Can President Xi Jinping
keep the country economically growing and politically under control?
By Timothy Garton Ash
BEIJING — President Xi
Jinping is leading an extraordinary political experiment in China. In
essence, he is trying to turn his nation into an advanced economy and
three-dimensional superpower, drawing on the energies of capitalism, patriotism
and Chinese traditions, yet all still under the control of what remains, at its
core, a Leninist party-state. He may be a Chinese emperor, but he is also a
Leninist emperor. This is the most surprising and important political
experiment on Earth. No one will be unaffected by its success or failure.
In 1989, as communism
was trembling in Warsaw, Berlin, Moscow and Beijing, who would have predicted
that 25 years later we would be poring neo-Sovietologically over the 60-point
decision of the Third Plenum of the 18th Communist Party congress, so as to
understand how the party leadership proposes to keep China both economically
growing and politically under control?
Xi has moved decisively
to strengthen central party power and his own position. Besides taking the
traditional commanding roles in the military, state and party more rapidly than
his predecessors, he has created at least four other central command committees
— on economic reform, state security, military reform and, tellingly, the
Internet. "More than Mao!" cries one disgruntled party reformer.
His anticorruption drive
appears about to take down a former boss of the national security apparatus and
high-ranking party member, Zhou Yongkang. China must, says the party's
propaganda, tackle the tigers as well as the flies. This may be taken as a
token of seriousness about tackling rampant corruption at the highest levels.
Or it could be seen as part of the traditional maneuvers of a new leader
securing his power over real or potential factions inside the party. It is a
purification but also a purge. Meanwhile, critical bloggers have their accounts
deleted, dissidents are imprisoned and unhappy provinces are kept under a
security lockdown.
But, you may exclaim,
Beijing in 2014 is light-years away from Moscow in 1974, let alone 1934! Of
course you are right. For every bit of the old there is a byte of the new. In
Beijing or Shanghai, you wander through glitzy shopping malls to meet
super-smart, sophisticated businesspeople, journalists, think tankers and
academics who talk freely about almost everything. Executives and Internet
millionaires speak Californian. Successful entrepreneurs turn to ancient
Chinese history, Confucianism and Buddhism for post-materialist meaning.
There is conspicuous
consumption, high fashion and a cosmopolitan lifestyle, but also national pride
and a sense of historical optimism. Bright, ambitious students flock to join
the Communist Party, not out of egalitarian conviction but for reasons of
personal advancement mixed with patriotism. "In what sense, if any, is
this a communist country?" I asked a young party member. "Well, it is
run by the Communist Party," he replied. This seemed to him an entirely
sufficient answer.
The party explicitly
recognizes that it needs more market forces. It has announced a bonfire of the
red tape holding back small and medium-sized enterprises, although Chinese
journalists remain skeptical about their capacity to go up against still
dominant, politically well-connected state-owned enterprises. Li Keqiang, the
able premier, clearly understands the daunting economic challenges identified
by Chinese and foreign experts, such as a burgeoning debt burden, a real estate
bubble and too little demand coming from domestic consumption.
So my point is not that
there is nothing new under the Chinese sun. It is that we should not lose sight
of the old inside the new, and imagine that the politbureaucratic language of
the Third Plenum is purely formalistic. Wherever you turn, the party secretary
retains a decisive voice. There are Communist Party committees or cells inside
private companies, including foreign-owned ones. Many are explicitly
acknowledged, some probably not.
As Xi and his colleagues
have moved to consolidate their power and set their course, it has become clear
that this reform will be implemented through reinvigorated party control. For
years, many of my friends — Chinese and foreign, party members and outspoken
critics — have been looking for evolutionary steps toward a greater separation
of state and party, more genuine rule of law (as opposed to mere legalism, or
rule by regulation), a larger space for nongovernmental organizations and more
open public debate.
A few shards from those
hopes remain in the current reform package. But there is not much. In a party
directive known by the wonderfully Orwellian title of "Document No.
9," seven supposedly subversive ideas are listed that the good comrade is
not to countenance. They include constitutional democracy, universal values and
civil society.
The Chinese Question is
no longer could evolutionary political reform, gradually increasing
transparency, constitutional-type balances, freedom of expression and civil
society dynamism be used to complement and reinforce economic reform? Rather,
it is can a reinvigorated party-state, harnessing in unprecedented fashion the
energies of capitalism, patriotism and older Chinese traditions succeed in
mastering the ever more difficult challenges of continuing modernization?
And the answer? I spoke
to two of the most experienced foreign correspondents in China, and their
diagnosis of the problems was almost identical, and their predictions
spectacularly different. One thinks the party can still keep the show on the
road, with skillful management of state-led development. The other foresees
economic meltdown, social revolt and political upheaval.
In short, nobody knows.
But at least we should be clear about the question.
Timothy Garton Ash is
professor of European studies at Oxford University, a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover
Institution and a contributing writer to Opinion. His latest book is
"Facts Are Subversive: Political Writing From a Decade Without a
Name."
Los Angeles Times,
April 4, 2014
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