After Deng the Deluge: China's Next Leap ForwardGoverning China: From Revolution through Reform by Kenneth LieberthalReview by: Arthur WaldronForeign Affairs, Vol. 74, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 1995), pp. 148-153Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20047306 .

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Review Essay

After Deng the Deluge

Chinas Next Leap Forward

Arthur Whldron

Governing China: From Revolution

through Reform, by kenneth

Lieberthal. NewYork: W. W.

Norton, 1995,498 pp. $30.00.

The world is relearning a basic lesson

about China: how it fits into interna

tional society depends on its internal pol

itics. The ease of relations with China

from 1976 to 1989 reflected the end of the Cultural Revolution and a great reduction

in domestic repression; problems there

after grew from the regime crisis follow

ing the Tiananmen massacre. As for

the rise in tensions today, many of the

factors prompting it?Chinas military modernization and expansion in the South

China Sea, for example?clearly have

something to do with looming political contention in Beijing after the death of

paramount leader Deng Xiaoping.

What does the future hold? Kenneth Lieberthal ventures an answer toward

the end of Governing China. The book is an encyclopedic survey of what political science has learned about the People s

Republic of China?about the careers of

its leaders, its structures of authority, its

policy and power struggles?and in both

its impressive scope and judicious flavor

recalls How the Soviet Union Is Governed,

Jerry F. Houghs revision of Merle Fainsod s

classic, How Russia Is Ruled. So it is per

haps worth recalling Houghs prognosis for the U.S.S.R., eminently reasonable in

1979: "Any future evolution is highly likely to retain the framework of the present

system in one sense or another."

Lieberthal, similarly, prophesies

change for China, but most likely gradual change within existing structures. He

expects the state to "employ a range of

Arthur Wald ron teaches strategy at the Naval War College and East

Asian studies at Brown University, and is an Associate of the Fairbank Center for

East Asian Research, Harvard University. His most recent book is From War to

Nationalism: Chinas Turning Point, 1924-25 (Cambridge University Press, 1995).

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After Deng the Deluge

strategies to fend off challenges from a

developing society" and use the security

apparatus to crush any unrest. The Com

munist Party may abandon socialism

for nationalism, but it will continue in

its preeminent role. The many internal

pressures?economic, demographic, and

political?whose buildup Lieberthal chronicles will likely be accommodated as the system evolves in directions that

can already be discerned. "While uncer

tainties abound," Lieberthal writes, "it

appears that on balance China in the late

1990s will grow more open, decentral

ized, corrupt, regionally and socially

diverse, militarily powerful, and socially

tempestuous."

This prognosis may well be correct,

and it is certainly favored by many in

government and foreign policy circles.

But at root it is a linear projection, and

these have an intuitive psychological

appeal independent of their cogency. It is difficult enough to predict rain when con

templating a clear sky, let alone imagine a

day when the red flag will come down in the People s Republic. Yet the Soviet flag

was lowered over the Kremlin for the last

time on December 25,1991. Precisely because such spectacular shifts have taken

place in a dozen countries?and almost

took place in China in 1989?it makes

sense at least to consider another future

for China, one involving change more

radical, less orderly, and far more discon

tinuous than Lieberthal foresees.

This alternative assessment says, in

effect, let us for once try to recognize the preconditions for major historical

change when they arise, and understand

that they have inescapable consequences. Evidence for this approach abounds in

Governing China, chapter after chapter

of which presents in statistical detail the dramatic economic and social changes

DengXiaopings reform policies have

wrought. For 20 years China has been

growing economically about as fast as any

country ever has. Huge cities have sprouted where a decade ago were only rice pad dies. Tens of millions of peasants have

left the countryside and moved to cities

in search of work. Millions more Chinese

have acquired modern education and

knowledge of the world, so that thought and culture are

changing as well. Com

munism, the ideological cement of the

People's Republic, has been discredited.

