Download China`s Recent Political and Socio

Research note delivered to the Conference on Cross-Strait Relations under the Tsai Ing-wen
Administration
China’s Recent Political and Socio-Economic Developments
Chih-Chieh Chou
Professor
Graduate Institute of Political Economy
National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan
1. Xi Jinping Chosen to Centralize and Integrate Power
Xi has been in office for almost 4 years since November, 2012. Since he took
office, Xi has set up numerous “leading groups” under the party. Almost without
exception, he serves as the leader of these newly established groups. Even the Central
Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs, which used to be led by the
Premier, is now under his leadership.
We can argue, on the one hand, that there might be consensus in the party about
the need to centralize power in this manner to co-ordinate policymaking and
implementation across government agencies, in order to ram through variously
present and urgent reforms. The general goal of Xi’s ruling is to achieve so called the
“Four Comprehensives.” That is to comprehensively “build a moderately prosperous
society” by means of “governing the nation by law,” and “deepening reforms,” and
“strictly governing the Party.”The time is pressing for Xi to preliminary build a
moderately prosperous society by 2020. Therefore, Xi has to come up with concrete
achievements with regard to the “Four Comprehensives” every year to be able to
realize the policy goal in time.
However, on the other hand, Xi grabs powers by utilizing those party “leading
groups” at the expense of the State Council and the ministries. More significantly, for
him, anti-corruption campaign is as the critical and triggering factor for the
achievement of the focus of the “Four Comprehensives”
So, Xi’s set up and use of leading groups, and along with his sweeping and
enduring anti-corruption campaign, has given rise to a conclusion that Xi is a new
strong man who seeks to centralize power for himself to annihilate his political rivals.
2. Dealing “Middle Income Trap” though “Innovative Development” and
“Supply Side” Reform
Over the past several years, China’s economic development has hit the
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bottleneck. Some argues that China involves in the “middle income trap.” China
seems unable to transform from an economy relying on cheap labor, natural resources
or energies to one oriented by high production efficiency. Of course, most Chinese
scholars deny that the country has fallen into the trap. No matter what, it is true that
China’s economy has shown signs of slowdown, conflicts and a lack of economic
drivers. Therefore, it is necessary to alert themselves with the low-income trap.
To break free from the low-income trap, the CPC has proposed the new ideas of
innovation-driven development and supply side reform. Through creating jobs,
increasing people’s incomes, and promoting social mobility, China tries to deepen
reform from supply side to satisfy and drive demands.
However, the supply side reform to solve problems caused by oversupply now
encounters several risks: (1) Economic risk: changing the long-term investment-led
growth pattern may risk an economic growth below the 6.5% baseline. (2) Financial
risk: the bankruptcy of companies with oversupply may lead to a large amount of bad
debts among creditor banks, thus triggering a financial crisis. (3) Social risk: massive
lay off may cause a new wave of unemployment, thus making the society even more
unstable.
According to the 13th Five-year Plan, it reveals the goal of comprehensively
building a moderately prosperous society by 2020 and makes the national income per
capita grow by twice as much as that of 2010 to reach the level of around 12,000
dollars by 2020. To that end, from 2016 to 2020, Mainland China must keep its
average GDP growth rate above 6.5%-a rather difficult challenge to overcome.
It is clear that the core direction of economic reform is further marketization, in
other words, “allowing the market to play a decisive role in the allocation of resources.
However, the key to the success of the plan lies in policy implementation, and
implementation relies on a timely mind set change of party elite through “the Party’s
construction.” Thus, it links back to the continuation of anti-corruption campaign.
3. Maintaining a “Stable but not Peaceful” Society through “Despotic” and
“Infrastructural” Powers
China’s society is basically stable but certainly not peaceful. That is to say that
although social unrest is still under the party-state’s control, it reveals the extent of
difficulty of “comprehensively deepening reform.”
