The Legitimacy of the Communist Party of China and Prospect for Political Reform

Note: This is the dissertation for my undergraduate degree at King’s College London. It did not receive a high score but I like what I wrote generally speaking.

I. Introduction

A. Background:

The Communist Party of China (CPC, or ‘the Party’) has ruled China since 1949. Despite tumultuous histories that oversaw mass starvation, countless political executions, rampant corruption, etc., the Party managed to celebrate its centenary in 2021 with an increasing popular support, especially at the central level, i.e. the Party Center in Beijing. Through a multi-year national survey on the satisfaction of Chinese citizens towards the regime, Cunningham, Saich and Turiel (2020, 3) find that the satisfaction rate for the central government has increased from 86.1% in 2003 to 93.1% in 2016. Of course, one can challenge the authenticity and reliability of such surveys by questioning respondents’ willingness to share ‘the truth’ in an authoritarian regime. However, such concern has been addressed through innovative research methods such as thought experiments by sinologists (e.g. Dickson, 2016; Shi, 1997; Tang, 2016). If these surveys can be trusted, then scholars of comparative politics cannot ignore the Chinese case when analyzing the democratization of authoritarian regimes, assuming democratization is desirable, because China is too powerful and too populous to be an outlier. While China is preventing democratization at home, its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) abroad does not contain conditionality clauses to address concerns on human rights and democracy in participant states. Then, it may be challenging to see a fourth wave of democratization. Therefore, to promote and defend democracy, scholars need to understand why the Party enjoys such a high degree of support, which requires the research of the Party’s legitimacy.

Legitimacy is widely researched in the study of politics. Max Weber (1918) utilizes a descriptive interpretation of legitimacy that ‘refers to people’s beliefs about political authority and, sometimes, political obligations’ (Fabienne, 2017). Meanwhile, Rawls (1993) is more interested in a normative concept of political legitimacy that offers ‘some benchmark of acceptability or justification of political power or authority and — possibly — obligation’ (Fabienne, 2017). Utilizing both descriptive and normative concepts of legitimacy, this essay strives to achieve two goals: describing the Party’s sources of legitimacy, and analyzing why such sources are deemed insufficient or unable to legitimate the Party’s governance. The first research aim is widely researched by sinologists. Among them, Nathan (2003) coined the famous term ‘authoritarian resilience’ when analyzing the persistence of the Party, as he credits institutionalization as the source of its legitimacy. However, a simple focus on ‘Party building’ is insufficient, as it ignores other vital components of legitimacy like the rapid pace of economic development and stable domestic environment (Wen and Wang, 2007), beneficial policies for ethnic minorities (Tang and He, 2010), communist ideology (Jia, 2003), traditional Chinese values (Shi, 2015), etc. The second research aim focuses on the normative justification of the Party’s legitimacy by analyzing whether the sources of legitimacy examined in this essay can be accepted by citizens, i.e. whether citizens demonstrate dissatisfaction or even protest. In doing so, I aim at finding out whether such sources can deliver a sufficient amount of legitimacy.

B. Methodology:

This dissertation employs discourse analysis, which requires the exploration of ‘the relationship between discourse and reality’ (Phillips and Hardy, 2002, 3). Discourse is defined as ‘an interrelated set of texts, and the practices of their production, dissemination, and reception, that brings an object into being’ (Ibid.). Within discourse analysis, there are many strands (see Grant et al., 2008, 249–252). Following the Essex School of poststructuralist discourse theory (PDT), this dissertation avoids the ‘balkanization and reification of methodology’ by conducting a ‘“problem-driven” rather than “method-” or “theory-driven” research’ (Howarth, 2005, 317–318). However, this is not to suggest this dissertation lacks a systematic method, as Glynos and Howarth (2007) outline the PDT’s methodology as problematization (object of study as a problem), retroduction (production and testing of hypotheses), logics (content of explanation), articulation (linking different logics), and critique (exposing existing processes and relations). Critiquing the positivist and empiricist account of discourse analysis, Howarth (2000, 113) suggests that PDT is ‘concerned with understanding and interpreting socially produced meanings rather than searching for objective causal explanations’. Warning that ‘facts’ cannot be completely accessed and examined in an unrestrained manner, Howarth’s (2000, 126) understanding of discourse is realistic, as he argues that the role of discourse analysis is to demonstrate how discourses contribute to the occurrence of events.

Adopting PDT is beneficial for this dissertation because of its ‘problem-driven’ approach. Setting the Party’s legitimacy as the research problem, I aim at answering the question: Where do scholars, officials, and citizens think the Party obtains its legitimacy? To do so, I will conduct an in-depth examination of specific examples of official texts, academic articles, opinions from politically active citizens, and stories. In particular, when analyzing selected political texts and available citizen opinions, PDT is necessary because it ‘encourages research into the motivations behind the construction of … shared understandings’ (Grant et al., 2008, 251). With PDT, I can analyze what propelled, for example, some citizens to openly voice out their desires for political changes online, by focusing on the rationale behind their behaviors. Meanwhile, as the Party has effectively utilized propaganda to achieve its goal of mass mobilization, Party discourses can shape public opinions, thereby shaping the occurrence of events. Employing PDT, this dissertation will be more sensitive to the importance of Party discourses instead of discarding them as ‘biased data’. Importantly, in the case of China, detailed qualitative analysis of data is needed, because, for example, as will be examined in Part III, Section B, the official word choice of ‘turmoil’ is an important factor why the 1989 Tiananmen incident ended tragically. Then, careful qualitative decryptions of official texts will be needed. PDT’s warning against incomplete data is particularly important, as quantitative analysis is often questionable because China lacks the transparency needed for academic research, as scholars often find it difficult to, for example, conduct surveys in China unobstructed (see Shi, 1997, Preface). Therefore, this study will conduct a qualitative analysis following the PDT.

