Bruce J Dickson. Political Science Quarterly. Volume 115, Issue 4, Winter 2000.
The political implications of China’s economic reforms center on the adaptability of the Chinese Communist party (CCP). Can it successfully adapt to the new economic and social environment that its reforms are creating? Or is its ability to cope being undermined by these changes? In the midst of rapid economic change, scholars have identified trends that may be evidence of potential political transformation. Entrepreneurs and skilled expertise are being recruited into the party. Cooptation facilitates adaptation by bringing in new elites who may invigorate the party with new ideas and new goals. In addition, local party and government officials are developing corporatist arrangements to promote economic change. These trends give hope to some that economic reform will eventually lead to gradual political change, allowing China’s transition from communism to be more like Hungary or Poland (or even Taiwan) and thereby avoid the turmoil that accompanied political change in the rest of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Along with these promising signs of rejuvenation are contrary signs of disintegration. Large numbers of party members are abandoning their party responsibilities to pursue economic opportunities. The nonstate sector of the economy is growing so fast that most enterprises do not have party organizations within them, and few new members are being recruited from their workforce. In some rural areas, party organizations are paralyzed, recruitment of new members is difficult, and lineage-based clans are competing with the party for influence. These are warning signs of disintegration, of a party unable to manage its members, to have direct institutional links with the most dynamic sectors of the economy, or to control its society.
Although we cannot predict the ultimate fate of the CCP, comparing the experiences of other Leninist parties can at least clarify the kinds of questions we need to be asking. The challenges faced by the CCP are not unique—how to liberalize its economy without destabilizing the political system, how to change its organization and attract new members in order to carry out new tasks, how to balance the need to adapt with the need to uphold party traditions—nor are the strategies it has adopted to meet these challenges. Whether it will be successful, however, will depend largely on the peculiarities of the Chinese context: the legacies of the Maoist era, past decisions by party leaders regarding the scope and pace of economic and political reform, the continued influence of orthodox voices at the apex of the political system, and the evolving relationship between state and society.
Much of the recent scholarship on China has focused on the political system as a whole, and in particular the extent of central state power relative to local governments and society. The impact of economic reform on the CCP itself, as opposed to the state as a whole, has received less extensive attention. This article will consider the implications of ongoing economic reforms for the CCP by focusing on the two key elements of organizational adaptation: the cooptation of new members and the creation of new links with outside organizations. It will compare the kinds of elites being coopted into the CCP with those coopted into the ruling parties of Hungary and Taiwan, the best examples of successful transformation of Leninist parties, and consider whether a similar transformation is possible in China. It will then consider the utility of the growing literature on corporatism in China for understanding its changing political economy and its consequent impact on the political system. Both cooptation and corporatism are having positive impacts on China’s economy and the CCP. But I will argue, neither is likely to lead to the transformation of China’s political system. The evolutionary forces now at work are likely to be incompatible with the Leninist political system in China and will serve to undermine the foundations of that system, rather than prop it up. The expectation of incremental change, while reassuring in its depiction of political change without turmoil and instability, may therefore be misplaced.
The Onset of Adaptation and the Logic of Inclusion
The CCP’s decision at the Third Plenum in December 1978 to abandon class struggle and to pursue economic modernization announced the beginning of the post-Mao reform era and the onset of the CCP’s adaptation. These reforms led to profound changes in China’s economy and society and consequently its politics. But it also set up a debate within the CCP between those who sought to protect party traditions and preserve their own positions, on the one hand, and those who sought the party’s adaptation to facilitate economic change, on the other.
Organizations have two main strategies for coping with environmental change: cooptation of new personnel and creation of new links with other organizations. These strategies allow the organization to be better integrated with its environment and better informed of changes occurring therein. Cooptation allows the organization to add new skills, experiences, and resources (such as political support) that may enhance its performance and increase its chance of survival. But cooptation can also threaten the organization if these coopted actors do not share its goals. The organization may receive needed support but as a consequence be diverted from its original mission. Therefore, the cooptation decision may be contested within the organization. Other organizational goals, such as self-preservation and self-replication, can become paramount, limiting the organization’s ability to adapt successfully to new challenges. Opponents of adaptation may point to party traditions and established norms as more legitimate grounds for resisting change than sheer self-interest.
The experience of authoritarian parties, and Leninist parties in particular, is consistent with this dilemma posed by cooptation. As they abandon class struggle for the sake of economic modernization, these parties typically switch from an exclusionary to an inclusionary, or cooptive, recruitment policy. Organizations coopt those they depend on, who possess resources they require or who pose a threat to the organization. In the post-Mao period, the switch from class struggle to economic modernization as the key task of the party has made the party dependent on the technocrats and entrepreneurs who make the economy grow. Former class enemies and counter-revolutionaries are now brought into the party because they have the skills desired by party leaders to accomplish their new policy agenda. This may lead to the rejuvenation of the party, but may also lead to long-term degradation if the interests of these new members conflict with party traditions. As the party tries to adapt by coopting new members, supporters of party traditions resist “assimilating new actors whose loyalty to the organization (as opposed to its ostensible goals) is in doubt.” This is precisely the dilemma posed by admitting technocrats and entrepreneurs into the CCP: they are committed to economic growth, but more orthodox leaders question their support of communism and loyalty to the CCP. Those who are more concerned with self-preservation than adaptation resist the arrival of former enemies into their midst.
