china and democracy: a contradiction in terms?

ABSTRACT This Special Report examines the degree of progress toward democracy beingmade in China today. The four essayists agree that the Chinese Communist Party is not aboutto give up its hold on political power anytime soon. Merle Goldman of Harvard Universityargues that although various segments of the population are enjoying more individual free-doms than ever before, increasing protests reveal that China’s current political system may nolonger be able to deliver the security and stability that the Chinese so desire and that arenecessary for China’s continued modernization and peaceful interaction with the rest of theworld. Suisheng Zhao of the University of Denver states that the party itself is promulgatinga host of laws, attempting to become more responsive to the people, but that such laws aremore paternalistic than democratic. Richard Baum of UCLA points to the limits of what hecalls “consultative Leninism,” and warns that the current system may already be living on bor-rowed time. Zhou Yongming of the University of Wisconsin, specifically addressing internetpolitics, notes that the assumption that China will move closer to democracy as more infor-mation is spread on the internet may not necessarily be valid.

China and Democracy: A Contradiction in Terms?MERLE GOLDMAN

The Phrase “Democracy andChina” Is Not a Contradiction

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SUISHENG ZHAOPolitical Reform in China:Toward Democracy or a Ruleof Law Regime?

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RICHARD BAUMThe Limits of ConsultativeLeninism

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YONGMING ZHOUUnderstanding Chinese Internet Politics

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INTRODUCTIONMARK MOHR

These essays, originally presented at aMarch 22, 2006, symposium at theWoodrow Wilson International Center

for Scholars, attempt to determine the extent towhich democracy is penetrating the political andsocial fabric in China today.The current so-calledfourth generation of Chinese leaders, headed bypresident Hu Jintao and premier Wen Jiabao, isnoticeably less inclined to a further opening ofChinese society than was the third generation ofleaders, led by Jiang Zemin. Does this signify thatChina is going backward with regard to democ-racy, and that the overall prospect for democracyin China is fairly bleak? Which sectors of theChinese population are actively pushing for polit-ical reform, and have they had any success? Why

has China’s rapidly growing entrepreneurial classnot evolved into a bourgeoisie pressing for moredemocratic reforms? According to official statis-tics, there were 87,000 protest demonstrations inChina last year.What is the Chinese CommunistParty (CCP) doing to meet this pressure from thebottom up for more accountability? These andother questions are examined in detail by ourfour essayists.

The first essay, by Merle Goldman, professoremerita, Boston University, and associate of theFairbank Center, Harvard University, notes thatwhile the phrase “China and democracy” is not acontradiction, this does not mean that China willbecome a democracy in the near future.Nevertheless, she points out that there are certainconditions that may indicate movement in thatdirection. From a cultural point of view, China’sConfucian legacy does not prevent the develop-

SPECIAL REPORTNo. 131

JUNE 2006

EDITED BY MARK MOHR

Mark Mohr is program associate at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Asia Program.

Asia Program

2

ment of democracy. The other post-Confuciancountries surrounding China—Japan, South Koreaand Taiwan—all have democratic political systems.Moreover, Confucian ideology emphasizes educa-tion.This leads not only to social mobility, but alsoto a responsibility on the part of the Confucianliterati to speak out against the abuse of politicalpower. In addition, on the ground in China today,90 percent of China’s villages cast votes for theirvillage heads and village councils. The problem isthat the voting process has not moved up to high-er levels as yet.

Goldman further states that China does not yethave a bourgeoisie, that is, an independent middleclass, which was the impetus for democracy in theWest. China’s newly rich entrepreneurs are beingco-opted into the party, and frequently establishbusinesses in collaboration with local party leaders.Nevertheless, over the past 25 years, select groups ofindependent intellectuals, editors, journalists,lawyers, and veterans of the Cultural Revolution, theDemocracy Wall movement, and the 1989Tiananmen demonstration, as well as some inde-pendent-minded small business people, have been atthe forefront of efforts to introduce politicalreforms. Despite repression and constant harassment,such individuals and groups are now acting as inde-pendent actors, challenging the party and its poli-cies, and attempting to assert their political rights.

Equally significant, asserts Goldman, for the firsttime in the history of the People’s Republic thereis a linking up of members of these groups withordinary citizens. However, with the party’s contin-uing use of violence and repression against anychallenges to its political power, attempts at politi-cal reform in China thus far have been short-lived.On the other hand, it would be wrong to discountthe impact of these various efforts simply becausethey are quickly suppressed. The fact that peoplecontinue to push for reform is significant, as is the

fact that the concept of rights is spreading to ordi-nary citizens. However, in order for independentpolitical actors and groups to survive and develop,they will need much more support from Chinesesociety and they will need laws to protect theiractivities. Goldman notes that there can be citizen-ship without democracy, but there cannot bedemocracy without citizen participation. She con-cludes that the transition from “comrade to citi-zen” in China has begun.

In the second essay, Suisheng Zhao of theUniversity of Denver states that since China beganrevamping its economy in the late 1970s, the pres-sure for political reform has been building. Thecurrent leadership of the CCP, in trying to limitpower by individuals without relinquishing overallparty control, has issued a series of laws and regu-lations. Some of these regulations include two-term limits for the highest party posts and manda-tory retirement for party members. These regula-tions are clearly intended to prevent power fromfalling into the hands of one individual, with theabuse of power that follows (read Chairman Mao).Thus in China today the debate is generallybetween the rule of law (as defined by the party)and democratization, rather than the rule of law asthe basis for democracy.

In detailing this point, Zhao notes that politicalreform has not only been hotly debated and broad-ly discussed among Chinese intellectuals, but alsohas become an official policy objective, listed onthe agenda of the CCP. Institutionalization ofChina’s leadership system is one of the mostimportant aspects of political reform, since itemphasizes the normative rules and procedures inthe decision-making process.

Another attempt at political reform, adds Zhao,is to build an institutional and legal mechanism torestrain government officials and cadres, makingthem more responsive to society’s demands and

The Wilson Center’s Asia Program is dedicated to the proposition that only those witha sound scholarly grounding can begin to understand contemporary events. One of theCenter’s oldest regional programs, the Asia Program seeks to bring historical and cul-tural sensitivity to the discussion of Asia in the nation’s capital. In seminars, workshops,

briefings, and conferences, prominent scholarsof Asia interact with one another and with pol-icy practitioners to further understanding of thepeoples, traditions, and behaviors of theworld’s most populous continent.

ASIA PROGRAM STAFFRobert M. Hathaway, Program DirectorMark Mohr, Program AssociateBhumika Muchhala, Program AssociateMichael Kugelman, Program Assistant

THE ASIA PROGRAM

3CHINA AND DEMOCRACY: A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS?

more accountable for poor performance. In addi-tion to the above, the concept of constitutionalreform, including provisions that no organization orindividual is privileged to be beyond the constitu-tion or law, has filtered its way into the public con-sciousness. Echoing a point made by Goldman,Zhao states that protection of constitutional rightshas become a hot topic in China’s media, as ordi-nary Chinese have developed an understanding ofthe legal rights they are supposed to enjoy.The realtest of political reform, however, is whether theparty and state are willing to accept constitutionalcurbs on their ultimate power by, among otherthings, an independent constitutional reviewprocess, expansion of direct local elections, dilutionof party control of the judiciary, and, in practice,permitting people to exercise such rights as freedomof assembly. Zhao concludes that it is hard to expectcurrent Chinese leaders to make such a break-through, since they are committed to improving thesystem that they oversee–not bringing it down.

Richard Baum of UCLA, in the third essay,asserts that Chinese leaders in recent years haveadopted a variety of “soft authoritarian” measuresdesigned to expand cautiously the arena of politicalinclusion, consultation, cooperation and feedback,without at the same time enlarging the scope ofpublic accountability, responsibility or empower-ment. Such measures have included the creation ofprovincial, municipal and county-level “e-govern-ment” websites for the public dissemination ofadministrative information and solicitation of pub-lic feedback on government performance; expand-ed use of special offices to assist members of thepublic in reporting abuses of state power; and theproviding of legal recourse for citizens sufferingadministrative abuse at the hands of state officials.

Early in the new millennium, states Baum, withthe risk-averse Jiang Zemin moving toward retire-ment, it was widely anticipated that his fourth gen-eration successors, Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, mightbe free to pursue a more progressive political agen-da. However, Hu dashed such hopes by making itclear in a September 2004 speech that there wouldbe no diluting or relinquishing the CCP’s 55-yearmonopoly on political power. By substitutingpaternalistic consultation for autonomous politicalparticipation, cooptation for representation, advicefor empowerment, and consensus-building for theclash of conflicting interests, the CCP has arguably

been able to avoid much of the putative clutter andchaos of democratic pluralism.

In the short term, China’s “consultativeLeninism”—bolstered by robust economicgrowth—has arguably extended the life span ofChina’s authoritarian regime. However, a recentstudy which drew on data gathered from approxi-mately 150 countries between 1970 and 1999 con-cluded that competent authoritarian governmentsthat provide substantial economic growth andadministrative goods, while effectively suppressingmedia freedom, unrestricted access to internet sites,and freedom of assembly, can only delay the onsetof democratization for up to a decade or more.Thus, warns Baum, China may already be living onborrowed time.

In the final essay, Yongming Zhou of theUniversity of Wisconsin discusses internet politicsin China. He places such politics in the context ofthe way the CCP handles all media, whether news-papers, magazines, TV, radio or the internet: theauthorities attempt to control it. Thus, we shouldnot be surprised at party and government attemptsto control the internet, or the success they have hadin controlling it to date.They have had much prac-tice with media control.

Zhou also asserts that while Western concernshave focused entirely on the free use of the internet,that is, information transmission, another equallyimportant aspect is that of information reception.Most internet users in China are male, under 30,and fairly well-educated.They are also fairly nation-alistic. Many “netizens” interpret U.S. assertions offreedom and democracy as code words to advance aU.S. agenda at the expense of Chinese interests.