More specifically, in Part II, this dissertation will primarily engage with discourses within contemporary Chinese studies to analyze the Party’s legitimacy. With academic literature, I will focus on articles that employ case studies or surveys. The literature has largely, as seen in the Nathan (2003) example (Part I, Section A), focused on one or several specific sources of legitimacy, which I call the ‘subset’, because, taken together, they can be categorized into three ‘supersets’ of legitimacy, namely performance, cultural-historical, and institutional. Here, I am not suggesting scholars have never conceived of such ‘supersets’ when studying China, as, for example, Zhu (2011) has employed performance legitimacy to explain the Party’s survival. Instead, I am suggesting the literature has largely focused on particular subsets, which cannot be continuously utilized to explain the Party’s survival across time and space. Therefore, this essay utilizes a ‘superset-subset’ framework to better capture different factors that make the Party legitimate instead of, for example, being econocentric.

Meanwhile, Party literature is contrasted with academic literature. Official texts provide crucial information, and their objectivity is not a significant concern. For example, Dickson (2016, 164) notes that the Party claims its fundamental source of legitimacy comes from ‘serving the people’. However, whether the Party has actually served the people is questionable, which would present crucial points of reference when contrasting the reality with the Party’s own ideals, so that I can analyze what has (not) been achieved. In other words, it will be interesting to see whether the Party can be deemed legitimate using its own standards. Additionally, such contrasts will be helpful to present a more accurate description of the Party’s legitimacy, because, as will be demonstrated in surveys conducted by scholars like Dickson, the Party’s claims have been well-echoed within the public.

In Part III, this essay will utilize case studies of significant protests — moments when the Party lost legitimacy — to analyze why the supersets of legitimacy failed to generate a sufficient amount of support for the Party. Here, official texts, news reports, and citizens’ writings will be utilized to study the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident, and the outcries of dissatisfaction towards the COVID-19 management. Although China in 1989 was a very different state, that mass movement is one of the most challenging incidents that presented a ‘life or death’ moment for the Party since it became a governing party in 1949. Since the founding of the ‘new China’, even the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward did not incur spontaneous mass protest uncontrolled by the Party, which makes it essential to understand why the 1989 case happened, and whether it has current implications. To study this case, I will examine official texts from the then paramount leader Deng Xiaoping from 15 April, 1989 (the movement’s start date) to 1 December, 1989 (Deng’s last public statement regarding the event). Official discourse is contrasted with citizens’ own conceptions on the movement. Since relevant data is hardly accessible given its sensitivity, this essay will rely heavily upon Chinese citizens’ writings on the Democracy Wall in Beijing to gauge their perceptions. Such writings are compiled and translated by Ogden et al. (1992). Despite the work of Ogden et al. is not representative of the Chinese population, the most important actor in the movement — Chinese students in Beijing — has posted lots of information on the Wall as a means of communication and debate, which makes the work an important asset. A wider range of data would be ideal, but such information cannot be easily obtained, while existing ones, for example, Nathan and Link’s (2001) Tiananmen Papers has been heavily questioned for their authenticity (see Nathan, 2001).

Afterwards, I will briefly examine the dissatisfaction towards COVID-19 management by focusing on online criticism for the death of the whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang (see Green, 2020). This event is chosen not only because its time proximity provides up-to-date incidents of the Party losing a level of legitimacy, but also because it exposes the systematic flaw the Party did not address back in 1989. Since this case is relatively new, little academic research has focused on them. Therefore, the selection of netizens’ perspectives will be based on news reports from the UK (British Broadcasting Cooperation), US (New York Times), Hong Kong (South China Morning Post), China (Caixin), and Japan (Nikkei Asia). The selected news agencies are largely politically neutral. Although South China Morning Post is owned by the Alibaba Group, which is influenced by the Party, while Caixin is a Chinese media platform, as will be examined in the case studies, these two have published some potentially damaging articles about the Party. I will utilize each media’s own search engine to search for relevant information by inputting ‘Li Wenliang’ and setting the timeframe as 1 February, 2020 to 14 February, 2020 (Li died on 7 February, and his death raised immediate outcries).

C. Thesis and Outline:

This dissertation argues that the Party’s legitimacy can be understood through a ‘superset-subset’ framework, and amongst the supersets, lacking performance legitimacy is often the final cause of protest, strong cultural-historical legitimacy can offer continuous support, and insufficient institutional legitimacy is the fundamental cause of instability. The remaining sections are divided as follows. In Part II, I will outline each superset of legitimacy as well as their subsets. In Part III, to analyze how the Party has lost some levels of legitimacy before, I will study the 1989 Tiananmen incident and online dissatisfaction towards the COVID-19 management style. Afterwards, in Part IV, I will conclude by suggesting that only a genuine (socialist) democracy can maintain sufficient legitimacy continuously, which implies future political reforms are needed.

II. Sources of Legitimacy

A. Superset-Subset Framework:

Three types of legitimacy can be used to explain the Party’s claim to power: performance, cultural-historical, and institutional legitimacy. Within the superset of performance legitimacy, an infinite amount of subsets exist, and their ranking would be different as individuals have different preferences. The amount of subsets is uncountable because actors have different priorities based on differences in space, time, and social-economic backgrounds. In 2021, a working class family in urban China that is under pressure to purchase an apartment for marriage would likely have different concerns from an upper class family in Shanghai that is concerned about wealth-accumulation getting more difficult facing slogans of ‘common prosperity’. Consequently, different individuals would judge government performance differently, as the working class family might suggest the Party is legitimate if it reduces the cost of housing and child-bearing, increases social welfare benefits for ordinary workers, reins in capitalist exploitation, etc., which will be different from what the upper class family have in mind. Moreover, time plays a crucial role, as the upper class in the 1950s might be more concerned with their own survival during the period of government expropriation of private capital and criticizing, sometimes to death, wealthy individuals as rightists (see Cochran, 2007). Therefore, it is essential to create a non-exhaustive framework when analyzing the Party’s legitimacy, so that readers would not commit the error of falsely believing the Party’s legitimacy completely depends upon a handful of factors. This Part will offer a detailed explanation of Figure 1.

