Building a mechanism for the exercise of power, marked by a
reasonable structure, scientific distribution, rigorous procedure,
and effective restraints. In this regard, the political report, which
hardly discussed political reform, nevertheless called for the
building of "socialist political civilization," which many take as a
code word for political reform. In discussing socialist political
civilization, Jiang called for "strengthening supervision over
power in decision making, execution, and other areas."
Such prescriptions seem to indicate recognition of the need to
create a better, more efficient bureaucracy that is subject to effective
constraints and "public" supervision. This is not a new recognition
in China but rather it follows the line of thinking of numerous policy
documents over the past two decades that push in the same direction.
Nevertheless, one might argue that the social problems facing
China and the imperatives of succession politics are imparting a new
urgency to this bureaucratic rationalization.
Nevertheless, just as there are forces at the highest political level
that push back against efforts to institutionalize the political system,
there are also political forces that slow and distort this effort to reinstitutionalize
administrative authority. The single biggest problem is
easily stated: The logic of legal-rational authority is quite different
from the logic of Leninist systems, and the CCP resists giving up its
prerogatives as the pervasive political organization, penetrating as
many arenas of society as possible. Granted, the enormous changes
in Chinese life over the last two decades, particularly the erosion of
the danwei (work unit) and hukou (household registration) systems
have made this more difficult, but the party has not given up the
struggle. Indeed, there is at least as much attention being paid to
party building these days as in years past.
The political report to the Sixteenth Party Congress, not unexpectedly,
placed a great deal of emphasis on the "Three Represents"
in its section on party building, and certainly the emphasis on ideology
in party building is not new. The "Three Represents" suggests
that the nature of the party may change (as liberals hope and conservatives
fear) as private entrepreneurs are recruited into the party
(though the number of entrepreneurs who have joined the party is
actually quite small). Potentially, the biggest changes may derive
from changes in the way the party operates. If "inner-party democracy"
were genuinely expanded so that the party "fully reflect[ed]
the will of party members and organizations" that would be a fundamental
change in the CCP's "democratic centralism," and for that
reason is not likely to happen. Indeed, early experiments are not
altogether encouraging. Change may also come with establishing
party delegates as some sort of permanent organ, rather than
convening solely for quinquennial party congresses. Such changes,
likely to come slowly if at all, are intended to make the party more
effective, not to change its role in Chinese life.
Indeed, perhaps the most surprising aspect of the CCP's effort to
remake itself as a "ruling" party rather than as a "revolutionary"
party is its refusal to withdraw from various areas of social life. It
seems plausible that, if the CCP really desired to act as a "ruling"
party and to govern the country through law and a legal-rational
bureaucracy, it would begin to withdraw from certain areas of
Chinese life, or at least not push into those areas that have emerged
in recent years outside of party control. This applies first and foremost
to the private economy. If the party really wanted to exercise
political control as a ruling party, it would move away from the
traditional model of controlling society through the penetration of
danwei and exercise control geographically and through the use of
law. That is to say, a form of political power that would be much
more compatible with legal-rational authority would be to adopt
consciously a model that would accept the nonexistence of CCP
party branches in private enterprises, believing that, as long as such
enterprises obeyed the law, they should be left alone and otherwise
unsupervised. Such a model would give greater play to the role of
law, impartial administration, and economic efficiency.
It is possible that such a model may yet emerge; the CCP has not
been notably successful in penetrating private enterprises, and
where it is successful, it seems to play a very nontraditional role
(this is particularly true if the enterprise head is the secretary of the
party branch, making the party branch a means of enforcing worker
discipline within the enterprise). But clearly the party hopes to
maintain its traditional control through the danwei system; thus, in
his report to the Sixteenth Party Congress, Jiang called for
"strengthen[ing] party-building in nonpublic enterprises," as he had
done before.
One is also confronted by the anomalous situation of the CCP
carrying out yet another rectification campaign, even as the party
stresses the role of law. In January 2005, the CCP launched a campaign
to "uphold the advanced nature of Chinese Communist Party Members." This campaign is the third such rectification campaign
launched since the start of the reform era. Although rectification
campaigns in the contemporary period lack the fury of campaigns
in the Maoist period, they still use the old methods of studying documents,
writing expositions on one's thoughts, and criticism and
self-criticism in an effort to enhance ideological control and reinforce
party organization and authority. They also seem intimately related to
the consolidation of leadership control and political interpretations.
Thus, the first rectification campaign was launched in 1983 and was
connected with the consolidation of the Dengist "line" of "building
socialism with Chinese characteristics," while the second campaign
(known as the "Three Stresses" (sanjiang) was launched in 1998 and
consolidated the authority of Jiang Zemin. It seems no coincidence
that two years after Hu Jintao became general secretary of the party
(and three months after Jiang Zemin stepped down as head of the
powerful Central Military Commission) that this latest campaign was
launched (though party documents say that it was approved by the
Sixteenth Party Congress). Campaigns are obviously a legacy of the
party's revolutionary years and their continued existence, no matter
how attenuated by comparison with earlier campaigns, suggests that
a logic other than institutionalization remains at work.