The role of the internet in China has in recentmonths received world-wide attention because ofnews that Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and Cisco haveagreed to help Chinese authorities block outunwanted information on the internet. Such atten-tion culminated in a U.S. congressional hearing inmid-February 2006, at which executives of thetechnology giants were summoned to Capitol Hilland subjected to much criticism.Yet some Chineseinternet users have been critical of Congress, argu-ing that U.S. internet presence in China, if elimi-nated, would leave the field to Chinese internetcompanies, and such companies are much stricterin controlling internet information than Microsoftor Google.

4 ASIA PROGRAM SPECIAL REPORT

Zhou concludes that one should be neither toooptimistic nor too pessimistic about the internet inChina. It is a fact that the Chinese people are access-ing more and more information through the internetand satellite TV, as well as via the traditional media.The space for freedom of speech is being enlarged,and many Chinese see this as an irreversible trendand an ideal route for change.Yet it must also be real-ized that the internet is only a promising new tech-nology, and that only by changing the whole politi-cal system can the internet be used freely.

All four of these authors concur that the party hasbeen relatively successful to date in harmonizing

rapid economic growth with equally rapid socialchange. All agree that while individual freedoms aregrowing, the party has made clear there are limits topolitical reform, that it does not intend to sharepower, and that dissent will not be tolerated. Zhou,the internet expert, warns that information technol-ogy is not the magic key that will unlock the doortoward democracy. Nevertheless, all four, to a greateror lesser degree, cast doubt on the ultimate sustain-ability of the Chinese Communist Party’s attemptsto be both a facilitator of modernization and a con-strictor of political freedoms.

THE PHRASE “DEMOCRACY AND CHINA ” IS NOT A CONTRADICTION

MERLE GOLDMAN

When China moved to a market economyin the late 1970s, it experienced a rate ofeconomic growth of nine to ten percent

a year that continues into the early years of the twen-ty-first century. Not only has this unprecedentedeconomic growth transformed the Chinese econo-my, it has also transformed Chinese society with theemergence of a dynamic middle class.These changes,however, have been accompanied by acceleratingprotests all over the country. China’s official figuresshow that in 1993 there were 14, 000 protests, in2004, there were 74,000 protests and in 2005, 87,000protests.These figures indicate that China’s authori-tarian political system is unable to handle the dynam-ic changes that are underway in China today. Its lead-ers may continue to muddle through with the exist-ing authoritarian party-state or they could turn todemocratic procedures that might be better able tohandle the rising discontent of China’s farmers, whohave been left behind by the dynamic growth ofChina’s cities, and Chinese urban workers who havelost their jobs, health care and pensions asstate–owned industries are privatized.

PRECONDITIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENTOF DEMOCRACY

China has certain historic precedents that lendthemselves to becoming a democratic polity. First,China’s Confucian legacy does not prevent thedevelopment of democracy. The other post-Confucian countries surrounding China—Japan,South Korea, and Taiwan—have democratic politi-cal systems. In fact, given that these countries wereamong the first non-Western countries to becomedemocratic, there may be something in theirConfucian background that is compatible withdemocracy, such as the emphasis on education thatleads to social mobility, concern for equitable treat-ment of the population, and the responsibility ofthe Confucian literati to speak out against the abuseof political power.

Second, 90 percent of China’s villages now castvotes for their village heads and village councils. Asimilar development began in Taiwan in the early1950s. However, in Taiwan, the vote moved up thepolitical ladder to the townships, counties, andprovinces. Even though a few townships haveexperimented with local elections, this has not yethappened in China. On the other hand, in the post-Mao period, China’s National People’s Congress hasbecome less of a rubber-stamp congress, no longervoting unanimously for party policy. In 1992, forexample, one-third of the delegates to the congressvoted against or abstained on the decision to buildthe Three Gorges Dam.

Third, China’s literacy rate is now close to 90percent and China’s move to the market in the latetwentieth century has led to the development of arising middle class. Both of these phenomena areassociated with the development of democracy.Still, China does not yet have a bourgeoisie, that is,an independent middle class, which was the impe-tus for democracy in the West. China’s newly richentrepreneurs are being co-opted into the party, andfrequently establish businesses in collaboration withlocal party officials. Because of the absence of therule of law to protect economic activities, theyremain dependent on local officials to continuetheir businesses. Moreover, China’s new entrepre-neurs support the party because its economicreforms have provided them with the opportunityto amass great amounts of wealth. Unlike in theWest, members of China’s newly rich entrepreneur-ial class are not advocates of political reform.

Nevertheless, there are other members of China’srising middle class—intellectuals, editors, journal-ists, lawyers, some independent-minded small busi-ness people and veterans of the CulturalRevolution, the Democracy Wall movement, andthe 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations—who havebeen at the forefront of efforts to introduce politi-cal reforms. The opening up of the market econo-my provided the Chinese with a degree of person-

Merle Goldman is professor emerita of Chinese history at Boston University and associate of the Fairbank Center of EastAsian Research at Harvard.


al freedom that was unprecedented since the 1949Communist revolution. For example, most of themedia, with only a few exceptions, such as the the-oretical mouthpiece of the party, the People’s Daily,no longer receive state subsidies and must now beself-supporting.As a result, in order to gain readers,editors and journalists have become more daringand responsive to the concerns of ordinary people.Consequently, some media have also become moreindependent, at times even challenging party policy,as for instance, the daring Southern Media Groupin Guangdong. Similarly, the introduction of theinternet in the mid-1990s, despite the variety ofgovernment-imposed controls and filters, has led toa further opening to the outside world andincreased domestic interactions that can no longerbe controlled by the party.Although there is still noindependent judiciary in China, a number of coura-geous lawyers are willing to defend those chargedwith political crimes.

TRANSITION FROM COMRADE TO CITIZEN

Most significant, over the last twenty-five years selectgroups of independent intellectuals, journalists, smallbusiness people, lawyers, and ordinary citizens, havebeen calling for political reform. This is what I dis-cuss in my new book, From Comrade to Citizen:TheStruggle for Political Rights in China. Despite repres-sion and constant harassment, the individuals andgroups described in the book challenge the party andits policies, and attempt to assert their political rights.Like the dissidents in Eastern Europe and the formerSoviet Union in the 1970s and the 1980s, they citethe relevant clauses in their constitution, specificallyArticle 35, that stipulates freedom of speech andassociation, as the basis for their actions.

Although China remains an authoritarian state,the various groups that developed during theCultural Revolution, the Democracy Wall move-ment of the late 1970s and the Tiananmen move-ment in 1989, as well as the China Democracy Partythat attempted to establish an opposition politicalparty in 1998, have come close to creating trulyindependent political organizations—until the partyforcefully suppressed them. Equally significant, forthe first time in the People’s Republic there is alinking up of members of these groups with ordi-nary citizens. Previously, intellectuals in the People’sRepublic of China had no political contacts with

workers, farmers and shopkeepers.The Red Guardsand the leaders of the Democracy Wall movementwould have been intellectuals had they not beendeprived of their education in the CulturalRevolution. Instead, they were forced to becomeworkers and small business people, thus facilitatingtheir link-up with ordinary citizens in their politicalactivities. Also, ordinary citizens and workers joinedthe 1989 student-led Tiananmen demonstrations,and in 1998 laid-off workers from state industry,small business people, and some farmers joined theefforts to establish the first opposition party, led byveterans of the earlier movements. In 2005, intellec-tuals also helped the effort of the Taishi villagers inGuangdong province to replace their village leaderwhom they charged with corruption.

These movements of intellectuals and ordinarycitizens to bring pressure from below for politicalreform is a new phenomenon in the People’sRepublic. A similar linkage of intellectuals and ordi-nary citizens occurred in the Soviet Union, EasternEurope and Taiwan in the 1970s and 1980s prior totheir establishment of democratic polities in the1990s. The movements in China, however, still donot have the backing of a broad social base or of adeveloped civil society such as existed in EasternEurope in the 1970s or in Taiwan in the 1980s.Without such backing and with the party’s continu-ing use of violence and repression against any chal-lenges to its political power, all of these movementsin China thus far have been short-lived. In addition,very few members of the post-1989 generation haveparticipated in the efforts to promote politicalreforms. Instead, they remain focused on makingmoney or pursuing their own personal professions.

Nevertheless, in the early years of the twenty-firstcentury, the concept of rights (quanli) is spreading toordinary citizens. As their land has been confiscatedby officials and new entrepreneurs for modernizationprojects, farmers, engaged in a growing number ofprotests, are demanding their rights to more com-pensation. Similarly, unemployed workers, dismissedfrom state-owned industries undergoing privatiza-tion, are protesting and demanding their rights to lostpensions and health care. Thus, as they engage inprotests against local officials, ordinary Chinese aredeveloping a growing consciousness of their rightswith their words as well as through their actions.

The development of a citizenry and their asser-tion of political rights do not necessarily imply



movement toward democracy, but such phenomenaare indeed prerequisites for the establishment of ademocratic political system. There can be citizen-ship without democracy, but there cannot bedemocracy without citizen participation.Therefore,it would be wrong to discount the impact of thesevarious efforts to assert political rights in Chinabecause they are quickly suppressed and remainunrealized. Clearly, much more is needed. In orderfor independent political actors and political groupsto survive and develop, they will need much moresupport from Chinese society and they will needlaws to protect their activities. Nevertheless, theprocess of the transition from “comrade to citizen”in China has begun.

Given the anarchy, conflicts and violence that hasaccompanied efforts to introduce competitive elec-

tions in the Middle East, we may ask whether it is ineither Chinese or American interests for China tomove in a democratic direction. But democracy isnot just competitive elections—it is also the rule oflaw, freedom of press and association, and system ofchecks and balances. As we have seen, such institu-tions are not alien to post-Confucian societies. Infact, without the development of these institutions,the increasing inequalities and protests that are accel-erating all over China today may give rise to anarchy.These protests reveal that China’s current politicalsystem may no longer be able to deliver the securityand stability that the Chinese so desire and that arenecessary for China’s continued modernization andpeaceful interaction with the rest of the world.Thus,it is in the interests of both China and the UnitedStates that China move in a democratic direction.