B. Performance Legitimacy:

1.1 Economic performance (macro-level)

Regardless of varying individual preferences, one prominent factor seems to transcend different preferences: economic performance. Ever since the Reform and Opening-Up policy implemented by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, the Chinese economy has grown about 100 times, whilst GDP per capita has increased about 30 times (World Bank, 2021a), which gives ample discursive power for the Party to claim there have been so many changes that ‘the sky and earth have been turned over’ (Yan, 2018). Many Chinese citizens, in the meantime, accredit the Party for the macroeconomic growth, which would be natural because the economy is heavily controlled by the Party (see Zhang, 2021). Interpreting economic performance, focusing on aggregate growth, scholars have argued that it is a double-edged sword that can generate legitimacy in the short-run but have delegitimizing effects in the long run. When analyzing the prospects of democratization in China, scholars like Nathan (2021) and Holbig and Gilley (2010) have utilized modernization theory to suggest that once the Chinese economy has become sufficiently developed, individuals would be more likely to seek political liberty. Here, their hypothesis is that the overall development of the Chinese economy would create a rising middle class, which would have ‘post-material interests’, such as a greater extent of political participation that would challenge the Party’s domination. In sum, this school of thought can be visualized as an inverted ‘V’: macroeconomic growth enhances the Party’s legitimacy till the threshold is reached, after which, ceteris paribus, further growth would present negative effects.

Then, why would the Party develop the Chinese economy if doing so is ‘digging its own grave’? General Secretary Jiang Zemin (2002) has opted to recognize that ‘[economic] development as the Party’s “first priority” to maintain governance’. This echoes Deng’s (1992) warning that ‘if [the Party] does not develop the economy, does not improve the people’s living standards, the only road forward is towards [political] death’. Assuming macroeconomic growth is an eventually self-defeating strategy, it would still generate a degree of legitimacy till a breaking point, which would give the Party precious breathing room even if the modernization theory is correct. Here, it would be beneficial to mention the climate policy discourse, as scholars (e.g. Lockwood, 2013; Jacobs, 2016) have indicated that policymakers have little incentive to consider political problems in the future, because current problems, without discount costs, are more prominent in their agenda. Then, a logical explanation for the Party, which faces the necessity of economic development for its short-term survival according to Deng and Jiang, is to simply kick the can down the road.

However, juxtaposing the increasing regime support in conjunction with soaring macroeconomic growth in China, one might challenge the modernization theory by asking: Will the threshold ever be reached, and if so, when? As authoritarian regimes have resisted democratization even after reaching the threshold conceptualized by Huntington (1991), Boix and Stokes (2003) attempt to rescue the modernization theory by arguing that the cost of democratization has risen since 1991. However, if the cost of democratization can continuously face ‘inflationary pressures’, the Party, as a powerful agent, can artificially create further inflations. This can be done through continuously changing preferences on performance objectives that the Party is (self-)tasked to achieve, so that there will always be new objectives. A more challenging criticism is derived from survey data, as Dickson (2016, 230) questions the conventional wisdom that economic growth grants the Party legitimacy by suggesting it is the ‘pocketbook factors’ that determine economic performance. By analyzing the association between people’s perception of whether their income has risen and their level of regime support, Dickson finds that GDP per capita and aggregate growth have minimal impact on legitimacy, and argues that it is personal prosperity that is at stake. Then, the implication is that as long as the Party manages to improve the income at individual level, ceteris paribus, it is legitimate.

1.2 Economic performance (individual-level)

Alternatively, economic performance can be interpreted as the capacity to reduce inequality, instead of aggregate growth, because rising inequality can diminish the pace of rising income perceived, especially in a supposedly communist regime. At a societal level, facing soaring inequality, Chinese netizens have invented terms like 躺平 (tangping, or ‘lying flat’) and 内卷 (neijuan, or ‘involution’) to express their dissatisfaction (see Zhang and Liu, 2021; Liu, 2021). The focal point of such terms is the lack of social mobility in an increasingly capitalist society that promotes excessive competition for the benefit of capitalists, which encourages easily replaceable workers to simply lie down (tangping) and avoid a race to the bottom that may never pay off (neijuan). If the tangping generation is unwilling to work, a twofold consequence will damage the Party’s legitimacy: (1) aggregate economic growth will slow down; and (2) staggering inequality will become a deep-rooted belief that (mis)leads people to believe their income has fallen.

Aware of such challenges to legitimacy, at the top level, two strategies are adopted: poverty eradication and common prosperity. To solve absolute poverty, means-tested targeting is utilized to locate precise individuals and villages under the poverty line, so that corresponding policies can be drafted for specific cases (Yang and Liu, 2021). Apart from that, in this campaign, the Party mobilized human and financial capital by sending Party officials to poor villages and transferring billions of funds. For example, 70,000 officials are sent to 10,000 villages in southern Xinjiang, while 106.095 billion RMB (around 12 billion GBP) is allocated to construct better housing, give targeted population better insurance, foster local industries, etc. (Wang and Ding 2021, 10–16). After remarking on the success of the anti-poverty campaign, Xi (2021a) claimed that China will focus on constructing common prosperity, which aims at creating a more egalitarian society. Importantly, Xi (2021b) stresses that tangping and neijuan should be avoided by preventing the ossification of social classes, so that social mobility can be strengthened. As the pilot zone for common prosperity, Zhejiang (2021) focuses on narrowing income gaps, building a better education and healthcare system, revitalizing rural areas, increasing disposable income, etc. Therefore, the Party, as a rational actor that is interested in prolonging its survival, has been tackling inequality to maintain legitimacy.

