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China After Deng: Ten Scenarios in Search of Reality*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Richard Baum
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With Deng Xiaoping preparing to “meet Marx,” speculation over the future shape and stability of the Chinese polity has mounted steadily. In the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen crisis some observers predicted the early demise of China's Communist regime, triggered by a dramatic breakthrough on the part of resurgent democratic forces.1 When the regime failed to collapse as expected, attention was drawn to the apparent absence of such putative prerequisites of “civil society” as semi–autonomous social forces, civic associations and a well–defined “public sphere.” China, it seemed, wasn't quite ready for democracy after all.

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Current Issues
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The China Quarterly , Volume 145 , March 1996 , pp. 153 - 175
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Copyright © The China Quarterly 1996

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References

1 See, for example, Roderick MacFarquhar, “The anatomy of collapse,” New York Review of Books,26 September 1991; and Ramon H. Myers, “The next power struggle,” in George J Hicks (ed.), The Broken Mirror(Essex: Longman, 1990), pp. 456–465.

2 For a debate over the presence/absence of “civil society” in China and its implications for democratization, see “Symposium on civil society and the public sphere,” Modern China,Vol. 19, No. 2 (April 1993).

3 Deng's emphasis on the priority of economic over political reform can be traced to the Polish political crisis of 1980 81. In Deng's view, the Polish government's initial willingness to accede to Solidarity's demands for union autonomy and political reform served to exacerbate a potentially inflammatory political situation, bringing the country to the edge of chaos. On the origins and impact of Deng's “Polish nightmare,” see Richard Baum, Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 110–12. On the differences between Soviet and Chinese reform strategies in the V 1980s, see Pei Minxin, From Reform to Revolution: The Demise of Communism in China and the Soviet Union(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994

4 See, for example, Maria Hsia Chang, “China's future: regionalism, federation, or disintegration?" Studies in Comparative Communism,Vol. 25, No. 3 (September 1992), pp. 211–227; and Wang Shaoguang, “The rise of the regions: fiscal reform and the decline of central state capacity in China,” in Andrew G. Walder (ed.), The Waning of the Communist State: Economic Origins of Political Decline in China and Hungary(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 87–113.

5 See Jack A. Goldstone, “The coming Chinese collapse,” Foreign Policy,No. 99 (Summer 1995), pp. 35–52.

6 See e.g. Gordon White, “Democratization and economic reform in China,” Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs,No. 31 (January 1994), pp. 73–92; and William Overholt, The Rise of China: How Economic Reform is Creating a New Superpower(New York: W.W. Norton, 1993), ch. 2. The chequered history of Chinese neo–autnoritarianism is examined in Ma Shu Yun, “The rise and fall of neo–authoritarianism in China,” China Information,Vol. 5, No. 3 (Winter 1990–91), pp. 1–19.

7 Willy Wo–Lap Lam, cited in The Economist,22 October 1995, p. 37.

8 Ruan Ming, “Taizidang de disandiguo meimeng" ("The Third Reich fantasy of the princelings"), Zhongguo zhiqun,No. 10 (October 1992), pp. 39–41. On the rise of Chinese neo–conservatism, see Joseph Fewsmith, “Neoconservatism and the end of the Dengist Era,” Asian Survey,Vol. 35, No. 7 (July 1995), pp. 635–651. The text of Viewing China through a Third Eye,by Wang Shan ("Dr Leninger"), appears in translation in FBIS Daily Report: Zhina(Supplement), 19 April 1995.

9 See e.g. Jonathan Unger and Anita Chan, “China, corporatism, and the East Asian model,” Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs,No. 33 (January 1995), pp. 29–53.

10 From 1985 to 1994 the average urban–rural income differential rose by almost 40% –from 1.9:1 to 2.65:1. See Beijing Review,Vol. 38, Nos. 14–15 (3–16 April 1995), p. ii; and K. Griffin and Zhao Renwei (eds), The Distribution of Income in China(London: Macmillan, 1993), pp. 34,82. In 1993, two Chinese social scientists noted that regional income disparities – estimated to be as high as 8:1 – were equal to or greater than those existing in Yugoslavia on the eve of its disintegration. See Wang Shaoguang and Hu An'gang, Jiaqiang zhongyang zhengfu zai shichang jingji zhuanxingzhong de zhudao zuoyong (Strengthen the Central Government's Leading Role in the Transition to a Market Economy)(Liaoning: Renmin chubanshe, 1993).

