One of the most important political and academic questions concerning China today is the durability of its one-party state. Not too long ago, the CCP’s rule was viewed as almost invulnerable. Leading scholars in the West proposed theories to explain the regime’s inner strengths. Some argued that, in the post-Tiananmen era, the CCP had acquired a remarkable degree of adaptability and learned to manage many political challenges effectively. Others insisted that the Chinese people had resigned themselves to authoritarian rule. In the popular media, phrases like the “China Model” and the “Beijing Consensus” were used liberally to construct a seductive narrative of a developmental success story under authoritarian rule.

Of course, there were skeptical voices in the scholarly community about whether the post-Deng Chinese regime had acquired purported resilience. One scholar identified the systemic rot in the regime and proposed the concept of “trapped transition” as a way of understanding the stagnation of the political and economic system beneath a facade of rapid growth and prosperity. Another scholar cast doubts on the competitiveness of China’s state-capitalism and showed, persuasively, that China’s state-dominated economic development model since the 1990s actually performed more poorly in terms of improving the welfare of ordinary people than the more market-based reforms in the 1980s. 

Unfortunately for the progenitors of the theory of “authoritarian resilience” and the “China Model,” perceptions of the strength of the CCP shifted dramatically in 2012. As a result, the Chinese Communist Party’s rule is seen as stagnant and its hold on power is considered increasingly tenuous. David Shaumbaugh, who had argued that the CCP was adaptive and resilient, admitted that political stagnation, not renewal, had gripped the party since 2009. Andrew Nathan, who initially coined the phrase “authoritarian resilience,” was among the first to acknowledge the shift, saying that “the consensus is stronger than at any time since the 1989 Tiananmen crisis that the resilience of the authoritarian regime in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is approaching its limits.” At around the same time, another astute observer of Chinese politics co-authored an article in Washington Quarterly proclaiming the inevitability of the fall of the Chinese Communist Party and the transition to democracy.

As a new generation of leaders headed by Xi Jinping has taken over power in Beijing, the question about the durability of the rule of the CCP is not only theoretically important, but also politically relevant. A consensus view among China-watchers is that Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, has presided over a decade of political stagnation, if not retrogression. Although China maintained double-digit growth during much of Hu’s tenure, economic reform ground to halt, state-capitalism became dominant, and political repression under the euphemistic slogan of weiwen, or stability maintenance, intensified. In the same period, social tensions, fueled by endemic corruption, historic high levels of inequality, environmental degradation, and reduced social mobility, have escalated. The challenge for Xi and his colleagues is whether to stay the course and rely on the same post-Tiananmen strategy – economic growth, social co-optation, and political repression – to maintain the CCP’s rule. Doubtlessly, this strategic choice will be influenced, to a considerable extent, by the assessment of the CCP leadership of the degree of the regime’s resilience or fragility. If the CCP leaders believe that their regime is fundamentally resilient, they will in all likelihood prefer the status quo. If they view their system as growing more fragile, they will face a more difficult choice. One group may advocate a proactive strategy to strengthen the regime while others could oppose such a course on the ground that a more fragile system is likely to collapse when reform is initiated. The surprising popularity of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Old Regime and the French Revolution in 2012 and 2013 was due, in large part, to the debate over whether reforming a regime weakened by illegitimacy and misrule, as in the French case in the late 18th century, would actually accelerate its demise.

The CCP’s preoccupation with the durability of its rule was also reflected directly in an unpublished speech given by Xi to local officials in Guangdong in late 2012. Although Xi invested considerable political capital and public relations skills in branding himself as a neo-Dengist reformer (for example, by picking Shenzhen to visit immediately after his installation in mid-November 2012), he revealed his anxiety about the longevity of the CCP rule by focusing his remarks on the fall of the Soviet Union, an event that occurred more than two decades ago. While Xi’s comments on the cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union (he attributed the Soviet demise to the lack of ideological conviction and political courage of its ruling elites) inadvertently indicated his possible conservative values and thus drew a great deal of attention, the real story of this leaked speech was the inner fears and insecurity of the CCP leadership. If they genuinely believed in the CCP’s durability, why would the Soviet collapse, a distant historical event, continue to haunt them?

Why Does the World Look at China Differently Now?

