The Role of the Mishu (Staff) Institution in Chinese Politics by Wei Li Submitted to the Department of Political Science in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology February 1994 w 1994 Wei Li. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or part. Signature of Author. Certified by....... Professor Lucian W. Pye Thesis Advisor At-t-mr~t-gzA 1-%x IAQ~ePT-t! Vy. .S. b-. .. g Professor Donald L.M. Blackmer Chairman, Graduate Program Committee ARCHIVES MASSACHisLF3 INSTI.rTUT JUL 191994 THE ROLE OF THE MISHU (STAFF) INSTITUTION IN CHINESE POLITICS by Wei Li Submitted to the Department of Political Science, MIT, in partial fulfillment of the requirement of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science ABSTRACT This dissertation studies the role of the mishu (staff) institution in contemporary Chinese politics. The findings of this research reveal that there are about one million mishu personnel in the Chinese political arena, who either serve individual leaders privately or work in general offices to provide staff support collectively to leadership squads at various levels. Significantly, the mishu institution constitutes a separate sub-system that runs vertically from top to bottom and cuts horizontally across various bureaucratic hierarchies across the country. Functioning as a type of "counter-bureaucracy," the mishu provides the political leadership with a countervailing base of expertise and an extra channel of information and authority flow, helping keep political leaders well informed and strengthen their capacity to closely monitor and supervise the process of policy implementation by regular bureaucracies. Moreover, the mishu also works as a major cushioning mechanism in Chinese politics, absorbing personality conflicts, reconciling policy disagreements, and softening power struggles among political principals. For a deeper understanding of the mishu phenomenon, comparisons are made with its historical roots in ancient China and with the practice of the US staff system of today. This research concludes that in spite of the apparent structural fragmentation associated with the post-Mao reforms, the controlling and cushioning roles of the mishu institution help to maintain, to a remarkable degree, the integration of the Chinese authority structure, thus providing a balance to the currently dominant view among China scholars that in the post-Mao era the Chinese political leadership has largely lost control over the bureaucracy and that the Chinese authority structure is on the verge of disintegration. Thesis Advisor: Dr. Lucian W. Pye Title: Henry Ford Professor of Political Science (emeritus) ACKNOWLEDGMENT I wish to thank the following scholars who have provided valuable help for this study in various ways -- demonstrating genuine personal interest, providing encouragement, offering insightful comments, raising sharp and yet constructive criticisms, and/or sharing my joys and pains during the research. They are: A. Doak Barnett, Donald L.M. Blackmer, Zhiyuan Cui, Nina P. Halpern, Harry Harding, Kenneth G. Lieberthal, Michel Oksenberg, Richard J. Samuels, Myron Weiner, and Quansheng Zhao. Special thanks are reserved for Lucian W. Pye, my thesis advisor, who provided the ideal balance in his guidance between vigorous prodding and gentle nurturing, while acting himself as an enthusiastic and committed co-explorer during the entire course of this venture. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ............................................... p. 3. Acknowledgment..........................................p. 5 Chapter One: Introduction..............................p. 9 Chapter Two: Personal Benefits..........................p. 65 Chapter Three: The Control Role.........................p. 113 Chapter Four: The Cushioning/Moderating Role...........p. 147 Chapter Five: Structures and Functions..................p. 188 Chapter Six: Historical Roots...........................p. 241 Chapter Seven: Comparison with the US Staff System......p. 265 Chapter Eight: Conclusion.......................... p. 304 Chapter One INTRODUCTION Politicians everywhere experience difficulties of varying degrees in controlling state bureaucracies. Instances abound of their helplessness before the power and autonomy of a bureaucracy. For a rather extreme example: In 1923 Rudolf Hilferding, the famous socialist economist and a left-wing Social Democrat, became the German Weimar Republic's sixth finance minister. His own civil servants were highly suspicious of him and decided that they would run the ministry without him. Nothing of any significance passed across his desk. Their action led directly to his nervous breakdown. After he returned to work the collaboration of his officials was only guaranteed once he had agreed not to make any radical policy initiatives. 1 In the United States, President Nixon was once similarly frustrated over bureaucratic obstinacy. As H.R. Haldeman, his chief-of-staff, recalled, ... by 1971 Nixon had realized he was virtually powerless to deal with the bureaucracy in every department of the government. It was no contest. Nixon could rave and rant. Civil servants, almost all liberal Democrats, would thumb their noses at him.2 Even in China where political leaders may appear to be able to exercise absolute power over the bureaucracy, the 1. Edward C. Page, Political Authority and Bureaucratic Power: A ComDarativeAnalysis, Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1985, p. 1. 2. Larry Berman, The New American Presidency, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1987, p, 108. existing literature contains plenty of evidence to suggest that the Chinese bureaucracies are quite capable of thwarting the control from above. Indeed, even Mao Zedong himself frequently complained about unreliability of the Party bureaucracy, whose heads, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, treated him like a "dead parent" "whose funeral was taking place," meaning that although he was shown formal deference, Mao "was never even consulted" on many important decisions. 3 (Mao's frustration over being isolated and kept in the dark by the bureaucracy will be discussed in greater detail in a later chapter.) Deng Xiaoping harbors comparable bitterness over the various obstacles and sabotages presented by the Chinese bureaucracy to his reform efforts, as is reflected in his statement below: Bureaucracy remains a major widespread problem in the political life of our Party and state. Its harmful manifestations include the following: standing high above the masses; abusing power; divorcing oneself from reality and the masses; spending a lot of time and effort to put up an impressive front; indulging in empty talk; sticking to a rigid way of thinking; being hidebound by convention; overstaffing administrative organs; being dilatory; inefficient and irresponsible; failing to keep one's word; circulating documents endlessly without solving problems; shifting responsibilities to others; and even assuming the airs of a mandarin, reprimanding other people at every turn, vindictively attacking others, suppressing democracy, deceiving superiors and subordinates, being arbitrary and despotic, practicing favoritism, offering bribes, participating in corrupt practices in violation of the law, and so on. Such things have reached intolerable dimensions 3. Lucian W. Pye, Mao Tse-tuna: The Man in the Leader, New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1976, p. 57. 10 both in our domestic affairs and in our contacts with other countries.4 Nevertheless, the above familiar image of bureaucratic obstinacy should not lead to the conclusion that political leaders are helpless and powerless. As a matter of fact, politicians have at their disposal a variety of mechanisms to strengthen their control over bureaucracies, such as budgetary controls, congressional hearings, and political appointments in the Western case, and political campaigns, massive purges, ideological indoctrination, etc., in the case of China under Mao. This dissertation examines in detail another control mechanism -- personal staffs. It is commonplace for political leaders everywhere to use their personal staffs to help amplify their power over state bureaucracies. Chinese political principals are no exception, though the staff role in this regard has so far been generally neglected in the existing studies of Chinese politics, resulting in exaggeration of political leadership's loss of power over bureaucracies in the post-Mao era. As the findings of this research will demonstrate, Chinese political leaders depend heavily upon the assistance of staff personnel in their service, who play a highly significant role in helping political leadership at various levels to control 4. "Speech to the Enlarged Meeting of the Political Bureau," in Selected Works of Dens Xiaopina, Beijing: F6reign Language Press, 1984, p. 310. 11 bureaucracies and thus sustain the integrity of China's authority structure. The Chinese staff system is the focus of this research, and the basic research issues that this dissertation addresses are as follows. * What are the structures, functions, and dynamics of the Chinese staff institution in the leadership-bureaucracy interaction? * What are the similarities and differences between the Chinese staff institution of today and those in the Western political systems and in ancient China? * What is the impact of the staff