China Perspectives

52 | march-april 2004 Varia

Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/745 DOI: 10.4000/chinaperspectives.745 ISSN: 1996-4617

Publisher Centre d'étude français sur la Chine contemporaine

Printed version Date of publication: 1 March 2004 ISSN: 2070-3449

Electronic reference China Perspectives, 52 | march-april 2004 [Online], Online since 19 April 2007, connection on 06 October 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/745 ; DOI : https://doi.org/ 10.4000/chinaperspectives.745

This text was automatically generated on 6 October 2020.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Society

Towards a Chinese Sociology for “Communist Civilisation” In Peking, a group of sociologists at Tsinghua University are proposing a new course of research Aurore Merle

What Future for Public Intellectuals? The specialisation of knowledge, the commercialisation of culture and the emergence of post-modernism characterise China in the 1990s Xu Jilin

The Professional Reintegration of the “Xiagang” A survey in Liaoning province underscores the importance of vocational training courses Peilin Li and Yi Zhang

Politics: Macao

Public Sector Reform in Macao After the Handover Bill K.P. Chou

International Relations

Border Disputes between China and North Korea Daniel Gomà Pinilla

Book reviews

Ross Terrill, The New Chinese Empire — and what it means for the United States New York, Basic Books, 2003, 384 p. Henri Eyraud

David M. Lampton (ed.), The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978-2000 Stanford, Ca., Stanford University Press, 2001, 508 p. Jean-Pierre Cabestan

Bo Zhiyue, Chinese Provincial Leaders: Economic Performance and Political Mobility since 1949 M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, New York 2002, 183 pp. Stéphanie Balme

Christophe Rouil, Formose, des batailles presque oubliées... Taipei, Les éditions du Pigeonnier, 2001, 191 p. Ann Heylen

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Iredale Robyn, Bilik Naran and Guo Fei (eds.), China’s Minorities on the Move. Selected Case Studies Armonk, New York, London, M.E. Sharpe, 2003, 183 p. Élisabeth Allès

Bertil Lintner, Blood Brothers: Crime, Business and Politics in Asia Australia, Allen and Unwin, 2002, 470 p. Guilhem Fabre

Guobin Zhu, Le Statut de Hong Kong, Autonomie ou Intégration [The Status of Hong Kong between Autonomy and Integration] Presses universitaires d’Aix-Marseille, 2002, 287 p. Leïla Choukroune

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Society

China Perspectives, 52 | march-april 2004 4

Towards a Chinese Sociology for “Communist Civilisation” In Peking, a group of sociologists at Tsinghua University are proposing a new course of research

Aurore Merle

NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR

Translated from the French original by Philip Liddell

1 Sociology, having been banned from China’s universities and research centres for nearly thirty years, was rehabilitated at the start of the 1980s by the central government, which called on sociologists to join the campaign to modernise the country1. Under the guidance of Marxist-Leninist theory, the task ahead was to “rebuild-restore” (chongjian huifu) a “Chinese” and “socialist” sociology2. The equation for the sociologists to resolve was generally: how to combine Marxist theory with Western sociological theories and methods in the Chinese context? The development of the discipline over the subsequent two decades was marked by a gradual relaxation of ideological control. But the question, how to use knowledge acquired in the West to study Chinese society, still remained, the replies often varying between universalist and culturalist poles3. The aim of this article is to provide for that question a reply that is innovative in its theoretical and methodological aims. “The sociology of practice” (shijian shehuixue) was developed by a group of researchers in the Department of Sociology at Tsinghua University; it set the discipline in China a new subject for research—the study of “communist civilisation” (gongchan zhuyi wenming) and its changes—and proposed an adapted theoretical and methodological framework. How did this “formula for research”4 emerge? Why did this change of emphasis, from “socialist” sociology to the sociology of communism and its transformations take place? And how is it reflected in practice? These are questions that we shall try to answer. But, beyond such purely academic issues, arises the question of the sociologists’

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commitment and the social purpose of their scientific production—what is this new sociology for? And who is it for? The “enigma” of the Chinese countryside 2 In May 2000, the first edition of Qinghua shehuixue pinglun (Tsinghua Sociological Review)5, the review of Tsinghua’s brand new Sociology Department, devoted a special report to the question of relations between the state and society in the Chinese countryside of today6. The report, the fruit of several years of empirical research, opened with a theoretical discussion paper: what tools did sociology provide for assessing the relationship between the state and the peasants in present-day China? This study, carried out by Sun Liping, one of the founders of Tsinghua’s Sociology Department, opened with an enquiry into the control exerted by the political authorities over the Chinese countryside. The disappearance of the People’s Communes and the redistribution of the collective means of production to peasants’ homes from the 1970s onwards suggested a weakening of the local power structures in the countryside. For some, this “retreat of the state” was to lead to genuine autonomy in the countryside. Sun Liping, however, pointed out, this was only one aspect of the matter. This view of a retreat by the authorities could be opposed with another view—that the application of the state’s will had been maintained. The collection of grain and of various forms of taxation, the imposition of birth control, and the basic functions of local representatives of the state were, despite difficulties, mainly fulfilled. How was this paradox to be explained? The sensation of having come up against a theoretical enigma led sociologists to question the traditional frameworks for observation and analysis, and to seek a new approach that would go beyond the existing dichotomous and static view of the state and society.

3 To observe as closely as possible the concrete forms of relationship between the peasants and the state, the research strategy that was developed and called “process- event analysis” consisted in starting off with “events”, envisaged as “dynamic processes”7. Thus, Sun Liping and Guo Yuhua looked into the collection of cereal quotas sold to the state (dinggouliang). In a period of transition, what resources would officials at district and village levels mobilise in order to collect the amount of grain required from the peasants? Ma Mingjie studied the intervention of a Party secretary in the economy of a district in the northeast of China and illustrated the mobilisation techniques that the official used to “force the peasants to become rich”. Ying Xing and Jin Jun retraced the collective action of shangfang (appealing to higher levels in the administrative hierarchy to resolve an injustice) that had been pursued for over ten years by peasants moved off their land by the building of a hydroelectric power station. Shen Yuan Born in 1954, Shen Yuan’s first academic field was philosophy (a Master’s degree at Renmin Daxue (People’s University) in 1986). From 1989 to 1999, he was a researcher at the Sociology Institute of the Academy of Social Sciences where he took the successive posts of Director of the Bureau of Scientific Research (1989-1997), head of the editorial office and Deputy Editor of the review Shehuixue yanjiu (Sociological Research) (1997-1999). In 1998, he was awarded his doctorate, for a thesis entitled “Commentary on research into the market by the new economic sociology”. At present Deputy Director of the Sociology Department of Tsinghua University, his fields of research are economic sociology and the sociology of work organisations. Among the research projects that Shen has taken part in, we should mention the research programme on social justice, in collaboration with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), as well as a research project on rural markets in north

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China. Pursuing his thinking on the special features of the industrialisation process in north China (production based on home workshops in rural areas), his present work is devoted to the nongmingong in north China and the special character of their participation in the world of work (migration from one rural area to another, finding work in peasant homes). Strongly influenced by Alain Touraine and his method of sociological intervention, the programme is aimed in particular at intervening in work relations between peasant-producers and peasant-workers, the right to self-determination, the right to work, and the right to take part in public affairs). Three of Shen’s articles have been published in French: “L’affaire du tirage au sort. Principes de justice et d’équité des commerçants d’un marché du Nord de la Chine” (The draw affair: principles of justice and equity among traders in a market in North China) in Isabelle Thireau and Wang Hansheng (eds.), Disputes au village chinois. Formes du juste et recompositions locales des espaces normatifs, Paris, Editions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 2001, pp. 205-247: “Naissance d’un marché” (Birth of a market) in Etudes rurales, “Le retour du marchand dans la Chine rurale”, Nos. 161-162, January-June 2002, pp. 19-36; “Histoire de marques” (On brand names and trade marks), with Liu Shiding, ibid, pp. 67-76

4 In these three case studies, the emphasis was on the description and the detailed reconstruction of events. The researchers based themselves on a qualitative methodology, close to anthropology, using participant observation8 and in-depth interviews; they sought, before any analysis, to “relive” these events, to take account of the interactions between the various participants. The attention paid to such interactions helped to throw a new light on power relationships. Sun Liping and Guo Yuhua thus described how, in the course of grain collection, local officials combined “force and good words” (ruan ying jian shi), that is to say, using the state’s formal methods backed by informal resources to achieve their purposes. Ying Xing and Jin Jun showed that society might also, in certain conditions, mobilise formal resources, such as the shangfang procedure. Ma Mingjie, analysing the process of reactivating the basic structures of power, drew attention to the fact that political power exerted locally did not flow automatically from the existence of organisational structures. By stressing the necessity for meticulously observing the effective practices of the central authorities and by showing the complexity of relations between the state and society in present- day China, the writers proclaimed their willingness to distance themselves from the two paradigms that at this time dominated research on China. The first, known as “the theory of state centralism” (guojia zhongxin lun)9, favoured the analysis of the structures of domination and the apparatus of the state and the Party, and stressed a total control, exerted from the top down, by the political authorities over society. In reaction to this totalitarian paradigm a different view was developed from the 1980s onwards: a view favouring the study of society and popular culture, and emphasising the predominance of phenomena of social resistance; it led, in its most radical form, to the image of a traditional peasant society that was scarcely touched by the central power or the state structures. As Sun Liping pointed out, this “indigenous” view (bentuxing) had a significant echo in the China of the 1990s; Chinese anthropologists of this period threw themselves into the “seeking the temple movement” (xun miao yundong)10. Confronted by these two paradigms, the studies presented in this report and the results reached by the writers appeared as real and key cases, which were to challenge the categories and the frameworks of sociological thinking.

5 In the first two cases, it was the analytical opposition between a strong state holding a monopoly of official resources and a weak society with only informal resources

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available to it that came under empirical attack. In the same way the third case invited us to switch our scrutiny to the effective functioning of structures.

6 Even though, confronted by these two paradigms, the method proposed in this special report was presented primarily as a “research strategy”, as a means of access to another level of reality and not as a new paradigm, it was nevertheless based on a different view of the central power. It is in the daily life of the Chinese peasants that sociologists must look for manifestations of domination and must uncover the secret mechanisms of power. This position, strongly influenced by the work of Pierre Bourdieu, focuses attention, not on static structures, but on practices and interactions envisaged in a dynamic way. The emergence of this position must be seen as an attempt to grasp the economic and social transformations that China has been experiencing over this period of time. Sociologists, confronted by a particular context of transition towards a market economy, but with the political structures unaltered, place at the heart of their enquiry the reconstruction of relationships between the state and society. But in order to fully understand the enormity of these changes, their enquiry into present-day power relationships must inevitably include a historical study of the dominance exerted by the central political power since 1949. One attempt to answer such questions was made by the project to discover the oral history of the countryside. A rival to official history, the oral history project 7 At the beginning of the 1990s, Sun Liping and his students at the Sociology Department at Peking University launched an oral history project. For those taking part there were twin objectives. One was to gather oral sources on the social changes that had overtaken the Chinese countryside in the second half of the twentieth century; the second was, by describing and analysing social life in the countryside, “to discover and interpret the cause of these changes”11. Why, when the country is entirely preoccupied with the future and with economic modernisation, did they embark on such a project? The project arose from an awareness of a lack of “popular sources” on the daily life of the peasants and how it had changed over the past fifty years. As Sun Liping explains: "When we began describing social processes, we realised that we didn’t have access to any sources to assess these experiences. So, at the time, we saw the oral history method as a means of gathering such sources. To give an example: the system that apportions individual responsibility for the land means that the fields are shared among individual people. In the libraries, there must surely be more than a thousand studies on this subject. But if you want to know precisely how the share-out took place in a village, or what exactly was shared, or which conflicts broke out during the sharing process, you can’t find any replies to such questions in the books. Some of them deal with the situation in a village, but don’t describe the practical process of sharing out the land. In these circumstances, we decided we would turn to oral history as a way of collecting non-official sources within society, so as to understand them and to preserve them"12.

8 Taking a new approach to an official history, a history of the Party or of the Revolution13, the sociologists decided to use in-depth interviews with peasants and village officials who had personally lived through these transformations, to harvest a different, more “authentic” history and to “plug the gap” that exists in this field14. It was an ambitious plan, both in the length of the historical period being covered, half a century, and the need to understand these transformations across the whole of the Chinese territory. Six villages―one each from the north east, the north, the north west, the south east, the south and the centre south of China―were chosen as case

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studies and the project was divided into six historical periods: the agrarian reforms, the co-operative movement, the people’s communes and the Great Leap Forward, the movement for socialist education, the Cultural Revolution and, lastly, the policy of reform and openness15. Here we should point out the originality of this enterprise and of the writers’ field of investigation: at a time when sociology in China was mainly committed to research into modernisation and its effects, and when the main approach was that of social engineering, the oral history project opened up a new field for research, namely, the revolution. By taking the path of oral memory, the task was to discover the direction of the Maoist Revolution and its impact on Chinese society.

9 Fang Huirong, in her memoir16, looked at the exercise of communist power during the period of agrarian reforms. Focusing her attention on the movement for “pouring out grievances” (suku), her central argument was that the penetration of communist power into the countryside had not taken place from the starting point only of economic measures (the redistribution of land to the peasants) but also of the peasants’ relationship with the past and with other people.

10 Without going into Fang’s dissertation in detail17, we will highlight two essential points, beginning with the attention she drew to the link between social investigation and the central power in communist China. Carrying out the agrarian reforms meant dividing the peasants among the various social classes18 established by the Party. How was this division to be effected? Going back over the survey carried out by the work teams (gongzuo zu) sent on several different occasions to the village that she was studying, Fang showed that these relationships were part of a power relationship: the investigators responsible for determining to which class the individual members of the new society belonged were to practise a new form of investigation, founded on suspicion and the search for proof, and one that would be widely used during successive political campaigns. Fang laid stress on the contradictions between the investigators’ demands and the peasants’ memories; but on extending her argument we are led to question the practices of the sociologists. In a China where social survey rhymes with authority, how can the investigators avoid being seen as representing those in power? How can they escape from this peculiar relationship, that between the investigators and the investigated? In the selection of terrain and in the method of enquiry these methodological precautions will be the object of specific attention.

11 The heart of Fang’s study concerns another aspect of the role of the research teams in the village, that of mobilising the peasants to “pour out grievances”. By dint of an exhaustive study of the narrative method adopted by the peasants, she showed how the collective denunciation of suffering imposed a new meaning on the past and contributed to building up an opposition between the “old society” and the “new society” in the representations of the peasants. “More powerful than ideological training”19, this denunciation of suffering gives us the first key to understanding how communist power penetrated the regions. In another article20, Sun Liping and Guo Yuhua extended the study of the denunciation of suffering and showed how those in power were stealing that former practice for their own use, using it to shape the category of social classes and also to create the idea of the state as an embodiment of the “people” (renmin) or of the “masses” (qunzhong) in peasants’ minds. The writers pointed out that the relationship built was far removed from one built historically in the West: it was not as a citizen (gongmin) that the individual was linked to the state but as a member of a social class composing the people.

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12 Using the example of the agrarian reforms, the writers of the oral history project illuminated the influence of communist power over Chinese society. This influence was exerted not only through economic measures or by recourse to force and propaganda but also in a more “subtle” and “secret” way through the production of a real habitus, imparting a new vision of the world and new principles of division. These discoveries led sociologists to redefine not only their practices but also the subjects for their research: “It was at this time that we were really confronted by ‘communist civilisation’”, Sun Liping and Guo Yuhua declared21.

13 The oral history project was an important step in the intellectual development of the researchers; it marked too the start of a collective research undertaking. It was during this period that Sun Liping invited Guo Yuhua and Shen Yuan (who were at that time researchers at the Academy of Social Sciences) to join the project and take part in the discussions. The founding of the sociology department at Tsinghua was a further step in the careers of these researchers, encouraging them to blend their differing forms of intuition into a properly constructed theoretical framework. But before outlining these new orientations we must first describe the founding of the department and the project for which it was founded. Guo Yuhua Born in 1956, Guo Yuhua specialised in the study of folklore and traditional customs at Peking Normal University. She was awarded a doctorate in 1990, after completing a study of popular funeral rites in China. She then joined the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Social Sciences. In September 2000, Guo visited the United States for a post-doctoral year at Harvard University’s Anthropology Department, before taking up an earlier appointment as professor in the Sociology Department at Tsinghua University. She has taken part in numerous research programmes in China (“Changes in the social and cultural life of the peasants in Yangjiagou in north China”, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; research on the “third sector” [associative sector] in China, China Youth Development Foundation) or in collaboration with institutions abroad (research on social justice, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); the project, “Food culture and social changes”, Harvard University). Among her ongoing projects, we should mention a research programme on the functioning of the social security system for laid-off employees of state enterprises, a sociological intervention project carried out with Shen Yuan on workers’ rights, as well as a study on the impact of globalisation and local reaction to it, based on the case of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) in China. Among Guo’s most recent publications, we should cite the following: editorship of the book Rites and Social Changes (Zhongguo shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2000); “The movement for denouncing suffering: an intermediate production mechanism for the notion of the state among the peasants” (with Sun Liping, Zhongguo xueshu, No. 4, 2002); and also an article published in French: “D’une forme de réciprocité à l’autre. Une analyse de la prise en charge des personnes âgées dans les villages du Hebei” (“From one form of reciprocity to the other. An analysis of the undertaking to accept responsibility for old people in the villages of Hebei”) in Isabelle Thireau and Wang Hansheng (eds.), Disputes au village chinois. Formes du juste et recompositions locales des espaces normatifs, Paris, Editions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 2001, pp. 39-78. Sun Liping Born in 1955, Sun Liping is one of the first students to have been trained in sociology in China since it was revived as a discipline in 1981 at Nankai University in Tianjin). From 1982 onwards, he taught in the Sociology Department at Peking University; then, in January 2001, became a professor in the Department of Sociology at Tsinghua University. During the 1980s, his research mainly focused on the question of the modernisation of society (The Modernisation of Society, Huaxia

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chubanshe, 1988). From the 1990s onwards, Sun devoted himself to reflection on the changes within China’s social structures and the emergence of new social groups. His analysis of the polarisation of contemporary Chinese society, and in particular the concept of “social fracture” (shehui duanlie), had a significant impact in China that went beyond the purely academic (see particularly his two articles: “Tendencies and potential crisis in the short and medium term of China’s social structures transition”, with Li Qiang and Shen Yuan, Zhanlüe yu guanli, No. 5, 1998; and “New tendencies in the development of China’s social structures since the mid-1990s”, Department of Sociology, Tsinghua University, 2002). Turning his attention today towards the sociology of transition, Sun, in addition to other work, is directing three research projects. The first is a programme of oral history on the social changes that have taken place in the Chinese countryside since the mid-twentieth century; the second is an analysis of the relations between the state and the peasants in the contemporary Chinese countryside; and the third is a research programme focused upon the transition from the work unit system to the construction of the community, a programme aimed at analysing the process whereby a “total” society (zongtixing shehui) becomes a “post-total” society (hou zongtixing shehui). Sun Liping’s main theoretical output includes: “‘Process-event analysis' and the relationship in practice between the state and the farmers in contemporary China” (Qinghua shehuixue pinglun, No. 1, 2000); “Sociology directed towards practices” (Jianghai xuekan, March 2002); and “The sociology of practice and the analysis of the practical process of market transition” (Zhongguo shehui kexue, No. 5, 2002). Several articles have also been published in French: “Les armes faibles des forts. L’usage des normes sociales informelles dans l’exercice du pouvoir” (The weak weapons of the strong. The use of informal social norms in the exercise of power), in Isabelle Thireau and Wang Hansheng (ed.), Disputes au village chinois. Formes du juste et recompositions locales des espaces normatifs, Paris, Editions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 2001, pp. 249-286, and “Forcer le peuple à s’enrichir!” (Forcing the people to become rich!), with Ma Mingjie, in Etudes rurales, “Le retour du marchand dans la Chine rurale”, Nos. 161-162, January-June 2002, pp.165-182 The role of the sociologist

14 The Sociology Department at Tsinghua University was officially founded in May 2000, after several months of preparation22. The department is a small one, composed of a dozen researchers; it was born, in part, out of the university’s wish to develop a social sciences faculty. But for the researchers who took part in the foundation of this new institution, the challenge was to create a new academic environment. Shen Yuan, now Deputy Director of the department, recalls: “We wanted to create an academic environment that was alive, an academic environment capable of facing up to the complexity and the richness of social life. ... We were hoping to have the capacity to tackle the real problems of Chinese society, but at the same time we wanted to be able to establish a constructive dialogue with contemporary social theory. At the time, we had the impression that this ideal could not be realised in the other departments; and that we would be obliged to found a new department ... in which we could pursue research projects in common, in which we could debate and exchange our ideas ”23.

15 Why did Shen stress the necessity to “tackle the real problems of Chinese society” while maintaining “a constructive dialogue with contemporary social theory”? And why would he seek to combine the two? Sun Liping offers the first answer in going back over the recent history of sociology in China: “The 1980s was essentially a decade of 'indigenisation' (bentuhua) . . . we didn’t know what the common aim of research in this discipline was; we had no idea what stage of development it had reached; what concerned us more were the problems of Chinese society. If Chinese sociologists didn’t

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resolve them, we wouldn’t be able to enter the twenty-first century! What’s more, research was taking a very official direction ... socialism, and then came the twenty- first century. But in the 1990s, the situation of Chinese sociology started to make progress and, more fundamentally, there was a change of identity ... Originally, Chinese intellectuals said, “I must take charge of this society.” Well, the change of identity is like this: I now have knowledge available to me; I recognise the existence of a community of knowledge, of which I am one element ”24.

16 Thus, in the 1980s and 1990s, sociologists in China were going through a process of specialisation and professionalisation. The 1990s in particular witnessed a new generation of researchers stepping into the spotlight; they had been trained specifically in sociology, whether abroad or in mainland China. For them, sociology was more than just a “tool” for resolving the problems of Chinese society; it was a scientific discipline with its own agenda, its own standards. Thus, it became an objective in itself to develop this discipline in China, within the framework of an international scientific environment. This phenomenon was also accompanied by the gradual relaxation of ideological supervision. This change is particularly noticeable in the vocabulary used by sociologists: Marxist phraseology is used far less in sociological writing; also, in the choice of subjects, the prescriptive style that marked the research of the 1980s gave way to a technical or neutral viewpoint25.

17 Yet, the transition from traditional intellectual to expert was not achieved without raising questions about where sociological research was heading. Sun Liping and Guo Yuhua dwell on the dangers of this specialisation, Sun summing them up thus: “In the course of this process [of specialisation], another tendency could be observed, namely, a diminishing awareness of the real problems of Chinese society or, more fundamentally, a complete loss of it. Researchers carry out studies in China; then they take a small part of this material, the least important part, and use it to seek an international dialogue.” To which Guo adds, “The other tendency is ‘to stir Western concepts into all the sauces’, by [systematically] incorporating fashionable concepts into their research26.”

18 Criticism of the role played by the “scientist” has developed, in reality, on several levels. Firstly, critics point to the risk of a drift towards formalism, towards legitimising common sense opinions by dressing them up as abstract scientific concepts27. Also questioned are the import of concepts produced in the West and their use to describe a Chinese context. “We have this problem today with Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu”, Sun explains. “They created concepts and theories that corresponded to certain problems in their time, to a certain context. If we merely pick up their concepts, it is quite useless28.” The problem of using sociological theories in the appropriate context arises all the more seriously when research is carried out into political issues or in response to a demand by the public authorities. That is the case, for example, with the research into the urban communities that have multiplied over recent years in China, financed mainly by the public authorities following the policy of building communities (shequ jianshe). As Shen Yuan points out during a reading seminar29, “Research on communities comes directly from the United States: we have been influenced by it. However, the notion of ‘community’ as it’s used today in China has nothing to do with the communities observed by sociologists in the United States”.

19 Such reflections show that it is the link between science and ideology, between sociology and power that is being questioned. It is to this spirit of reflectiveness that

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Guo Yuhua appeals during a class on rural sociology30. Reminding students of the need to combine theoretical thinking with attention to the problems of Chinese society, she insists on the particular “vocation” of the researcher who must constantly adopt a reflective attitude towards power relationships: “Why should we think about the resistance of the peasants? The most widespread argument within the government, among researchers or city-dwellers, is the need for social stability―a view that considers the peasants in terms of their numbers. By adopting this argument, we adopt the viewpoint of the dominant class. We ought to be on the side of the peasants” .

20 But taking the viewpoint of those being dominated must not lead us to becoming their “spokesmen” (dai yan ren) because, as Guo Yuhua explains to her students, to set oneself up as a spokesman is to develop a “paternalistic relationship” with the peasants and to move into politics.

21 One can see in this advice given to student-researchers in the department a particular sensitivity to the sociologist’s mission and the unremitting care to avoid power relationships. In practice, how can one realise this ideal? Aside from methodological precautions, the problem raised by Sun Liping, Guo Yuhua and Shen Yuan lies squarely with constructing the subject for research. Through this questioning, they are initiating an overall reformulation of the issues and aims of Chinese sociology. “Communist civilisation”: a new subject for research 22 Extending their earlier thinking, Sun Liping, Guo Hua and Shen Yuan are developing within the Tsinghua Sociology Department a line of research directed towards “social transitions” (shehui zhuanxing). Behind this general title, the real aim is to open up a re- evaluation of the changes to communist systems, in particular of “market transition” (shichang zhuanxing) in China and the social changes accompanying it. How did the market appear to people in China at the end of the 1970s? What are the relations between the state and the market? While questioning of the appearance and the development of the market is not new and has already been the subject of their research31, the new department will be a favourable setting for carrying out an in- depth assessment. A special course has been opened that is to enable the student- researchers to peruse the whole range of literature on this question32. This would include the classical literature on socialism, especially from the economic and social point of view, with writers such as Polanyi, Mannheim and Schumpeter; and also the material on the transition stages of communist regimes in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe33, as well as articles on the Chinese experience34. This course is designed, on the basis of this course of reading, to pursue an investigation into the nature of the communist system and its changes, and above all to examine what is specific to the Chinese case.