But the concerns of defenders of party traditions about the potential threat posed by entrepreneurs are not totally self-interested. The main threat to an authoritarian regime is the “diversification of the elite resulting from the rise of new groups controlling autonomous sources of economic power, that is, from the development of an independently wealthy business and industrial middle class.” The creation of autonomous sources of wealth weakens one of the key institutional pillars of a communist system: state control over the economy, resulting in organized dependence, that is, the dependence of society on the state for economic security (jobs, housing, food, etc.) as well as political protection. As economic reform creates alternative paths toward career mobility and acquisition of wealth (through education and entrepreneurship), dependence on the state is reduced, and the power of the state and its ruling party is similarly diminished. Thus, the fears of party conservatives are not totally self-serving or illusory.
The second key strategy for an organization to cope with environmental change is to create links with other organizations in its environment. These links allow information (and potentially influence) to flow between the organizations, elicit support for the organization, and may enhance its legitimacy. Similarly, as a Leninist party enters the period of adaptation (or what Ken Jowitt calls “inclusion”), it substitutes the manipulation of symbols with the manipulation of organizations. In other words, the party relies less on coercion and propaganda to control society and develops links with other organizations, either new ones that it sanctions or old ones it revives, such as united front organizations, labor unions, or professional associations. These corporate groups allow the party to organize interests emerging in the course of reform. Links between the party and the organizations allow both the articulation of those interests and the preservation of the party’s role as the arbiter of competing interests.” In China, the state has created a dense web of economic and social organizations in order to channel interest articulation, regularize the flow of information between the state and key groups in society, replace direct state controls over the economy and society with at least partial social regulation, and screen out unwanted groups. Thus, official recognition of social organizations serves the dual purpose of incorporating interests and viewpoints the state finds acceptable and repressing those it finds unacceptable or threatening.
As with cooptation, however, the manipulation of organizations carries potential risks. An organization that previously enjoyed extreme autonomy (as is the case for most Leninist parties prior to inclusion) may be “unable to cope with a world in which it does not have arbitrary control.” Creating links with other organizations may strengthen those organizations at the expense of the party. These organizations may develop an identity separate from the party and eventually seek to represent the interests of their members and resist acting as agents of the party. What begins with the party’s manipulation of organizations may lead to those organizations’ manipulation of the party. Such an arrangement is incompatible with a Leninist political system. Cooptation and organizational links with nonparty organizations are key elements of inclusion, but they both come with risks attached. While they are necessary for the party’s adaptation, they are not guarantors of the party’s survival and may in fact contribute to its demise.
For one-party authoritarian regimes and complex organizations, the period of adaptation may be open-ended as the regime or organization makes repeated adjustments to its ever-changing environment. For Leninist parties, however, there is a tension between policies of inclusion and the party’s mobilizational needs. Jowitt’s original model of inclusion for Leninist parties implied it was a long-term and presumably open-ended strategy of survival, but later suggested it was simply the phase preceding the “Leninist extinction,” because the liberalization that accompanied inclusion weakened the foundations of Leninist parties in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. China’s leaders have been wary of making a similar mistake and have tried to limit the extent of inclusion in order to achieve “reform without liberalization.” But they have had a difficult time balancing the two elements of this dichotomy. As the CCP adopted economic modernization as its key task, it confronted precisely the same mobilization al challenges that are inherent to the period of inclusion for Leninist parties identified by Jowitt: increased social heterogeneity as the working classes developed a clearer identity independent of the state; increased occupational and geographic mobility, which challenged the party’s ability to monitor and control society; the displacement of the traditional “revolutionary” classes by new elites with professional and technical skills; the cynicism of youth, in particular the changing attitudes toward the party. But the biggest challenge concerns the party’s own identity. How can it reconcile its cooptation of wealthy businessmen and the promotion of entrepreneurial skills with its traditional status as a vanguard party representing the interests of workers, peasants, and soldiers? How can the party balance its desire to integrate with society to promote economic modernization with its desire to maintain its monopoly on legitimate political organization and its ability to mobilize society on behalf of political and social goals? To examine these key questions, the following sections will focus on the two key dimensions of inclusion.
Cooptation
Since its arrival as the ruling party of China in 1949, a key and divisive issue confronting the CCP has been the appropriate skills and political backgrounds of potential party members. As the party alternated between periods of radicalist upsurges designed to transform the economy and society and periods of restoration designed to resume economic production and social order, criteria for recruitment also changed. During periods of radicalism, when the party pursued utopian goals in its economic and social policies and promoted class struggle in its relations with society, the party rewarded political reliability and ideological fervor, while downgrading-and in some cases persecuting-technical expertise and intellectual freedom. In contrast, when the party emphasized economic development during periods of recovery from radical policies, the party targeted for advancement those with the experience and skills needed to manage the economy and impose order.
Rather than evolving in a linear fashion, therefore, the CCP remained stuck in recurring cycles of transformation and consolidation, largely because Mao Zedong resisted the institutionalization of the party required by consolidation. As a result, the debate over the proper qualities of party members and cadres was never decisively resolved in favor of either “redness” or expertise. The alleged presence of class enemies and the consequent ongoing need for class struggle meant that some people were excluded from the political system and from the CCP in particular. This is the essence of an exclusionary recruitment policy, appropriate for both periods of transformation and consolidation.
The transition to economic modernization in the post-Mao period necessitated changes in the definition of the party’s work and also in the state-society relationship. Victims of previous political campaigns were released from prison and exonerated; former “class enemies” had their political labels removed and were welcomed into the definition of the “people.” In China as in Hungary, reconciliation policies included the end of persecution of alleged class enemies, the release of political enemies from prison camps, expanded exposure to foreign media, greater travel and education opportunities, and enhanced artistic creativity and labor mobility. The party also changed its recruitment policies. It first targeted the people with the types of technical skills needed for economic modernization and then began to coopt new social and economic elites in recognition of their prestige and accomplishments. The cooptation of experts and entrepreneurs prompted a debate within the CCP between those who argued the par ty had to adapt to survive and those who felt this particular form of adaptation undermined party traditions and thereby reduced its long-term survivability rather than enhanced it.
