Chinese Politics and Government

Power, Ideology and Organization

Sujian Guo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136256844
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Over the past two decades, China's political reforms, open-door policy, dramatic economic growth, and increasingly assertive foreign policy have had an unprecedented regional and global impact. This introductory textbook provides students with a fundamental understanding of government and politics in China as well as the conceptual ability to explore the general patterns, impacts, and nature of continuities and changes in Chinese politics. Further, it equips students with analytical frameworks by which they can understand, analyse and evaluate the major issues in Chinese politics, including:

• The basic methodologies and theoretical controversies in the study of Chinese politics.
• The major dimensions, structures, processes, functions and characteristics of the Chinese political system, such as ideology, politics, law, society, economy, and foreign policy.
• The impact of power, ideology, and organization on different spheres of Chinese society.
• The structure, process, and factors in Chinese foreign policy making.
• Whether China is a "strategic partner" or "potential threat" to the United States.

By examining contending theoretical models in the study of Chinese politics, this book combines an essentialist approach that keeps focus on the fundamental, unique and defining features of Chinese politics and government with other theoretical approaches or analytical models which reveal and explore the complexities inherent in the Chinese political system.

Extensively illustrated, the textbook includes maps, photographs and diagrams, as well as providing questions for class discussions and suggestions for further reading. Written by an experienced academic with working knowledge of the Chinese Government, this textbook will provide students with a comprehensive introduction to all aspects of Chinese Politics.

Part I

Introducing Chinese politics

1 Chinese politics in comparative communist systems

Over the last two decades, China has gained prominence in the world economy and regional and global affairs. China’s economic reforms, open-door policy, dramatic economic growth, and more assertive foreign policy have all had an unprecedented impact on the region and around the world, particularly on relations between China and the United States and other major world powers. Recent reactions to the rise of China by the U.S. Congress, the media, and the general public attest to a compelling need to enhance our understanding of what has happened and what is likely to happen in the years to come as well as to foster mutual understanding and goodwill between the two nations.

First, China’s rising is beyond dispute, and it has enhanced its economic and military power tremendously in the past three decades. China is one of the largest countries, with a total land area of about 3.7 million square miles, slightly larger than that of the United States, and over 1.3 billion people, about 10 times more than that of the United States, one-fifth of the world population. The size itself proves its significance in world affairs. Moreover, after three decades of spectacular economic growth, with average growth rate of 10 percent for the past 30 years,¹ China has become the second largest economy in the world, and many predict that China will overtake the United States economically by the mid-twenty-first century, and some predict as early as 2030. Despite the real or potential conflicts, the United States and China also have significant common interests in many global issues (terrorism, nuclear proliferation, energy, environmental protection, financial and economic stability, and public health), regional security issues (nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula and peace across the Taiwan Strait), and bilateral economic, business, and market benefits.²

Second, China is increasingly America’s major trading nation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, ranking number two, slightly behind Canada, with total trade of $456.8 billion, 14.3 percent of the total trade of the United States.³ This provides many great opportunities for American companies and investors to do business with China. However, the U.S. trade deficit with China, $273 billions in 2010, is the largest in the world between any two countries.⁴ Many Americans are concerned about the increasing job outsourcing to China and the job losses in the United States. China is now the largest creditor of the U.S. Government. By November 2010, China owned $895 billion in U.S. Treasuries, 32 percent of the total $2.8 trillion outstanding.⁵ However, many Americans are concerned that this might give China political leverage over U.S. fiscal policy, because, theoretically, China as the lender has the right to call in its loan. China is also the largest exporter and second largest importer of goods in the world. China’s total trade in 2009 already surpassed $2.20 trillion, making China the world’s second largest trading nation after the United States.⁶ China may become the largest trading power within five years. China has become the world’s largest recipient of foreign direct investment. Therefore, all figures tell us that it is in America’s commercial interest to engage China, because China has a huge market, and at the same time is also one of the most dynamic economies in the world for over three decades (Box 1.1).

Box 1.1 The rise of China as an economic powerhouse

• China is the largest creditor nation in the world and owns approximately 20.8% of all foreign-owned U.S. Treasury securities.

• Chinese foreign exchange reserves have passed 2.65 trillion U.S. dollars, ranking first in the world.

