The Failure of China’s “Democratic” Reforms by Zaijun Yuan (review)

If, as the author himself states in his conclusion, the “principal question of the book” were “is liberal democracy compatible with the single-party authoritarian political system?” (p. 145), this endeavor would be pointless. As Yuan Zaijun points out himself, “the answer is obviously negative” (p. 145). Hopefully, this obvious conclusion is not what makes this book worth reading. In what is a well-rewritten PhD dissertation, the author analyzes exhaustively five pretended attempts at democratization of Party rule. His demonstration is grounded in a comprehensive study of official sources on the subject, supplemented by fieldwork and complementary readings of articles written overseas or on the Internet.

Unlike many of the authors he quotes, Yuan Zaijun is not a prisoner of his subject: he does not feel that it is necessary to see only the positive aspects of the reforms he analyzes. He always keeps a critical state of mind, which allows him to present a very complete analysis of the attempts. The book is divided into seven chapters, the first of which is an introduction that presents the literature on the subject, while the following five are presentations of five types of reform. In the last chapter, Yuan presents his conclusions, which are summarized in the form of two very well-presented charts.

The first two attempts at building “inner-Party democracy” (p. 30), a concept that was hailed by numerous observers when Hu Jintao proposed it in his speech at the closure of the 17th Party Congress, are well analyzed, and the author does not stop at the surface of the policies. He explains that the reason the Party broadcasts much propaganda on this subject is that “the reform is safe and controllable” (p. 34) and that these measures “will only slightly liberalise the policy-making procedure and the mechanism of selecting and of evaluating cadres at the primary levels. The reform will not change the Party’s centralised organisation system” (p. 34). The author then proceeds with a detailed description of the reform through eleven case studies. At the nomination step, there is the possibility of “self-nomination” (p. 36) and a “qualification-check” (p. 42). Yuan notes that the “criteria enabled the organisers to exclude those they disliked from entering the elections” (p. 40). Criteria usually concern age, education, work experience, and official rank. The final candidates are elected from those who nominated themselves, but in the majority of cases, it is the higher-level Party committee that makes the decision. Candidates are often required to take written and oral tests, but the examiners all belong to the higher-echelon Party committee. Then there is a public poll, and only candidates who have obtained 60 percent of all votes can proceed to the election (p. 43). Finally, the higher-echelon Party members vote in the election. In this reform, the whole process is controlled by the Party committee (p. 47).

The other instance of “inner Party democracy” concerns the Party congress: one way to improve it would be to hold an annual plenary meeting of the congress (p. 65). Other cases analyzed in the book concern the elections of congress members. Self-nominations can happen only at the grassroots level, and as the government leaders must be members of the congress, their seats are guaranteed. The number of candidates is superior to the number of candidates only at the grassroot level, where there is a small measure of competition. In any case, “the grassroots Party members accounted for only 3.5 [percent] of all Party congress members” (p. 65). So the reformed Party congress still cannot genuinely elect local Party leaders, and the role of the organization department remains very important (p. 67). The author also analyzes the cases of what he terms “the second most liberal” (p. 147) reform, the direct election of township cadres, which were first held in Buyun (Sichuan) in 1998. He analyzes six cases of...