2. Environmental protection

Apart from economic performances, the Party can respond to changing interests of the citizenry, or manufacture new sources of legitimacy to prolong its survival. People may desire nonmaterial benefits, but this does not necessarily imply the desire for liberal norms. Instead, a popular desire is better environmental protection. With a focus on economic performances, China is currently the world’s largest polluter, which comes at an irreparable heath cost for individual citizens, an expensive healthcare spending for the state, and a loss of productivity in the economy (Matus et al., 2011; Kampa and Castanas, 2008). Fed up with environmental issues, some citizens even protested the government’s (in)action (see Gilbert, 2012; Standaert, 2017; Shepherd and Blanchard, 2017; Haas, 2016), and such issues are one of the main sources of conflict in Tibetan regions where the environment has great cultural sensitivities (Nyima and Yeh, 2016). In such cases, the priority for individuals has become the environment, as they risk their freedom in an authoritarian regime to protest against environmental degradation. Consequently, the Party needs to draft policies accordingly to meet the increasing demand for environmental protection alongside the desire for continuous economic growth.

Given pollution is highly visible and negatively influences a majority of the population, it would be costly and even counterproductive to erase its existence from the public discourse. Instead, as pollution becomes increasingly severe, aware of potential public reaction that might damage its legitimacy, the Party has attempted to position itself as an agent of change by issuing top level political orders to tackle pollution (e.g. State Council, 2013; State Council, 2018). More influentially, the Party has incorporated environmental protection into its cadre evaluation system that dictates officials’ promotion or demotion, while the Ecology and Environment Bureau has received more prominence and discursive power in the policymaking process (Wang, 2013; Cheng, 2021). Perhaps the most prominent case of environmental protection is the illegal construction of villas in the Qinling mountains, as even Xi’s own political orders to demolish them were not ‘given due attention by provincial authorities’ (CGTN, 2019). Framed as an environmental protection issue, the case ended with the death penalty of the provincial Party secretary and Xi’s (2020) message that this case is a ‘big lesson’ and officials should ‘work as a guardian of the ecological environment’. With determinations from the Party, progress of pollution control is noticeable (Lu et al., 2020), thereby meeting citizens’ calls for greater environmental protection to an extent.

3. Stability maintenance

The Chinese people, influenced by the Party and memories of a chaotic China, desire stability, and dislike protests or blatant disobedience towards the regime. From the perspective of citizens, Nathan (2021, 7) summarizes the psychology of Chinese citizens well: ‘Collapse of the regime would mean chaos, and citizens fear this alternative probably even more than they fear the regime itself’. Nathan’s judgement fits into the Confucian political culture, which promotes a meritocratic system in which sage officials should occupy key posts — a belief that has seen a recent revival (see Bell, 2015). Influenced by such belief, individuals are inclined to trust officials and defend the Chinese political system. This can be supported by the high level of political trust Chinese citizens have towards the Party, as well as a comparatively high degree of political trust in Confucianism-influenced societies (see Shi, 2015, 111). Explaining the high degree of political trust in China and the opposite situation in Taiwan, Tang, Zhou, and Yang (2016, 99) argue that it is because there are no free and competitive elections and free media in China to expose the sins of Party officials. Although breaking the saint-like image of Party officials can lead to a low degree of political trust (see Dickson, 2016, 318), the reality is that the Party, with heavy control of information, would prevent such distrust from reaching a dangerously high level (Nathan, 2021, 5). Then, with high trust, when there is dissatisfaction, people remonstrate peacefully, or simply tolerate bad performances, as they prefer stability (Nathan, 1985, 120). Therefore, Chinese citizens want the Party to maintain stability.

However, one should not overlook the Party’s capacity of defining what is ‘desirable’, as a comparison between the Cultural Revolution and COVID-19 management will demonstrate how the role of social stability has become a political necessity. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao famously encouraged ‘big democracy’, a destabilizing policy that actively rewards normal citizens for criticizing and punishing officials in public (Andreas and Dong, 2018). As a victim of Mao’s chaotic political movements, Deng (1989, 284) claims that ‘stability overwhelms everything’, which became a dogma for the Party. In the case of COVID-19 management, stability maintenance is a core explanation for China’s ‘zero-tolerance’ policy, as Xi (2020) believes natural disasters have ‘historically led to social disorder’. To achieve stability, Xi (2020) orders propaganda work to spread ‘confidence-building’, ‘warm’, and ‘unifying’ messages. Consequently, reinforced by propaganda work, with inherent preference for stability, strict COVID-19 measures are not only tolerated, but even welcomed by many people (Economist, 2021). Therefore, unlike in the Mao era, the Party has tasked itself with stability maintenance, which grants the Party popular support to implement strict measures that in turn has strengthened not only stability, but its legitimacy as a guarantor of stability.

C. Cultural-Historical Legitimacy:

1. Background

Culture and history can significantly affect people’s perceptions. This explains why some Chinese citizens, influenced by Confucian culture and experienced horrific turmoil previously, may view stability as a subset of performance legitimacy, albeit at great costs to individual freedom. In contrast, influenced by democratic ideals, some US citizens may view it as their fundamental right to participate in protests that contribute to social unrest. However, one should not confuse cultural-historical legitimacy with performance legitimacy, as the former can operate independently as a theoretical basis of support without necessarily establishing concrete policies. Hypothetically, if the British government managed to colonize all of China after the Opium War and still rules the territory today, that regime would lack cultural-historical legitimacy regardless of its performance, because it is not a Confucianism-influenced government that can be viewed as a continuation of the 5,000 years of Chinese history. Therefore, through cultural-historical legitimacy, I aim at analyzing how the Party has maintained power by exploring Chinese culture and history.

2. Cultural legitimacy

Defining the Chinese culture is an enormous work, so I will focus on how the current regime has exploited nationalism through Confucianism and 大一统 (dayitong, or ‘grand unification’). With the adoption of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, scholars have labeled China as a post-socialist society (e.g. Pun, 2005; Whyte, 2012), supposedly running out of ideological legitimacy, the Party is perceived to resort to nationalism for its legitimacy. Consequently, Confucianism is utilized to boost confidence in Chinese culture (see He, 2013; Wang, 2017; Liu, 2019). Meanwhile, the State Council has sanctioned Confucius institutes to be set up worldwide to spread Chinese culture. Moreover, the Party has officially promoted the coexistence of both Marxism and Confucianism, as Central Propaganda Department director Liu Qibao (2017) argues that such is necessary in the sinicization efforts of Marxism, as well as the confidence-building efforts of the Chinese people. To an audience that is still heavily influenced by Confucianism (Shi, 2014), the Party’s behavior of affirming Confucian culture will undoubtedly be perceived as its willingness to serve as another ‘carrier of Chinese culture’. Therefore, by affirming the importance of Confucianism, the Party gains cultural legitimacy, and nationalism would be aroused.

