SUN
WUKONG CCP rediscovers
democracy, at 90 By Wu Zhong, China
Editor
HONG KONG - On July 1, the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) will celebrate its 90th
birthday. For a human being, 90 years is a long
life. In Chinese history, 90 years is the blink of
an eye.
As official preparations go into
full gear, the propaganda machine is busy
glorifying the CCP's "greatness" in leading the
Chinese people to one victory after another. The
main aim is justifying the legitimacy of the CCP's
continuous rule, in hopes that it will continue
for a long time - eternally if possible. But do
past successes justify future legitimacy? In
Chinese history, the answer is no.
The
Middle Kingdom's history of ruling dynasties was
summed up poetically by the 14th century Chinese
writer Luo Guanzhong at
the beginning of his great
historical novel, Romance of Three
Kingdoms: "All under heaven [China], after a
long period of division, tends to unite; after a
long period of union, tends to divide. This has
been so since antiquity."
In essence, this
means a dynasty that rules the whole of the Middle
Kingdom with centralized power will sooner or
later collapse (often because of official
corruption and/or the imperial court's loss of
control on the regions) and be replaced by a new
dynasty that defeated other contenders for "all
under heaven" after a period of separation, chaos
and war.
The founding emperor of the new
dynasty then agonizes over how to escape the fate
of the previous dynasty, so his rule can be passed
onto his offspring, one generation after another
for "10,000 years".
Despite their best
efforts, no dynasty in written Chinese history
ever achieved this, with none lasting longer than
300 years. This gave rise to the ancient Chinese
saying that "One takes turns to become the
emperor, and this year it might be my turn." And
this vicious circle characterized China's entire
2,000-year history of feudal dynasties.
The last dynasty in Chinese history, the
Qing (1644-1911), was overthrown by the 1911
Revolution led by Dr Sun Yat-sen and his
Kuomintang (KMT). The Republic of China (ROC) was
then founded, ending China's history of dynasties
but not seemingly the vicious circle of rule,
overthrow and revolt.
The ROC government
led by Sun's protege Chiang Kai-shek was in 1949
forced to flee the mainland by communist troops
led by Mao Zedong, occupying the island of Taiwan.
Mao then founded the People's Republic of China
(PRC).
Years before successfully seizing
"all under heaven", Mao had pondered hard on how
to avoid the traps of history. In 1944, the
pro-communist writer Guo Moruo wrote an essay
analyzing the tragic ending of Li Zicheng
(1606-1645), a shepherd who led a peasant uprising
to overthrow the Ming Dynasty and rule China
briefly as emperor of a short-lived dynasty - Da
Shun. In Yan'an, the center of the Chinese
communist revolution from 1936 to 1948, Mao
ordered the essay reprinted and distributed to
high-ranking communist cadres, saying "We reprint
Guo's article with the purpose for our comrade to
draw a lesson, so as not to repeat the [Li
Zicheng's] mistake of becoming inflated with pride
after victory."
At about the same time,
when asked by a well-known non-communist scholar
visiting Yan'an whether the communist party would
be able to break the historic "vicious circle",
Mao said "I think we have found the solution. That
is democracy. With democracy, we won't 'follow the
tracks of an overthrown chariot'."
By no
means in Mao's mind did "democracy" mean allowing
the people to choose their government with a "one
person one vote" system. Rather, he planned a
Soviet-style "democracy" with Chinese
characteristics. This was evident in the concept,
"People's Democratic Dictatorship", which was
incorporated into the PRC constitution he drafted.
In a "People's Democratic Dictatorship"
the CCP, as vanguard of the working class and
hence of the people, would hold power. However, at
the same time it would allow friendly political
forces to participate in government - within
limits. Also to avoid major policy mistakes and
corruption, mechanisms would be established within
the party. For this purpose, party members were
free to speak their opinions and choose leaders in
some form of election.
When the PRC was
founded, this "democracy" was more or less put
into practice. There were elections, pre-arranged
or not, within the party. The party also invited
the leaders of non-communist parties and social
dignitaries to take senior posts in the central
government. For this purpose, the Chinese People's
Political Consultative Conference was formed to
act as the parliament.
Unfortunately, it
was Mao himself who betrayed his own beliefs.