In terms of social protests, most of the protesting subjects are people from social
vulnerable groups (such as farmers, workers, and migrant workers), and protests
initiative by them account for 70% of the total number. There are also about 20% of
protests initiated by people from the middle class (such as teachers, businesspersons,
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self-employed individuals, and business owners), showing that the middle class is not
exempt from conflicts caused by the transforming social structure and has to stand out
for their own rights and benefits. As for the issues of protests, 9/10 concern
“materialism,” which means the pursuit of food, clothing, and the right of survival;
about 1/10 concern “post materialism.” It shows that most pretests are still driven by
the pursuit of material benefits. The governments’ use of suppression as means of
response is higher than the past. On the contrary, the percentage of the use of
negotiation has decreased rapidly, showing that faced with the pressure of wei wen (維
穩), local governments have increased the use of suppression as a means of response.
In general, most of the protests are initiated by social vulnerable groups with
non-violent action for the pursuit of the right of survival, most of them are directed at
the governments and lack organization, and foreign power finds it difficult to involve
in the protests in Chinese society. However, the local governments’ previous strategy
of “paying money for peace” and “using Renminbi to solve internal conflicts” has
started to change.
As for management of social organizations in recent years shows three major
trends: (1) relaxation of the “dual management system,” (2) purchase of public service
by the governments, and (3) the establishment of pivotal organizations. For the
relaxation of the “dual management system,” some organizations in most provincial
cities are only required to register at civil affairs authorities. However, the relaxation
applies only to organizations helping the governments with economic and social
governance, such as business, technology, charity and community service sectors. The
purchase of public service by the governments means that the governments provide
funds and resources to attract civil group to apply for the participation in social
service. The establishment of pivotal organizations means to have existing civil
groups or new government-organized non-governmental organizations (GONGOs)
serve as pivotal organizations to share management of relevant grassroots
organizations or allocate resources, so as to achieve the goal of “managing people
with people” or “managing organizations with organizations. The three trends have
made apparent the governments’ intention to involve social organizations in public
service.
In terms of overseas NGOs, the most recent change is the Overseas NGO
Management Law. The Ministry of Public Security is entitled to monitor overseas
NGOs and check their funding sources and development of their projects. Overseas
NGOs must be affiliated to supervisory unit and have their annual activities approved
by the unit, otherwise they and their partner organizations will both be subject to
criminal penalty. Previously, the Ministry of Civil Affairs was the central ministry that
worked the most closely with overseas NGOs. The Overseas NGO Management Law
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is drawn up by the Ministry of Public Security, meaning that it will further its control
of overseas NGOs.
As for the internet control, he Amendment IX to the Criminal Law was approved.
This amendment adds nine types of crimes, and the most controversial one regarding
the “creation of rumors” is in Subparagraph2 of Paragraph1 of Article 291. This item
can be misused or even abused, given that the determination of “false” and “creation
of rumors” involves subjective consciousness. The authorities may use this item as a
tool against dissidents.
Generally, the government adopts both soft and hard approaches for social
control. The use of social policy and welfare to alleviate public discontent is a soft
approach, while the suppression on protests, regulation of NGOs, cyber control and
arrest of human rights lawyers are hard approaches. In other words, China is using the
“despotic power” on the one hand and the “infrastructural power” on the other for
social management. Nevertheless, the insufficiency of the infrastructural power often
leads to the use of the despotic power as a supplement.
We can see that factors of social unrest are mostly constrained by the Party’s
forceful control, however, many problems are not resolved. “Ruling by law”
emphasized by Xi might be a way out. In fact, there is little different between Xi’s
policy in social control and those in the Hu and Wen eras. Nevertheless, the
implementation of Xi’s measures and policies has been significantly enhanced.
4. Concluding Remarks
Xi now faces a critical moment, especially the pressure of a slowing economy
continued to grow. Therefore, the political situation is China is characterized by the
“management of economic issue with political means.” As the economic outlook
becomes severer, the control of public opinions, the internet, and its party elite and
officials became stricter. So we can witness Xi’s sense of urgency to many reforms on
the one hand and a clearer sign of more authoritarian rule on the other.
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