BEIJING – On a recent fact-finding trip to China, organized
by the European Council on Foreign Relations, I began with the assumption that
the country’s biggest challenge revolved around the need to promote domestic
consumption in order to maintain rapid economic growth. By the end of the trip,
what had emerged was a complex picture of Chinese assertiveness and uncertainty,
poise and anxiety.
For much of this year, there seemed to
be one certainty in the coming leadership transition: the CCP’s new general
secretary would be Xi Jinping, a man whose political vision could be elaborated
in well under 30 seconds. But Xi’s mysterious vanishing act, in which he
dropped from public view for almost two weeks in September – after abruptly
canceling meetings with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the prime
minister of Singapore
(rare occurrences for the protocol-fixated Chinese leadership) – has stirred
more speculation. It has also fueled concerns about whether so secretive a
leadership can effectively govern the world’s second-largest economy.
Despite its outward appearance of
monolithic resolve, China
is in a state of flux, flaunting its confidence while bulging with internal
sources of insecurity. Its undeniable economic success – albeit closely tied to
that of the global economy – stands in stark contrast to the heightened sense
of crisis and insecurity that hovers in the background.
Two distinct quandaries confront China’s
leaders: the first centers on the growing demands and dissatisfactions of
Chinese society – from peasants and students to white-collar workers and
pensioners; the second consists in the country’s conduct of foreign policy. Will
the next CCP administration address these critical issues?
Internally, as China
has moved from mass poverty to widening prosperity, economic growth – though a
vital source of the CCP’s legitimacy – is no longer enough. Restlessness is
pervasive: while statistics vary, depending on how government
agencies define the term, it is estimated that there were roughly 180,000
“mass incidents” in China
in 2011 alone. China’s
rising urban middle class and its surprisingly well-organized rural communities
are increasingly demanding less corrupt and more accountable government,
cleaner air and water, safer food and drug supplies, and an independent,
well-functioning judicial system.
Popular dissatisfaction partly
reflects a phenomenon that invariably arose in numerous conversations with
academics, intellectuals, and top officials: the murky frontier of legality
currently reigning in China.
The blurriness of the law creates a no-man’s land of ambiguity in which the
authorities thrive: legal predictability is aspirational, while daily life for
ordinary people requires navigating the shallow, shifting waters of what the
powerful will tolerate.
At the same time, the rule of law
plays a prominent role in Chinese political discourse. But, while nominally
acknowledging its importance, officials creatively turn the concept on its head.
Nowhere was this more apparent than in recent efforts to portray the purge of Chongqing’s
former Party boss, Bo Xilai, as an example of the CCP “safeguarding the rule of
law.”
And yet, formal pronouncements aside,
if China’s
leadership is to meet growing popular demands and quell rising discontent, it
will have to commit itself to the rule of law in fact. Such a move would have
far-reaching benefits for China’s
global standing as well.
China’s
recent emergence as a key international player (albeit a reluctant one) has
exposed its leaders’ uncertainty about the country’s future global role, as
well as raising questions about their readiness to bear the responsibilities
that its stature implies. China
still falters when it comes to building “soft power” or assuring interlocutors,
near and far, that its “peaceful rise” will remain peaceful.
Indeed, China
today is increasingly perceived to be undermining the international order,
while promoting novel interpretations of concepts such as democracy, pluralism,
and representation. For many, its behavior toward Syria
– aligning itself with Russia
to block international action – and in maritime territorial disputes with its
neighbors exemplifies this tendency.
It is, therefore, little surprise that
China’s
policies are widely regarded as a reflection of former Chinese Premier Deng
Xiaoping’s call for a strategy of “hiding our light and nurturing our
strength.” But China’s
ability to persuade others that its international behavior stems from its
search for balance will depend on its leaders’ ability to embrace the rule of
law – in substance rather than just in rhetoric – as a fundamental basis for
the harmony that they publicly espouse.
So far, the survival of China’s
political system has rested on the identification and deft handling of the most
pressing issues of the day. Every Chinese leader since Mao Zedong’s death in
1976 has left an indelible mark. For Deng, it was the move toward a market
economy, articulated through the “Four Modernizations.” His successor, Jiang
Zemin, undertook internal reevaluation of the CCP and expansion of its base
through the “Three Represents.” And the outgoing Hu Jintao’s objective was
development, particularly in the country’s vast interior, unleashed through
large-scale privatization.
Despite continuing uncertainty
surrounding China’s
coming political transition, it is expected that pragmatism – the common thread
among its leaders after Mao – will carry over to the new ruling cohort. If so,
it should impress upon them the notion that their best strategy, both internally
and internationally, is to devote their considerable resources and energy to
strengthening China’s
rule-of-law institutions, even though such reforms will invariably curtail the
CCP’s arbitrary power.