Minxin Pei: China’s Asia?

CLAREMONT – Distinguishing diplomatic rhetoric from official policy is never easy. But it is especially difficult in China, where the government’s actions so often fail to match its statements. Given this, it is worth asking whether the latest slogan adopted by Chinese officials – “Asia for Asians” – is merely nationalist posturing for domestic consumption or a signal of a genuine policy shift.

The most authoritative reference to an “Asia for Asians” occurred in May, during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s keynote speech at the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia. In a carefully crafted statement, Xi laid out China’s vision for a new regional security order – one in which, as the slogan suggests, Asians are in charge.

According to Xi, at the fundamental level, “it is for the people of Asia to run the affairs of Asia, solve the problems of Asia, and uphold the security of Asia.” Fortunately, he declared, they have the “capability and wisdom” to build peace and security in the region through cooperation.

This vision, of course, entails an overhaul of the Asian security structure, with a drastically reduced role for the United States. Indeed, Xi implicitly criticized the existing US-dominated security architecture in Asia as stuck in the Cold War, and characterized “military alliance targeted at a third party” as “not conducive to maintaining common security.” Since the speech, lower-level officials and the Chinese media have reiterated similar lines.

At first glance, this vision seems entirely reasonable; after all, most countries prefer to manage domestic and regional affairs without the meddling of outside powers. But Xi’s statement marked a significant departure from China’s long-standing position on America’s presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Since the US-China rapprochement four decades ago, China has maintained a studied ambiguity regarding America’s role as the guarantor of Asia’s security. China’s pragmatic leaders knew that the US presence helped to contain the Soviet Union (and subsequently Russia), prevented Japan from re-arming, and kept sea-lanes open. They also recognized that they lacked the power to challenge the US-led security order or offer a feasible alternative.

This may be changing. Though some analysts remain convinced that Xi’s “Asia for Asians” line is an empty attempt to bolster his nationalist credentials, an equally strong case can be made that it signifies a genuine policy shift. While the argument is not overwhelming, it should not be dismissed out of hand.

The most conclusive evidence of Xi’s readiness to challenge the established order lies in the economic sphere. Most notably, China has established new development institutions, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the new Silk Road Fund, to which it will channel tens of billions of dollars – clear challenges to the established Western-dominated multilateral institutions.

On the security front, however, China has made much less headway in turning its “Asia for Asians” vision into reality. To be sure, it has acquired some military capabilities to deter the US from intervening in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea, and it has improved its security cooperation with Russia and Central Asian countries through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. But such modest gains are more than offset by the security setbacks that China has suffered as a result of its assertiveness in regional territorial disputes.

Indeed, after many months of increasingly forceful military moves – most notably, the unilateral declaration of an air-defense identification zone covering a large swath of the South China Sea, including disputed territories – China’s ties with Japan reached an all-time low. And concerned Southeast Asian countries have been entreating the US to remain in the region as a counterweight to China.

Underlying the “Asia for Asians” trope may be China’s belief that the US, not its own behavior, is to blame for its neighbors’ defiance. Some Chinese strategists believe that the US is using Asian states, particularly Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines, as pawns to contain China. If this perspective has prevailed in the internal policy debate, Chinese leaders, including Xi, could have reached the fateful conclusion that, on balance, America’s security presence in Asia directly threatens Chinese interests and must be eliminated.

That would be a grave strategic error, based on a fundamental misreading of Asian security dynamics. Most of China’s neighbors, even North Korea, fear an unconstrained Chinese hegemon – and, if the US security presence were eliminated, that is precisely what they would face. “Asia for Asians” would be “Asia for the Chinese.”

It is difficult to imagine that Chinese policymakers, known for their sophistication and realism, could be pursuing a strategy that is not only unlikely to gain support from fellow Asians, but also is guaranteed to spark conflict with the US. Given this, it is likely – indeed, desirable – that “Asia for Asians” will remain a mere slogan. In fact, Xi has lately toned down his description of China’s aims, recently telling Communist Party leaders that, “We should increase China’s soft power, give a good Chinese narrative, and better communicate China’s message to the world.”

But, even as rhetoric, the phrase “Asia for Asians” is problematic for historical reasons. In the 1930s, Japanese militarists used the idea of an “East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” as a cover for their imperial ambitions and conquests. The slogan was widely ridiculed, particularly in China, for its transparent absurdity.

This may help to explain the lukewarm reception that the concept of “Asia for Asians” has received this time around. The smartest thing for Chinese leaders to do would be to drop it, once and for all.

Minxin Pei (裴敏欣) : Surviving Tiananmen

HONG KONG – It may be hard to imagine, but 25 years ago, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was nearly toppled by a nationwide pro-democracy movement. It was the late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s steely nerves and the tanks of the People’s Liberation Army – dispatched to enforce martial law and suppress the protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square – that enabled the regime, at the cost of several hundred civilian lives, to avoid collapse.

On the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4, 1989, two questions stand out: how has the CCP survived the last quarter-century, and can its rule endure for another 25 years?

The answer to the first question is relatively straightforward. Policy adjustments, clever tactics of manipulation, and a healthy dose of luck enabled the CCP to win the support it needed to retain power and suppress destabilizing forces.

