■ Source: Li, Cheng, “The End of the CCP’s Resilient Authoritarianism? A Tripartite Assessment of Shifting Power in China”, The China Quarterly 211 ( September 2012), pp. 595–623. © School of Oriental and African Studies, published by Cambridge University Press, reproduced with permission.

The End of the CCP’s Resilient Authoritarianism? A Tripartite Assessment of Shifting Power in China*

Cheng Li**

If there is one recurring mistake that the international community makes when analysing present-day China, it is to describe the world’s most populous and rapidly changing country in monolithic terms. Many commentators fail to draw a distinction between China’s ruling elite and Chinese society when they assess the current status and future trajectory of Chinese politics.1 Given that China has become increasingly pluralistic, with the arrival of many new socio-political players and an increasingly complicated decision-making pro- cess, inaccurate generalizations are more problematic today than ever before. Over the past decade, overseas China analysts have tended to character- ize the Chinese authoritarian political system as “resilient” and “strong.”2 According to their logic, the (CCP) seems to have found a sustainable way to maintain its rule over its fast-growing economy. In the view of these foreign observers, China’s increasing national strength, growing societal diversity, and emerging intra-Party checks and balances are factors that strengthen rather than undermine CCP rule.3 In general, this

* The author thanks Chris Bramall, Eve Cary, Jordan Lee and John Langdon for suggesting ways in which to clarify the article. ** Brookings. Email: [email protected]. 1 Perry Link, a long-time critic of the Chinese authorities, recently made a strong and valid cri- tique of some American experts on China for their use of the terms “China” or “the Chinese” to “refer exclusively to elite circles” of the Chinese Communist Party. Link warned that allowing “China” to represent only a small elite “is dangerous in that it adumbrates nearly a fifth of the world’s population. It also prevents a square consideration of how long the regime will last” (2012, 27). Interestingly, Gordon Chang, another well-known critic of the CCP lead- ership, has continued to predict “the coming collapse of China,” while primarily referring to the potential fall of the CCP (2011). For an earlier version of his thesis, see Chang 2001. 2 David Shambaugh, for example, observed that the CCP is a “reasonably strong and resilient institution” (2008, 176). See also Nathan 2003; Miller 2008b; Miller 2009. 3 According to Andrew Nathan, “the regime’s institutional changes have so far served to con- solidate rather than weaken authoritarianism” (2006, 3); see also Fewsmith 2006; Brown 2009; Dickson 2003; Dickson 2008; Tsai 2007; Yang 2004.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004302488_052 The End of the CCP’s Resilient Authoritarianism? 1497 perspective tends to underestimate the vulnerability of the authoritarian one- party system. New socio-economic forces in the country pose serious chal- lenges to the CCP’s resilient authoritarianism. Meanwhile, competing factions within the Party leadership may fail to broker the necessary deals to preserve Party unity. Some of the fundamental flaws of the Chinese political system were on dis- play in the spring 2012 political crisis concerning 薄熙来, one of the Party’s rising stars and chief of China’s largest city, . Official corrup- tion, for example, is unprecedented in scope and scale in contemporary China. Ironically, Bo had been a leader known for his tough stance on corruption, having spearheaded a “smashing mafia” (dahei 打黑) campaign, but now most consider him to be a kind of “head of the mafia.” Consequently, public trust in the CCP’s leadership has perhaps fallen to its lowest point in the post-Mao era. The Party has lost the moral high ground. If the allegations are shown to be true, it seems that absolutely no moral constraints were at play in the cases of 谷開來 (Bo’s wife), former Chongqing Police Chief 王立军 and Bo himself, which allegedly involved murder, assassination, torture and other abuses of power.4 Despite efforts on the part of the CCP leadership to earmark these inci- dents as “isolated and exceptional phenomena,” many PRC public intellectuals openly argue that rampant official corruption, especially when involving top CCP leaders’ families, exemplifies a decadent form of crony capitalism (quan- gui zibenzhuyi 权贵资本主义) that is more the rule than the exception in the Chinese political system.5 The Bo imbroglio is certainly not solely a reflection of his notorious egotism.6 The scandal is arguably the most serious political crisis since the 1989 Tiananmen incident and constitutes a major challenge to the legitimacy of the CCP leadership as a whole.

4 It was widely reported in overseas Chinese media that Jiang Zemin, former general secretary of the CCP, recently commented on the Bo Xilai scandal that “Bo has crossed the bottom line of human civilization.” Sing Tao Daily, 28 May 2012. 5 For example, Zhang Ming (2012) launched a strong critique of the rampancy of official cor- ruption by dozens of CCP top leaders in March, a few months before the foreign media began to trace “family trees” of crony capitalism among the Chinese leadership. For the CCP authorities’ effort to make the Bo case “isolated and exceptional,” see Sina News, posted on 25 May 2012, http://news.sina.com.hk/news/1617/3/1/2673095/1.html. 6 Bo has been long famous for his political ambition (see Li 2001, 165–66). In the months pre- ceding the crisis, Su Wei, a scholar close to Bo at the Chongqing Party School, compared Bo Xilai and Chongqing mayor Huang Qifan to former leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai in comments circulated in both the Chongqing and national media. See Sina Global Newsnet, posted online on 20 September 2011 http://dailynews.sina.com/bg/chn/chnnews/ausdaily/ 20110920/18402783790.html.