The Politics of China, 1949-1989 (review)

204 China Review International: Vol. 3, No. ?, Spring 1996 Roderick MacFarquhar, editor. The Politics ofChina, 1949-1989. Cambridge (England), New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1993. x, 534 pp. Hardcover $59.95, isbn 0-521-44247-8. Paperback $18.95, 1SBN 0-521-44762-3. This work analyzes the evolution of domestic Chinese politics during the first forty years ofthe People's Republic of China. A number ofbooks have been published recendy about this same topic, and The Politics ofChina is among the best of these. It gives students as well as specialists access to material originally published in the Cambridge History ofChina. The first four chapters are excerpted from the Cambridge History and include contributions by Harry Harding, Kenneth Lieberthal, Roderick MacFarquhar, and Frederick Teiwes. The Introduction by MacFarquhar and the concluding chapter by Richard Baum were written especially for this work. The book is also dedicated in memory of the scholarship and career of the late John King Fairbank. Because of the authors' focus on domestic politics, there is only limited discourse on purely economic issues and foreign policy. Where relevant, Sino-Soviet relations and domestic ideological matters are discussed. Valuable appendixes are included on State and Party Leaders and Meetings from 1945 to 1993, along with a useful twenty-seven-page selected bibliography ofreferences in Chinese and English. Two warnings: chapters 1, 2, and 3 contain a number of misspellings and missing words; the rest ofthe text is exempt from such lapses. Also, the chapters by MacFarquhar and Baum include much valuable information and analysis in their footnotes. To miss this material is to miss much ofwhat they have to say. Luckily, The Politics ofChina is available in paperback, so it will be an ideal text for courses on the Chinese revolution and on contemporary Chinese or comparative Asian politics. Although each chapter is written by a different author, all focus on common themes and avoid unnecessary duplication by using a well-defined set of chronological periods. Each chapter begins with a clearly written summary ofits contents , followed by a detailed analysis of specifics. Among the important themes chronicled throughout are the decline of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as a legitimate, efficient ruling party; Mao Zedong's pivotal role in this process; the creation and evolution of antagonistic CCP factions; the failure of various schemes to create revolutionary successors; and the emergence of the People's© 1996 by University Liberation Army (PLA) as the ultimate arbiter ofChinese politics. The post-Mao era also comes under close scrutiny. Deng Xiaoping's struggle to succeed Mao and his determined dismantling ofMaoism are analyzed. MacFarquhar and Baum conclude that Deng's attempt to create an alternative political Reviews 205 and economic model to keep China Red but prosperous has failed. Continued CCP rule is, thus, not assured. Particularly useful is the inclusion ofalternative explanations ofsuch important events as the Gao Gang affair, Lin Biao's attempted coup, and the Tiananmen Square massacre. In his Introduction, MacFarquhar establishes the focus ofthe volume by contrasting the early success ofa unified CCP in providing peace and prosperity for China with the collapse ofCCP authority and legitimacy forty years later, epitomized by the Democracy Movement and martial law in 1989. MacFarquhar states that the goal ofthis book is to explain how and why the CCP under Mao and Deng progressively lost the Mandate of Heaven, the right to rule. He cautions, however, that contemporary political conditions in China have not yet deteriorated to the point where the Chinese Communist regime is facing ultimate collapse . It still retains sufficient coercive power in the form ofthe PLA to maintain control. But the price for this short-term continuity is a growing political role for the PLA. Since Deng has been no more successful than Mao in creating a set of viable political institutions and a set oflegitimate and effective revolutionary successors , China's communist rulers have little reason to be optimistic about the long-term future ofthe CCP. The Party is caught between a rising tide of nonParty popular opposition and a rivalry with an increasingly autonomous PLA. Three themes are of special significance in understanding the decline of CCP fortunes. First is the...