To be sure, serious mistakes were made. Following the massacre, China’s conservative leaders attempted to reverse the liberalizing reforms that Deng had initiated in the 1980’s, plunging the Chinese economy into recession. And the Soviet Union’s implosion in 1991 caused a panic in the CCP.

But Deng again managed to save the Party. Mustering all of his energy and political capital, the 87-year-old leader revived pro-market economic reforms, unleashing an economic revolution that delivered an unprecedented wave of growth and development, thereby boosting the CCP’s credibility considerably.

Deng and his successors buttressed this trend by granting Chinese citizens considerable personal freedoms, fueling the emergence of a culture of crass consumerism and mass entertainment. In this new world of “bread and circuses,” it was far easier for the CCP to regain public support and suppress the opposition. Carefully orchestrated moves to promote Chinese nationalism and exploit xenophobia also helped.

Even repression, the mainstay of the regime’s survival, was fine-tuned. China’s newly acquired wealth enabled its leaders to build one of the world’s most technically sophisticated Internet firewalls and equip its internal security forces with the most effective tools.

In dealing with China’s small but resilient dissident community, the regime depends on the strategy of “decapitation.” In other words, the government eliminates the threat posed by leading opposition figures by jailing them or forcing them into exile, regardless of their prominence. Liu Xiaobo – who won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize – was sentenced to 11 years in prison, despite worldwide protest.

However cynical, the approach has worked. But the CCP might not have been quite so successful had it not gotten lucky in a few critical areas. For starters, the post-1992 reforms coincided with a surge of globalization, which provided China with massive capital inflows (about $1 trillion in foreign direct investment since 1992), a slew of new technologies, and virtually unimpeded access to Western consumer markets. China thus became the workshop of the world, with its exports rising more than tenfold by 2007.

Another factor that worked in the regime’s favor was the so-called demographic dividend (an abundant labor force and a relatively small percentage of children and elderly dependents). This provided China with plentiful low-cost labor, while saving the government large expenditures on pensions and health care.

The problem facing the CCP now is that most of the factors that enabled it to survive since Tiananmen either have already disappeared or are headed in that direction. Indeed, for all practical purposes, pro-market reforms are dead. A kleptocracy of government officials, their families, and well-connected businessmen has colonized the Chinese state and is intent on blocking any reforms that might threaten their privileged status.

Moreover, the CCP can no longer count on rising prosperity to sustain public support. Rampant corruption and rising inequality, together with obvious environmental decay, are causing ordinary Chinese – especially the middle class, which once had high hopes for reform – to become increasingly disillusioned.

At the same time, given rapid population aging, China’s demographic dividend has all but dissipated. And, given that China is already the world’s largest exporter, with more than 11% of the global market share, there is little room left for export growth in the coming years.

That leaves only repression and nationalism in the CCP’s post-Tiananmen toolkit. And, indeed, both of them continue to play a central role in President Xi Jinping’s strategy for ensuring the Party’s survival.

But Xi is also experimenting with two new devices: an unprecedented anti-corruption campaign and an attempt to revive pro-market reforms. So far, his war on corruption has made a bigger impact than his plan for economic reform.

On the surface, Xi’s strategy seems sound. But waging war on corrupt officials and pressing for deep reforms aimed at dismantling China’s kleptocracy will inevitably bring Xi into conflict with China’s political and economic elites. The question is how he can overcome their resistance without rallying the Chinese people, whose political mobilization could endanger the one-party system.

The CCP defied the doomsayers after 1989: It survived and preempted any further threats to its power. But the odds that it can hold on for another quarter-century have grown long – and are unlikely to improve.

Minxin Pei is Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College and a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Minxin Pei: Why Bo Stole the Show

 

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA – As show trials go, the drama featuring Bo Xilai, the once-swaggering, media-savvy former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chief of Chongqing, veered anomalously into improvisation. Before the proceedings began, the conventional wisdom was that Bo’s trial had been carefully scripted and rehearsed to portray a forlorn and penitent sinner confessing his crimes and apologizing to the Party.

 But the historic five-day trial dispelled any notion that Bo would go quietly to his cell in Beijing’s infamous Qincheng Prison, where China’s fallen top leaders are incarcerated. He challenged the prosecution vigorously, defending himself with a feistiness that surprised nearly all who read the transcripts released by the court in real time on the trial’s first day.

Bo dismissed one of his accusers as having “sold his soul.” He characterized testimony given by his wife, Gu Kailai, now serving a suspended death sentence for murdering the British businessman Neil Heywood in 2011, as “comical” and “fictional,” and he called her “crazy.”

Throughout the trial, Bo flatly denied most of the corruption charges, often professed ignorance of the facts, and claimed to be unable to recall any details of the matters in question. He even retracted his confession to the CCP’s anti-graft agency, blaming mental stress for his admission that he accepted bribes from a man he called “soulless” in court. In his closing statement, he dropped a bombshell: he claimed that Wang Lijun, his former police chief and henchman (and a “vile character”), was secretly in love with his wife.

The trial transcripts create an impression of a man who, had he not gone into politics, would have excelled as a trial lawyer. Bo made the prosecution look sloppy and incompetent.