The Renewed Emphasis on Expertise
As the CCP abandoned class struggle as its core task and shifted to economic modernization, it first weeded out those whose radical tendencies made them unlikely supporters of reform and also rehabilitated the victims of past political campaigns, especially the antirightist movement of 1956-1957 and the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976. These victims were generally too old and poorly educated to guarantee the success of reform, so the CCP also recruited those who were “more revolutionary, younger, better educated, and more professionally competent.” By the time of the Fifteenth Party Congress in 1997, the percentage of party members with a senior high school or better education was 43.4 percent, up from 12.8 percent in 1978, and 92 percent of central committee members now have at least some college education. The CCP was less successful recruiting youth and therefore in the mid-1980s adopted the standard that two-thirds of new recruits had to be less than 35 years old. However, the party as a whole continued to age, and the percentage of all party members under 35 actually fell from 27.3 percent in 1987 to 22.4 percent in 1997.
Renewed efforts to recruit front-line workers revealed the tension between inclusion and mobilization. By the late 1980s, more orthodox leaders began to argue that the exclusive reliance on expertise had pushed aside political reliability as a criterion for recruitment and promotion. From their perspective, the proletariat was being squeezed out by economic and technical elites: “progressive” forces (workers and peasants) were declining in numbers and influence, while those who until recently had been persecuted as “reactionary” forces (intellectuals and entrepreneurs) were on the rise. Although these latter groups had contributed immeasurably to the success of the post-Mao economic reforms, they also threatened the traditional base of the party. The emphasis on workers did not replace the need for expertise, but simply restored the proletariat to its previous position of status in the party.
Concerns about emphasizing expertise over political reliability became especially prominent after the Tiananmen demonstrations of 1989, in which large numbers of party members and cadres openly participated, demonstrating that the party was losing not only its external support but more importantly its internal cohesion. In a December 1989 speech at the central party school, CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin said, “We must make sure that the leading authority of all party and state organs is in the hands of loyal Marxists.” A commentator’s article in People’s Daily, the CCP’s official paper, criticized two errors in recruiting cadres: first, focusing on education and professional competence at the expense of being more revolutionary; and, second, giving exclusive priority to intellectuals and ignoring workers, peasants, and others at the grass-roots level.
After the imposition of martial law in June 1989, the CCP changed its recruitment policies to match its orthodox rhetoric. The CCP paid new interest to recruiting “workers at the forefront of production.” Age and education remained key criteria for new recruits, but now the party also sought out those directly involved in agricultural and industrial production and deemphasized those engaged in administrative or intellectual pursuits. For instance, although 69.2 percent of the 1.87 million new party members recruited in 1994 reportedly were under 35 years old and 70.8 percent had a senior high school education or better, 854,000 (45.7 percent) were “forefront” farmers and workers, and only 328,000 (17.6 percent) were technical experts. The emphasis on recruiting from the “forefront of production” was meant to reduce the influence of “nonproductive” trades, especially intellectuals and teachers, who were blamed for contributing to the 1989 demonstrations. This did not end the CCP’s efforts to coopt expert ise, but reflected its desire to mobilize its traditional supporters to balance the new elites in the organization. Beginning in the mid-1990s, as the pace of economic reform began to accelerate again, the CCP reemphasized the value of entrepreneurial skills, especially for cadres.
The Debate over Coopting Entrepreneurs
Beginning in the mid-1980s, entrepreneurs were coopted into the party in large numbers. The State Industrial and Commercial Administrative and Management Bureau reported that 15 percent of owners of private firms were party members. A 1989 survey of private (siying) entrepreneurs in Wenzhou found that 31.7 percent were party members, of whom two-thirds had at least a senior high school education and 17 percent were former state cadres. In addition, one-quarter of members in Wenzhou’s people-run business associations (minying gonghui) were party members. At the end of 1991, over 200,000 party members reportedly registered as private entrepreneurs, representing 4 percent of party members and 8 percent of entrepreneurs. A nationwide survey in 1995 found that 17.1 percent of private entrepreneurs were party members.
The presence of newly wealthy entrepreneurs in the party irritated some party veterans, who felt their contributions to the revolution were being betrayed by the party’s new commitment to economic growth. Fearing that bourgeois influences were spreading into the party, the CCP banned the new recruitment of private entrepreneurs into the party after the imposition of martial law in 1989; entrepreneurs already in the party could no longer hold official positions. In September 1995, the organization department repeated that the party would not admit private entrepreneurs, “because they are capitalists bent on exploiting the labor force.”
Criticism of this trend has been especially prominent in the journals representing the party’s orthodox positions, such as Zeenli de zhuiqiu (The Pursuit of Truth). These journals publish expose-style articles that criticize the practice of recruiting entrepreneurs into the party and appointing them to official positions (which violates official party policy) and the policy of encouraging party members to take the lead in getting rich (daitou zhifu). These articles argue that the presence of wealthy people in the CCP contradicts the allegedly proletarian nature of the party, creating confusion regarding the party’s identity and policies. From this perspective, the trend of coopting entrepreneurs undermines the party, which is why the official ban remains in place.