11 In Viewing China through a Third Eye,China's floaters are described as a “seething volcano" whose “interacting emotions produce a powerful destructive force that can explode at any time" (p. 29). For a somewhat less apocalyptic view of the floating population, neosee Dorothy Solinger, China's Transients and the State: A Form of Civil Society?(Hong Kong: Chinese University, Institute of Asia–Pacific Studies, 1991).

12 See, for example, former Vice–President Wang Zhen's discomfiting diagnosis of deteriorating conditions in China's rural areas, reported in South China Morning Post,12 March 1991.

13 The phenomenon of large–scale cadre capitalism is analysed by Maurice Meisner, “Bureaucratic capitalism: some reflections on the social results of the Chinese Communist revolution,” unpublished paper, November 1994. On the rise of the princelings, see He Pin and Gao Xin, Zhonggong “Taizidang" (China's Communist Princelings)(Taipei: Shibao chuban gongsi, 1992); and Jae Ho Chung, “The politics of prerogatives in socialism: the case of theTaizidanginChma,” Studies inComparative Communism,Vol. 24, No. 1 (March 1991), pp. 58–76.

14 See Allen S. Whiting, “Chinese nationalism and foreign policy after Deng,” The China Quarterly,No. 142 (June 1995), pp. 295–316.

15 In 1992 it was widely reported that popular resentment over guandaohad led Deng Xiaoping to withdraw the names of several princelings who were under consideration for possible promotion to the CCP Central Committee. See Baum, Burying Mao,pp. 364–65.

16 See Tony Saich, “The Thirteenth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party: an agenda for reform?" Journal of Communist Studies,Vol. 4, No. 2 (June 1988), pp. 203–208. The neo–authoritarian programme is assayed in Stanley Rosen (ed.), “The debate on the new authoritarianism,” Chinese Sociology and Anthropology,Vol. 23, No. 2 (Winter 1990–91).

17 See, for example, South China Morning Post,18 and 19 March 1995; Far Eastern Economic Review,30 March 1995, pp. 14–15; FBIS, 15 March 1995, pp. 9–10, 20 March 1995, pp. 9–10 and 27 June 1995, p. 38; and Zhengming,No. 210 (1 April 1995).

18 In 1993, the Chinese government recorded the occurrence of more than 12,000 “large–scale" labour disputes. See “Quarterly Chronicle and Documentation,” The China 2uarterly,No. 139 (September 1994), p. 863.

19 For extensive examples and documentation, see Baum, Burying Mao(paperback; dition, forthcoming), ch. 16.

20 This possibility is explored in depth in James Miles, The Legacy of Tiananmen: China in Disarray(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, forthcoming), ch. 10 and passim.

21 See, for example, Wang Shaoguang, “Central–local fiscal politics in China,” in Jia Hao and Lin Zhimin (eds), Changing Central–Local Relations in China: Reform and State “opacity(Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 91–112; also Wang Shaoguang, “The rise of the regions"; and Christine Wong, Central–local relations in an era of fiscal decline,” The China Quarterly,No. 128 (December 1991), pp. 691–715. A contrary argument is advanced Huang Yasheng, “Why China will not collapse,” Foreign Policy,No. 99 (Summer 1995), pp. 54–63.

22 See e.g. Far Eastern Economic Review,11 May 1995, pp. 18–20.

23 See Andrew Hall Wedeman, “Bamboo walls and brick ramparts: rent seeking, interregional economic conflict, and local protectionism in China, 1984–1991,” Ph.D. dissertation, UCLA, 1995, ch. 1 and passim.

24 In Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, Chinese security forces were instructed, following the Soviet collapse, to “exercise firm dictatorship over those ethnic separatists who link up with hostile foreign powers to split the motherland or who use religion to complicate relations between ethnic groups" (Xinjiang ribao,cited in Reuters (Beijing), 24 March 1992).

25 See e.g. Richard Yang (ed.), Chinese Regionalism: The Security Dimension(Boulder: Westview Press, 1994).

26 Cited in Willy Wo–Lap Lam, China after Deng Xiaoping(Singapore: John Wiley Sons, 1995), p. 386.

27 See Washington Post,9 October 1995, p. A32.

28 On the preponderance of central control over regional military forces, see Michael waine, The Military and Political Succession in China: Leadership, Institutions, BeliefsSanta Monica: The RAND Corporation, 1992), pp. 150–51, 134–38 and passim.

29 See Huang Yasheng, “Central–local relations in China during the reform era: the iconomic and institutional dimensions,” unpublished paper, Harvard University, 1995.