Two centuries ago analogous develop ments in Europe set in train a process of

change, conflict, and political reconstruc

tion whose repercussions the world still

feels. The consequences of Europe's mili

tary, industrial, and demographic revolu

tions have been thoroughly documented.

The rise of cities, the spread of literacy and new ideas, and the development of a

bourgeoisie were all changes the old order

proved incapable of accommodating.

Europe's new economy and new society demanded new state structures?with

constitutions, legal systems, and citizen

participation?and Europe got them, but

only at the cost of much turmoil.

This pattern has been repeated wher

ever and whenever the same fundamental

forces have been unleashed. Is it likely that China will be the great historical

exception?that in 20 years it will be a

vibrant economic giant, full of educated,

mobile, and increasingly affluent people who nevertheless tolerate rule by

a self

perpetuating politburo and its co-opted friends in society?

If the answer is no, then instead of

wondering about succession, as so many

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Arthur Waldron

pundits do, one should acknowledge that

China today faces something far more

complex and significant: regime transi

tion. As this is being written, an intense

battle is under way in Beijing over which

party leaders will seize Deng s mantle.

It is a riveting spectacle, but this particu

lar fight will not decide Chinas future. When the dust settles, the important

question will not be who but what. What sort of regime is China heading toward?

And what will the consequences be

for the world?

SEVERAL ROADS DIVERGE

If this reasoning is correct, the assump tions about China that Lieberthal articu

lates and governments around the globe share are at best valid only for the short

term and are likely to mislead if pushed further. China future will be very different from China past and even present, and

particularly from the China whose work

ings are most familiar and which Lieber

thal describes exhaustively: the Peoples Republic. Substantial?and not evolu

tionary or gradual?changes are not only

possible but likely. These will influence Chinas relations with the rest of the

world far more than any initiatives or

agreements decided on today. The pres

ent is transitional, and the United States

should start positioning itself now for

change (and perhaps influencing it). The twentieth century provides

a

sense of the wide range of alternatives.

One set of possibilities for China may

broadly be termed constitutional. In its last years the Qing Dynasty was becom

ing a constitutional monarchy with a par liament and cabinet. The Republic of

China that followed was authoritarian

but also saw a remarkable series of parlia

mentary and constitutional initiatives.

Eleven constitutions or draft constitu

tions were proposed or adopted between

1911 and 1949. The current democratic

government in Taiwan operates under

the all-Chinese constitution of 1946, with

amendments. Difficult as it has been to

implement, the idea of constitutionalism

continues to have legitimacy in Chinese

minds, so that even the People s Republic

has felt the need for a basic document,

successively adopting five constitutions, the most recent in 1982.

At present, of course, the constitution

is a sham. A small group of powerful men, as Lieberthal explains in his illuminating chapters

on "inside" and "outside" views

of government, handles the real business

of ruling China. But Zhou Enlai 20

years ago drew up plans for some recon

stitutionalization of rule after Mao s long

extralegal reign (though Zhou died before

Mao, so they came to nothing). Similar

calls come today from the National Peo

ple s Congress, Chinas quasi parliament,

as Deng s long and equally extralegal rule

draws to a close. In fact, generational

change may force the government to pay more attention to the rules it has set for

itself. With the last of the Long March elders departing from the scene, the

strongman solution becomes impractical because no one fully qualifies for the role.