Since China began revamping its economy inthe late 1970s, the pressure for politicalreform has been building up as it has become

more and more difficult for the communist regimeto sustain a growing disconnection between a mar-ket-oriented economy and a dynamic society on theone hand, and an anachronistic and authoritarianstate on the other. As a result, political reform hasnot only been hotly debated and broadly discussedamong Chinese intellectuals, but also become anofficial policy objective of the Chinese CommunistParty (CCP). One of the key issues in the debate iswhether single party rule can adequately cope withChina’s rapidly changing society, or whether amulti-party electoral democracy is required.

While many Western observers and Chinese lib-eral intellectuals want to see China’s politicalreform leading to a multi-party democracy, Chinesegovernment officials and some Chinese scholarshave proposed to improve the rule of the CCP,making the single party system more efficient andproviding it with a solid legal base. Pan Wei, aBerkeley-trained Chinese scholar at PekingUniversity, put forth a concept of political reformwithout democratization by proposing a consulta-tive rule-of-law regime. This would be a “mixed”regime derived from the Chinese tradition of civilservice via examination and the Western traditionof legalism and liberalism via the separation ofpower to form checks and balances.1 Pan suggeststhe consultative rule of law regime as an option forChina’s political reform. He considers this a feasiblepath for China to improve fundamentally the ruleof the CCP within the single party system. Hebelieves that a legalist direction of political reformis a logical development in light of China’s particu-lar social setting and the related political culture.

Although scholars have continued to debate thefeasibility of Pan Wei’s consultative rule of lawregime, political reform in post-Mao China hasmoved steadily toward governing the country bylaw (yifa zhiguo), or governing the state according to

law (yifa zhizheng).This trend may be observed fromthe following three important aspects of politicalreform after the transition of the CCP leadershipfrom the third generation led by Jiang Zemin to thefourth generation under Hu Jintao: institutionaliza-tion of the leadership system with an emphasis onnormative rules and procedures, the effort to makegovernment more accountable to an increasinglypluralistic society, and the improvement of citizen’sconstitutional rights. These aspects of politicalreform, however, will not necessarily lead to a lib-eral democracy in China.

INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF THE DECISION-MAKING SYSTEM

Institutionalization of China’s leadership system isone of the most important aspects of politicalreform, as it emphasizes the normative rules and pro-cedures in the decision-making process. Such reformstarted in the 1980s when Deng Xiaoping realizedthat “the lack of effective institutions and checks onarbitrary authority had helped bring about disastersin the Mao years.”2 Significant reform measures haveincluded regular party and state decision-makinginstitution meetings according to constitutionalschedules; constitutionally mandated two-term limitsfor the president and premier; a fixed retirement agefor all party and government posts; and a personnelpolicy emphasizing youth and education. One of themost important consequences of institutionalizationis the enhancement of formal institutional authorityand the corresponding decline of informal personalauthority on the part of the top leaders. By defini-tion, personal authority revolves around individualpersonages and derives from the charismatic natureof strong leaders, which supersedes impersonalorganization in eliciting the personal loyalty of fol-lowers. By contrast, institutional authority derivesfrom and is constrained by impersonal organization-al rules. In the ideal situation, such authority rests noton individual charisma but on the formal position of

POLITICAL REFORM IN CHINA: TOWARD DEMOCRACY OR A RULE OF LAW REGIME?

SUISHENG ZHAO

Suisheng Zhao is professor and executive director of the Center for China-U.S. Cooperation at the Graduate School ofInternational Studies, University of Denver.



the individual in an institutional setting. Insofar as aleader can issue commands under institutionalauthority it is because of the office that he or sheholds, rather than of any personal quality.

For many years in PRC history, personal author-ity was more important than institutional authority.This was particularly true during the 1980s whenretired senior leaders possessed great personal pres-tige and influence over newly promoted andyounger top office-holders.3 Since the demise ofthe senior revolutionary veterans in the 1990s, insti-tutional authority has advanced to take a moreimportant position than personal authority.The riseof the third generation of leadership under Jiangstarted the transition.The rise of the Hu leadershiphas completed the transition.This is the first gener-ation of leadership in the PRC without significantpersonal memory of the revolution years, or anywartime military experience. As a result, sinceDeng’s death in 1997, there have not been anyretired senior leaders who have practiced the foot-loose informal power that Deng did.

After taking office, Hu Jintao has moved furtheralong the direction of institutionalization of the lead-ership system and, in particular, has emphasized theimportance of preserving the normative rules andprocedures of collective leadership in the decision-making process. At the highly publicized firstPolitburo meeting after the 16th party congress, Huemphasized the rule of law and the constitution.Since then, the Politburo and its standing committeemeetings have been routinely publicized in the offi-cial media. In a move to institutionalize the decision-making system in the State Council, Wen stoppedmaking decisions at premier work meetings (zhonglibangong huiyi).These meetings did not have any legalstatus, but they were held regularly by Wen’s prede-cessors.Wen, on the other hand, has made decisionsat the State Council Executive meetings (guowuyuanchangwu huiyi) and State Council Plenary Meetings(guowuyuan qianti huiyi ), which do have legal status.Another significant move toward institutionalizationof leadership politics is the decision in July 2003 toabolish the annual series of informal central workconference meetings at the summer resort Beidaihethat started in the Mao’s years. Instead, the leadershipis relying on formal meetings of the Politburo and itsStanding Committee. This is certainly a majoradvance toward institutionalization of decision mak-ing at the top.

Continuing institutionalization of the leadershipsystem in this direction is certainly an importantdevelopment for building a rule of law regime.TopCCP leaders have tended to have less and less per-sonal authority as the institutionalization of leader-ship politics continues. In this case, Hu Jintao, nomatter how capable he is, will have less personalauthority than his predecessor, Jiang Zemin. Hu willalso be less likely to become a strongman after hisretirement than Deng or even Jiang did.This lack ofa strongman in the leadership will make members ofthe CCP leadership more willing to follow norma-tive rules and procedures in decision-making.

CADRE ACCOUNTABILITY

Another aspect of political reform is building aninstitutional and legal mechanism to restrain govern-ment officials and cadres with the goal of makingthem more responsive to society’s demands and moreaccountable for poor performance. Accordingly, anumber of institutions and mechanisms have beenestablished for this purpose, including legislativeoversight committees, supervision committees, partydiscipline committees, internal administration recon-sideration procedures, a system of letters and visits,administrative litigation law, and judicial review.Another example is the cadre accountability/respon-sibility system (ganbu wenze zhi) which provides that,if any official is found unable to prevent mishapsranging from epidemics to labor unrest, he or shewould face tough penalties or dismissal.

This system was triggered primarily by the SARS(severe acute respiratory syndrome) crisis in 2003.After a whistleblower exposed a cover-up about theoutbreak, the Chinese people began demanding basicrights to information and the World HealthOrganization and the foreign media clamored foraccountability. In the hospitals, the virus crept intothe ranks of the Communist Party. Unlike in the past,the drama was chronicled in real time on the inter-net. Realizing the danger that SARS could pose tothe country and the state, Hu made the unusualmove to acknowledge that the government had liedabout the disease and fired Beijing’s mayor and thecountry’s health minister for covering up the actualnumber of SARS patients.

Partially in response to the media exposure anddomestic as well as international pressure withregard to the initial cover-up of the epidemic, the


new Chinese leadership worked hard to build animage as the champion of ordinary Chinese peopleby calling for government officials to be more pro-fessional and accountable.The result was the settingup of a cadre responsibility system, whereby greateraccountability was demanded of leading officialsand they were required to report truthfully on theepidemic situation and other disasters. In addition,the behavior of China’s usually docile media wasalso changed. Since then, major accidents, such asbird flu outbreaks and mine explosions have beenroutinely reported in the media, and the officialsresponsible have been removed or even punished.

Although such changes do not indicate anacceptance of liberal democratic principles or entaila complete opening of the political system, the Hu-Wen administration has certainly been under pres-sure to reform the political system to reflect thetumultuous pace of transformation in China, fromtechnology that often outpaces efforts to controlinformation, to globalization and foreign influencesthat vie with Communist Party doctrine. Thereform has made the Hu-Wen administration moreresponsive to popular demands than its predeces-sors, but it falls far short of building institutions andsystems of governance that would guarantee effec-tive supervision of the rulers. Although the cadreaccountability system in theory is supposed to makethe cadres more responsive to societal demands, theway it has worked to date makes the cadres respon-sive only to their hierarchical superiors.This is notaccountability in the genuine sense of democracy.From this perspective, the cadre accountability sys-tem is a reform more toward the rule of law thandemocratization. As a matter of fact, the Hu-Wenadministration, just as its predecessors, has not hesi-tated to put a damper on any changes that threatenthe CCP’s monopoly of power.

CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM

Building a legal system, or “fazhi,” a Chinese wordwhich means both “rule of law” and “rule by law,”has become the third most important aspect ofpolitical reform in recent years. In addition topromulgating many laws and training legal profes-sionals, constitutional reform has become a hotlycontested issue in China’s political reform agenda.

The PRC has been governed by four constitu-tions, and four amendments have been made to the

current constitution. The first constitution in 1954detailed the state structure of the new People’sRepublic, but it ceased to function when theCultural Revolution disrupted established institu-tional arrangements. The second constitution,known as “the Cultural Revolution Constitution”(wenge xianfa), was produced in 1975. After theinception of economic reform, the third constitu-tion, known as the “Four ModernizationConstitution” (sige xiandaihua xianfa), was adoptedin 1978, marking the initial attempts to restore thepre-Cultural Revolution political system and there-orientation of party policy toward economicdevelopment. The formal structures governing theChinese political system barely gained legitimacywith the 1978 constitution.Thus, the fourth consti-tution, known as “Reform and Opening-up Con-stitution” (Gaige kaifang xianfa), was passed in 1982.Many changes were made in the 1982 constitution.The most important ones are a stipulation that “noorganization or individual is privileged to bebeyond the Constitution or law,” and the emphasison the equality of all citizens before the law.