23 In several articles35, Sun Liping makes a comparison between Eastern Europe’s market transition, analysed by the Budapest School, and the process China is going through. His thinking is structured on two levels: an empirical level looking at the characterisation of these different transitions and a theoretical level that, starting from the empirical difference observed, looks at the analytical tools specific to each process. Sun advances several elements. Firstly, he points out that the particular attention directed by the Budapest School to structural changes and the question of the elite, as with its use of large-scale surveys, accords with the form the transition has taken in these countries. Indeed, the transition was preceded by the collapse of the political system and its dominant ideology. That in turn opened up the possibility of an

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economic change led by the state, within a legal framework, with a very strong intervention by the new economic and intellectual elite. Yet, Sun remarks, in China this process is going forward in the context of a stable political regime; thus the economic changes will take place according to two strategies: bringing the reform measures into the official ideology (take, for example, the formula of the “socialist market economy”) or, secondly, the “non-debate”. This special feature will in its turn have repercussions on how social life unfolds: as Sun Liping sums up, “It all comes down to ‘doing things without saying anything’, or to ‘adapting to circumstances’”36.

24 This special character of the Chinese case requires us to find new tools for analysing it. That is what Sun Liping is proposing by developing the concept of the “sociology of practice”, which he defines thus: “Invoking a sociology that faces up to practice is not the same thing as stressing the practical nature of sociology in itself as a scientific discipline; nor is it the same as pointing out the possible use of sociological knowledge in everyday life. Invoking a sociology that faces up to practice means to confront social events in their practical forms, that is to say, taking practical situations as a research subject for sociology. So what is practice? What are the practical forms of social events? Speaking generally, practical situations are the concrete functioning processes of social factors ”37.

25 Here may be found the insights that had been developed in the special report of the first edition of the Tsinghua review, devoted to relations between the state and the peasants, in particular the attention paid to the practical forms of events. Yet, in the course of thinking about the transition to the market, an important change took place: the transition from the concept of “process-event analysis” to that of “sociology of practice”. No longer is the aim merely to propose a “method” or a “research strategy”, or again a “style”; rather, it is to create a new sociological approach, or a new “research formula”, presented as an organised whole and offering a new model for the analysis of social phenomena and an adapted methodology38. The heart of this approach lies in the clear definition of a new subject for research (yanjiu duixiang): the “functioning logic of communist civilisation” (gongchan zhuyi wenming de yunzuo luoji).

26 But how should we understand the concept of “civilisation”? While the term has the advantage of being relatively “neutral” from a political point of view, it refers also to the idea of a “total social fact”, which includes at the same time the political, economic, social and cultural dimensions. Shen Yuan offers us a first definition of it39: “Chinese society also belongs to communist civilisation. Communist civilisation is a complex community: it includes a whole range of institutional arrangements (zhidu anpai), but also a number of ways in which individuals can act. It also includes all sorts of ideologies. All of that comes together in everyday life. We shall observe the formation of a “manuscript” (wenben), but also the norms for action that are present in people’s minds. We say that all these things together form a complex totality that is communist civilisation. Its formation, its development, its changes, we define all these as the subject for research for Chinese sociology”.

27 We can see in this first explanation that the term defines a complex totality that includes “institutions”, that is to say, ways of organising social life and the sharing of resources, whether from an economic, political or social point of view (We may think, for example, of the planned economic system and of the particular form that it imposes on the distribution of economic resources, or of the danwei system with its particular forms of organising work and social life, or again of criteria for social classification, and

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so on). But the term also encompasses individuals’ logic for action, as well as a whole range of beliefs and views of the world. We must also point to the emphasis laid on changes to this communist civilisation. Shen Yuan specifies that how it emerged, developed and changed must all be studied. So the research programme extends over a long historical period, which includes the period of the reforms.

28 Initiated by the oral history project and the investigation into relations between the state and society, the research formula proposed by Sun Liping, Guo Yuhua and Shen Yuan has shifted the questions about the link between sociological knowledge produced in the West and Chinese society. It is not the opposition between Western knowledge and Chinese culture that is advanced but rather the gap between the sociological knowledge arrived at out of an enquiry into capitalism and the communist experience into which Chinese society has been plunged.

29 Shen Yuan40 says that defining this subject for research enables them to overcome the problems of Chinese sociology by offering a general framework for analysis: “It’s an important step forward. We shouldn’t imagine that all Chinese sociologists know what they are studying. When they begin, they don’t have a total concept. They say, ‘I’m studying the family’, or ‘I’m studying the factory’—but they don’t know that the family or the factory are systems produced by communist civilisation. They will go and carry out surveys and conduct interviews while having no awareness of that. ... Their main problem is that they can’t see the wood for the trees ... But the family or the factory that are studied, if you don’t first make them part of an enquiry into communist civilisation, well, you’re making a serious mistake ... The biggest mistake made in Chinese sociology is that it hasn’t defined the subject for research. When we mention communist civilisation, [that means that] we can study it from different angles. This can help us to explain how to use Western theory to confront the problems of China. Otherwise, the problem is insoluble”.

30 While the “great masters of sociology”, as Sun Liping recalls, Marx, Durkheim and Weber, despite their different approaches, were enquiring into the same subject, capitalism, the problem facing today’s sociologists in China is that of communism and the society that characterises it. From this point of view, the enquiry described here is not presented as a “new sociology” but rather as a return to the great questions with which classical sociology was concerned41.

31 And this thinking is for Sun a field of research in its own right, within which would be included studies about China and also more generally about all the societies that have experienced or are experiencing communism: “We may begin from very different places, from culture, history, social networks, relations between the state and society, communities, xiagang (laid-off workers from state enterprises), from social security or from migrants: perhaps what everyone does will be different, but what is very clear for us is that the research must be integrated into a field of knowledge about communism and its changes”42.

32 This new field of knowledge may even represent, as Shen Yuan wishes, a “new source of inspiration” for sociology and, more generally, for the social sciences43: “This source of inspiration has been blocked for a long period, partly because of the Cold War ... But now the situation is different; we can study it more calmly; these different experiences can contribute towards producing concepts that the social sciences will be able to use in a universal way”.

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33 For these academics, what is at issue is not strictly scientific. A generation that has lived through the full rigour of the Maoist era and the period of the reforms can now, starting from this sociological rethink, go back over its experiences and understand them. Shen again: “While our thoughts have gradually been developing, the whole of the history and culture of this nation-state has gone through a great transformation [the policy of openness and reforms]. We have lived through the earlier period [the Maoist period]; we have also lived through the later period. People older than us have above all lived through the earlier phase, which is why, with regard to the process of change in the later phase, their attitude is primarily one of complaint: they do not understand it. Members of the generation following us, when they understand things, will have had contact above all with the later phase. For them, the earlier phase will already be a far-distant period of history. It isn’t necessary to understand it. From primary school, where we first started to understand, until 15 to 16 years old, when impressions of the world were formed, we knew only the communist system. Later, starting at 17 to 18 years old, we witnessed the process of change, a change so profound that history has known nothing like it. We are the generation that lived through this change”44.

34 The appeal, “We must rapidly catch up”, that Deng Xiaoping threw out to the sociologists in 1979 seems over these past twenty years to have been answered (by taking a different route, obviously, from that which Deng envisaged). Chinese sociology has not only won the confidence of the authorities but has also endowed the international scene with innovative and high-quality pieces of work. Of the latter, the direction proposed by Sun Liping, Guo Yuhua and Shen Yuan is probably one of the most original and accomplished at the theoretical and methodological levels. By basing their research on “communist civilisation” and its changes they are opening a new path for Chinese sociology. Not only are they transforming the initial project for a socialist sociology, as desired by the central power, into a sociology of communism, but they are also helping to renew the debate on the connections between sociological theories produced in the West and those produced in the Chinese context. No longer do we have two cultures in opposition but, with this connection, we note two distinct historical trajectories, one marked by capitalism, the other by communism. The emphasis placed on qualitative studies, on meticulous observation of the events and practices of daily life while maintaining an advanced theoretical approach, contrasts also with the present-day tendency for Chinese research to pursue quantitative studies. But while this looks like pioneering work within this youthful Chinese discipline, the question of how it will be received is still to be answered. Now that the country is entirely (or almost) facing towards the future and towards modernisation, now that the “experts” have the wind in their sails, what place remains for a reflexive school of sociology that scrutinises the past while seeking to understand the present?

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NOTES

1. Sociology was introduced into China from the end of the nineteenth century; and its popularity reached a peak in the 1930s and 1940s with a proliferation of surveys and research projects both in urban and rural areas. At the start of the 1950s, after the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, the discipline was suppressed in universities and research institutes. In 1957, the movement against right-wing elements violently denounced it as a bourgeois science and condemned its representatives, who had appealed during the Hundred Flowers campaign for sociology to be revived. The act of re-creating the discipline took place in March 1979, with Deng Xiaoping’s “We must rapidly catch up” speech, followed by the appeal by Hu Qiaomu, President of the new Academy of Social Sciences, to recreate institutions and re- embark on research. Sociologists such as Fei Xiaotong were rehabilitated and charged with re-establishing the discipline. 2. See in particular: Shehuixue tongxun (the internal review of the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Social Sciences), No. 1, 1981; and Wang Kang, Xue bu ji–Shehuixue zai Zhongguo (Collection of essays–Sociology in China), Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 1983, 206 pp. 3. The problem with the specific identity of sociology in China arises in the 1930s and 1940s, with the appeal for the discipline to become more Chinese (Zhongguohua), launched by some sociologists, such as Wu Wenzao and Sun Benwen. The question reappears at the start of the 1980s, posed by Fei Xiaotong, leading a debate in the United States, and also in Taiwan and Hong Kong. After that it flared up recurrently in the debates within the discipline. For a recent example, see the discussions on this theme during the Senior Seminar of Social Theory organised by the Department of Sociology of Peking University, October 28th to November 2nd 2002. 4. We have borrowed this expression from Jean-Michel Chapoulie: see his article, “La seconde fondation de la sociologie française, les Etats-Unis et la classe ouvrière” in Revue Française de Sociologie, No. 32, 1991, pp. 321-364. His interest is to emphasise, not the general “theories”, but the “research processes themselves”, that is to say, “that essential stage of research which extends from choosing a type of documentation and a way of dealing with it to the final editing of the published evidence” (p. 322). 5. Reviews in China are still largely controlled by the central power. For reviews “within the system”, that is to say, publications that have the official status of “academic review”, the classification criteria derive from an administrative hierarchy: at the top of the tree are the “generalist” reviews, published by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, such as the review Zhongguo shehui kexue in the social sciences field. Then come the specialised reviews of the same Academy, such as the review Shehuixue yanjiu of the Academy’s Institute of Sociology. Also at the same level are the generalist reviews of local social science academies, such as the review Jianghai xuekan of the Jiangsu Academy, as well as the generalist reviews of the universities, such as the Beijing daxue xuebao. Lastly, one finds in the administrative system reviews under the direction of institutes or associations supervised by ministries and commissions. In addition to this official system, a number of reviews appeared from the 1980s onwards “outside the system”. Not being certified by the state, they resorted to the procedure called yi shu dai kan (using the book to replace the review) in order to be published. In practice, that consists

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in finding a publishing house that will agree to publish the review in the form of a book. That is how the review of the Sociology Department of Tsinghua University was published. While it is still early to measure the full effects of this new review, one can nevertheless point to the interest excited by the first few issues among sociology lecturers and students in Peking. 6. Qinghua shehuixue pinglun, No. 1, May 2000, Sociology Department, Tsinghua University. Thus, the summary in English introduces the articles that make up the special report: Sun Liping, “‘Process-Event Analysis’ and the Relationship in Practice between the State and the Farmers in Contemporary China”, pp. 1-20 ; Sun Liping and Guo Yuhua, “Wielding Both the Stick and Carrot: Process Analysis of Informal Operation of Formal Power. A Case Study of Levying dinggouliang at Town B in North China”, pp. 21-46; Ma Mingjie, “Manipulation of Power and Manipulative Mobilization. A Case Analysis of Forcing Villagers to Become Rich”, pp. 47-79; Ying Xing and Jin Jun, “The Process of Problem-Making in the Collective Action of shangfang–the Story of Migration for Constructing a Hydropower Station in Southwest China”, pp. 80-109. 7. The Chinese term used by Sun Piping is guocheng-shijian fenxi. 8. Sun Liping and Guo Yuhua give this description of their research work: “In the course of this survey, we conducted interviews with the district and village officials who took part in this process, and carried out a participant observation during the collection process for cereal quotas in the two villages of Lu and Xu. Several months afterwards, we returned to district B, and conducted supplementary interviews with officials and villagers in the village of Lu (p. 24).” Further on in their article, they explain that participant observation of the work of the officials was made possible thanks to the relations of trust established with them. 9. Sun Liping also uses the expression, “zhengti lun moshi” (model of the theory of totality) to describe this paradigm. See Sun Liping, “‘Guocheng—shijian fenxi’ yu dangdai Zhongguo guojia—nongmin de shijian xingtai” (“Process-Event Analysis” and the Relationship in Practice between the State and the Farmers in Contemporary China), op. cit., pp. 16-17. 10. See Sun Liping, ibid, p. 17. 11. See Liu Xin, “Remember to Forget: Critique of a Critical Case Study”, Qinghua shehuixue pinglun, December 2002, Sociology Department, Tsinghua University, note to p. 390. In this note, Liu Xin reproduces the original text of the writers’ intentions for the oral history project. This text serves as introduction to all the memoirs connected with the project. 12. Joint interview with Sun Liping, Shen Yuan and Guo Yuhua, November 12th 2003, Centre for Research on Contemporary China, Tsinghua University. 13. See Fang Huirong, “‘Wu shijian jing’ yu shenghuo shijie zhong de ‘zhenshi’—Xicun nongmin tudi gaige shiqi shehui shenghuo de jiyi” (“Non-Event State” and “Truth” in the Life World: The Memories on Social Life of Xicun Peasants During the Period of Land Reform), in Zhongguo shehuixue, No. 2, Shanghai, Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2003, pp. 282-371. The article was published for the first time in Yang Nianqun (ed.), Kongjian. Jiyi. Shehui zhuanxing (Spaces. Dissertations. Social Transitions), Shanghai, Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2001. In the first part of his dissertation, the writer analyses the method of historical narrative of a book published in 1976 recounting the history of the village she is studying. Although based on local history, the presentation of local events is invariably linked with national history in an evolutionist perspective. 14. See Liu Xin, op. cit., p. 390

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15. Twenty years of surveys and research are planned. (Liu Xin, ibid, p. 391). Among those dissertations already finished, we may cite: Fang Huirong, op. cit., Master’s degree dissertation, Peking University, 1997; Jin Jun, Jingying luoji yu caimin luoji–dui dahe dianzhan nongmin changqi jiti shangfang de ge’an yanjiu (Logic of the elite and logic of the stricken–Case study on the collective grievances expressed over a long period by peasants about the hydroelectric power station on the Yangtse), Master’s degree dissertation, Peking University, 1998; Li Kang, Xicun shiwu nian: cong geming xiangzou geming–1938-1952. Heidong cunzhuang jiceng zuzhi jizhi bianqian (Fifteen years in Xicun: from the Revolution to the Revolution–1938-1952. The changes in the mechanisms of the basic organisations in the village of Heidong), Master’s degree dissertation, Peking University, 1999; Chen Xiuying, Suku, rentong yu shehui chonggou–dui “yi ku si tian” de yi xiang xintai shi yanjiu (Pouring out grievances, identity and social reconstruction– Historical research into mental attitudes on the subject of “remembering yesterday’s suffering to appreciate today’s happiness”), Master’s dissertation, Peking University, 1999; Ying Xing, Cong “tao ge shuofa” dao “bai ping li shun” : xinan yige shuiku yimin qu de gushi dahe yimin de shangfang gushi (From “Give me a reason!” to “the reasoned exposition of arguments”: history of an area of migration near a reservoir in the south west and history of the grievances expressed by people along the Yangtse), doctoral thesis, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, 2000. 16. Fang Huirong, op. cit. 17. For an excellent critical review of this dissertation, see Liu Xin, op. cit., pp. 308-395. Liu Xin’s critical review is published both in Chinese and in English. 18. The four social classes were: the landowners, the rich peasants, the middle-income peasants and the poor peasants and day-labourers. 19. Fang Huirong, op. cit., p. 302. 20. Sun Liping and Guo Yuhua, Suku: yi zhong nongmin guojia guannian xingcheng de zhongjie jizhi (Pouring out Grievances : A Mediated Mechanism for the Shaping of the Peasants’ Idea of the State), conference entitled “Research on China: questions and methods”, co-organised by the Centre for the Study of China of the University of Berkeley and by the Centre for Research on Contemporary China of Tsinghua University, December 2001. The article was published in 2002 in the review Zhongguo xueshu (No. 4), then in Zhongguo shehui kexue wenzhai (No. 2, 2003). 21. Interview with Sun Liping, Shen Yuan and Guo Yuhua, November 12th 2003, Tsinghua University. 22. To be more exact, it was re-founded, because, in 1926, a sociology department had been founded at Tsinghua headed by Professor Chen Da. It was suppressed in 1952 with the reorganisation of university studies. See the department’s website: http:// www.tsinghua.edu.cn/ 23. Interview with Sun Liping, Shen Yuan and Guo Yuhua, November 12th 2003, Tsinghua University. 24. Ibid. 25. As an example, we may cite the development, from the start of the 1990s, of a field of research into the new social stratification in China. Giving up Marxist typology in terms of social classes, some sociologists started enquiring into the formation of new social strata and into the new criteria for social stratification. Among numerous references, see in particular Li Qiang, Dangdai Zhongguo shehui fenceng yu liudong (Social stratification and mobility in contemporary China), Zhongguo jingji chubanshe, 1993; “ Zhengzhi fenceng yu jingji fenceng” (Political and economic classification), Shehuixue

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yanjiu, 1997, No. 4, pp. 32-42; Li Lulu, Dangdai Zhongguo xiandaihua jincheng zhong de shehui jiegou ji qi biange (Social structures and their transformations within the process of modernising contemporary China), Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 1992 ; “Lun shehui fenceng yanjiu” (Commentaries on research into social stratification), Shehuixue yanjiu, 1999, No. 1, pp. 101-110; and the last report of the Academy of Social Sciences, Lu Xueyi (ed.), Dangdai Zhongguo shehui jieceng yanjiu baogao (Report on research into the social strata in contemporary China), Shehuikexue wenxian chubanshe, 2002. 26. Interview with Sun Liping, Shen Yuan and Guo Yuhua, November 12th 2003, Tsinghua University. 27. Reading seminar (dushu hui) devoted to The Sociological Imagination by C Wright Mills, and led by Sun Liping, Guo Yuhua and Shen Yuan, Research Centre on Contemporary China, Tsinghua University, March 5th 2003. 28. Ibid. 29. Session of January 2nd 2003 30. Course in Rural Sociology, Tsinghua University, November 22nd 2003. 31. See in particular the research directed by Shen Yuan in the market in Baigou: Shen Yuan, “L’affaire du tirage au sort. Principes de justice et d’équité des commerçants d’un marché du Nord de la Chine”, in Isabelle Thireau and Wang Hansheng (ed.), Disputes au village chinois. Formes du juste et recompositions locales des espaces normatifs, Paris, Editions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 2001, pp. 205-247. Shen Yuan, “Naissance d’un marché”, in Etudes rurales, “Le retour du marchand dans la Chine rurale”, Nos. 161-162, January-June 2002, pp. 19-36. Shen Yuan and Liu Shiding, “Histoire de marques”, ibid, pp. 217-262. 32. From September 2002 to June 2003, a course on “Social Transitions” was given by Professor Yang Kaiyun. 33. Among the many relevant writers, we could mention Janos Kornai, Ivan Szelenyi, Peter Murrell, Akos Rona-Tas, and David Stark. 34. Among the writers studied were in particular Jean Oi, Andrew Walder, Victor Nee, Lü Xiaobo and Elizabeth J. Perry. 35. See in particular: Sun Liping, “Maixiang dui shichang zhuanxing shijian guocheng de fenxi” (Directing oneself towards an analysis of the practical process of market transition), Shehui zhuanxing yanjiu tongxun, No. 1, September 2002. This article was presented for the first time in December 2001 at the conference “Research on China: Questions and Methods”, co-organised by the Center for Chinese Studies at Berkeley University and the Centre for Research on Contemporary China at Tsinghua University; “Maixiang shijian de shehuixue” (Sociology oriented towards practice), Jianghai xuekan, March 2002, and “Shijian shehuixue yu shichang zhuanxing guocheng fenxi” (The sociology of practice and the analysis of the practical process of market transition), Zhongguo shehui kexue, No. 5, 2002. 36. Sun Liping uses the concept of “biantong”, which is difficult to translate. For a more precise description, see the article, “Zuowei zhidu yunzuo he zhidu bianqian fangshi de biantong” (To adapt to circumstances as a way of functioning and a way of changing the system), Zhongguo shehui kexue jikan, No. 21, 1997. 37. Sun Liping, “Maixiang shijian de shehuixue”, op.cit. 38. For more details, see Sun Liping, ibid. 39. Interview with Sun Liping, Shen Yuan and Guo Yuhua, November 12th 2003, Tsinghua University. 40. Ibid.

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41. This return to classical sociology is expressed, for example, in the concept of “communist civilisation”, echoing that of “capitalist civilisation” developed by Max Weber. 42. In this spirit, new fields for research will be opened up. Sun Liping and his students are thus looking into the transition from the system of the work unit (danwei) to the system of the community (shequ), what is at stake being to grasp the logic of this process and its different procedures. A programme for research on xiagang workers (laid-off workers from state enterprises) in northeast China is also in progress. Shen Yuan is pursuing his researches on the market in Baigou and the production system based on home workshops. He has started a programme for sociological intervention that aims to analyse and to change the work relationships between peasant-producers and peasant-workers. But the development of a new field of knowledge takes place equally by means of an effort of reflection over the whole range of Chinese sociological research produced since the discipline was rehabilitated. A project to republish the most important research is in progress, in cooperation with the University of Shanghai. 43. Interview with Sun Liping, Shen Yuan and Guo Yuhua, November 12th 2003, Tsinghua University. 44. Shen Yuan, ibid.

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What Future for Public Intellectuals? The specialisation of knowledge, the commercialisation of culture and the emergence of post-modernism characterise China in the 1990s

Xu Jilin

NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR

Translated from the French original by Michael Black

1 While the question of the public intellectual has been the subject of lively debate in the international intellectual community for over ten years, it has appeared in China only recently. What is a public intellectual? And why does this question generate debate? It is generally considered to be Russell Jacoby, in his book published in 1987, The Last Intellectuals, who called attention to the disappearance of the public intellectual. In his view, the intellectuals of the past, who wrote for cultivated readers, often had a public commitment (gonggongxing). In the United States, the generation born in the 1920s is considered to be the last generation of public intellectuals. Actually, with the democratisation of university teaching, public intellectuals have been replaced by scientific experts and university professors, whose production is aimed exclusively at specialised readers. With the disappearance of public intellectuals, culture and public life also went into decline1. In France it is the passing of Jean-Paul Sartre and Michel Foucault that are generally considered as marking the end of the public intellectuals2.

2 Let us first define what the term “public” means in the expression “public intellectuals”. I believe that it carries three levels of meaning. Firstly, it designates a discourse aimed at the public. Secondly, it concerns thought carried out for the public, whose point of departure is the common good, rather than a personal position or individual interests. Lastly, it characterises the inclination for public affairs or major issues in society. These three levels of meaning contained in the notion of public commitment are closely bound to the conception intellectuals have of themselves. Now public commitment, which was initially one of the characteristics of intellectuals, is

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weakened today because of specialisation and the post-modernist movement. How can this commitment be restored in a specialised, post-modern society?

3 The question of the public intellectual is not only a Western problem, but also concerns China. In the 1990s, China experienced, as did Europe and the United States after the 1970s, a specialisation of the system of knowledge and the appearance of the post- modernist cultural movement. In this article I will firstly analyse the emergence of specialised intellectuals (zhuanye zhishifenzi) and of media intellectuals (meiti zhishifenzi), two phenomena which are characteristic of China in the 1990s. Then, based on several debates devoted to the reconstruction of commitment which have taken place in the Chinese intellectual world, I will advance three ideal types: the traditional intellectual, the organic intellectual, and the specific intellectual. Lastly, drawing my inspiration from Pierre Bourdieu, I will analyse the possibility, in the era of specialisation, of constructing an ideal type of public intellectual, who, from the specific, aims at the universal. Specialised intellectuals and media intellectuals 4 In China, the decade of the 1980s was very lively in terms of culture and public life3. The movement of liberation of thought at the beginning of the 1980s, followed by the “cultural fever” (wenhua re) of the mid-1980s (later called “The New Enlightenment” after the May 4th movement 1919), saw the appearance of a group of renowned public intellectuals who reached a wide readership. These intellectuals were writers, scientists, philosophers, researchers in the humanities, and even senior civil servants and ideologues of the system. The subjects they broached all had a public dimension and went beyond their spheres of specialisation, whether political life, the comparison of Chinese and Western cultures, or the scientific Enlightenment. These “public intellectuals” gave lectures in the universities, and published articles in the newspapers and journals, while their books were sold all over the country and easily reached print runs of tens or hundreds of thousands of copies. They had become influential public figures.

