Remaking the Chinese Leviathan

"While I do agree with much of Pei’s analysis, his book lies at one end of a highly polarised debate over the sustainability of China’s current political institutions. At the other end of this conceptual dichotomy lies Dali Yang’s equally provocative and controversial book, Remaking the Chinese Leviathan . Yang argues that Pei’s concerns over the endemic corruption and maladaptation of China’s Leninist polity are at the very least exaggerated, and at worst entirely misplaced. In his view – which clearly has its merits – the CCP has shown a positive capacity to adapt, adjust and innovate in response to emerging developmental stresses. He argues that China’s authoritarian polity has become more responsive over time, and more attentive to the needs of society. Here’s one example. When China’s chronically stagnant and inefficient state-owned enterprises (SOEs) proved highly resistant to market reforms in the 1980s and early 90s, they were forcibly reorganised and consolidated. Thousands of unproductive firms were pushed into bankruptcy, while those that remained were transformed into competitive, profit-oriented shareholding enterprises. As a result, industrial efficiency and productivity rose substantially. Another example concerns the government’s response to rising rural protest demonstrations. After peasants in several provinces began to engage in organised protests against excessive (and often illegal) ad hoc taxes, user fees and random levies imposed by predatory rural officials, the central government stepped in to ease peasant burdens by eliminating the agricultural tax and setting a strict limit on locally imposed fees and levies. And finally, when the plight of underpaid, overworked migrant labourers in China’s coastal export industries led to a wave of labour unrest a few years ago, the central government responded by passing new labour legislation guaranteeing the workers union representation along with a maximum six-day work week and mandatory pay for overtime. These examples illustrate that although the CCP remains a monopolistic, non-competitive ruling party, it has arguably displayed an admirable technocratic capacity to effectively respond to deepening societal stresses by progressively fine-tuning the country’s administrative and regulatory rules. It is precisely this capacity for self-correction and regulatory adaptation that inspired Dali Yang to adopt a broadly optimistic outlook on China’s capacity for political development under one-party dominance – despite the continued absence of major democratic political reforms. That’s the $64,000 question. I personally vacillate a lot on this question. Some days I feel genuine admiration for the ability of China’s technocratic leaders to adopt timely social, economic and environmental policies to address serious imbalances in the Chinese economy and to redress legitimate grievances of the less fortunate, less advantaged members of society. On such days I find myself sharing at least some of Yang’s congenital optimism. Other days I shake my head at the endemic political insecurity and obsessive intransigence of Party leaders in China – the way they grossly overreact to perceived ‘troublemakers’ by arresting or intimidating them. China’s leaders display a strong hint of what I have called ‘post-Tiananmen stress disorder’: a near-pathological fear of spontaneous, unauthorised political activity. This fear tends to bring out their worst political instincts and makes me more receptive to Pei’s pessimistic assessment of China’s political future."