Political Institutions, Discourse and Imagination in China at Tiananmen Rudolph Wagner The events in and around Tiananmen Square in May which China experienced between late 1978 and the and June of 1989 can best be understood in the context mid-1980s, the newly unleashed forces of a liberalised of a severe and generalised crisis within China's economysecuresubstantialgrowthratesand political institutions. That crisis was in part triggered contribute to a general atmosphere of optimism and by economic problems following the partial liberal- even buoyancy. In the second phase, which China has isation and modernisation of China's economy after experiencedsince the mid-1980s, the long-term 1978, but it was essentially political in character. structural problems of these economies and polities Indeed, the laws governing the institutional dynamics make themselves felt; problems that cannot be solved of socialist states in Europe and Asia are of a very by patching and mending. particular brand and require a decisive devaluation of During the first phase, things are relatively easy, but in the role of the very factor that has been elevated to a the second phase, the viability of the entire state pre-eminentposition by Marx himself - the structure is put to the test. We then discover whether economy. the state is able to manage the inevitable conflicts by At most times, and especially in times of crisis, China's protecting contesting social groups from each other's political institutions do not operate according to the worst (and best) impulses, and whether it is able to rules set out in law and in the government's and the channel society's energies in a manner that contributes Communist Party's formal statements. Instead, they to the long-term solution of the problems. function according to informal rules which render politicalinstitutionsincapable of adapting and China's 1989 crisis did not begin with the army responding to the kinds of change that occurred after marching into Tiananmen Square. In March, Prime 1978, except through the deployment of coercive MinisterLiPeng had announced anausterity force. This incapacity of political institutions, together programme to cope with the mounting economic crisis with the fictional character of public discussions of and a return to stronger state control over the institutional operations, had a destructive impact economy. Indeed, since the inflationary rises in 1987, a upon political discourse and the possibility of dialogue sense of crisis had been driven home, especially to the between the regime and those in Chinese society who state employees with their fixed salaries and to people had found a voice in the 1980s. It was impossible for in poor agricultural areas far from the cities and trunk those in power and the Tiananmen protesters even to lines. define each other and to communicate with each other Well before the massacre in and around Tiananmen in any meaningful way, and the ghastly results are on 3 and 4 June, the various institutions of the well-known. To grasp all of this, we need to examine government had ceased to operate normally. The both the condition of China's political institutions cause was not within the government itself, but rather and, more broadly, the character of political discourse within the leadership of China's ruling Communist and political imagination in China. Party. There, various factions and groupings were engaged in a fierce battle for control, the outcome of Unbuilding the Institutions which would decide the future direction, personnel, and operations of all of the institutions involved. A It is commonly accepted by all, including Chinese closer look reveals that even the institutions of the leaders of every faction, that modernisationin Party Centre were not actually in control. The Party bureaucratised economies and societies such as theirs haslegalinstitutionstohandle suchissuesas will be a painful process. In the social rearrangements appointments and policy guidelines, but in times of inevitably accompanying this process, conflicts, even serious conflict, they instantly collapse, giving way to violentconflicts, seem unavoidable because the completely different and highly unpredictable methods. discretionary monopoly of the hitherto ruling group is In this case, the public learned from the Party threatened, and various hitherto privileged groups like Secretary, Zhao Ziyang, that in fact control over workers or cadres are in danger of being marginalised. policy was even beyond his level. In a televised talk In the socialist world, these modernising reforms have with Mr. Gorbachev, Zhao declared that the relations generally gone through two phases. In the first phase, between the Soviet and Chinese parties had not been I/)S R,il/otiv. 1990, vol 2vo 4.nstilvte ol DvcIop000l Slvdc. S voy 16 reformalised during their talks - that is, between the (vi) Graduates of the same class in the military two Party General Secretaries - but a few hours academy, etc. before, when Mr. Gorbachev met Deng Xiaoping who held no senior party post. At the Party Congress in Institutions, accordingly, have no weight of their own 1987, Zhao declared that the party would refer in all in China. Their role and prestige is a direct function of major decisions to Deng and a group of old cadres their head's position in the invisible power structure of convened by him. Institutionally, Deng was head of the Centre. This stands in radical contrast to a system the Party's Military Commission. The other members such as that which prevailed, for example, in the of this top group like Peng Zhen, Bo Yibo, Wang French Third and Fourth Republics. There, dozens of Zhen, Li Xiannian and Chen Yun are no longer formal governments manned by different party combinations members of either the Party Centre or the government, succeeded one another at a rapid pace, while the but belong to the various advisory groups who professional administrators in the state institutions technically have no voting powers. The reason why went on plying their trade, efficiently and unperturbed. these old cadres were invited to join in the policy Those administrators differed greatly in their political making group was not their institutional importance philosophies, but they shared a professional ethic and but the fact that they had built up, over decades, some politicalprinciples, among which was a patronage systems in the civilian and military realms commitment to basic freedoms and to the ongoing which enabled them to bolster their voice with the centrality of power under their direction. By sheer inertia, they blocked radical transformations planned promise of delivering the support or the opposition of by various governments. At the same time, the their cohorts. separation of powers between the courts and the The viable institutional leaders like Li Peng and Zhao bureaucrats safeguarded the citizens against abuses by Ziyang thus had little or no discretionary power. The the bureaucrats. This diffusion of power among actual decision making was done in a body that had no political,legal and bureaucratic authorities was formal institutional standing, the existence of which remarkably flexible in responding to the challenge of was revealed only by a disgruntled Zhao and he was modernisation in France, mainly because it permitted promptly accused of leaking the secrets of the last competing models of adaptation to co-exist and to Party Congress to Mr. Gorbachev. The personal compete. It also created enough latitude for a more or patronage networks which provided the basis for the less rational discourse to occur amid the competition actual leadership's powers were essentially independent of the various powers and models. of political beliefs. This type of loyalty is owed in China under the following conditions: In the People's Republic of China, the structure of Appointment received under the leadership or politicspreventssuchadiffusionofpower. by the intervention of the given leader, an example Technically speaking, itis even illegal. The state being the heads of the military regions which for constitution contains the Four Basic Principles. These the most part have been appointed through Deng were articulated by Deng Xiaoping himself in 1979, on Xiaoping's influence in the military commission, the basis of a Maoist precedent from the fifties. The and have been selected from his original military Principles are as follows: the leading role of the unit. Communist Party; Marxism Leninism Maoism as the Work under a given leader; an example being fundamental doctrine; the socialist system as the the many people who had worked under the former guiding system for relations of production; and the and now late Party Secretary Hu Yaobang when he 'democraticdictatorshipof the people'asthe was head of the Youth League. instrument to deal with the 'enemies of the people', thatiscounterrevolutionaries,acategory now Admission into the Party on the recom- reservedfor theparticipantsinthe democracy mendation of a given leader; Hu Yaobang provides movement. In practice, this means that the National a good example as he recruited a large part of the People's Congress and the government are led by the present middle-level leadership into the Party Communist Party. The Supreme Court and the other through the Youth League. courts also operate under the four basic principles so Family ties, either through blood or marriage; that they must follow the directives of the Party the details about state president Yang Shangkun's leadership, and the same is true for the various extended family have been widely reported; Li sections of the executive. Peng is Zhou Enlai's adopted son, the new Party In a crisis like the one experienced by the Chinese body secretary Jiang Zeming is Li Xiannian's son-in-law. politic since 1987, and in particular in May and early (y) Same province of origin; an example is the June of 1989, the implications of this arrangement grouping Deng Xiaoping, Yang Shangkun and Li become vividly apparent.