Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
Incremental Political Reform and Transition toward Democracy
He Zengke
Executive Director, Prof. & Dr.
China Center for Comparative Politics & Economics
Abstract: Just like the economic reform, Chinese political reform is
also a kind of incremental reform. China is in the period of political
transition through political reform from totalism to authoritarianism and
finally to democratic political system. Study on reform politics is very
needed in this period. Reform politics should put its focus on the
following grand issues: strategies and tactics of political reform, its
motivation mechanism, historical periods and its future. This article will
explore these issues.
Key words:
reform politics, mixed democracy, incremental
political reform, dual track political system.
There are two ways to realize political development, one way is political reform,
and another way is political reform. Since reform and open up to the outside world,
Chinese democratic political development has move forward along the way of
incremental political reform and had made significant achievements. After more than
20 years of incremental political reform, Chinese political system has transformed
from highly centralized and overall controlled totalism① to post totalism political
system. This kind of post totalism political system is a kind of mixed political system,
which combined both the characters of authoritarianism and democratic system, and
Prof. Tang Tsou, Department of Political Science in Chicago University, put forward the argument that 20 th
century Chinese Politics is belong to ‘totalism’ when he gave a speech in the ceremony of accepting an invitation
to be the honorary professor of Peking University. He said that the concept of totalism is different from the term of
‘totalitarianism’ that adopted by some theorists in 1930s China or in current Western circles. It refers to a kind of
guiding thought, that is, the power of political institutions could invade and control every stratum and every sector
at any time and without any constraints. ‘Totalism Politics’ is a kind of political society based on this kind of
guiding thought.
①
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
thus is called neo-authoritarianism political system.① Owing to it, study on transition
politics or reform politics become very urgent. Reform politics should focus on the
ideal model and goals of political reform, its path, motivation mechanism, historical
evolution and its future.
Ⅰ．The Ideal Model of Chinese Political Reform: Mixed Democracy
Regarding the concrete model of Chinese political reform, some scholars have
thought them in depth and put forward a lot of ideal models which are very insightful.
One model is the political system under the rule of law with consultations. Pan Wei
pointed out that, ‘there are two choices for the direction of political reform, one
choice is democratization, and another one is the rule of law. There are no countries
that could realize these two goals at the same time; they can only be achieved in
different sequences. Though democracy could be compatible with the rule of law, the
two processes of democratization and the rule of law never took place together, since
they can not be compatible due to the different direction of operations. …… Political
reform around the direction of the rule of law and modern civil servants system
adapt to Chinese characters better.’②He cries up heavily Hong Kong and Singapore’s
model of political system which are belongs to the Chinese society, and he named this
model as ‘the political system of the rule of law without democracy’. He thought that
future direction of Chinese political reform is to establish a political system of rule of
law combined with consultation, which should include five pillars of institutional
arrangements: the neutral civil servants system, independent judicial system,
independent anti-corruption institutions, far-ranging social consultation system
encircling national and provincial People’s Congresses, the freedoms of speech, press,
assembly and associations protected fully by the laws. He summed up five features of
this model as following: 1) Emphasis the rule of law and deny the rule of people; 2)
Emphasis the fairness of the laws, and thus appreciate especially the principle of
‘every one is equal before the laws’ ; 3) Emphasis the significance of enforcing laws
strictly, make it difficult to pass a law consciously; 4) Emphasis to confine the scope
and functions of government, to build the limited government, to safeguard the liberty
of social and economic life, and thus to encourage the creativity of the whole nation; 5)
Emphasis to pursuit the order and liberty that suit the Chinese traditions. ③
Second one is the model of cooperation state. Kang Xiaoguang brought forward the
idea of building co-operation state model. He pointed out that, the basic formula of
cooperation state is: authoritarianism politics + liberal market economy + corporatism
+ welfare state. As a kind of modern power-sharing system among different classes,
corporatism state pursues the following four fundamental principles: the principle of
autonomy, the principle of cooperation, the principle of checks and balance, and the
①
Xiao Gongqin is a major advocator of neo-authoritarianism. He believes that neo-authoritarianism is an essential
transitional period from totalism to democratic political system. He pointed out that, neo-authoritarianism has its
positive roles in pushing forward the development of market economy and economic liberalization, and at the
same time, it adapts to the new demands of the limited pluralism from the society.
②
Pan Wei, The Rule of Law and Chinese Future Political System, Journal of Strategy and Management, No. 5,
1999.
③
Pan Wei, The Blind Worship on Democracy and the Direction of Chinese Political Reform, cited from the
website of Chinese thoughts and cultures: http://www.6000year.com/readartile.asp?t_id=64331&classid=
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
principle of share. The first principle of the cooperation state is autonomy for both
power, capital, knowledge and labor. The so-called power autonomy refers to carry
out the authoritarianism politics. The ruling group outmatches all the social classes,
these group is only responsible for themselves subjectively, but it is accountable to all
people and the whole state from the point of view of objective outcome. The most
members of bureaucrats come from intellectual class, and examination system bridges
the intellectual class and the ruling class. The so-called ‘capital autonomy’ is the
market economy plus the rule of law, that is, to build the capital autonomy via by the
market mechanism and the rule of law encircling the protection of private properties.