Despite the consistency of central policy on this issue in recent years, local party committees have circumvented these restrictions. Some classify private enterprises as collective or joint stock enterprises, thereby allowing them to recruit their leaders while remaining in technical compliance with the central ban. The head of the organization department in an unspecified city in Shandong defended the practice of recruiting entrepreneurs who have proven their innovativeness, administrative skills, and ability to produce wealth, which he claimed are the main criteria for party membership. “While maintaining party member standards, active recruitment into the party of outstanding people from among the owners of private enterprises can highlight the timeliness of the socialist market economy, and can make full use of the role of party members as vanguards and models in leading the masses along the path of common prosperity.” These trends are repeatedly criticized by the center. Orthodox leaders contend that the ability to innovate, manage, and create wealth cannot substitute for the political standards also required of party members. In September 1995, Yu Yunyao, deputy director of the CCP’s organization department, said that even debating the advantages and disadvantages of recruiting entrepreneurs was irresponsible.
Why has the ban on private entrepreneurs been so ineffective? For one thing, there is no indication it has been enforced in recent years. More importantly, recruiting entrepreneurs into the party is advantageous for both local officials and entrepreneurs. For officials, it allows them to coopt potential opposition, to establish links with the private sector and promote growth, and to create personal ties to wealthy and successful entrepreneurs. Why do entrepreneurs want to get into the CCP? Party membership gives them easier access to loans, official discretion, and protection from competition and unfair policy implementation. Moreover, the desire to be within the system is stronger than the desire for autonomy in China, where autonomy from the state has major disadvantages. As elsewhere in Asia, entrepreneurs are partners with the state, not adversaries of it. Finally, there is a strong belief that CCP members have advantages in business. The result is a symbiotic relationship that benefits both sides. Loca l and individual interests outweigh the negligible risk of punishment for violating the formal ban, which shows no sign of being either enforced or rescinded. The state constitution was revised in spring 1999 to protect the rights of the private sector. In this context, because it is the CCP that approves all constitutional and policy changes, cooperation between local officials and private entrepreneurs is sure to grow.
Political Implications
What are the political consequences of these policies of cooptation? Will they lead to rejuvenation of the party by drawing in new elites, or will they undermine the foundations of the Leninist system in China? Scholars have generally seen the inclusion of new elites into the party as a positive development. According to Hong Yung Lee, the presence of technocrats in the party and government bureaucracies better balances “the political needs of the Leninist party and the structural prerequisites of economic development.” Similarly, Kristen Parris sees entrepreneurs as a “force for change within the party rank and file.” While cooptive parties tend to be more adaptable than those with exclusive recruitment policies, who is being coopted has important implications for how the party adapts. To show why this is so, it is best to distinguish different types of elites.
Yanqi Tong makes a useful distinction between a civil society organized to regulate the supply of goods and services (a “noncritical realm” that does not pose a direct challenge to the regime, and may even be welcomed by it) and a political society designed to “influence state decisions or to obtain a share of state power” (a “critical realm” that does threaten the regime’s monopoly on power and therefore becomes the target of repression). The success of the critical realm depends on the existence and support of the noncritical realm. They are complementary though not equal, and “the development of noncritical and critical realms often represent different stages in the emergence of an autonomous civil society and, in the process, of political change.”
In a Leninist system, the presence of this noncritical realm is the result of political liberalization, not its cause. Party leaders, who need allies in their inner-party battles and who need social organizations to take over social and economic self-regulatory functions as the state liberalizes its control over society, support the emergence of this realm of civil society. The rise of a critical realm, in contrast, is the product of its own leaders, and is rarely welcomed by the regime, even by party reformers. The noncritical realm of civil society reinforces the regime’s decision to liberalize (reduced state interference in the economy and the daily lives of the citizenry) but it is the critical realm of political society that pressures the regime to democratize (public involvement in the selection of state leaders and accountability over their actions).
The implications of this distinction between critical and noncritical realms are best seen by comparing the experience of Leninist parties in Hungary, Taiwan, and China. In Hungary, the policy of cooptation focused on the critical intelligentsia. Leaders of the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ party decided in the early 1960s to coopt nonmanual workers into the party, including not only clerical and managerial staff but also young intelligentsia. Other Eastern European communist parties responded to demands for political reform by purging party ranks of intellectuals and thereby creating an external social opposition. The Hungarian party instead eliminated the potential threat of external dissent by drawing critical intelligentsia into the party. In so doing, “the party [in Hungary] both perpetuated its rule and created the means of its eventual downfall.” At the central level, intellectuals were channeled into government positions, leaving party loyalists in control of all key party posts. In rural areas, however, conservative party secretaries with extensive patronage networks shut intellectuals out of influential positions.
Frustrated by the lack of upward mobility and by their exclusion from decision-making arenas, local intellectuals organized informal networks, which in the 1980s became the basis for the party reform circles. These took shape as political circles outside the party were growing and as the reformist coalition in the party elite, which had forced hard-liner Janos Kadar’s resignation as party chief in 1988, was itself splitting, creating more space for political activity. In May 1989, the party reform circles held their first national conference, attended by 440 delegates representing over 10,000 members of 110 reform circles. In alliance with central party reformers, the reform circles achieved the dissolution of the Socialist Workers’ party and its reformation as the Hungarian Socialist party in October 1989. Originally formed as an anti-establishment movement against the official party structure, however, the circles refused to institutionalize themselves and quickly lost the initiative to older par ty leaders. The circles themselves broke up shortly after the creation of the Socialist party. Although they contributed immeasurably to the transformation of the Hungarian party and the democratization of the Hungarian political system, reform circle members were unable to benefit from the changes they brought about.