Functioning to regularize the framework forpolitical life in China, the 1982 constitution wasamended four times: in 1988, 1993, 1999, and 2004.This was in response to policy adjustments at the13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th CCP National Con-gresses.The fact that the constitution was amended,rather than replaced by a new constitution, suggestsan important development in Chinese politics and amove toward international norms on legal issues. Inaddition, these amendments have made the constitu-tion more like a legal document and provide protec-tion to citizen’s rights. For example, the 1988amendment introduced provisions on the privateeconomy, while the 1993 amendment replaced theconcept of “socialist market economy” with theconcept of “planned economy on the basis of social-ist public ownership.” In the 1999 amendment, therole of the private sector was elevated from being “acomplement to the socialist public economy” to “animportant component of the socialist market econ-omy.” The phrase “counter-revolutionary activities”was changed to “crimes jeopardizing state security.”Significantly, the constitutional amendments explic-itly avow, for the first time in the constitutional his-tory of the People’s Republic, to “govern the stateaccording to law” (Yifa Zhiguo) and “establish thesocialist state of rule of law.”4 Among the revisions in

the 2004 amendment, a notable one is that “citizens’legal private property is not to be violated. . . .Thestate protects citizens’ private property rights andinheritance rights according to law.” This changeputs private assets of Chinese citizens on an equalfooting with public property, both of which are “notto be violated.”

While the top-down approach toward constitu-tional reform has set limitations on the scope of theamendments, Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese political dissi-dent known for his role in the 1989 Tiananmenpro-democracy demonstrations, acknowledges that“a constitution for party authority (dangquan xianfa)has been transformed into a constitution to limitparty authority (xianquan xianfa).” Evidence of thetransformation, according to him, is that theemphasis on legal education has shifted from edu-cating citizens to obey the law to educating officialsto follow the law.5

Indeed, protection of constitutional rights hasbecome a hot topic in China’s media, as ordinaryChinese have developed an understanding of thelegal rights they are supposed to enjoy and try tomake them real. This development has producedrights consciousness and activism (weiquan yundong).The rise of constitutional rights consciousness hasbrought about many new concepts among theChinese people. For example, Guangzhou’s bi-monthly magazine, Nanfeng Chuang (South WindWindow), listed ten “concepts of the year” in 2003.Most of them are closely linked with constitutionalconsciousness, such as “yimin weiban” (people are theoriginal source of political authority),“yixian ziguo”(to rule the country according to the constitution),“zhiqing qiuan” (the right for information), and“zhunzhong minyi” (respect the people’s will).6

CONCLUSION: THE RULE OF LAW AND PROCEDURALISM

Political reform has made a thin crack in China’srigid authoritarian system, and the new generationof leadership has tried to establish a new image ofbeing bound by the rule of law. Paradoxically, oneof the main purposes of this political reform hasbeen to head off threats that might eventuallyincrease pressure for democratization.

Bruce Gilley characterized the recent develop-ment of institutionalization and the rule of lawregime in China as “proceduralism,” which “is a key

to the notion of ‘technocracy’—officialdom guidedby markets and scientific expertise.” The constitu-tion is seen as “the pediment of the procedural tem-ple” and “Constitutionalism, as envisaged by Mr. Huand others, is a way to establish a reign of quies-cence over those who would contest party and statedecisions.”7 It is interesting to see the doctrine ofproceduralism in the context of a grand policy con-sensus built by Deng and advanced by Jiang and Huto concentrate on economic modernization andpolitical stability in order to maintain the CCPone-party rule. It has been a long-held party beliefduring the reform years that keeping economicgrowth moving and prosperity on the rise is crucialto the party’s progress and efforts to maintain one-party rule over an increasingly savvy society. Itslegitimacy can be maintained without abolishingthe one-party rule, as long as the communist party’srule can be improved to deliver economic growth.

Both the doctrines of proceduralism and eco-nomic primacy have so far stood the state in goodstead. However, the party’s legitimacy in China hasbecome increasingly tied not only to the party’s abil-ity to maintain a rule of law regime, but also to theparty’s ability to raise incomes and deliver year afteryear of strong GDP growth.There is great uncertain-ly as to how long this situation may last.A U.S. legalscholar indicated that China may be heading towardsa legal crisis because its weak institutions cannotaddress an increasing number of grievances, especial-ly from farmers and other underprivileged groups.The leadership has pledged to establish the rule oflaw and has created rising expectations, but thecountry lacks an independent judiciary and an offi-cial channel for grievances; consequently, “expecta-tions are more often than not being dashed.”8 Thereal test for political reform, therefore, is whether theparty and state are willing to accept constitutionalcurbs on their ultimate power by, among otherthings, an independent constitutional review process,expansion of direct local elections, dilution of partycontrol of the judiciary, and, in practice, permittingpeople to exercise such rights as freedom of assem-bly. It is hard to expect the Hu leadership to makesuch breakthroughs, as the goal of the new leadershiphas been to improve the system that they overseerather than bring it down.They have worked to gov-ern an increasingly complex polity by maintaining aone-party system, rather than to strike out in findinga new political direction.



ENDNOTES

1. Suisheng Zhao, Debating Political Reform inChina, the Rule of Law Versus Democratization(Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2006).

2. Frederick C.Teiwes, “Normal Politics withChinese Characteristics,” The China Journal, No.45, (January 2001): 74.

3. Suisheng Zhao, “The Structure of Authority andDecision-making: A Theoretical Framework,” inDecision-making in Deng’s China, ed. Carol LeeHamrin and Suisheng Zhao (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995), 236–237.

4. Qianfan Zhang, “The People’s Court inTransition:The Prospects of the Chinese Judicial

Reform,” Journal of Contemporary China,Vol. 12,No. 24 (2003): 69–70.

5. Liu Xiabo, “Zhonggong Xianfa Guan de ChubuBianhua” [The preliminary changes in theCCP’s Constitutional Outlook], www.chinese-newsnet.com, 14 January 2004.

6. Nanfeng Chuang [South Wind Window],December 15, 2003, 47–52.

7. Bruce Gilley, “The End of Politics in Beijing,”Asian Wall Street Journal, 28 January 2004.

8. Bill Savadove, “Weak Court System NearingCrisis Point: U.S. Legal Expert,” South ChinaMorning Post, 2 March 2006.


Almost 40 years ago, Samuel Huntingtonnoted that the process of socio-economicmodernization was inherently destabilizing

politically, and that rapid modernization was morestressful and destabilizing still. In Huntington’sfamous formulation, accelerated socio-economicchange served to raise popular expectations fasterthan existing political institutions could satisfythem, thus spawning a “frustration gap” that fueledrising political discontent.1

In Huntington’s view, the key to dealing effec-tively with the profound transitional stresses ofrapid modernization was to promote effective long-term political institutionalization (defined as anincrease in governmental autonomy, adaptability,and complexity) while maintaining strong, central-ized political authority. As he famously put it, inpolitical development the degree of governmentmatters more than the form of government. And hewent so far as to suggest that charismatic/authori-tarian political regimes could provide a degree ofpolitical stability necessary to guide a rapidly mod-ernizing society through the traumas of socio-eco-nomic change. Eventually, under the selection pres-sures of modernity, democratic institutions woulddisplay superior capacity to adapt and respond toemergent, pluralistic social forces; but in the mean-time, strong central authority was the sine qua non ofpolitical order.2

China’s post-Mao leaders have seemingly takenHuntington’s theory to heart.3 Seeking to avoidrisking the notional chaos of democratic pluralismin an age of increasing socio-economic complexity,they have stressed “unity and stability” above allelse. When faced (as in the spring of 1989) with astark choice between political reform and politicalrepression, they unflinchingly opted for the latter.Yet for Huntington, the comparative advantageconferred by strong authoritarian governance wasshort-term and transitive in nature; over the longhaul, political power had to be institutionalized tobe effective.And therein lay a profound dilemma forChina’s post-Mao leaders: how to create more

effective, responsive political institutions withoutrelinquishing their Leninist monopoly of politicalpower. How, in short, to increase popular feedbackwithout encouraging political pushback.

THE RISE OF CHINESE “SOFT AUTHORITARIANISM”

Beset by the intensifying societal frustrations andpressures of modernization, and increasingly mindfulof the need to bolster the Communist party-state’s“ruling capacity” (zhizheng nengli), Chinese leaders inrecent years have adopted a variety of “soft authori-tarian” measures designed to cautiously expand thearena of political inclusion, consultation, and cooptation,without at the same time enlarging the scope of pub-lic accountability, responsibility, or empowerment. Suchmeasures have included, inter alia:

• Enlarging the deliberative function of people’scongresses at all levels;

• Expanding the advisory and consultative roles of“united front” organs such as the Chinese People’sPolitical Consultative Conference (CPPCC) andthe eight officially recognized “democratic parties”;

• Creation of provincial, municipal and county-level“e-Government” websites for the public dissemina-tion of administrative information and solicitationof public feedback on government performance;

• Expanded use of xinfang (“letters and visits”) officesto assist members of the public in reporting abusesof state power;

• Providing legal recourse for citizens sufferingadministrative abuse at the hands of state officials,formalized in the 1990 Administrative LitigationAct;

• Use of open hearings to broaden public awarenessof local policy issues;

• Increasing the social representativeness and inclu-siveness of the CCP by recruiting entrepreneursand other emergent middle class and nouveaux-riches strata into the party under the aegis of the“three represents”; and

THE LIMITS OF CONSULTATIVE LENINISMRICHARD BAUM

Richard Baum is professor of political science at UCLA and past director of the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies.


• Promotion of the neo-Confucian cultural ideal ofa “harmonious society ” (hexie shehui) to fosterpeaceful resolution of conflict arising from thereform-induced polarization of incomes and eco-nomic opportunities.