Several years after the PRC's founding, there was
increasingly loud criticism of CCP rule. So Mao
launched once political campaign one after another
in the mid-1950s to silence dissenting voices
inside and outside the party, with the Cultural
Revolution (1966-1976) as the climax. In the end,
Mao became a God-king like dictator, practically
abandoning whatever remaining elements of his
concept of "democracy".
Mao could do so
because he was respected as the leader of a
successful revolution. In Chinese tradition, he
who fights "on horseback" to win "all under
heaven" automatically gains unchallengeable
legitimacy to rule. Hence, while his political
campaigns caused many deaths and at least twice
brought China to the edge of bankruptcy, party
officials and people in general remained obedient.
Deng Xiaoping was a veteran general under Mao in
the fight for "all under heaven". As such, his
legitimacy to continue ruling the party and the
country after Mao's death met little challenge.
With his authority, Deng could push forward his
reform and opening up, as well as designate his
successor and the successor of his successor - the
former president Jiang Zemin and current President
Hu Jintao. It may be said that Jiang and Hu
inherited their legitimacy from Deng.
But
it can be said that from Jiang onwards, no CCP
leader has the authority to personally handpick
his successor, because he himself has never fought
"on horseback" and he has not earned, but been
granted, the legitimacy to rule the party and
country. Under such circumstances, he alone is not
entitled to legitimize someone chosen as his
successor. In other words, after Deng, the party
leader can no longer can handpick his successor.
Hu's successor, Xi Jinping, was widely reported to
have been chosen by a collective decision, a
compromise reached by party factions. There
are two kinds of legitimacy: one is needed to rule
the party and another to rule the country. The CCP
as a whole is no doubt concerned with its
legitimacy in continuing to rule the country. But
logically it has to first solve the problem of how
to legitimize someone to rule the party. A new
mechanism had to be established for the selection
of the party leader. The CCP seems to have
rediscovered the solution of Mao's idea of
"democracy".
This issue becomes
increasingly urgent given the fast expansion of
the CCP. According to the party's Central
Organization Department, the party had 80.27
million members by the end of 2010 - or at least
one out of 10 Chinese aged 18 or older. This
certainly helps consolidate CCP rule. Given its
huge size and penetration into all social sectors,
there is no other political force strong enough to
challenge CCP rule of the country. As long as the
the party remains united and adapts to social
change, its rule is unlikely to be challenged from
the outside.
But the challenge may come
from within. The more members of an organization,
the more different voices there are. Many members
are from social elites representing different
interests of various social sectors, each will
fight for the interests they represent. The party
is no longer a group united by a single ideal, but
a collection of people representing different
social sectors.
In short, the CCP now is
the epitome of Chinese society. This determines
that any decision made by the party must be a
result of careful considerations to balance
different interests. This also determines that
party leaders must be acceptable to the majority
of party members. To this point, the introduction
and development of democracy within the party
becomes somewhat inevitable.
Hence, while
the party's propaganda machine is gearing up to
rationalize the party's legitimacy to continue
ruling China, democratization is quietly in
progress inside the party.
Before the
party holds its 18th National Congress next year,
local party organs are holding assemblies to
select new leaders. In the past, delegates to such
party assemblies were mainly appointed by superior
party organs. But this year, in many places, a
certain percentage of deputy position are being
competed for by party members. Moreover, in places
such as Laibing city of Guangzi province, party
chiefs of townships are now being directly elected
by their party members. Jiangsu province is even
experimenting with "restricted democracy" in the
selection of party secretaries for three
municipalities - Wuxi, Nantong and Suqian. In each
city, several candidates will be nominated by the
provincial party committee for the municipal party
assembly to pick up one through election. While
this is not full democracy, it is a big step
toward it compared with the past.
Political analysts in China are closely
watching the process. There is growing optimism of
more "democracy" in the selection of delegates to
the 18th party congress, such as allowing a
certain percentage of delegates to be directly
elected by party members. And in the election of
the new central committee at the 18th congress,
there may be more candidates for the delegates to
choose from.
It seems "bottom-to-up"
democratization inside the CCP is quietly taking
place. Changes would happen at the grassroots then
gradually spread to higher levels, just like the
economic reform and opening up in the past three
decades.
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