Does
China have a gun control problem? Yes. Whoever controls
one of the world's largest armed forces naturally draws
worldwide attention. Recent media mania, however, seems
excessive in painting an intensifying power struggle
between the moderate-reformist head of state and
Communist Party President Hu Jintao, and the
nationalist-conservative military strongman Jiang Zemin,
78, chairman of China's powerful Central Military
Commission (CMC).
On the eve of the fourth
plenary session of the 16th Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) National Congress from September 16-19, the
Jiang-Hu rivalry is said to have reached such a state
that various key policy issues are at stake. They are
reported to include Beijing's uncompromising stance
toward Taiwan, Hong Kong's democratic elections, growing
social instability at home, rampant corruption,
inner-party democracy, and the most salient issue of
all, who will command the 2.5-million-member People's
Liberation Army (PLA). The PLA is said to favor a
hardine policy toward Taiwan and the storm clouds
gathering over the Taiwan Strait indeed represent a
serious issue for both leaders.
All of these
reports on divisions and struggle have yet to be solidly
proved. The media focus on the so-called Jiang-Hu
rivalry over the CMC chairmanship misses other points
that may be more important. In the absence of major
foreign and domestic crises, current politicking in
China has more to do with policy issues, particularly
Taiwan, than major personnel changes; and more to do
with leadership continuity than its reshuffling. The
alleged Jiang-Hu gun control (control of the military)
dispute and the PLA's allegedly increasing role in
Chinese politics may not hold much water, given the
clear trend toward firm civilian control of the military
in the reform decades from 1978 to the present.
The PLA's
de-politicization under Deng
Xiaoping After the massive military
intervention in politics during the Cultural Revolution
(1966-76), China's political and military elite came to
the consensus that the excessive politicization of the
armed forces should not be repeated; soldiers should be
back in their barracks, and the PLA should focus on
professionalizing, restructuring, training, streamlining
and modernizing. As a result, civilian leadership
regained its authority over the armed forces. Under
former leader Deng Xiaoping, the PLA was essentially
de-politicized, de-factionalized, and pulled out of its
ubiquitous involvement in civilian affairs. Since then,
it has engaged in the longest period of serious
professionalization in its history.
By the late
1980s, the PLA involved itself in quelling student-led
demonstrations. The military was, nonetheless, brought
back into politics, albeit reluctantly, by civilian
leadership. Once normalcy and stability were achieved,
Deng moved quickly to place the PLA under the new CMC
chairman, Jiang Zemin, in November 1989. In the next few
years before finally fading away, Deng would make sure
that Jiang institutionalized his control of the PLA.
Jiang, the PLA's first civilian boss A
technocrat trained in the former Soviet Union, Jiang had
no formal military experience whatsoever. Nor did he
have any institutional backing from the vast central
bureaucracies in Beijing, except for Deng's personal
support. As the PLA's first real civilian leader,
however, Jiang managed to develop an unprecedented
institutionalized authority, which enabled him to assume
all the top offices: CCP general secretary, president of
the state and chairman of the party's CMC.
These
formal titles, however, were not necessarily sufficient
to enable Jiang to command the PLA. During his tenure as
CMC chair, Jiang made a concerted effort to befriend the
PLA, leading to the PLA's eventual acceptance of his
leadership. Perhaps more than any other top leader,
Jiang reached out to cultivate support from the PLA.
Military spending rose steadily in the 1990s. Jiang also
traveled widely and frequently to military units during
holidays and visited troops in remote areas. Even on his
way to and from foreign visits, Jiang lost no
opportunity to send cables from his Chinese Air Force
One to the PLA's border security units on the ground
below. Beyond those high-altitude gestures, Jiang
managed to gain support and loyalty from almost all
sectors of the PLA: from younger officers, for his broad
policy of nurturing a highly educated, well-trained and
professionalized officer core; from the rank-and-file,
for improving soldiers' living conditions; and from
older generals, for being promoted to comfortable
retirement or semi-retirement. Over time, Jiang felt so
confident of his ability to command and control the PLA
that he decided in 1998 to sever the military completely
from any commercial activities - something that Deng was
either unwilling or unable to do.
Jiang is by no
means a Mr Nice Guy for the PLA. He also took major
steps, almost every five years, to reshape the army.
This includes the CMC's decision in April 1992 to
continue streamlining and restructuring the PLA in order
to consolidate its one-million-person cut in the 1980s,
and the September 1997 decision to cut an additional
500,000 personnel in three years. This was followed by a
major overhaul of the PLA's command-and-control,
logistics, and armament mechanism in April 1998, when a
unified general armament department was created
alongside the PLA's general staff, general political,
and general logistics departments. One of Jiang's most
recent efforts to reform the PLA came when he
articulated the historical mission for the PLA's
mechanization and information-based military (xinxi
hua) in the CCP's 16th Congress in November 2002.
In retrospect, Jiang has gone to extraordinary
lengths to institutionalize as well as personalize his
ties with the PLA. Lacking the personal charisma of Mao
Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, Jiang has sought to dominate
almost every policy-making institution.
Implications for Hu Jintao Jiang, the
former paramount leader, may well turn over his command
of the Chinese military in the upcoming plenary session,
just as he yielded his Communist Party chairmanship to
Hu Jintao in late 2002 and the state presidency in March
2003. Or he may choose to fade away over a few more
years. Whatever way Jiang goes, and he eventually will
go, the PLA's future top civilian leader, presumably Hu,
will have to operate against the backdrop of Jiang's PLA
legacies and popularity. This has a number of
implications.