ANNEXES

Economic development and transformation of human capital On October 27th and 28th 2003, the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC) and the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS) jointly organised a conference entitled “Economic development and transformation of human capital”1, from which we publish two contributions. What competences does China need today? How do individuals, as well as the training system, adapt to the new demands of companies and of the administration? These were some of the questions asked and which the participants attempted to answer by exchanging their points of view on China, on Russia, another society and economy in transition, and on France; an approach based on the conviction that the social sciences can only be comparative. The focal point of this conference was a consideration of the elites, a highly sensitive

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subject in a neo-authoritarian or neo-totalitarian communist regime. While certain actions of the new government team inaugurate a new phase in the policy of reform, which is more directed at those excluded from prosperity, does this really mean the beginning of a new practice of policy and of politics, which must necessarily include reflection on—if not a calling into question of—those who are at the top of the social ladder? The sessions were organised around three subjects: the economic, political and intellectual elites. In his opening speech, Yin Jizuo2 recalled the context and the tenor of the changes experienced by the country’s elites. China, in integrating itself into the world system by its policy of reform and opening up, has joined the scientific and technical revolution, bringing about the necessary adaptation of the Chinese working population, that is to say its professionalisation. This is particularly the case of company managers, whose role has evolved in order to respond to the needs of the transition. Shen Ronghua3 showed how the state enterprise managers, until then administrative cadres supervising production, have become real heads of enterprises, chosen according to criteria of professional experience and competences validated by diplomas. It is not only enterprise managers who have to adapt to the new economic environment, but, to a large extent, all employees, of whom specific competences are now demanded. State enterprises are facing the challenge of retraining their employees, whom Li Peilin and Zhang Yi4, basing themselves on a series of surveys carried out in the province of Liaoning, showed would benefit from an effective system of professional training. Zhang Jiehai5 gave an example of successful retraining and of social mobility: that of migrant workers who have become white collar and thus identify with the urban middle class. According to Lu Hanlong6, analogous transformations are taking place in the political sphere where the “reds” are making room for the “experts”. Jean-Pierre Cabestan7 confirmed this by studying a particular population, the delegates of the National People's Congress (NPC), the second most important group of leaders in China after the members of the Central Committee of the Party. The members of the NPC have an increasingly high level of education. Their legitimacy has been enhanced not because of the mode of election, but because of their increasing participation in debates which are more and more open to their growing expertise. What is true at a national level is also true, possibly even more so, at a local level. Li Yuomei8 underscored this by analysing the leaders of neighbourhood communities and other urban organisations, such as residents’ committees or co-owners’ associations; they are chosen more for their level of education or their professional status than for their links with the Communist Party. While in the eyes of these new social actors, professional competences are more useful and more valuable than membership of the Party, the same holds true for managing cadres who have themselves reduced ideology to a quasi-symbolic secondary importance. As our own work9 shows, the latter spend most of their training period in the Party schools or in the institutes of administration learning the stakes of the modern world and of post-Maoist China, as well as training on more specific or technical questions, in order to carry out the new tasks imposed on them by the policy of reform and opening up. One could not tackle the problem of training for the leading elites without mentioning the French Ecole nationale d’administration (ENA) which inspired the Chinese government in the reform of its schools of administration and with which the latter maintain institutional and pedagogical links—their best students spend time in France.

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Jean-Pierre Worms10 sought to underline the distortions that “enarchy” has produced, in particular the de facto monopoly held by ENA graduates on positions of power in the economic and political spheres. Thus, from the training of leading cadres, the interrogation moved towards the problematical connections between the political and the economic, one of the challenges in the transition which are regularly brought up by the media during cases of corruption. Monique de Saint-Martin11 recalled that such connections also exist in Russia, where former Soviet bureaucrats have become entrepreneurs, owners or shareholders in large private enterprises after perestroïka. Nevertheless, according to Marie Mendras12, the administrative apparatus in Russia has managed to adjust to the new context, and to consolidate its positions in the political and economic spheres as well as the social one: in fact, at all levels of the country, years of upheaval have made the Russian administration stronger, and it is said today to be oblivious to political pressures. To Zheng Yefu13, the remedy for the plague represented by corruption lies in a return to Confucianism and the placing of ethics and moral teaching at the heart of the pedagogical mission. Mao Hongxiang14 sought to show the glaring inadequacy of the Chinese education system, as a result of lack of investment and weak political will: urgent reform is called for. Finally professionalisation also affects the intellectuals— understood as the group of those with diplomas—who, according to Lu Xiaowen15, make up an essential part of the middle classes. Moreover Lu made an essential distinction between the professional intellectuals, the academics and researchers who fulfil a function of experts for the governments, and the critical intellectuals. The latter, recalled Xu Jilin16, after having been very active in the 1980s, had great difficulty during the decade of the 1990s in finding a role in the public debate of a society which puts more value on expertise with a practical objective. Jean-Philippe Béja17, comparing China and France, went further, maintaining that the critical intellectuals, or counter-elites, are condemned to remaining in a minority and to seeing their role decline. Lastly Jacques Rupnik18 showed how in certain Eastern European countries, the victory of the intellectuals (such as Vaclav Havel) also marked the beginning of their fall in the face of the advance of consumer society. As well as the question of the conversion of political capital into economic capital during the transition phase, he emphasised the importance of civil society in the consolidation of the democratic process. The animated and open debates to which the body of these contributions gave rise were structured around the notions of effectiveness and equity. From the manager’s point of view, the objective sought is an optimal functioning of enterprises, administrations and the training apparatus. From the point of view of the citizen, it is access to education, the conditions of promotion and of critical thinking which are questioned. Emilie Tran

NOTES

1. Russell Jacoby, The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe, translated by Hong Jie, Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2002. 2. Cf. Jean-Philippe Béja, “Gonggong zhishifenzi de shehui juese. Faguo de lishi yu xianshi” (The social role of public intellectuals. History and reality in France), Kaifang shidai, No. 1, 2004.

China Perspectives, 52 | march-april 2004 25

3. Cf. Chen Yan, L'Eveil de la Chine, Paris, éditions de l'Aube, 2002, 318 p. 4. On the differentiation of Chinese intellectuals in the 1990s and the theoretical debate between liberalism and the new left, see the author: “Qimeng de mingyun: ershi nian lai de Zhongguo sixiang jie” (The fate of the Enlightenment: the Chinese intelligentsia in the last twenty years), Ershiyi shiji, No. 50, Hong Kong, December 1998. “Lun liang zhong ziyou he minzhu: dui “ziyou zhuyi” yu “xin zuopai” lunzhan de fansi” (Commentaries on two forms of freedom and democracy: reflections on the theoretical debate between “liberalism” and the “new left”), Dongya lunwen, No. 31, 2001. 5. Chen Pingyuan, “Xueshu shi yanjiu suixiang” (On the current of research on the history of academic life), Xueren, Vol. 1, Jiangsu wenyi chubanshe, 1991, p. 3 6. Cf. Chen Sihe, “Zhishifenzi zai xiandai shehui zhuanxing qi de san zhong jiazhi quxiang” (Three orientations of the intellectuals in the period of transformation of modern society), Shanghai wenhua, inaugural issue, 1993. 7. On vocation, see Max Weber, in Politics as a Vocation, translated by Feng Keli, Beijing sanlian shudian, 1998. Qian Yongxiang has made a close analysis of the sense of vocation in Weber, see his article: “Zai zongyu yu xuwu zhishang” (Above pleasure and nothingness), in the book of the same title, Beijing sanlian shudian, 2002. 8. Chen Pingyuan, “Jin bai nian Zhongguo jingying wenhua de shiluo” (The decline of elite culture in China over the last hundred years), Ershiyi shiji, June 1993. 9. Wang Xiaoming et al., “Kuangye shang de feixu: wenxue he renwen jingshen de weiji” (Ruins in the desert: the crisis in culture and in the humanist spirit), Shanghai wenxue, No. 6, 1993. 10. Cai Xiang, Xu Jilin et al., “Daotong, xuetong, yu zhengtong” (Taoist orthodoxy, scholarly orthodoxy and orthodoxy), Dushu, No. 5, 1994. 11. Ibid. 12. Xu Jilin, “Renwen jingshen de duo yuan yiyi” (The multiplicity of meaning of the humanist spirit), Wenhuibao, Shanghai, December 17th 1995. 13. Voir Chen Xiaoming, “Renwen guanhuai: yi zhong zhishi yu xushi” (The humanist concern: a form of knowledge and narration), Shanghai wenhua, No. 5, 1994. Zhang Yiwu, “Renwen jingshen: zui hou de shenhua” (The humanist spirit: the last sacred word), Hebei zuojia bao, May 6th 1995. 14. Zhang Yiwu, “Xiandaixing de zhongjie: yige wufa huibi de keti” (The end of modernity: a subject one cannot go back over), Zhanglüe yu guanli, Peking, No. 4, 1994. Chen Xiaoming, “Houxiandai: wenhua de kuozhang yu cuowei” (Postmodernism: the expansion and false position of culture), Shanghai wenxue, No. 3, 1994. Zhang Fa, Zhang Yiwu, Wang Yichuan, “Cong “xiandaixing” dao “zhonghuaxing”“ (From “modernity” to “sinity”), Wenyi zhengming, Changchun, No. 2, 1994. 15. Zhang Fa et al., “Cong ‘xiandaixing’ dao ‘zhonghuaxing’”, ibid. 16. Cf. the author’s: “Qimeng de mingyun”, op. cit. 17. Cf. Zhang Rulun, Wang Xiaoming, “Renwen jingshen: shifou keneng he ruhe keneng” (Is the humanist spirit possible and if so, how?) Dushu, Peking, No. 3, 1994. 18. Cf. Zhang Chengzhi, Wuyuan de sixiang (Thoughts without help), Peking, Huayi chubanshe, 1995. Zhang Wei, Youfen de guitu (The indignant way back), Peking, Huayi chubanshe, 1995. 19. Cf. Wang Hui, Sihuo chongwen, Peking, Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 2000, preface, pp. 343-345, pp. 430-432. 20. Cf. Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, translated by Cao Leiyu, Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, pp. 1-4.

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21. Cf. Michel Foucault, L’Œil du pouvoir, translated by Yan Feng, Shanghai, Renmin chubanshe, p. 48, p. 72, and p. 147. 22. When I call the critical intellectuals, embodied by Wang Hui, specific intellectuals of the Foucaldian type, it is only on the basis of the similarities between their critiques, which seek to reveal unequal power relations. I thus overlook a fundamental difference between them: the specific intellectuals revealed by Foucault reject any global social objective, while the Chinese critical intellectuals make political freedom, social justice and egalitarian power their objectives, and the foundations of their critique. Cf. Wang Hui, Sihuo chongwen, op. cit., preface, p. 8. 23. Jean-François Lyotard, “Tombeau de l’intellectuel”, in Houxiandaixing yu gongzhong youxi (Post-modernity and public play), translated by Tan Yinzhou, Shanghai renmin chubanshe, pp. 116-117 24. Cf Jean-François Sirinelli, Intellectuels et Passion française, translated by Liu Yunhong, Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2001, p. 8; Pierre Bourdieu, “Le corporatisme de l’universel: le rôle des intellectuels dans le monde moderne”, translated by Zhao Xiaoli, in Xueshu sixiang pinglun, No. 5, Liaoning daxue chubanshe, 1999, p. 174. 25. Karl Mannheim, Essays on the Sociology of Culture, in Kaer Manhaimu jingcui, translated by Xu Bin, Nanjing daxue chubanshe, 2002, p. 183. 26. Pierre Bourdieu, Libre-échange, translated by Gui Yufang, Beijing sanlian shudian, 1996, p. 51. 27. In particular by Jean-François Lyotard, La Condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir, translated by Che Jinshan, Beijing sanlian shudian, 1997. 28. Wang Xiaobo, Wo de jingshen jiayuan (The Native Country of My Spirit), Beijing wenhua yishu chubanshe, 1997, preface, p. 1 29. Cf. in particular Richard Posner, Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline, translated by Xu Xin, Zhongguo zhengfa daxue chubanshe, 2002. 30. Wang Xiaobo, op. cit., preface, p. 3. 31. Cf. Chen Xuanliang, “Sate: you’an yu tongming zhijian” (Sartre: light and shadow), in Shiren zhexuejia, Zhong Guopin (ed.), Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1987, pp. 399-402. 32. Pierre Bourdieu, “Le corporatisme de l’universel”, op. cit. 33. Jean-François Lyotard, “Tombeau de l’intellectuel”, op. cit. 34. Cf. Michel Foucault, “Intellectuels et pouvoir”, dialogue avec Gilles Deleuze, in Fuke ji (A Foucault Anthology), Du Xiaozhen (ed.), Shanghai yuandong chubanshe, 1998. 35. Cf. Carl Boggs, Intellectuals and the Crisis of Modernity, translated by Li Jun and Cai Hairong, Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2002, pp. 208-217. 36. Michel Foucault, “Zhexue de shengming” (The life of philosophy), in L’Œil du pouvoir, translated by Yan Feng, Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1997, p. 102. 37. Cf. Michel Foucault, “Quanli yu xing” (Power and Sexuality), in L’Œil du pouvoir, op. cit., p. 48. 38. Cf. Michel Foucault, “Quanli de chanshi” (Commentaries on power), in L’Œil du pouvoir, op. cit., pp. 22-34. 39. Jürgen Habermas, Xiandaixing de zhexue huayu (The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity), Wang Minan, Chen Yongyuan and Ma Hailiang (eds.), Zhejiang renmin chubanshe, 2000, p. 366. 40. Pierre Bourdieu never directly mentioned an ideal type of intellectual who from the specific moves towards the universal. What he put forward was only the scientific intellectual of whom the ideal type was the sociologist. However, on the question of the public intellectual, which is our subject here, Bourdieu’s theory offers in reality an

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ideal type of public intellectual which makes it possible to transcend the two conflicting models of the specific and the universal. 41. Pierre Bourdieu, “Le corporatisme de l’universel”, op. cit 42. Pierre Bourdieu, Libre-échange, op. cit., p. 72. 43. Pierre Bourdieu, “Le corporatisme de l’universel”, op. cit.

NOTES DE FIN

1. This conference, which was held in Shanghai, could not have taken place without the financial support of the Consulate General of France in Shanghai, of the EGIDE programme of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and of the various institutional partners of the Municipality of Shanghai; our thanks to them all. The proceedings will be the object of a co-publication in Chinese, which will appear during 2004. 2. President of the SASS. 3. Shanghai Institute of Human Resources. 4. Institute of Sociology, China Academy of Social Sciences, Peking, for the former, and Institute of Demography and Labour Economy, China Academy of Social Sciences, Peking, for the latter. 5. Institute of Sociology, SASS. 6. Director of the Institute of Sociology, SASS. 7. Institute of Comparative Law, University Paris-I. 8. Shanghai University. 9. Emilie Tran, "From Senior Official to Top Civil Servant. An Enquiry into the Shanghai Party School", China Perspectives, No. 46, March-April 2003, pp. 27-40. 10. From the “France Initiative Network”, Paris. 11. Centre for the Study of Social Movements, School of Higher Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), Paris. 12. Centre of International Studies (CERI), Paris. 13. Sociology Department, People’s University of China, Peking. 14. Shanghai Institute of Educational Sciences. 15. Institute of Sociology, SASS. 16. Department of History, East China Normal University, Shanghai. 17. Centre of International Studies (CERI), Paris. 18. Centre of International Studies (CERI), Paris.

China Perspectives, 52 | march-april 2004 28

The Professional Reintegration of the “Xiagang” A survey in Liaoning province underscores the importance of vocational training courses

Peilin Li and Yi Zhang

EDITOR'S NOTE

Translated from the French original by Nick Oates

1 For the majority of forty and fifty-year-olds, middle age is synonymous with socio- professional success and family stability. However, for some of them, this period is full of regrets and distress. In China, the generation encompassing 40 to 55-year-olds is atypical because the journey they have taken to get to this age has been extremely turbulent, marked as it has been by significant historical events; in particular, it was this generation that was sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. Today, some of them are experiencing unemployment. In the former industrial regions where labour problems are concentrated, the popular expression “the phenomenon of the 40 to 50-year-olds” (si wushi xianxiang) betrays the fact that age is a determining factor in the difficulties encountered by these people in becoming professionally reintegrated, precisely at a time in their lives when the burden they have to bear is heavy: financing their retirement, medical care, the education of their children, or supporting their parents. Members of this generation ourselves, although belonging to a privileged group, we would like to make a contribution to the formulation of constructive solutions in the face of this challenge.

2 For quite a long period and until the recent past, China adopted a policy of central planning in labour, which led to a situation where there was full employment. Eventually almost incomprehensible, the notion of unemployment fell into a kind of collective black hole. From 1978, the year in which China launched into reforms that partially introduced the market into the economy, state-owned enterprises (SOE) experienced a decentralisation of their management. At the beginning, all social grades

China Perspectives, 52 | march-april 2004 29

drew concrete benefits from this, as everyone’s income increased, even though we were witnessing the start of a growth in inequality. This is the phenomenon known by economists under the term “Pareto improving reform”. However, the reform of the state-owned enterprises based on a reinforcement of decentralisation made hardly any progress, and the evolution of urban economic reforms was marked in particular by the rapid development of the private economy.

3 From the middle of the 1990s, China began moving towards a demand economy characterised by an increase in competition. The changes brought about by the market in consumption brought with them an inevitable and far-reaching reconfiguration of industrial structures. Under the combined pressure of the market and the reorganisation of the industrial structures, the reform of the state-owned enterprises thus touched on the sensitive territory of job security. Very rapidly, the excess workforce at the state enterprises was “laid off” (xiagang). Today, while the majority of the population continues to experience a rise in income, many xiagang workers face material difficulties.

4 Between 1996 and 2000, 25 million people found themselves xiagang. In 2002, there were another 14 million unemployed and xiagang, whose material difficulties had an impact on several million families in the urban areas. The concept xiagang can be defined in the following way: it represents a kind of temporary arrangement of a social security system borne by the state-owned enterprises during the period in which a labour market is created. This definition differs from that of unemployment1. Generally, the economic situation of the xiagang is better than that of the unemployed2.

5 Although the management of the xiagang populations has been integrated into the reform of the labour market since 2000, it has encountered strong resistance particularly in the towns where state-owned enterprises are concentrated, where heavy industry is important, or even those where the natural resources are on the way to being exhausted. From 2001, the central government has significantly increased its subsidies in order to allow the management of the xiagang to be integrated with that of the unemployed following the example of the experimental social security reform implemented in the industrial province of Liaoning. In this province, 736,000 people without employment were recorded between July 2001 and July 2002. The redundancy settlement paid out amounted on average to 7,340 yuan. The implementation of this new policy means that employees who lose their jobs are registered directly as unemployed; this allowed the re-employment centres to be closed at the end of 2002 and ensures the disappearance of the term xiagang. However, the Chinese labour market will remain strained for many years because of economic growth, industrial restructuring, the increased density of capital and technology, as well as the conditions of supply and demand on the labour market. Moreover, in the event of an external shock to the economy, the groups less capable of becoming professionally reintegrated are the ones that are most severely affected. Thus recently, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) resulted in a new loss of jobs among the unemployed who had succeeded in reintegrating into the private sector, as well as in the temporary return to the countryside of 8 million migrants. The theoretical framework and the hypotheses 6 Among the works that analyse the link between major historical events and the lives of individuals, an important theoretical current reflects an interest in the consequences of social upheaval on individuals. The work by Glen Elder, Children of the Great

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Depression, provides one reference3. In their work entitled Children of the Cultural Revolution, Zhou Xueguang and Hou Liren took up this hypothesis and applied it to China. To do this, they used questionnaires to conduct surveys in an attempt to measure the effects of the policy of sending educated youths to the countryside (shangshan xiaxiang) during the Cultural Revolution on the private and professional lives of the generation in question4.

7 In our own research, we take the opposite route: starting from an analysis of the motivations and actions undertaken by individuals, we will attempt to measure the possible social consequences of those actions. The changes brought about by the reforms aiming to introduce a market economy, and strong economic growth, mark a new historical stage, in the course of which individuals and the social structure will exercise a reciprocal action on each other. Individuals have increased their chances of fighting to improve their fate by adapting their behaviour and their individual choices.

1. Statistics describing the xiagang interviewed (in %)

The impact of human capital on income 8 Human capital is often retained as one of the most significant factors explaining income. Sociological research into social change has also demonstrated that, in parallel with industrial development, societies evolve towards knowledge-based and information societies in which human capital becomes more and more important. Following on from the theory of Nobel Prize economist Theodore W. Schultz on human capital, countless studies have confirmed that, in a market economy where competition is practised, there is a positive relationship between human capital and the income of an individual5. Although the definitions of human capital used by the different researchers are not identical, the majority of them rely on three key statistical parameters:

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9 the qualifications obtained or the number of years of schooling received • length of professional experience • health.

10 Sociologists accord great importance to the level of education, classed within human capital, in order to analyse social structures and the changes in the social status of individuals. The theoretical models developed in this field demonstrate empirically that education level exerts a primordial influence on income levels and the possibilities of climbing up the social ladder6.

11 In China, as a recent study reveals, the role of human capital as a factor explaining the income of individuals has expanded in the course of the economic reforms7. These results have been confirmed by another study focusing on education level and its impact on socio-economic status8.

12 However, our survey of the xiagang of former industrial cities reveals that the more educated among them do not necessarily find work more easily, and even that their new salaries are no higher than those of the less educated. We describe this phenomenon as the “non-valorisation of human capital”. Its appearance can be explained by a variety of factors. It is probable that, in a period of transition towards the market economy, the structural changes that ensue from that create an upheaval in the norms usually applied to the field of know-how and technical skills, bringing with it a kind of fracture in human capital, which thus does not necessarily exercise a positive effect. The labour market that confronts new university graduates illustrates this well: the differences in the levels of know-how and technical skill acquired at university explains the differentials in remuneration. Moreover, Yakubovich and Kozian have shown in the Russian context that human capital acquired in the framework of a planned economy is rapidly devalued in a market economy9. Zhao Yandong arrives at an identical conclusion in a study conducted in 2000 among the xiagang of the city of Wuhan. Human capital measured by the standard of knowledge and the technological level attained by the xiagang before they were laid off does not exert any influence on the parameters of their new employment (salary, social value of the profession, degree of satisfaction, etc.)10.

13 From the above, we can formulate a first hypothesis: in this period when the reference standards based on know-how and technical skills undergo an upheaval, human capital and remuneration level are not, in certain cases, correlated. This is particularly true for the generation that had to interrupt its studies during the Cultural Revolution. Social identification 14 Social identification is a complex phenomenon encompassing a variety of elements such as remuneration level, profession, family situation, age, sex, and so on. The subjective evaluation made by an individual of his socio-professional status can thus diverge widely from that produced objectively by his income level. Surveys have shown that individuals tend to place themselves in the mean when they evaluate their socio- professional status. At an identical income level, women have the tendency to position themselves with an inferior status to men11. It is precisely the existence of these differences that gives research into social identification or class awareness a particular importance, as there is often a close causal relationship between the social identification of an individual and his or her behaviour or motivation to act. Between the different social classes, the degree of uniformity in social behaviour is not identical,

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however those subject to strong pressures tend to exhibit a higher degree of uniformity in their behaviour. To adopt the terms used by Olson, social groups of a small size or suffering strong pressures have a tendency to combine their efforts in order to achieve the same objective12.

15 Empirical results tend to demonstrate that the relationship between human capital and social identification is positive. Generally, in traditional societies inherited elements such as the family or social identity exert a predominant influence on the social identification of an individual. But in modern societies, acquired dimensions, such as education level or type of employment, play a more important role. Thus Blau and Duncan in “The American Occupational Structure” insist on the determining role of education in the social identification of individuals13. Zhang Yinghua, Xue Chengtai and Huang Yizhi underline that the higher the education level of a person, the higher his own social identification14. Huang Yizhi arrives at the same conclusion with regard to Taiwanese society15.

16 The social transformations that have appeared since the launch of the reforms in China similarly show a progressive rise in the role of education in the social position of the individual. Nevertheless, when surveying the factors that determine the perception that the xiagang have of their social position, it appears that, within this social group, the “education level” exerts a diminishing or quasi zero explanatory power. While being interviewed, the xiagang manifested a perception of their social position that was fairly uniform and relatively high, but that was not linked to their education level. These results contrast sharply with our surveys among migrant workers in urban areas, which reveal that the higher a migrant is educated, the greater is his perception of his social position16. One probable reason for this is that the incomes of the xiagang and of the migrants have evolved differently: the incomes of the former follow a downward trend, while those of the latter are rising.

17 Our second hypothesis follows on from that: for a group whose income is declining, human capital loses its explanatory power in the perception that the individuals have of their social position; furthermore, the more pronounced this downward trend, the more marked the non-valorisation of human capital. Unemployment among the xiagang and social stability 18 Numerous studies have shown that an increase in the unemployment rate has an impact on social stability. Bo Yibo, in a study conducted shortly after the foundation of the People’s Republic of China when the unemployment rate hit unprecedented levels (1950-1952), asserts: “The economic crisis of the spring and summer of 1950 made life difficult for private businesses and industries, and many were forced into bankruptcy. Thus it was recorded in the 14 largest cities of the country that 2,945 factories closed down. At the same time, 9,345 businesses in the 16 largest cities had to partially suspend operations. This put several million people out of work, and their rancour was perceptible, ‘despair and discontent spread rapidly among a section of the workers as well as the poverty-stricken population of the cities’”17.

