Chinese Political System Research Articles

Chinese Patron-Clientelism for the Twenty-First Century: The Rise of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang

Patron-clientelism is the central dynamic propelling leadership change in China, and this model of personal association opened a path for China’s current top leaders. Patron-clientelism bolsters the key features of the Chinese political system: Leninist political organization, intra- party divisions, conflictual decision-making processes, and the vital roles played by senior figures. Patron-clientelism is characterized by both vertical and horizontal dimensions, and it is accompanied by endemic personalism, factionalism, corruption, and nepotism. Clientelistic ties have shaped all leadership transitions since the Maoist period, and they were most evident in the falls of leaders Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang in the 1980s. Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang are the latest beneficiaries of the patron-clientelistic system. Xi was propelled by his “princeling” background and his association with the Shanghai faction of former top leader Jiang Zemin. Li is the latest scion of the Communist Youth League faction that produced Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao. The recent fall of Bo Xilai illustrates some of the pitfalls of factional and “princeling” leadership.

The Experience Reference and Revelation of the Foreign Urban Community Management System

Along with the deepening development of the market economy and Chinese political system reform, Chinese urban management predicament is growing. How to construct the urban community management system to accommodate with Chinese characteristic has become a pressing issue in research. In this paper, the urban community management system in abroad is introduced, the mainly three model namely the government’s leading type, mixed type and autonomy type, so as to provide experience reference and enlightenment for Chinese urban community management system reform.

Chinese vs. Western perspectives: understanding contemporary China

Preface Acknowledgments 1. Roots of Contemporary China 2. Chinese Family 3. Population and Development 4. Status of Chinese Women 5. Globalization and Chinese Women 6. Chinese Economy 7. China' Rise and Environmental Degradation 8. Chinese Political System 9. Rampant Corruption and Chinese Political System 10. Traditional Chinese Religions 11. Chinese Christianity in the Post-Mao Era 12. Will Confucianism Be Able to Help China's Democratization? 13. Marxism and Maoism 14. Media in China: Internet and Chinese Cinema 15. U.S.-China Relations 16. Does China's Rise Threaten the United States? 17. Finding Common Ground for Chinese and Western Perspectives 18. Future of China: Undemocratic China Cannot Rule the World Bibliography Index About the Author

Political Legitimacy in Contemporary China Revisited: theoretical refinement and empirical operationalization

In the first part of this article the author comments on Peter Sandby-Thomas' contribution and critically assesses his suggestion to focus on ‘legitimation’ instead of ‘legitimacy’ when investigating the Chinese political system. In the second part, the author, in an effort to refine his analytical model to study legitimacy presented in an earlier article published in this journal, argues for combining Eastonian systems analysis and policy analysis, particularly at the local level of the Chinese state. The systematic accumulation of knowledge on local policy implementation with regard to procedure, output effectiveness and public responses, undertaken from an Eastonian perspective, provides China scholars with a fruitful approach to the study of legitimacy even if some methodological pitfalls remain.

Effective Policy Implementation in China’s Local State

Effective policy implementation is a core component of the Chinese political system’s adaptability and stability. A thorough investigation of local implementation mechanisms, however, is often hindered by an almost exclusive concentration on implementation efficiency. This article introduces a new analytical framework and suggests focusing on the interactions between the different administrative tiers—counties, townships, and villages—to understand local policy implementation in terms of procedural and outcome effectiveness. It argues that the triangle of central policy design, institutional constraints, and strategic agency of local implementers explains cases of effective policy implementation that can be observed throughout China. By way of studying the “Building of a New Socialist Countryside” in four cases, this article shows how effective policy implementation can be the result of what students of local governance have so far rather treated as obstructive factors, namely performance and cadre evaluation, financial scarcity, limited public participation, and the focus on models.