The principle of knowledge is the freedom of speech, press and academy. The
so-called principle of labor autonomy is to organize the functionary associations
which have the monopoly representation privileges, and workers could take part in
politics through these associations. The purpose of ‘autonomy’ is to realize the
effective cooperation. The cooperative political model is the system of multi-parties
consultations or negotiations, in this system social members join into the functionary
associations based on their labor divisions, and the public policies are jointly made by
these associations and governments. Government chairs the classes’ negotiation in a
neutral way, and social conflicts are resolved through negotiations. The
implementation of the authoritarianism politics could confine the control of the
wealthy on power to some extent, and to checks and balance the arbitrary power of
the capital. The core content of the principle of share is to share in a fair way the
wealth and opportunities, to restrict the economic power of the capital through
building welfare state, to restraint the political power of the capital through
authoritarianism and corporatism, and to safeguarding the basic rights of the
disadvantaged groups. Cooperation state theory wishes to promote the compromise
and equilibrium between liberty and equality. ①
The third one is the theory of building democratic state institutions. Wang
Shaoguang and Hu Angang believe that, Chinese political transition should focus on
strengthening and improving the public authorities and make it democratization rather
than blindly abolish or constraint the public authorities. In other words, the focus
should be to make the existing state institutions democratization and
institutionalization and standardization, to enhance vigorously the weakness part of
the state institutions, and to build a government with strong capacity of good
governance. Building fundamental state institutions should surround the following
eight state capacities, which include: the capacity of safeguarding state security and
public order (coerce capacity); the capacity of mobilizing and dispatching social
resources (collect capacity); the capacity of fostering and consolidating national
identity (legitimatize capacity); the capacity of maintaining economic and social
orders (regulatory capacity); the capacity of retaining the control, supervision and
coordination within state institutions(leadership capacity); the capacity of vindicating
distributive justice ( redistribution capacity); the capacity of bringing the demand of
①
Kang Xiaoguang, On the Cooperative State, origin from Journal of Strategy and Management, No. 5, 2003, cited
from the website of Chinese thoughts and cultures:
http://www.6000year.com/readartile.asp?t_id=66096&classid=2
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
citizens participation into the channel of official institutions (admit capacity); the
capacity of coordinating different interests and formalizing public policies (integrate
ion capacity). The breakthrough point of building basic state institutions should be to
adjust the relationship, to establish the modern public finance system, to enlarge the
channels of citizen’s political participations, and at the same time to strengthen party
building. In a simple word, China needs to implement the second generation reform
strategy, that is, to push forward actively the basic state institutions. ①
The fourth one is the theory of incremental democracy. Yu Keping raises the view
of incremental democracy of political reform. It includes several major points: first
point is to emphasis the democratic procedures and to realize the procedural
democracy; second point is to appreciate the role of civil society organizations and
citizens in building socialist democracy; third point is to cry up the rule of law, put
the ruling party under the rule of law; fourth point is to push forward the inner party
democracy and grassroots democracy as breakthrough point; fifth point is to let the
ruling party and government play a leading role in building democracy. ②
The fifth one is the theory of rule of law with democracy. Wang Guixiu thought that,
the fundamental malpractice of the old system is ‘over-centralization of power’,
which manifests as ‘over-centralization of power into the hand of party committee’,
‘over-centralization of power into the national government’, and ‘over-centralization
of power into the senior officials’. Political reform needs to reform this kind of
political system, to build ‘a kind of system of rule of law with democracy. ’③
These five views on political reform have different emphases. The theory of
political system of rule of law with consultancy stresses the priority of the process of
rule of law. The view of corporatism state stresses the cooperation and negotiation
between authoritarianism state and functionary associations. The theory of building
democratic state institutions stresses the fundamental role of building state capacity.
The theory of incremental democracy stresses the irreplaceable role of both civil
society and state in building democracy. The view of political system of rule of law
with democracy stresses to realize inner party democracy in order to solve the
problem of over-centralization of power into the hand of senior officials. But all of
them have some common elements. First, all of them highly appreciate the rule of law,
put it as the first and most important goal of political reform. Second, all of them
thought that their political reform plan could be accept by various parties, and thus is
easy to realize the transition smoothly between the new and the old political system
and would not cause big social shock. Due to it, their plans are feasible and could put
into operation. Finally, all of them are very cautious on electoral democracy especially
general elections nationwide. Some scholars such as Pan Wei and Kang Xiaoguang e
even oppose the electoral democracy firmly. The theory of ‘political system of rule of
law with consultancy’ views the democratization and the move forward toward rule of
law as two processes that could not be compatible and even fight off each other. It is
not only contradict with the reality of parallel development of grassroots democracy
①
Wang Shaoguang, Hu Angang, Zhou Jianming, Second Generation of Reform Strategy: Pushing forward
actively the state institutions building, Journal of Strategy and Management, No. 2, 2003, pp. 90-95.
②
Yu Keping, 2006, Democracy and Top, Peking University Press, pp.318-321.
③
Wang Guixiu, On the Breakthrough Point of Political Reform, Journal of Scientific Socialism, No.1, 2002, p.4.
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
and building the state of rule of law, but also hard to get support from various social
groups due to it does consciously spurn democracy. In addition, when they oppose
democracy in general, the theory of political system of rule of law with consultancy
has included some basic elements of liberal democracy and deliberative democracy
such as independent judicial system, social consultancy system, the freedoms of
speech, press, assembly and associations under the legal protection into its model as
major institutional pillars. Therefore, their theory exists inner contradictions. The
theory of corporatism state views authoritarianism state as a kind of permanent
political system, while international and domestic academia intend to see
authoritarianism politics as a kind of periodical and transitional political system, its
destination is democratic political system. The theory of building democratic state
institutions stresses the priority of building state capacities and has the tendency of
state-center, and thus pays less attention on the idea of democratic governance such as
the capacity building of civil society and deliberation and partnership between civil
society and state. The theory of incremental democracy pays less attention on
deliberative democracy. The theory of political system of rule of law with democracy
stresses inner party democracy and thus pay little attention on social democracy
especially grassroots democracy.
All of these five theories have their merits and we could draw lessons from them.
Based on the above theory, I would like to put forward my view on political reform,
that is, to build the compound democratic political system under the guide of liberal
socialism. Liberal socialism advocates the political idea of liberty first compound with
social justice, which is a kind of political value system that could compatible with
socialist market economic system. Compound democratic political system is a kind of
political institutional arrangement that manifests the political idea of liberal socialism.
It is a kind of political system that composed of electoral democracy, liberal
democracy and deliberative democracy. The so-called electoral democracy refers to
that leaders at various levels are elected through general, free and competitive
elections. The electoral democracy is the major element of procedural democracy, and
it is also the institutional guarantee of building political accountability. The liberal
democracy includes such elements as constitutional democracy, rule of law, the
limited government, independent judicial system, checks and balance of power;
freedom of press, its core is to push forward the transition toward rule of law. The
liberal democracy is institutional guarantee of political freedoms and rights of citizens
and of the development of civil society. Deliberative democracy is an important form
of democracy, which makes the deliberative policy-making process between
functionary associations and state institutionalization through a lot of channels such as
elite’s recruitment, policy consultation, public hearings, media discussions, and public
deliberation. Its purpose is to maintain social justice and hear the voice of the
disadvantage groups in the compulsory distribution process of social values. The path
toward building the compound democratic political system is to combine the way of
bottom up of pushing forward electoral democracy, the way of top-down process to
advance the rule of law, and the way of breakthrough from the middle levels of
deliberative democracy and extend to grassroots level and higher levels. The theory of
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
the compound democracy draws the idea of democratic governance, which pointed
out that, the direction of political reform should be to deepen democracy, advance the
rule of law, safeguard the human rights, raise the government efficiency, and promote
clean government. It not only pays attention on state capacity buildings, but also pays
attention on civil society capacity building. It not only emphasis the democratization,
but also emphasis the rule of law. It not only stresses the political freedom, but also
stresses the social justice; it not only stresses inner party democracy, but also stresses
the social democracy. It not only emphasis political reform, but also emphasis the
smooth transition from the old system to the new system and their link up. Therefore,
the compound democratic political system is a kind of desirable and feasible political
choice.
Ⅱ. The Preference Path of Chinese Political Reform:
Incremental Political Reform
Chinese economic reform is a kind of incremental reform. Meanwhile, Chinese
political reform is also a kind of incremental reform. In recent years, international and
domestic transitional economists have engaged in study in depth on the path of
Chinese economic reform and its characters and have made a lot of valuable academic
works. Some scholars from political science circles recently have put forward many
insightful views on the path of Chinese political reform and its characters.