19 A link is frequently established between the unemployed or people without work and criminality: “According to police statistics in Shanghai, Tianjin and Nanjing in a period of barely one year, that is from July 1993 to June 1994, 56.4% of robberies, fights, rapes… in these cities were committed by young unemployed people or xiagang”18. Some researchers have even gone so far as to assert that the group representing the greatest threat to social stability is not the least fortunate categories, that is the poor in the

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cities or in the countryside, but most certainly the unemployed and the xiagang from the state-owned enterprises. Their discontent is in fact the strongest as a result of the deterioration, in both absolute and relative terms, in their social condition19. In his works on the political opinions of destitute workers, Lipset champions the same point of view: “The more a person lacks the experience and the feeling of stability, the more he will be inclined to accept simplistic political opinions, not to comprehend divergent opinions, not to adhere to the fundamental principles of tolerance, and finally to support progressive ideas aiming at the reform the political system”20.

20 According to our survey, despite a strong homogeneity of social attitudes, certain differences among the xiagang are difficult to explain by their economic situation or whether they are employed or unemployed. In fact, other works conducted in different cities reveal that between 30% and 60% of xiagang exercise a paid activity. In the city of Fushun, statistics from the labour office and from the social security office establish that around 50% of xiagang have a new “stable” activity; 20% “do not have a stable activity but often find work”; 10% “do not have a stable activity” and are frequently without work; only 20% “have found nothing to do”.

21 Numerous works draw a link between an increase in human capital and a rational and moderate social attitude. Our survey shows, in contrast, that discontent towards society emerges more easily among the xiagang who have enjoyed a longer education but who today have a low income level and low social recognition. The non-valorisation of human capital that creates a fall in income and social status reinforces the discontent of this category of xiagang. Our third hypothesis is: for a social category whose income is diminishing, the greater the loss of the explanatory power of human capital in the development of income and social status, the more this category will be dissatisfied with the current social situation. Relationship between human capital and life plan 22 The social situation of an individual is conditioned by structural or political factors independent of his own will, but he possesses room to manoeuvre to develop his personal future by relying in particular on his intellectual abilities, his perseverance or his skill in seizing opportunities. In a society undergoing rapid development and in transition towards a market economy, this freedom to manoeuvre expands in proportion to the ever more important place afforded to human capital. In such a context, to avoid a rupture or a lack of valorisation of human capital, it is essential to renew one’s knowledge. That being the case, training could allow the unemployed or the xiagang to respond better to the needs of the market by reorienting their know-how and their technical skills. Our fourth working hypothesis is that in a social group whose income is falling, individuals who changed jobs or practised different occupations enjoy greater success in moving to a new type of employment. Statistical data and presentation of variablesSources of the statistical data 23 Our research was conducted between the end of August and the middle of September 2002 in four cities in Liaoning province which share similar characteristics: Fushun, Benxi, Chaoyang and Fuxin. All four have a large xiagang population and face problems involving industrial conversion and the depletion of their natural resources. The surveys were carried out by interviews and questionnaires. The interviews were conducted at meetings bringing together members of government research centres, social security offices, planning committees, statistical bureaux, unions, the women’s

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federation and district committees. They were also conducted during visits to the homes of xiagang families whose situation appeared particularly difficult.

24 Our sampling for the questionnaires was designed in the following way. First of all, we decided that each city constituted a distinct sample. Then, we wanted to avoid standardising the responses through sampling based on a unit that would have been formed by the enterprise. To do this, we randomly selected some 40 districts, on the basis of lists provided by the administration, in which we picked, again at random, six to seven xiagang workers to reply to our questionnaires. In total, we interviewed 1,110 workers, and 995 questionnaires were validated (90%)21. The variables 25 The principal independent or explanatory variables are: education level (measured by the number of years of study, the qualification obtained or the level of technical skill), age, membership or not of the Communist Party, sex, number of paid working hours.

26 The dependent or explained variables are as follows: the income preceding redundancy, the income declared by the xiagang when he finds new employment, social identification (perception of his own social position), degree of social instability. Variables such as “social identification” and “degree of social instability” are subjective and are derived from personal opinions. “Class identification” is measured by a scale incorporating six categories in relation to which the interviewee positions himself22. The degree of “social stability” is a subjective appreciation on the part of the interviewee, it depends on elements such as “attitude with regard to the use of collective petitions”, “evaluation of the degree of social justice”, “evaluation of relations between managers and the masses”, “perception of the degree of local economic prosperity”, “perception of the period for resolving the problem of unemployment”. Research and resultsHuman capital in the determination of income 27 The income of an employee depends on a multiplicity of factors. At the collective level, it is the result, for example, of differences between enterprises and between business sectors. At the individual level, it is determined by the job, years of service, the amount of overtime worked, and so on. Our research focuses on the impact of human capital on the remuneration level. This comes down to asking the following question in the specific case of the xiagang: what is the impact of the accumulated human capital on income before and after redundancy?

28 Table 2 presents the influence exerted by human capital on the income of the interviewees. The independent variables “sex” and “membership or not of the Party” are highly significant both before and after the period of redundancy. Men earn more than women, and members of the Party earn more than non-members; these results have also been demonstrated in other surveys23.

29 Model 124 shows that the education variable has a significant influence on the monthly salary before redundancy. The greater the importance attached to the number of years of education, the more significant the accumulated human capital and the higher the monthly salary before redundancy25. In this first model, the age variable also exerts a significant influence: the older the individual, the higher the monthly salary before redundancy. In the state-owned enterprises, age is equivalent to years of service, a determining factor in the importance of the subsidy and the level of social benefits provided by the enterprise26. If the level of technical skill does not make an important contribution to increasing the income of employees at an intermediate or beginner

China Perspectives, 52 | march-april 2004 35

level, it is, however, not without significance. Workers who possess technical skills benefit from a higher income than employees without any specific training.

30 If the number of years of education received, age and the level of technical skill are considered as elements that make up human capital, the income of an employee before redundancy is appropriate to his human capital: the higher this is, the higher his remuneration will be.

2. Income of xiagang

NB: The asterisks indicate the degree of significance, with three asterisks corresponding to the maximum degree (*** P<0.001; ** P<0.01; *P<0.05). The results were obtained using the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) model. (1) Reference group: primary school and beyond. (2) Reference group: other personnel. (3) Reference group: no grade. Under the heading “professional situation prior to lay-off”, the reference group “other personnel” includes the personnel in administration and the public utility companies affiliated to the enterprise.

31 However, in Model 2 of Table 2, when the explained variable becomes the monthly salary after redundancy (the last salary of the current employment), the results differ radically. First of all, the education variable ceases to have an influence on income. Furthermore, the age variable has a negative impact on income: the older an individual, the lower his new income. These results are thus different from those of the preceding model.

32 With the aim of detailing in more depth the results of Model 2, which seems to confirm the hypothesis that human capital and age have a negative effect on the new income following redundancy, we tested two other models (3 and 4) which focus on the 20 to 40 and 41 to 55 age brackets. Model 3 allows the assertion that for xiagang between 20 and 40 years old, the variables such as education level or professional skill as well as age have lost their explanatory power as far as income following redundancy is concerned.

China Perspectives, 52 | march-april 2004 36

It is exclusively the personnel who worked in management whose professional situation before redundancy continues to play a positive role. Overall, the human capital of the xiagang loses its explanatory power in terms of income following redundancy.

33 For Model 4, the two independent variables represented by sex and membership or non-membership of the party, highly significant in Model 3, also lose their explanatory power for xiagang in the 41 to 55 age bracket, who had to interrupt their studies as a result of the policy of “sending people down to the countryside” during the Cultural Revolution. There is no statistical correlation between income following redundancy and the gender of the individual or membership or non-membership of the Party. Furthermore, the holding of a diploma of higher technical proficiency has a negative influence on the income level following redundancy, given that the xiagang of the secondary sector possessing a technical diploma generally have an income in their new job that is lower than that they could obtain in the services sector.

34 This acknowledgement reminds us of the words of a former model worker, aged 49, from Jilin province, who was interviewed in Changchun in 1999: “For a very long time after I was made a xiagang, I could not find any work. The first few days were particularly hard. I slept one week solid. My wife is almost handicapped and has no chance of finding a job. We were employed in a porcelain factory where the production lines are specialised, I had no experience of working in other enterprises, it is very hard to find a new job… It was only in the second week that I went into town to look for a job. Looking for a job, in reality, meant waiting for clients on the city’s sidewalks, as the only thing I could do was paint apartments. A friend who was also looking for work in this way told me to come with him and that is what I did. That day, no-one offered us work, we waited in vain and we went home in the evening having spent money on food and transport. The next day we went to wait in another area, someone came along and offered us work for a day...”27.

35 The sociological scope of the non-valorisation of human capital in the determination of the income of xiagang employees is important. The social belief in the ability to improve one’s income thanks to the accumulation of human capital and one’s personal efforts constitutes an important condition for social mobility. But in a situation where human capital is not valued, individuals have a tendency to look for societal or political causes, and not individual ones, to explain the difficulties they find themselves in. The impact on social identification 36 In our survey, only 1.1% of xiagang perceive themselves as belonging to the higher or lower “upper” classes, 3.5% think they are part of the “upper middle” class and 15.7% believe they are “lower middle” class. Finally, 35.2% consider themselves to be part of the higher fringes of the lowest rungs on the social ladder, while 44.5% think they belong to the most disadvantaged social groups. What are the factors that determine the social identification of the xiagang?

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3 Class identification among the xiagang

NB: The asterisks indicate the degree of significance, with three asterisks corresponding to the maximum degree (*** P<0.001; ** P<0.01; *P<0.05). The results were obtained using the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) model. (1) Reference group: no vocational training. (2) Reference group: other personnel. This group includes the personnel in administration and the public utility companies affiliated to the enterprise.

37 The factors that exert a significant influence on the class identification of the xiagang are in particular “the monthly salary following redundancy” and “the monthly salary of the spouse” (see Table 3). Length of studies has lost its explanatory power. Certainly, holders of higher diplomas more easily consider themselves part of a higher social class than people without training, but the importance of this group is minor among xiagang.

38 Models 2 and 3 test the social identification of male xiagang. Setting aside the variable relating to the professional situation of their spouse, it is the monthly salary following redundancy that constitutes the independent variable with the greatest explanatory power. In the second case, where two new independent variables are introduced, that is years that the spouse has spent in education and the monthly salary of the spouse, the impact of the former is imperceptible while that of the latter is highly significant from a statistical point of view.

39 Models 4 and 5 analyse the social identification of female xiagang. Model 4 shows that the independent variables with the strongest explanatory power are the monthly salary following redundancy and the number of years of study. In Model 5, we have introduced two new variables, these are the education level and the monthly salary of the spouse, which put into context the explanatory importance of the education level variable. The social identification of the wives is sharply determined by the income of their husbands.

China Perspectives, 52 | march-april 2004 38

40 Models 6 and 7 allow a comparison of the determining factors in the social identification of the 20 to 40 age bracket and that of the 41 to 55 age bracket. The xiagang aged between 41 and 55, who had to stop their studies as a result of being sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution, have a weak evaluation of their social position in comparison with the “others” reference group or technicians. This phenomenon is not as pronounced in the 20 to 40 age bracket.

41 From these models, we can conclude that among the xiagang, whether male or female, the primary factors that determine social identification are the monthly salary following redundancy and the monthly income of the spouse. A notable difference is found, however, for women, who identify themselves more through the income that their spouse earns. Human capital, in terms of education level, generally exerts only a minor influence. The loss of explanatory power held by human capital in social identification is, moreover, more marked among individuals whose income is on a downward curve, that is for xiagang in the 41 to 55 age bracket. Impact on social behaviour 42 In general terms, it is assessed that the higher the age and the education level of an individual, the more he will have a tendency to exercise a rational pattern of social behaviour and to avoid violence. However, for the xiagang, these factors are played out differently as a result of the downward income curve. We define “social behaviour” as an independent variable expressed through a combination of sub-variables (recourse— or not—to collective petition, opinions relating to social justice, to relations between the cadres and the population, to local economic prosperity, to the resolution of the question of the xiagang mainly). We call this combination of variables the coefficient of social instability.

4 Social instability coefficient

NB: The asterisks indicate the degree of significance, with three asterisks corresponding to the maximum degree (*** P<0.001; ** P<0.01; *P<0.05).

43 In Model 1 of Table 4, sex and membership of the Party do not have a significant impact on the social instability coefficient. On the other hand, the variables such as age, social identification, the monthly salary following redundancy, years of study and weekly hours of work exert a major influence. In contrast to the common understanding, the older a xiagang is and the longer his vocational training, the higher is his social instability coefficient, that is the stronger his discontent towards society is and the more he is inclined to exhibit violent patterns of behaviour. Social identification is the most powerful explanatory factor. This result reinforces the relationship that we have established between non-valorisation in human capital and social identification.

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44 Models 2 and 3 of Table 4 underline the differences in the social instability coefficient between the generations. For the 41 to 55 age bracket who are experiencing a particularly significant lack of valorisation of human capital, the social identification variable also has the greatest impact on the social instability coefficient, and the number of years spent studying only serves to aggravate this coefficient.

45 For a given income level, the longer the vocational training an individual has received and the older he is, the more sensitive he will be to the inequality in income. And he will pay even more attention to this when his own path is on a downward slope, hence the greater probability that he will exhibit violent behavioural patterns and participate in collective actions. It is thus the relatively older xiagang who were sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution who are most in need of aid. Vocational training in order to change work or trade? 46 The problem of the reintegration of the xiagang is a consequence of the complete transformation of the structures of production, marked by a contraction of traditional industries and by a surging expansion of new ones. These developments bring with them a change in the evaluation of professional skills and experience on the labour market, which translates, for certain people, into a loss or lack of valorisation of the human capital that they hold. For this reason, it is important that a xiagang can pursue vocational training courses so that he is able to change work or trade and thus link up again with the chain in which human capital is accumulated. The xiagang must be enabled to transform and renew their know-how and their technical skills so that they can better respond to market demand. Such a policy thus constitutes an effective solution that can help them overcome their difficulties. In this respect, our survey shows that workers who have undergone training with a view to furthering their professional rehabilitation have a greater chance of finding a new job with a decent income.

47 The statistical results of our survey also demonstrate that workers who have followed this kind of training have already experienced a certain improvement in their living conditions. Table 5 reports on two questions that clarify the differences between the xiagang who have following a training course and those who have not. To the question “How has your standard of living developed over the last five years?”, the responses indicating an improvement are relatively high and those indicating a deterioration are relatively low for those who have undergone training. Vocational training is thus a relatively positive factor in the life of a xiagang and his family.

48 To the question “What differences are there between your current income compared you’re your income before you lost your job?”, the responses do not reveal any major difference between those workers who have followed vocational training courses and those who have not among those whose current income is higher than the one they received before the period of unemployment. In contrast, among those whose income is identical or lower, the differences are noteworthy. The income following redundancy is thus slightly higher among those who have followed vocational training courses.

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5 Usefulness of vocational training courses aiming at the reintegration of the xiagang

49 Vocational training courses as a means to promote and reinforce work skills are offered and demonstrated as an example, but they are not of a compulsory character. It is up to the xiagang themselves whether they choose to participate or not. The courses which aim to improve their skills are, however, perceived by local governments and the xiagang as less important than “social welfare” ( shenghuo butie). Nevertheless, the results of our survey reveal that vocational training represents a more effective aid than the simple granting of social welfare. These social security benefits resolve immediate problems and help the recipients out of poverty, but the chances of them falling below the poverty line again are very high.

50 The non-valorisation of human capital equates with the social behaviour and identification of the xiagang. Individuals whose human capital is no longer recognised or valued are inclined to believe that neither their income nor their social position are determined by their level of competence and the efforts they have made but are, in contrast, determined by social factors. Thus, those who have a relatively elevated human capital have a tendency to develop a stronger discontent towards society (shehui buman). In other words, these are not the poorest people, but they come from the disadvantaged groups whose non-valorisation of human capital is the most marked. If the linkages in the accumulation of human capital were restored, this could again be exploited. In the opposite case, this accumulated capital represents, in contrast, a burden that can cripple the future of the individuals in question.

51 Our survey suggests that a section of the xiagang is in the process of radically changing their behaviour with regard to society. They no longer look for support to the policies put in place for their benefit, but believe that they will succeed in changing their lives through their own efforts and personal choices. It is precisely these people whose professional prospects are developing positively. This also means that, thanks to countless individual actions, the mechanisms of mobility and social climbing are in the process of a transformation that will allow the creation of new social structures in production and labour.

52 The living standards and the income level of the xiagang is comparable with that of the rural migrants in the cities, but, different from the xiagang, the latter benefit from tendential growth in their income marked by a positive effect of human capital. It follows from that that their perception of the future is positive. In contrast, the xiagang, as a result of the downward trend in their income and the weakness of their human capital, experience their difficulties particularly sharply. However, the changes taking

China Perspectives, 52 | march-april 2004 41

place may help them move from a vision of history determined by social factors to one that leaves more space for individual choice. Many of them belonging to the generation that was dispatched to the countryside have succeeded in transforming this traumatic experience into a positive value added to their human capital and have become important players in different professions or sectors. We would like to believe that many of the xiagang workers will be able to find a solution to their current problems.

53 Because the organisation of labour was implemented for a long time by the state, the xiagang today often feel completely powerless in the face of the new modus operandi of the economy. Faced with possibilities of social mobility or new job opportunities, the xiagang often only perceive their lack of competitiveness. The aid granted to the xiagang within a judicial and regulatory framework in the form of compensation and subsidies is, of course, very important, for it allows the difficulties which they have to face every day to be alleviated. The vocational training courses that are organised should include the aim of helping them to improve their ability to choose and to link up again the chains in which human capital is accumulated. Unfortunately, in many of the training centres, this objective is only formal, and the assistance given in the search for re- employment takes the form of the old “central planning” (danwei anpai).

54 We should realise, however, that, in a context of far-reaching mutations in the relations between the state, the market and society, the individual has greater choice and possibilities of adapting. Targeted vocational training courses allowing the xiagang to enhance their human capital and to reinforce their abilities to choose, in order to permit them thus to be adapt more suitably to the conditions on the labour market, represent the most effective means of assisting them. Indeed, the usefulness of these training courses and of professional reintegration has been proved on a very large scale in the framework of other experiences abroad, as has the importance of enhancing human capital in order to rapidly reduce poverty and to prevent a relapse.

55 To achieve this goal, it is necessary on the one hand to increase the proportion allotted to training expenses in the overall aid budgets intended for the xiagang, and on the other to improve their effectiveness by, for example, making public tenders and also encouraging the participation of intermediaries in civil society. The rate of professional reintegration should from now on be one of the criteria for evaluating the return on the investments in training. This kind of training policy as a priority means of aiding the xiagang should also be based on accompanying measures that could include benefits granted to people setting up a business, such as tax relief, facilities for accessing small loans, simplification of administrative procedures, and so on. A few years ago we adopted several incentive policies to encourage the enrichment of a part of the population; today, it is even more legitimate to adopt policies to help people in difficulty.

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NOTES

1. Every country has its own definition of “unemployment”. The one given by the International Labour Office in 1982 serves as a reference. The definition is the following: an unemployed person is a person of working age (15 years old or more) who fulfils three conditions at the same time: (1) being without employment, that is not having worked, not even for one hour, during one reference week; (2) being available to take up a job within 15 days; (3) actively seeking work or having found work that will start at a later date. The reference period used here is one month. As far as the term xiagang is concerned, it means, first of all, the loss of the former work station but the maintenance of a contractual relationship with a state-owned enterprise or collective enterprise; secondly, these are people who regularly receive benefits (shenghuofei) paid by the re-employment centre of the state-owned enterprise in question. In reality, there is another category of people who, while having left the state-owned enterprise, retain with it a contractual relationship and are not registered at a re-employment centre. These people, very numerous, are defined as ligang zhigong (literally: employees who have left their work station). This flexibility in the forms adopted by the enterprises to reduce excess manpower led to the definition of two statistical categories during the census of the workforce: on the one hand there are “employees with a work station” (zaigang zhigong) and, on the other, “employees without a work station” (bu zaigang zhigong). 2. Department of Population, Social Science and Technology Statistics of the National Bureau of Statistics, “Xiagang ji xiagang tongji yanjiu” (Xiagang and statistical study of the xiagang), Tongji yanjiu (Statistical Study), No. 3, 1999. Li Chunling, “Wenhua shuiping ruhe yingxiang renmen de jingji shouru. Dui muqian jiaoyu de jingji shouyi shuai de kaocha” (Influence of education level on the income of individuals. Survey on the economic return on current education), Shehuixue yanjiu (Sociological Analysis), No. 3, 2003. Li Peilin, “Laogongye jidi de shiye zhili: hou gongyehua he shichanghua— Dongbei diqu jiu jia daxing guoyou qiye de diaocha” (The management of unemployment in former industrial bases: post-industrialisation and merchandising. Survey conducted at nine state-owned enterprises in the north east), Shehuixue yanjiu (Sociological Analysis), No. 4, 1998. Zhang Yi, “Shou jiaoyu shuiping dui laonian tuixiu renyuan zai jiuye de yingxiang” (The influence of education level on the re- employment of retirees), Zhongguo renkou kexue (Chinese Population), No . 4, 1999. 3. Glen H. Elder, Children of the Great Depression, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1974. 4. Zhou Xueguang and Hou Liren, “Children of the Cultural Revolution: the State and the Life Courses in the People’s Republic of China”, American Sociological Review, 1999, Vol. 64, pp. 12-36. 5. Theodore W. Schultz, Investment in Human Capital, New York, Free Press, 1971; G. S. Becker, Human Capital, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994. 6. Peter Blau and Otis Dudley Duncan, The American Occupational Structure, New York, Wiley, 1967; Donald J. Treiman and Kam-Bor Yip, “Educational and Occupational Attainment in 21 countries”, in Melvin Kohn (ed.), Cross-National Research in Sociology, Newbury Park, Sage, 1989; Robert Erikson and John H. Goldthorpe, The Constant Flux: A Study of Class Mobility in Industrial Societies, Oxford, Clarendon

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Press, 1993; Rod Bond and Peter Saunders, “Routes of Success: Influences on the Occupational Attainment of Young British Males”, The British Journal of Sociology, 1999, 50 (2), pp. 217-249. 7. Bian Yanjie and Zhang Kaixin, “Shichanghua yu shouru fenpei dui 1988 he 1995 nian chengshi zhuhu shouru diaocha de fenxi” (The move to the market economy and the distribution of income [in China]. An analysis of urban income between 1988-1995), Zhongguo shehui kexue (Social sciences in China), No . 5, 2002. 8. Zhang Yinghua, Xue Chengtai, and Huang Yizhi, “Jiaoyu fenliu yu shehui jingji diwei” (Education and socio-professional status), Taiwan, Jiaogai yekan (Education magazine), AB09, 1996. 9. V. Yakubovish and I. Kozian, “The Changing Significance of Ties: An Exploration of Hiring Channels in the Russian Transitional Labor Market”, International Sociology, 2001, 15, pp. 475-500. 10. Zhao Yandong, Xiagang zhigong de shehui ziben yu zai jiuye (The social capital of the xiagang and re-employment), doctoral thesis, 2001, Academy of Social Sciences, p. 63. 11. Leonard Beeghley, The Structure of Social Stratification in the United States, Boston, Allyn and Bacon, 1996. 12. Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1980. 13. P. Blau and O. D. Duncan, op. cit. 14. Zhang Yinghua, Xue Chengtai and Huang Yizhi, op. cit., pp. 97-99. 15. Huang Yizhi, Shehui jieceng, shehui wangluo yu zhuguan yishi (Social classes, networks and conscience), Taiwan, Juliu, 2002, pp. 38-39. 16. Li Peilin, Zhang Yi, Zhao Yandong, Jiuye yu zhidu bianqian–liang ge teshu qunti de qiushi guocheng (Employment and reform–the job search process of two social groups), Zhejiang People’s Press, 2000, pp. 162-163. 17. Bo Yibo, Ruogan zhongda juece yu shijian de wenti (Revision of certain policies and major historical events), Part One, Party School Press, 1991, pp. 94-95. 18. Wang Dahai, Tiaozhan shiye de Zhongguo (Challenging the China of unemployment), Peking, Jingji ribao Press, 1999, p. 69. 19. Kang Xiaoguang, “Weilai 3-5 nian Zhongguo dalu zhengzhi jidingxing fenxi” (Analysis of political stability in China in the next 3 to 5 years), Zhanlue yu guanli (Strategies and Management), No. 3, 2002. 20. Seymour M. Lipset, Political Man: the Social Bases of Politics, translated by Zhang Shaozong, Shanghai People’s Press, 1997, p. 89. 21. Because of the great mobility of the xiagang, the surveys conducted in the past were often based on a deliberate sampling choice. This research represents one of the first studies that observes the standards of sampling methodology and the statistical results of which are reliable. Although this data is regional, our insistence on the reciprocal actions between the different variables can in principle be generalised. 22. The possible choices are: upper, lower upper, upper middle, lower middle, upper lower and lower. This classification was perfected by Richard Centers, The Psychology of Social Classes: A Study of Class Consciousness, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1949, p. 233. 23. Bian Yanjie and Zhang Kaixin, op. cit.