The deep insecurity of China’s rulers raises an important logical question: what factors lie behind this rapid shift of perception of the strength of the CCP regime. In other words, why did a regime that was thought to be ascending unstoppably suddenly find itself seen as facing an existential crisis within a very short period of time?

The most immediate trigger was the now-infamous Bo Xilai affair. The surprise fall of Bo, an ambitious and risk-taking princeling who had positioned himself as a top contender for a seat on the CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee, was a watershed event in 2012. The incident, besides ending the career of a polarizing political figure, has devastated the image and credibility of the CCP. Among the most damaging political effects of this incident were the confirmation of ruthless power struggle at the top reminiscent of the Maoist era, the revelation of shocking criminality and corruption among high-level officials, and the dysfunction of the post-Deng leadership succession process. Cumulatively, these effects have irretrievably altered the perception of the strength of the CCP regime. The Bo Xilai affair, if anything, has shown that the rot inside the CCP is now so deep and extensive that it is now threatening the regime’s cohesion, capacity, and survival.

Another consequence of the Bo Xilai affair – one that bears on the question of CCP’s prospects – is the elimination of a possible path. Prior to Bo’s political demise, there might be an alternative neo-Maoist model for the CCP to pursue (although the viability of this model had never been tested fully, even in Chongqing, Bo’s personal fiefdom). His fall, ideologically, means the end of the nascent neo-Maoist model. The most notable development at the ideological level in the wake of the Bo Xilai affair is not a fight between the neo-Maoists (who may also be called the New Left) and the liberals, but a public debate between the liberals and the CCP’s conservative ideologues. The focus of this debate is whether China must embrace democratic reforms as a means of fighting corruption and crony-capitalism and reviving economic reform. The return of the democracy course recalls the heady days of the 1980s, when China’s elites openly debated the same issues (in fact, the specific issues and the language used in the current debate on democratic reforms are almost identical to those more than two decades ago). It is also an encouraging development. Although such a debate may ultimately fail to persuade the CCP leadership to adopt any meaningful political reforms, the fact that this debate has been revived suggests that the continuation of the status quo is seen, at least in some elite circles, as undesirable and infeasible. The intellectual recognition of an unsustainable trend usually is the first step toward change.

The second factor responsible for the shift of perception of the CCP’s strength is the continuous slowdown of the Chinese economy. In the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008, the Chinese government impressed the rest of the world with its mammoth stimulus package, which was financed mainly with bank credit. However, a combination of excess capacity caused by overinvestment, persistent economic weakness in China’s main export markets, eroding competitiveness, rapid population ageing, and continuing macroeconomic imbalances contributed to a significant deceleration of the Chinese economy starting in 2010, when China recorded its last double-digit growth. In 2011 and 2012, China’s annual growth rate fell roughly 20 percent (from 10 to 8 percent per annum). While cyclical factors, in particular the weakness of the developed economies, may have played a major role in the Chinese slowdown, the deep pessimism about the Chinese economy that has replaced sunny optimism not too long ago actually originates from other sources.

In terms of institutions and government policy, the Chinese state has shown to be more focused on protecting its privileges and rents. The subsidies given to state-owned enterprises (SOE), high effective taxation rates, administrative barriers to entry against private and foreign firms, and a state-dominated financial system make the Chinese economy highly inefficient. Despite the change of guard in Beijing, the business community remains skeptical whether Xi and his colleagues will be willing or able to change the status quo, which benefits politically powerful interest groups that are well represented inside the CCP regime. Without drastic institutional reforms and policy changes, the well-known obstacles to continuing high growth, such as a dysfunctional fiscal system, inadequate provision of social services, wasteful capital allocation, discrimination against migrants, and lack of innovative capacity, will certainly remain unchanged.

Aside from growth-constraining factors inherent in a statist autocratic regime, structural factors, in particular demographic ageing, environmental degradation, and high inequality, have further dampened optimism about China’s future. To be sure, as a middle-income developing country, China’s growth potential far exceeds that in high-income countries. With improved governance and better policies, such potential can be fully realized despite less favorable structural factors. However, addressing challenges such as environmental degradation and income inequality requires not simply technocratic measures, but also the political empowerment of the social groups currently excluded by the one-party regime from the policy-making process. In light of the CCP’s avowed determination to protect its political monopoly, the political change needed to respond to China’s future economic challenges does not seem to have much of a chance.