The transitional economics began its study on the path characters and its benefits
and weaknesses of Chinese economic reform from the comparison of economic
transitions between China and Russia. The mainstream view is that China has gone
along the road of incremental reform, while Russia has chosen a way of radical
reform named as shock treatment. Incremental reform is a process to advance reform
through making experiments, to move forward step by step, implement the plan from
parts first then to the unity. Through the comparison of reform performance between
China and Russia, the recognize view in academia is that incremental reform is better
than radical reform. Some scholars have verified this view in theory. The different
initial conditions, different goals and nature of reform, all of them decided that China
and Russia chose different reform plans. The favorable initial conditions, the socialist
nature and goals of reform decide that China could only choose incremental reform
pattern. ①One theory that supports incremental reform comes from epistemologically
empiricism and evolutionism. American economist Murell believes that, the
philosophical support on incremental theory could come from two different
theoretical schools, that is, ‘evolution economics’ and ‘conservative political
philosophy’. All of them oppose the ‘constructive rationalism’ tradition of
institutional evolution, and advocate the ‘evolution rationalism’. The evolutionism
economics views the society as a kind of information process mechanism. Social
evolution is a process of aggregative development of the current information and
knowledge stocks. The evolutionists call this process as ‘climb the mountain via by
grasping stones’ (there are surprisingly similarities between it and Deng Xiaoping’s
Liu Wenge, Yuan Qingshou, ‘Transition Economics and its Concerned Issues: the Comparison of Reforms
between Russia and China’, The Journal of Economist, No.3, 2000, pp.90-96.
①
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
word ‘get through the river via by touching the stones’). Institutional evolution just
like climb the mountain, the information and knowledge stock of every organization
is very limited, and thus could only move forward cautiously and step by step. The
evolutionists thought that, reform process is a process of ‘learning by doing’. The
evolutionism attaches importance to the partial experimentations and trials and the
relevant accumulated experiences and wisdoms, and consequently opposes those
plans that have very large size, fast speed and less reversibility. Incremental reform
needs not only to preserve the existing system to some extent, but also to encourage
the development and expansion of the new system, and thus it will lead to the ‘dual
track system’. ① Another theory that supports incremental reform comes from the
analysis on the costs and benefits of reform. Many scholars pointed out that, the
radical reform is very fast but very costly, while the incremental reform is very slow
but costs fewer. Fan Gang, a Chinese scholar, distinguished the reform cost into the
so-called ‘implementation cost’ and ‘rub cost’. He believes that, the implementation
cost is the decreasing function of the radical degree of reform, while the rub cost is
the increasing function of the radical degree of reform. The implementation cost of
incremental reform is higher than that of radical reform, but its rub cost is far lower
than that of radical reform, and thus it is a reform path with less resistance. ②Lin Yifu
and some other scholars pointed out that, Chinese incremental reform has had the
nature of ‘Pareto Improvement ’, that is, it focuses on expanding the total sum of the
distributable resources in order to make people benefit at large and doesn’t change the
established interest structure directly. ③ Incremental reform stress the top-down
pattern of reform, its reform began from the micro-level, partial experiments, and
increment reform out the exist system, and then move forward step by step to the
macro reform, overall spreading, and inventory reform within the system. This is
another difference between China’s incremental reform and former Soviet Union and
East European bloc’s reform. Its advantage is that it could transform the big shock
into little shock, and thus reduce the risk of social turbulence. Incremental reform has
its own limitations, such as the adding up cost and follow-through apportion cost will
increasingly rise, and thus the resistance of further reform will consequently rise.
④
Due to lack of scientific design on whole system, the link up and coordination of
different reform measures is quite insufficient, the rub cost between the old system
and the new system and among various parts of the new system is very huge.
Enlightened by the transitional economics, some political scientists also began to
sum up the path characters and basic experiences of Chinese political reform from the
point of view of reform politics. Zheng Yongnian pointed out in his article ‘Political
Incrementalism: Political Experiences of 20 Years Reform’ that, Chinese political
reform is a process of making progress continually via by trials and manifests the
Zhang Jun, ‘Transition Economics: What have We Known’, Journal of Battlefront of Social Science, No. 5,
1998, pp.13-26.
②
Reference to Fan Gang, ‘Two Reform Patterns and Two Kinds of Reform Costs’, Journal of Economic Study,
No.1, 1993.
③
Reference to Lin Yifu etc., 1995. Chinese Miracle: The Development Strategy and Economic Reform, Shanghai
Sanlian Publishing House and Shanghai People’s Press.
④
Huang Shaoan, ‘The Basic Experiences and Lessons of Chinese Economic Reform’, Journal of Shandong
Social Science, No.5, 2002, p.8.
①
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
feature of Incrementalism. ①Xu Xianglin Pointed out that, Chinese political reform is
a kind of incremental reform, which refers to a kind of rational and reliable policies
made by reformers in terms of the realism goals and leave the rooms for adjusting at
any moment the exiting policies. This is due to the limited conditions that known and
lack of comprehensions on the reform outcomes. The accumulated effects of
incremental reform have made great achievements. The reason of its success is that,
reformers insist on the incremental reform pattern from the start to the end and guided
by the realism goals when the reform began. The policy choices of political reform is
rational and prudence, the reform on the old system maintain the relatively balance of
inheritance and change all the time. ②In his another article, Xu Xianglin Stresses that
the method of ‘Going Cross the Rive through Touching the Stones’ provides
opportunities of learning continually from the reform process for the leaders,
executors, and people. Meanwhile, it makes policy choices flexible to be evaluated
and adjusted in terms of the reform outcomes. Incremental reform manifests the
character of wavelike progress. Due to this, it reduces the possibilities of reform
falling into traps and is helpful to cope with the uncertainness that take place in the
reform process. The successful use of the ‘Pass over the Rive through Touching the
Stones’ as a kind of epistemological and methodological instrument has guaranteed
the ceaselessly progress of Chinese incremental political reform. ③ Yu Keping
pointed out that, just like economic reform, Chinese political reform is also a kind of
incremental and inventory reform. Besides the characters of incrementalism and
path-dependence, he also stresses to both retain the existing inventory and create new
increment. Meanwhile, he also believes that, incremental political reform has the
nature of ‘Pareto Improvement’, that is, to realize the stability, order and efficiency of
political reform through enlarging the new adding interests in the premise of no harm
on the citizens’ existing interests. ④It is worth to point out that, some scholars doubt
the nature of ‘Pareto Improvement ’ that whether political reform has, since they
thought that political reform is a kind of adjustment of the existing power and interest
arrangements, as a result, it will have to change the original interests and thus hurts
some people’s interests. The most important thing is to compensate the victims of
political reform. Kang Xiaoguang thought that, Chinese reform model is a kind of
incremental reform that ‘Going cross the River through Touching the Stones’, this
kind of reform has no clear directions and goals, each concrete reform measure is to
response urgently to the coming crisis. Reform as a kind of learning process, is a kind
of passive reaction to the crisis. But due to the occupation of leading position between
the relationship of state and society, government as a kind of ‘rational economic
persons’ could choose the most beneficial plan among various alternative plans.