Is democracy with Chinese characteristics possible? A theoretical and practical reflection of crisis in the Chinese party-state regime and post-revolutionary socialist hegemonic politics

This article discusses political challenges to the current party-state regime in China and the direction of its new political reform, on the one hand, and tries to theorize a post-revolutionary “socialist hegemonic politics” after the revolution, based on reinterpretation of Marxist political theory and Western democracy theory, on the other hand. It understands that there is a deeper crisis of Chinese politics, rather than simply providing an empirical analysis. In so doing, this article both reflects existing Marxist political theory and the concept of democracy while reconstructing both of them, interacting with the current Chinese political reality. Currently, the Chinese party-state regime is facing a compressed form of crisis due to rapid economic growth; that is, a kind of “success crisis.” The crisis is expressed in such phenomena as the breakdown of “identification of the party-state with society,” assumed since the revolution, the victimization of the working class and peasants, which have been regarded as the main driving force of the Chinese revolution, the emergence of demands for political and social plurality coming from a new wealthy class, and an outpouring of various resistances. If these phenomena were to converge, it could result in the “statization of crisis,” which means that all kinds of opposition would join together against the state. However, there are no political mechanisms to incorporate and mitigate grassroots opposition, through top-down reform of the party-state regime. Thus, I argue that democracy with Chinese characteristics should be imagined as the realization of a kind of socialist hegemonic politics. To understand this, we have to overcome both over-universalistic and over-particularistic perspectives on democracy. The Chinese regime's main innovation in socialist market reform has been to separate capitalism and the market, appropriating the latter in the name of making it more viable. Therefore, it should divide bourgeois democracy and its democratic elements, combining them with the Chinese political system in the name of enriching it, expanding endogenous democratic elements.

La morale et l'éthique au regard du discours politique chinois

In their stated objectives, the Chinese authorities have given a high profile to the issue of morality, something that, in the current context, is clearly under duress. The question raised is thus whether such discourse is rooted in a morality or ethics particular to Chinese society, insofar as it displays certain aspects that are part of a civic morality of a socialist orientation, along with other features drawing on Confucianism or other components of Chinese culture. The moral injunction would however be empty, if it were not coupled with a politics of well-being, something which must be grounded in an anthropology. Such an anthropology (the search for harmony, consensus, the dynamic equilibrium between contraries) differs significantly from that which prevails in the West. It can therefore be highly instructive for us. The article concludes with some considerations on the Chinese political system.

Practical Moral Consciousness in Rights Claims: Petition Letters on Chinese Village Elections (权利诉求中的实用道义意识——从理解农民选举上访信开始)

AbstractThis article discusses the motivations and reasons for peasant resistance in China, with a special focus on the “consciousness” of resisters. The current debate is limited by its purpose of trying to understand how resistance consciousness influences the transition of the Chinese political system, and does not attempt to understand on a deeper level resistance consciousness itself. Drawing on a new collection of petitions on village elections, I trace the complex relationship between the public rights claims made by peasants and the hidden line of thinking that leads them to use this rhetoric to establish the legitimacy of their claims. I find a flourishing rights-based discourse in disputes over elections—yet I also identify a new type of consciousness that underlies it, one which is neither “rights-” nor “rules”-based and which I term “practical moral consciousness.” This type of consciousness combines an understanding of morality (daoyi道义) rooted in a conception of local justice combined with a deep kind of pragmatism. My investigation of practical moral consciousness highlights the moral legitimacy of “rightful resistance” and suggests the possibility of constructing a new theory based on the research on Chinese resistance politics by looking more closely at peasants’ subjective experiences and historical perspectives.(This article is in English.)摘要本文尝试理解中国农民进行抗争的动机和理由，即他们的抗争意识。当前有关争论受制于探究抗争意识对于中国政治体制转型的影响的目标，对抗争意识本身缺乏进一步研究。作者以农民选举上访信中的复杂表达为经验材料，对以权利诉求为主导的各种诉求进行理解，重点放在理解农民使其抗争诉求得以正当化的思考方式。初步理解表明，农民具有争论中的权利意识论和规则意识论都未曾揭示的抗争意识，即“实用道义意识”。它是农民道义意识和实用思维的结合。实用道义意识的研究凸现了今日“依法抗争”行动的道义正当性，蕴含着中国抗争政治研究建立抗争者主体视角和历史视角的可能性。

The Basis for the Legitimacy of the Chinese Political System

The Basis for the Legitimacy of the Chinese Political System

Chinese Political and Economic Governance System and the Imbalance between Consumption and Investment

The Chinese government has been pursuing economic growth under the guidance of “growth is a hard principle”. In the context of the Chinese political and economic governance system, local governments have employed the overtaking strategy (placing primary emphasis on the development of capital and technology-intensive industries) and the real estate development strategy to push for economic growth and fiscal revenue growth. This has led to a repressed labor share and an elevated capital and government share in primary and secondary income distribution structure. Using the empirical strategy of Acemoglu et al. (2003), we confirm that the development strategies have shaped an imbalanced consumption-investment structure through primary and secondary income distribution as well as other channels. It suggests that the Chinese government will be able to accomplish China’s transition from an investment-led growth model to a consumption-based growth model only if it modifies its political and economic governance system and removes the distortions in development strategies.