Cooptation was also a major factor of the transformation of the Kuomintang (KMT), the ruling party in Taiwan. In the early 1970s, the central leaders of the KMT, principally Chiang Ching-kuo and Li Huan, sponsored the Taiwanization policy, which brought large numbers of youth with political ambitions into the party. The policy had two main goals. First, Taiwanization was designed to change the reputation of the KMT. Before Taiwanization, all key positions were held by emigres from the mainland; beginning in the early 1970s, the KMT gradually shed its mainlander reputation and came to represent a broader spectrum of Taiwan’s society. Second, Taiwanization was intended to improve the effectiveness of the ruling party by attracting young people of talent rather than simply those with political connections. Most new members were recruited when they were still in college, and some were given scholarships for foreign graduate study, mostly in the United States, where they were exposed to the workings of a democratic political system. The KMT coopted these educated youth in order to channel their political ambitions into the KMT and preempt their joining the opposition. The KMT also used the promise of elected office to attract these young elites. With opposition parties banned, an official nomination by the KMT virtually guaranteed electoral victory. At the same time that it coopted some youth, it continued to repress the political opposition that was excluded from the party and made it difficult for them to compete in elections.
Many of those who played key roles in the transformation of the KMT and the gradual democratization of Taiwan’s political system during the 1980s were recruited under the Taiwanization program of the 1970s. The centrally sponsored policy of cooptation known as Taiwanization led to the adaptation of the political system in several ways. First, young elites with political ambitions created pressure within the KMT for democratization. They sought more open, competitive elections to advance their careers. Second, their experience in the United States and other foreign countries exposed them to more liberal political systems, further fueling their desire for democratization. These internal pressures in combination with the growing support for democratization outside the party eventually led to the democratic breakthrough of 1986-1987. Third, Taiwanization also led to a basic change in the key task of the KMT: from achieving reunification with the mainland to the economic and political development of Taiwan itself.
In Hungary and Taiwan, the ruling parties reduced the potential threat of external dissent by coopting into the party critical intelligentsia and politically ambitious youth, that is, those from the critical realm of political society. In contrast, the CCP continues to exclude critical intelligentsia from the political system in general and the party in particular. Instead, it targets experts and entrepreneurs from the noncritical realm of civil society, but even the entrepreneurs are excluded from holding official posts. The ultimate consequences of the CCP’s policy of inclusion are not yet clear; in Hungary and Taiwan there were lengthy gaps between the initial cooptation and the subsequent political effects. But there is little reason to assume that technocrats and entrepreneurs will make similar demands on the CCP that critical intelligentsia did in Hungary and Taiwan. Technocrats and entrepreneurs may prove to be a force for change within the CCP, but more time—and more research—is needed to determine what types of change they will promote.
As members of the noncritical sphere, technocrats and entrepreneurs could play a supporting role in the course of political change. Some have argued that technocrats are more likely to favor democratization than the revolutionaries they replaced; others have argued that technocracy will only lead to a more efficient form of authoritarianism. For my purposes, the key point is that technocrats belong to the noncritical realm. They are primarily concerned with promoting economic growth and to that end limiting the influence of ideology in policy making. But technocrats may also be essential allies of democrats. A key element of Hungary’s democratization was the informal alliance of technocrats who desired less party interference in the economy, party reformers who wanted to be rid of conservatives, and democrats outside the party. But in China, “bureaucratic technocrats are not enthusiastic about political democratization.” Moreover, most technocrats were trained in China, the former Soviet Union , or Eastern Europe. Unlike KMT elites, many of whom received college degrees in the United States and other Western countries, CCP technocrats lack exposure to alternative political values and institutional arrangements. However, younger technocrats have been acquiring more exposure to the West and in the future may be more open to adaptation.
Could entrepreneurs be allies of democrats in China? The evidence so far has been mixed. Margaret Pearson argues that they are not likely to initiate demands for systemic change but could be “available to lend support if others take the lead in pressuring for economic and political change.” During the 1989 demonstrations, the Beijing Stone Group provided ample and visible support for student demonstrators, but elsewhere in China entrepreneurs withheld their support. In Xiamen, one of the special economic zones in southern China, entrepreneurs disapproved of students’ demands for rapid reform, preferring state-sponsored reform to bottom-up pressures that could result in instability. Entrepreneurs may favor liberalization in order to promote economic growth, but there is little evidence that these same people favor democratization. The growing alignment between local political and economic elites may in fact reinforce the status quo, because both sets of actors benefit from its preservation. The part y retains its monopoly over political participation and takes credit for the economic growth created by the entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs may be unwilling to risk the certain benefits of the existing system, despite its many irrationalities, for the uncertainties of an alternative arrangement. Jonathan Unger and Anita Chan note that entrepreneurs and even intellectuals who belong to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress “support further economic and political reforms—but they are usually not pro-democracy.”
The reforms in Hungary and Taiwan also had an element of indigenization that is wholly lacking in China. In Hungary, the Communist party was seen as the creation of the Soviet Union, especially after the repression of the 1956 uprising, and therefore lacked domestic legitimacy. The party used its policy of cooptation and tolerance of pluralism within the party to soften its image as an alien force and to legitimize its rule. In Taiwan, the policy of cooptation was motivated by a desire to change the KMT’s image as an unwanted occupying force. The very name of the program, Taiwanization (in Chinese, bentuhua, literally indigenization) announces its goal. In so doing, the KMT tried to sink roots in local society, not just to control it, but also to appear more responsive to it. The CCP lacks these motivations for adaptation. One of its primary bases of legitimacy is its victory in the Chinese civil war. It is not motivated by the search for domestic sources of legitimacy nor by the type of ethnic conflict that prompted Taiwanization.