One could make the same argument regarding China's villages.
Villages in China's administrative system are formally "self-governing."
It is on that basis that they have been allowed to have elections over
the past decade for village heads, but not, generally speaking, for
party secretaries. If the party wants to continue to exercise control as
a ruling party, it could either allow direct elections of party secretaries
at the village level (something that has happened in a few places) or
withdraw to the township level (or perhaps even the county level,
since there has been extensive discussion about abolishing or curtailing
the role of the township level of government). But the desire to
penetrate society remains strong, and Jiang Zemin called again in his
Political Succession: Changing Guards and Changing Rules 43 report to the party congress to strengthen party organizations at the
village level.
The same tendency to move toward the rule of law while not
giving up the traditional prerogatives of party control can be seen in
the "Religious Affairs Regulations" that went into effect on March 1,
2005. Although the regulations place the management of religious
activities on a legal basis (recognizing the "legitimate" rights of worshippers),
authoritative commentary on the regulations states explicitly
that the new regulations "will not weaken party leadership over
religious work." On the contrary, the commentary continues, the
regulations are "an important guarantee for, and a way of, strengthening
and improving leadership over religious work in the new situation."
What should we make of the outwardly smooth transition in
power from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao? As noted above, Jiang Zemin
enlarged the Standing Committee of the Politburo, packed it with his
supporters, and retained chairmanship of the CMC--seemingly
leaving Hu Jintao weak and potentially vulnerable. However, Jiang
Zemin stepped down from the military commission in September
2004. Does this indicate that institutions are stronger than apparent
from the outside and the political system can now be properly
described as "institutionalized"?
This is a question that needs to be explored as more details of
the transition become known. There were considerable public indications
of tension between Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao in the period
after Hu succeeded as general secretary. The decision for Jiang Zemin to retire as head of the military commission appears to have
been reached rather suddenly in August 2004, perhaps indicating
that his decision was not altogether voluntary. If this scenario is
borne out, then the question is: How did Hu Jintao acquire sufficient
power to pressure his predecessor to leave office?
Institutionalization is no doubt part of the answer--incumbency
confers leverage in all political systems, and Hu Jintao appears to
have been able to use the institutional levers of power to his advantage
in the two years between becoming general secretary and Jiang
Zemin's leaving his last post. But institutionalization does not appear
to be the complete answer. As with other senior leaders in China, Hu
Jintao has enjoyed considerable informal power, conferred by his
relations with retired party leaders and those currently serving at various
party and governmental levels. He also had access to information
on the business activities of various leaders and their families. Some
of this information might have reflected poorly on either Jiang Zemin
or some of his close associates. Whether Hu used such resources
remains speculative, but the possibility suggests that institutionalization
is not the only possible explanation for the transfer of power.
CONCLUSION
Over the past two decades, there have been many forces that have
been tempering the CCP's Leninist approach to political control and
fostering a more "normal" relationship between state and society;
mobilization has been giving way to administration. Yet, before we
assume that political reform can occur in a seamless, incremental
fashion, we have to take into account those forces that push in the
opposite direction, that oppose the institutionalization of political
life. Indeed, we need to consider that such forces might even
increase at the same time that there are pressures pushing in the
direction of institutionalization. As the mobilizational aspects of the
CCP's Leninist past are reduced, so, too, is party discipline; and with
the relaxation of party discipline, there are new incentives and
opportunities to find other ways of controlling political power.
Clientalism is one of them. Thus, whereas a model of incremental change would posit the gradual replacement of Leninist political
structures with bureaucratic rationality, it seems that political actors
try to develop informal political strategies to hold together the form
of Leninism and resist the pressures for bureaucratic rationality.
Political succession is one area in which we see conflicting
imperatives generating different responses to the problem of political
control. On the one hand, it creates incentives--legitimacy for
the new leader, means for ameliorating political conflict, and better
control over the administrative machinery of the state--to push for
stronger political and bureaucratic institutions. On the other hand,
because the political system is not yet well institutionalized, succession
creates anxieties for rulers. Rulers in such situations often resort
to nonbureaucratic means to enhance leverage. Thus, Hu Jintao has
employed ideological agenda-setting, a rectification campaign, and
the promotion of prot¨¦g¨¦s to enhance his power. Such efforts, however,
erode the very institutionalization that succession seems to
promote and that the political system very much needs.
The Sixteenth Party Congress appears to be the product of such
tensions. The articulation of demands to create strong administrative
institutions and the succession of the designated successor, Hu
Jintao, suggest a strengthening of institutional norms, while the
extraordinary lengths Jiang Zemin went to preserve his influence
suggests the continued power of informal, personalistic norms. The
fact that Jiang Zemin retired from the CMC two years after the Party
Congress suggests that Hu Jintao was able to combine institutional
resources with enhanced informal influence. The result of the
Sixteenth Party Congress and its aftermath indicate both the need to
reform political structures so that they can support the increasing
institutionalization of the system and the difficulty of doing so.