Completing a new official history: significance of White-Deer Plain

Post-Mao China witnesses the rise of the province in the Chinese political and economic system. Echoing the Central’s cultural nationalism, the province has used cultural materials, especially historical resources, to create its own identity for distinctiveness. This paper examines the regional consciousness of Chen Zhongshi, a writer from central Shaanxi. His two novellas of the mid-1980s clearly demonstrate the cultural difference between central and northern Shaanxi. Chen views his discerned Confucian tradition in central Shaanxi differently in his most well-known novel, White-Deer Plain, which shows his regional consciousness and, on larger scales, provincialism and nationalism. These works raise a question on the relationship between his culturalist stance and the official ideology. His new viewpoint has acquired him much more than those writings deserve. The long acceptance process of the novel reflects and also articulates a new national context; it also shows the negotiations among state agencies on China’s transition.

Gan, Chunsong 幹春松, The Institutionalization and Falling of Confucianism 制度儒學及其解體, Revised Edition, Beijing: People’s University of China Press, 2011, 408 pages

The rise of Confucianism in China for the past two decades has led me to expect a book that would analyze the penetrating impact of Confucianism in formulating the traditional Chinese social structure and political system. Gan’s book in its first edition (2003) caught my eye several years ago. This revised work demonstrates Gan’s familiarity with the related documents and offers insight into the subject, and I believe that it will definitely provoke further discussion on the subject and help us understand more about the future impact of Confucianism on Chinese society. The book is divided into two sections. The first deals with the ways Confucianism enters Chinese social structures and how those structures become Confucianized. In the second section, the author collects several essays detailing the contemporary history of China, in which Confucianism failed to defend itself against Western challenges and was therefore separated from the Chinese political system. The second section occupies two thirds of the book, indicating that the author is deeply concerned with the fall of Confucianism in the contemporary world. However, as the author admits, the book has yet to explore, from the point of view of institutionalization, the possibilities and paths in which Confucianism may make positive contributions to Chinese social structure and order in the contemporary world (3). Gan conceives the institutionalization of Confucianism in two ways: “One is that, as a school of thought with a set of ideas, Confucianism became institutionalized; and the other is that the Confucian ideas of politics and ethics have gradually penetrated into the current political system and social structure, and made them become Confucianized” (16). It is not necessary to discern which follows which chronologically. Rather, they occur simultaneously. The book’s first chapter deals with Confucianization of the Chinese political system and social structure; the second chapter with the institutionalization of Confucianism. Let me follow Gan’s discussion further. Confucius himself studied history from the time of Emperors Yao and Shun and adopted the constitution established by Emperors Dao (2013) 12:403–406 DOI 10.1007/s11712-013-9337-y

The politics of climate change in China

AbstractThis article reviews recent studies on the politics of climate change in China. We explain the evolution of policy‐making and implementation processes and mechanisms over the past two decades, and discuss how they have eventuated in contemporary trends and challenges. Within the unitary hierarchy of the Chinese political system, the central government is responsible for making major policies, and subnational and local governments are responsible for the implementation. The policy‐making process is characterized by a consensus building at the center, in contrast to the open public and partisan debate in Western democracies. Climate policy implementation has been based on a so‐called ‘target responsibility system’, which disaggregates targets amongst all levels of local governments and related enterprises. While this system has proven effective in achieving the national targets set by the central government, the high costs associated with it have been a source of concern. The key challenge in making and implementing climate policy is to balance economic growth and environmental protection. This challenge is of critical importance in central–local political interactions. Clean energy development has been proposed as a ‘win–win’ solution to help balance economic development and climate change mitigation, and to satisfy both central and local government prerogatives, but the sustainability of such a model is questioned when the global and domestic economy experience difficulties. The central government is trying to translate its consensus in climate change and green development into priorities for local governments through policy pilots and market instruments; the real results will soon be seen. WIREs Clim Change 2013, 4:301–313. doi: 10.1002/wcc.221This article is categorized under: The Carbon Economy and Climate Mitigation > Policies, Instruments, Lifestyles, Behavior Policy and Governance > National Climate Change Policy