Besides Confucianism, another subset of cultural legitimacy is dayitong (grand unification), or the cultural expectation for a regime to recover all lost land before being considered legitimate (Chao, 2021). Applying dayitong to today’s China, the implication is straightforward: the unification with Taiwan, which will grant the Party enormous legitimacy (Brown, 2018, 54). Although political culture can be changed gradually, the Party is reluctant to diminish the importance of dayitong, as a military operation to recover Taiwan has never been formally ruled out. Meanwhile, as a ‘non-Chinese’ identity emerges in Taiwan (Lin, 2021), the Party has enhanced its legitimacy by blaming the West and an ‘extreme minority’ in Taiwan for ‘misleading the Taiwanese public’. In other words, with an attempt of historical revisionism and negation of the Chinese identity, the separatist movement unconsciously depoliticizes the issue by shifting the focus from political system to history, nationality, and ethnicity. Doing so has conveniently left out the issue of freedom and democracy, which has presented many problems for the Party. This is a perfect red herring for the Party because the ‘non-Chinese’ identity receives little support, and even strong backlashes from the rest of China (Hughes, 1997). Therefore, by standing firm on the Taiwan issue, the Party can arouse nationalism and public support, as Chinese people are deeply influenced by ‘dayitong’.

3. Historical legitimacy

An obvious subset of historical legitimacy is war. Charles Tilly (1975, 42) has famously remarked that ‘war made the state’ because, to fight in a war, the state employs ‘territorial consolidation, centralization, … [and] coercion’, which are prerequisites of the establishment of a state. But this dissertation focuses on the emotional perspective of war, as there is probably no more effective way of increasing cohesiveness within a people than bleeding together in a ‘just war’. The Party has mainly constructed the existing Chinese identity using WWII against the Japanese and Korean War against the US. For Mitter (2020), the Party’s revisionist efforts in promoting the importance of its sacrifices and contributions to WWII is obvious through its ‘patriotic education’ campaign that aims at raising awareness about the war via museums, the internet, schools, and movies. Beyond the aforementioned areas, in 2014, the Party set December 13th as the National Memorial Day for Victims of the Nanjing Massacre, during which powerful and touching messages by state media would be circulated widely to send the message of ‘never forget about the shame of the nation, and the pain of the people’ (Xinhua, 2021). Meanwhile, the Korean War receives much publicity, because a much weaker and poorer China was capable of defeating a US with much better economy, technology, and military. Amid rising antagonism between China and the US, the Party has increased its efforts on spreading materials regarding the Korean War, such as The Battle at Lake Changjin, a movie praising the Chinese army’s bravery. Therefore, by promoting patriotic education and creating national cohesion, WWII and Korean War create historical legitimacy for the Party.

D. Institutional Legitimacy:

1. Background

In Xi’s ‘four confidences campaign’, besides cultural confidence, the other three all emphasize institutional confidence — confidence on the [development] path, [political] theory, and [political] system (Xi, 2016). Instead of using ‘ideological legitimacy’ as the superset, this dissertation adopts ‘institutional legitimacy’, because the Party is a well-organized institution guided by an ideology to run all state apparatus. Here, the legitimacy of the Party as a political institution (superset) is dependent upon its ideology (subset), and how it organizes various state apparatus (subset).

2. Ideology

Within the ideology subset, the most prominent element is ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’, which has various connotations. Approved by Deng, the term was originally intended to allow more wiggle room for economic development without jeopardizing China’s status as a socialist state (Vogel, 2011). However, Deng’s economic reform had rapid and unintended consequences, as, for example, his successor Jiang reinterpreted the slogan as a permission to extend Party membership to capitalists, which was criticized by elite Party members for damaging the Party’s ideological legitimacy (Zeng, 2016, 48–49). Now, under the leadership of Xi, social inequality is reemphasized (see Xi, 2017). With Xi’s crackdown on tech giants and real estate companies, and support for greater labor protection, the socialist China is arguably returning (Dunford, 2021). To be precise, the Party has never negated its commitment towards Marxism, as it has always reiterated that China’s (quasi-capitalist) development path is essential in the primary stage of socialism (see Cai, 2019). However, as a socialist state, countless Chinese are feeling exploitation and alienation, which led to the tangping and neijuan phenomenon discussed in Part II, Section B-1.2. Then, if a de jure socialist state is perceived as practicing de facto capitalism, it would lack ideological legitimacy. As the ‘common prosperity’ campaign is relatively new, whether ideological legitimacy exists for the Party is still inconclusive, which will be subject to the Party’s capacity of reducing inequality in the years to come.

3. Socialist democracy

For the Party, democracy is not indispensable, as Mao (1956) suggests that democracy is a means, not the end. As the Party’s guiding ideology is Marxism-Leninism, democracy can only be associated with ‘democratic centralism’, i.e. ‘freedom of discussion, unity of action’ (Lenin, 1902). With Confucian influence, Shi (2014, 226) argues that even for the democratic Taiwan, democracy is understood in terms of guardianship, which legitimizes illiberal norms in China when conceptualizing democracy. Meanwhile, Shi and Lu (2010, 128) find that 22.1% of survey participants have no idea what democracy means in the democratic Taiwan, while the proportion is 42.0% for China. Building on Dickson’s (2016, 267) finding that the perception of the level of democracy in China is high, it is fair to extrapolate that many survey respondents who perceive China as democratic simply do not have a well-constructed understanding of democracy. Consequently, the Party can claim it is democratic without giving ‘democracy’ concrete connotations. Interestingly though, the Party has a very high standard of democracy that could delegitimize its institutional legitimacy. Denouncing liberal democracy for only caring about voters during electoral cycles, Xi (2021c) claims that China’s ‘whole-process democracy’ has already achieved procedural and substantive democracy, as well as direct and indirect democracy. Additionally, whether a state is democratic depends on whether citizens have the right to vote and participate (Xi, 2021c), which is deeply problematic because political participation is ineffective in uncompetitive elections that have fixed results (see Cai, 2010, 80). Then, if Chinese citizens manage to get a better grasp of what democracy means, they might think otherwise regarding how democratic China is, which will result in the Party’s potential crisis in institutional legitimacy. Although the Party can label itself as a socialist democracy, doing so will be counterproductive if it does not implement genuine political reforms before citizens understand procedural, substantive, direct, and indirect democracy better.

