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No calm in China’s
political storm
By Brahma Chellaney
As senior leaders are purged and retired provincial officials publicly call for
the removal of politburo members, it has become clear China is at a crossroads.
The country’s future no longer looks to be determined by its hugely successful
economy, instead, its murky and fractured politics are now driving its fate.
One need look no further than the ongoing power struggle in the run-up to this
autumn’s planned leadership changes, or official figures showing that rural
protests have been increasing at the same rate as China’s GDP. The sudden
downfall of former Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai (薄熙來) — and the call from
Yunnan Province for the removal of the two politburo members closest to him — is
one example of the no-holds-barred infighting now taking place in Beijing.
Indeed, the internecine squabbles are said to be so vicious that there have been
rumors, denied by the regime, that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) congress
at which a new president and prime minister are to be anointed this autumn might
be postponed.
The party’s abrupt vilification of Bo, after lauding him for his leadership in
Chongqing, has fueled public cynicism over his orchestrated downfall and laid
bare the leadership’s thin ideological core. If China is to preserve its gains
in global stature, it must avoid a political hard landing. For the time being,
at least five different scenarios are conceivable:
Re-equilibration: The CCP protects its legitimacy, keeps the military
subordinate and manages to pop a lid on widespread dissent. In other words, the
status quo prevails for the foreseeable future. This is the least likely
scenario given deepening internal fault-lines and mounting discontent.
Implosion: The likelihood of political disintegration, economic collapse and
social disorder may be no higher than that of re-equilibration. The government’s
fixation on weiwen (維穩), or “maintenance of stability,” has resulted in China
becoming the world’s only important nation whose official internal security
budget outweighs its official national defense budget.
This underscores the extent to which authorities have to carry out internal
repression to perpetuate one-party rule and maintain control over restive
ethnic-minority homelands that make up more than 60 percent of China’s landmass.
However, it might also explain why one self-immolation in Tunisia helped kindle
the Arab Spring, whereas about three dozen self-immolations by Tibetan monks and
nuns have failed to ignite a similar popular movement against the Chinese state.
The Soviet Union imploded because the party was the state, and vice versa.
China, by contrast, has established strong institutional capacity, a
multi-tiered federal structure, a tradition of civilian leadership turnover
every 10 years and a well-oiled, sophisticated security apparatus. Thus, China’s
government can pursue a policy of wai song nei jin (外鬆內緊) — relaxed on the
outside, vigilant internally.
Guided reform: A process of gradual political change begins, in keeping with
outgoing Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s (溫家寶) warning that without “urgent”
reforms, China risks turmoil and disruption of economic growth. Can China
emulate the recent example of neighboring Myanmar, which has initiated
significant, if still tenuous, political reforms?
The political heirs of the country’s communist revolutionaries — the
third-generation leaders that are taking over the reins of power in China — may
possess a strong pedigree, but they are also limited by it. These so-called
“princelings” are trapped in the same political culture that led to the death of
millions of Chinese and the continuing repression of opponents (real or
imagined). They do not look like political reformers in the slightest.
Great leap backward: A new “Cultural Revolution” erupts, as the clique in power
ruthlessly suppresses dissent within and outside the establishment. As the Dalai
Lama recently warned, there are still plenty of “worshipers of the gun” in power
in China. Indeed, such is China’s political system that only the strongest
advance. One fallen princeling, Bo, has been accused of cruelty and corruption —
traits that are endemic in China’s cloistered, but fragmented oligarchy.
Praetorian takeover: The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rules from behind a
civilian mask, increasingly calling the shots with government officials, who are
beholden to it. While the civilian leadership has become diffuse (every Chinese
leader since Mao Zedong [毛澤東] has been weaker than his predecessor), the
military has enjoyed greater autonomy and soaring budgets since 1990. Indeed,
the CCP, having ceased to be a rigid monolith, has become dependent on the
military for its political legitimacy and to ensure domestic order.
The PLA’s growing political clout has been manifest in the party’s sharpening
power struggle. Recently, an unusual number of senior military officers have
published articles calling for party discipline and unity and alluding to the
military’s role in containing the infighting.
Another development is the increasing tendency of generals to speak out of turn
on strategic issues and to undercut diplomacy. The truth is that the foreign
ministry is the government’s weakest branch, often overruled or ignored by the
security establishment, which is ever ready to upstage even the CCP.
China’s internal politics has a bearing on external policy. The weaker the
civilian leadership has become, the more China has discarded former Chinese
leader Deng Xiaoping’s (鄧小平) dictum tao guang yang hui (韜光養晦, “conceal ambitions
and hide claws”). China has recently taken pride more in baring its claws than
retracting them. Under any plausible scenario, a restrained and stable Chinese
foreign policy might become more difficult.
Brahma Chellaney is a professor of strategic studies at the New Delhi-based
Center for Policy Research.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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