This is not to say that no one will

try to become strongman?which brings

up a second set of possibilities for the decades ahead. Chinese history this

century reveals a pattern of attempts to

recentralize authority in the vast and

diverse land. Such was the fundamental

policy of Yuan Shikai, the first post dynastic military dictator, who seized

power from parliament and ruled from

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After Deng the Deluge 1912 to 1916, as well as of Chiang Kai-shek

and the Kuomintang, or Chinese Nation

alist Party After 1949 the People s Repub lic could proudly claim to have achieved

this goal. Until the late 1970s the center, or

zhongyang, counted for nearly every

thing (though Lieberthals discussion shows that the reverse is true almost

everywhere in China now). Someone in

the center in the years to come could

decide that enough is enough, the frac

tious country must be pulled back

together, by force if necessary. But as Hu Shih, perhaps twentieth

century Chinas greatest scholar, argued in an important essay, it is precisely when

such attempts are made that China's

unity has been most imperiled. China is a

great civilization, and the most enduring of human historical units. But its inher

ent unity depends on a good deal of flexi

bility and local autonomy; apply too much

centralizing pressure and the strain will

cause China to begin to split. Thus in the

1920s more than a decade of regionally based warlordism and warfare followed

Yuans centralized rule.

Lieberthal mentions the precedent but does not make clear the logic driving it: a once-coherent ruling elite proves

unable to reconstitute itself under a new

leader after the strongman's death, and its

members begin quarreling among them

selves, first employing political and par

liamentary maneuvers but then cautiously

reaching for military means as a way to

decision. Nor does he note that this is

almost identical to the intraparty politics of the People's Republic as his book describes it?the same personal disagree

ments, the same attempts to resolve them

through alliances and bureaucratic intrigue, and the ultimate appeal to force, most

recently in the capital bodyguard divi sion's extralegal ousting of Mao's widow

and other followers in October 1976. The

key difference is that in the People's Repub lic such intraparty disputes have never led

to full-blown civil conflict?though the Cultural Revolution came close, and 1976 could have been more violent had military

dispositions been different.

KEEPING THE LID ON

Lieberthal has considerable confidence in

the ruling elite's ability to prevent its bit

ter rivalries from escalating into country wide conflict. But in the administration

of China, disagreements are ubiquitous within the center, between the center and

the increasingly wealthy regions, within

regions and units, and between rulers and

the ruled. Any of these could supply the

spark. Suppose, a few years down the

line, an increasingly assertive National

People's Congress passes laws that conflict

with regulations promulgated by the

party administration, or the governor of

a wealthy southern province refuses to

leave his post when Beijing tells him to. Each side might use its connections in

the security apparatus and the military and among the regional authorities to get its way. Resolution might come, but it

might not. Unanticipated escalation

could even lead to civil war.

No less a figure than Deng Xiaoping prophesied, when Mao asked him in

1973 about the future, that "warlords

would emerge and the whole country would sink into chaos"?an answer

Mao evidently considered realistic.

Strong legitimate political institutions are the best bulwark against such chaos, but Deng when he became ruler did

nothing to create such structures.

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Arthur Waldron

Instead he seems to have believed,

against all historical precedent, that

economic development plus repression, as at Tiananmen, could work.

Mention of Tiananmen brings up another set of possibilities, involving mass

discontent pitting society against regime, as

opposed to discord among the elite. It

is true that many in China believe, with

some reason, that the young leaders and

students in Tiananmen Square in 1989

misjudged their actions and helped bring about an unnecessary disaster. But that

does not mean they endorse the govern

ment crackdown; feeling is on the side of

liberalization. The memory of the nation

wide democracy demonstrations is alive, and the grievances that prompted them

are still raw. The gap between state and

society has only widened since 1989. The people have grown wealthier, better

informed, and more self-sufficient while

the government has grown weaker and

increasingly reactive.

China in the years ahead will almost certainly see major strikes or

mass protests. Noting that the govern ment has been steadily strengthening

its internal security forces since 1989, Lieberthal believes any such protests will probably "quickly die down,

quelled by the state's repressive regime." But this assumes that the military and the police remain loyal. In fact, the military was deeply divided by the

Tiananmen massacre, and individual

officers and men often feel as tied to

society as to the state. Called on to save

an unpopular government in another

Tiananmen, the People's Liberation

Army is likely to split, or to join the

people in getting rid of the politicians who gave the order.