4. Anticorruption

Another subset of institutional legitimacy is the Party’s ‘zero-tolerance’ stance for corruption. Ever since Deng’s economic reforms, corruption grew exponentially as poorly paid officials sought rents from privatization (Wedeman, 2012). Facing rampant corruption, Xi warned the Party that ‘if [we] let the problem of corruption intensifying itself, the result will inevitably be the death of the Party and the state’ (Xi, 2013). Such word choice signifies Xi’s determination, as his signature anti-corruption campaign led to the downfall of previously untouchable figures like the retired Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang. Meanwhile, Xi’s political rival Bo Xilai was also found guilty of corruption, which gives critics (e.g. Yuen, 2014; Pei, 2018; Li, 2019) reasons to argue that Xi’s campaign is a targeted anticorruption campaign that belongs to a larger political infighting amongst the Party’s most elite members. However, Xi’s intention of making the Party more sustainable through anti-corruption is obvious (Brown, 2018), as he has continuously cracked down on corruption throughout his tenure, and simultaneously focused on lower level officials when bringing down Party elites. Regardless of whether Xi has ulterior motivations for his ‘normalized’ anti-corruption campaign, the Party claims that it is now less corrupt, which grants itself the superset of institutional legitimacy as a cleaner governing institution.

However, the Party’s own claim is insufficient in actually generating legitimacy. For the Chinese public, corruption is a built-in cultural expectation practiced through 关系 (guanxi, or network): when individuals want to build guanxi, they are expected to offer payment. As analyzed by Li and Meng (2020), personal experience with corruption lowers public perception on the success of anti-corruption crackdowns in China. Then, if the cultural mindset of guanxi still widely persists, the Chinese public will perceive Xi’s efforts as futile, and the Party as corrupt and lacking institutional legitimacy. Since changing culture is time-consuming and difficult, the Party can train potential recipients of bribes to reject bribery through constant political education, strong warnings, and severe penalties, which are already in place within Xi’s anti-corruption campaign (see Xi, 2022). Given the sensitivity of the issue, little academic work has gauged the public perception on the level of corruption in China, but available research all indicate that corruption is perceived as a rampant issue (Transparency International, 2021; Li, Ronald, and Xie, 2021). Therefore, despite Xi’s efforts, given the cultural expectation of paying for guanxi, it seems there is a long way to go, which Xi has realized, as the Party is training officials not to receive bribes. If the supply end cannot be easily changed due to culture, Xi’s attempt of cutting down the demand end, although not having remarkable effects now, will be helpful to generate institutional legitimacy for the Party.

III. Case Studies

A. Background:

After exploring three supersets of the Party’s legitimacy and analyzing some particular subsets within each superset (see Figure 1), I will now attempt to analyze the necessity of such a ‘superset-subset’ framework and rank the three supersets based on their sustainability in continuously generating legitimacy. To do so, I will employ two case studies: the 1989 mass movement in Tiananmen Square, and online outcries against the Party’s COVID-19 management for the death of whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang. The former case is arguably the most significant protest that challenged the Party’s survival since it became a governing party, while the latter is the most recent public manifestation of large-scale dissatisfaction towards the Party. A comparison between the two will help scholars understand whether anything has changed since 1989. Resulting in the shooting of civilians by the military, the 1989 incident ended with widespread condemnations and sanctions towards the Party. Regarding the second case, it is composed of newspaper reports of online reactions after Li’s death.

B. 1989 Tiananmen Incident:

For the first case, Deng (1989, 302–308), the Party chief at the time, perceived the incident as ‘counterrevolutionary’, as an extremely small amount of people, colluding with the West and the Nationalist Party, misled and exploited the vast majority of good-hearted students for the benefit of their political agenda of overthrowing the Party. In contrast, scholars (e.g. Calhoun, 1989; Brown, 2021) argue that the cause for this incident is due to staggering inflation (performance legitimacy), entrenched corruption (institutional legitimacy), and a desire for genuine democracy (institutional legitimacy). Meanwhile, protesters showed a great level of constraint, by demonstrating their patriotism towards the state, and support for the Party’s absolute leadership (cultural-historical legitimacy).

Regarding performance legitimacy, the inflation rate reached around 20% in 1988 and 1989 (World Bank, 2021b), which, despite high macroeconomic growth, led to people’s real income being eroded (Li, 1989; Cheng, 1991). As explored previously, when individuals’ pocketbooks are negatively affected, regardless of whether the whole economy is doing well, many will believe that the regime has little performance legitimacy. In fact, inflation is one of the main reasons that led to the dismissal of Party Secretary Zhao Ziyang (2009, 127–133), who suggests, in his secret diary, that he was blamed by Deng for the failure to control rising inflation. Meanwhile, with some privatization of the economy, corruption became a rampant issue, which presents a paradox (Wedeman, 2012), as the conventional wisdom of rising corruption being correlated with low economic growth does not apply to China, and that corruption is not an institutionalized tool to welcome high growth by the Party. For protesters, corruption was precreeived as entrenched within the Party, so they demanded to clean up the government, which Deng (1989, 297) agrees, with as he labels it as ‘[a] thing that will make the people happy’, despite objecting to the protest in general. Then, it is clear that the Party and protesters converge on the issues causing dissatisfactions.