30 See, for example, June T. Dreyer, “The PLA and regionalism: Xinjiang,” in Yang, Zhinese Regionalism,pp. 249–276.

31 See Reuters (Beijing), 8 October 1995; and China News Digest(Global Edition), 19 July 1995.

32 See Far Eastern Economic Review, 2February 1995, p. 15.

33 The generic properties of systems at the “edge of chaos" are examined in Roger Lewin, Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos(London: J.M. Dent, 1993). Note in particular the following: “In nonlinear systems small inputs can lead to dramatically large consequences.... That's the basis of their unpredictability" (p. 11).

34 Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies(New Haven London: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 195–96.

35 With Jiang's backing, China's official defence budget rose from 25 billion yuanin 1992 to more than 63 billion yuanin 1995. On Jiang's attempts to bolster his military support, see David Shambaugh, “China's Commander–in–Chief: Jiang Zemin and the PLA,” in Mark Weisenbaum (ed.), China's Military Modernization(London: Routledge, Kegan Paul, 1996); and Lam, China after Deng,ch. 4.

36 Cited in Shambaugh, “China's Commander–in–Chief,” p. 46.

37 On Yang's dispute with Deng and Jiang, see Baum, Burying Mao,pp. 369–371. On his recent political activities, see FBIS, 31 January 1995, p. 5; New York Times,15 May 1995, p. 6; FBIS, 31 July 1995, p. 18, and 9 August 1995, p. 8.

38 The relationship between micro– and macro–processes of democratization is explored in Edward Friedman, National Identity and Democratic Prospects in Socialist China(Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1995). See also Stephen Manning, “Social and cultural prerequisites of democratization: generalizing from China,” in Edward Friedman (ed.), The Politics of Democratization: Generalizing East Asian Experiences(Boulder: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 232–248.

39 See South China Morning Post Weekly,20–21 February 1993 40. On the move to strengthen the NPC, see Far Eastern Economic Review,30 March 1995, pp. 14–15; also Zhengming,No. 210 (1 April 1995), in Inside China Mainland,Vol. 17, No. 6 (June 1995), pp. 21–23; and South China Morning Post,19 April 1995, p. 17, in FBIS, 19 April 1995, pp. 14–15. On the composition of the “core" leadership group, see FBIS, 6 June 1995, p. 23.

41 See Kevin J. O'Brien, “Implementing political reform in China's villages,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs,No. 32 (July 1994), pp. 33–60; and Tyrene White, “Rural politics in the 1990s: rebuilding grassroots institutions,” Current History,Vol. 91, No. 566 (September 1992).

42 On the 1995 petition drive, see Far Eastern Economic Review,15 June 1995, p. 15; and China Rights Forum,June 1995, pp. 10–14. A “convulsion" theory of democratic transition is argued by Barrett McCormick, “Democracy or dictatorship?" The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs,No. 31 (January 1994), pp. 95–110.

43 Quoted in Lam, China after Deng,pp. 385–86.

44 See Andrew G. Walder and Gong Xiaoxia, “Workers in the Tiananmen protests,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs,No. 29 (January 1993), pp. 1–30.

45 See e.g. Mary S. Erbaugh and Richard Curt Kraus, “The 1989 democracy movement in Fujian and its aftermath,” in Jonathan Unger (ed.), Pro–Democracy Protests in China: Report from the Provinces(Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1991), pp. 150–165. Data on the dates, magnitudes, and frequencies of public demonstrations in various Chinese cities in 1989 appear in Huo yu xie zhi zhenxiang (The Truth of Fire and Blood)(Taipei: Zhonggong yanjiu zazhishe, 1989), sec. 3, pp. 1–108; Jingxin dongpode 56 tian (The Startling 56 Days)(Beijing: Zhongguo dadi chubanshe, 1989); and Wu Mouren et al., Bajiu Zhongguo minyunjishi (Daily Record of the 1989 Chinese People's Movement)New York: private publication, 1989 46. On Deng Liqun's efforts to promote a Maoist revival, see Richard Baum, “Deng Liqun and the struggle against 'bourgeois liberalization,' 1979–1993,” China Information,Vol. 9, No. 4 (Spring 1995), pp. 1–35.

47 On the Nanjie model, see Miles, The Legacy of Tiananmen,ch. 9.

48 Because of partial overlap and possible sequential coupling between certain scenarios (e.g. “immobilism" and “military intervention"; “mass movement from below" and “chaos") the probable odds listed below add up to more than 100.