Sources of CCP Resilience

In comparative terms, one-party regimes such as the CCP possess far more developed institutions than other authoritarian regimes, such as military juntas, personal dictatorships, or traditional monarchies. The central political institution of such regimes – the monopolistic ruling party – dominates the state (including control of the military and law enforcement), directly performs administrative functions, coordinates actions of the bureaucracy, controls economic policy and critical resources, and penetrates deeply into society. A regime like the CCP also has elaborate and sophisticated rules governing recruitment, promotion, and succession. Even though such rules are often honored in the breach, they nevertheless perform a valuable organizational function in terms of regulating the behavior and setting the expectations of the members of the ruling elites.
In the specific case of the CCP, the regime certainly looks formidable, both on paper and in practice. As of 2011, it has about 83 million members and recruits roughly 2 million new members a year. The CCP membership, as a share of the Chinese population, has risen considerably in recent years. In 1997, its 60 million members represented 4.6 percent of the population. In 2011, the 83 million CCP members accounted for 6.1 percent of the population, a one-third increase over 14 years. This reflects the CCP’s vigorous efforts to expand its ranks, particularly among the well-educated professionals and college students.

The most critical factor contributing to the CCP’s durability in power is, without any doubt, its capacity for repression. To be sure, the CCP has abandoned the use of mass terror and constant political campaigns that were hallmarks of the Maoist era. However, the CCP has continued to maintain a vast apparatus of secret police, anti-riot police, censors, and informers. This apparatus constitutes the most important pillar on which the edifice of the one-party state rests. In the post-Tiananmen period, the CCP has significantly strengthened its repressive capacity and demonstrated repeatedly its ability to suppress any challenges to its power. Without the support of this repressive apparatus, it is difficult to imagine that the CCP will be able to defend its political monopoly.

A second source of regime resilience is the CCP’s capacity for political co-optation. In spite of post-Mao economic reforms, the CCP has managed to maintain its Leninist grip over a large swath of the Chinese economy through SOEs, regulatory regimes, the banking system, and control of the appointments of economic bureaucracies and local officials. The ability to allocate economic rents allows the CCP to operate a huge political patronage system through which it can reward its loyalist with perks and desirable jobs. Such control provides the CCP with the means to co-opt individuals, particularly well-educated ones, into its ranks. The most successful case of such co-optation is the recruitment of college students and college graduates since 1989.

Besides these two principal sources of regime resilience, we may add two additional, though less important, sources of regime resilience: capacity to exploit Chinese nationalism and ability to adopt tactical adaptations in responding to an increasingly demanding public. Since the 1990s, the CCP has been effectively exploiting Chinese nationalism as an alternative legitimating ideology. Through heavy investments in patriotic education, propaganda, and manipulation of cultural and historical symbols, the Chinese government has managed to appeal to nationalist sentiments and portray itself as the defender of China’s national honor in a hostile world. Scholarly research shows that since the 1990s it has acquired more anti-liberal and xenophobic characteristics due to the CCP’s successful campaign. Yet, it may be premature to conclude that Chinese nationalism could substitute communism for the CCP to rally the Chinese people to support its self-perpetuation in power. What is unknown regarding the potency of Chinese nationalism as a legitimating ideology for the CCP is whether its appeals to nationalism are powerful enough to divert domestic attention from its policy failings (such as corruption, environmental degradation, and inequality) and how the party can avoid the counterproductive effects of resurgent Chinese nationalism, such as high tensions with the West (which China relies on as export markets) and possible openings for political opposition to use nationalism as a cover to engage in anti-regime activities.