Cadre and Personnel Management in the CPC

For a Western scholar, studying the cadre and personnel management system (ganbu yu renshi guanli zhidu) in the Communist Party of China (CPC) is an endeavour fraught with difficulties. First and most basically, there is no clear definition of the concept of cadre (ganbu) available--making it extremely difficult to determine and delimitate the field of study. Second, statistics and hard empirical data are not easy to access--as information on cadre management often is classified neibu (internal) or jimi (secret)--and therefore, in principle, unavailable to foreign researchers. Third, the documents and regulations concerning cadre management use many concepts which are almost impossible to translate into Western languages and discourse. Nevertheless, as a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the Chinese political system requires a basic understanding of cadre management, the subject has attracted growing interest in the West. Most studies on the Chinese cadre system fail to draw on the theoretical insights provided by the existing body of literature on elites in general, (1) and in relation to China in particular. (2) This seems to be related to a number of factors. First, elite studies as such are currently a neglected discipline in political science research. (3) Instead, there is a focus on electoral systems and electoral behaviour, constitutional choice and rational choice theory. Second, the implosion of communist/socialist systems in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe destroyed much of the empirical basis for theory generation and development in the field of comparative communist studies. Third, since the 1960s, a number of often conflicting approaches to the study of Chinese politics have emerged. Most of them have dealt with conflict and change and the factors that seemingly make the system dysfunctional. Only in recent years have some scholars argued that the political system is, in fact, holding together rather well. (4) What makes the Party hold together is organisation and power--as embodied in the political elite. (5) Fourth, and finally, to the extent elite concepts are applied in the Chinese case, they tend to relate to studies of the composition and working of top government and Party organs such as the State Council, Politburo or Central Committee and their membership. (6) Rarely are they used to discuss the wider group of cadres from which future leaders are recruited. This has unfortunately severely limited the usefulness of the elite concept in analysing how the Chinese political system works. THE CONCEPT OF CADRE Cadre (from Latin: quadrus = square) is originally a military concept. Its current use denotes three main significances: (1) basic structure or framework; (2) a nucleus of trained personnel around which a larger organisation can be built and trained; (3) a small, unified group organised to instruct or lead a larger group. In France, the term is often used to denote the officials and upper-level and middle-level managers educated at the grandes ecoles. They are supposed to exhibit leadership qualities, predisposing them to take up duties for the nation. (7) In communist one-Party systems, the concept refers back to the Russian Revolution. In this sense, the cadres are the leaders of the revolution and the masses the followers. In his famous organisational manual, What is to Be Done?, Lenin describes how such a vanguard of the revolutionary class should be created and trained to lead the revolution. (8) This vanguard was supposed to act as the central nucleus of the Party and was expected to devote to the revolution not their free evenings--but their whole life. (9) These revolutionaries were regarded as the lions of the communist movement. (10) After the 1949 revolution in China, cadres usually referred to people with responsible or leading positions (fuzeren/lingdaoren) within an organisation, or people who assumed responsibility for specific political tasks. …

A Study on the Reform of the Chinese Political System after China's Reform and Opening: Focusing on the reviews of studies in South Korea

A Study on the Reform of the Chinese Political System after China's Reform and Opening: Focusing on the reviews of studies in South Korea

What the U.S. can learn from China: an open-minded guide to treating our greatest competitor as our greatest teacher

- Lays out what America can gain by studying China’s approach to politics, economics, finance, education, foreign policy, and more - Author Ann Lee, a self-proclaimed “tiger mother for the U.S. economy,” has experience on both sides of the Pacific—she has taught in China and worked on Wall Street - Counters the trend of demonizing China by offering a rare nuanced view of how Chinese society actually works While America is still reeling from the 2008 financial crisis, a high unemployment rate, and a surge in government debt, China’s economy is the second largest in the world and many predict it will surpass the United States’ by 2020. President Obama called China’s rise “a Sputnik moment”—will America seize this moment or continue to treat China as its scapegoat? Mainstream media and the U.S. government regularly target China as a threat. Rather than viewing China’s power, influence, and contributions to the global economy in a negative light, Ann Lee asks: What can America learn from its competition? Why did China suffer so little from the global economic meltdown? What accounts for China’s extraordinary growth, despite one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world? How does the Chinese political system avoid partisan rancor but achieve genuine public accountability? From education to governance to foreign aid, Lee details the policies and practices that have made China a global power and then isolates the ways the United States can use China’s enduring principles to foster much-needed change at home. This is no whitewash. Lee is fully aware of China’s shortcomings, particularly in the area of human rights. She has relatives who suffered during the Cultural Revolution. But by overemphasizing our differences with China, the United States stands to miss a vital opportunity. Filled with sharp insights and thorough research, What the U.S. Can Learn from China is Lee’s rallying cry for a new approach at a time when learning from one another is the key to surviving and thriving.