However, the Party and protesters diverge on the solution, as protesters proposed for democratization, which the Party resisted. Despite Deng (1989, 311) repeatedly stating that it is indispensable to ‘uphold the socialist path and the Party’s leadership’, many protesters reject the ‘socialist democracy’ proposed by the Party, and demand for a ‘truly democratic government’ instead (Ogden et al., 1992, 93). In fact, the direct cause of the protest is the death of the former General Secretary Hu Yaobang, who was removed by Deng, partly because of his liberal inclinations. Meanwhile, encouraged by the Solidarity movement and Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost, protesters desired more freedom. In particular, protesters’ conceptions of democracy are heavily influenced by liberal values, as they want, for example: (a) a ‘socialist multiparty system’ following the Polish and Hungarian efforts (Ibid., 208); (b) direct elections and the right of supervision (Ibid., 115); and even © freedom to choose whether or not to believe in Marxism (Ibid., 280). From a comparative perspective, these demands encourage the withering of the Party from the state apparatus, which is similar to the Yugoslavian democracy that actively undermines the Party’s power (Zhang, 2002). However, this varies from Leninist democracy, as Lenin (1917) understands democracy from an absolute perspective by arguing only communism can bring genuine democracy, which necessitates the Party’s absolute leadership. Instead, protesters were tired of Stalinist concentration of power (Ogden et al., 114), as they favored Gorbachev’s promotion of pluralism instead (Ibid., 205).

In response, the Party, with Deng’s authorization, published an editorial to label the movement as a ‘turmoil’ that attempts to overthrow the Party (see Deng, 1989, 410), which angered many protesters, as they argue that they are patriotic and support the Party. For example, a day after the publication, Beijing Normal University broadcasted that: ‘We have not shouted slogans of “Down with the Communist Party”. Nor do we have any intention to “overthrow the socialist system’” (Ibid., 1992, 119). Such sentiments are shared by others as well: (1) a leaflet at People’s University labels the movement as ‘the great patriotic student movement’ (Ibid., 135); (2) the Department of Theory and Information at Beijing University argued that it is completely wrong to associate ‘the patriotic democracy movement … informed by ten years of reforms and openness’ with the Cultural Revolution that caused turmoils (Ibid., 162); (3) some Party members and cadres from the Judiciary Departments wrote that ‘history will bear witness to those who do not fear sacrificing themselves for a democratic, prosperous, and civilized new China’ (Ibid., 165).

Then, for protesters, it is clear that the Party lost its institutional legitimacy given its lack of democracy. However, there is still strong cultural-historical legitimacy for the Party that led to protesters claiming not wishing to overthrow the regime. In contrast, many protesters have strong positive sentiments towards the Party, which can be inferred from the sense of disappointment and anger towards the Party for the People’s Daily publication. To explain pro-democracy protesters’ tolerance for an authoritarian regime, Nathan (1985) utilizes the Confucian-influenced mentality in China, which is supported by the suicide of Qu Yuan. Meanwhile, as protesters claim that they are patriotic, it is obvious that they affirm the Chinese identity, which helps the Party’s cultural-historical legitimacy. In sum, the effect of high inflation (performance legitimacy), rampant inflation (institutional legitimacy), and desires for genuine democracy (institutional legitimacy) have together led to the 1989 incident, but protesters have restrained themselves from calling for the overthrow of the Party because of its strong cultural-historical legitimacy has cultivated a strong sense of patriotism and respect for authority.

C. COVID-19 Management:

At the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, Li circulated information on social media about a dangerous and unknown disease, which caught the police’s attention, so he was obliged to admit his wrongdoings for circulating misinformation that may destabilize the public (Elmer, 2020). After infected cases grew exponentially, Li became an internet sensation, as many people online criticized the government for dismissing Li’s warnings because of its preference for social stability. The story has a tragic ending: Li later died after contracting COVID-19 when working in his hospital, which led to storming criticism and rare widely-circulated support for the freedom of speech online. Reaching more than 1.5 billion of views, the topic of Li’s death was heavily associated with desires for freedom, as Chinese netizens reposted one of Li’s last public remarks: ‘A healthy society should not only have one voice’ (Caixin, 2020), while the hashtag of ‘I want freedom of speech’ was viewed 1.8 million times before being censored (Guardian, 2020). Meanwhile, emotional posts flooded the internet: (a) ‘[Dr. Li] told us about a disease called ‘rumor’ (Buckley, 2020); (b) an open letter from some academics stressing Chinese citizens’ constitutional right to freedom was shared many times on social media (Guo, 2020); © ‘Dr. Li is a hero’ (Hegarty, 2020); and (d) ‘Our corrupt country does not deserve him’ (Chan et al., 2020). In this case, the Party did not effectively control the spread of the outbreak at its beginning, despite clearly having opportunities to do so, which resulted in its institutional legitimacy crisis. As explored previously, the Party values heavily on stability maintenance (performance legitimacy), which, in this case, is in conflict with Chinese citizens’, including Li’s, constitutional right of freedom (institutional legitimacy). In other words, the Party’s aim of achieving high performance legitimacy can undermine its institutional legitimacy.

D. Comparison:

Despite the Party’s strong cultural-historical legitimacy, these case studies have demonstrated that public dissatisfaction may originate from the lack of performance legitimacy, but the inherent issue is with the lack of institutional legitimacy. In the 1989 case, although the narrative has been shaped as a pro-democracy movement, a major concern for the public was rising inflation (performance legitimacy). Meanwhile, the Party’s publication to denounce the movement as a ‘turmoil’ was counterproductive, as many Chinese deem themselves as patriotic (cultural-historical legitimacy). As the Chinese public values heavily on stability maintenance, the Party’s strategy is to delegitimize the movement, so that it can win popular support. However, the Party’s strategy backfired, as protesters decried the publication and yearned for freedom and democracy, which implies that they have rejected the Party’s overemphasis on stability maintenance. Such a scenario is identical in the case of Li, as the overemphasis on stability maintenance has jeopardized the Party’s institutional legitimacy (socialist democracy).

