The Chinese Communist Party: Key to Pluralism and a Market Economy?

THE CHINESE COMMUNISTPARTY : KEY TO PLURALISM AND A MARKET ECONOMY? Suzanne Ogden W1hen consensus on a supposedlyfundamentaltruthtakesroot, individuals often repeat the truth without reexamining its validity under new conditions. One such truth is that democracy is the best form ofgovernment for all countries at all times, without qualification. Today in the West, government officials as well as ordinary people alike embrace the democratization ofEastern Europe and the former Soviet Union as quintessentially good, because it seems to prove that communism was unequivocally bad. But recently we have begun to reassess our earlier optimistic predictions about the likelihood that the former Soviet republics and the states of Eastern Europe could achieve, let alone sustain, democracy. We have not yet, however, reassessed our harsh judgments of China's slower path to a more pluralistic society, ofits clasping the communist security blanket for a bit longer. A different perspective, unpopular because it seems implicitly to endorse the often unforgivably repressive rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), nevertheless deserves consideration. The argument rests on three premises. One is that communism in China may have survived its demise elsewhere, even if only for a little while longer. The reason is that as democratization became fashionable in the 1980s, China was more successful in providing economic growth and benefits for its people than Suzanne Ogden is Professor and Chairperson, Department of Political Science at Northeastern University and Research Associate at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University. An earlier version ofthis essay was presented last year at the annual Robert Klein Lecture at Northeastern University. 107 108 SAIS REVIEW were the communist-led nations of Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union. Second, China's present gradual approach to creating a more pluralistic society, ifnot a democracy, may lead to a more resilientand durablepolitical order than the hastily established "democratic" regimes ofEastern Europe and the various republics of the former USSR. Third, China's eventual evolution to democracy may well prove less painful to its people than has been the case in Eastern Europe or the former Soviet Union if four conditions continue: • Economic reforms must continue to support a free market economy and abandon the centralized control of most economic sectors (the statecontrolled sector now provides less than halfofthe Chinese gross national product). These reforms include price and currency deregulation, reduction of state subsidies to the urban populace for agricultural products, raw materials, education, health care, and housing.1 • The unwitting absorption ofthe CCP elite to the side ofliberalization must continue. Havingconvinced party officialstoparticipate inthe privatization as well as political reforms, the very individuals who normally would have stood in the way of the creation of democracy have continued to support liberalization because ofthe benefits they stand to gain from their participation in the market economy.2 • China also needs Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan to continue their enthusiastic investment in the economic development of China. This investment helps integrate China into the international economy , and perhaps will lead to the establishment of a Japan-led Asian common market, or even a Chinese common market. • China must continue to move from state ownership to collective and private ownership ofindustrial and commercial enterprises, while avoiding foreign acquisition.3 Ifan authoritarian but stable China, like the former right-wing dictatorships of Taiwan and South Korea, can continue with these four major changes in political and economic conditions, it will have laid the groundwork forcopingwith the major issues that have plagued the Eastern Europe countries and republics of the former Soviet Union in their transition to 1.Kathleen Hartford, "Reform or Retrofitting? The Chinese Economy since Tiananmen,'' World Policy Journal, Vol. DC, No. 1 (Winter 1991-92), p. 55. 2.WangHuning, Chairman ofthe Department ofInternational Politics atFudan University , prefers to see this enticement of CCP cadres in a more optimistic light Rather than merely picking the fruits of the system, they are now creating the fruits. 3.Since 1992, the selling of stock in state-owned enterprises to workers has become increasingly common. It is still exceedingly hard for foreigners to buy this stock. The government does, ofcourse, encourage foreigners to invest heavily in joint ventures, which in fact may be wholly foreign-owned. KEY...