Owing to it, the ruling party and government could overcome various crisis, realizing
Zheng Yongnian, ‘Political Incrementalism: the Political Experiences of Chinese 20 Year’s Reform’, Third
World Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 6, 1999.
②
Xu Xianglin, ‘Chinese Incremental Political Reform on the Bases of Political Stability’, Journal of Strategy and
Management, No.5, 2000, pp.16-26.
③
Xu Xianglin, ‘Pass over the River via by Touching the Stones’, Journal of Tianjin Social Science, No.3, 2002,
pp.43-46.
④
Yu Keping, ‘Implement actively the Incremental Political Reform and Building Socialist Political Civilization’,
Latest Developments of Theories, Vol. 1595, April 15, 2003, pp.9-11.
①
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
both the ‘successful change’ and the ‘successful conservation’. ①
To sum up the theories of the transitional economics and reform politics on the path
characters and basic experiments of Chinese reform, we could reach the following
fundamental conclusions: incremental political reform is the best way of Chinese
political reform. Its characters are the following: the guiding thought of political
reform is that ‘Going cross the River through Touching the Stones’; the reform
process is a process of moving forward step by step via by making experiments and
trials; reform process is an irreversible process that makes breakthrough continually
via by periodical achievements from easy reform to difficult reform, from the outside
to the core, from increment to inventory. The reasons that why incremental political
reform is the best way of Chinese political reform are the following: first, reformers
could keep leadership on the reform continually, and could rationally and timely
choose feasible reform plan on the bases of measuring costs and benefits of different
plans; second, it consciously choose a reform path that resistance is very small, try to
transform one big shock into several small shocks, reduce the rub cost of reform, and
thus it is easier to reach the equilibrium of political reform and political stability than
that of radical reform; third, incremental political reform stresses to make experiments
in some regions first, to test by practice, and to adjust timely the relevant reform plans
in terms of the reform effects, and to reach both the goal of institutional innovations
and the goal of solving the uncertainty of reform outcome, and thus to avoid the
reform lock into the traps; finally, the fruits of political transition of incremental
political reform are more firmly consolidated, this is because that reform plan is based
on the experiences of making experiments and thus have more opportunity to succeed,
and because that the reform speed suits the speed of the evolution of social structure
and political culture, and consequently the transition of political system is on the
bases of the evolution of social structure and political culture.
Ⅲ. The Creative Structural Transformation in Political Transition:
Dual track Political System
Incremental political reform needs a relevant longer period of political transition.
During this transitional period, the co-existence of the old and new systems is a kind
of normal political form. Dual track price system is called by many economists as the
important innovations of Chinese economic reform. The transformation from the
truck of the planning price to the dual track price system of the co-existence of the
planning price and market price and then to the truck of market price is the key
element of smooth transition of market-orientation reform. Whether it could creates
such a kind of new system that could be compatible with the old political system and
also could replace step by step the old political system is a key element of successful
institutional transformation for political reform. The dual track political system is the
guarantee of soft landing of political reform.
In the political transition process from totalism to democratic system, the
Reference to Kang Xiaoguang, ‘China as a Special Case—Rethinking on the 25 Years’ Experiences of the
Mainland China’, Journal of Strategy and Management, No.4, 2003, pp.56-62; Kang Xiaoguang, ‘Why China
Succeed: Rethinking on the 25 Years’ Experience of the Mainland China’, Journal of China Reform, No. 10, 2003,
pp.5-7.
①
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
authoritarianism political system as a kind of dual track political system which has
both the characters of the old system and the new system is a kind of necessary
transitional political system. Chinese political system before the reform and opening
up to the outside world had both characters of totalitarianism and totalism. In the one
hand, the power is highly concentrated on the national government, the ruling party
and the individual senior officials. On the other hand, the state power penetrated into
every corner of the whole society, state functions are no limitations, and the society
had been swallowed by the state. It is hard to build democratic political system
directly and quickly on the bases of such a kind of political system, this is because
that democracy needs the relevant conditions to support it which include social and
economic infrastructures, political structure, and political culture. The core element of
political reform that stipulated by Deng Xiaoping is to implement the decentralization,
which purpose is to realize the separation of enterprises from the government, the
separation of government from the ruling party, to provide incentives for both national
and local governments. China has steadily built a kind of technocrat’s
authoritarianism political system after a long period of reform effort. This kind of
political system has safeguarded the economic liberty and property rights, enhanced
the development of market mechanism, released the control on the society, and
formed preliminarily a kind of limited plural political arrangements. The
authoritarianism political system has reached to some extent the equilibrium between
the leadership of the ruling party, the authority of the national government, and the
efficiency of government, regional creativity, and the autonomy of the society. The
authoritarianism political system has created the essential conditions for the further
transition toward democratic political system, such as the development of market
economy, the growth of civil society, the increasingly pluralism of the interest groups,
and the popularization of civic culture. The democratic political system could only
been consolidated on such a firm bases.
Just like mentioned above, the democratic political system that China needs to
build should be a kind of compound democratic political system, which tries to realize
the combination of electoral democracy, liberal democracy and deliberative
democracy. Building dual track political system is an important bridge toward
electoral democracy, liberal democracy and deliberative democracy.
During the transition process from selective and appointment politics to the
electoral politics, the dual track institutions that combine the elements of both
selective politics and electoral politics provides necessary bridge for the transition.
The traditional cadres’ recruitment and promotion system is a kind of pick up and
appointment system control by the higher authorities. There are many innovative
institutional arrangements in the process of reforming party and government cadres
recruitment and promotion system in recent years, such as, ‘two rounds of voting for
party secretary at the village level’, publicly recommending and competitive election
for township mayors and party secretaries, and more transparent and democratic
procedures of cadres examination and promotion which combine ‘democratic
recommendation’ , opinion poll with the investigation of the organizational
department, the discussion and approval of the higher authorities, and the public
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
notice for criticize before the formal appointment. These innovative institutional
arrangements has resolved the issue of the combination of inner party democracy with
social democracy in a better way, enlarged the degree of citizen’s participation in the
process of cadres recruitment and promotion, safeguarded the right to know of the
citizens, and meanwhile they also insisted on those basic principles such as the
leadership of the ruling party and recruitment and promotion of cadres by the ruling
party. They are a kind of creative dual track system since they have found the link up
point between the cadres selective and appointment system and the mass
recommendation and election system. Meanwhile, these innovative institutional
arrangements had also had the potential to transition further toward electoral
democracy, and thus they created the conditions for the transformation from the dual
track system to the new single truck system. Therefore, in the transition process from
the selective and appointment system to the electoral politics, it is worthwhile to
encourage and advance such kind of institutional innovations.