A major concern for the Party’s legitimacy is that aggregate economic growth (performance legitimacy) cannot be constantly secured, which necessitates the Party to resort to other forms of legitimacy, and a natural alternative is nationalism. However, as shown in the 1989 case, cultural-historical legitimacy could only restrain protesters from actually overthrowing the Party. With the superset-subset framework, it is clear that there are other subsets of performance legitimacy that influence the Party’s legitimacy apart from the subset of aggregate growth, but none of them are sustainable. In the 1989 case, for example, the Party failed to materialize growth in real income due to high inflation. Meanwhile, the Party’s preference for stability maintenance (performance legitimacy) has undermined its claim as a socialist democracy (institutional legitimacy), as democracies do not tend to use deadly forces from the military to crackdown on unarmed protesters. Although the Confucian culture and histories of war can increase the Party’s cultural-historical legitimacy, they failed to refrain Chinese netizens from pouring their discontent towards the regime. Then, the most sustainable superset is institutional legitimacy, as protesters in 1989 and netizens grieving for Li, as well as Li himself, explicitly criticized the regime for the lack of democracy and freedom. Additionally, corruption influenced protesters in 1989. In conclusion, as performance legitimacy cannot be constantly secured, and can even produce counterproductive effects, while cultural-historical legitimacy cannot restrain all individuals from voicing out their dissatisfaction, the most sustainable source of legitimacy for the Party is institutional legitimacy.

IV. Conclusion and Implication

Through a superset-subset framework, this dissertation has demonstrated that the Party has maintained its legitimacy with policy performance, culture and history, and its supposedly institutional superiority. Each superset grants the Party with a different extent of legitimacy, as bad policy performance is conducive to citizen dissatisfaction, influence of Chinese culture and history can refrain such dissatisfaction from turning into the subversion of the state, and the Party’s institutional flaws barely grant it legitimacy. This dissertation begins with the paradox of an authoritarian Party with high popular support in Part I. I also suggested China is too powerful and populous to be ignored as an ‘outlier’, which offers research significance for this dissertation. In Part II, I begin by arguing for the importance of establishing the superset-subset framework, because scholars cannot simply point at one or a few factors and claim they have found the ‘truth’ behind the Party’s legitimacy. With a non-exhaustive framework, I detailed the Party’s three supersets of legitimacy and some of their subsets. Some subsets, like macroeconomic growth, offer a great extent of legitimacy for the Party, while others, like socialist democracy, still need further development to generate (more) positive legitimacy. In Part III, I examined how and whether the three supersets have helped maintain the Party’s legitimacy with two case studies: the 1989 Tiananmen protest and online outrage after the death of whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang. In the first case, insufficient performance legitimacy (inflation) and institutional legitimacy (corruption and democracy) encouraged the protest, but cultural-historical legitimacy, as demonstrated through protesters’ claim of patriotism, helped to create a respect for the Party’s leadership. In the second case, Li’s death triggered calls for freedom, and Li’s own call for diverse voices was critical for the Party’s institutional legitimacy. In both cases, there is a common theme: Chinese people’s longing for more freedom, which cannot be offered by ‘socialist democracy’ as understood by the Party.

The Party, with the monopoly of state resources, in order to maintain power, claims to serve the people, which is backed with many good policy performances and propaganda campaigns. Meanwhile, the people, seeing a more powerful and prosperous China, knowing the cost of dissent, influenced by Confucian culture and histories of chaos, have supported the Party. In this symbiotic relationship, the Party needs to constantly deliver sufficient performance to make its propaganda more convincing. However, nobody can guarantee that the Chinese economy would not have its own ‘Lost Decade’ like Japan did. With corruption still a deeply entrenched problem, while little has been done to genuinely implement ‘socialist democracy’, the 1989 incident may well occur again. Knowing the potential reprisal, politically active netizens still chose to voice out their dissatisfaction towards the Party after Li’s death, and many of them clearly wanted a more democratic and free China. Comparing these two cases, it is clear that people deemed democratization as the solution to China’s problems. Given institutional imperfections of WEIRD states, the Party needs not to follow their path, but it needs to materialize its own slogans. Excessive withering away of the Party has led to the collapse of Yugoslavia, but incremental political reforms, given China’s rising material status, makes sense. Still monopolizing state resources, it would be relatively easier and more controllable for the Party to implement top-down political reforms in an orderly manner without jeopardizing neither stability nor its absolute leadership. If the Party gets weaker, however, bottom-up political reforms could create the biggest humanitarian crisis known to mankind, if the Party displays strong resolutions on its absolute leadership. To serve the people, the Party needs to speed up its own version of democratization, because merely propagating institutional confidence is not sufficient.

1. This dissertation understands China as the political territory under the Party’s direct leadership. Hong Kong and Taiwan are Chinese territories, but are not (directly) governed by the Party. ‘Mainland China’ is not adopted because the island of Hainan, about the size of Taiwan, is geographically not the ‘mainland’ but politically so.
2. The usage of ‘government’ and ‘Party’ are interchangeable in the Chinese case, because the Party controls the government. The Party has explicitly inserted its leadership on everything in all layers of Chinese society at all levels (see Grünberg and Drinhausen, 2019; Xinhua, 2022).
3. Unless otherwise noted, ‘democracy’ refers to the ‘D’ in WEIRD — Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (see Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan, 2010).
4. The mathematical terms of ‘superset’ and ‘subset’ is useful to conceptualize the hierarchical relationship of the Party’s various sources of legitimacy.
5. The subsets suggested in this figure is not exhaustive. Given space limitation, this dissertation will not cover more areas.
6. As will be examined in Part III, excessive supply of stability maintenance can be counterproductive for the Party’s legitimacy.
7. I will examine this further in Part II, Section D-3.
8. Qu (343–278 BC), an official of the Chu state, was banished for advising his emperor to fight the Qin state. Witnessing Qin incrementally devouring Chu, Qu committed suicide, an act that was interpreted as patriotic.