However, anyone who believes that the courtroom drama in the provincial capital of Jinan will determine the trial’s outcome (the verdict and sentence will be announced in September) is seriously mistaken. The CCP’s leaders have already decided that Bo is guilty and must spend years in jail (the scale of Bo’s alleged bribe-taking ensures a sentence of 15-20 years).

A logical question to ask, then, is why the Party allowed an unprecedented degree of openness at the trial. The two most recently purged Politburo members were tried in secret, as were Bo’s wife, and his former police chief.

The optimistic view is that China’s new leadership wants to demonstrate its commitment to the rule of law and fairness. But that is a naive interpretation. While the trial proceedings on the first day were refreshingly open by Chinese standards, that quickly changed. Transcripts were not released in real time on subsequent days, and they omitted some crucial details (for example, Bo claimed that the Party’s representatives threatened to execute his wife and prosecute his son if he refused to cooperate). Perhaps worried that Bo’s defiant behavior was winning the public-relations battle, the official media also launched a media blitz savaging Bo’s character and all but pronouncing him guilty.

Even more disturbing, on the second day of the trial, the Chinese police formally arrested Xu Zhiyong, a human-rights lawyer who was leading a campaign to force mandatory disclosure of the wealth of senior officials and their family members. The Chinese government has also begun a ferocious crackdown on social media, arresting prominent activists on dubious charges.

So there must be a different – and more political – interpretation of the Chinese government’s handling of Bo’s trial. It is worth recalling that purging him was a deeply divisive affair at the CCP’s highest levels. His patrons and allies could not save him, but they were well positioned to demand that his trial be conducted as openly as possible. Given Bo’s gift for dazzling an audience, his allies must have felt confident that a spirited defense would serve him well, both legally and politically.

Bo certainly did not disappoint. He could have groveled his way through the trial, like other senior Party officials brought down by corruption scandals, and as most defendants have done in the long grim history of communist show trials beginning with Stalin. But Bo apparently is not accepting his political demise as a final act – in his closing statement, he told the court that he wanted to keep his Party membership (he was expelled anyway) – and a comeback calculus may well have motivated his spirited performance. Bo understands that he should not be perceived as a pitiful loser who gutlessly besmirches his honor.

By appearing dignified, defiant, and forceful, Bo evidently sought to preserve his image among his allies and supporters as a strong leader. Denouncing himself in order to gain leniency – in a case that he portrayed as a grievous miscarriage of justice – would have made him look like a coward.

Bo may be heading to jail, but he retains some chance of political rehabilitation should things change dramatically in China. His botched – but riveting – trial may be over, but the Bo Xilai show will go on.

 

Minxin Pei is Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College and a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

 
 

Minxin Pei: Regime Change in China?

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA – One question that should have been asked about the Chinese Communist Party’s just-completed leadership transition is whether the entire elaborately choreographed exercise was akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The installation of a new leadership may matter little if the end of CCP rule is both foreseeable and highly probable.

Many observers would find this assertion shocking. The CCP, they insist, has proved its resilience since the Tiananmen crisis in 1989 and the collapse of Soviet communism in 1991. Why should predictions of the collapse of CCP rule be taken seriously now?
While the future of China is unpredictable, the durability of its post-totalitarian regime can be estimated with some confidence. China may be unique in many ways, but its one-party rule is hardly exceptional. Indeed, its political order suffers from the same self-destructive dynamics that have sent countless autocratic regimes to their graves.

Among many of the systemic flaws of autocracy, degeneration at the top, epitomized by ever-weaker leaders, is progressive and incurable. The exclusive and closed nature of autocracy bars many talented individuals from rising to senior government positions, owing to a pattern of succession that rewards political loyalty over capabilities. In fact, savvy autocratic rulers favor less talented successors, because they are easier to groom and control on their way to power.

Leadership degeneration accelerates as the autocratic regime ages and grows more bureaucratic. As individuals in such regimes ascend the hierarchy, patronage and risk-aversion become the most critical factors in determining their chances for promotion. Consequently, such regimes grow increasingly sclerotic as they select leaders with stellar resumes but mediocre records.

The most lethal strain of leadership degeneration is escalating predation among the ruling elites.  The most visible symptom is corruption, but the cause is intrinsic to autocratic rule. Typically, first-generation revolutionaries have a strong emotional and ideological attachment to certain ideals, however misguided they may be. But the post-revolutionary elites are ideologically cynical and opportunistic. They view their work for the regime merely as a form of investment. And, like investors, they seek ever-higher returns.

As each preceding generation of rulers cashes in its illicit gains from holding power, the successors are motivated by both the desire to loot even more and the fear that there may not be much left by the time they get their turn at the trough. This is the underlying dynamic driving corruption in China today. In fact, the consequences of leadership degeneration are easy to see: faltering economic dynamism and growth, rising social tensions, and loss of government credibility.