The dual track system that co-existence of rule of persons and the rule of law also
pave the way for the transition from the rule by persons toward the rule of law. During
the period of the Culture Revolution (1966-1976), China has experienced a period of
rule by persons without any legal system, consequently citizen’s freedoms and rights
were ignored, and political turbulence had lasted for a long time. After the reform and
opening up to the outside world, improvement of socialist legal system has become an
important goal of political reform. Emphasis on setting up legal system and enforcing
legal system strictly, improving the legal system has been in fact an essential
transitional period from the rule by persons to the rule of law, and this transitional
period is a kind of rule by persons with the legal system. The 15th Party Congress had
established the goal of building a socialist state of rule of law. Priority has been put on
the govern by law, stressing the administration by law and judicial justice, while the
law-making work has been improved. This is another important turning point and
milestone event for the transition from the rule by persons to the rule of law. After the
16th Party Congress, domestic academia are actively advocating to govern the ruling
party by law and to be the ruling party by legal elections and to build judicial
examination system, etc., which indicate that there may be new breakthrough in the
road to the rule of law.
In the process of transition from monopoly decision making system to the
deliberative decision making system, there is dual track system that co-existence of
monopoly of decision making power and share of decision making power. In the
horizontal decision-making power distribution within the regime system, dual track
system refers to that the ruling party and the government as executive system is in the
leadership position of the decision making process, and at the same time the People’s
Congress and People’s Political Consultancy Conference could play the role of
examination and approval, consultation and deliberation in the decision making
process. It also fits the basic character of the so-called political system of rule of law
with consultancy or ‘Incorporation of politics into administration’ model. ① The
‘Incorporation of politics into administration’ is named by King Yaoji on Hong Kong’s political system, Which
character is that decision making power concentrated on the executive branch, the parliament has only performed
①
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
vertical decision making power distribution system within the regime, the suggestion
that empower various provinces equal representatives and voices in the Finance and
Economic Committee of National People’s Congress and meanwhile retain the
resource distribution power and personnel appointment power in the hand of national
government is a kind of institutional design that belongs to dual track system. In the
decision making power distribution system that advocates the cooperative governance
by the state and society together, the suggestion of corporative state model which
require to remain the leadership of the state and meanwhile to build the negotiation
mechanism between the functionary associations and state, is in fact also a kind of
dual track decision-making system. These dual track decision making institutional
designs open our minds and create the favorable conditions for the deliberative
democracy. The 16th Party Congress put forward a lot of policy claims which are
important measures toward deliberative democracy. These policy claims include the
following: reform and improve the policy making system; establish public opinion
collection system; establish public notice and public hearing system for the important
items; improve the experts consultation system; push forward the decision making
process more scientific and more democratic. ①Some local governments have created
a lot of good institutional innovations such as the dialogue program between urban
residents and municipal officials, the democratic consultation, deliberative
conversations, the evaluation of People’s congress on the performance of
governmental officials, the public forum by the internet media, all of them provide
important platform for citizens participation into the discussion and examination of
public policies. Therefore, these good practice is worthwhile to advocate and spread
into more regions.
Ⅳ. The Basic Driving Forces of Chinese Political Reform: Driven by Crises
plus Interests Motivation
Why did China’s political reform happen? Why could it last? This is an issue
concerned by domestic academia. Study on the reasons why China’s political reform
took place and lasted needs to analysis the motivation mechanism of political reform.
Analysis on the motivation mechanism of political reform could be carried out from
many different points of views. I would like to analysis it from the point of view of
neo-institutionalism.
From the perspective of neo institutionalism, reform in fact is an institutional
innovation process that breaks the old system and replaces it with new system.
Political reform is a process of political institutional innovations. The national and
local governments are the major players of institutional innovations. If we
distinguished the institutional evolution into the induced institutional change by
individuals or groups and the compulsory institutional evolutions engaged by
the role of consultation and examination and approval. The Chief Executive and various functionaries have also
hearing opinions from various social circles via by building citizens consultation committees. Kang Xiaoguang
prefers this kind of policy making system, and suggests the mainland China to adopt the similar decision making
system.
①
Jiang Zemin, 2002, Building the Overall Xiaokang Society and Create the New Situation of Socialist Intercourse
with Chinese Characters—Report on the 16th Party Congress of Chinese Communist Party(Nov.8th, 2002),
pp.34-35.
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
government in terms of the usual practice of economics,① then political reform is a
kind of compulsory institutional evolution under the leadership of government.
Governments at various levels are the providers of the new system and the reformers
of the old system. Why did government want to reform the old system and provide
new system? Government as reformer is in fact also a kind of rational economic
person, and wants to make a rational choice that could maximize its interests via by
the calculation of the costs and benefits. Only if the implementation cost is too big
to bear due to the increasing resistance from the demanders of the new system, the
reformers have realized that the crisis is coming, and then the reform will be put on
the agenda, the old institutional equilibrium will be broken out. In other words, only
when the old system faced with the heavy challenges and were into big troubles, the
reformers would realize the pressure and the necessity of reform. Only when they are
sure that the expected benefits are bigger than the expected costs, the suppliers would
have the motivation to provide new system through engaging in institutional
innovations. Otherwise, the outcome will be the shortage of institutional supply. In a
simple word, the awareness of crisis advances the institutional reform, while the
interest’s prediction drives the institutional innovations.
The occurrence and last of Chinese political reform is the outcome of these two
factors playing their role together. Opening up to the outside world and the
Globalization make China’s political reform face the heavy challenges from the fierce
outside competition and the strong pressure from the demonstration effects of the
foreign regimes, all the Chinese leadership, intellectuals and the original people could
feel this kind of challenges and pressures. The miserable lessons from the Culture
Revolution make people discard the old political system since they have realized its
basic weakness of the over--centralization of powers after they become the victim of it.
After the reform and opening up to the outside world, the political legitimacy base of
the ruling party and government has transformed from the legitimacy of revolution
toward the legitimacy of economic performance. The performance that manifested in
economic development and the rise of people’s life level has become the major
instruments to gain political benefits such as win people’s support. The developmental
state has become the basic feature of the state during this period. The major concern
of the reformers is that whether it could advance economic development and whether
it could adjust to the demand of economic reform when they decide whether or not to
launch political reform and how to choose the prefer sequence of political reform.
And thus it is not difficult to understand the reasons that why political reform is a kind
of adaptive reform, why administrative reform could enjoy the priority on the agenda
of political reform. The reasons are the following: it could bring about bigger
predicated political benefits to advance political reform in terms of the requirements
of economic development and economic reform, while administrative reform is such a
kind of reform that could promote both economic development and economic reform
and not to hurt the political stability and political leadership. Chinese political reform
Lin Yifu, 1994, ‘The Economic Theory about the Institutional Evolution: Sponsor Evolution and Coercive
Evolution’, in Coase etc., Property Rights and Institutional Evolution---the Collection of Translated Papers by
Property Rights School and Neo-Institutional Economics, Shanghai Sanlian Publishing House and Shanghai
People’s Press, p.386.