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24. The results were obtained by the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) model, which allows the impact of an explanatory variable to be isolated by controlling the other dimensions. 25. The survey conducted by Xie Yu and Han Yimei on the differences in urban incomes during the period 1988-1995 shows that, despite the existence of a positive relation between education and income by virtue of a standardised distribution of benefits and subsidies, economic growth downplays education in terms of its rewards [Xie Yu, Han Yimei, “Gaige shiqi Zhongguo chengshi jumin shouru bu pingdeng yu diqu chaju” (Salary inequality of the urban population and regional differences in the reform period in China), in Zhai Bianyan (dir.), Shichang zhuanxing yu shehui fenceng (Transformation of the economy and social classification), Sanlian, 2002, pp. 460-508]. The research of Lai Desheng has shown that, from 1988 to 1995, the effectiveness ratio of education rose from 3.8% to 5.7%, and that the effectiveness of education is greater than that of years of service [Lai Desheng, “Jiaoyu, laodongli shichang yu shouru fenpei” (Education, the labour market and income distribution), in Zhai Desheng (ed.), Zhongguo jumin shouru fenpei zai yanjiu (A new look at income distribution in China), Economics and Finance Press, 1999, pp. 451-474]. 26. Zhang Yi, Guoyou qiye de jiazuhua (Paternalisation of the state-owned enterprises), Archive Editions of the Human Sciences, 2002, pp. 190-200. 27. Li Peilin, Zhang Yi, Zhao Yandong, op. cit., pp. 323-324.

INDEX

Subjects: societe

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Politics: Macao

China Perspectives, 52 | march-april 2004 46

Public Sector Reform in Macao After the Handover

Bill K.P. Chou

1 In a situation where available resources are becoming scarce, governments in developed countries tend to face increasing public demand for improved government performance and accountability1. Most of the literature on public sector reform has been based on the experience of Western democracies2. Some have focused on examples from Asian and developing countries3. This paper seeks to present public sector reform in Macao following the handover from Portugal to China in December 1999. Public sector and administrative problems in Macao 2 In 1999 Macao became China’s second Special Administrative Region (SAR). Macao’s public sector is small: in 2002, public consumption accounted for 11.41% of the territory’s GDP4, with 17,488 civil servants in 20035. The government did not hold major stakes in significant enterprises, with a few exceptions, such as TDM (Macao Television and Radio Broadcast) (100% ownership) and Macao International Airport Company Ltd. (55.25% ownership). It held an insignificant number of shares in a telecommunications company (1%) and in the only electric company in the territory (8.19%)6. The water supply company, Macao Water, was 100% privately owned. Owing to the limited government ownership of economic entities, the Macao government has limited room to economise its use of resources through privatisation and retreat from economic activities.

3 Macao’s civil service was nevertheless expensive. The median monthly earnings of civil servants were the highest among the 13 top occupations, and more than three times the overall median in the territory7. Constitutional constraints tied the government’s hands on pay cuts: Article 98 of the Macao Basic Law (Macao’s mini-constitution) stipulated that civil servants were entitled to conditions of service no less than those before the handover8.

4 To economise on the use of resources, the government in recent years has often offered short-term and part-time contracts to public employees whose salary was much closer

China Perspectives, 52 | march-april 2004 47

to market prices, and would usually renew the contracts upon contract expiry. Therefore, many of these types of employees were not temporary staff and served in the civil service for several years9. Since these employees were not regarded as civil servants and their number was not made public, the actual size of civil service was certainly larger than official figures stated.

5 The most high-ranking civil servants were the 58 bureau directors responsible to five Secretaries who directly reported to the Chief Executive, the head of the government. Bureau directors and their deputies belonged to director rank (lingdao). The administrative units below bureaus were organised into departments (ting), divisions (chu), sectors (zu), and sections (ke) in descending hierarchical order. The heads of these units were loosely classified as chief rank (zhuguan)10. The last two layers, sectors and sections, had no legal status in the Organic Statute of Macao Special Administrative Region11.

6 The shortcomings of the civil service system had an adverse impact upon administrative efficiency. First, the government was by no means clear of traits of the spoil system inherited from the colonial government, and institutionalised a merit system in recruitment. Competitive recruitment examinations were not mandatory. Nepotism and patronage were rife and penetrated to lower-ranking positions. The five Secretaries were authorised to create positions; it was not unusual for them to create jobs for their supporters and relatives12. Open recruitment exercises were often symbolic13. The promotion process was sometimes plagued by favouritism. For instance, a non legal-trained civil servant well-connected with her patron could be promoted to Deputy Director of Judicial Training Centre though the office bearer was supposed to have a background of legal training14.

7 The thaws in the performance appraisal system of Macao’s civil service were another source of administrative problems. Civil servants had to undergo annual performance appraisal and were rated on a four-grade system: excellent, satisfactory, fair and poor. Civil servants rated excellent or satisfactory for two consecutive years were entitled to an upgrade within their pay scale. If contract staff were rated either fair or poor, their employment contracts were not renewed. In the case of permanent staff, those rated fair were unqualified for an increment; poor grades would result in disciplinary action. However, usually over 98% of civil servants were rated excellent or satisfactory: in 1999, 5,746 out of 9,269 civil servants (excluding those in the disciplinary forces) got an excellent grade and 3,496 were rated satisfactory. The remaining 27 were rated fair; none received poor grades. In the disciplinary forces, the distribution of employees over the four grades was 468 (9%), 4,394 (89%), 90 (2%), and 0 (0%) respectively. This implied that even mediocre civil servants could receive some sort of performance- based reward. Moreover, civil servants at director/chief level were not required to undergo performance appraisal. Thus civil servants were neither given adequate feedback on their past performance nor were there the incentives to improve their performance to move to a higher level15.

8 Moreover, civil servants had the right to reject job transfers that resulted in too many employees within a restructured department. In 1999 the government set up the Customs Service to take over enforcement of Intellectual Property Act from the Economic Services Bureau. As some civil servants refused to leave the Economic Services Bureau, the Bureau became overstaffed. In contrast, the Customs Service was understaffed and had to hire new employees16.

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9 The Legislative Assembly’s lack of prowess and determination to closely scrutinise the administration was to blame for certain administrative problems. The Legislative Assembly had no equivalent of the specialised subcommittees that existed in the legislatures in other countries to examine government expenditure proposals on public works projects and the creation of senior posts. The government was not required to report to the Legislative Assembly on its expenditure once the annual budget was approved17. Most members of the Legislative Assembly were pro-government, and unenthusiastic about supervising the government, holding it accountable for its policies, and institutionalising prudent public spending practices18.

10 For instance, in February 2004, the Legislative Assembly voted down a motion demanding the government to set up a public consultation mechanism in the law- making process19. In September 2002, the Commissioner of Audit (a commission performing cost-effective audits) exposed a scandal that involved the chairmen, vice- chairmen, and full-time councillors of the former two Provisional Municipal Councils in abuse of public funds in 23 instances, such as using the councils’ credit cards for shopping, overpaying housing allowances, and diverting housing allowances for the renovation of their own apartments20. Despite this situation, the Legislative Assembly voted down a motion requesting a public hearing and holding related officials responsible21. During the 2000–2001 session, 23 (out of the total 27) members submitted only 89 written questions and gave only 78 speeches on government work22.

11 Management of public finance was not insufficiently effective to detect and prevent wastage in time. About 15% of the government budget went to the government’s 38 financial autonomous organisations. Unlike government departments, these autonomous organisations enjoyed high autonomy in spending. They were not obliged to submit their annual budgets and financial reports for the Legislative Assembly’s approval. In the past, these autonomous organisations had known serious problems of abuse of public money, such as extravagances, under-the-table transactions, sale of public property to supporters at unreasonably low prices, illicit offers of loans, and intentional under-estimation of their own organisations’ reserves to justify larger budget requests for the following year23.

12 To tighten controls on expenditure, the Macao government set up the Commission of Audit to scrutinise their spending and disclose financial mismanagement. Meanwhile, the government compressed the budgetary expenditure of the autonomous organisations from 6.52 billion in 2000 to 2.47 billion in 2004, and its own proportion of the government’s gross budgetary expenditure from 35% to 15%24. Nevertheless, inadequate manpower prevented the Commission of Audit from auditing the financial reports of all these autonomous organisations every year. In 2002, the Commission audited the financial reports of only ten autonomous organisations25. Hence, it was not until 2003 that the Commission discovered the Government Tourist Office’s misuse of the Tourism Fund since 200026.

13 Last but not least, many administrative units were overlapping in their roles. The Sports Development Bureau and the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau were both charged with managing sports facilities. The Lands, Public Work and Transport Bureau shared traffic management responsibilities with the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureaus27. The overlap was also to blame for bureaucracy in-fighting between the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau and the Cultural Institute, as both were responsible for organising performing arts activities, managing libraries and overseeing museums, and

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both wanted to expand their jurisdictions in art policy and administration28. Furthermore, such overlaps sometimes complicated administrative procedure and increased the items for administrative approval. An application for restaurant licences, for instance, required approval from the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau; Government Tourist Office; the police; fire services; Health Bureau; Cultural Institute; Labour Employment Bureau; and Land, Public Works and Transport Bureau29. Therefore restaurant owners had to wait for over half a year for a licence30. The context and strategies of public sector reform 14 There are several factors that made undertaking sweeping public sector reform possible. The first was the popularity of the Chief Executive Edmund Ho. His approval rate ranged from 72% to 79% between March 2000 and February 200431. Ho’s popularity was partly due to his inheritance of his father Ho Yin’s political assets. Before his death in 1983, Ho Yin had for over 30 years been the chief representative of the Chinese community, serving as a bridge between Peking and Lisbon, the colonial government and the public, and Chinese businessmen and the working class. He was a philanthropist and financed much of the enclave’s social welfare at a time when the state-sponsored social services were far from adequate.

15 Edmund Ho was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1988 and as vice-chairman of the Legislative Assembly in 1992. His position as the vice-chairman not only denoted his status as the chief representative of the Chinese community but also provided him with ample opportunities to develop his political skills before he took the helm of the SAR in 199932. His success in stabilising the economy and public order, as discussed below, also contributed to his huge public following.

16 The second factor was the youth and inexperience of the civil servants. Possibly because of Portugal’s hidden agenda of protecting Macanese interests and preserving the Portuguese cultural legacy after 1999, the colonial government in Macao dragged its feet in localisation policy33. In 1987, Macao had 1,076 Portugal-born civil servants, accounting for 10.69% of the total workforce. Their number peaked at 1,811 (12.35% of all civil servants) in 199034. Portuguese filled most of the senior positions. By the end of 1997, only 14.81% and 40.00% of directors and deputy directors were local Chinese35. The Portuguese government alleged that the under-secretaries (the supervisors of bureau directors and the highest-ranking officials next to the Governor) were politically appointed but not career civil servants. Localisation did not extend to this rank, and therefore local people could not be promoted to this rank until after the handover36. Large scale replacement of Portuguese senior officials with Chinese civil servants took place only after 1998. In consequence, after the handover many of the senior civil servants were young and inexperienced. In 2001, only 99 out of 633 civil servants at director/chief rank were at the age of 45 or above37. As a lot of high-ranking civil servants lacked senior administrative exposure, they were inclined to be submissive to authority. Political elites need not worry too much about a strong bureaucratic resistance of a type that had thwarted many countries’ structural reforms38.

17 The third factor was the economic setback at the turn of the century. Gambling industry and tourism were the pillars of Macao’s economy. Rampant organised crime kept tourists away and numbers fell from 8.15 million in 1996 to 6.95 million in 199839. The impact this had on the gambling and tourist industry, together with the Asian financial crisis in 1997, pushed gambling tax revenue from its peak of MOP6.1 billion in

China Perspectives, 52 | march-april 2004 50

1997 to below MOP5 billion in 1998 and 199940. The real GDP growth rate fell from 3.3% in 1995 to -4.6 in 199841. The unemployment rate rose from 2.7% in the fourth quarter of 1997 to 7.1% in the second quarter of 200042.

18 Public sector reform that could bring about cost savings, improvements in efficiency and service delivery was supposed to be a convenient vehicle for the enclave’s post- handover government to bolster its legitimacy amid economic recession. However, in his 2000 policy plan, the Chief Executive identified four strategies characterised by an emphasis more on improving policy outcomes than saving on costs: restructuring departments, enhancing a customer-oriented culture, rationalising the use of resources and technology, and developing professional training for civil servants. There was no mention of how to reduce administrative stratification, regulate the authority of senior officials, and enhance the role of the Legislative Assembly or the Commission of Audit43. Strategies widely adopted by OECD countries, such as devolution of managerial authority, establishment of productivity targets and performance indicators, and exploration of alternatives to bureaucracy in service provision, were excluded44.

19 In the following three years, the government departments concerned specified Edmund Ho’s reform programme strategies. To restructure departments, the government established the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau in 2001 to take over the functions of the Provisional Macao Municipal Council and Provisional Islands Macao Municipal Council45. Judicial police and security forces, traditionally opponents and belonging to separate functional bureaucracies, were placed under the uniform direction of the Unitary Police Service. The 2005 East Asian Games Office was incorporated. Macao Prison was removed from the Legal Affairs Bureau to become an independent bureau- level department. The Post and Telecommunications Office was renamed the Post Office, and its responsibility in telecommunications policy was transferred to a newly established Office for the Development of Telecommunications and Information Technology. The Coloane-Taipa Reclamation Office merged with the Incineration and Discharged Water Office to form the Office for Infrastructure Development46. The New Birth Registration Bureau merged with the Deceased Registration Bureau to form the Civil Affairs Registration Bureau47.

20 Many of these reform programmes however, missed the core issues. The department restructuring had little to do with resolving the problems of role overlapping, nor did it shrink the scope of government activities. Rather, the scope has expanded since the handover, as evidenced by the government’s abolishing of two autonomous provisional municipal councils and turning them into a government department―the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau, as well as taking over TDM in 2002. Hence the impact of department restructuring on administrative efficiency was limited48.

21 The reform programmes regarding strengthening a customer-oriented environment included making performance pledges, setting up one-stop service centres, and establishing complaints offices in government departments. By the end of October 2003, 39 departments out of the total 45 departments providing direct public services had produced 840 performance pledges. Meanwhile, nine departments had set up 12 one-stop service centres aimed at simplifying administrative procedures by merging related departments into single offices49. Though one-stop service centres made making certain government-related applications easier, the items of administrative approval were reportedly not reduced. In fact, in order to overcome the hurdles caused by the items and ambiguities in administrative approvals, applicants were used to paying for

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services from middlemen who enjoyed reciprocity with the senior civil servants responsible for the approvals. Since removal of the approval items and ambiguities would dispense with the middlemen’s service and undermine their interests, some departments had little incentive to simplify administrative procedures50.

22 With respect to using technology and resources more rationally, in 2001 the government formed a steering committee to study the development of electronic public administrative services, and installed an ISO9001 quality management system in departments and autonomous organisations. The first department using the system was the Identification Department51. In 2003, the government reviewed the civil service appraisal system to improve its feedback mechanisms on employee performance and oblige all civil servants at director/chief level to undergo annual appraisal. Appraisal commissions were set up in all departments to verify performance appraisal results and assure greater fairness and transparency. Nevertheless, this still did not address the issue of insufficient discrimination applied to the past performance appraisal system52.

23 In addition, the government proposed a staff transferral system53. Under the current system, opportunities of postings to other departments were very limited. Almost all promotion and staff redeployment took place within the same department. Even the most qualified civil servants were possibly barred from promotion if those more senior were younger and no new senior positions were available. This severely hindered career advancement opportunities and staff motivation54.

24 With regard to professional training, the government commissioned the Civil Service College of Singapore to provide an Executive Management Development Programme for over 600 middle- and high-ranking civil servants55. Job-related skills training covering law, secretarial work, management, computer skills, and language were stepped up56. Portuguese language training was a main component of language training as not many Chinese civil servants had a command of Portuguese. In 2001, less than 50% of civil servants could read and write both Chinese and Portuguese57. All official and legal documents produced before the handover were still in Portuguese. Owing to the meagre success of the localisation of the legal system and official use of Chinese language, only important policy announcements and decrees were translated into Chinese. Even though some decrees were in Chinese, they were sometimes incomprehensible because of tight translation schedules and the resulting poor quality of the translations58.

25 1. Size of public sector (1996–2000)

NB : * Data 2002. (1) Including civilian employees and employees in education, health and police. (2) Including civilian employees and employees in public schools and police. (3) Including civilian employees. (4) Including civilian employees and employees in education and health sector. Sources: Government of Macao Special Administrative Region Statistics, 2003. Macao: Human Resources Statistics, Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau, 2003. Statistics, Civil Service Bureau, the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Regio, 2003. Hong Kong : The Facts – Population, 2003. Administrative and Civil Service Reform, World Bank Group, 2003, available at http:// www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/civilservice/development.htm.

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26 The language issues may delay the administrative process. For instance, pollutants produced by an air-conditioned warehouse reportedly provoked many complaints. Although anti-pollution ordinances forbidding pollution were available, government officials were uncertain which provisions in the ordinance were breached59. Stepping up Portuguese language training was a necessary means to resolving a major administrative bottleneck. However, very often the time spent on training courses was not counted as work time, so there was little incentive to attend. In addition, the courses usually did not vigorously test the capacity of the trainees, and instructors were not well assessed. The quality of training courses could hardly be assured60. Reasons for prudent public sector reform programmes 27 Moon and Ingraham argued that outcome of public policies are determined by the relative strength of three major actors―bureaucrats, politicians, and society61. Given submissive bureaucrats and a civil society dependent on the government, politicians were the most influential actors in shaping policy outcomes62. Because of the high approval rate of the Chief Executive and the timidity of legislators as discussed, the reasons why many public sector reform programmes did not address the core issues of the administrative problems should be traced back to the Chief Executive.

28 The Chief Executive was more concerned about maintaining administrative stability than bashing the bureaucracy when it came to the quality of public service63. Also, in parallel with public opinion, the Chief Executive placed a higher priority on economic development and social order than public sector reform. In a survey conducted in March 2000, 44.5% and 24.5% of respondents regarded economic affairs and social order as the issues that concerned them most. Only 8.8% chose administrative problems64.

29 In 2000, economic growth returned and in 2003, the GDP at constant prices increased by 15.6%. The unemployment rate dropped gradually to below 6% by the end of 200365. Social order was also restored. In 2001, violent crime dropped by 25.3% compared with the previous year66. Visitor numbers increased and boosted gambling tax revenues to MOP 5.34 billion in 2000 and MOP 6.13 billion in 2001. In 2002, the government raised the gambling tax rate from 31.8% to 35%. In 2003 a historical high of over MOP 9 billion in gambling tax revenue was recorded67. The government accumulated a big budget surplus (from MOP 314.2 million in 2000 to MOP 3.90 billion in 2003)68 and enjoyed high approval ratings (over 70% between March 2000 and February 2004). A longitudinal study revealed that in 2001 Macao people were more satisfied with the government than in 199969. Budget surplus and high approval ratings made it pointless to cut costs or bolster legitimacy through public sector reform which, as seen in many overseas examples, often stirs controversy within bureaucracy70.

30 The constraints of legal traditions may also account for a lack of sweeping reform measures. Macao inherited from Portugal a continental legal tradition. Unlike common law regions in which the exercise of executive power is sufficient to initiate far- reaching structural reform71, regions with a tradition of codified civil law would be confronted with massive legal barriers and severely delayed in their pursuit of public sector reform72. For example, organic statutes regulated the set-up of government departments. Establishing new departments, abolishing old departments, modifying department functions, and changing department establishment all entail law amendments. Similarly, reforming staffing, performance appraisal systems, and staff transferral required amendments to the Civil Service Act. Given the necessity of bi- lingual (Chinese and Portuguese) legislation and a shortage of bilingual civil servants

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and legal experts, introduction of reform measures targeting the core issues of administrative problems cannot be realised in a short period of time.

31 Public sector reform in Macao did not address core problems in the public sector in Macao, i.e. poor personnel practices, the inadequate strength of the Legislative Assembly and the Commission of Audit, and the overlapping roles among government departments. This was due to a Chief Executive more concerned about economic issues and social order than public sector reform, in which some civil servants were inexperienced. Furthermore, drastic structural reform aimed at cutting costs was also deemed both unnecessary amid economic recovery, and impossible in a law-based administrative system.

NOTES

1. Vincent Wright, “The Paradoxes of Administrative Reform”, in Walter J. M. Kickert (ed.), Public Management and Administrative Reform in Western Europe, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, 1997, p. 17. 2. Hellmut Wollmann and Eckhard Schröter (eds.), Comparing Public Sector Reform in Britain and Germany: Key Traditions and Trends of Modernisation, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2000; Walter J. M. Kickert, “Anglo-Saxon Public Management and European Governance: The Case of Dutch Administrative Reforms,” in Jan-Erik Lane (ed.), Public Sector Reform: Rationale, Trends and Problems, London, Sage, pp. 168-187. 3. Anthony B.L. Cheung and Ian Scott (eds.), Governance and Public Sector Reform in Asia: Paradigm Shifts or Business as Usual? London, Routledge Curzon, 2003; Ali Farazmand (ed.), Administrative Reform in Developing Nations, Westport, Praeger, 2002; Tom Kuotsai Liou (ed.), Administrative Reform and National Economic Development, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2000; Public Sector Board, World Bank, Reforming Public Institutions and Strengthening Governance: A World Bank Strategy, Washington DC, World Bank, Public Sector Group, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM) Network, 2000; Luiz Pereira, Bresser Carlos and Peter Spink, Reforming the State: Managerial Public Administration in Latin America, Boulder, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1999; Ian Scott and Ian Thynne (eds.), Public Sector Reform: Critical Issues and Perspectives, Hong Kong, AJPA, 1994. 4. 2003 Macao in Figures, http://www.dsec.gov.mo/e_index.html. Accessed February 9th 2004. 5. Renli ziyuan tongji ziliao (Human Resource Statistics), http://www.safp.gov.mo/ external/chin/info/statistics/showdata.asp?table=1. Accessed February 7th 2004. 6. Aomen ribao (Macao Daily), October 9th 2002, p. A1; Macao International Airport, http:// www.macao-airport.com/partners_cam.phtml. 7. Employment Survey – 3rd Quarter, 2002, Macao, Statistics and Census Service, Government of Macao Special Administrative Region, 2002, pp. 76-79. 8. The Basic Law of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, http://www.macao.gov.mo/constitution/basiclaw_en.phtml. Accessed March 10th 2003. 9. Interview with a retired personnel official on October 1st 2003.

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10. 2001 Aomen tebie xingzheng qu gonggong xingzheng renli ziyuan baogao (A Report of Human Resources of Macao Special Administration Region Public Administration, 2001), Macao, Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau, 2002, pp. I-46. 11. Decree No.2/1999, http://www.imprensa.macau.gov.mo/bo/i/1999/01/lei02_cn.asp, Accessed February 10th 2004. See also Tao-chiu Lam, “Administration and Public Service System in Macau”, in Rolf D. Cremer (ed.), Macau: City of Commerce and Culture, Hong Kong, API Press, 1991, p. 338. 12. Interview on November 8th 2002. See also Aomen tebie xingzheng qu zhengfu lifahui huikan : di er jie di yi hui qi [2001–2002] di yi zhu di II-9 qi (Bulletin of Legislative Assembly of Macao SAR Government – No.II-9, First Committee [2001 – 2002]), December 3rd 2001, p. 9. 13. An insider told the author on December 12th 2003 that very often civil service examinations tested candidates’ understanding on the internal administration of the departments which held the recruitment examinations. Therefore usually only the candidates from the departments knew the answers and passed the examinations. 14. Xinbao (Information Journal), February 15th 2003, p.3. 15. Minya Lao, “Guanyu Aomen tebie xingzheng qu zhengfu bumen gongzuo ping ke de baogao” (A Report of the Performance Appraisal System of Macao SAR Government), Xingzheng (Administration), Vol. 13, No. 4, 2000, pp. 1105-1127; “Aomen gonggong xingzheng gongzuo renyuan tongze” (Macao Civil Service Act), Aomen gongzhi falu zhidu (Ordinances of Macao Civil Service System), Macao, Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau and Government Printing Bureau, 1999, p. 179; Aomen ribao (Macao Daily), November 30th 2002, p. B1. 16. Aomen xingzheng qu zhengfu lifahui huikan: di er jie di yi hui qi [2001–2002] di yi zhu di II-9 qi. 17. Aomen tebie xingzheng qu zhengfu lifahui huikan: di yi jie di er hui qi [2000–2001] di er zhu di 13/2000 qi (Bulletin of the Legislative Assembly of Macao SAR Government – No. 13/2000, Second Committee [2000 – 2001]), November 24th 2000. Available at http:// www.al.gov.mo/diario/l01/cs2-2/2000-13%20%20(11-24).pdf. Accessed March 4th 2003, pp. 20-21. 18. For details about the political background of Legislative Assembly members, see Bill K. P. Chou, “Interest Groups Politics in Macao”, Journal of Contemporary China, forthcoming; Shiu-hing Lo, Political Development in Macao, Hong Kong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1995. 19. Aomen ribao (Macao Daily), February 4th 2004, p. B3. 20. Aomen ribao (Macao Daily) (Internet Edition), September 7th 2002; September 8th 2002. 21. Xin Aomen (New Macao), December 2002, pp. 5-6. 22. Macao Yearbook 2002, Macao, The Government Information Bureau of the Macao Special Administrative Region, 2002, p. 51. 23. Aomen tebie xingzheng qu shenjichu, Er ling ling ling niandu zhengfu zai chang yunzuo shenji baogao (Audit Report 2000), available at http://www.ca.gv.mo/ch/reports/ RAOF00cn.pdf. Accessed December 6th 2003. 24. Economic Services Bureau Public Finance, http://www.economia.gov.mo/chinese/ dei/chiind15.htm, accessed February 11th 2004. 25. Aomen tebie xingzheng qu shenjichu, Er ling ling yi niandu zhengfu zai chang yunzuo shenji baogao (Audit Report 2001). Available at http://www.ca.gov.mo/ch/reports/ RAOF01cn.pdf. Accessed March 6th 2003, p. 5.

