International Perspectives on the Communist Party of China

Abstract

Studies and analysis of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in universities and research institutes (think tanks) around the world are active, although there are considerably fewer scholars and specialists who focus their research on the CPC itself (as distinct from broader research on Chinese politics). In other words, CPC studies are a specialised subfield of the broader study of contemporary Chinese politics. Almost all of those who research the CPC have received PhD degrees in Political Science and serve in university Political Science departments. (1) CPC studies abroad have evolved considerably over time. They can be divided into three broad periods. During the 1950s-1960, Western scholarship tended to concentrate on the CPC's rise to power (particularly the Yan'an period); CPC ideology (Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought) and its impact on Party and state policy; the paramount leader (Mao) and other senior CPC leaders; the CPC's relationship with the Soviet and other communist parties; factions inside the CPC; political campaigns (yundong) launched by the Party; the Party's relationship with intellectuals; Central Committee congresses, plenary sessions or work conferences; formal party institutions; or about specific localities. During these years, China was cut off for foreign scholars wanting to conduct research inside the country, so CPC studies were undertaken in Hong Kong, on Taiwan or abroad. Available research materials were limited to official public documents, newspaper articles, some journals and occasional internal (neibu) CPC documents that found their way out of China. The scholarship of this first period necessarily had an abstract feel since scholars could not go to China to conduct research in situ. Another characteristic was that studies of the CPC were generally part of a broader subfield of comparative communist studies. As such, the CPC was studied as a generic Leninist institution cloned from the Soviet model--thus there were efforts to understand the degree to which the Chinese version of Soviet Leninism had been Sinicized (or not). These differences became more apparent during the late 1950s, as the fissures in the Sino-Soviet relationship became evident. And, finally, following the Sino-Soviet Split, scholars of the CPC analysed the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution--as the Party itself came under attack from within and without. During the 1970s-1980s, as China began to open up to foreign researchers, new research interests and research methods emerged. CPC scholars were still interested in subjects such as the senior leadership and the political succession to Mao, Zhou Enlai and other first-generation leaders. But there was less interest in studying the Party's ideology, political campaigns and party-to-party relations. New topics of research interest included: Party-Army (PLA) relations; central-provincial relations; relations between the Party and State Council (particularly during the dang-zheng fenkai policy of the late 1980s); the changing and declining role at the local level as a result of economic and social reforms; the role of rural party cadres; changing Party policies towards intellectuals; the development of Party and government-associated think tanks (zhinengku); the impact of new economic reforms on Party rule; and CPC history. With the opportunity to visit China and conduct research in China, a wide variety of new research materials (newspapers, journals and books) became available. Some Party institutions became available for visits, (2) and interviews with some CPC members and officials became possible. As a result, a much more variegated and nuanced sense of the CPC emerged from this generation of scholarship. Another benefit was that interaction between Chinese Party historians and foreign scholars was initiated. During the 1990s-2000s, foreign CPC scholars began to change their research focus again and a third period of scholarship opened. …