China reforms target internal
security By Peter Mattis
At the conclusion of the 18th Party
Congress on November 15, the announcement of
China's new leadership offered few glimpses of the
possibility of reform in the next five years. The
one area, however, where reform is evident appears
to be the one part of the Chinese system most
resistant to change.
The reduction of the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo Standing
Committee from nine members to seven members
pushed the internal security portfolio, now held
by Meng Jianzhu, back down to the Politburo,
ostensibly reducing the power and influence of the
secretary of the Central Political-Legal
Committee. Elsewhere, Beijing issued a
judicial reform white paper that suggested a
reduced role for the party in determining how
Chinese citizens are
processed. While all signs point to a conservative
CCP leadership, there is at least one area where
some reform may be in the offing.
The
controversy surrounding former Political-Legal
Committee secretary Zhou Yongkang and his
relationship with the ousted Bo Xilai is difficult
to parse to evaluate whether Zhou's supposedly
out-of-control power is the cause of these
reforms.
For example, journalists reported
Zhou had disappeared in March indicating he may
follow Bo into CCP purgatory. Yet, during that
month, Zhou appeared more than he had in the
previous three months combined. Moreover, it is
difficult to read much in Zhou's bland, perhaps
obligatory, paeans of Bo's "Strike the Black"
(dahei) campaigns. The brevity of national
media assessments versus those of Chongqing's
outlets suggests Bo's efforts to play up Zhou's
support for his own purposes. If Zhou's outsized
authority were all that were at stake, then the
limits of political-legal reform should be easy to
spot and easier for the CCP to finish: the
replacement of Zhou Yongkang, which did proceed on
schedule.
Although the demotion of the
Central Political-Legal Committee secretary to the
Politburo is a definite sign of change, there are
still a number of lingering questions about the
extent to which the party may restructure the
political-legal apparatus.
Under now-CCP
General Secretary Xi Jinping's leadership, the
Central Party School published a series of
articles over the summer examining contradictions
in the social management and internal security
apparatus, signaling future changes to the
political-legal system. One of the central
contentions was that the dominance of the Central
Political-Legal Committee meant that the police
approach overrode the softer elements of social
management. If the Central Party School's
assessments hold true and the CCP sees the problem
as more fundamental than just one personality,
then observers should keep their eyes peeled for
other signs of change.
First, during the
2000s, the CCP created the Office of Preserving
Stability to execute the directives of the
Preserving Stability Leading Small Group. At each
level - national, provincial and local - the
office brings together public security, state
security and procuratorate elements outside the
state structure and under the party. This is not
unlike the 610 Office system created to pursue the
Falun Gong. The question is who will take over
this apparatus and whether it will continue to
exist under the leadership of the Political-Legal
Committee secretary - the massive internal
security budget (roughly US$110 billion) may be
too much for a mere Politburo member.
Second, the latest rumors of reform in
China's ministerial structure surprisingly
included a change to the management of the
Ministry of State Security (MSS) - the civilian
internal and external intelligence service -
placing it entirely under the State Council.
Moving the MSS away from the
Political-Legal Committee structure will further
weaken Meng Jianzhu and his successors, but it
could offer opportunities for the MSS to focus on
foreign intelligence and counterintelligence
concerns rather than competing directly within the
same administrative system with the politically
more-powerful Ministry of Public Security (MPS).
Although a seemingly innocuous change, it could
have a significant effect on the evolution of
China's intelligence apparatus. Third,
looking ahead to the National People's Congress
meeting in March when ministerial posts are
assigned and Meng Jianzhu is replaced as the
minister of public security, who will replace him
and what will the MPS front office look like?
Meng, like his recent predecessors, was,
first, a political heavyweight before going to the
MPS. Real reform of internal security would entail
the de-politicization of senior MPS positions -
many MPS vice ministers also have prior non-police
careers - reducing the ministry's relevance as a
factional prize and tool.
This may sound
idealistic, but this approach appears to have
isolated the MSS successfully from politics apart
from exceptional circumstances as it was intended.
Moreover, it is worth noting Bo Xilai relied on
Wang Lijun, a public security official, for his
dirty work rather than state security, and it was
an MSS vice minister who escorted Wang back to
Beijing.
Some of these questions will
resolve themselves in the weeks and months ahead;
however, others, like the evolution of the
internal security ministries and their associated
party offices, will continue to be important long
after the personnel changes at the National
People's Congress in March.
Peter
Mattis is editor of China Brief at The
Jamestown Foundation.
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