While a primary goal of such administrative andideological innovations is to improve governmentalperformance and responsiveness, a series of steadilyworsening societal stresses and tensions have calledinto question the viability of the new, improvedChinese model of “consultative Leninism,” raisinganew the Huntingtonian question of the relation-ship between short-term political order and long-term political development.

THE NATURE OF CONSULTATIVE LENINISM

In its Maoist format, Chinese Leninism stressed theCCP’s indirect control over society via its top-down domination of sector-specific mass organiza-tions. By controlling the leadership and agenda ofsuch nationwide “peak associations” as the All-China Trade Union Federation and the All-ChinaWomen’s Federation, the CCP was able effectivelyto penetrate—and mobilize—major segments andstrata of Chinese society.At the same time, the CCPsought to co-opt (and thereby neutralize) key non-party social strata, such as intellectuals, through aseries of “united front” organs that included theCPPCC—a shadow parliament—and China’s eightdemocratic parties, remnants of the CCP’s “newdemocratic united front” of the early 1950s.Nominally, such bodies enjoyed supervisory (jiandu)and advisory (quangao) functions vis-à-vis the party-state; in reality, however, they were politically impo-tent, widely dismissed as “flowerpots”—pleasant tolook at, but carefully tended, watered and wherenecessary, weeded by the Communist Party. Aboveall, the purpose of mass organizations and unitedfront bodies alike was to help mold “unified publicopinion” in support of CCP programs and policies.

With the death of Mao and the advent of eco-nomic reform and “opening up” in the late 1970sand early 80s, the party-state began to retreat frommicro-managing the economy and society.With therelaxation of previous restrictions on market com-merce, labor mobility, and private acquisition ofwealth (“To get rich is glorious”), the Leninist stateand its socialist danwei (work units) loosened their

grip on the lives of hundreds of millions of people.In this new situation of accelerated social mobilityand enhanced individual discretion, the CCP’s tra-ditional imperative of “unified public opinion”—the notion that the interests of the party-state andthe popular masses were always identical and indi-visible—was subject to significant strain.

As China’s economy and society became morecomplex and pluralistic in the 1980s there wasincreasing talk of a new, post-Leninist Chinesedevelopment model. Sometimes referred to as“small state, big society” (xiao guojia, da shehui), thismodel envisioned a substantial downsizing of theparty-state apparatus, accompanied by the rise of avibrant, spontaneous, and autonomous sphere ofassociational life at the grass-roots level.4 Implicit inthe model was a recognition of the legitimacy ofparticularistic socio-economic interests and interestgroups.

Movement in the direction of greater interestgroup pluralism was endorsed by a group ofyounger CCP reformers in the late1980s, under thepatronage of Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang.On the eve of the 13th Party Congress in October1987, Zhao rejected the conventional Maoist viewof “unified public opinion” under socialism, arguingthat the government should be concerned with lis-tening to and reflecting the divergent interests andopinions of its citizens. Noting that “Socialist soci-ety is not a monolith,” he stressed that “specialinterests should not be overlooked”, arguing that“conflicting interests” should be represented “with-in the political process.”5 In his political report tothe 13th Party Congress, Zhao proposed a series ofpolitical and administrative reforms that, amongother things, included greater tolerance of organ-ized interest groups: “Different groups of peoplemay have different interests and views,” he said;“they too need opportunities to exchange ideas.”6

While proposing a gradual, step by step transi-tion to a more pluralistic, interest-based politicalprocess, Zhao stopped short of advocating Western-style constitutional democracy, with its separationof powers, multiparty competition and freedom ofpolitical expression. Noting that modernization andeconomic reform were inherently turbulent andstressful, Zhao argued (a là Huntington) that therewere inevitably “many factors making for instabili-ty.” For this reason, he suggested (also in goodHuntingtonian fashion) that the transition to polit-


ical pluralism should be undertaken “step by step inan orderly way.”7

In the event, Zhao’s modest proposal for a hybridsystem of limited interest group pluralism wasmooted during the Beijing Spring of 1989, whenself-organizing groups of independent students,workers, journalists and others took part in massiveanti-government demonstrations. Boldly assertingtheir autonomy from official, state-sponsored massorganizations, the dissidents’ defiance proved morethan CCP hard-liners could tolerate. When thecrackdown began in early June, leaders of the new-born autonomous organizations were among thefirst to be targeted for suppression.

LESSONS FROM THE SOVIET COLLAPSE

The CCP’s determination to resist—and suppresswhere necessary—political pluralism gained addedimpetus in February 1990, when MikhailGorbachev announced his intention to terminatethe Soviet Communist Party’s 72-year monopoly ofpolitical power. Less than 48 hours after Gorbachevdropped his bombshell, the Chinese media releasedthe text of a 24-point CCP Central Committeedecision categorically rejecting the option of multi-party power-sharing. While not criticizingGorbachev directly, the document asserted that“bourgeois democracy” was wholly unsuitable forChina; instead, it claimed that relations between theparty and the people could best be improved bystrengthening the traditional advisory, supervisoryand consultative roles of united front bodies such asthe CPPCC and the eight democratic parties“under the leadership of the CCP.”8

By seeking to co-opt non-party elites and grantthem easier advisory access to government policy-makers, Chinese leaders hoped to forestall populardemands for more widespread, systemic politicalaccess and accountability. Unlike Gorbachev, China’srulers had no intention of sharing power. WhenGorbachev was subsequently deposed (and theCPSU swept away) in the Soviet meltdown of 1991,Chinese leaders strongly reaffirmed their commit-ment to single-party rule, focusing once again on theneed to preserve “unity and stability.” In their view,Gorbachev’s misguided liberalism, aided and abettedby the subversive forces of “peaceful evolution,”exported by the West, had been responsible for thedisintegration of the Soviet bloc.9

MOUNTING SOCIAL DISCONTENT IN THE“ROARING NINETIES”

With political liberalization indefinitely shelved andparty conservatives threatening to reverse China’seconomic reforms and “open policy,” DengXiaoping’s personal intervention rescued the endan-gered reforms in 1992. In a manic upsurge of mar-ket activity that followed Deng’s famous “southerntour” of January-February 1992, the reforms wereaccelerated and further institutionalized. In theprocess, however, a number existing societal stresseswere exacerbated (including economic overheating,urban inflation, rampant corruption, and uncon-trolled rural emigration), while a series of new andpotentially critical socio-economic faultlinesappeared (including massive layoffs from failed ordownsized state-owned enterprises, a disappearingsocial safety net, unrestrained environmental degra-dation, a speculative stock market and real-estatedevelopment boom/bubble, widespread illegal landseizures, and severe income polarization betweencity and countryside, coast and interior).10 While adecade of near double-digit economic growth after1992 enabled Chinese leaders to survive these addedstresses while kicking the can of democratic politicalreform further down the road, avoiding tough polit-ical choices, the sharply rising frequency of organ-ized public displays of discontent, protest, and riot-ing since the early 1990s offers presumptive evi-dence of an incipient crisis of governance.11

Throughout the 1990s, the CCP’s primary strat-egy for dealing with local disturbances was to iso-late and cauterize them. When problems arose thatcould not be ignored—farmers protesting excessivefees or illegal land seizures; laid-off workersdemanding payment of embezzled wages and pen-sions; outraged parents demanding investigation of afatal school explosion and fire—they were handledon an ad hoc, individual basis. So long as such inci-dents were localized, they could be dealt with by apaternalistic government determined to keep thelid on social disorder. If necessary, village electionscould be held to remove corrupt local cadres; gov-ernment officials could launch a high-profile inves-tigation into the causes of a school fire (or a coal-mine collapse); and money could be found to payoff angry farmers and pensioners. If demonstrationspersisted or spread, their leaders could be arrestedor physically intimidated.


Such a strategy of localized conflict containmentis arguably most effective when discontent is smallin scale and widely dispersed, and when communi-cation among aggrieved groups and individuals isdifficult. What began happening in the late 1990s,however, was the mobilization of discontent by dis-advantaged groups possessing modern means ofcommunication—cellphones, pagers, personal com-puters, text messaging (SMS), and the internet. Associalized manifestations of discontent becamemore numerous and larger in scale, their potentialpolitical threat to the regime became greater.

JIANG ZEMIN’S “THREE REPRESENTS”

Confronted in the late 1990s with signs of a grow-ing disconnect between the party-state and society,Jiang Zemin sought to boost the Communist Party’sflagging prestige. Articulating a controversial “theo-ry of the three represents” (sange daibiao lilun), Jianginvited China’s emergent nouveaux riches entrepre-neurs and commercial elites to join the CommunistParty. By including these new economic eliteswithin the CCP’s “big tent,” Jiang hoped to broad-en the socio-economic base of the party and there-by increase its responsiveness.