Technocrats and entrepreneurs have had an important impact on the progress of reform and the performance of the CCP. They have been strong supporters of liberalization and have contributed to the rapid pace of economic growth. But their overt support for liberalization must be distinguished from their muted support for democratization. As the comparison with Hungary and Taiwan show, cooptation enhances the adaptability of Leninist parties, but not all coopted elites favor the same types of adaptation. China’s technocrats and entrepreneurs, drawn from the noncritical realm of civil society, are unlikely to initiate democratizing reforms, although they may prove to be indispensable allies of those who do favor such reforms.
Organizational Links Between the CCP and Society: A Corporatist Solution?
The second element of party adaptation concerns organizational arrangements. The party may rejuvenate united front groups or create new organizations to incorporate new groups into the political system. Recent scholarship on China has found extensive evidence of this type of inclusion and has defined it as corporatism. The concept of corporatism is a familiar one in comparative politics and describes a system of interest representation in which interests are vertically organized into peak associations to limit and institutionalize the participation of key groups in the policy process. Corporatist arrangements may be dominated by the state in an authoritarian political system, a variant known as state corporatism, or they may provide greater autonomy and influence for the groups themselves in a more pluralist setting, a variant known as societal corporatism.
The emerging corporatist elements in China’s political system provide a rationale for the more harmonious relations between state and society characteristic of inclusion. The corporatist model points out that the state and society relationship is based on achieving consensus and common goals, not a zerosum struggle for power. As Douglas Chalmers notes, “Corporatism has much in common with socialism’s understanding of society after the end of class conflict.” A harmony of interests is possible without the total transformation of society. Similarly, Alfred Stepan identified the universal appeal of corporatism to elites facing “a perceived threat of fragmentation.” They reject both the liberal ideals of individualism and checks and balances and the Marxist ideals of class conflict, “because they are seen as legitimizing conflict.”
Corporatist structures are consequently emerging in China as a substitute for coercion, propaganda, and central planning to maintain party hegemony. As Unger and Chan argue, corporatism is “a mechanism through which the state’s grip could be lessened” but not released altogether. “The more the economy decentralizes, the more corporatist associations get established as substitute control mechanisms.” This is a perfect illustration of the logic of inclusion: because the CCP is no longer able to manipulate the nation with symbols and propaganda, it tries to manipulate the organizations through which society interacts with the state.
While drawing attention to the evolving corporatist structures, some scholars also allude to another consequence of economic reform. For instance, Unger and Chan assert that, “Yet at the very same time that these new corporatist structures get erected and firmed up by the Chinese state, forces are simultaneously at work that undermine and weaken the central state’s power over them.” They believe that at least some of China’s groups operating in the current state corporatist mold are “shifting gradually but perceptibly in a ‘societal-corporatist’ direction,” in which organized groups will assert the interests of the people they nominally represent. Gordon White, Jude Howell, and Shang Xiaoyuan also repeatedly allude to the potential of civic associations evolving from a corporatist logic to constitute a civil society, with a dense mix of organizations largely autonomous from constraints imposed by local officials, but still embedded in the state.
This points to a more provocative question: Are corporatist arrangements compatible with a Leninist system? Or will the emergence and evolution of corporatism lead to the decay of Leninist institutions? To answer these questions, it is necessary to explore the implications of the corporatist model.
How useful is corporatism for understanding Chinese politics? In his critique of the interest group model of Soviet politics, William Odom lists three criteria for evaluating a model: it must capture the core elements of the political system; it must be comparative in nature; and it must account for change. According to Odom, the interest group model failed on two accounts: first, it focused most of its attention on peripheral elements of the system (institutional pluralism) and second, it therefore misinterpreted signs of political decay for political development. The advocates of the corporatist model in China are not so ambitious in their claims for political change, but generally limit themselves to analysis of the evolving institutional arrangements that govern China’s political economy. Still, they do include allusions of political transformation that deserve greater scrutiny. Like the proponents of the Soviet interest group model, advocates of Chinese corporatism may be misleading us in terms of the expected future course of Chinese politics.
Is China a corporatist system? Most scholars do not argue that China has a full-blown corporatist system, only that there are corporatist elements emerging in the course of economic reform. Corporatism is an ideal type; it does not define a political system, but corporatist elements are present in a variety of contexts. Democratic countries such as Britain and the Netherlands, bureaucratic authoritarian countries such as Brazil and Argentina, military regimes such as Peru and South Korea, one-party regimes such as Mexico and Taiwan, and communist countries such as Poland, the Soviet Union, and most recently China have been described as corporatist. The corporatist model does capture core elements of China’s political system, especially its political economy. The state has created or licensed associations for independent entrepreneurs, owners of private enterprises, enterprises with foreign investment, organized labor, Catholic and Protestant churches, writers, scientists, and other functional interests. These associations are noncompetitive, and when two or more exist the state forces them to merge or one or more to disband. Membership is compulsory, and members in business associations are often enrolled when they receive their business license. The leaders of these associations are often officials from the party or government offices responsible for regulating or managing them, and association offices are often in government compounds.