①
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
has manifested the character of wavelike progress. After entering into the mid term of
reform, the new pressures for political reform have emerged. These new pressures
include: the rampant political corruption, the weakens of state capacity, the serious
unfairness of income distribution, the shock of non-institutional participation tide on
political stability, the huge change of the Soviet Union and Eastern European Regimes,
and China’s joining into WTO. All of them have challenged greatly the existing
political system and make it feel heavy pressure due to the increasing demand about
political reform. The performance legitimacy has its own limitations that hard to
overcome. When economic development faced with difficulties and the polarization
between the rich and the poor become increasing worse, the bad performance
inevitably weaken the legitimacy. Building the new legitimacy base become more and
more important. The strong motivation for advancing political reform comes from the
demand to build long term, dynamic political stability mechanism, to curb the
rampant political corruption, to promote economic development, and to maintain
social justice. Carrying out political reform that could move forward to the electoral
democracy and rule of law has become the rational policy choice to ease the coming
political crisis and to gain the predicted political benefits. As a result, a new round of
political reform has happened.
What are the conditions needed that innovative institutional arrangements lasts for
a long time? In other words, what are the conditions of successful institutional
innovations? According to the view of neo-institutionalism economics, successful
institutional innovations should realize the reward increase by degree for various
parties, let all the parties that influenced by the institutions could benefit from the new
institutional arrangements, and reach the outcome of win-win game, or at least could
meet the Kaldor Criteria① to let the victims gain enough compensation and thus
reduce the resistance on reform. At the same time, it also needs to realize the decrease
by degree of the institutional implementation cost, make the ratio of cost-benefit of
the new institutions higher than that of the old institutional arrangement. Only if this
requirement be met, the new institutional arrangement could get support from the
relevant parties and thus could last and spread into more regions. In addition, the
ideological support on the new institutions is also very important. Public support on
the institutions comes from not only the consideration on their own interests but also
the judgment on the fairness of the institutions. The role of ideology is to guide people
to realize the justice of the special institutions and then support them consciously,
which could reduce the institutional implementation cost.
Xu Xianglin has engaged in a comprehensive and concrete analysis on the
conditions that political reform could last. He pointed out that, the continuation of
political reform need to meet five requirements: first, political reform must have the
Cardo Pointed out that, ‘Any potential change should be tested by the following: need to ask all those people
that hurt by reform outcome, get their opinion that how much should pay them for the incontinence bring about by
the reform. Similarly, need also to ask all those people who gains from the reform, get their opinion how much
money they would like to transfer and meanwhile not to give up their gained interests. If the sum of the latter one
is larger than the sum the former one, it could be affirmed that this is the social desirable reform’. It’s meaning is
that, if the reform want to get social support and lasted, the beneficiary of reform or the reformers themselves need
to give sufficient compensation to the victims of the reform under the premise of not to weaken the established
interests.
①
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
ability to solve the social and political crisis faced; second, political reform must have
the ability to maintain and consolidate the leadership of the ruling party and increase
its political resources and political legitimacy; third, political reform must have the
ability to retain the relative stability and inheritance of the political system; fourth, the
existing political system must have the ability to adjust itself; fifth, the rulers must
have the ability to learn by doing, could draw lessons and learn new knowledge
continually from the practice, and could understand and grasp the fruits of political
reform. He thought that, China’s incremental political reform have met all the five
requirements, and thus could implement smoothly and could last for a long time.
①
Kang Xiaoguang believes that, Chinese government have strong capacity to learn
and to preserve, and thus could realize both ‘successful change’ and ‘successful
conservation’ at the same time, this is also the important reason that why China’s
reform has been successful. ②
Local government reform and innovation is an important part of China’s political
reform. As the subject of institutional innovations, local governments have made a lot
of beneficial experiments in government reform and innovations. The motivations of
local government innovations are similar with national government in some aspects,
but they are also different in many aspects. The similarities are the following: when
the outside pressure is large enough, which come from the outside competition from
the other regions and the demonstration effects of the advanced institutions, some
local governments will engage in institutional innovations as a response to the
pressure. The difference is the following: the content of the expected political benefits
and political costs faced by national and local government is quite different. The
expected political benefits for the national government are to enhance political
legitimacy and retain at the power for a long time. The expected political benefits and
political costs of local governments are from higher authorities, this is because the
promotion and awards of local governmental officials dependent on higher authorities
under the cadres selective and appointment system, consequently the indices of
examination and evaluation on official’s performance and various system of ‘deny all
performances if performance in one index is bad’ stipulated by higher authorities have
been guiding the behaviors of local officials. The performance on the indices of
economic examination and evaluation such as the amount of attracting foreign direct
investments and private capitals, the total sum of GDP and the annual growth of
economic development, have decided the promotion of local officials. The
performances on public security, collective appeals, anti-corruption, birth control, any
item of the above could influence the promotion or punishment of local officials.
Good performance and the consequent promotion are the major motivations of local
officials to launch institutional innovations. In order to improve the investment
environment, to promote regional economic development, to maintain social stability,
to reduce corruption, and to advance social justice, local government officials have
Xu Xianglin, ‘China’s Incremental Political Reform on the Base of Political Stability’, Journal of Strategy and
Management, No.5, 2000, pp.16-26.
②
Reference to Kang Xiaoguang, ‘China as an Exceptionalism--Rethinking on the Lessons of Mainland China’s 25
Years Reform’, No. 4, 2003, pp.56-62; Kang Xiaoguang, ‘Why China has been Succeed—Rethinking on the
Lessons of Mainland China 25 Year’s Reform’, Journal of China Reform, No.10, 2003, pp.5-7.
①
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
engaged in multiple political reform, administrative reform and reform of public
service provision. Linking up with that, the sustainability and popularity of local
government reform and innovations rely to a large extent on the attitude of higher
authorities especially the attitude of central government. If higher authorities support
and encourage those local officials who are bold in engaging in reform and
innovations and spread actively those innovative institutional arrangements, then local
government reform and innovations will go into an orbit of virtue circle. Otherwise,
local government reform and innovations will become increasingly shrink.
Ⅴ. The Historical Process of China’s Political Reform: Periods, Progresses
and Problems
Since 1978 China has lunched its reform and open up to the outside world, China’s
political reform has entered into its 20th year. ‘Four periods’ view is very popular
when scholars divide the historical course of China’s political reform into different
periods. Huang Weiping, Wang Guixiu and Wang Huaichao, all of them have put
forward this kind of view, though they are different by the stages and the content of
different stages. Huang Weiping thought that, it is the first stage of foundation
settlement for China’s political reform which were from the end of 1978 to 1985, its
focal points are to carry out the administrative institutional reform and to rebuild the
grassroots regime in rural areas; it is the second stage of hot propaganda for China’ s
political reform from 1986 to the early 1989, the focal points are to separate the
government from the ruling party and continue to engage in administrative reform; it
is the third stage which is a historical turning point, it focus on keeping political
stability; it is the stage of development recessively for China’s political reform, which
focus on to advance administrative reform and the rule of law in order to adapt to the
demands of market economy development, and its strategy is to dwell political reform
into the economic reform. ①According to Wang Guixiu, the four phases are the
following: the first phase is to raise the task of political reform which is from the third
Session of 11th Party Congress to 1980; the second phase is to draw the political
reform plan form 1980 to the 13th Party Congress; the third phase is to move forward
circuitously from the 13th Party Congress to the 14th Party Congress; the fourth phase
is to realize a breakthrough in the thinking way of political reform. ② Wang
Huaichao thought that, it is the phase of tentative exploration on political reform from
the end of the 1970s to the mid 1980s; it is the overall deployment phase of political
reform from the mid-1980s to the end of 1980s; it is the phase of drawing lessons and
adjusting thinking way of political reform from the end of 1980s to the mid-1990s; it
is the phase to advance political reform in terms of the demands of socialist market
economic development which has been from the mid-1990s to present. ③Chinese
political reform manifests the character of wavelike march. During these four phases,
there are four rounds of administrative institutional reform, meanwhile grassroots
①
Huang Weiping, 1998, Discussion freely on China’s Political Reform, Beijing: Central Compilation &
Translation Press, pp.135-149.
