Crisis with Chinese Crisis Management? 336 7.2.1 Shifting the Dominating Paradigm 336 7.2.2 the Centralisation of Power 339 7.2.3 Reconnecting with the People 343
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University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/58953 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. The Politics of Crisis Management in China Yuefan Xiao Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Politics and International Studies Department of Politics and International Studies University of Warwick October 2013 Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 6 DECLARATION 7 ABSTRACT 8 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 9 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 10 1.1 Intellectual Curiosity and Identifying the Topic 10 1.2 Background 12 1.3 The State of the Field 15 1.4 Contribution 20 1.5 Hypothesis 22 1.6 Research Methodology 23 I. Case Studies 23 II. Documentary Analysis 25 III. Interviews 26 1.7 Outline of Research 27 CHAPTER 2: CONCEPTUALISING CHINESE CRISIS MANAGEMENT 29 2.1 Introduction 29 2.2 What is a Crisis? 30 2.2.1 Crisis as an Objective Condition 31 I. Quantitative Attributes 31 II. Qualitative Attributes 33 2.2.2 Typologies of Crisis 34 2.2.3 Regime Types and the Limitation of Crisis Typologies 38 2.2.4 Crisis as a Subjective Judgement 43 2.2.5 The Mobilisation of Crisis Perception 43 2.3 The Political Utility of Crisis 46 2.3.1 Utility One: Shifting the Dominating Paradigm with Decisive Intervention 46 2.3.2 Utility Two: The Centralisation of Power and Redefinition of State-society Relations 49 2.3.3 Utility Three: Utilising Crisis to Bolster Legitimacy 52 2.4 The Conception of Crisis in the Chinese Context and its Political Utility 54 2.4.1 Crisis Mentality in China 54 2.4.2 Crisis and Modern China 56 2.4.3 Crisis and Republican China 57 2.4.4 Crisis and the Early PRC Era 60 2 2.4.5 Crisis and Post-Mao China 62 2.4.6 Crisis and the Future of Chinese Politics 65 CHAPTER 3: CONTEXTUALISING CHINESE CRISIS MANAGEMENT 67 3.1 Introduction 67 3.2 Bringing Politics Back in 68 3.3 The GDP Centred Political Economy 71 3.3.1 Legitimating Crises and the Emergence of Performance Legitimacy 71 3.3.2 The Consolidation of Performance Legitimacy and Decentralised GDPism 74 3.3.3 GDPism and Cadre Management 77 3.3.4 GDPism and Governance Deficits 79 3.4 State Control of Information 80 3.4.1 Media Control and the Politicisation of Crisis under Mao 80 3.4.2 Limited Media Liberalisation under Deng 83 3.4.3 Further Media Liberalisation and the Commercialisation of the Media under Jiang 84 3.4.4 The Internet and Moulding Public Opinion under Hu 89 I. The Two, Fractured Public Spaces 91 II. Bridging the Two Public Spaces 92 III. Further Media Professionalisation 93 IV. Moulding Public Opinion 98 3.5 State-society Relations 101 3.5.1 Mao’s Monolithic Body Politic 102 3.5.2 The Deng Era and the Rule by Law 108 3.5.3 The Jiang Era and Popular Contention 116 I. Stability above All 116 II. The Emergence of a Corporatist Civil Society 117 III. Rightful Resistance 119 3.5.4 The Hu Era and Maintaining Stability 124 I. The Co-evolution of the Internet and Civil Society 125 II. Static Stability versus Dynamic Stability 128 III. Contrasting Views on Civil Society 129 IV. From Harmonious Society to Maintaining Stability 132 V. Politicising the Legal System 137 3.6 Policy Making 142 3.6.1 The Mao Era and Factionalised Totalitarianism 143 3.6.2 The Deng Era and Fragmented Authoritarianism 146 3.6.3 The Jiang Era and Managed Corporatism 150 3.6.4 The Hu Era and Emerging Pluralism 157 3.7 International Pressure 165 CHAPTER 4: CASE STUDY ONE: THE SARS EPIDEMIC 169 4.1 Introduction 169 4.2 The Pre-SARS Milieu 170 4.2.1 The Economic Dimension: The Problematic Growth Model 171 4.2.2 The Political Dimension: Fragmented Authoritarianism 174 4.2.3 The Intermestic Dimension: State-society Relations and International Pressure 176 4.2.4 Contingent Factors 178 4.3 The Unfolding of the SARS Crisis 178 3 4.3.1 The Origin of the Virus 178 4.3.2 Administrative Fragmentation 179 4.3.3 Legal Impediments to Timely Reporting 181 4.3.4 The Virus Spread Nationwide and Government Deception 182 4.3.5 Public Panic and Government under Mounting Pressure 186 4.4 The Political Utility of SARS 187 4.4.1 The Centralisation of Power and the Shake-up of the Political System 188 4.4.2 Shifting the Dominating Paradigm – From GDPism to the SDC 190 4.4.3 Reconnecting