Party of contradictions leads China into future
The Department of Politics at the University of Otago celebrates its 50th year in 2017. This is the 10th in a series of reflections on politics over the past 50 years. This month, Nicholas Khoo writes about China.
THE Chinese Communist Party holds its 19th national party congress meeting in Beijing starting later this week.
Formed in Shanghai 1921, the Communist Party has ruled
China since 1949.
It has weathered many storms. These include campaigns to promote economic growth and ideological purity such as the Great Leap Forward (195761) and the Cultural Revolution (196676) that backfired at great human cost.
At the same time, as a result of economic reforms enacted in the late 1970s, the party can rightly claim it has set the course for the 21st century to be a Chinese one.
How should we understand this chequered history?
Two points merit our attention. First, Chinese Communist Party policy has arguably always been driven as much by nationalism as it has been by ideology.
Mao Zedong, who led the party from the early 1930s until his death in 1976, was inspired as much by nationalism as he was by ideology.
How else can one explain
Mao’s decision to shortcircuit China’s Cold War alliance with the Soviet Union in the 1950s, and to align with the Americans against the Soviets in 1972?
Mao’s successor, Deng Xiaoping, was even more of a nationalist.
Deng had little patience for Mao’s relentless campaigns and elite purges, which weakened China and tarnished its international stature.
His genius was to understand that China could only survive if it adopted economic polices that integrated China into the global economy.
If ideology had to be modified to justify China’s survival and prosperity, so be it.
Beginning in 1978, Deng initiated a wideranging reform effort that produced contemporary China’s economic dynamism.
Second, it nevertheless remains the case that the ruling party in China is deeply committed to its own survival.
Deng was a reformer, but he still believed that there should be no challenge to the party’s rule.
In 1979, Deng articulated what he called ‘‘The Four Cardinal Principles’’, on which there was no compromise.
These principles enshrine the party’s dominance over China’s politics and society on a MarxistLeninist basis, with a socialist twist.
For all their differences, these principles bind Deng with Xi Jinping, the leader of China since 2012.
If the party believes its power is being challenged, it will react accordingly.
The tragic events surrounding the crackdown on countrywide protests in 1989, and the treatment of the late Nobel prize winner Liu Xiaobo, attest to this.
This may be the past and the present, but does the party have a future?
The consensus among China
specialists in the aftermath of the crackdown in 1989 was that the party’s days were numbered. They were proved wrong. There is currently a debate among China specialists about the party’s future.
Some analysts, notably David Shambaugh at George Washington University in the US, are struck by the weaknesses in the current Chinese political system.
In this view, China’s institutions are both sclerotic and corrosive.
Moreover, because of the party’s resistance to engage in genuine political and economic liberalisation, an extended deterioration is occurring.
Other analysts such as Andrew Nathan, at Columbia University, note that this it not the first time the party’s demise has been predicted.
This perspective acknowledges the multiple difficulties in the current stage of China’s reform, but finds strong evidence for a model of ‘‘authoritarian resilience’’.
So, what does all this mean for New Zealand? Quite a lot.
In 2013, China surpassed Australia as our top trading partner.
So, our economic prosperity is clearly tied to China’s economy. We are linked in other ways. Since 2010, Chinese policy has been at least partly responsible for the deteriorating security environment in Asia.
And China is in conflict with many of New Zealand’s regional friends.
China now occupies the vast majority of contested territory in the South China Sea, and finds itself in occasional diplomatic sparing with the US, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
And where it does not occupy physical territory, China is persistently challenging Japanese control of islands in the East China Sea.
Also, China’s relations with South Korea are currently unravelling over the North Korea issue.
In an ironic twist, the word ‘‘contradiction’’ quite aptly sums up China’s future.
Mao Zedong had a deep appreciation for the idea of contradiction, both within society and in relations between states.
China’s future is now tied closely with how the party resolves the contradiction of ensuring its survival by keeping China’s economy booming, even as it engages in increased conflict with its key trading partners in the AsiaPacific region.
Dr Nicholas Khoo is senior lecturer in the department of politics at the University of Otago. His research focuses on Chinese foreign policy and Asian security.