These corporatist elements have very much in common with the key aspects of a Leninist system, which is based on the ruling party’s monopoly on legitimate political organization. The state may create mass organizations to link state and society, and these organizations are typically staffed and budgeted in large part by the state. A Leninist party also prevents the spontaneous formation of new organizations, especially where an official one already exists; and the presence of organizations outside of its control is a challenge to its authority. During periods of transformation and consolidation, the state uses these organizations as “transmission belts” to send authoritative decisions to lower levels of the organizations. The state grants leaders of these organizations a degree of leeway to manage their organizations and the people they nominally represent, but prevents interests and preferences from working their way back up through the organization to influence state policy. During the period of inclusion, these same organizations become channels for interest representation so that these interests can be incorporated into the state. As the party loses its ability to monitor the activities of these organizations and to sanction the behavior of its members and society more generally one of the institutional pillars of a Leninist system is weakened. This points up the contradictions in the competing goals of inclusion and mobilization for a Leninist party.
To portray the potential evolution of corporatism, advocates of the corporatist model in China highlight examples of leaders who change from being agents of the state to become advocates for their associations. But the corporatist model considers the state as a “‘naturally’ divided entity” with different interests derived from its relations with economic and professional groups. According to Chalmers, “One cannot talk of state interests as opposed to those of society when the state is in fact made up of ties with interests in society.” Interest representation is not the defining difference between state and societal corporatism. Rather, the power relationship between the state and corporate groups distinguishes the two subtypes, and that relationship is dependent on whether the political system is authoritarian or pluralistic in nature. Unger found that the federation for large-scale business “is still too tightly bound to the party-state in its structure and staffing” to be described as societal corporatist although it was “gravitating” in that direction due to “a growing desire even on the part of some of its minders for it to play such a societal corporatist role.” The desire for increased autonomy for organized interests undoubtedly continues to exist in China, but those wishes are not compatible with the CCP’s desire to preserve its power.
Despite its policies of inclusion, the central fact of China’s political system remains that it is ruled by a Leninist party. The party enjoys and protects its monopoly of political organization. In his case study of Xiaoshan city, Gordon White found that only the most politically inconsequential of social organizations (sports, arts and culture, retired teachers, and female factory managers) were autonomous, in that there was no overlapping of personnel with the sponsoring government bureau and no financial subsidies. At the same time, bottom-up demands for new and autonomous social organizations (labor, entrepreneurs, students, etc.) were rejected and repressed. Unger and Chan argue that some of the key demands during the 1989 protests involved gaining state approval for autonomous unions for students and workers in Beijing. “To the extent that they were demanding a structural change in the political system, it was to effect a shift to a societal corporatism in which they could choose their own leader ship and set their own agendas.” But the CCP’s rejection of this demand and its violent repression of protestors show that Leninism, not corporatism, still defines China’s political system. Beginning in 1998, the CCP has repeatedly suppressed efforts to create an opposition party, showing that a Leninist logic still prevails in China. If the party’s monopoly is undermined, we will witness not simply an incremental and gradual evolution from state to societal corporatism, but increased political decay of the communist system itself.
Corporatist trends are nevertheless affecting several key factors of China’s political system. An important variation on corporatism as practiced in China is that corporatist groups are usually sanctioned and controlled by local party and government authorities and not always vertically organized into peak associations whose primary interaction is with the central state. This has exacerbated the decentralization of political and economic authority. Just as corporate associations no longer act as transmission belts, local governments no longer act as loyal agents of the center. This is a potential sign of disintegration, not just for the CCP but the political system as a whole. As a result of these newly created institutional links, the party’s traditional concern with party building as a means of linking state and society and monitoring compliance with party policy has atrophied.
The creation of a market economy has created new opportunities for pursuing personal goals that do not require joining the party. Indeed, party membership is now seen by many as detrimental to fulfilling individual interests. The new collectively and privately owned and foreign funded enterprises are being created so fast that the party cannot create party organizations within most of them, and many do not even have party members. Party organizations in the countryside have weakened, and recruiting new members has become increasingly difficult. Moreover, many party members in rural areas have joined the “floating population” of migrant workers seeking jobs in coastal cities, further reducing the party’s presence in the countryside. In more prosperous areas, up to 10 percent of the floating population are party members. Most floating party members are young and middle-aged and either business oriented or “backbone workers,” precisely the kinds of people the party would like to utilize. Once they join the floating population, these party members lose touch with their original party unit and do not register with the party committee in their new location. Consequently, they no longer fulfill their responsibilities to the party or fulfill their “vanguard role.”
The second criterion for a model is that it allow comparisons to be drawn with other countries, and the corporatist model is clearly comparative in nature. But because corporatism is present in so many contexts, it is important to clearly identify the subtypes of the concept so that comparisons are drawn with the right countries. Both state and societal corporatism are monopolistic forms of group politics and therefore are structurally similar. Yet their origins and dynamics are fundamentally different. State corporatism is generally associated with authoritarian regimes, whereas societal corporatism is “more an evolution—perhaps a corruption—of liberalism.” It is not compatible with a Leninist system, because the former requires the types of autonomous and politically active groups that the latter refuses to tolerate. The notion of state corporatism is less threatening to the regime: instead of autonomy, corporate groups are embedded in the state, where they can be manipulated, their leaders replaced , and their finances controlled. Leninist parties seek to prevent autonomous groups, for good reason. The Eastern European experience shows that the rise of civil society has a significant—and in some cases decisive—impact on the collapse of communism.
The third criterion of a model’s utility is its ability to account for change, and this is where the corporatist model as applied to China most falls short. The depiction of a gradual and incremental evolution from state to societal corporatism is not consistent with the wider literature. According to Philippe Schmitter, state corporatism is unlikely to transform itself continuously toward societal corporatism; instead, it must “degenerate into openly conflictual, multifaceted, uncontrolled interest politics—pluralism in other words.” This is exactly what Leninism is designed to prevent. We should not expect that the transition from state to societal corporatism will occur amid regime continuity.