The puzzle is why neither the compelling self-destructive logic of autocratic rule nor the mounting evidence of deteriorating regime performance in China has persuaded even some of the most knowledgeable observers that the end of CCP rule is now a distinct possibility.
An obvious explanation is the power of conventional thinking. Long-ruling regimes – think of the Soviet Communist Party, Indonesia’s Suharto, and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak – are typically considered invulnerable, even just before they collapse. But those who believe that the CCP can defy both the internal degenerative dynamics of autocracy and the historical record of failed one-party regimes might benefit from reading Leon Trotsky, who knew something about revolutions. Dictatorships are regarded as indestructible before they fall, Trotsky reminds us, but their demise is viewed as inevitable once they are toppled.

Another explanation is fear of contemplating the unknown. CCP rule may not last, but the alternative – state failure and civil chaos – could be far worse than the status quo. But the record of democratic transitions since 1974 suggests that regime change in China is unlikely to be calamitous. The decisive factor will be whether it is initiated and managed by the ruling elites, as in Taiwan, Mexico, Brazil, and Spain. Managed transitions produce more stable democracies. Should such a process occur in China, the CCP could transform itself into a major political party competing with others for power, as formerly autocratic parties have done in Mexico and Taiwan.

Even a disorderly regime transition, however traumatic and chaotic in the short term, could yield a system that, on balance, is an improvement over a stagnant, repressive, and corrupt autocracy. Indonesia’s new democracy may be imperfect, but has thrived despite its initial poor prospects. Likewise, Vladimir Putin’s Russia, a deeply flawed hybrid autocracy, is nonetheless a far better place to live than the Soviet Union was.

If there is one lesson to be learned from the remarkable history of the democratic transitions of the past 38 years, it is that when elites and the public reject authoritarian rule, they do their best to make the new system work. Should such a transition occur in China, there is no reason to think that the process and the outcome will be fundamentally different.


Minxin Pei is Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College and a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Minxin Pei (裴敏欣): China’s Troubled Bourbons / 中國的「波旁王朝」動亂時代

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA – Sometimes the books that a country’s top leaders read can reveal a lot about what they are thinking. So one of the books recently read by some of the incoming members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the country’s top decision-making body, may come as a surprise: Alexis de Tocqueville’s The Old Regime and the Revolution.

These leaders – to whom the CCP is about to pass the baton at its 18th congress, scheduled for November 8 – reportedly not only read Tocqueville’s diagnosis of social conditions on the eve of the French Revolution, but also recommended it to their friends. If so, the obvious question is why China’s future rulers are circulating a foreign classic on social revolution.

The answer is not hard to find. In all likelihood, these leaders sense, either instinctively or intellectually, an impending crisis that could imperil the CCP’s survival in the same way that the French Revolution ended Bourbon rule.

Telltale signs of anxiety are already visible. Capital flight from China is now at a record high.  Polls of China’s dollar millionaires reveal that half of them want to emigrate. Amid intensifying calls for democracy, China’s leader-in-waiting, Xi Jinping, reportedly met with the son of the late Hu Yaobang, a political reformer and icon of Chinese liberals. While one should not read too much into such a visit, it is safe to say that China’s next leader knows that the Celestial Kingdom is becoming unsettled.

The idea that some sort of political crisis could engulf China in the coming years may strike many – particularly Western business and political elites, who have taken the CCP’s strength and durability for granted – as absurd. In their minds, the Party’s hold on power seems indestructible. But several emerging trends, unobserved or noted only in isolation, have greatly altered the balance of power between the CCP and Chinese society, with the former losing credibility and control and the latter gaining strength and confidence.

One such trend is the emergence of independent figures of public moral authority: successful businessmen, respected academics and journalists, famous writers, and influential bloggers. To be sure, the CCP has followed a strategy of co-opting social elites since the massacre in Tiananmen Square in 1989. But people like Hu Shuli 胡舒立 (who founded two influential business magazines), Pan Shiyi 潘石屹(an outspoken real-estate developer), Yu Jianrong 于建嵘(a social scientist and public intellectual), Wu Jinglian 吳敬璉 (a leading economist), and the bloggers Han Han 韓寒and Li Chengpeng 李承鵬, achieved success on their own, and have maintained their integrity and independence.
Taking advantage of the Internet and weibo 微博(the Chinese equivalent of Twitter), they have become champions of social justice. Their moral courage and social stature have, in turn, helped them to build mass support (measured by the tens of millions of their weibo followers). Their voices often reframe the terms of social-policy debate and put the CCP on the defensive.

For the Party, this development is clearly worrying. It is now ceding the commanding heights of Chinese politics to autonomous representatives of social forces that it cannot control. The CCP’s monopoly of public moral authority is long gone, and now its monopoly of political power is at risk as well.

That loss is compounded by the collapse of the Party’s credibility among ordinary people. To be sure, the CCP’s opacity, secrecy, and penchant for untruth always implied a credibility problem. But, in the last decade, a series of scandals and crises – involving public safety, adulterated food and drugs, and environmental pollution – has thoroughly destroyed what little credibility lingered.

One such episode was the sale of tainted baby formula in 2008. Official suppression of news about the incident (which occurred just before the Beijing Olympics) not only led to the deaths of many infants, but also left ordinary Chinese even more distrustful of the authorities. On the environmental front, perhaps the most telling evidence is Beijing residents’ preference for the United States Embassy’s air-quality readings over those of their government.