②
Wang Guixiu, 1999, ‘A Reform that is Hard and Long: Rethinking in the 20th Anniversary of Political Reform ’,
in Liu Zhifeng Edit, Report on the Issue of China’s Political Reform, Beijing: China’s Cinema Press, pp.27-30.
③
Wang Huaichao, ’24 Years of China’s Political Reform’, Journal of the Latest Development of the Theories,
Vol.1595, April. 10, 2003, pp.14-27.
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
democracy has gone forward, and the content of reform remains some continuity. But
in the other side, the thinking way of political reform has made important adjustment
since 1990s, mentioned no longer to solve the root cause of illness of the old political
system which is the ‘over centralization of power’, and mentioned no more the
separation of the government from the ruling party. It now stresses to strengthen the
leadership of the ruling party, but at the same time, speeding up the step of building
modern civil servant system, introducing step by step the citizen’s participation
institutions into the selection and appointment system of the party and government
senior officials. The ruling party have also accepted and adopted those terms such as
‘rule of law’, human rights, ‘Checks and Balance of Power’, and consequently
strengthened the relevant institutional building.
Political reform in the past more than 20 years has made great achievements. As
mentioned above, Chinese political system before the reform is a kind of mixed
political system that combined totalitarianism and totalism. The over-centralization of
the power is the root cause of illness of this kind of political system. The core content
of political reform is to decentralize the power, and thus to realize the separation of
the enterprises from the government, the separation of government with the party, the
decentralization of power between national and local governments, the separation of
society from the state. After more than 20 years’ political reform, it has made great
progress in the separation of enterprises from government, the separation of economy
from the politics and the autonomy of the society. Market-orientation economic
reform and the consequently administrative reform that adapt to it which major
content are to transform the functions of government and to simplify economic
administrative institutions of government, have realized basically the separation of
state –owned enterprises from the government, meanwhile keep the necessary length
between government and private enterprises, and thus realized the separation of
economy from the politics. With the development of grassroots democracy, villager’s
self-governance has made huge achievements, and urban resident self-governance has
also had a good start. With the contraction of government functions and the
development of the private sector, various kinds of civil organizations and
associations have emerged, meanwhile the state has still remained strong control on
civil society, and the latter one has manifested both the characters of official and civil
organizations. The reform of transferring law-making power, financial power and
handling daily affairs power to the local governments by national government in
1980s has stimulated the enthusiasm of local governments for economic development.
As a result, local governments have become the power engine of economic growth.
But the reform of decentralization has also weakened the authority and capacity of
regulation and control of national government. Since the mid-1990s, national
government has strengthened its control on local governments and enhanced its
capacity of regulation and control via by implementing the system of tax division
between central and local government, appointing and removing local leaders, and
enhancing vertical leadership of the functional departments of central government.
But at the same time it also holds back the enthusiasm and creativity of local
governments. How to divide reasonably the purview of administrative power among
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
governments at various levels and to build a kind of intergovernmental system that
could stimulate initiatives of governments at various levels has still been an issue that
waits to be solved. The intersect of government with the party organizations and the
over-centralization of power into the hands of individual leaders involved in the
reform of the leadership system of the ruling party and the state, and thus is a key
issue of political reform. In order to solve the problem of over-centralization of power
into the individual leaders within the party, the collective leadership system has been
established step by step since the 3rd plenary session of the 11th party congress,
consequently the power of individual leaders has been restrained to some extent by
the collective leadership. But how to strengthen the restraint from the angel of
democratic empower has not been solved yet. Therefore, the development of inner
party democracy seems increasingly urgent. The separation of government from the
party is an important issue that could not be evaded for political reform. It needs to
reform the leading way and govern pattern of the ruling party on the base of
developing inner party democracy, and realize gradually the functional separation of
the government organizations from the party organizations. The battle of assaulting
fortified positions for political reform needs to be put on the agenda as soon as
possible.
When we pointed out the achievements and progresses of political reform, we also
need to realize a serious of problems caused by the relevant lag behind of political
reform. Comparison with economic reform which has entering into the phase of
assaulting fortified positions, political reform has still been in the phase of periphery
battle. ①Up to now, political reform has been still a kind of adaptable reform which
select the priority and content of political reform in terms of the demands of economic
reform. The progresses of different parts of political reform is quite imbalance. The
administrative reform has made relatively great progress. The reform of cadre’s
personnel system has made some progress. The reform of intergovernmental relations
has move forward two steps and back off one step. The reform of the leadership
system of the government and party, the reform of decision making mechanism,
judicial system reform, and the building of checks and balance of power, all of them
still lag behind. The electoral democracy has still settled at the level of village
self-governance. The level of institutionalization of civic engagement is still very low.
Lag behind of political reform has caused various non-institutional and illegal
behaviors of political participation such as collective appealing more frequently and
more radical. The tensions between cadres and mass, between party and mass have
become increasingly intensified. The corruption in the political sphere such as the
corruption of chief officers, the corruption within the selection and appointment
system of cadres, judicial corruption, and bribes within public sector, have been
increased. The legitimacy of the ruling party and the state has been eroded rapidly.
Going to heaven or hell for future China dependents to a large extent on whether
China could pass through the ridge of political reform. ②
Wang Guixiu, 1999, ‘A Reform that is Hard and Long: Rethinking in the 20th Anniversary of Political Reform ’,
in Liu Zhifeng Edit, Report on the Issue of China’s Political Reform, Beijing: China’s Cinema Press, pp.27-30.
②
Huang Renzong, ‘The Ridge of China’s Political Reform’, Journal of Strategy and Management, No.2, 2002,
①
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
Ⅵ. The Prospect of China’s Political Reform:
A Race between Reform and Revolution
Advancing continually incremental political reform is both the essential
requirement of the development gradually of civil society but also the strategic choice
of the political leaders. The two most important theoretical models are the theory of
civil society and the theory of strategic choice. ① These two theoretical models
supplement each other and reveal the motivation mechanism of China’s incremental
political reform and further political transition. After more than 20 years reform and
open up to the outside world, the rudiment of China’s civil society has formed. The
awareness of subject and rightness of citizens have boosted up. Various civil
organizations and associations have increasingly flourished and have learnt gradually
to self-governance. The stratum of middle level income has play a more and more
important role in the whole social stratum structure and its force has been grown up.