The incremental transformation depicted by the advocates of the corporatist model is based not only on faulty logic but also problematic analogies. Unger and Chan suggest that Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan all made smooth transitions from state to societal corporatism and conclude that a similar transformation in China is possible. But in all three cases, the transition was epiphenomenal to changes taking place in the larger political system. In each case, societal corporatism was the consequence of democratization, but the modes of democratization were fundamentally different in each country. Despite the near ubiquity of corporatism in all sorts of political systems, we should be wary of drawing comparisons across different types of political systems. Unger and Chan further suggest that as political liberalization continues in China, “it is far more likely to involve such incremental shifts into societal corporatism rather than the introduction of any form of political democracy.” But societal corporatism and democracy are not independent of one another. The emergence of societal corporatism was the consequence of democratization elsewhere in East Asia, not an alternative to it. In other countries, societal corporatism developed in an already pluralist setting. The combination of societal corporatism and rule by a Leninist party would therefore not likely be a stable one.
Corporatism may survive the transition from communism in China, but communism is unlikely to survive the transition to corporatism. Chan cites the relegalization of Solidarity in Poland in spring 1989 as a possible model for increased autonomy of China’s labor organizations. But within a few months of this step, the communist government in Poland negotiated its way out of existence. This example of “socialist societal corporatism” existed only for the short period of time between the relegalization of Solidarity in April 1989 and the appointment of the first noncommunist prime minister, Solidarity adviser Tadeusz Mazowiecki, in September 1989. This is a poor precedent, either for theory building or for party policy.
A more promising approach may be to apply Stepan’s typology of exclusionary and inclusionary poles within state corporatism. A regime can shift between exclusionary and inclusionary policies over time and even practice them simultaneously. For instance, the CCP has allowed the All-China Federation of Trade Unions in recent years to advocate strongly the interest of labor in the policy and legislative process, but it has also imprisoned those who advocate the formation of independent trade unions. Stepan’s typology may account for trends that scholars are finding without stretching the concept of societal corporatism beyond recognition.
Corporatist features are clearly emerging in China as a substitute for the CCP’s more totalitarian impulse to control state and society in the Maoist years. But the ultimate political implications of this trend are still uncertain. Some scholars see the promise of societal corporatism coming into view; others see signs of disintegration. The creation of corporatist organizations to link state and society was part of the CCP’s strategy of inclusion, and it remains dedicated to preventing the rise of autonomous organizations. Before societal corporatism replaces Leninism as the defining feature of China’s political system, the party would have to abandon its monopoly on political organization. This is a fundamental change that the CCP has steadfastly opposed. If the party’s control over key organizations erodes to such an extent that state corporatism begins to transform into societal corporatism, the real story will not be about the rise of corporatism but about more fundamental political change in China.
Conclusion
The logic of inclusion offers a useful framework for analyzing the CCP’s policies of coopting new elites and forging links with nonparty organizations, as well as understanding the problems that have arisen as a consequence. Although inclusion seems to be a natural phase in the evolution of Leninist parties, the tension between inclusion and mobilization also indicates why adaptation is so difficult and why the transformation of Leninist parties is so rare. While cooptation and the creation of organizational links seem necessary to promote economic modernization, neither is sufficient to guarantee the party’s survival. Instead of leading to rejuvenation, inclusion may contribute to a Leninist party’s disintegration.
The cooptation of new elites is a classic strategy of adaptation for Leninist parties and for organizations in general, but it is a risky strategy. As the case of the CCP shows, coopted elites may not support or even sympathize with party traditions. The technocrats and entrepreneurs who are now being courted were previously targeted as class enemies. Even though the newly coopted technocrats and entrepreneurs are unlikely to initiate pressures for democratizing reforms, they may be powerful allies if others inside and outside the party do so. The attention given to coopting new elites and promoting economic reforms has also led to deterioration of traditional party building, leaving the party less able to mobilize and control society and its own members at a time of increasing political, economic, and social change.
Proponents of corporatism in China may be doing a disservice. They are uncovering important changes in China’s political economy that may have profound implications for its political system. But in their quest for a comparative concept to analyze changes in China, they have latched onto a concept that does not give sufficient emphasis to the central fact of China’s political system—the continued rule of a Leninist party. The corporatist approach also does not give adequate attention to the experience of other Leninist parties for whom political change was tumultuous, not gradual. Hungary and Taiwan are exceptions to this general rule, but the CCP lacks the key features that prompted their transformation, and corporatism was not a key factor in their democratization. By implying a possible path of incremental political change that is not consistent with either the general literature or the political experience of other countries, advocates of the corporatist approach may mislead us.
The CCP is pursuing policies of inclusion, both by coopting new elites and creating links with nonparty organizations, while at the same time lamenting the loss of mobilizational capacity. Some local party officials and many scholars argue that the solution to this dilemma is to deemphasize mobilizational goals for the sake of greater economic growth. From this perspective, party organs should not be present in the nonstate sectors of the economy, specifically because they tend to retard growth and frighten off potential investors. Cooptation and new organizational links offer alternatives to traditional party building as a means to link the party with society. From the perspective of the party, however, its organizational interests are being challenged by these policies of inclusion. As its capacity to monitor compliance with its policies, enforce norms of behavior, and mobilize society on behalf of regime goals deteriorates, the Leninist attributes of the CCP and its viability as the ruling party are also undermined. As Samuel Huntington noted, the strength of an authoritarian regime depends in large part on the strength of its party; as the party weakens, so too does the regime it governs. While noting the positive trends of cooptation and corporatism, we should not lose sight of the negative consequences for the CCP and the implications for the political system as a whole.