For a regime whose credibility is gone, the costs of maintaining power are exorbitant – and eventually unbearable – because it must resort to repression more frequently and heavily.
But repression is yielding diminishing returns for the Party, owing to a third revolutionary development: the dramatic decline in the cost of collective action. Autocracies stay in power if they can divide the population and prevent organized opposition activities. Although the CCP faces no organized opposition today, it confronts virtually organized protest activities on a daily basis.

Based on estimates by Chinese sociologists, 500 riots, collective protests, and strikes occur each day, up almost four-fold from a decade ago. With widespread ownership of mobile phones and Internet-connected computers, it is far easier than ever before to organize supporters and allies.

Moreover, growing defiance reflects the public’s perception that the authorities have grown afraid of the people and tend to yield to their demands when confronted by angry protesters. In some of the highest-profile collective protests in the past year – the land dispute in Wukan in Guangdong and the environmental protests in Dalian, Shifang, and Qidong – the government backed down.

If governing by fear is no longer tenable, China’s new rulers must start fearing for the CCP's future. As the country’s silent political revolution continues to unfold, the question is whether they will heed its signs, or attempt to maintain an order that – like the French monarchy – cannot be saved.

Minxin Pei is Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College and a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

中國的「波旁王朝」動亂時代

發自加利福尼亞克萊爾蒙特——有時候一國高層領導所看的書目可以揭示出他們的許多所思所想。而即將進入中共中央政治局常務委員會（中國的最高決策機構）的一些官員最近在看的一本書或許會讓人有些吃驚：亞力西斯·托克維爾（Alexis de Tocqueville）的《舊制度與大革命》。

這些領導人——也是即將於11月8日舉行的中共十八大指定的權力接棒者——據傳不僅自己拜讀托爾維克對於法國大革命前夕社會環境的分析，還把這本書推薦給朋友。如果事實果真如此，那最明顯的問題就是為什麼中國未來的統治者會傳閱一本與社會革命有關的國外著作。

答案並不難找，很可能這些領導人已經憑直覺或憑理智意識到中國即將爆發一場類似法國大革命推翻波旁王朝統治一樣危及中共生存的危機。

焦慮的跡象已經清晰可見了。中國的資本外流現在已經創下歷史新高。對中國百萬美元富翁進行的調查顯示其中有一半被訪者想移民國外。在民主呼聲日益高昂的時候，據報中國的最高領導候選人習近平與已故胡耀邦（政治改革家及中國民主人士的偶像）的兒子進行了會面。雖然我們不應對這樣一次會面做過多的解讀，但可以肯定地說，中國下一代領導人知道「天朝」正在失去安定。

某種政治危機可能會在未來一年席卷中國的看法或許對許多人——尤其是西方商業及政治精英——來說是個笑話，他們認為中國共產黨力量強大而穩固。在他們心目中，中國共產黨對權力的掌控是牢不可破的。但一些新興動態——未被留意或只是被孤立看待——已經在很大程度上改變了中國共產黨和中國社會之間的權力平衡，前者正在逐步喪失信譽和控制力，後者卻正獲得越來越多的力量和信心。

其中一個這樣的趨勢就是獨立公共道德權威人士的涌現，比如成功商人、受人尊敬的學者和記者、著名的作家和具有影響力的博客作者。誠然，自從1989年天安門大屠殺之後，中國共產黨一直奉行拉攏社會精英的策略。但卻有胡舒立（她創辦了兩本極具影響力的商業雜志）、潘石屹（一個直言不諱的房地產開發商）、於建嶸（社會科學家及公共知識分子）、博客作家韓寒和李承鵬以及吳敬璉（重要的經濟學家），這些人憑借自己的力量獲得了成功，並且一直保持著正直與獨立。

利用互聯網和微博（中國版的推特），他們成為了社會正義的捍衛者。他們的道德勇氣和社會地位反過來又幫助其獲得了民眾的支持（以上千萬的微博粉絲數量來衡量）。他們的意見往往能重新界定社會政策討論的方向，使得中國共產黨疲於招架。

對中國共產黨來說，這種發展趨勢顯然堪憂。它現在正把中國政治的制高點讓給其控制不住的社會力量的自治代表。中國共產黨壟斷公共道德權威的時代早已一去不返，如今對政治權力的壟斷也岌岌可危。

中國共產黨在老百姓中的信譽崩潰加速了這種失敗。確實，中國共產黨的缺乏透明，秘密決策以及弄虛作假經常意味著誠信問題。但在過去的十年裡，一系列的丑聞和危機——包括公共安全，黑心食品和假藥，以及環境污染——已經徹底摧毀了它僅存的一點信譽。

其中一件事就是2008年的問題嬰兒奶粉。官方對相關新聞的封鎖（該事件就發生在北京奧運會之前）不僅導致了許多嬰兒的死亡，也令中國老百姓更加不相信政府。在環境方面，也許最有說服力的証據就是北京市民更願意相信美國大使館的空氣質量報告，而不是本國政府的說辭。