In the event, Jiang’s initiative did little to ease the“great wall of power” that separated the party fromthe people. Although the “three represents” reflect-ed a growing recognition of the need for the partyto embed itself more deeply and broadly within thesociety, it was but a first step, and arguably a ratherfeeble one at that. Many ordinary citizens displayeda noncommittal attitude toward the “three repre-sents”; others were openly cynical, viewing the newdoctrine as a veiled attempt to co-opt upwardlymobile groups and individuals without diluting theparty’s effective political monopoly. For most peo-ple, however, it was simply irrelevant.12

THE NEED TO “STRENGTHEN RULING CAPACITY”

Early in the new millennium, with the risk-aversiveJiang Zemin moving toward retirement, it waswidely anticipated that his fourth-generation suc-cessors, Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, might be free topursue a more progressive political agenda. Indeed,the prospects for meaningful reform seemed tobrighten momentarily when the Fourth Plenum of

the 16th Central Committee, meeting in September2004, frankly acknowledged the fragility of partyrule and affirmed the existence of a deepening cri-sis of legitimacy:

China’s reform and development has reached acritical stage in which new problems are mush-rooming. . . .The CCP’s ruling status . . .will notlast forever if the party does nothing to safe-guard it. . . .We must develop a stronger senseof crisis . . . and strengthen our ruling capacityin a more earnest and conscientious manner.13

To deal with the mounting crisis, the FourthPlenum pledged that “The party will guarantee thatthe people carry out democratic election, policymaking, management and supervision according tolaw, while improving the People’s Congress systemand the system of multi-party cooperation andpolitical consultation . . .”14

If the Fourth Plenum cautiously raised hopes forgreater political openness and pluralism, Hu Jintaosoon dashed them. In a September 2004 speechcommemmorating the 50th anniversary of theNational People’s Congress, Hu made it clear that“strengthening ruling capacity” did not mean dilut-ing or relinquishing the CCP’s 55-year monopolyon political power:

The Communist Party of China takes a dom-inant role and coordinates all sectors. . . . Theleading position of the party is a result oflong-term practice and is clearly stipulated bythe Constitution. People’s congresses at all lev-els and their standing committees must con-sciously put themselves under the party’s lead-ership. . . .The role of party organizations andparty members in government departmentsshould be brought into full play . . . so as torealize the party’s leadership over state affairs.15

Further underscoring Hu’s emphasis on unrelent-ing party domination, a lengthy commentary byPolitburo Standing Committee member ZengQinghong (an erstwhile protégé of Jiang Zemin),published shortly after the Fourth Plenum, spelledout an expanded role for the party in China’s gover-nance. Among other things, Zeng called for tighterparty control over legislative deliberations; increasedfusion (and blurred functional distinctions) between


party and state officials; and tighter party supervisionover the activities of interest groups:

Upholding rule by law requires strengtheningthe party’s leadership of legislative work andbeing good at using statutory procedures totranslate the party’s preferences into thenational will . . . .

The Decision proposes . . . increasing to anappropriate extent the overlap in the duties andpositions of party and government leaders . . . .

Creating sound supervisory channels . . . willprevent the formation of vested interestgroups.16

Not coincidentally, these three imperatives direct-ly contradicted key reform initiatives proposed byZhao Ziyang in 1987. In this and other respects, theFourth Plenum’s call to “strengthen ruling capacity”seemed less a manifesto for political openness than acall for reinforcing traditional CCP domination ofthe instruments and avenues of governance.

THE QUEST FOR A “HARMONIOUS SOCIETY”

Most recently, the drive to strengthen the CCP’sruling capacity has been conjoined, somewhat par-adoxically, with a revival of neo-Confucian philos-ophy, centering on the quest for a “harmonioussociety” (hexie shehui). Premier Wen Jiabao laid thecornerstone of this renaissance on March 5, 2005, inhis Report to the 19th National People’s Congress.“We must,” said the premier, “build a harmonioussocialist society that is . . . fair and just, trustworthyand friendly, full of vigor and vitality, secure andorderly, and in which man and nature are in harmo-ny.”17 A few weeks later, an article by a vice-chair-man of the CPPCC defined the political goal of “aharmonious society” as a desire to “reach unanimi-ty after taking many things into consideration.”Theauthor went on to say:“When this logic is [applied]to administration, we must harmonize various kindsof interests, synthesize different opinions and defusecomplicated contradictions.”18

While this language is vaguely utopian, the polit-ical implications are strikingly authoritarian andpaternalistic. Since the spontaneous, unmediated

clash of contending interests, in the absence ofcompetitive parties, putatively engenders social dis-cord and political chaos, a unifying force, standingabove the fray, is needed to forge a coherent synthe-sis among clashing social forces. Like the “three rep-resents”, the call for a “harmonious society” presup-poses the existence of a benign, superordinateauthority—the CCP—capable of faithfully incor-porating and blending the full spectrum of “legiti-mate” societal interests.

CONCLUSION: THE FUTURE OF CONSULTATIVE LENINISM

By substituting paternalistic consultation forautonomous political participation, co-optation forrepresentation, advice for empowerment, and con-sensus-building for the clash of conflicting interests,the CCP has arguably been able to avoid much ofthe putative clutter and chaos of democratic plural-ism. But what of Huntington’s institutional impera-tive? Has the Chinese party-state become morecomplex, adaptable, and responsive—i.e., more effec-tive—as a governing institution? And if so, does thisincrease or decrease the likelihood of a future dem-ocratic transition?

A relatively optimistic assessment of the outlookfor improved Chinese governance by Dali Yangfocuses on a series of recent incremental administra-tive and legal reforms, including enactment of theAdministrative Litigation Law; strengthening “lettersand visits” as a mechanism for redressing abuses ofgovernment authority; proliferation of “e-Government” internet websites and business-friend-ly government service centers; and increased use ofpublic hearings, permitting expanded citizen inputinto policy deliberations. Arguing that such initia-tives help to “improve the efficiency, transparency,and accountability of the administrative state,”Yangsuggests that they “help bridge the gap between eliteand masses, and go some way toward curbing ram-pant [corruption].”And he goes on to suggest that inthe long run,“an efficient and well-governed admin-istration will be indispensable if and when elite pol-itics do make a democratic transition.”19

The key to Yang’s “if-and-when” optimism liesin his perception that the gap between state andsociety is gradually shrinking, albeit non-democrat-ically, due to soft-authoritarian administrative andprocedural reforms. Such optimism may be difficult

to square, however, with the rapidly rising frequen-cy and intensity of reported incidents of organizedsocial protest over the past dozen years. In 2005alone, China’s Ministry of Public Security recordedover 87,000 such incidents—representing a six-foldincrease over 1993.20

Casting a more critical eye on China’s recentadministrative reforms, Minxin Pei agrees with Yangthat narrowing the state-society gap is the key toimproving governmental performance. But unlikeYang, Pei sees China locked in a “trapped transi-tion” wherein new socio-economic elites, havingbeen successfully co-opted by the party-state tobecome willing partners in a corrupt system of“crony capitalism,” have little interest in altering thepolitical status quo:

In China, mixing command and control with embryonic market forces enables theCommunist party to tap efficiency gains fromlimited reforms to sustain the unreconstructedcore of the old command economy—the eco-nomic foundation of its political supremacy. Ina ‘trapped transition,’ ruling elites have littleinterest in real reforms. They may pledgereforms, but most such pledges are lip service ortactical adjustments aimed at maintaining thestatus quo.

Without a national reformist ethos or vision-ary reformers, China seems to be on a LongMarch to nowhere. China’s continuing eco-nomic growth merely vindicates current poli-cies and disproves the need for change, per-petuating the trap. Riding this momentum,the party may muddle along for some timebut it is hard to imagine that China canevolve into a market democracy without acataclysmic mid-course correction.21

Where does all this leave China? In theory,absent competitive political parties and vibrant, self-organizing pouvoirs intermediares, China’s soft-authoritarian administrative and legal reforms couldconceivably yield a Singaporian or Hong Kong-style “executive-led, administered state.” ButSingapore and Hong Kong both enjoy importantcomparative political advantages over China as aresult of being: (a) tiny city-states of 6 million (orless) well-educated citizens, with virtually no rural

hinterlands; (b) inheritors of mature British-typelegal systems and the developing world’s mostuncorrupt civil services; and (c) per-capita incomesof over US$30,000—roughly six times greater thanChina’s.22 Thus, the likelihood of China evolvinginto another Singapore or Hong Kong anytimesoon must be reckoned as exceedingly remote.

In the short-term, consultative Leninism—bol-stered by robust economic growth—has arguablyextended the life span of China’s authoritarianregime. In a recent Foreign Affairs article, BruceBueno de Mesquita and George W. Downs arguethat authoritarian governments can add substantial-ly to their longevity by combining economic liber-alization and the effective provision of administra-tive goods with tight restrictions on “coordinationgoods” such as political liberties, press freedom, andunrestricted internet access:

[P]lenty of evidence now suggests that auto-cratic and illiberal governments of variousstripes can delay democracy for a very longtime. Over the past half century, a large num-ber of such regimes have undergone extensiveeconomic growth without any correspondingpolitical liberalization. In other cases, auto-crats have been forced to introduce modestpolitical changes but have held onto power bylimiting the scope of those changes.

What explains the often lengthy lag betweenthe onset of economic growth and the emer-gence of liberal democracy? The answer liesin the growing sophistication of authoritariangovernments.Although development theoristscorrectly assume that increases in per capitaincome lead to increases in popular demandfor political power, they consistently underes-timate the ability of oppressive governmentsto thwart those demands. . . .

In the long term, however, economic growthcan threaten the survival of repressive govern-ments by raising the likelihood that effectivepolitical competitors will emerge. This hap-pens for two reasons: (1) economic growthraises the stakes of the political game byincreasing the spoils available to the winner,and (2) it leads to an increase in the number ofindividuals with sufficient time, education, and



money to get involved in politics. Both thesechanges can set in motion a process of democ-ratization that, slowly gathering momentum,can eventually overwhelm an autocratic statusquo and create a competitive, liberal democra-cy in its place.

23

As to just what constitutes “eventually,” “a verylong time,” and “in the long term,” Bueno deMesquita and Downs, drawing on data gathered fromapproximately 150 countries between 1970 and1999, conclude that competent authoritarian gov-ernments that provide substantial economic growthand administrative goods, while effectively suppress-ing coordination goods (including media freedom,unrestricted access to internet sites, and freedom ofassembly), can delay the onset of democratization forup to a full decade or even longer. If their calcula-tions are correct, China’s unreconstructed Leninistsmay already be living on borrowed time.

ENDNOTES

1. Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in ChangingSocieties (New Haven:Yale University Press,1968), chapter 1 et passim.

2. In Huntington’s view, the main alternatives tostrong transitional political authority were prae-torianism (government by military coup) and rev-olution (governmental collapse).

3. Huntington’s book was widely read by Chinesepolitical reformers in the 1980s, and was said tobe instrumental in inspiring Zhao Ziyang’s pro-posals for limited political reform, introduced atthe 13th CCP National Congress in 1987.

