Chinese Provincial Leaders: Economic Performance and Political Mobility since 1949 (review)

This book uses newly compiled year-by-year data to address a variety of debates about trends in China's politics and governance since 1949. Is it becoming more decentralized? How powerful have factions been? Is a new technocracy replacing less-educated leaders? Have leaders who emerge from Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin had greater mobility than those who have developed within their own provinces? Is Beijing in charge of the economy, or is control drifting to the provinces? Is the gap between rich and poor widening? Are women and minorities gaining more mobility? Zhiyue Bo's important new findings will become part of the serious discourse on these questions.

Using new data on political mobility and economic performance Bo has followed the careers of 2,534 Party secretaries, deputy Party secretaries, governors, and vice governors in twenty-two provinces, five autonomous regions, and three centrally administered municipalities, from 1949 to 1998. For each year he tracks their promotions, demotions, transfers, and retirements, along with a number of facts about the regions they administered.

Among his many findings: In 1967, 96 percent of these provincial leaders were purged; in contrast, the political shifts at the center after the demotions of Hu Yaobang in 1987 and Zhao Ziyang in 1989 were not reflected at the provincial level. The 1983 and 1993 retirements have reduced the average age of these leaders to the mid-fifties; Party secretaries and deputy secretaries tend to be a bit older than the less-powerful governors and vice governors. Over a third of governors and vice governors came from their home provinces, while that percentage is lower for Party secretaries and deputies. Only two women have ever been a governor or Party secretary, although nearly 10 percent of vice governors and 6 percent of deputy secretaries were women during the Cultural Revolution and are now at present, with a sharp drop in between.

Only 3 percent of those holding any of these jobs experienced a promotion within the provinces or to the center between 1949 and 1998; another 2.6 percent were transferred laterally, while 6 percent were demoted (mostly in 1967 and 1977); the others tended to stay with the same job until retirement. These statistics alone show that provincial leadership has been very stable, and that provincial leaders seldom receive jobs in Beijing. Those few who have experienced promotions often began as a central government minister or vice minister sent to the provinces to gain more experience. While the general educational level of all groups has risen (to 91 percent with some college background in 1995), in all periods vice governors tend to have the most education and Party secretaries the least. Furthermore, even in the economic reform era those with college education are only half as likely to be promoted as those few who have no college education. Females, noncommunists, and minorities have diminished chances for promotion. Those promoted are likely to be leaders in larger, richer provinces or (much more likely) Shanghai, Beijing, or Tianjin. Leaders who increase the contribution of revenues to (or require decreased subsidies from) the center are less likely to be transferred, retired, or demoted than those who do not. Those with a year of good economic growth in their provinces are as likely to be promoted as to be demoted; a leader with a good record of revenue collection is more likely to be promoted than demoted. Contributing enhanced revenues to the center improves job security and mobility. Simply presiding over increased economic growth does not.

Does this mean that these provincial leaders are not a cohesive and coherent force for the center to reckon with, or a counterweight to the central bureaucracy (p. 144)? Does it indicate that "the center has exerted a tremendous power over the provincial governments" (p. 145)? Does it prove that "provincial economic performance is not a significant determinant...