對一個失去信譽的政權來說，要維護權力的代價是很高的——最終這種代價將令人無法承受的——因為它必須更頻繁且嚴重依賴武力鎮壓。

但對中國共產黨來說，鎮壓所獲得的收益是遞減的，這是由於第三個革命性的發展：集體行動的成本明顯下降。一個獨裁政府只能靠分裂人民並遏制有組織的反對活動才維持統治。雖然中國共產黨當前並不存在有組織的反對派，但卻幾乎每天都面對有組織的抗議活動。

根據中國社會學家的估計，每天各地都有500場暴動、集體抗議或罷工發生， 數量幾乎是10年前的四倍。隨著手機和互聯網電腦用戶的普及，現在要組織支持者和同盟也比以前要容易多了。

此外，日漸增多的反抗反映了公眾意識到當局已經開始害怕民眾的力量，當面對憤怒的抗議者時趨向於對他們的要求讓步。在去年程度最嚴重的一些抗議活動中——廣東烏坎的土地糾紛和大連、什邡和祁東對環境問題的抗議——政府都讓步了。

如果通過鎮壓來統治不再可行，那麼中國的新一代領導人就得開始為中國共產黨的未來擔心了。隨著該國無聲的政治革命繼續展開，問題在於他們是否留意到了這些跡象，還是企圖維持一種像法國君主制一樣無可救藥的秩序。

Minxin Pei (裴敏欣): China in the Eye of the Beholder

CLAREMONT – One of the most glaring, if unremarked, oddities concerning China nowadays is how perceptions of its leaders diverge depending on the observer. In the eyes of the Chinese public, government officials are venal, incompetent, and interested solely in getting lucrative appointments. But Western executives invariably describe Chinese officials as smart, decisive, knowledgeable, and far-sighted – roughly the same adjectives that they once used to describe Bo Xilai, the disgraced Communist Party boss of Chongqing, before he was purged.

 

It is impossible to reconcile these views. Either the Chinese public is impossible to please, or Western executives are hopelessly wrong. But, given that daily experience places Chinese citizens in an infinitely better position than Western executives to evaluate Chinese officials and their conduct, one would have to conclude that they are almost certainly right. And that means that Westerners who have spent considerable time in China and consider themselves seasoned “China hands” need to ask why they have gotten it so wrong.

One obvious explanation is that Chinese officials are extremely good at seducing Western businessmen with friendly gestures and generous promises. The same officials who lord it over ordinary Chinese people often summon irresistible charm to woo Western investors.
Another selling point for Western executives is that many Chinese officials have engineering backgrounds, in contrast to their Western counterparts, most of whom are lawyers. To businessmen, engineers are practical problem solvers, whereas lawyers are obsessed with procedural complexities and intent on exploiting contractual loopholes. Moreover, most Chinese officials have learned the jargon of Western business, and can speak intelligently about the problems that companies need to solve.

A more subtle reason for Western executives’ perceptions is their subconscious frame of reference when assessing Chinese officials. Senior executives of multinational companies tend to have pre-conceived notions of China as just another developing country, and thus evaluate Chinese officials by comparing them with those in other developing countries.

This unwitting comparison usually comes out in favor of Chinese officials, who are, as a group, better educated, more cosmopolitan, and more focused on business (because the ruling Communist Party uses economic growth and foreign investment as criteria for promoting officials). And, as an organization, the Chinese state is far stronger and more purposive than states are in more typical developing countries.

But, while it may be natural for Western businessmen to compare China with other developing countries, Chinese citizens have much higher standards, because they do not regard theirs as just another developing country. They view China as special, a re-emerging great power bound to join the ranks of the world’s most advanced countries, and the governance practices that their newspapers cite as models are invariably those of rich societies, not developing ones. Indeed, one sure way to insult the Chinese is to tell them they should feel lucky, because they have a better government than the Indians or Brazilians.

A third reason why Western businessmen get China wrong is that their admiration of the Chinese government is a reflection of their frustrations with their own governments. They have grown impatient with the messiness of the democratic process, stifling regulations, high taxes, and media scrutiny. By contrast, in China’s one-party state, they find it is easier to do business with officials who can make quick decisions and implement them almost instantly.

Of course, sometimes these executives do miss the rule of law that prevails in the West. But, compared with Chinese private entrepreneurs, representatives of large Western firms are a privileged group, and are not victimized as frequently by official corruption. As a result, they have little direct appreciation of the worst aspect of one-party rule: a rapacious, legally unrestrained elite.

The most regrettable aspect of Western executives’ misconceptions of the Chinese government is that they are likely to persist, at least among those who have no direct experience with the dark side of the Chinese state. They are successful, intelligent, and have a high degree of confidence in their political judgment. Moreover, Western corporations are hierarchical and autocratic, similar to the Chinese one-party state, so senior executives’ errors of judgment are rarely challenged directly by their underlings.

That is a real pity. Few Western executives understand the political consequences of their misperceptions. Their praise of Chinese officials’ quality and effectiveness is often held up by the Communist Party as an international endorsement of its policies and legitimacy – even if ordinary Chinese know otherwise.