THE BITTER ROOT

Should any of these eventualities come

to pass, the challenges to policy for the

United States and other countries will

be very different from those to which

observers have become accustomed.

Hitherto the question has been how to

deal with a China that speaks more or

less with one voice. The United States

has not been asked to support one Chi

nese leader against another (although reluctance to commit to a transitional

President Jiang Zemin is part of the reason

he has not been invited to visit Washing

ton). It has not had to take a position on

China's political form (although Ameri can sympathies during the democracy

movement were clear, and would appear

again under similar circumstances). Nor

has it had to deal with prolonged unrest or civil conflict in China.

The root problem in all these scenar

ios is the antidemocratic character of the

Chinese government and its consequent

inability to deal with rapid, large-scale change. This will not be solved by eco

nomic growth; in fact, growth will only exacerbate it. Nor can a self-perpetuat

ing leadership, no matter how adept at

managing its internal disagreements and co-opting emerging social forces,

indefinitely postpone the reckoning the country faces.

Finally, the new stress on an assertive

nationalism that Lieberthal correctly identifies in China today will not finesse the problem of how China is governed.

The Communist Party increasingly pre sents itself not as it had from its found

ing?as an iconoclastic force at war with

the past and promoting social revolu

tion?but as the guardian of tradition and

vanguard of Chinese national feeling.

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After Deng the Deluge Lieberthal explains this remarkable shift

as a response to economic development; since prosperity alone cannot guarantee

stability, the country "will need some

thing more as a cohesive force, and most

likely China's leaders will turn to some

form of nationalism to meet this need."

But the stress on nationalism is at least

as much an attempt to head off demands

for popular participation, and the govern ment has intensified its efforts in this

quarter since crushing the democracy movement in 1989. Today the initiative, formalized as the Campaign for Patriotic

Education, cannot be missed. It gives peo

ple restoration of the Great Wall, rituals

honoring Confucius, new patriotic school

books, and renewed emphasis on the evils

of imperialism, particularly in connection

with the return of Hong Kong.

Though the Chinese undoubtedly love their country, this does not translate

smoothly into love of government, as

rulers this century have discovered. Pas

sionate national feeling begets criticism as

often as loyalty, and the current leadership summons up the spirits of nationalism at

its own risk. And no amount of solemn

flag-raising ceremonies and patriotic edu

cation in the schools can obscure the need

for genuine institutional change. If such change is resisted, the increas

ingly tense situation inside China will

probably be reflected in more turbulent

foreign relations, as indeed is already

happening. Should autocracy entrench

itself in China for another decade or two,

neighboring states, many of which are

democratic, will find that they have less in common with China. Investment

flows will shift. Arms races will begin (in fact, some have already begun).

On the other hand, it is possible that

China will experience liberalization and

progress, however chaotic, toward consti

tutional rule and legality. Most of the

potential foreign policy problems that have been mentioned here are connected

with domestic repression: the hard line

abroad corresponds to the hard line

domestically. But a Chinese government that had been elected would know itself to be legitimate and likely possess the confidence and flexibility necessary to

resolve such issues and others, even the

Taiwan and Tibet questions. Lieberthal's book does not claim to be

a guide to the future; rather, it is a com

prehensive synthesis of Western scholar

ship on the P.RjC. But as Lieberthal notes,

China today is an amalgam of aspects of

Chinese tradition, Stalinism, and the East Asian economic model as found in places

like Taiwan and Singapore. This amal

gam, created by revolution, is being tested

by the forces unleashed by reform. The

result is a China that resembles less and

less the People's Republic that it has been since 1949.

China, after all, is not the regime cre

ated by Mao and partly dismantled by Deng. It is a civilization, even a world.

Like certain other great civilizations?

Italy, France, and Russia come to mind?

it has had great difficulty finding its politi cal form, and the matter is open even today.

How China is governed is an important

topic. Even more important, however, is

how it will be governed, and to this the best answer is, probably very differently. ?

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