• It is the largest recipient of foreign direct investment (over $100 billion in 2010), surpassing the U.S.

• China is also the largest exporter and second largest importer of goods in the world.

• China is the world’s second largest consumer of oil.

• China has indeed become a world factory. China produces two-thirds of the world’s photocopiers, 50% of DVD players, 70% of cement, 40% of socks, one-third of desktop computers, and 25% of mobile phones.

• Some predict, at its present rate, China will overtake the U.S. economy by 2025 while others project 2050, even predicting China will become a superpower to rival the US. China’s economic boom and continued growth would definitely present the world a tremendous opportunity in businesses and sales.

• The UN hails China as the role model for the developing world—huge foreign currency reserves, huge trade surplus, emerging middle class, all the markings of an economy on the rise.

Third, China is a UN security council member and a major power in the world. Americans have been heavily involved in Asia at all levels: security, economic, political cultural, and even ideological. Americans were involved in the three wars in three decades in Asia, all of which confronted the Chinese communist military (Chinese civil war, Korean war, and Vietnam war), and Americans can still feel the consequences of that involvement. It is in American interest to engage East Asia and remain a strong presence in the region. However, many Americans are concerned that a rising China might pose a challenge to U.S. foreign policy in the twenty-first century. Faced with a rising China, there has been an increase in wariness, fear, and suspicion from the world, particularly the United States. Many analysts have advised the U.S. government to adopt a new containment strategy to counterbalance the “China Threat.”⁷ In order to understand Chinese foreign policy behavior, we must understand the domestic politics and the context in which foreign policy and decisions are made.

This textbook is designed to provide a basic understanding of government and politics in China. The text will begin with a historical and cultural perspective in understanding the origins of China’s politics and government, such as geographical and climate conditions as shaping forces of Chinese state making, political tradition, and political culture, and then focus on major dimensions of Chinese politics and government, such as ideology, politics, law, society, economy, and foreign policy. The basic themes, methodologies, and theoretical models for the study of Chinese politics will also be introduced at the beginning of the text. This text will help students develop their conceptual ability to analyze and explain the following general questions: What are the political implications of the relationship between the land and its people and how did the physical and climate conditions (the geographical context) influence the making of the state and the political culture in China? What factors have contributed to the rise of communism in China? What are the nature and characteristics of Chinese politics and government? What is the foundation that has continued to support and sustain the political regime? How has politics affected different spheres of Chinese society, economy, and law? Why has China opened itself to the outside world and embarked on reforms? What changes have taken place in the last decades? What has changed and what has not? What is the nature of the changes? In degree or in kind? What impact do these changes have on Chinese society? What are the dynamics and prospects for these changes? What is China’s position and changing role in world affairs? Is China a “strategic partner” or “potential threat” to the United States? What foreign policy and strategy should the United States take toward a rising China in the twenty-first century? Is it the end or a continuation of Chinese communism? These are just some examples of the major questions students should learn to answer. More questions will be provided for discussion at the end of each chapter.

By examining contending theoretical models in the study of Chinese politics, this book combines an essentialist approach that keeps focus on the fundamental, unique, and defining features of Chinese politics and government that distinguishes it from others with theoretical approaches or analytical models wherever they fit in the analysis of major aspects of Chinese politics and government. This hybrid approach allows us to reveal and examine the complexity of political reality and context, adaptive, developmental, and institutional changes, operative features, and action means by the Chinese political leadership to maintain the fundamental and essential features of Chinese communist politics and government. This approach provides a conceptual framework in defining the Chinese political system and examining the essential characteristics, structures, processes, functions, and changes of the Chinese government and politics, and thus providing answers to some fundamental, basic, and general questions.

After this introductory chapter, we will study theoretical models employed by China scholars for studying Chinese politics (Chapter 2), and then begin to examine the geographical, historical, and cultural contexts of Chinese political development, major aspects, structures, processes, and functions of the Chinese political system, development, and changes, and assessment of the changes and their impact on the state of Chinese politics and government. The study will focus on the following central topics: land and people (Chapters 3–4), political development (Chapters 5–6), political ideology (Chapters 7–8), political institutions (Chapters 9–), legal and legislative systems (Chapters 11–12), Chinese society (Chapters 13–14), political economy (Chapters 15–16), and foreign policy (Chapters 17–18). The selection of these topics reflects my assumptions about what is most important for American students to know about Chinese politics and government.

