English
Français
Extract and translated from the French E-bulletin China Analysis – Les Nouvelles de Chine n°16, Nov–Dec. 2007, pp.26-28
French Editor: M.Meidan/M.Duchâtel. Translation: Peter Brown
Overview and commentary by Mathieu Duchâtel, from:
- Yang Kai-huang, “The 17th Congress. Implementing a flexible anti-independence stance”, Lienhebao, 23 October 2007.
- Chao Chun-shan, “The changing of the guard in the Communist Party. A matter of science, not system”, Lienhebao, 23 October 2007.
The 17th Congress passed by largely without comment in the Taiwanese media, which had been uninterested in China’s domestic news for some time already. However, some connaisseurs of the Chinese system did publish analyses in the columns of the daily press. One of these, written by Lin Chong-pin[1], an academic who was Deputy-Minister for Defence from 2003 to 2004, has even been translated into Chinese after first appearing in an abridged form in the International Herald Tribune and then in its full form in the Taipei Times[2]. In it, Lin Chong-pin states that Hu Jintao was conducting a strategy of containment of the centre by making use of the base. Without having complete control of either the standing committee or the politburo, he had been extremely active in consolidating his power inside the army and in the local bureaucracies, which made him a strong leader.
Set alongside each other, the two selected analyses raise a fundamental issue. The 18th Congress in 2012 will choose the leaders to succeed Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, with Xi Jinping and Li Keqing being potentially in competition with each other for the post of secretary-general. Is it possible that the various arrangements and dealings that will inevitably take place in the lead-up to this election might see a return to instability of China’s political system, in the form of a power struggle for the top job?
Yang Kai-huang tries at first to play down the question. The Communist Party is under no strong pressure that would put it in jeopardy of losing power. Discontent is being contained, and, to this extent, no ideological dissent is capable of bringing about a fracturing of the Party’s unity. The supreme leader is therefore in a position to lay stress on a few points that constitute the core of his political agenda and his personal legacy for China, at the same time as remaining consistent with the model of development being followed. In Hu Jintao’s case, there are three priority areas: encouraging innovation, promoting social harmony by developing aspects of the welfare state, and introducing forms of democratisation.
Hu Jintao is not, however, strong enough to overcome the Party’s force of inertia and impose his own successor. Yang Kai-huang highlights two failures. The one is Mr Hu’s inability to build a real institutionalised system for the transfer of power; the other is his powerlessness to lead the Communist Youth League faction to total and absolute control over the Party and the State. Even if these failures need to be seen in a relative light, two problems flow from them, which are the return of a certain unpredictability regarding the question of succession and of conditions conducive to the emergence of a power struggle for control of the Party. In a worst case scenario, this would be bad news for the stability of China in the world.
Yang Kai-huang refuses to fall into despair, and moderates his analysis through an alternative theory. He observes that Mr Hu has distinguished himself through his ability to “bring together the five lakes and the four oceans” (團結五湖四海, tuanjie wuhu sihai), by relying on his resolve to strengthen China’s institutions, and through his constant search for stability for the regime. Why then should we not believe that the arrangement between Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang is not a step forward in the system for selecting a new Chinese leadership team? In preparing for power, not a supreme leader but a tandem, Mr Hu is thought to be introducing a dose of stability at an opportune time, whereby no Chinese politician is any longer strong enough to choose his successor himself.
His analysis is consistent with that of Chao Chun-shan, who nonetheless adopts a different approach. As someone who is known for his view that the Chinese political system is following a linear development thought to give it a growing institutional dimension with increased stability, Chao Chun-shan feels it is time for Sinology to abandon “Beijingology” and give up analysing Chinese domestic politics in terms of power struggles. Mao Tse-Tung and Deng Xiaoping clearly gained power, which they were able to consolidate, after relentless struggle. On the other hand, Hu Jintao’s power, like that of Jiang Zemin before him, has been the result of consultation and compromise. But neither compromise nor power struggles are relevant when it comes to describe how Hu Jintao’s successor will be determined. This is due to the fact that, contrary to past practice, the next Chinese leader will not be appointed because he defends a correct political line acceptable to the Party, but because he will be at the service of the political line on which the Party will have already agreed. The time of strong men is over. China has entered the era of “bureaucrats with technical expertise responding to the demand of the political marketplace”. For Chao Chun-shan, this means applying the theory of scientific development, dear to Hu Jintao, to the question of the transfer of power.
Henceforth, we should not expect any changes in political line on the part of Hu Jintao’s successor, as China’s problems are primarily related to its political system, not to the personality of its leaders. By analogy, it could be said that Deng Xiaoping was convinced that the Cultural Revolution was not exclusively the work of Mao Tse-Tung, but rather that it was a function of the deficiencies of the Chinese political system. Since the reform era and the opening up of the system, Chinese political development has been entirely built on the desire to “turn disorder into order” (撥亂反正, boluan fanzheng), but this task, which assumes the creation of a system ensuring succession in the context of stability, is still far from being achieved. From this point of view, the transfer of power to take place at the 18th Congress will clearly be based on rational or “scientific” criteria, in terms of China’s stability, but without any reliable guarantee that this will be so for all future Congresses.