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26. Aomen tebie xingzheng qu shenjichu, Zhuanxiang shenji baogao – luyou jijin zhangmu (Audit Report Special Issue – Tourism Fund) Available at http://www.ca.gov.mo/ch/ reports/SA203cn.pdf. Accessed February 4th 2004, p. 7. 27. Sports Development Bureau, http://venue.sport.gov.mo/sport/refer/facintro.jsp. Accessed March 30th 2003; Lands, Public Work and Transport Bureau, http:// www.dssopt.gov.mo/chin.htm. Accessed March 30th 2003. 28. Xinbao (Information Journal), August 24th 2003, p. 1. 29. A men ribao (Macao Daily), March 11th 2003, p. A10. 30. Aomen tebie xingzheng qu zhengfu lifahui huikan : di er jie di er hui qi [2002–2003] di yi zhu di II-31 qi (Bulletin of Legislative Assembly of Macao SAR Government – No.13/2000, Second Committee [2000–2001]), October 16th 2002. Available at http:// www.al.gov.mo/diario/l02/cs1-2/2002-031%20(10-16).pdf. Accessed March 4th 2003, p. 3. 31. Centre for Macau Studies of the University of Macau, Opinion Survey on “the First Policy Speech of the Chief Executive of Macao Special Administrative Region Delivered on 29th March, 2000”, Centre for Macau Studies of the University of Macau, Macao, 2000, p. 31; Centre for Macau Studies of the University of Macau, Opinion Survey on the “Third Policy Speech of the Chief Executive of Macao Special Administrative Region Delivered on 20th November, 2001”, Centre for Macau Studies of the University of Macau, Macao, 2001, p. 23; Centre for Macau Studies of the University of Macau , Opinion Survey on the “Fourth Policy Speech of the Chief Executive of Macao Special Administrative Region Delivered on 20th November, 2002”, Centre for Macau Studies of the University of Macau, Macao, 2002, p. 30; HKU Poll Site. Available at http://hkupop.hku.hk. Accessed February 10th 2004. 32. Yu Chun, “'Yi guo liang zhi' zai Xianggang he Aomen de shishi: lilun yu shijian” (Theories and Practices of Implementation of “One Country Two Systems” Principle in Hong Kong and Macau), International Conference on Public Management in 21st Century: Opportunities and Challenges, January 10th –11th 2004, University of Macau, Macao, China. 33. Ming K. Chan, “Different Roads to Home: The Retrocession of Hong Kong and Macau to Chinese Sovereignty,” Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 20, No. 3, August 2003, p. 509. 34. 2001 Aomen tebie xingzheng qu gonggong xingzheng renliziyuan baogao (A Report of Human Resources of Macao Special Administration Region Public Administration, 2001), p. II-6. 35. Aomen gonggong xingzheng zaizhirenyuan zhi bendihua zhuang fang (Localization of Macao Civil Service), Macao, Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau, 1999, pp. 22-23. 36. Guomin Lu, “Gong wu yuan bendihua de kun jing yu dui ce”, (Problems and Solutions in Civil Service Localisation), in Yu Chun (ed.), Aomen huigui qianhou de wenti yu duice (Problems and Solutions around Macao’s Handover), Hong Kong, Mingliu Press, 1999, pp. 94-100. 37. 2001 Aomen tebie xingzheng qu gonggong xingzheng renliziyuan baogao, p. I-46. 38. Grant Jordan and Barry J. O’Toole, “The Next Steps: Origins and Destinations”, in Barry J. O’Toole and Grant Jordan (eds.), Next Steps: Improving Management in Government, Aldershot, Dartmouth, 1995, p. 3; Andrew Gray and Bill Jenkins, “Implementing the Next Steps: A Choreography of Management Change”, in Barry J. O’Toole and Grant Jordan (eds.), Next Steps: Improving Management in Government, p. 46; Yiuyu Kam, “Decision-Making and Implementation of Policy toward Hong Kong”, in Hamrin Carol

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Lee and Zhao Suisheng (eds.), Decision-Making in Deng’s China: Perspectives from Insiders, N.Y., M.E. Sharpe, 1995, p. 109. 39. Government of Macao Special Administrative Region Statistics. Available at http:// www.macao.gov.mo/index_en.html. Accessed March 7th 2003. 40. The exchange rate on May 1st 2003 was US$1=MOP8 Aomen ribao (Macao Daily), January 29th 2003, p. A1. 41. Government of Macao Special Administrative Region Statistics. 42. Employment Survey (various years) Macao, Statistics and Census Service, Government of Macao Special Administrative Region. 43. Government Policy Plan for the Year 2000 Financial Year of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, the Chief Executive Edmund Ho, March 29th 2000. Available at http://www.macao.gov.mo/policy/en2000_policy.pdf. Accessed March 8th 2003, pp. 11-12. 44. OECD, Governance in Transition: Public Management Reforms in OECD Countries, Paris, OECD, 1995, p. 8. 45. Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau. http://www.iacm.gov.mo/iacm2002_c.htm. Accessed March 6th 2003. 46. 2001 Aomen tebie xingzheng qu gonggong xingzheng renliziyuan baogao, p. I-10. 47. Xingzheng fawu fanwei, Aomen tebie xingzheng qu zhengfu er ling ling san nian caizheng niandu shizheng baogao (The Administration and Justice Policy Areas Plan, Policy Address for the Fiscal Year 2003 of the Government of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China). Available at http:// www.macao.gov.mo/live2003/chinese/cn2003_aj.pdf. Accessed March 30th 2003, p. 5. 48. Xingzheng fawu fanwei, Aomen tebie xingzheng qu zhengfu er ling ling si nian caizheng niandu shizheng baogao (The Administration and Justice Policy Areas Plan, Policy Address for the Fiscal Year 2004 of the Government of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China). Available at http:// www.macao.gov.mo/policy2004/chinese/aj04_cn.doc. Accessed February 8th 200, p. 4. 49. Xingzheng fawu fanwei, Aomen tebie xingzheng qu zhengfu er ling ling si nian caizheng niandu shizheng baogao, p. 4. 50. Interview with a senior civil servant on November 24th 2003. 51. Xingzheng fawu fanwei, Aomen tebie xingzheng qu zhengfu er ling ling si nian caizheng niandu shizheng baogao, p. 6. 52. Aomen ribao (Macao Daily), November 15th 2003, p. A6. 53. Aomen ribao (Macao Daily), December 21st 2003, p. A3. 54. Consultation meeting with civil servants’ representatives on June 17th 2003. 55. Xingzheng fawu fanwei, Aomen tebie xingzheng qu zhengfu er ling ling yi nian caizheng niandu shizheng baogao (The Administration and Justice Policy Areas Plan, Policy Address for the Fiscal Year 2001 of the Government of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China). Available at http:// www.macao.gov.mo/policy/cn2001_policy.pdf. Accessed March 30th 2003; Xingzheng fawu fanwei, Aomen tebie xingzheng qu zhengfu er ling ling er nian caizheng niandu shizheng baogao (The Administration and Justice Policy Areas Plan, Policy Address for the Fiscal Year 2002 of the Government of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China). Available at http://www.macao.gov.mo/policy/ cn2002_policy.pdf. Accessed March 30th 2003. 56. Macao Yearbook 2002, p. 86.

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57. Aomen tebie xingzheng qu zhengfu lifahui huikan: di er jie di yi hui qi [2001–2002] di yi zhu di II-9 qi, pp. 14-18. 58. Interview on February 3rd 2004 with a former senior official responsible for law translation. 59. New Macao Society. Available at http://home.macao.ctm.net/~newmacao/ Accessed March 30th 2003. 60. The claims were based on the author’s experience as an instructor of two management courses for middle- and high-ranking civil servants, as well as some of the course attendees’ opinions. 61. Myung-Jae Moon and Patricia Ingraham, “Shaping Administrative Reform and Governance: An Examination of the Political Nexus Triads in Three Asian Countries”, Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 77-100. 62. ) Bill K. P. Chou, “Public Sector Reform in Macau and Hong Kong: An Examination of the Political Nexus Triads in the Two China’s Special Administrative Regions”, International Conference on Public Management in 21st Century: Opportunities and Challenges, January 10th –11th 2004, University of Macau, Macao, China. 63. Government Policy Plan for the Year 2000, March 29t 2000, p.6. 64. Centre for Macau Studies of the University of Macau, Opinion Survey on the “First Policy Speech of the Chief Executive of Macao Special Administrative Region Delivered on 29th March, 2000”, p.7. 65. Employment Survey, various years. 66. Macao Yearbook 2002, p. 89. 67. Economic Services Bureau, Public Finance. 68. Economic Services Bureau, Public Finance. 69. Robert T.Y. Chung, “Aomen huigui liang zhou nian minqing fazhan” (The Public Opinion of Macao upon the Second Anniversary of Transfer of Sovereignty), in Aomen 2002 (Macao 2002), Macao, Macao Foundation, 2002, p. 43. 70. Charles H. Levine, “Organizational Decline and Cutback Management”, in Richard C. Kearney and Evan M. Berman (eds.), Public Sector Performance: Management, Motivation, Measurement, Boulder, Westview Press, 1999, p. 233. 71. Kickert, “Anglo-Saxon Public Management and European Governance: The Case of Dutch Administrative Reforms”, op. cit., p. 42. 72. Christoph Reichard, “ ‘Neues Steuerungsmodell’: Local Reform in Germany”, in Kickert (ed.), Public Management and Administrative Reform in Western Europe, op. cit., p. 60.

INDEX

Thèmes : politique

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International Relations

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Border Disputes between China and North Korea

Daniel Gomà Pinilla

EDITOR'S NOTE

Translated from the French original by Peter Brown

1 The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have enjoyed relatively stable relations since they came into being in 1948 and 1949 respectively. The Korean War (1950-53) set the scene for future relations between Pyongyang and Peking, given that Chinese help was vital for the survival of Kim Il- Sung’s regime. Sino-North Korean relations experienced periods of great strain during the 1960s and 1970s, when the Sino-Soviet conflict divided the Communist bloc into pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese camps. However, Peking was able to take advantage of the internal and external problems of the DPRK to present itself as Pyongyang’s main friend faced with the pressures exerted by South Korea and the West―the USA inter alia―which occurred all the more easily after the collapse of the USSR.

2 Although, at the time both regimes were being established, Peking and Pyongyang declared that a new era was dawning, neither country has been able to completely free itself of the shackles of its historical heritage. Past Chinese domination on the Korean peninsula still causes resentment today in North Korea. Since the death of Kim Il-Sung (1994), China has seen a decline in its influence, although the issue of North Korea’s nuclear programme allows it today to again play an important role in Northeast Asia. The authorities in Peking are aware that in addition to the problems created by the nuclear ambitions of Kim Jong-Il’s regime and the growing presence of North-Korean refugees on Chinese soil, there is the issue of territorial disputes between the two countries.

3 China and North Korea share a 1,416-kilometre long border that corresponds broadly speaking to the course of the Yalu and Tumen rivers. These rivers have facilitated the drawing up of the borders, but the agreements between the two countries have not

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been without considerable tensions, mainly due to Pyongyang. North Korea resolved its border disputes with Russia (the then USSR) in 1985-86, but its territorial problems with China have still to be settled. A lack of proper documentation hampers study of this question, and Pyongyang has never made its territorial claims a determining factor of its foreign policy. Most of our information comes from statements made, under cover of anonymity, by North Korean diplomats posted to Third World countries. Peking for its part never comments officially on the subject. Moreover, access to the border zone has for a long time been restricted, thus preventing any in situ research. Finally, the territorial dispute has never constituted the threat of a break in relations between the two countries.

4 However, in spite of the image of “indestructible” friendship between the two countries, the border disputes have in fact conditioned their relations since 1950. For China, the polemic with North Korea is just one in a long line of territorial disputes with neighbouring countries, concerning both land and maritime boundaries. Secret negotiations between Peking and Pyongyang resulted in 1963 in an agreement that seems to be no longer valid today. At the time, at the height of the Sino-Soviet standoff, China adopted a flexible position in order to break out of its isolation in the Communist bloc and to win Kim Il-Sung’s regime1 over to its cause. In spite of the CCP’s tough stance after 1949 in the face of the territorial claims made by its neighbouring countries, Premier Zhou Enlai advised the Chinese delegation to be receptive to North Korea’s demands. The Chinese concessions were so significant that the local authorities in the border provinces of Jilin and Liaoning protested2.

5 The Sino-Korean border has been changed a great deal over the centuries. The Korean kingdom of Koguryo (fifth to eighth centuries) controlled Manchuria and the region around present-day Vladivostok. The kingdom of Parhae (eighth to tenth centuries) that succeeded it dominated Manchuria and the Liaodong peninsula, although in the seventh century the power of the Chinese Tang Empire had reached as far as Seoul. The present borders correspond roughly to those of the Yuan Empire (1279-1368). The Manchu Qing dynasty (1644-1911) consolidated the Chinese domination of the North- eastern region. At the time, Korea was a satellite state of China, subject to the authority of the “Son of Heaven”, and the kings in Seoul were in no position to oppose Chinese demands. Yet, in the nineteenth century, a period of decline for the Chinese empire, Korea made its displeasure known and Seoul called, albeit unsuccessfully, for the restitution of territories formerly under Korean domination. However, China’s defeat at the hands of Japan in 1895 and Tokyo’s gradual domination on the Korean peninsula put an end to any possibility of agreement.

6 North Korea often maintains that the territorial squabble has its origins in the relations of dependency between Korea and China in the period of the Manchu Qing dynasty, even though the Han, the main ethnic group of the “Middle Kingdom”, were not in power. China, however, considers that the territories acquired in the past are no longer subject to further discussion today, especially if this should threaten the territorial integrity of the People’s Republic.

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Paektusan, the “Sacred Mountain” 7 The principal border dispute between Peking and Pyongyang concerns Mount Paektu3. This is the region’s highest peak, a 2,744-metre high volcano lying at the source of the Yalu and Tumen rivers. At the bottom of the crater lies a lake, 13 kilometres square and 204 metres deep, the Chongji4. Mount Paektu is part of the Changbaishan mountain range (“eternally white mountains” in Chinese), that crosses in a north-south direction the prefectures of Antu, Wusong and Changbai, in the south of Jilin province, stretching over 80 kilometres and ending inside Korea’s borders5.

8 The Qing emperor Kangxi (1662-1723) forced Korea, which at the time was a vassal state of China, to accept that the border separating the two countries should pass through the Paektusan peak. The region in which the volcano is situated is regarded as the cradle of the Manchu people. The squabble over Mount Paektu resurfaced under King Kojong (1864-1907), from the Korean Yi dynasty, but the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula put an end to any possibility of compromise.

9 The zone surrounding the volcano is inhospitable and uninhabited, and neither the Koreans nor the Chinese have tried to develop the region economically. The territory claimed by Pyongyang concerns 33 square kilometres around the Paektusan summit. In the case of Lake Chongji, the 1963 agreement established that three-fifths would be under North Korea’s control with the remaining two-fifths belonging to China.

10 In 1965, the standoff between China and the Soviet Union put North Korea in a very tight situation. Pyongyang needed the help of both countries: owing its existence to the former and its survival to the latter. Kim Il-Sung’s criticism of any deviation in the international communist movement was very badly received by Peking and tensions mounted between Kim and Mao. In order to punish the North Korean regime for its lack of support, China is thought to have demanded that the 160 square kilometres around Paektusan be conceded to it as compensation for the economic and military aid

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provided by Peking during the Korean War (1950-53)6. China abandoned its claim in November 1970 in order to improve relations with Pyongyang7. Between March 1968 and March 1969, various military skirmishes took place in the Paektusan region between the North Korean and Chinese armed forces. These were consequences of the tensions caused by the Cultural Revolution and the savage criticisms made of Kim Il- Sung by the Red Guards. During these years of unrest, Peking closed its border with its neighbour.

11 For the Koreans, Mount Paektu is entwined with their earliest history. According to legend, the God Hwanung (“the king come from the sky”) landed on the volcano to couple with a woman who then conceived a son, Tangun (“the king of the birch-tree”), who in 2333 B.C. founded the kingdom of Choson, regarded as being the first Korean state.

12 Furthermore, for the communist authorities of North Korea, Mount Paektu is the “sacred mountain of the revolution”, the place of the most important guerrilla exploits in the 1930s under the command of Kim Il-Sung. After Mangyongdae, the village in which Kim was born, the volcano is without doubt the most venerated place in the DPRK. One of the best-known photographs of the former leader shows him at the summit of Paektusan contemplating Lake Chongji. This is proof of the North Korean desire to affirm its pre-eminence over this territory. An image of Mount Paektu also decorates the main façade of the Korean Museum of the Revolution in Pyongyang, an enormous building that was constructed to the glory of the Great Leader’s revolutionary past.

13 The volcano’s importance for the regime is such that North Korean propaganda affirms that Kim Jong-Il was born in a guerrilla camp on the Korean face of Mount Paektusan in February 1942. In actual fact, the present North Korean leader was born in the military camp of Vyatsk, near the city of Khabarovsk in the Russian Far-East, where his father was an officer in the Red Army. The goal of this manipulation is clear: to situate the birth of the communist dictator on Korean soil and in a symbolic place that is representative of the consciousness of the Korean people8. The DPRK’s leaders even invented the exact spot of his birth that has since become a place of worship and pilgrimage9.

14 To justify its control over a part of Paektusan, Peking talks about compensation for its military support of North Korea during the 1950-53 conflict. For some time now Peking has been constantly referring to its concern for the protection of the region’s natural environment and for the development of the volcano as a tourist attraction10. China has a final argument to justify its control over Paektusan, which is that while the volcano may be sacred for Koreans, it is also sacred for Manchus11. Hiding behind the defence of the interests of Manchus, Peking rules out any negotiations that could lead to territorial loss in the area. The Yalu and Tumen Rivers, and control of the seas 15 Since 1949, China and North Korea have accepted that the course of the Yalu and Tumen rivers constitute the border between the two countries. However, they have refused to situate the demarcation line in the middle of the rivers, adopting the principle of joint ownership, management and use of the two waterways.

16 Historically, the main problem has been over the dozens of islands that are to be found in the rivers. China has recognised North Korea’s sovereignty over 80% of these islands, including the biggest ones. Ownership of the islands has been determined by the

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nationality of their population, but the problem has not been resolved at all for the uninhabited islands, a sort of shared responsibility seeming to apply in their case. Pidan (Chouduandao in Chinese), located at the mouth of the Yalu, was, however, an exception. The island was originally inhabited by mainly Chinese, and while North Korea had control over it, Peking officially regarded it as an integral part of its own territory. The North Koreans then wished to make a gift of it to China in gratitude for its help in 1950-53. In the event, this did not happen, and, in 1963, the Chinese authorities had to evacuate the approximately fifty families who were still living there12.

17 The river banks are also the subject of discussions, although both parties recognise that they serve as a line of demarcation between the two Communist states. Peking is showing tolerance towards the North Korean claims, yet without giving in to Pyongyang. The Chinese acceptance of North Korean control of 90% of the mouth of the Yalu was badly received by the local authorities in the Chinese border provinces, despite the state of free navigation stipulated by Peking. Management of the river ports has also been a factor of dispute. Finally, in October 2000, both countries reached an agreement on the border ports and their joint management13. In point of fact, friction over the control of the banks of the Yalu and Tumen explain the great number of agreements and protocols signed by Peking and Pyongyang: for example, the agreement on the management of the railway line running along the Yalu, on navigation and the electricity produced by both rivers, the floating of timber downstream, the common management of the Unbong hydroelectric plant, etc.

18 Another polemic of significance concerns the island of Shindo (Shin in Chinese), situated in the estuary of the Yalu River. In spite of Chinese claims, Shindo has for a long time belonged to Korea, and under Japanese occupation was a production centre for raw materials for textiles, as the place is covered in reeds. The Chinese authorities regard the island as a station of major importance for transport and communication in the development of oil extraction in the Gulf of Beihai. For Pyongyang, ownership of the island favours its strategic position at the mouth of a river that serves as a boundary-mark between the two countries14.

19 Another element of tension is the question of access to the Sea of Japan. Although the DPRK borders China along the greater part of its northern boundary, the last portion of the River Tumen (17 kilometres exactly) marks the limit between North Korea and Russia, thus depriving the Chinese of any opening onto the Sea of Japan. For China, not having any supply post for its war fleet in this zone puts a major break on its political and military presence in North Asia.

20 The 1985-86 and 1991 agreements between Russians and North Koreans on demarcating their borders are of vital interest for China, which is very concerned by the recognition of its navigation rights on the Tumen River as far as the Sea of Japan. The accords signed by Tsarist Russia and Imperial China in 1858 (Aigun Treaty) and 1860 (Peking Treaty) recognise Russia’s possession of eastern Siberia and the extension of its territory as far as the Amour and Tumen rivers, but they also establish China’s right to cross the Tumen in order to have access to the Sea of Japan. Moscow and Pyongyang have never denied China this right, but they have rarely shown any co-operative attitude either. For Pyongyang, Chinese access to the Sea of Japan threatens its independence. The improvement in relations between the Chinese and Russian authorities during the 1990s enabled a rapprochement and the signing of several

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agreements. The most recent one, a protocol signed in Peking on June 20th 2003, concerns the junction of the Chinese, Russian and North Korean borders on the river Tumen15. The main problem for China in this whole question is not, however, political, but rather of a natural kind: the Tumen’s waters are known today for their shallowness, thereby making navigation difficult16.

21 A final issue is that of maritime boundaries. In July 1977, North Korea unilaterally introduced an economic and fishing exclusion zone of 200 miles off the coast of the Yellow Sea and, since that time the two countries have not yet settled the question of this maritime boundary17. For Peking, the North Korean position is stalling the economic development of the mouth of the Yalu and, in particular, of the Gulf of Beihai.

22 The territorial issue is without doubt an element of tension between China and North Korea. However, neither Pyongyang nor Peking has ever had their relations depend on resolution of the border disputes, in spite of a few violent incidents in the late 1960s. The issue is annoying for the North Korean regime, but not to the extent of risking a breakdown in relations. Since the 1980s, Pyongyang has not sought to bring the territorial issue to the fore. Accused of developing a nuclear arsenal, seriously affected by a famine since 1995-96 and with increasing economic difficulties, the DPRK can hardly dictate conditions to China. Its dependence on Peking has increased since the 1980s, to the point where, in 1997, North Korea’s debt to the PRC exceeded US$500 million18.

23 Resolution of the territorial disputes appears to be no easy matter. China is unwilling to negotiate, given its position of force. North Korea, on the other hand, could play the card of the 1985-86 agreements reached with Russia, both with regard to case of the Tumen and Yalu rivers and to the delimitation of the maritime territory. Those accords laid out the boundary between the two countries as being in the middle of the Tumen. The few islands there are there have been placed under Korean control. Peking has studied the Russo-North Korean accords as a starting point for any future negotiations with Pyongyang. In the case of maritime boundaries, the Russo-North Korean agreement stipulates a belt of 300 nautical miles starting from the Tumen River that separates Moscow’s geopolitically and economically interesting zones from those of Pyongyang.

24 The Russian example is important, but there are differences with respect to the Chinese case. In 1986-87, the Soviet authorities had accepted most of North Korea’s claims in exchange for an improvement in relations between the two countries. The political changes at the top of the USSR (Mikhaïl Gorbatchev as supreme leader and Edouard Chevarnadze as Minister of Foreign Affairs) no doubt facilitated these accords. In addition, the dispute between the Russians and the North Koreans was limited to a small part of the Tumen River and the maritime zone, whereas, in the Chinese case, the disagreement is over geographical realities (the Yalu and Tumen rivers, and their islands) as well as economic ones, and also brings Korean nationalism into play (Paektusan).

25 Nonetheless, a rapprochement between the two countries is possible, as shown by the example of the Supung Dam, 90 kilometres upstream from the mouth of the Yalu. Built during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in the 1930s, this one hundred-metre high dam belonged to China, being physically located in Liaoning Province. It was to enable control of the waterway as far as the river mouth. Its power station, constructed on the Korean side of the Yalu, had the capacity to provide electricity for the whole of

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Korea and Manchuria19. This station, which was damaged in the early 1940s by floods, remained for a long time inoperative, in spite of China’s regular proposal of a financial collaboration that was always rejected by North Korea. Today, it has been rebuilt and Supung Dam is one of Asia’s largest, being 160 metres high and 853 metres long. It now provides electricity to the neighbouring industrial zones of China and North Korea.

26 Economic development can also work in favour of dispute resolution. The North Korean border zone with China and Russia now houses the project of economic development of Ranjing-Sonbong, and other border areas (like Sinuiji) have also become development zones over the past few years.