The argument advanced by proponents of authoritarian resilience may be wrong in some crucial aspects – such as their claims regarding the succession mechanism, meritocracy in the party, and tolerance of political and social pluralism – but is right in one aspect: the party’s ability to adapt its tactics. The CCP prides itself as a learning organization. However, most of the lessons learned by the CCP from the more recent experience of the fall of one-party regimes (in particular, the fall of the Soviet Union) are tactical in nature. If anything, Chinese leaders seem to have missed the fundamental lesson from the fall of the Soviet Union and the democratic transitions in other authoritarian regimes: a forward-looking regime can save itself by engaging in political reform sooner rather than later. Based on official speeches and propaganda materials, it is clear that the Chinese ruling elites since Tiananmen have learned the opposite strategic lesson. They viewed any form of political reform as regime suicide. Although the CCP may not be capable of learning at the strategic level, it is capable of adapting at the tactical level. In the post-Tiananmen era, the CCP has acquired relatively effective tactics in addressing its challenges. For instance, while continuing to suppress both political demands from ordinary citizens and organized opposition, it has learned to selectively respond to non-political complaints from individuals. By using a mixture of tactics (such as punishing a small number of local officials to placate the public and compensating individuals for their economic losses), the Chinese government has managed to preserve its image as a competent and effective government. Improvement in the CCP’s tactical adaptability also extends to its use of repression in maintaining power. In the post-Tiananmen era, abundant economic resources and organizational learning have enabled the Chinese government to raise the sophistication of its repressive tactics in the areas of intelligence gathering, surveillance, censorship, and crowd control.

In summary, the foregoing discussion suggests that the CCP remains a formidable one-party regime determined to maintain its political monopoly. Its capacity for repression rivals, if not exceeds, that of the former Soviet Union. Its use of co-optation has been effective in recruiting millions of social elites. Its appeal to Chinese nationalism, although not always effective, provides a considerable source of political legitimation for its rule. Its tactical adaptability has further increased its ability to respond to public demands through targeted repression and selective concessions.

Causes of Regime Decay

Juxtaposed against the CCP’s impressive array of strengths is a long list of the causes of regime fragility. In this section, we analyze, at the theoretical level, the systemic causes of regime decay in a one-party state.

Internally, a one-party state decays because of corruption, loss of ideological convictions, and competition for power in the absence of rules. As a phenomenon, corruption is an inherent feature of authoritarian regimes because of the lack of constraints on the use of power, absence of a free press and civil society, and the weakness of the rule of law. The CCP is no exception. Many, if not most, of its members view their positions inside the regime as avenues to private perks and riches. They behave no differently from investors in the sense that they expect to receive real and substantial returns from the time and efforts they have devoted to rising through the CCP’s hierarchy – a process that is competitive, unpredictable, highly risky, and often demanding an unusual degree of obsequiousness. Once these “political investors” gain positions of power that can yield lucrative economic returns, it is only rational for them to convert their power into private gains, provided that they exercise enough caution not to get caught (because the CCP has its corporate interest to keep its agents from stealing too much on their own).

The loss of ideological beliefs since the end of Maoism in China has further weakened the CCP’s ability to motivate and discipline its members, thus contributing to an escalation of corruption. Lacking an alternative ideology or a set of core values capable of rallying its members to the CCP’s own cause (which is permanent regime survival), the party has to resort to material incentives and patronage to maintain the loyalty of its followers. Corruption is built into the operating code of the system. Unfortunately for the CCP, although its members personally benefit from the regime’s provision of privileges and rents, they do not share in the regime’s long-term corporate interest – perpetuation in power. For members of the CCP, bereft of ideology, the party’s long-term survival means very little to them. Of their utmost concern is how to acquire as much power as possible and use such power for personal gains. This dynamic, made possible by human rationality in a fixed institutional setting, ensures that the loyalty of the CCP members to the party is superficial and unreliable.

The potential lucrative gains from positions of power within the CCP hierarchy make such appointments extremely desirable and competitive. Even though the CCP has undertaken several measures, such as mandatory retirement and term limits, to regulate power struggle within the regime, competition for these positions, particularly the most senior posts in the party, remains intense and highly dependent on personal patronage, not merits. As demonstrated in the Bo Xilai case and many other instances of corruption in the personnel appointment process (such as the widespread practice of paying a huge bribe to secure an appointment), struggle for power within the CCP in the post-Tiananmen era is waged fiercely behind a facade of organizational rules and procedures. To the extent that winners of such struggle owe their victories to their patrons, not their capabilities, we can safely assume that the process must create sore losers and, furthermore, the winners will unlikely enjoy the authority and respect of their colleagues (most of them must have gained their positions through similar means). Internal cohesion, defined in terms of shared goals and norms, is unlikely to be high in such regimes.

