Broad National Agendas and a two-Level Game

Part III

Chapter 6

Broad National Agendas and A Two-Level Game

In a country as big and as poor as ours, if we don’t try to increase production, how can we survive? How is socialism superior, when our people have so many difficulties in their lives? The Gang of Four clamoured for “poor socialism” and “poor communism”, declaring that communism was mainly a spiritual thing. That is sheer nonsense!…. Between the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee and the Twelfth National Congress, we have blazed a new path: concentrating on economic development.

- Deng Xiaoping, September 18, 1982¹
The supreme interest of China is peace and nation-building. As to all threats to peace and development, no matter where they come from, the Chinese people will join hands with the people of the rest of the world to prevent and eliminate all of them.

- Jiang Zemin, Chinese President, October 17, 1997²

- David Lampton, China expert, 2001³

I. Economic Development
In light of three decades of trauma resulting from Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policies (such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution), and the successes of China’s non-communist neighbors (Japan and the Asian newly industrialized economies), by the late-1970s the Chinese leadership believed that the only way for the party to hold onto its weakened mandate was to improve the standard of living for the majority of the population. As Deng Xiaoping pointed out in 1982, “[T]hat communism was mainly a spiritual thing…is sheer nonsense!”⁴ On the eve of the Tiananmen Incident on June 4, 1989, Deng Xiaoping recognized, “[I]f we didn’t have that economic base, the farmers would have risen in rebellion after only ten days of student protests – never mind a whole month.”⁵

The Chinese leadership understands the legitimacy crisis quite well. Prior to the Tiananmen Incident, Tianjin Mayor Li Ruihuan said in a Politburo meeting that in the past forty years “our Party has learned some painful lessons – in the Anti-rightist Campaign, the Cultural Revolution, and so on. From the looks of things now, another major political mistake might cost us all of our remaining popular support.” CCP General Secretary Zhao Ziyang had also conveyed the same concern to other Chinese leaders in a Politburo Standing Committee meeting prior to the violence of June 4.⁶

This sense of a legitimacy crisis is still the prevailing view among Chinese officials and scholars. One Beijing senior official bluntly stated, “Poverty is not communism! The Cultural Revolution was a disaster! Without economic development, Chinese people would not support the CCP.”⁷ An international relations scholar in Beijing and two other international relations scholars in Shanghai agreed that only economic development could sustain the one-party ruling power of the CCP.⁸ Two other international relations senior fellows in Shanghai stressed that there is a strong consensus among the majority of Chinese elites and the public that economic development is the number one priority.⁹ An international relations senior scholar in Beijing emphasized, “Economic development is the most important pillar to maintain domestic stability and the legitimacy of the CCP regime.”¹⁰

A Taiwan studies senior scholar in Beijing stated, “The Cultural Revolution was a catastrophic lesson. Socialism or communism should bring better living standards for people. It is nonsense for the result of the Cultural Revolution.”¹¹ An international relations scholar in Beijing went further to say, “Currently, China has a strong sense of worship for economic development!”¹² Another international relations scholar in Beijing emphasized, “Chinese people have a deep repulsion for the instability, turmoil, and warfare of Chinese history. To avoid history repeating itself, economic development is imperative.”¹³ A Taiwan studies senior scholar in Shanghai argued, “After experiencing the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, China has learned profound lessons. China used to be at the edge of economic collapse. Deng Xiaoping’s policies reversed this situation. China will be very pragmatic.”¹⁴

In order to improve their legitimacy, Chinese leaders accelerated economic modernization through economic reforms and integration of China into the broader international political and economic order. For instance, in discussing who should succeed Zhao Ziyang as Party General Secretary in the wake of the Tiananmen incident, Deng Xiaoping emphasized that new Chinese leaders “should be chosen for their commitment to reform and opening,” and reform and opening is the only way to “win the people’s confidence.” In addition, he said, “Without reform and opening our development stops and our economy slides downhill. Living standards decline if we turn back. The momentum of reform cannot be stopped. We must insist on this point at all times.”¹⁵

When Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was executed at the end of 1989, some Politburo members and veteran cadres viewed this as confirmation that the decision to repress the “reactionaries” in the Tiananmen Square had been the right one for insuring the Party’s survival. Facing Western sanctions and the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union and East Europe, Deng Xiaoping, however, concluded that the Chinese leadership would share Ceaucescu’s fate, “if we don’t carry out reforms and bring about benefits to the people.”¹⁶ In addition, during his southern trip [nan xun] in early 1992, Deng said that to depart from reform and opening would lead the people to “overthrow whoever does so,” and the result “would be chaos, and the chaos would give rise to civil war.” “Therefore, the military and the state power must safeguard this path,” Deng concluded.¹⁷

A Taiwan studies senior scholar and an international relations senior scholar in Shanghai agreed that economic reforms and opening-up are strongly supported by the Chinese public as well as the elites.¹⁸ A scholar in Shanghai even warned, “Whoever does not continue reforms and opening-up is a Chinese national criminal.”¹⁹

In September 1997, the CCP enshrined Deng Xiaoping Theory into the Party constitution at the Fifteenth Party Congress and made Deng’s “sange youli yu [three conducives]” the fundamental criterion for action – “whether it is conducive to developing the productive forces of our socialist society, augmenting the overall strength of our socialist state, and improving the living standards of the people.”²⁰ On December 18, 1998, on an occasion marking the twentieth anniversary of the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh CCP Central Committee, President Jiang Zemin stressed, “Development is the last word. The key to resolving all China’s problems is through China's own development.”²¹ Furthermore, in his report to the NPC on the 10^th Five-Year Plan on March 5, 2001, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji said, “Development is the last word. In the face of various social contradictions, we have always maintained economic development as the central task and adopted effective measures to promote a sustained, rapid, and healthy development of the national economy, thus providing a foundation for handling other contradictions.” Premier Zhu mentioned the term “reform” in his report 70 times.²²

On December 18, 1998, President Jiang Zemin stressed, “Stability is the basic premise for reform and development. Without stability, nothing can be achieved…In the process of carrying out reform, opening-up, and developing a socialist market economy, contradictions among the people may notably increase, and some may even become increasingly prominent…We need to nip those factors that undermine social stability in the bud, no matter where they come from.”²⁵ Even in 2001, stability was still the foremost goal for Chinese leaders. In a March 6, 2001 meeting with Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hua on the Falun Gong spiritual movement in Hong Kong, President Jiang stressed, “Stability is overriding. Any countries or societies will have no prospects if they have no stability. Only stability will make the economy develop and prosper.”²⁶

Deng Xiaoping and President Jiang Zemin also explicitly conveyed their concerns about stability to foreign guests. In a meeting with President George Bush on February 26, 1989, Deng Xiaoping emphasized, “In China the overriding need is for stability. Without a stable environment, we can accomplish nothing and may even lose what we have gained…. China is now in period when it must concentrate on economic development.”²⁷ During his televised debate in Beijing with President Bill Clinton on June 27, 1998, President Jiang also stressed China’s serious concerns about stability in defense of the resolute measures that had been taken to end the 1989 student demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.²⁸

In fact, the Chinese public is also aware of the need to maintain stability. An international relations scholar in Beijing stressed, “After experiencing the Cultural Revolution, mainland people’s greatest fear is to experience the Cultural Revolution again. This is why the mainland stabilized so quickly after the Tiananmen incident. People fear turmoil.”²⁹ Another example of this innate fear of instability is found in the Chinese suppression of the Falun Gong movement. An international relations senior scholar in Beijing asserted that although Chinese authorities used too much force in suppressing the Falun Gong, people basically supported the government’s policy because they saw the Falun Gong as jeopardizing social stability.³⁰