First, Hu himself will have to
nurture his own relationship with the PLA. Simply taking
over the CMC chair from the elderly Jiang doesn't mean
that Hu himself will not have to define the style, scope
and depth of his own ties with the military. In this
sense, the formal CMC title may not be of overriding
importance for Hu. He will need to demonstrate his
commitment to the military.
Second, the process for Hu to assume the PLA's new
civilian leadership already started at least five years
ago, when Hu became a vice chairman of the CMC. Ever
since then, Hu has been part of the team, though still
in Jiang's shadow. Hu's elevation to the No 2 position
in the CMC was more than a procedural and symbolic
promotion, given his deep involvement in the
de-commercialization of the PLA in the late 1990s.
During the early reform period, the PLA rapidly and
significantly expanded its commercial activities and was
engaged in extensive industrial and not necessarily
military-related enterprises.
The military was
also responsible for much of the rising tide of
corruption, tax evasion and smuggling. Several efforts
to reduce the military's commercial activities during
the 1990s yielded few results due to strong resistance
from the military. Once Jiang made the decision to
de-link the PLA from commercial activities, however, Hu
was assigned to do the dirty work of actually separating
the PLA from its lucrative enterprises. This was
guaranteed to be unpopular among PLA officers. The fact
that the PLA went along with these decisions suggests
its initial acceptance of Hu as its future
commander-in-chief.
The
current dual-center of politics in China, with Hu as the
party/state leader and Jiang as the PLA boss may not be
desirable for timely and efficient decision making. The
unfinished leadership transition from Jiang to Hu,
however, is perhaps the most uneventful compared to that
of any of Jiang's predecessors. Jiang began taking over
the PLA at a time of national crisis in 1989 (the
Tiananmen Square massacre took place in June 1989).
Before that, Deng's leadership was established in the
aftermath of China's 10 years of political turmoil.
Deng's comeback began in 1978. To go back further, Mao
Zedong never developed easy ties with the PLA, as he was
in conflict with both of his defense ministers - Peng
Dehuai, in 1959, and Lin Biao, in 1971. It is unlikely
Hu and Jiang have any compelling reason to hurry through
the power transition of the CMC leadership.
Third, it remains to be seen if
the unfinished handover of the CMC chairmanship to Hu
would spill over into other policy areas. Hu and his new
premier and ally Wen Jiabao quickly established
themselves as a kinder and gentler fourth generation of
leaders tilting toward the less fortunate groups in
China. This is in contrast with Jiang's merit-based and
market-driven approach favoring the political, business
and intellectual elites. In early 2003, Hu went so far
as to unveil his own "Three People's Principles" - power
for, sympathy with, and benefit for the people. Jiang's
theory of the "Three Represents" (meaning the CCP
represents the most productive parts of Chinese society)
remains part of Hu's vocabulary. Hu's more
"compassionate" public policy, however, is a timely and
healthy balancing move, as China is fast becoming one of
the most inegalitarian nations in the world after
decades of market reform.
Fourth and finally, it's common sense that
leadership crises in China usually occur in times of
socio-political upheaval. Although China is faced with
tremendous difficulties in its economic and political
reforms, the huge nation has been in the midst of
continuous economic development with no sign of a major
domestic crisis (except for the severe acute respiratory
syndrome, SARS, outbreak in 2002). Jiang and Hu may have
disputes over some specific issues, but perhaps they
have more in common when it comes to maintaining China's
steady and rational economic growth, as well as social
stability.
Political stability and the
gathering Taiwan storm The only possible source
of crisis, therefore, may come from the highly sensitive
and increasingly dangerous issue of Taiwan's
independence, as Taiwan's self-imposed timelines are
fast approaching, regarding the constitutional revision
in 2006 and perhaps bolder moves toward independence
before the end of President Chen Shui-bian's second term
in 2008.
If this is the case, the policies of
Jiang or Hu will largely be driven by the perception of
a sharply deteriorating cross-strait situation in that
Taiwan is fast becoming a grave threat to China's core
national interests. This means that Taiwan is seen as a
break-away province reaching the point of no return; as
a key component of a de facto military alliance against
China, and as a ready platform from which to launch
military strikes on China's vital political, economic
and population centers. In a broader historical
perspective, China's Taiwan policy will be driven not
necessarily by the hawks in the PLA alone, but by a
deluge of Chinese nationalism that has been building
ever since the late 19th century, when Taiwan was ceded
to Japan after the 1894-95 Sino-Japanese War. This is
the case regardless of the nature of the China's
political system: emperor-based, republican, communist,
or democratic.
Given the Taiwan situation as it
is now unfolding, Jiang and Hu may well be more united
in seeking an effective solution-resolution than in
vying for the position of chairman of the CMC. And Jiang
may continue to command the PLA in the near future, as a
storm gathers over the Taiwan Strait.
Yu
Bin is an associate professor of political science,
Wittenberg University, and senior research associate,
Shanghai Institute of American Studies. He is also a
regular contributor to Pacific Forum/CSIC, Comparative
Connections, and co-author of Mao's
Generals Remember Korea (University Press of Kansas,
2001). He can be reached at byu@wittenberg.edu .
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