Erosion of internal cohesion of a one-party state may not threaten the survival of a one-party state in the absence of another cause of regime decay – the predatory nature of such regimes and the consequent intensification of tensions between the ruling elites and the majority of the people victimized by the predatory behavior of the ruling elites. As explained above, ruling elites in authoritarian regimes extract lucrative returns from the power they have acquired in the state. Such extractive activities are exclusive in the sense that only those granted with power by autocratic regimes – a relatively small minority – are allowed to engage in these activities. The economic consequences of extractive activities are hugely beneficial to the perpetrators, but the political consequences are dire for the autocratic regimes. Such activities are sure to alienate the majority of the people, who are embittered by the privileges enjoyed by the ruling elites and the resultant inequality. These activities also directly harm the economic welfare of ordinary individuals (by dispossessing their property and underproviding social services), thus creating tensions between society and the ruling elites. Finally, predation of the ruling elites undermines sustainable economic growth due to looting and insufficient delivery of social goods. The resulting poor economic performance will help delegitimize the ruling elites and endanger their survival.

In terms of the empirical manifestations regime decay, there is evidence to support the validity of the above analysis. For instance, corruption, especially collusive corruption among officials, has become endemic in the current Chinese system. Loss of ideological convictions is similarly widespread, as shown by the lack of interest by members of the ruling elites in Marxist doctrines and their fascination with superstitious practices and symbols. Press revelations of CCP members bribing their superiors in exchange for appointments indicate the breakdown of meritocracy and the dominance of patronage. Growing social unrest and frustrations can be taken as a measure of the alienation between the CCP and the Chinese people.

A Test of Two Theories

Of paramount concern to China-watchers is whether the new CCP leadership headed by Xi Jinping can maintain the CCP’s resilience and contain the forces of regime decay – without resorting to democratizing political reforms. Based on the performance of the new leadership in its first six months in office, the evidence suggests that this leadership prefers the status quo to radical change, even though it is aware of the threats to its survival and the crisis of confidence. The coming decade in China is thus likely to provide a litmus test of the two competing theories of authoritarian resilience and authoritarian decay. If the theory of authoritarian resilience is a valid one, the CCP’s efforts to preserve one-party rule will be successful. We can expect the party to continue to tap into the sources of its resilience and contain the threats to its rule. On the other hand, if the theory of authoritarian decay proves to be more robust, we must contemplate the real possibility of a regime change since a decaying one-party state is far more likely to experience a rapid collapse of authority and political support. Unlike other scholar debates, the one highlighted in this special issue actually has profound political implications in the real world. The validity of the two competing theories can be tested by applying them to the actual changes that will occur in China in the coming decade.

Contributions to the Special Issue

In order to broaden and deepen the debate, we have assembled in this special issue a roundtable discussion of some of the leading scholars on contemporary China and a collection of essays that explore various aspects of authoritarian resilience and decay.

In the roundtable discussion featuring some of the leading social scientists in the China field today, there was both consensus and divergence on the resilience of the CCP regime. What nearly all the participants agree on is the necessity and urgency of systemic change since the status quo cannot be sustained. Zhao Dingxin observes that the CCP’s very strategy of relying on economic performance to maintain legitimacy is responsible for sowing the seeds of its own destruction. Economic growth produced under China’s crony-capitalist model has led to high levels of corruption and inequality. People in a society that has acquired an unprecedented amount of knowledge through education and modern communications inevitably raise their expectations and develop a greater sense of rights consciousness. In this context, social frustrations are driven by a rising sense of relative deprivation, with the ruling elites as the ultimate target. Unfortunately for the CCP, it is fighting an unwinnable war. Efforts to address social problems through more government spending and social services, as was attempted during the administration of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, only spurred the growth of populism and created a new source of political challenge. Depending on performance for legitimacy, as Zhao points out, is ultimately futile because the CCP loses credibility if it fails to deliver the promised performance or, worse still, it will face ever-rising demands for better performance from the people. Thus, crisis of legitimacy is built into the one-party state itself.