Minxin Pei is Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College and a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

裴敏欣: 民主制局限不能證明專制體制優越 / Why China Can’t Adjust

上個月我在一次國際會議上偶然和中國最有名的一所大學的常務副校長遇見。他和我的經歷有許多相似之處。我們年齡相仿，都是在文革後第一批通過高考進入大學的「新三級」學生。他在美國一所名校的法學院進修過。因此可以說他對西方是十分了解。我們在會議結束後談起中國的現狀和民主前景等一系列問題。

當然，我們的看法十分不同，但是，他的觀點中對我印象最深刻的是每當我指出中國現有體制中的問題時（如腐敗，人民的個人權利得不到保障，發展模式不可持續，政權缺乏根本合法性等），他都會反駁，並用美國政治生活中被公認的許多問題來支持他的中心觀點：即中國的專制體制雖然有許多問題，但西方民主制度也好不到那裏去。

根據我的觀察，這種觀點在中國國內有很大的市場，許多(至少是在表面上）認同中國現有體制的精英分子都會用類似的說法來證明中國不需要民主化。

西方民主確有弊端

持這類觀點的人在一點上並沒有錯，即民主體制有許多內在的局限和弊端。而且，一直被認為代表西方民主體制的美國在最近的表現十分讓人失望。西方左派人士對民主的批評我們基本上都熟悉。民主體制的最重要的缺陷在於這類政治制度並不能解決平等和「問責」問題 （即被選舉出來的政治精英並不一定對選民負責）。民主體制中普遍存在著「搭便車」現象，導致少數利益集團擁有極大的政治影響力進行經濟尋租。民主體制也不能徹底消滅腐敗現象。

另外，美國的民主體制最近出現政治「極化，」共和黨和民主黨之間的政治競爭已墮落成一種「零和遊戲。」同時，政治獻金使美國的政治生活腐敗，議員們花在籌款上的時間已佔據他們工作時間的一大部分。能夠為議員籌款的利益集團和富人已形成一個危害美國民主正常運作的勢力。最近美國賭業大王艾德爾森（他擁有澳門和拉斯維加斯超級大賭場）宣稱將捐1億美元給共和黨來打敗奧巴馬總統，就是一個極端但有代表性的例子。

但是這些民主體制內在的局限與弊病和美國民主制度的退化能夠證明中國的專制政治體制不需民主化嗎？

民主體制勝於專制體制

我們可以從三個方面來表明儘管民主體制有許多局限和弊病，但是這類政治制度遠遠優越於專制體制，包括中國現有的一黨專制政體。

第一，我們可以比較專制和民主體制中的各種弊病的嚴重程度和可改性。雖然民主體制中存在著腐敗，不平等，特殊利益集團等弊病，但是專制體制中這類問題更嚴重。

如果我們查一下國際透明組織（一個總部設在柏林的國際民間組織）公布的腐敗感覺指數(Corruption Perception Index)，世界上最廉潔的政府絕大多數是在民主國家。在前25名最廉潔的國家裏只有（半民主的）新加坡，香港和卡塔爾不是民主政權。 而最腐敗的政府基本上都是專制政權 。在最腐敗的25國中，除了（半民主的）巴拉圭以外，其餘都是專制政權。從平等和社會公正角度來看，世界上被認為比較平等和公正的國家中，大部分是民主國家。其中，最平等和公正的是北歐的社會民主國家。從體制的自我改造能力（即可改性）角度來看，民主體制顯然有更強的可改性。多黨制下的政治競爭，定期的自由和公正的選舉，媒體和輿論的監督與壓力，以及民間社會的政治參與都為民主政體不需通過革命來進行自我改造提供了必需（但是不一定是充分的）條件。

相比之下，專制體制缺乏內在的自我改造能力。這類體制要改變方嚮往往是通過兩種代價慘重的途徑實現。一是被民眾通過革命推翻（如前蘇聯的垮台和阿拉伯之春），二是一場自我製造的政治災難（像中國的文革）。比較民主和專制體制各自的弊病時，最能說明問題的是這一現象：幾乎沒有人會提出通過專制來解決民主體制中的問題。但是，絕大部分人都會支持通過民主來解決專制體制中的問題。

第二，在討論不同政治體制的相對優越性時，最重要的標準並不是哪類體制能夠提供更好的物質生活（雖然用這一標準衡量，民主一點不會比專制遜色），而是哪個體制對普通人民最基本的權利的保護程度。用這標準來衡量，民主顯然要比專制優越。人的基本尊嚴在民主體制下能夠得到保障。舉一個很小的例子，尚未見到和聽說在一個民主國家中普通民眾跪在官員或政府大院前的這種事情；而在中國，這類現象十分普遍（假如中國成了民主國家後，這種事情不可能再發生。我們只要看一下現在的台灣就可以得出這一結論）。另一個實例是最近在中國陝西安康市鎮坪縣曾家鎮發生的慘案。因無錢繳納4萬元生二胎的罰款，一位普通農婦被強制大月份引產。這類事情在一個民主國家不可能發生。

