The Limits on Leadership in China

Abstract

We are often told that China is governed by men, not institutions, and that power is vested in individuals, not in established structures of authority. Journalists, Hong Kong and Taiwan China watchers, and China scholars ponder the health of Beijing's octogenarians, consider the actuarial politics of the looming succession, and wonder about the ups and downs of individual candidates to succeed Deng Xiaoping. This article will argue that, in general, who succeeds Deng Xiaoping is not very important, and that the background and characteristics of the candidates for succession, the way the successors will relate to each other after the death of the older generation, and the nature of the issues that will face the new leadership will all sharply constrain leadership choice. In other words, the political system is institutionalized in the sense that it is generally governed by norms and dominant in the sense that the system fundamentally constrains leadership choice. One implication of this analysis is that, other things being equal, Chinese economic growth will continue its rapid pace. This is not to say that individual factors and personalities are not important or interesting. Anyone making this type of analysis is well advised to remember Mikhail Gorbachev who emerged out of the Soviet agriculture ministry, a rather nondescript and vague figure. Few Soviet scholars imagined that Gorbachev would be an ardent reformer. While he was unable to reform the Soviet Union, his actions contributed substantially to the collapse of the Soviet state. The hidden elements of character and purpose, will and drive that are submerged or overshadowed by the seemingly dominant role of the octogenarians in China's political system make it impossible to know whether there are unexpected or unknown talents lurking in the successor generation. Although the possibility of human creativity