THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL Institutional Development of the Chinese National People’s Congress (1978-89): Intellectual Perspectives Being a Thesis submitted for the Degree of PhD in Politics in the University of Hull by Xingjian YAN M.A (East China Normal University) June 2013 Abstract This research focuses on the institutional development of the National People’s Congress (NPC) in the period 1978-89, which was approximately the initial decade of the Post-Mao period of Chinese politics. For the NPC, this period saw the sharpest institutional development, which thus far remains under-researched. The main research question is how and why the NPC institution has developed. In other words, the research aims to illustrate the mechanism and factors that shape the NPC’s unique institutional characteristics. This study contributes to the existing literature that focuses largely on describing how the NPC institution changes by exploring why the NPC has acquired its many particularities. The main research question is answered from a new perspective external to the institution itself, which is guided by a theoretical framework centred on the ‘reform influencers’ who had a direct linkage to, or participated in, the NPC institutional reform. It is argued that clashes of consciousness (involving Marxist intellectual ideas, liberal democratic ideas, and domestic intellectual ideas such as nationalism) played an important role in the post-Cultural Revolution political reforms. Accordingly, the primary concern of the research is how the diversified consciousness, or the ‘intellectual background’, of the reform participants has influenced the institutional development of the NPC. Empirically, this study pursues the following issues: (1) who are the reform influencers and which social groups they represent; (2) how influencers’ diversified intellectual background shaped their preference in reforming the NPC institutions; (3) how the diversified preference finally shaped the main characteristics of the NPC institution. Based on the study of four major groups of influencers associated with NPC reforms, a series of ‘principles’ are identified in the concluding chapter as being responsible for shaping the NPC’s many unique institutional characteristics from an intellectual perspective. The new perspective analysed in this thesis represents an innovative attempt to study Chinese legislative development by linking the institutional development with its external ‘environment’ – the reform influencers and their conflicting intellectual ideas. Furthermore, the empirical analysis adds new knowledge and understanding of the NPC development to the current literature by a) studying those actors (e.g. intellectual elite and wall-posters), whose linkages to the NPC institutional development have not been subject to systematic analysis; and b) examining new sources of data, including those established through interviews with NPC deputies in the 1980s and surveying the compilation of the wall-posters’ underground publications. Acknowledgement My life has never been that tortuous and suffering than in the recent three years, and I am pretty sure that I would have been crushed by pressure if was not surrounded by the people whose generous assistance encouraging me to keep my research. I must highlight my supervisors, Professor Lord Norton and Dr. Dai. This thesis, including its structure, methodology, and theoretical framework benefits a lot from their kind suggestions and advice; they also kindly read through every chapter, pointing out mistakes, even grammatical ones and typos. This thesis also benefits from assistance in China, particularly during my field work. My appreciation goes to the interviewees for providing me with many valuable ideas and primary evidence that constitute an important research contribution of this thesis. My family and all friends in China and UK should be appreciated. I finally give up the attempt at listing everyone’s name because doing so would definitely result in a book- length list (longer than the thesis). Even so, I must highlight Dr. John Garrity, Mr. Webster Kamimi, and Mr. James Silverweed, for their incredible patience in reading through my work and correcting numerous grammatical mistakes. I should also highlight Professor He Junzhi in Fudan University for his providing of many important documents and his many innovative advices in the initial stage of the thesis planning. I would also like to express my gratitude to the department of politics for providing a superb study environment. My sponsor, the Chinese Scholarship Council, should also be appreciated for their economic support that completely covers all my tuition fee and living costs, by which I can fully concentrate on my study. Abbreviations BR Beijing Review, China’s official English news weekly CPC The Communist Party of China CPPCC Chinese People’s Political Consultative conference CR The Proletariat Cultural Revolution CUP Compilation of Mainland China Undergraduate Publications (Dalu Dixia Kanwu Huibian): a twenty-volume compilation of major wall poster journal articles appeared in the wall-poster movement KMT Kuomintang; literally means the Nationalist Party that formally controlled the political power since the end of the Warlord period in 1927 and fled to Taiwan after defeated by the CPC in 1949 LPC Local People’s Congress NILDIE Nationalist influenced liberal democratic intellectual elite NPC National People’s Congress NPCSC National People’s Congress Standing Committee OMIE Orthodox Marxist intellectual elite PCs People’s Congress system PMB Private member’s bill RCI Rational Choice Institutionalism RLDIE Radical liberal democratic intellectual elite RMRB Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily), published under direct supervision of the CPC Central Committee; most crucial official daily newspaper The Third The Third Plenum Conference of the Eleventh Central Party Committee Plenum (1978) WEH Shijie Jingji Daobao (World Economic Herald). A widely influential weekly newspaper published by reform activists in Shanghai Social Science Academy (1980-1989); it was forced to close in the 1989 crisis for being too ‘active’ Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1 I. Research question ............................................................................................................ 2 II. Institutional context: the NPC in the Chinese political system .......................................... 3 III. Historical context: the 1980s as the crux of Chinese political reform ............................... 6 IV. Thesis structure .............................................................................................................. 7 Chapter 2. The People’s Congress system in 1980s China ......................................................... 8 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 8 I. Institutional developments................................................................................................. 9 1.Functional ..................................................................................................................... 9 2. Structural .....................................................................................................................10 3. Behavioural .................................................................................................................16 II. Limitations of the 1980s PCs ..........................................................................................17 1. Functional ...................................................................................................................18 2. Structural .....................................................................................................................19 3. Behavioural .................................................................................................................20 III. Exploration of institutional change.................................................................................21 1. Political sociological approach .....................................................................................21 2. Legitimacy approach ...................................................................................................26 3. Ideological approach ....................................................................................................28 4. Historical approach ......................................................................................................31 Conclusion: longing for a new explanatory perspective ........................................................33 Chapter 3. Theoretical Framework and Methodology ..............................................................37 Introduction ........................................................................................................................37 I. Theoretical framework (1): function and institution ..........................................................37 1. Theoretical basis of the function leading principle ........................................................38 2. Functions and indicators of corresponding institutional changes ...................................40 II. Theoretical framework (2): intellectual background ........................................................44 1. Defining the intellectual background