27 The border disputes between China and North Korea are bringing about a joining of forces between the authorities and citizens, especially in the case of Korea. Pyongyang has always tried to avoid tensions with its neighbour over Paektusan. Nonetheless, ever since 1948, the year in which the DPRK was founded, it has been fostering a nationalism aimed at China among others, denouncing the latter’s imperialist past that had turned Korea into a vassal state of the Manchu emperors. By using the polemic on the non- determination of borders, Pyongyang is bolstering this xenophobic nationalism that serves it both to display its independence from Peking, which it has in fact often called upon in the course of the past half-century, and to cover up the serious internal problems.

28 Pyongyang has the support of South Korea in this conflict. The authorities in Seoul are willingly lending their weight to the North Koreans in their territorial claims. This is one of the few points of agreement quickly reached by both Korean governments. In fact, Paektusan may be regarded as a symbol of national unity. Its name is even mentioned in the first verse of the Republic of Korea’s national anthem. Today, however, South Koreans can only gain access to the Paektusan area from the Chinese side. Seoul’s attitude can also be explained by a strategic factor: a possible future reunification of the peninsula would have to deal with these problems. For its part, Pyongyang is backing South Korea in its claim to regain Tok Island in the Sea of Japan, called Takeshima by the Japanese, who are also claiming ownership of it.

29 China, for its part, periodically publishes books and maps affirming the appropriation of territories even though they may still be being disputed by other countries, particularly North Korea20. The authorities in Pyongyang have identical propaganda tactics and widely display images of Kim Jong-Il and his father on top of Mount Paektusan. In spite of the pressures, Peking’s leaders have been able to take the heat out of the territorial demands of the North Koreans by playing the card of Chinese aid to the Pyongyang regime. Chinese military aid was fundamental in the early 1950s for the survival of Kim Il-Sung and his comrades from the Korean Workers’ Party. Although Pyongyang attempted to play two hands at once in dealing with Moscow and Peking from the 1960s to the 1980s, since the fall of the USSR China has become North Korea’s only ally internationally. In this context, Pyongyang can scarcely adopt a hard-line position over possible negotiations with Peking, and for more than a decade now has had a flexible attitude. For their part, the Chinese refuse to talk about Paektusan, and the national press very rarely gives any coverage of the territorial problems between the two countries. Peking is thus avoiding increasing tensions with Pyongyang and inflaming nationalistic passions in South Korea.

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NOTES

1. In 1963, relations between Peking and Pyongyang were at their height. Kim Il-Sung and Mao Zedong opposed Nikita Khrushchev whom they accused of revisionism. This rapprochement between the Chinese and the North Koreans resulted, in November 1963, in an agreement of co-operation and exploitation of the Yalu and Tumen rivers. This agreement also dealt with border disputes between the two countries and recognised, among other things, North Korean control over most of the islands in the two rivers. The agreement, which was very favourable to North Korea, was preceded by a visit by the Chinese President Liu Shaoqi in September. 2. Chae-Jin Lee, China and Korea: Dynamic Relations, Stanford, The Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University, 1996, pp. 99-100. 3. Called “Paektusan” in Korean and “Baitoushan” in Chinese, in both cases this name means “white-headed mountain”. 4. Or “Tianchi”, the “Heavenly Lake” in Chinese. 5. Changbaishan is the largest natural reserve in China. Classified by UNESCO as a biosphere protection area, the region contains snow leopards, Siberian tigers and black bears, among other endangered species, and is the subject of studies by botanists, geologists, etc. 6. Chin O. Chung, Pyongyang Between Peking and Moscow: North Korea’s Involvement in the Sino-Soviet Dispute, 1958-1975, The University of Alabama Press, 1978, p. 120. This information, which was never confirmed by either the Chinese or the North Koreans, appeared in The Indian Times of July 20th 1965, its source being a North Korean diplomat stationed in New Delhi. 7. The abandonment of the Chinese claim was preceded by a rapprochement between Peking and Pyongyang from the start of the 1970s. In January, both governments signed a navigation agreement on the Yalu and Tumen rivers; in February, a new North Korean ambassador was appointed to Peking and, a month later, a Chinese ambassador was appointed to Pyongyang. More important still was the visit to Pyongyang in April by Premier Zhou Enlai, the first by a top Chinese leader for seven years. 8. A dozen camps and museums have been set up in the Paektusan region to commemorate the Korean revolution. The Korean part of the volcano, on the site of Samjiyon, has sculptures depicting battles against the Japanese, the heroes of the revolution, generals and representatives of the people. 9. One could also mention that, since the early 1980s the Pyongyang government has been manufacturing a computer called Paektusan and that sporting competitions called the Paektusan Cup are organised every year in February, in celebration of Kim Jong-Il’s birthday. 10. The Sino-North Korean dispute occasionally borders on the absurd. In the 1970s, the Chinese news agency Xinhua announced the sighting of a monster in the region. North Korea responded by saying that the “monster” was a black bear. 11. The Manchus are the second most populous minority in China after the Zhuang people in the south of the country. In the 2000 census, the latest one carried out in the country, it had 10,682 million people (Zhongguo tongji nianjian [China Statistical Yearbook], Peking, Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 2003, p. 48). 12. Chae-Jin Lee, op. cit., p. 100.

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13. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, Peking, November 18th 2000. 14. Yang Tae-jin, “Territorial Dispute between North Korea and Communist China”, Vantage Point, vol. VI, nº 6, 1983, pp. 1-11. 15. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, Peking, June 30th 2003. 16. Choon-ho Park, “River and Maritime Boundary Problems between North Korea and Russia in the Tumen River and the Sea of Japan”, Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, vol. V, nº 2, 1993, pp. 65-98. 17. Lee Yong-jin, “The Maritime Policy and Sea Law of North Korea”, Vantage Point, vol. IX, nº 7, 1986, pp. 1-10. 18. David Reese, The Prospects for North Korea’s Survival, London, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1998, p. 76. 19. Yang Tae-jin, op. cit., page 6. 20. The Chinese authorities have the support of Taipei. China has a Korean minority of about two million who live in the border provinces of Jilin (including the autonomous prefecture of Yanbian), Heilongjiang and Liaoning. The Chinese Koreans have always avoided any discord with Peking over the territorial issue with Pyongyang. See Sébastien Colin, “A Border Opening onto Numerous Geopolitical Issues. The Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture”, China Perspectives, No. 48, July-August 2003, pp. 4-20.

INDEX

Subjects: relations internationales

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Book reviews

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Ross Terrill, The New Chinese Empire — and what it means for the United States New York, Basic Books, 2003, 384 p.

Henri Eyraud

NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR

Translated from the French original by Michael Black

1 Ross Terrill’s point of departure is the observation that China has remained, up to now, a repressive empire devoid of any opposition. Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and now Hu Jintao, each in their own way and in their own time, have adapted and even modernised the forms of power of the thousand-year-old empire. To the author, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has maintained an imperial concept of itself and reinvented the thousand-year-old autocracy.

2 Ross Terrill is a political commentator, but also a historian; in his view, this enormous state—the only one of its kind today—is unsuited to the modern conditions of development and of unity in diversity, which are characteristic of the new century. The regime, which is both imperial and Leninist, is sticking rigidly to its obession with “stability” and “unity”: it rejects any political evolution and refuses all heterodoxy. The author does not believe that a repressive state which is opposed to progress can maintain itself for long, while the economy and society are evolving rapidly.

3 Three essential traits are said to characterise the Chinese state: it is led from the top; it believes itself to be the possessor and defender of the truth; and it makes only tactical compromises with internal and external realities. The problem is not China’s increasing power, but that it is still governed by an imperial-Leninist dictatorship. Theoretically, federalism could be a solution, and many Chinese thinkers have suggested such a constitutional structure. But the centre imposes unity by force and stability by the

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refusal to countenance any opposition—albeit regional—; federalism, moreover, is evidently not on the agenda.

4 Ross Terrill’s book is a reflection on Chinese history. Following a chronological plan, the author’s reflections focus first of all on how the imperial state came into being in Antiquity. In the first centuries of our era (during the Han and Tang dynasties) grew a feeling of the superiority of Chinese civilisation. The Empire believed it had a mandate to govern the Universe, even if the “barbarians” had to be “reined in” rather than overcome. At the same time, pragmatism already often got the upper hand over official doctrine, Confucianism or legism.

5 In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the tragic decline of China illustrated the search for a new political order, and, in the main, the failure of such efforts. The coming of Mao Zedong was that of a “Red Emperor”, a name the author also applies to Deng Xiaoping and to Jiang Zemin. The Party-state’s Number One, who is not elected by the people, has conserved—although in a decreasing manner—the tributes, prejudices, constraints and characteristics of the Sons of Heaven. The era of Deng and Jiang is attempting a synthesis, which the author sees as impossible, between Leninism and the market economy.

6 New questions arise in the context of the modern world. What is China? Where are its frontiers, if it has any? What does being Chinese mean? Several chapters follow, which focus on the relationships between the mainland and its maritime extensions—Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Pacific; and Central Asia—Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia. These reflections provide stimulating passages about Chinese foreign policy, “its aims and its imperial ways of acting”.

7 Looking to the future, Ross Terrill lists the main challenges he believes China must face. First of all, an ageing population: a quarter of Chinese will be over 65 in 2030. Relations between civilian and military leaders may cause political problems. The health system in rural areas remains highly inadequate. The traditional political apathy of the majority of Chinese can only favour an oligarchical regime. The problems of legitimacy and of succession to power are not resolved by the compulsory adherence to the “four cardinal principles” (the socialist road, the dictatorship of the proletariat, government by the Communist Party, and Marxism-Leninism) which “are in practice the unofficial Constitution of the PRC”. Scientific and technical creativity needs to be expanded. The banking system needs to be overhauled. The environment still needs cleaning up. Some items on this list are questionable, while other challenges could be added to it. Ross Terrill foresees a collapse of the system rather than a gradual evolution. However, one does not always see clearly, in his conclusion, what comes under geopolitical analysis and what stems from the opinions of a militant democrat.

8 The book ends by conjuring up seven possible scenarios. The first is the continuity of the present state of affairs. The second is of a weakening of the centre and of a certain regional fragmentation. The third envisages a partial evolution towards a multiparty system. The fourth hypothesis is that of a quiet collapse of the Communist Party, comparable to what happened in Moscow in 1991. The fifth hypothesis has the author envisaging a split in the Party between Leninists and Social Democrats ; the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) intervenes in favour of the former and then goes back to barracks. Two additional developments could take the place of this scenario : either the PLA seizes power, or, on the contrary, it supports the Social Democrat wing and the

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system begins to move towards a postcommunist regime. Some will say this is excess of imagination and total uncertainty.

9 Ross Terrill has put all his talent into this remarkable book which is, nevertheless, a work which expounds a thesis: the present “imperial-Leninist” Chinese regime is incompatible with the market economy and unsuited to the changes of the beginning of the twenty-first century. It is likely to disappear in sudden collapse rather than by gradual evolution.

10 All political regimes do indeed come to an end, and that of the Chinese Party-state will meet this fate sooner or later. However, certain factors do not seem to have been sufficiently taken into account by the author, in particular the size of the Chinese population. It is a pity that the book does not devote a chapter to demographic history, which would shed essential light. The population of China (22% of humanity) is an exceptional and historically unprecedented element. Because of its mass, and its inequalities of development, it seems unlikely to us that China could evolve politically according to the model of Taiwan, of South Korea or even of twentieth century Japan.

11 Moreover one can disagree with some of the author’s other beliefs. The postulate according to which a Leninist regime is incompatible with a market economy is not demonstrated. Politics often consists of circumventing incompatibilities, of reconciling opposites and of finding compromises which a priori seemed impossible. The group of practising engineers which governs in Peking is perhaps incapable of doing more than managing the country in a period of seething and destabilising economic growth. But would their possible replacements do any better?

12 Finally, the book adheres to a very monolithic vision of the present political system. There is no room for the appearance of trends, whether reforming or conservative. It is true that the obsession with “stability” and “unity” at the summit of the Party-state keeps them at bay. But their underlying existence is also attested by this obsession. And socio-economic evolution, the appearance of new social groups, as well as the relative weakening of the central government, are fertile ground for their development.

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David M. Lampton (ed.), The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978-2000 Stanford, Ca., Stanford University Press, 2001, 508 p.

Jean-Pierre Cabestan

NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR

Translated from the French original by Peter Brown

1 This work takes an innovative and yet balanced look at the major tendencies of Chinese foreign and security policy over the course of the past quarter-century. Beyond the leadership changes begun in 2002 at the time of the Sixteenth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and the never-ending passing of the flame from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao, the formulation of such policy is guided by rules that are partly traditional and partly new, attesting both to a greater complexity in the decision-making mechanisms and to a process of learning-adaptation being undergone by China in international affairs.

2 In his preliminary chapter, David Lampton identifies the four dominant tendencies that are indisputable. These are professionalisation, corporate pluralisation, decentralisation and globalisation. The first, the professionalisation of those participating in the discussion-making process, is itself more broadly influenced by the input of experts, as shown in Lu Ning’s chapter. Corporate or institutional—but not institutionalised—pluralisation is marked by a greater public awareness of conflicts of interest between the main bureaucracies participating in the formulation of foreign and security policy (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Relations, Central Military Board, etc.) as well as by a greater influence of what passes for public opinion in this area. The decentralisation of China’s external

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actions, as attested by the international dynamism of the Chinese provinces and major cities, has further enhanced the ever-growing influence of local bodies on a certain number of foreign policy decisions—in particular in the economic and cultural spheres and border-related issues (see the contributions by Peter Cheung and James Tang). Finally, there is the obvious impact of globalisation on the attitude adopted by Peking in a certain number of areas, such as arms control or the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

3 The work is dedicated to the memory of Arthur Doak Barnett, who played a pioneering role in this type of discussion. It clearly brings out the gains made by research since the early 1980s, and the accumulation of knowledge about the mechanisms involved in the making of China’s international decisions1. The book also draws a certain number of lessons from its many contributions on the relations between domestic and foreign policy, as well as on the process underway of this country’s integration into the international community.

4 The conclusions reached by the editor as by most of the contributors are perfectly clear: Chinese foreign policy, determined as it is by domestic priorities—in particular economic development and social stability—as well as by a concern to establish the international image of a state that has respect for international law, still defends what the leadership of the CCP considers to be the national interest.

5 Peking thus gives its backing first and foremost to international regimes that are not directly at odds with its own interests. In this respect, the chapter by Elizabeth Economy shows perfectly well why China has chosen to adopt an attitude that is, to say the least, uncooperative in terms of environmental protection, particularly with regard to the Montreal Treaty on substances reducing the ozone layer, which it ratified in 1991, and the framework convention on climate change that it signed in 1992. However, by dint of its various international commitments and also pressure from the United States, a country that it needs for its development, China embarked on what appears to be a “tactical” course of change in some areas that gradually became a “strategic” one on account of the growing cost of any backward retreat. Bates Gill’s contribution to the development of Chinese policy in terms of the non-proliferation and control of weapons illustrates the reality of this slippery slope, as shown, for example, by Peking’s signing in 1996 of the Total Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

6 Many would no doubt be tempted to extend this conclusion to China’s entry into the WTO. As Margaret Pearson points out in her chapter on the negotiations leading to this membership, the learning process has not been easy; nor has it received universal assent. We now know, for instance, that this process has in no way prevented multiple attempts of resistance —at both central and local level— to the commitments undertaken in 2001.

7 The most striking impression one has in reading this work is the central government’s ability to maintain fundamental control over the major directions of foreign and security policy. This remains true for as vital a question as that of Taiwan, as Michael Swaine shows in a very detailed way. It also holds for the centre’s capacity to manage, and even to manipulate, public opinion. In this connection, we could not recommend too highly the chapter by Joseph Fewsmith and Stanley Rosen. They distinguish between three types of public opinion, which are admittedly open to debate. These are the elite, that is to say the CCP’s leadership; the sub-elite, the intellectuals and researchers; and the people. In the process, these writers show how much these various

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groups can influence, to different degrees, the decision-makers in their conduct of foreign policy, yet without having succeeded, at least for the time being, in diverting them from their primary objectives.

8 To take this analysis a step further, let us venture to suggest that the administration’s ability to manage or manipulate opinion should be set in relation to the discourse of both the official propaganda and the school textbooks on international affairs. Accordingly, at the time of the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999, Chinese public opinion had for several weeks been “conditioned” by the media hammering out a pro-Serbian (and pro-Milosevic) and anti-NATO propaganda. Similarly, the negative image of post-war Japan probably goes back originally to school textbooks and a certain press obsessively recalling the Nanking massacre or, erroneously but persistently, Tokyo’s refusal to apologise for its past crimes. One could add that the popular condemnation on the mainland of the ambition of the Taiwanese authorities to return the Republic of China to the international community is in large part to be explained by propaganda. Ever since 1949, this propaganda has made a dogma of the disappearance of the nationalist regime that year, despite the latter’s evident survival on the island of Formosa.

9 Propaganda does, however, have its limits, and in China, school textbooks that continue to make South Korea responsible for the war launched by Kim Il-Sung in June 1950 can cohabit with a Korean policy favouring Seoul over Pyongyang whose overall aim is to attract the latter into its sphere of influence. The contribution by Samuel Kim, showing the specific nature and complexity of Peking’s interests on the peninsula, should be read by anyone following the difficult multilateral negotiations being conducted on the North Korean nuclear question.

10 In short, this is a splendid work to which our short account can hardly do justice. In particular, it opens up many new avenues for research into the way the Chinese political system, its functioning and interaction with the rest of the world are presently evolving.

NOTES

1. See Arthur Doak Barnett, The Making of Foreign Policy in China, London, I.B. Tauris, 1985, 160 p.

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Bo Zhiyue, Chinese Provincial Leaders: Economic Performance and Political Mobility since 1949 M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, New York 2002, 183 pp.

Stéphanie Balme

NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR

Translated from the French original by Jonathan Hall

1 The central argument of this volume by Bo Zhiyue concerns the mobility of the provincial elites in China since 1949. This places it in the field of investigations into contemporary China known as elite studies, a field which has greatly expanded since the pioneering work of Roberto Scalapino1. Subsequently, the proliferation of available Chinese sources, coupled with the country’s increasingly rationalised procedures for leadership appointments, have made this question a legitimate object of research. A whole series of publications have reinvigorated the sociological study of the Chinese elites2. A recent and significant initiative has been the establishment of the China Leadership Monitor3. This brings together all the latest analyses of the leading figures in the political system of the People’s Republic.

2 Bo Zhiyue’s work puts him in a direct line of descent from the classical school of elite studies of Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca, and he himself acknowledges the influence of William Clark’s work on the situation in Russia4. The supporting documentation is very solid, enabling the reader to grasp the historical development of the system in the provinces since 1949. The work is also impressive for the huge amount of material it analyses—the Dangdai Zhongguo (Contemporary China) and the Shengqing (Provincial Data) series—and for the number of its case studies (covering 23,845 official positions held by 2,534 leaders from 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, and the cities of Peking, Shanghai and Tianjin). Another positive feature is that it provides research data on entire elite groups or populations, not on sample surveys.

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This research focuses on the holders of leadership positions in the provinces, namely the appointees as governor and deputy governor, and as Communist Party secretary and deputy secretary, between 1949 and 1998.

3 Nevertheless, this book comes up sharply against numerous limitations, when it seeks to distinguish itself from most of the accepted theories about the Chinese elites by relying on a statistical approach which is sometimes confusing and on an excessively narrow set of criteria: political mobility is only measured against the yardstick of the provincial leaders’ economic performance.

4 The author categorically rejects the “factional model”5 advanced by Andrew Nathan, as well as Lowell Dittmer’s theory of “informal politics”6. The latter theory takes the political uses of interpersonal relations or guanxi as its guiding principle to explain, with a certain justification, that the operational logic of personal contacts may well be necessary conditions, but can never be sufficient reasons in themselves, for setting up a political faction. In addition, Bo Zhiyue maintains that the various political campaigns since 1979 were not a decisive factor in the political mobility of the provincial leaders. This position leads him to deny the existence of “localist tendencies”, in opposition to analyses like those of Li Cheng, David Bachmann and Zang Xiaowei, who testify to the emergence of such trends after the Communist Party lifted the ban on the recruitment of leading cadres in their native province. Bo demonstrates that whereas such leaders made up 50% of the personnel in the 1950s, their number declined steadily until the early 1980s and rebounded after 1989 to reach a figure of 42% of the total provincial leadership. His argument is that this phenomenon was a consequence of the low degree of mobility enjoyed by the social elites in China, or to be more precise, the fact that advancement is primarily horizontal or internal. Hongwu Ouyang’s analyses of the turnover in the local leaderships since the mid-1980s confirm that the average length of a governor’s tenure fell from 39 months between 1949 and 1978, to 32.6 months in the period since 1986. On average, the reappointment of the provincial leaders takes place every five years, following the pattern set by the Party Congresses. As for the mayorships, according to Pierre Landry’s studies, these are decided by the central government about every 28 months. However, Bo Zhiyue points out that of the 13 deputy governors who were transferred between 1990 and 1998, over 60% were promoted to the post of deputy Party Secretary, which shows that the movement of cadres takes place more between the provinces themselves than outwards from the centre to the provinces.

5 The author also emphasises that from the 1980s to the 1990s political centralisation was matched by economic decentralisation. So, unlike Li Cheng’s technocratic model, his view is that the level of education is playing an increasingly important role in the appointment of cadres, but not in their mobility. This is because provincial China “is not ruled by technocrats” but by “generalists”, who are “admittedly better educated and younger, but not very specialised” according to him.

6 Bo Zhiyue’s main thesis is that the political mobility of a cadre is determined by the amount of his locality’s financial contribution to the central budget. Referring to the amount of provincial representation at the central committee and the politburo between 1969 and 1997, he attempts to show that the richer a province is, the greater its political power, and vice versa. The crucial factor is not so much a province’s economic performance but its contribution to the state budget. This phenomenon serves to explain why provincial representation at the centre is primarily under the

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control of the richest municipalities, followed by the major provinces, whose importance is measured in terms of prosperity, land area and population density.

7 In actual fact, while the theoretical models are challenged by the author do provide as an inadequate description of the current situation of the Chinese elites, that does not mean that they were wrong at their own time. Moreover, it is one thing to try to show that there is no localism in China, but quite another to account for political tensions which arise from the perception of an unstoppable rise of localist attitudes at the heart of the central government. The author clings to his definition of “localism” as meaning “to be a native of the same place where one holds office”, that is “to have been born there”. But is this form of localism the expression of a type of political representation, or of “identity” representation in the manner of the territory-based guanxi (tongxiang guanxi)? Does it seek the representation of provincial units or of particular personalities? For example, when the leader of Shandong province, Wu Guanzheng, was appointed to the central committee, was this on account of his economic performance and/or his guanxi connections, or was it his position as the representative of the economically prosperous province of Shandong which really counted? Similarly, was Li Changchun appointed in his day for his personal qualities, or because he represented Henan? The latter view is dubious, because Henan is neither rich nor prosperous and has been under-represented in the central institutions ever since 1949, except some periods under Maoist rule. To take another instance, when a well-known and charismatic provincial leader is removed from power, his position as provincial representative is not automatically filled by another. Such was the case of Tan Shaowen in 1993. His successor on the Tianjin city council, Gao Dezhan, did not immediately take over the deceased leader’s seat on the politburo.

8 All these examples show that the over- or under-representation of the native inhabitants of a province within the political institutions need to be analysed in a less quantitative manner, taking account of more qualitative aspects. For a local cadre the essential requirement is to possess both a solid regional base, fed by local guanxi connections and supported by a body of shared political experience, and a network of trust built on these two factors. This makes it difficult to distinguish “mobility” from territorial guanxi connections, because even when localism can be proven, it also reflects the role of “professional” concerns (which are sometimes predominant) that the appointee should have learnt his political skills within the local situation. Contrary to Bo Zhiyue’s basic thesis, performance and guanxi connections are not separate sources of support but interconnected ones. Together they make up the local cadres’ real power base. There are not, on one side, technocrats free of guanxi relations and, on the other side, non-skilled cadres only appointed through informal connections.

9 Moreover, the data provided by Bo Yizhue do not give us any way of assessing the overall pattern of political mobility in the careers of the provincial leaders. What is lacking is the complete analysis of the movement from the centre to the regions, but also from the provinces and townships to Peking. And yet it is this movement between centre and periphery throughout their careers which should be seen as playing a key role in the way they build up their networking contacts across the political structure. In this context we can also understand why the Peking authorities are encountering increasing resistance from the provincial leaders against the experts “parachuted in” by the central government. Li Cheng has summed up this situation: “the tension between a struggle against localism on the one hand, and local demands that the

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regions be fully represented on the other, has become the stake in a real political contest”.

10 Finally, contradicting the work of Yang Dali which attempts to show the differences between the provinces in their relationship to Peking7, Bo Zhiyue rejects the view that such localities as Shanghai, Hubei and Guangdong employ different strategies in their dealings with the central government. But in that case, how could the under- representation of a rich province like Guangdong be accounted for? While no precise information on the real extent of the contribution of that province to the national budget is provided, here and there one comes across analyses suggesting fluctuations in the levels of its political representation in Peking which bear no relation to the sums accumulated and passed on. As the driving force behind the economic reforms, Guangdong only achieved substantial representation on the central committee after 1997. Despite these reservations, one cannot but agree with Bo Zhiyue when he writes, “the State is more firmly centralised than ever .... Any initiative which crosses Peking’s path will be blocked by the central government and redirected towards reinforcing central power in the country”.