第三，從專制走向民主是歷史潮流。在世界上的180多國家中，有120個國家是通過選舉來產生政府領導人的。在這120個國家中，三分之二（即80個）是在過去40年中通過轉型建立的新民主政體。其中，許多國家的經濟發展水平要低於中國。根據用國際購買力計算，中國的人均國民收入已達8500美元。這一水平高於50多個發展中民主國家的人均收入。 根據政治學對經濟發展和民主轉型的研究，中國的經濟發展水平已達到所謂的「民主轉型安全門檻。」即當一個國家的人均收入超過6000 美元（按購買力算），民主政權一旦在這個國家形成，基本上不可能重返專制。如果我們用這一眼光來看中國，中國雖然經濟增長飛躍，但在政治上已落後於世界上大部分國家。

在和中國那位名校領導討論這些觀點時，我不知道他是否被說服。但是，我想如果他有一個自由和根據良心的選擇，很難想像他會希望他的後代永遠生活在一個專制政權統治的社會裏。

 

Minxin Pei: Why China Can’t Adjust

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA – China’s current economic slowdown has no shortage of causes: Europe’s financial turmoil, sputtering recovery in the United States, and weak domestic investment growth, to name the most commonly cited factors. Since exports and investment account, respectively, for 30% and 40% of China’s GDP growth, its economy is particularly vulnerable to weakening external demand and accumulation of non-performing loans caused by excessive and wasteful spending on fixed assets.

But China’s vulnerability to these factors, as serious as they are, is symptomatic of deeper institutional problems. Until these underlying constraints are addressed, talk of a new consumption-based growth model for China, reflected in the government’s recently approved 12th Five-Year Plan, can be no more than lip service.

After all, China’s major trading partners, international financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, and senior Chinese officials themselves have long recognized the structural vulnerabilities caused by excessive investment and low household consumption. And, for nearly a decade, China has been urged to undertake reforms to redress these economic patterns, which have undermined the welfare of ordinary Chinese and strained the global trading system.

The best-known feature of China’s macroeconomic imbalances is heavy dependence on exports for growth, which is typically attributed to weak domestic demand: as a middle-income country, China lacks the purchasing power to consume the goods that it produces. With nearly unlimited access to advanced-country markets, China can tap into global external demand and raise its GDP growth potential, as it has done for the past two decades.

If this view is right, the solution is straightforward: China can correct its imbalances by increasing its citizens’ incomes (by cutting taxes, raising wages, or increasing social spending), so that they can consume more, thereby reducing the economy’s dependence on exports. Indeed, nearly all mainstream economists prescribe this approach for China.

But there is another explanation for China’s excessive export dependence, one that has more to do with the country’s poor political and economic institutions. Specifically, export dependence partly reflects the high degree of difficulty of doing business in China. Official corruption, insecure property rights, stifling regulatory restraints, weak payment discipline, poor logistics and distribution, widespread counterfeiting, and vulnerability to other forms of intellectual-property theft: all of these obstacles increase transaction costs and make it difficult for entrepreneurs to thrive in domestic markets.

By contrast, if China’s private firms sell to Western multinationals, such as Wal-Mart, Target, or Home Depot, they do not have to worry about getting paid. They can avoid all of the headaches that they would have encountered at home, because well-established economic institutions and business practices in their export markets protect their interests and greatly reduce transaction costs.

The Chinese economy’s institutional weakness is reflected in international survey data. The World Bank publishes an annual review of “the ease of doing business” for 183 countries and sub-national units. In its June 2011 survey, China was ranked 91st, behind Mongolia, Albania, and Belarus. It is particularly difficult to start a business in China (151st), pay taxes (122nd), obtain construction permits (179th), and get electricity (115th).

Faced with such a hostile environment, Chinese private entrepreneurs have been forced to engage in “institutional arbitrage” – taking advantage of efficient Western economic institutions to expand their business (most export-oriented businesses are owned by private entrepreneurs and foreign firms).

Unfortunately, as China has already claimed a large share of the world’s merchandise exports (10.4% in 2010) and economic stagnation in the West is constraining external demand, this strategy can no longer work. But reorienting their businesses toward the Chinese domestic market requires far more than government policies that put more money in consumers' pockets.
In order to enjoy the same low transaction costs that they have in exporting, China’s entrepreneurs need a much better business environment: an effective legal system, a sound regulatory framework, a government that protects their brands by fighting intellectual-property theft, dependable logistics and distribution networks, and a graft-resistant bureaucracy.

China cannot create such an environment quickly. In essence, the Chinese government must transform a predatory state into a nurturing one, and treat private entrepreneurs as creators of wealth rather than targets of extraction. In nearly all other countries, such a transformation was accomplished by establishing the rule of law and/or moving from autocracy to democracy.

The impossibility of sustaining growth in the absence of the rule of law and political accountability presents the Chinese Communist Party with an existential dilemma. Ever since it crushed the pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the party has vowed not to surrender its political monopoly. The investment boom and the globalization dividend of the last two decades allowed the Party to have its cake and eat it – maintaining its rule on the basis of economic prosperity, while failing to establish the institutions critical to sustaining such prosperity. Today, this is no longer possible.

So in a sense, the Chinese bubble – as much an intellectual and political bubble as an economic one – has burst. As China’s economic deceleration exposes its structural vulnerabilities and flawed policies, the much-hyped notion of “Chinese exceptionalism” – that China can continue to grow without the rule of law and the other essential institutions that a modern market economy presupposes – is proving to be nothing but a delusion.

Minxin Pei is Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College.