Zhou Xueguang notes that China’s current governance system is barely capable of coping with the rising social tensions and conflict and is no longer suitable for a Chinese society that has experienced so much development and growth. The status quo is likely to deteriorate further as urbanization accelerates and the ossification of the Chinese bureaucratic structure deepens. The irony lies in the CCP’s attempts to portray itself as an omnipotent regime. Such attempts have only succeeded in directing all the social frustrations and conflicts to the CCP. However, even though this disequilibrium is unlikely to endure for long, Zhou warns us, the future of Chinese society remains highly uncertain. One disturbing cause for concern is that authoritarian governance retains enormous appeal in Chinese society.

Wu Guoguang directs our attention to the diminishing returns of the CCP’s flexibility. The CCP, as Wu reminds us, has been a flexible and opportunity ruling party capable of abandoning its core ideology and adopting any conceivable tactics to ensure its survival. Such flexibility and opportunism have contributed to its resilience since 1989. However, there is a bottom line to such flexibility. Wu aptly characterizes it as “flexibility on the margins.” Unfortunately, even such flexibility is becoming more rigid. One reason is the entrenchment of interest groups in the party that oppose any reform that threaten their privileges. A more important reason is that the CCP perhaps has exhausted its “flexibility on the margins,” and any meaningful attempts to inject more flexibility into the existing system will touch the regime’s bottomline – its political survival. The ultimate fragility of the CCP rule, as Wu’s analysis shows, is the limits imposed by the party’s imperative of “survival at all cost” on its strategy.
Yu Jianrong offers a slightly different analysis of the status quo. While recognizing mounting social tensions in China, Yu cautions that the center of gravity remains in the middle – the majority of the people in Chinese society continue to hope for a peaceful transition, not a revolutionary upheaval. Furthermore, most members of the ruling elites, Yu observes, continue to have faith in the durability of the status quo and in its gradual improvement. Radicalism does exist in Chinese society, but is confined to a small number of intellectuals who lack the ideas and skills for mobilizing the broader social forces. The CCP’s resilience, in other words, should not be discounted.

One issue that has received an increasing amount of attention is the relationship between Chinese nationalism and the CCP’s survival. Conventional wisdom often argues that the CCP can utilize Chinese nationalism to bolster its legitimacy and counter pressures for democratization. Zhao Shuisheng, who has written extensively on Chinese nationalism, cautions that Chinese nationalism is a complex phenomenon. For the CCP, it is a double-edged sword. Although Chinese nationalism may, at some level, strengthen the CCP’s mass appeal, nationalism has its own political dynamic that, once unleashed, could threaten the CCP’s hold on power. One risk is populism inspired by nationalism; another is the potential for nationalism to be channeled into an anti-authoritarian mass movement.

Ding Xueliang echoes Zhao’s analysis. He does not see Chinese nationalism per se as an anti-democratic force. Instead, he identifies the expressions of nationalism and the ways in which nationalism is expressed in China as an obstacle to democracy. Chinese nationalism can become a pro-democracy force if there is more freedom of expression, which will allow the flourishing of a more pluralist and civic form of nationalism.

Without a doubt, the durability of the CCP rule critically depends on the future trajectory of the Chinese economy. Zhang Wei ‘s analysis shows that the CCP faces very difficult challenges in trying to sustain high growth in the coming decades. Many favorable factors that allowed the Chinese economy to grow at double digits no longer exist. One such factor – access to external markets – has turned negative as the West, China’s main export market, is trapped in economic stagnation. Rising labor costs have further eroded Chinese competitiveness. Demographic ageing, environmental degradation, and rising social conflict will all drag down China’s growth rates. But the most important bottleneck constraining China’s future growth, Zhang points out, is a political system that has lagged behind China’s economic and social progress.

This theme – the constraints placed on economic performance by lagging institutions – is also taken up by two essays in this special edition. Li Shaomin’s essay analyzes the inherent limits of a relationship-based governance system in economic development. Despite three decades of reform, the Chinese governance system continues to be dominated by personal relationships, not rules. Such a system may be more efficient in small-scale economies and tiny markets because transaction costs based on personal ties in such markets (transactions among people known to each other) are very low. However, as markets and economies of scale expand, transaction costs can become exorbitant if governance is not transformed from one based on personal relationships to one based on (impersonal) rules. Many of China’s current socioeconomic problems, such as corruption, inequality, and widespread opportunistic behavior, according to this perspective, can be traced to the dominance of personal relationships in the Chinese political economy and the lack of enforceable rules. If this relationship-based governance system persists, China will not be able to lower the transaction costs and advance to a more efficient and productive economy. However, reforming this system requires, first and foremost, political changes that will establish a neutral state and an independent legal system – changes that will unlikely to be embraced by the CCP, which cares about preserving its political monopoly above all other goals. The implication of Li’s argument is dire for the future of the CCP. Its overriding goal of self-preservation has a paradoxical effect. Its survival imperative will lead the party to oppose reforms that will be essential in delivering future economic prosperity, thus ensuring its eventual demise.

