, states that although Zhao early on “associated himself with greater political democratization ... his followers had begun to support the idea that the best path to successful reform would be to have a strong, autocratic leader use his power to implement change. This view, called ‘neo-authoritarianism,’ was intended to lay the groundwork for Zhao to become an autocratic leader in Deng’s wake.”
Wen was one of those Zhao followers.
In his China’s Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation, David Shambaugh wrestles with not only Western misconceptions regarding the perceived “lack” of political reform in China, but also with the forms of political reform occurring within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Tracing both the ideological and organizational reforms the party has undertaken, particularly since the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre and the fall of the Soviet Union, Shambaugh concludes that although the CCP has continued to lose aspects of its most intrusive and repressive grips on Chinese society utilized especially prior to the Cultural Revolution, the party has also been adapting to challenges it has faced to its hold on power, and has thus far been relatively effective.
Shambaugh concludes that the CCP, at least for the short to medium-term, can continue to keep its grasp on power. Shambaugh also addresses the arguments of those who see otherwise.
The reality of the matter is that the CCP is not a democratic institution insofar as it does not presently support a broad democratic movement outside of the party. Another reality, this one far more evident, is that the CCP is currently the only political “show in town” in China. Dealing with China, at least for the time being, means dealing with the CCP.
However, democracy within the party has been a key aspect of political reforms that have been occurring within China since the late 1970s, although this is something the average China watcher probably misses. Part of this internal democratic development has its roots in Lenin’s understanding of democratic centralism, and it arguably existed within the CCP, at least in part, prior to the Mao Zedong (毛澤東) years. It was then replaced with Mao Zedong Thought, but was revived after Mao’s death and Deng’s rise to power.
Indeed, the resurrection of democratic centralism in the CCP can be linked to the reformist policies undertaken during the Deng period; much of these reforms served to decentralize both political power and economic initiative, albeit with Deng still essentially possessing ultimate authority. This drive for inner-party democracy has been strengthened periodically since the Deng period.
Four conclusions can be drawn from the present discussion and the analyses of those experts mentioned here.
First, those who subscribe to political evolutionary theories will probably be forced to accept the fact that China is currently not in a position to allow greater democratization outside the party.
Second, those who subscribe to different theories of power politics or political theories other than those which are evolutionary in nature will probably be forced to accept that the CCP is simply not willing to loosen its overall hold on power insofar as loosening threatens the party’s existence.
Third, political reforms are taking place within China, but most meaningful democratic reforms are occurring within the party and are, therefore, limited; this will for the time being frustrate most advocates of greater democratic reform within China.
Finally, China policies should be focused on the current sociopolitical and socioeconomic environment within China and not on some future, hoped-for, free-and-democratic China.
Nathan Novak studies China and the Asia-Pacific region with a particular focus on cross-strait relations at National Sun Yat-sen University.
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