4.The term “small state, big society” was coined inconnection with the creation of a new provin-cial-level Special Economic Zone on HainanIsland in 1988.

5. Zhao Ziyang, “On Separating Party fromGovernment,” Beijing Review,Vol. 30, No. 50 (December 14–20, 1987): 16.

6. Zhao’s proposals are examined in RichardBaum, Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age ofDeng Xiaoping (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1996), 220–222.

7. Beijing Review,Vol. 30, No. 45 (1987), 6,15.8. Chinese Communist Party, “Opinions On

Persisting In and Improving the System ofMultiparty Cooperation and Political

Consultation Under the Leadership of theCPC,” Foreign Broadcast Information Service(February 7, 1990), 7–11.

9. China’s response to the collapse of Leninistregimes in East and Central Europe and theSoviet Union, 1989–92, is analyzed in DavidShambaugh, China’s Communist Party: Atrophyand Adaptation, (forthcoming).

10. See, e.g., Charles Wolf, et al., Faultlines inChina’s Economic Terrain (Santa Monica: RandCorporation, 2004); and Wang Shaoguang andHu Angang, The Political Economy of UnevenDevelopment:The Case of China, (Armonk, NY:M.E. Sharpe, 1998)

11. From approximately 14,000 officially recordedincidents of collective protest in 1993, thenumber rose to over 87,000 in 2005. See note20, below.

12.There is a good deal of anecdotal evidence tosuggest that the “three represents” failed toachieve widespread public acceptance orrespect. On several occasions in 2002, 2003,and 2004, the author asked Chinese informantsin various cities (including a fair number oftaxi drivers) their opinion of Jiang’s new theo-ry. More often than not, the query was metwith either total silence or an attempt athumor. One cab driver in Lanzhou, Gansu,when asked how he related to the “three rep-resents”, responded with mock seriousness that“every night when I get home from work thefirst thing I do is discuss the three representswith my wife and kids.” Pleased with his littlejoke, he laughed audibly.

13. An abridged Chinese text of the FourthPlenum Communiqué, entitled “Zhonggongzhongyang guanyu dangde zhizheng nengli jianshede jueding” [Resolution of the CCPCentral Committee on Building the RulingCapacity of the Party] (September 19, 2004),appears in Xinhua Wang Online (Beijing),September 26, 2004. A lengthy English lan-guage commentary on the communiquéappears in http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200409/26/print20040926_158378.html.

14. Ibid.15. Hu Jintao, “Speech commemmorating the 50th

anniversary of the founding of the NationalPeople’s Congress” (September 15, 2004),People’s Daily Online, http://english.people.


com.cn//200409/15/eng20040915_157073.html.

16. Zeng Qinghong, “A Programmatic Documentfor Strengthening the Party’s Ruling Capacity:Study and Implement the Spirit of the FourthPlenum of the 16th Party Committee,Strengthen the Party’s Ruling Capacity,”People’s Daily (internet edition), 8 October,2004, translated in FBIS CPP20041008000029(October 8, 2004).

17.The text of Zhao’s report is reproduced inhttp://english.gov.cn/2006-02/22/ content_207113.htm.

18. Feng Zhijun, “The Philosophy of Harmony,”People’s Daily (Overseas Edition), March 23,2005: 1.

19. Dali Yang, “State Capacity on the Rebound,”Journal of Democracy 14:1 (2003), 48. Also Dali

Yang, Remaking the Chinese Leviathan, (PaloAlto: Stanford University Press, 2004).

20. Statistics as reported on the MPS website,http://www.mps.gov.cn/webpage/showNews.asp?id=1810biaoshi=bitGreatNews.

21. Minxin Pei, “China Is Stagnating in Its‘Trapped Transition,” Financial Times, 24February 2006. Also Minxin Pei, China’sTrapped Transition (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 2006).

22. Income calculations based on PPP estimates.See Central Intelligence Agency, The WorldFactbook, January 10, 2006.

23. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and George W.Downs, “Development and Democracy,”Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 5 (September-October 2005): 77–86.


INTRODUCTION

Since the early 1990s, the internet has attractedtremendous attention from business, academiaand the media. This is especially true in the

case of China. Government regulations on internetuse have been scrutinized, and the application oftechnologies to censor information flow on the netcondemned. Government crackdowns on dissentactivities in cyberspace have also been critiqued, anddetails of each case have been gathered and madepublic both online and through traditional media. Inthe last several months, we have witnessed furtherextraordinary attention to the internet in China.First, news broke that Yahoo had provided theChinese authorities with online activity records that,in part, helped them to sentence journalist Shi Tao toa 10-year prison sentence for leaking national secrets.Next, Microsoft was accused of removing the blogspace of Chinese journalist Michael Anti (Zhao Jing)from MSN because of his blog’s politically sensitivecontent. In mid-January, Google’s decision to launcha Chinese version of its search engine that wouldblock websites deemed unacceptable by the Chineseauthorities was given widespread coverage.Furthermore, a major internet player such as Ciscohas long been known to be one of the hardwareproviders that have helped the Chinese build a fire-wall to filter out “unhealthy” information online.Allthis attention culminated in a congressional hearingin mid-February, at which executives of the above-mentioned technological giants were summoned toCapitol Hill, where they faced intense scrutiny fromcongressmen as well as the media.

The reason why we pay so much attention to theinternet in China may reflect our disappointmentand frustration at the way the internet has evolvedthere, especially since it has been in a manner quitedifferent from many early expectations. In the ear-lier phase of growth, many experts predicted thatChina’s attempts to control the internet were des-tined to fail because the internet, with its uniquelydecentralized structure and absence of hierarchy,

was thought to be uncontrollable. Indeed, manypredicted that the internet would change Chinainto a more democratic society.An additional argu-ment was that the Chinese economy could not besuccessful in a contemporary information age if theauthorities chose to block the people’s ability tofreely obtain and integrate information at all levels.As often in contemporary Chinese politics, howev-er, this prediction has turned out to be simply wish-ful thinking. As we have seen in the last severalyears, the development of the internet in China hasbrought a more complicated outcome. On the onehand, Chinese decision makers have treated theinternet as an economic and social growth engine,and their proactive policies have promoted phe-nomenal internet growth, so that China is now thecountry with the second-largest number of internetusers (110 million) in the world. On the otherhand, this rapid development has been achievedwithout the government losing much control ofinternet cyberspace. In fact, the Chinese state hasdeveloped a variety of means of control over thecontent of the internet which—at least up to thepresent—have been fairly effective. Worse still,international tech giants have proved to be eithercompliant or even complicit with Chinese govern-ment control mechanisms. Frustration and outrageare understandable in this context.

INTERNET CONTROL AS PART OF THE MEDIA SYSTEM

To understand the complex picture of contempo-rary China, however, we should not overestimatethe transformational capacity of the internet, orunderestimate the control abilities of the contem-porary Chinese state. In other words, neither a toooptimistic nor a too pessimistic view is correct. Ourearly high expectations of the internet were basedon prior assumptions of its democratizing functionin Chinese society. While all of us agree that theinternet has and will continue to have an impact onChinese politics, we have to realize that technology

UNDERSTANDING CHINESE INTERNET POLITICSYONGMING ZHOU

Yongming Zhou is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.


facilitates, but does not dictate, politics. The sametechnology can be used by different parties in dif-ferent ways to achieve diverse goals. The internetcan thus be used by the Chinese people to enlargetheir space of political participation, but it can alsobe adopted by the Chinese state to consolidate itspower. As I illustrated in my recent book, the tele-graph, the newest information technology one hun-dred years ago, was used by the Chinese to conducta nationwide mobilization against American goodsto protest the Chinese exclusion treaty.1 My casestudy on websites of fans of the military shows thatthe internet has also been used by the Chinese toconduct nationalist and anti-democratic mobiliza-tion online.2 The democratizing function of theinternet is thus only one of many possibilities ofthat medium.

China’s entering into a market economy was ini-tially seen as a very promising development thatwould loosen the state’s tight media control.Yet sofar the result is mixed. Chinese newspapers, radioand television stations have experienced dramaticcommercialization, but the state still maintains afirm grip on these media forms. The Chineseauthorities have achieved their control over thenews media through a complex combination of dif-ferent means. Major components are as follows: put-ting the party apparatus in direct charge of moni-toring media organization operations and the con-tent they carry, setting the bar high to discouragethe founding of new media organizations, pressur-ing journalists to consent to party rule throughcareer and material incentives, and converselythreatening to block their access to various stateowned resources, and even resorting to prosecutionif they do not comply. These mechanisms worktogether to maintain state control, which is mainlyexpressed through the exercise of self-censorship.Even in the case of local or commercially orientedmedia outlets that are not under strict state moni-toring, the pressure to self-censor is still pervasive.

This does not mean that Chinese media workerspassively submit to control, nor does it imply thatmarketization and the appearance of new mediaforms such as the internet have not helped themchallenge this control.As shown in my study on theminjian (unofficial, independent) online politicalwriters, the market economy and the internet haveprovided additional avenues to support the appear-ance of independent intellectuals in China, which

was impossible under the old planned economy andtotalitarian regime.3 In fact, Chinese intellectuals,media workers, and online writers have constantlyaimed to test state limits, and a much enlarged spaceof expression has been won through their efforts. Itis a well-acknowledged fact that in today’s Chinarestrictions on what can be expressed have beenloosened substantially. The rapid development ofmass media and the internet has definitely played animportant role in this process.Yet the environmentremains complex, and only seasoned players can fig-ure out to what degree self-censorship should beemployed in different media forms.