Ye Min’s paper, among the first to explore Chinese outbound direct investments, offers a glimpse of the limits of state capitalism. One popular misconception about the Chinese political economy is that giant Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are gaining dominant positions in many industrial sectors around the world due to their aggressive expansion strategies (funded by a state with abundant capital). However, Ye’s research shows that the actual result is quite different. While pre-2000 Chinese overseas investments followed mostly market principles, post-2000 Chinese overseas investments violated them. In the post-2000 period, most Chinese SOEs overseas investments were concentrated in resource acquisition, an activity unlikely to raise their innovation or competitiveness. Moreover, the bulk of post-2000 investments were financed by state-owned Chinese banks. By comparison, most of the pre-2000 outbound investments were financed by international sources. This contrast suggests that most post-2000 outbound investments are likely to be too risky or too costly for market-based financing to support. A final finding of Ye’s paper supports the overall impression of guojin mintui (the state advances; the private sector retreats) during the Hu Jintao era. Since 2000, Chinese private firms have faced more onerous regulatory hurdles in gaining approval for their overseas investments while SOEs have enjoyed subsidized capital and generous political support from the government. The implication of Ye’s finding is relevant to our concern about the durability of the status quo. To the extent that the “go out” policy, which the Chinese government has adopted, is a key component of a strategy to sustain China’s economic growth, this policy seems doomed to failure.

If the economic forecast is not so encouraging for the prospect of the CCP’s durability in power, the political implications drawn from the three contributions to this special issue are more mixed. Fang Qiang’s paper on the use of administrative litigation as a means for resolving state-society conflict shows the limits of institutional reform in a one-party state. Because the legal system is subordinate to the party-state, resorting to administrative litigation to address abuses of power and miscarriage of justice by local officials in China seldom yields desired judicial relief. This finding must be disheartening to those who have advocated that legal reform could enable the CCP to transform itself from a totalitarian party into an authoritarian party subject to some form of formal legal constraints. Fang’s paper provides another data point that the CCP’s resilience may be overstated.

The paper by Lucian Hsu and Bruce Chen on the use of the state subversion law in China offers a valuable analysis on how the CCP has learned to strengthen its repressive capacity through this particular legal device. Their finding suggests that the state subversion law has become a key instrument in the CCP’s toolkit and is widely applied to dealing with dissent. The most important empirical finding of the paper is that about half of those charged under this law are Tibetans and Ughirs. Such evidence is thought-provoking since the issue of ethnic conflict and its impact on overall political stability in China has been underexplored.

However, those who expect the CCP regime to collapse soon must find Xie Yue’s paper sobering. By examining the red-hot issue of collective protest, Xie finds that the CCP retains effective capacity to prevent small-scale social conflict from mushrooming into regime-threatening crisis. Although the number of protests has soared and received enormous attention in the press and the scholarly community, Xie’s research shows that such protests hardly constitute a lethal threat to the CCP’s rule. For one thing, the CCP has learned to deal with such protests with skill and discrimination. The variety of the tools employed by the CCP in containing social unrest seems to be working. On the other hand, social protests are exclusively driven by individual or small group concerns and interests that can be met by economic compensations from the state. Politically driven protests are rare, if not non-existent.

Keep Watching

As expected, this special issue on China’s political order will raise more questions than provide answers. The wide range of perspectives and findings in this issue should make us think more seriously about assessing the status quo in China and forecasting its future. Whatever perspective we are inclined to agree with, however, we must base our judgments and conclusions on facts and evidence, not our ideological biases. Fortunately, we do not have to wait indefinitely to see whether the resilience perspective or the decay perspective is right. Most knowledgeable observers seem to agree on one thing: the coming decade will be a very difficult and challenging period for the CCP. For scholars, this will be a perfect period to test our theories. So stay tuned.