with the People 192 4.5 Learning from Crisis 194 4.6 Limitations of Learning from Crisis 196 4.7 Conclusion 198 CHAPTER 5: CASE STUDY TWO: THE SICHUAN EARTHQUAKE 199 5.1 Introduction 199 5.2 The Earthquake and the Government Response 200 5.2.1 Responsiveness 201 5.2.2 Accountability 201 5.2.3 The Civilian-Military Cooperation 202 5.2.4 Media Transparency 203 5.2.5 International Openness 204 5.2.6 Social Cohesion and Civic Participation 206 5.3 The Political Utility of the Sichuan Earthquake 206 5.3.1 Shifting the Dominating Paradigm(s) 207 I. The Media Surge – A Long March to Transparency 208 II. Unprecedented Openness – Behave Like a Responsible Great Power 213 5.3.2 The Centralisation of Power 219 I. The Centralisation of Decision Making 222 II. Top-down Accountability 224 III. Organisational Shake-up 225 IV. Fiscal Centralisation and Redistribution 226 5.3.3 Reconnecting with the People 227 I. From Paternalism to Humanism 229 II. State Ritual and A New Type of Nationalism? 235 5.4 The Earthquake and State-society Relations 238 5.4.1 Civic Effervescence 238 5.4.2 Social Cohesion and Building Trust towards Civil Society 241 5.4.3 State Responses to Civil Society Participation 244 I. Empowerment 245 II. Control 248 5.5 The Aftermath of the Earthquake 251 5.5.1 Civil Society Involvement in Reconstruction 252 5.5.2 The School Collapse Scandal 254 5.6 Conclusion 256 CHAPTER 6: CASE STUDY THREE: THE SANLU MILK SCANDAL 259 6.1 Introduction 259 4 6.2 The Tainted Milk 260 6.3 The Root Causes of the Problem 262 6.3.1 Economic Causes 262 6.3.2 Political and Systematic Causes 264 I. GDPism and the Race to the Bottom 264 II. Regulatory Capture 266 III. Fragmented Authoritarianism 269 IV. Local Protectionism and the Symbiotic Relations between Businesses and the Local Government 272 6.4 State Control of Information in the Sanlu Scandal 276 6.4.1 The Immediate Discourse 277 6.4.2 The Olympics and the Milk Scandal 283 6.5 The Political Utility of the Milk Scandal 285 6.5.1 The Centralisation of Power 286 6.5.2 Shifting the Dominating Paradigm 289 6.5.3 Reconnecting with the People 291 6.6 The Milk Scandal and State-society Relations 294 6.7 International Impact and Domestic Repercussions 299 6.7.1 International Impact 299 6.7.2 The Impact on Greater China 302 6.7.3 Domestic Repercussions 304 6.8 Conclusion 308 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION 312 7.1 The Comparison of Case Studies 312 7.1.1 The Overall Efficacy of Crisis Management and Popular Response 313 I. Short-term Efficacy 313 II. Long-term Efficacy 314 III. Popular Response 320 7.1.2 The Comparison of Crises in terms of Themes 324 I. The GDP Centred Political Economy 324 II. State Control of Information 326 III. State-society Relations 328 IV. Policy Making 331 V. International Pressure 334 7.2 Conclusion: Crisis with Chinese Crisis Management? 336 7.2.1 Shifting the Dominating Paradigm 336 7.2.2 The Centralisation of Power 339 7.2.3 Reconnecting with the People 343 7.3 The CCP’s Crisis Management at a Crossroads 346 7.4 Directions for Future Research 350 BIBLIOGRAPHY 353 5 Acknowledgements I take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Shaun Breslin, without whose support I would never have been able to complete this thesis. I thank him for answering every of my questions promptly, at work, at weekends and on holiday; for saving me from mental breakdowns at various stages of this research; and for his constant encouragement that not only turned me into a confident researcher, but a resilient individual. I also want to say a massive thank you to my parents for their support for the entire duration of my study in the UK, and especially for their understanding on me spending more than four years undertaking this project of research. Their understanding is exceptionally invaluable given the predominant social context in China where research that does not directly yield monetary returns (such as this one) is mostly deemed useless. For this reason, I am extremely grateful to them for being supportive to my choice. This thesis is therefore dedicated to my parents. My special thanks also goes to my best friends: Anyao Hu, Da Li, Dandan Zhang, Mengwei Li, Xuyan Yang and Yuanfang Zhang, for their emotional support that keeps me motivated throughout the PhD life. I love you all! Finally, I thank NHS staff for taking care of me, without their excellent treatment it would have to take me even longer to complete this thesis.