NOTES

1. Scalapino Roberto, Elites in the PRC, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1972. 2. Bachmann David and Li Cheng, “Localism, elitism and immobilism: elite transformation and social change in post-Mao China”, World Politics, October 1989, 42 (1), pp. 64-94; Li Cheng and White Lynn, “Familiar fealties and technocratic trends in the PLA and the succession to Deng Xiaoping”, Asian Survey, August 1993, 33 (8), pp. 739-757; Zang Xiaowei, “Provincial elites in post-Mao China”, Asian Survey, 31 (6), June 1991, pp. 512-525; Ouyang Hongwu, “The PRC’s new elite politics: The new institutionalism perspective”, Issues and Studies, No. 5, May 1998, pp. 1-21; Liu Xiaohong, Chinese Ambassadors: the rise of the diplomatic professionalism since 1949, Washington, University of Washington Press, 2001; Landry Pierre, “The CCP’s formal and informal channels of political control of municipal elites in post-Deng China”, The State of Contemporary China, Hong Kong 2004, and his forthcoming book, The CCP and Local Elites in Post-Deng China. 3. Cf. http://www.chinaleadershipmonitor.org 4. Clark William, Soviet regional leadership after Khrushchev, New York, Praeger, 1989. 5. Nathan Andrew J. and Tsai Kellee S., “Factionalism: a new institutionalist statement”, The China Journal, No. 34, July 1995, pp. 157-192. 6. Dittmer Lowell, “Patterns of elite strife and succession in Chinese politics”, The China Quarterly, No. 123, September 1990, pp. 405-430; Dittmer Lowell, “The modernization of factionalism in Chinese politics”, World Politics, No. 4, June 1995, pp. 467-494. 7. Yang Dali L., “Reform and the Restructuring of Central-Local Relations”, in China Deconstructs: Politics, Trade and Regionalism, David Goodman and Gerald Segal (eds.), London, Routledge, 1994, pp. 62-72.

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Christophe Rouil, Formose, des batailles presque oubliées... Taipei, Les éditions du Pigeonnier, 2001, 191 p.

Ann Heylen

China Perspectives, 52 | march-april 2004 80

NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR

Translated from the French original by Philip Liddell

1 This book fills a gap in the history of Taiwan and France in the nineteenth century. Christophe Rouil narrates an all but forgotten episode in the relations between the two countries. The accumulated material on the battles that took place at Keelung, Tamsui and the Pescadores in 1884 and 1885, during the Franco-Chinese War, opens up an interesting avenue for research. Rouil informs us about equipment, strategy and military personnel, thus contributing to the history of gunboat diplomacy at the end of the nineteenth century in Asia.

2 The passages devoted to the participation of African forces and the Foreign Legion under Admiral Courbet’s command give these episodes their rightful place in the French colonial venture. The reader will enjoy the personal accounts of Captain Garnot, Admiral Courbet and Major Lange. The book also prints the Franco-Chinese Treaty of June 9th 1885.

3 In his conclusion, Rouil goes back over the legacy of France’s colonial venture in Taiwan. He tells the story of the French cemetery at Keelung and the monument to Admiral Courbet at Makung in the Pescadores. In so doing, he asks questions that set us thinking: about how historical memory is built up in France and in Taiwan, and about the commemoration of those who have sacrificed their lives in international conflicts.

4 The book’s illustrations deserve special mention. In addition to maps, there are numerous photos and drawings of French warships, battles, monuments and landscapes. This contribution deserves to be taken further, this time with the addition of Chinese sources.

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Iredale Robyn, Bilik Naran and Guo Fei (eds.), China’s Minorities on the Move. Selected Case Studies Armonk, New York, London, M.E. Sharpe, 2003, 183 p.

Élisabeth Allès

NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR

Translated from the French original by Philip Liddell

1 Regional disparities, brought about by the reforms of the past twenty years, have exacerbated the at times disastrous plight of the peoples inhabiting the western half of China. The slow pace of economic development, the influx of Han migrants (adding to political tension in Xinjiang and Tibet especially), and huge governmental projects have induced Chinese and Western researchers to pay more sustained attention to these sensitive regions because of their strategic position as border areas. The first of the books presented here looks at a still unfamiliar theme, the migration of minority populations; the second, more political, analyses the policies being followed in the western provinces of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

2 The first book is based on surveys carried out by collaborating researchers from three establishments: one Australian (University of Wollongong), and two Chinese (the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the China National Institute for Educational Research). The overall results have already been published, in 2001. This book, like its predecessor, is focused on education and ethnicity, and is divided into four parts. The introduction sketches the general characteristics of the migration of minority populations, as well as the difficulties such people face with regard to education. Their situation, according to the writers, is broadly the same as that of the Han. The research was carried out in 1997-98 on the basis of questionnaires and official statistics, the latter applying only to persons claiming a year or more of residence. The writers note a high preponderance of young people and women among those migrants coming mainly

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from Guangxi, the outflow of migrants from that province exceeding the outflow from any other province. Where education is concerned, migrants of whatever nationality (minzu) encounter the same difficulties as the Han, mainly for lack of the hukou (residence permit) and because of the very high schooling costs. They too attempt to set up their own private schools.

3 Two articles are devoted to Inner Mongolia. The first is a remarkable historical overview of the Mongolian people, of how its identity has been made up and of the extensive interpenetration of the Mongols and the Han. It explains how the Mongolian population has recently increased through inter-marriage with the Han and how numbers of Han have changed their nationality. The second part deals with the relations between the Mongols, the Manchu, the Hui and the Han. The writer concludes that the good relations founded upon sharing a collective environment at the workplace (danwei) have been put at risk by the present dynamic. Indeed, the reforms and the continuing migrations are hastening the revival of groupings based strictly on ethnic communities, as was usual under the empire.

4 Three articles are devoted to Xinjiang. The first examines the impact of migration on Xinjiang since 1950. The writers identify two forms of migration, organised and spontaneous. The latter has been rapidly increasing since the 1990s, with migrants coming mainly from Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Also noted is a tendency towards permanent settlement. As a migratory destination, Xinjiang is in fourth place after Peking, Shanghai and Guangdong. Attention is drawn to the contradictions that mark the development of migration. While it has brought new land under the plough and maintained the industrial development of the region, it has also led to environmental pollution, in particular through desertification and deforestation. The writers cite a 1983 estimate that more than 73% of families in the south of Xinjiang lacked firewood for three to six months of every year (p. 103). There follows a study of the interethnic relations in the Kashgar region; the writer observes that the only places where Han and Uyghur children attend the same schools are the state farms and market gardens. The third study is devoted to Uyghur migration within Xinjiang. Land shortage and the poverty of local resources lead to growing migration from the southern oases towards towns and cities in the north of the province. Among the migrants, mainly the young, the study notes a growing number of girls and young women (aged from 15 to 19) who go to work in shops and with families. The writer emphasises the fact that ethnic identities and links with the village of origin are vigorously maintained by migrants.

5 The two closing studies deal with, firstly, the migrants of Guizhou and, secondly, with the Uyghurs of Peking. The first points to the major role in influencing migration played by the policy of the Guizhou provincial authorities; they are anxious to get rid of the surplus of rural manpower estimated for that province at 6.5 million in 1995 (p. 143). The final study concentrates on two Peking districts associated with the Uyghur population (Xinjiangcun), both of which have since been dismantled (in 2001 and 2002). The Uyghurs there were mostly male (80%). The study emphasises the Uyghurs’ rejection of intermarriage and the strength of their community links.

6 The studies presented in this book describe the general characteristics of the migrations of minority populations. They illustrate well the difficulties in explaining, starting from quantitative data, what lies behind the tendencies shown. For example, a deeper analysis of the causes and conditions of the migration of women from Guangxi or girls from Xinjiang would have been useful. It shows thus how necessary it is to

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pursue observations, especially in qualitative studies and probably also by making helpful comparisons with migratory data in general.

7 The second book widens geopolitical thinking on western China to include the dimension of the central Asian region. David Goodman offers a pertinent analysis of the development policy for the west (Xibu dakaifa) that Peking has pursued since January 2000. He picks out the aims of this campaign which, in his view, is in reality a political readjustment going back to Maoist principles of egalitarian redistribution. In the perspective of building the nation, the central power has to assure provinces such as Sichuan or Shaanxi of their place in the nation, after a twenty-year policy of unequal development. Moreover, this is a means of reminding the non-Han communities of the integrity of the PRC. Colonisation is the third aim: to bring the inflow of population to the east back into balance with an outflow towards the west, and also to fend off the threat to social stability represented, in the central government view, by some ethnic minorities. Lastly, the writer points out the minor part that the development of the west occupies in the Tenth Five Year Plan (p. 41).

8 Two articles deal with the question of Xinjiang. Peter Perdue explains how the policy of the Ming emperors developed under the last empire, the Qing Dynasty. The former sought to establish trading links with independent oases; the latter adopted an expansionist policy in order to break the growing strength of the Mongols and to establish Qing domination over the region that became the province of Xinjiang. This territory, which in Qing eyes was a vital strategic possession, has never been made really secure because the local people have always rebelled, and has never been a source of profit. This view of Xinjiang was to be shared by the Republic and later by the communists.

9 Nicolas Becquelin shows how the influx of Han migrants (more than a million in ten years) has brought them into growing competition with the local communities for land, water resources and urban jobs. He points to the falling living standards of the local minorities, which has led them to greater rejection of Chinese domination. He notes that Uyghur reaction is ethno-nationalist rather than religious, despite official claims.

10 Xavier Crombé retraces the twists and turns of Chinese policy on Tibet over the past fifty years. Since the popular risings of 1987, the Chinese state has decided to pursue a policy of economic development, hoping thus to win Tibetan support. This change of policy is accompanied by a big inflow of migrants, mostly from the neighbouring provinces (Han immigrants from Qinghai and Sichuan and Chinese-speaking Muslims— Hui—from Gansu) and also a floating population from the other provinces attracted by the prospect of work. But, in reality, economic development affects only the towns, leaving rural areas and Tibet’s nomad communities untouched. Yet, the writer points out the contradictions within Tibetan society, which now includes a modern elite that is composed of civil servants and entrepreneurs and is closely connected to the Chinese world. As with Xinjiang, Peking seeks to integrate Tibet into the economy of the rest of the country. While the central power may have been hoping by these means to win over the Tibetans, the changes to the Tibetan world and the inflow of migrants are creating a strong sense of dispossession.

11 The last two articles tackle the geopolitical dimension of Central Asia. Olivier Roy asks the question: has China a card to play in Central Asia? Since The Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO) was formed in June 2001 (replacing the Shanghai Group created in 1996), China has committed itself to a process of regional co-operation with Russia,

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Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan and Tajikistan. China wanted action against frontier regulations and support in its struggle against Uyghur separatism; the other states wanted support in their struggle against radical Islamic movements. Thus, Peking cleared away the bone of contention along its frontiers, and succeeded in having the activities of Uyghur organisations banned in each of these neighbouring countries, which can be explained by the lack of any Pan-Turkish solidarity in the region. Roy notes the SCO’s inability to take co-ordinated action against Islamic groups because their members’ aims—and the groups’ aims—are so diverse. For example, China has maintained good relations with the Afghanistan of the Taliban and has also remained loyal to its links with Pakistan. Roy shows how the radicalism of the Islamic groups is an endogenous reaction to Central Asia, even though the latter have been influenced by the Pakistani madrasas and more recently by Saudi Wahhabism. He retraces the history of the Uzbek and Tajik branches of the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) to illustrate their “Islamic-nationalist” character. In fact, he confirms that the Uyghur radical movements have no connections with those in Central Asia. Lastly, he shows that, after the American intervention in Afghanistan and the failure of the armed Islamic movements, two other problems have arisen. The first is that a hard-line but unarmed Muslim movement, Hizb ut-Tahrir, has emerged and developed in Central Asia; the second is the American military presence there. The Mongol diplomat, Jagvaral Hanibal, emphasises the growing significance of Central Asia where, he says, the strategic interests of the great powers are at odds.

12 Thus, this edition of the Cahiers de l’Asie offers an extremely rich survey and an analytical starting-point for all those interested in China and its western frontier.

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Bertil Lintner, Blood Brothers: Crime, Business and Politics in Asia Australia, Allen and Unwin, 2002, 470 p.

Guilhem Fabre

NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR

Translated from the French original by Philip Liddell

1 Bertil Lintner, based in Bangkok since the 1980s for the Far Eastern Economic Review, has established himself as a leading expert on the Golden Triangle, on the origins and the repercussions of the drugs traffic in Burma and Thailand. His earlier books offered brilliant contemporary accounts of how various states were making profitable use of the criminal economy1. Having discovered in the course of his enquiries the full extent of regional and international interaction in crime (whether organised or not), Lintner decided to widen his analyses to East Asia and Oceania. Blood Brothers is the fruit of this research over a five-year period, from 1997 to 2001. Having carried out a number of his own field studies across the Asia-Pacific region, and being supported by his long experience of investigative journalism, Lintner has also taken full advantage of the English-language literature on the subject—which makes the generous bibliography published at the end of the book a veritable tour de force.

2 So Blood Brothers has fulfilled absolutely its own ambitions and is an essential source for all those interested in the murky connections linking political and economic power at the different levels of the criminal world. The first chapter, focusing on Shanghai of the Opium War until its post-1949 recovery, is a fine illustration of this question which, while offering nothing new for the expert, will provide useful instruction for the layman.

3 By contrast, the second chapter is an innovative and up-to-date analysis of Macao’s role as a platform for money-laundering, and of the links between this business and the supervising powers, whether colonial or mainland Chinese. By placing recent

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developments within their historical context, Lintner enables us to understand the diplomatic skill of those real arbiters of local politics, the magnates Stanley Ho and Henry Fok. Thus Macao, which is both a gambling den and a paradise for organised crime, has made itself complementary to Hong Kong as an important financial base for the “Triads” and their use by the Chinese state. The “Donorgate” scandal, during which the Chinese administration attempted to influence the re-election of President Clinton in 1996, implicated several Macao individuals, whose links with the Chinese authorities, the “tycoons” and the underworld are here set out in detail.

4 The same care to balance the most recent developments with their historical background is to be found in the following two chapters, devoted to Japan and Siberia. In addition to an account of the now well-known connections between the Japanese Yakuza and the financial and property bubble of the 1980s2, there are memorable pages devoted to the career of the ultranationalist Sasakawa. They recall how in 1939 he hailed Mussolini as “. . . a first-class person, a perfect fascist and dictator” and how after the war he became a champion of the World Anti-Communist League, a billionaire closely linked to the underworld, a sponsor of powerboat races and, via his foundation, a generous donor to Harvard, Princeton, Oxford and many other universities.

5 Russia’s Far East, its history recalled through episodes in the Civil War and the Kolyma camps, is brought up to date as an important base for the “Mafiya”. Lintner describes how it exerts its control over the exploitation of natural resources, the economy and local politics; and how it profits at the same time from the opening of the Chinese frontiers, from its closeness to North Korea and its involvement in the drugs trade, and from the local presence of the Yakuza, whose activities range from a lucrative sex-trade to importing stolen cars.

6 Chapter 5, devoted to the Indochinese Peninsula, reveals mainland China’s growing control over local affairs, whether legal or illegal, with the expansion of mass tourism and illegal immigration, the latter particularly coming from Cambodia. Chapter 6, entitled “The Pirate Republic”, describes the links between Indonesia’s underworld, army and state, going back to the colonial period, to independence and to the massacres of 1965. This approach helps us to understand the role of the militia in East Timor, how they were mobilised against the Chinese community at the time of Suharto’s fall in 1998 and how they became progressively Islamicised during the prolonged crisis of the regime. The disintegration of the licensed kleptocracy under Suharto led, as it turned out, to the proliferation of decentralised criminal activities, among which piracy, illegal migration to Australia, extortion and Islamic terrorism were the most violent manifestations.

7 Australia and the Pacific Islands have not been overlooked, as Chapter 7 demonstrates. The rapid growth of migration from Vietnam, China and Lebanon has reinforced the pragmatic collaboration between business, politics and the underworld. Moreover, the Pacific Islands, lost in the middle of the ocean, have neither the resources nor the political will to ban money-laundering. The examples of Vanuatu, which acquired for itself the reputation of the “Caymans” of the Pacific, and Nauru, through which passed, in 1998, 70 billion US dollars from Russian funds in flight from the taxman, illustrate the extent of the money-laundering. The Island of Niue, an autonomous territory freely associated with New Zealand, has 2,103 inhabitants and 6,000 shelf companies accounting for 80% of the annual budget, the rest being provided by exporting sweet potatoes or selling Internet domains ending in the “.nu” country code. The traffic

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extends even, as in Tonga, to consular appointments abroad, much appreciated in Chinese underworld circles when immunity is sought.

8 The last chapter is given over to illegal Chinese immigration to the United States, which is a particularly lucrative business backed up by powerful networks. But is it right to conclude from that, as Bertil Lintner does, that “without the backing of the criminal underworld on its side, it would be almost impossible for Peking to extend its writ beyond its frontiers, and that is what makes the new nexus between the Triads and China’s present leaders so dangerous for the rest of the world?” Certainly not. And the writer goes further in the same vein, maintaining against all the evidence that “China is, even more than North Korea, a state that feels that it has to engage in criminal activities, such as drug running and the printing of counterfeit dollars to survive”.

9 This mistaken perspective illustrates to some extent the weakness of an otherwise remarkable book, which accumulates a considerable mass of facts and information showing how organised crime has spread across Asia in the post-Cold War period. The fact that the Chinese state may, as do most states, use the services of the international underworld in its information and counterespionage activities does not mean that it is dependant upon it. Here we touch upon the question: what is the real impact of organised crime on present-day globalisation? Even if, in addition to the drugs trade, the sex trade and gambling—the “traditional” activities—we take into account the new markets for extortion, plundering of natural resources, illegal immigration and trafficking of all other imaginable kinds, the influence of the underworld is still marginal compared with the official economy. Its investments, speculative as they are, may play a role in some financial crises3 but its political influence, well established in many countries, contrasts with its relative weakness in the economic sphere. This influence is exerted in numerous different ways, as Lintner shows. It can be reflected in a real investment in forestry, as seems to be the case in Russia’s Far East. Or it can take the form of “functional” synergies, as in Thailand or Cambodia where business communities are knowledgeable about the legal—as well as the illegal—economy; in Japan too the Yakuza influence derives from the fact that legal means of arbitration are insufficiently developed and that their implicit arrangements with the political parties are respected.

10 The case of China (which from the domestic and present-day point of view is only sketchily reported in Lintner’s book4) illustrates another variation, in which organised crime can prosper on condition it stays in the shadow of the central power, that is to say under its potentially repressive supervision, rather as in Mexico5. Macao is still the perfect example of these developments.

11 An extended analysis of the various ways and means by which criminal networks operate, taking Lintner’s rich book as a starting point, would be valuable. It would help us to correct any errors in perspective to which his accumulated evidence of the growing impact of criminality might leave us exposed. Thus, Blood Brothers may claim to mark a significant stage in our thinking on one of the negative aspects of globalisation: it calls on civil society to counter effectively the threats posed to democracy and economic development.

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NOTES

1. Bertil Lintner’s books, such as The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Burma (Cornell University, 1990), Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency since 1948 (Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai, 1991) are in the direct line of the pioneering analyses of Alfred W McCoy (The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, 1972; The Politics of Heroin: C.I.A. complicity in the Global Drug Trade, 1991). 2. Cf. Guilhem Fabre, Criminal Prosperity: Drug Trafficking, Money Laundering and Financial Crisis after the Cold War, RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. Chapter 5, “The Yakuza Recession”, has been updated in a study published in the Far Eastern Economic Review, January 17th 2002. 3. Ibid. 4. Happily, the recently published work of Professor He Bingsong (You zuzhi fanzui yanjiu [Research into organised crime], Peking, 2002, Zhongguo fazhi chubanshe) has answered a good many questions in this field. 5. Cf. the studies by Christian Geffray on the relationship between the state and criminal networks, in Globalisation, Drugs and Criminalisation: Final Research Report on Brazil, China, India and Mexico, scientific direction: Christian Geffray, Michel Schiray, Guilhem Fabre, UNESCO/UNDCP, 2002. Available on the website: http:// www.unesco.org/most/globalisation/drugs_1.htm

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Guobin Zhu, Le Statut de Hong Kong, Autonomie ou Intégration [The Status of Hong Kong between Autonomy and Integration] Presses universitaires d’Aix-Marseille, 2002, 287 p.

Leïla Choukroune

NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR

Translated from the French original by Peter Brown

1 Works in French on the intricacies of Chinese politics and law are sufficiently few and far between that we herald those that are published. Guobin Zhu has a doctorate in law from the University of Aix-Marseilles and is an Assistant Professor at the City University of Hong Kong and is one of the all too scarce French-language specialists in Chinese law. His work The Status of Hong Kong, published to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the former British colony’s handover to the People’s Republic of China, sets itself the task of clarifying in a little under 300 pages, half of which are in the form of annexes, the island’s new relation to the mother country.

2 Within the Chinese world in the full flight of change and tempted at its fringes by democratisation, Hong Kong was centre stage in 1997. It was about to break with more than a century of colonisation in order to accept control by a China pumped up with nationalism through the apparent success of its policy of reform and opening up. What had at first been perceived as a mere transposition of legal norms and practices unconnected to Chinese reality soon became a deep attachment for Hong Kong, which had to provide for the defence of its heritage in terms of the rule of law and protection of individual freedoms. Article 2 of the Basic Law of the Special Administrative Region sets this out thus: “The National People’s Congress authorises the Special

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Administrative Region of Hong Kong to exert a high degree of autonomy and to enjoy independent executive, legislative and judicial powers, including that of final judgment, in accordance with the provisions of the present Law”. Article 4 goes on to stipulate: “It will be incumbent on the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong to safeguard the rights and freedoms of its residents and of other people from this region in accordance with the law”. In fact, a new constitutional framework had been drawn up point by point during the endless debates over a period of four years and eight months in the National People’s Congress until the adoption, on April 4th 1990, of a mini-Constitution that came into effect on July 1st 19971.

3 Zhu Guobin asks the question whether the slogan “One country, two systems” is a political idea or pragmatic view. This raises the whole issue of autonomy and its limits. The work gives a detailed analysis of the problems raised by clashes of law and their resolution in the context of two legal systems that are theoretically distinct and yet broadly speaking subject to a harmonisation in both substance and form in the name of a single sovereignty.

4 The Status of Hong Kong makes for a rather dry read at times and lacks concrete examples and case studies that would allow the non-specialist reader to get his or her bearings amidst the complexity of this normative quasi-merger that is subject to political intentions that Peking has never denied having. It would have been useful to cast light on a number of topical issues such as the Big Spender2 affair, the Sally Aw case, questions relating to the right of abode of children born in China of Hong Kong parents, the constitutional authority of the island’s courts and the implementation of Article 158 of the Basic Law, according to which the power of interpretation is entrusted to the Permanent Committee of the National People’s Congress.

5 It is similarly regrettable that Guobin Zhu did not pay more attention to those matters concerning the organisation of the executive, legislative and judicial powers and their interactions. The great democratic aspiration brought about by the debates over the adoption of Article 23 has shown, with a force few observers anticipated, how attached the population of Hong Kong is to its fundamental rights, at the same time as exalting its legitimate hopes for a move towards representative democracy3.

6 A few words need to be said about the wealth of annexes provided. Guobin Zhu should be praised for translating a whole set of little-known and fascinating texts for the comparative scholar keen to grasp the relations between law and politics, common law and the civil law tradition, and who is curious about uncovering, in a complex, normative and ostensibly well-guarded system, any possible openings which could allow for the introduction of democracy. In this connection, most of the documented exchanges between the governments of Britain and the People’s Republic of China and the detailed text of the Basic Law are to be found amongst the annexes. It is to be regretted, however, here as in the work overall, that certain passages have not been sufficiently polished to better take account of linguistic subtleties.

7 Although there may well have been continuity rather than any break in the Hong Kong judicial system, the latter is evolving between the rule of law and a state of exception. What, one may ask, are the implications, for those Chinese drafting it, of the preservation of a capitalist system towards which mainland China itself is today leaning, if not to administer “the Territory as if it were a business”, as a handful of entrepreneurs with a thirst for power once reportedly suggested to Deng Xiaoping4? The extreme vigilance of a civil society underpinned by brilliant legal and political

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professionals can alone ensure that Hong Kong will remain a “China Special Democratic Zone”5.

NOTES

1. Refer, in this connection, to the comments by Ji Pengfei, Chairman of the Committee responsible for drafting the Basic Law of the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong within the People’s Republic of China, presented as an appendix, pp. 249-265. 2. On the Big Spender case, see Kam C. Wong, “Legal and Political Implications of a ‘Cross-Border Crime’”, China Perspectives, No. 22, March-April 1999, pp. 41-53; Richard Cullen and H. L. Fu, “Some Limitations in the Basic Law Exposed”, China Perspectives, No. 22, March-April 1999, pp. 54-57. 3. For an engaged and critical view of the events that shook Hong Kong in the context of the proposed Article 23, see for example the website of the “Global Coalition Against Article 23”, http://www.againstart23.org, and Amnesty International’s submission to the Hong Kong government during the consultation phase in the autumn of 2002: “Response to Hong Kong SAR Government on Proposals to Implement Article 23 of the Basic Law, submitted to Legco, December 12th 2002”, http://www.amnesty.org. 4. See p. 27. 5. According to the expression used by Human Rights in China, “China Special Democratic Zone”, China Rights Forum, No. 3, 2003. http://www.iso.hrichina.org.

China Perspectives, 52 | march-april 2004