The relation of domination and dependency between state and society has been
changing gradually. Political state, private sector and the third sector or civil society
have begun to form the relevant independent subject of governance. The polycentric
and autonomous governance structure will subvert the traditional government pattern
of order and following the order centered on the state from its root. The democratic
governance that stresses the cooperative management between government and civil
society and the participation of stakeholders into the decision making process will
become the mainstream of political development. The great transformation of social
structure and pursue of civil society have become the strong driving force for further
advancing incremental political reform. Faced with the strong pressure of demanding
for democracy from civil society, the ruling group has to make difficult choice. If they
just postpone or refuse to carry out political reform, then they will miss the good
opportunity, as a result they will lost the power due to the coming political upheaval
or revolution. “No reform there will have any means of subsistence” (Deng Xiaoping).
If the reformers carry out rashly the radical political reform such as multi-party
system and general election, then the reformers themselves will become the victim of
the radical reform before they could gain any benefits since the reformer will lose the
control on the reform and the opposition party will replace them to be in power.
Revolution, upheaval or radical political reform will bring about the social turbulence,
which neither meet the requirement of most people for the stability and wealthy nor
come up to the basic interests of the political leadership group for lasting peace and
order. Therefore, advancing continually incremental political reform and opening up
gradually citizen’s political participation has become the rational strategic choice.
What is the sally port of next step for China’s incremental political reform?
Regarding the sally port of political reform, domestic academia has put forward many
different views. Some scholars suggest that, inner party democracy is the sally port of
political reform. Some scholars believe that, the rule of law should be carried out first;
pp.72-82.
①
Reference to Guo Dingping, ‘On the Background and Logics of the Contemporary Political Transitional Theory’,
Academic Quarterly of Shanghai Social Science Academy, No.3, 1997, p.61.
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
democracy should give place to the rule of law for the next step of political reform.
Some scholars argued that, the focal point should be to establish the negation and
collaboration mechanism between the functional associations and the state. Some
other scholars insisted on that, building state infrastructures around enhancing state
capacities should go ahead one step before advancing democratization. All of these
views are based on constructionist philosophy which try to design and plan the future
political system in light of their own ideal, while incremental political reform is based
on the evolutionist philosophy which stresses ‘learning by doing’. Watching the
historical track of incremental political reform in the past 20 years, its path is to
breakthrough from multiple sally ports and around multiple ways. Electoral
democracy make breakthrough in the election of village committee first and then
caused the important institutional innovations of ‘two rounds of voting for party
secretary at village level’, and consequently promoted a series of important reforms of
election for township leaders such as ‘public recommendation and open selection of
town leaders’, ‘election of town mayors by two rounds of recommendations and one
round of voting ’, and ‘direct election of town mayors’. Liberal democracy began
from building legal system and transforming government functions, and then went
deep into administration by law, come into power in accordance with legal procedures,
building clean and efficient government, and finally put it into the agenda that carry
out judicial system reform in the purpose of judicial justice and judicial independence.
Deliberative democracy got breakthrough from making decision making process more
science and more democratic, and are going deep into the institutionalization of
deliberative decision making. Therefore, the next sally port of political reform should
be to move forward further on the base of consolidating the above institutional
innovations. Electoral democracy should put focal point on the democratic election at
township level, which include direct election of town mayors and ‘two round of
voting for township party secretary ’, and to carry out the link up mechanism between
town mayor election and township party secretary elections when the conditions are
mature. Liberal democracy should put its focal point on enhancing the authority of the
Constitution and advancing further judicial system reform. Deliberative democracy
should commit itself to institutionalize the deliberative decision-making in the big and
medium size cities and then extent step and step to the upper and lower levels.
In the history of Chinese political modernization since 1840s, the reformism and
radicalism and consequently the reform and revolution have come forth by turns
several times. The incremental reforms had been replaced by the revolution several
times since the revolution missed its good opportunities, and thus Chinese political
modernization has a bad fortune’s wheel. ①How far could it go for current China’s
incremental political reform? This is dependent on two factors. One factor is that
whether the reform could move forward timely and make breakthrough. Another
factor is the capability of the current political system for further reform and the
capacity of the current leadership group. First, China’s incremental reform belongs to
crisis driven reform, which refers to that the scope and the intensity of the crisis is still
Chu Jianguo, ‘The Evolution of Chinese Political Modernization Model’, Jianghan Tribune, No.7, 1997,
pp.15-17.
①
Congrès Marx International V - Contribution – Paris-Sorbonne et Nanterre – 3/6
octobre 2007
under control of the ruling group, meanwhile the ruling group has had strong
awareness of crisis and realized that the reform accord with its own basic interests,
and thus would like to advance reform timely to resolve the crisis. If the leadership
group lack of the intention to reform, the opportunity of reform will go away silently,
and the revolution will set in without anticipation due to the accumulation and
explosion of contradictions and crisis. To this point, reform and revolution have had a
race for time. Just like Zhu Xueqin said, if we still could climb up the mountain, we
should be cautious to talk about revolution. However, the revolution often follow after
the reform, if the revolution speed up, then the reform needs to move forward faster. ①
Refolution is the only way to avoid revolution which means the reform in fast lane.
Therefore it is very important for the leadership group to have strong awareness of
crisis and to have the ability to advance in time political reform and to make
important progress continually. Second, as Xu Xianglin pointed out, the level of
institutionalization is very low for the staring point of China’s reform, meanwhile the
there exist big gap between current political institutions and the operational
mechanisms of the real politics, all of these provide very large space of institutional
legalities for further incremental political reform. ②Kang Xiaoguang pointed out that,
China’s future is open and uncertain, the possibility of failure could not be excluded.
Whether China could succeed relies on the race between the speed of accumulation of
problems and the speed of solving problems, and relies on the learning capacity of
Chinese government and the create capability of Chinese people. Since the beginning
of the reform, Chinese government has displayed very strong capacity of learning, and
the creativity of Chinese people will not be lower than that of Singapore’s people.
③
Therefore, it is justifiable to be optimistic with some cautious for the prospect of
China’s incremental political reform and the political transition toward democracy.
Zhu Xueqin, ‘Revolution in these Thousand Years’, cited from website of sohu in May 5,2005:
http://star.news.sohu.com/20050503/n225433140.shtml
②
Xu Xianglin, ‘China’s Incremental Political Reform on the Base of Political Stability’, Journal of Strategy and
Management, No.5, 2000, pp.16-26.
③
Reference to Kang Xiaoguang, ‘China as an Exceptionalism--Rethinking on the Lessons of Mainland China’s
25 Years Reform’, No. 4, 2003, pp.56-62; Kang Xiaoguang, ‘Why China has been Succeed—Rethinking on the
Lessons of Mainland China 25 Year’s Reform’, Journal of China Reform, No.10, 2003, pp.5-7.
①