The geographical and climate conditions are essential in understanding the impact of environmental conditions on the agriculture and ways of living and thinking of the people who lived in early Chinese civilization, and thus on the making of the state, the political development, and the formation of political culture in China. The political culture has shaped the creation, maintenance, and development of particular types of state and the general patterns of political development dominated by power, ideology, and organization. Chinese civilization and Confucianism have been the cultural context in which political actions have taken place, and have been traditionally the dominant forces shaping political development in China. The political development from earlier times to the present has been characterized and complicated by the rise and fall of despotic, military, and Leninist authoritarianism, peasant uprisings, violence, war, revolution, and communism. The main locus, structure, and problems of Chinese politics and government are rarely known and experienced by American students.

Indeed, Chinese politics and government is new to many American students. China also has a constitution and other similar political institutions that look like those in the United States, such as congress, executive, courts, and political parties, but they are organized so differently and work in very different ways to achieve different ends that students cannot truly understand them without putting them in a comparative context. Therefore, we should not simply look at what they appear to be but focus on the nature of those institutions and their relationships, and not simply look how they have evolved historically, but focus on how they work from political science perspectives. Most importantly, the textbook will provide students with an analytical framework against which they can observe, understand, interpret, and evaluate the most recent changes, development, and continuity of Chinese politics and government.

The study of Chinese politics in the subfield of comparative politics

Communist China has dramatically survived the collapse of communism in the Soviet bloc. What is the foundation that has continued to support and sustain the political regime? What are the nature, dynamics, and functions of the government in China? How different is it from a democratic regime? The answer to such questions requires comparison of different political systems that allows us to identify the most fundamental or essential features of this type of regime that distinguishes it from others, and explain what constitutes the very foundation of the regime. Therefore, we must place the study of Chinese politics and government in the subfield of comparative politics.

Then, what is comparative politics? According to Howard J. Wiarda, comparative politics involves the systematic study and comparison of the world’s political systems, seeking to explain broad patterns, processes, and regularities among political systems. Comparative politics share the same logic of comparative social inquiry.⁸ That is to say, Chinese political studies should seek to explain patterns and regularities of Chinese politics and government in a comparative context, not simply describe what has happened and what is happening in this country.

There are two general methodological approaches to political studies. One approach emphasizes the uniqueness of each country and rejects generalization and common regularities of every kind. The other seeks to explain common regularities or general patterns of development and generalize the experience of certain groups of nations or general historical laws. I belong to this group of scholars and believe that regularities in political life and human societies are very common, broad, and comparable, and thus cross-cultural patterns exist, and patterns of development and change can be generalized.

China is a communist country that shares many fundamental features in common with other communist countries despite all the variations among them due to different historical and cultural heritage, political leadership, social and economic contexts.⁹ Therefore, it is logically necessary to put Chinese politics in a comparative context in order to have a comparative perspective of Chinese politics and understand its dynamic, functioning, and change. This comparative context is comparative communist systems which would allow us to distinguish it from other political systems, such as an authoritarian or democratic system. Then, the central question to begin with is: what are the commonalities of the communist system?

The communist party

In all communist countries, the government is controlled by a communist party that declares allegiance to Marxism–Leninism, proclaims itself as the vanguard of the working class, and represents the fundamental long-term interests of the people as a whole. In many of these countries, the party declares itself to be historically entitled to rule by the “democratic dictatorship of the proletariat.” The communist party rests at the peak of the power structure, controls and dominates all sectors of state, and penetrates in every corner of society, with party branches as the party’s basic cells established at all levels of government and within almost all political and public institutions.¹⁰ Some communist states, such as East Germany, Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, China, and North Korea, may have some legally existent small parties, but they were or are all required to follow the leadership of the...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Map
• PART I Introducing Chinese politics
• PART II Land and people
• PART III Political development
• PART IV Political ideology
• PART V Political institutions
• PART VI Chinese legal and legislative systems
• PART VII Chinese society
• PART VIII The Chinese economy
• PART IX Chinese foreign policy
• Notes
• Index