Despite sensationalist reports regarding Chineseinternet control, focusing on activities ranging fromfiltering keywords, blocking websites, raiding inter-net cafés, closing down chat-rooms, removing blogs,and persecuting cyber dissidents, these actions arenot new if we put them in the context of mediacontrol in China.The Chinese authorities carry outthese activities in the same way that they prevent“unhealthy” TV or radio programs from beingaired, deny sensitive news from being reported innewspapers, or shut down magazines that publishproblematic articles.As is the case in other forms ofmedia and in everyday life, the vast majority ofinternet control work is performed through self-censorship. As I suggested earlier, our seeminglyobsessive attention to the Chinese internet resultsfrom our high expectations of it. If we realize thatthe internet is only a promising new technology,and efforts to control it are an integral part ofChinese media control mechanisms—which in turnare part of the current political system—we willcome to the conclusion that only by changing thewhole political system can the internet be usedfreely. Expecting that the availability of this tech-nology alone can change the whole system is notrealistic, and we should thus not overestimate thetransformational role of the internet in China.

PRIVATIZING CONTROL: THE DUAL ROLE OF THE MARKET

In contrast to our overestimation of the transforma-tional power of the internet, we may have underes-timated Chinese ability to control the internet (andother media) within the new domains of the mar-ket economy and privatization. I argue that the pol-itics of the internet has to be examined in the con-


text of China’s continuing turn to neoliberalism, inwhich marketization and privatization have beenactively promoted by the state. At first sight, usingneoliberalism to describe a social order which stillclaims to be socialist may seem a little perplexing,yet various neoliberal practices in China haveattracted scholarly attention recently. Of specialinterest to our discussion is what David Harvey calls“neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics” inwhich the outcome “has been the construction of aparticular kind of market economy that increasing-ly incorporates neoliberal elements interdigitatedwith authoritarian centralized control.”4 This brandof neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics hasmade relationships between private business, themarket, and the state more complicated in the arenaof internet control.

From this perspective, I argue that in addition toallowing privatization in the economic domain, thestate has also aimed to “privatize” certain aspects ofcontrol by devolving them to the private sector. Inthe area of media control, the state has been suc-cessful in enlisting the business sector to censorinformation, thus “privatizing” certain controlfunctions that originally belonged to the authori-tarian state.This has resulted in new mechanisms toachieve the goal of maintaining economic privatiza-tion and political control. In the Chinese context,the emphasis on “self-control” can be expanded toinclude both individual users as well as the interna-tional tech giants. For the latter, their resistance tostate regulations often stops when their ultimategoal of profit seeking is calculated to be in danger.By extending the right to operate a business, thestate privatizes some elements of control by trans-ferring them into the hands of tech companies,effectively creating another form of “self-control.”In the context of economic privatization and thefast pace of development, the market has shown itsdual role in either challenging state regulations orworking together with the state to ensure its over-all goal of profit. By enlisting the market to serve itscontrol goals, the state has also initiated a process ofthe privatization of control which permits compa-nies to make “rational” choices within the limits setby the state. The recent uproar in the West at thefact that high-tech giants have complied withChinese internet surveillance rules is a good exam-ple illustrating that the privatization of control canbe extended to multinational companies as long as

their need to penetrate China’s huge market renders“self-control” a rational choice.

The politics of the internet should be examinedfrom the perspective of two sets of tensions embed-ded within the broader context of contemporaryChina. One set of tensions arises from the fact thatthe non-monolithic Chinese state is both the pro-moter and the monitor of new technology, theother from the fact that privatization and marketforces both challenge and reinforce state regula-tions.These contradictions illustrate the complexityof a new neoliberal governmentality that is gaininghold in China.As long as the processes of privatiza-tion and marketization continue to flourish in aChinese neoliberal environment, it is likely that wewill see more privatization of control in manydomains in China in the future.

INFORMATION FLOW AND INFORMATION RECEPTION

Let me enter the final part of this short paper bymentioning two interesting recent episodes con-cerning the Chinese internet. One happened inearly March, in which two Chinese journalistsclosed their blogs, claiming that their actions were“due to unavoidable reasons with which everyone isfamiliar.” These closures immediately caught theattention of Western internet watchers. The BBCreported that the closure was ordered by theChinese authorities, and French-based ReportersWithout Borders followed this with a condemnato-ry statement. As it turned out, the blogs were backone day later and the Chinese government had norole in the whole event. The event was, in fact,staged by two Chinese journalists “to give foreignmedia a lesson that Chinese affairs are not always theway you think.”5 Another episode involved MichaelAnti, the very Chinese journalist whose blog wasremoved from MSN several months ago. When heheard that a U.S. congressional hearing was to beheld on the U.S. tech giants’ role in helping Chineseinternet censorship, and that an Internet FreedomAct was to be proposed, he issued a statement on hisnew blog claiming that he did not think “the free-dom of speech of Chinese people needs Americanprotection” and argued that the U.S. Congressshould not view Chinese internet users as its“maids,” dressing them up in whatever way itwished. Furthermore, Anti noted that if the hearing


were held for the purpose of achieving freedom ofspeech in China, it would actually do more harmthan good by driving Microsoft and Google out ofChina, leaving Chinese netizens only with Chinesecompanies that practice even more severe censor-ship. He claimed that the congressional hearing itselfproved that foreigners did not understand theChinese situation, and that only the Chinese them-selves could fight for their own rights and freedoms.6

The first episode mocked the unprecedentedWestern attention to the efforts at control by theChinese state, which, according to the Chinesejournalists, did not reflect the whole picture. Thehoax by two Chinese journalists embarrassed west-ern media to a certain degree. Michael Anti’s reac-tion to the congressional hearing is more puzzling,since his case with Microsoft was part of the reasonthe hearing was called. It is obvious that both thetwo Chinese journalists and Michael Anti have easyaccess to the internet, are well informed, and in thecase of Anti at least, are critical of the Chinese gov-ernment.Why, then, do they all mistrust the atten-tion given to internet censorship by those outsideChina? How do we make sense of their uniquereactions? To answer these questions, let me reiter-ate my argument that many China observers haveneglected the fact that transmitting information is aprocess that involves two elements: informationissuance and information receiving. It is surely mis-taken to pay attention only to whether or not infor-mation gets through, forgetting that any informa-tion can be reinterpreted by receivers in ways radi-cally different from the expectations of free infor-mation advocates. In the process of communication,information receivers do not receive informationpassively; they have always played an active role inselectively receiving and actively reinterpreting theinformation received.

For example, in the previously mentioned casestudy I conducted on a website of military fans, themajority of its members are well-educated, veryknowledgeable of how to circumvent censorshipmethods in order to access to forbidden websites,and are thus well informed, yet at the same time theyare nationalistic and anti-Western. This phenome-non raises a key question: if these Chinese internetsurfers are informed about the outside world, whydoes nationalistic thinking appeal much more tothem than do ideas of democracy and freedom, andworse still, why do they treat the latter ideas with

disbelief and sarcasm? My tentative answer is thateven though Chinese people have become moreinformed, they have also adopted a new interpreta-tive framework that acknowledges the pursuit ofnational interest as the ultimate goal of internation-al relations. From this perspective,America’s promo-tion of democracy, human rights and other values isoften perceived as a front to advance its own nation-al interest, especially in the Sino-U.S. relationship.Within such a “reception context” for the informa-tion, these well-educated, well-informed youngChinese are very skeptical about the informationconveyed by the Western media. The two episodesmentioned above show that ensuring the free infor-mation flow is not the end of the task. A more crit-ical task is how to encourage the formation of a“reception context” that will make democratic val-ues more attractive in the process of informationreception and interpretation.

CONCLUSION

One of the reasons that so much attention has beengiven to the internet in China is a tendency tooverestimate its role in promoting democraticchanges in Chinese society. It is important to real-ize that the internet is a technology, and only thehuman users will decide in what way and to whatends this new technology is to be used. To betterunderstand Chinese internet politics, people have tobe aware that current internet control is a part of acomprehensive package of control mechanismsapplied to all media forms in China. It is clear that,in facing new challenges, the Chinese state has notonly reacted defensively and passively, but alsoproactively. In a very short period of time, theChinese state has come up with more refined andflexible strategies to “govern” this new domain. Abig element in the success of internet control is thatthe state has successfully privatized certain parts ofthe task in the new context of a market economy.Along with the privatization of business operations,it has also privatized or subcontracted certain con-trol responsibilities to non-state actors, such asinternet cafés, entrepreneurs, customers, communi-ty volunteers, and even multinational high-techcompanies, through the state’s expectation of themto exercise “self-control.”

Observers should be neither too optimistic nortoo pessimistic about the internet in China. It is a


fact that Chinese people are accessing more infor-mation through the internet, satellite TV and othertraditional media than was previously available.Theroom for freedom of speech is thus being enlarged,and many Chinese see this as an irreversible trendand an ideal route for change. Even Michael Anticlaims that “what Chinese netizens need is thegradual increase of freedom.”7 Democracy is basedon the tolerance and acceptance of plural opinions,and it is time for Western media observers and pol-icy makers to realize that having free access ofinformation in no way guarantees that the informa-tion will be interpreted in ways that promote theprinciples of democracy and freedom of speech. Somuch attention has been focused on how to trans-mit information without censorship in China, but amuch more urgent need is to build a ‘receptioncontext” that enables such information to bereceived and interpreted in line with democraticvalue systems.This shift may turn out to be a moreproductive approach.

ENDNOTES1. Zhou Yongming, Historicizing Online Politics:

Telegraphy, the Internet and Political Participation inChina (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press,2006).

2. Zhou Yongming, “Informed Nationalism:Military Websites in Chinese Cyberspace,” TheJournal of Contemporary China,Vol. 14 , No. 44(2005): 543–62.

3. Zhou Yongming, “Living on the Cyber Border:‘Minjian’ Political Writers in ChineseCyberspace,” Current Anthropology,Vol. 46, No. 5(2005): 779–803.

4. David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 120.

5. For details, see Geoffrey A. Fowler and JuyingQin, “Chinese Bloggers Stage Hoax Aimed atCensorship Debate” Wall Street Journal, 14March 2006.

6. See Michael Anti, “Freedom of ChineseNetizens Is Not a Maid of American: AStatement on the Proposed Internet FreedomAct by the US Congress.” Posted February 17,2006 at http://anti.blog-city.com/1634657.htm.

27

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