Vote for Me! Electing a Class Monitor in a Chinese Middle School

Please Vote for Me is a film produced in China, but provoking hot discussion all over the world. Because bare-knuckled threats, outright lies, well-placed bribes, and well-resourced lobbyists happen among eight-yearolds without a savvy politician’s script. To any Chinese, this is the best material to review Chinese democracy. However, electoral politics is the system, but not the democracy itself. Similarly, the Chinese Electoral Law is the foundation of the Chinese political system, which does not mean democracy in reality. Therefore, it can be reviewed and adjusted to be more suitable for a better democracy.

Political Transition in Economic Decentralization: Bargaining Coalition between Central and Provincial Government in China: 1978-1993

Economic decentralization in China has created autonomous leverages for the provincial governments, and it is through bargaining, concessions, and cooperation with the provincial governments that the central government has promoted rapid economic growth. These are the existing cases of coalitional politics within Leninist reform. However, such phenomenal circumstances have not been given serious consideration by most current students of the China’s reforms, who usually neglected the irreversible political transitions away from Leninism in Communist countries; nor do my findings support theories of political development, which see political coalitions only as alignments between the state and organized social interests, such as parties and interest groups. The deficiency of both types of explanations prohibits them from correctly explaining new political events in the Chinese economic decentralization. The question thus raised is: how a coalitional politics is formed between the central government and the provincial governments, through which unorganized social interests are articulated, by provincial institutions, in state policy making in Leninist China? This book answers this question by examining and critiquing competing explanations of political transitions and existing methods of studying transformations in central-local relationships in China. It applies an interactive dimension in power restructuring approach, and a multidimensional policy (fiscal, finance, investment, foreign trade policies) analytical method within the context of political coalitional theory. It has found that the history of the Chinese political system has been one of the continuous human desires for freedom from the centralized kingdom, and of consistent efforts by the political center to find institutional remedies. Reform experiences suggest that the transfer of economic power from the center to the provinces has established institutional foundations for political coalitions between the central and local governments. The provincial governments, as representatives and articulators of local interests, have been encouraged by an agenda of economic decentralization, and have interacted with the center through informal and formal ways, in bargaining over rational policy. The contradiction between Mao’s political legacies and a common desire for reform is largely responsible for such a unique political coalition during this transition. The cases of Guangdong Province and Shanghai Municipality have been utilized to illustrate the general framework and overarching hypotheses of this study.

Domestic Politics and Participation in Transnational Climate Governance: The Crucial Case of China

Transnational governance is increasingly important to many areas of global politics, including global climate change, where multilateral negotiations have fallen into gridlock. However, we have yet to fully understand how domestic political conditions affect sub- and non-state actors' ability to engage in governance beyond the state. Existing approaches to transnational governance emphasize, often implicitly, a liberal, pluralist view of politics, in which non- and sub-state actors have considerable agency with which to pursue their interests. The paper explores, instead, transnational governance under conditions of authoritarianism, explaining how the Chinese political context affects sub- and non-state actors' participation in transnational climate governance. Because China will soon be the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, understanding Chinese actors' participation is crucial to the ultimate success of transnational approaches to climate governance. We find that while Chinese participation in TCG is limited and primarily reactive, the fragmented nature of the Chinese political system allows for greater participation than conventional theoretical approaches would expect.

Crossing to the Other Shore: Navigating the Troubled Waters of Cultural Loss and Eco-Crisis in Late-Socialist China

Using the dual crises of cultural loss in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China, and environmental degradation at adjacent Dianchi Lake as background, this paper coins a new term, ignowledge, to describe a particular “technology of rule” in the Chinese political system. Ignowledge is a power tied to culturally specific conceptions of modernity, development, politics, ecology, eco-politics, and environmentality.