Unrefined Thoughts on Party’s Legitimacy and Political Reform

Note: This piece is a proposal of the proposal for my dissertation. It is more of a blog than any serious academic research. Happy to receive criticism.

I remember knocking on the doors of a whole residential community a few years back when I wanted to research the actual turnout rates of a local representative election in Chengdu since the official data — more than 80% seemed sketchy to me. Now, the year is 2021, a year that is not only the Party’s centenary, but also the once-every-five-year local election that is supposedly the foundation of the superior system Beijing practices called ‘whole-process democracy’. From conversations with a grassroots level Party official, there are more than 400 registered voters in my community of more than 6,000 residents. The 400+ comes after sending grassroots officials to knock every door in the community to ask if the resident would want to participate in the election. Even if only 50% of the population can be elegible to vote, the turnout rate is still remarkably low, but of course, we only count the ones who turned out in registered voters.

Now let’s turn to Wang Huning’s diary in 1994 before he took an official post in the Party Center. I think he certainly finds the values of democracy and individualism appealing, but what is more important for him, and perhaps for countless Party officials, is the word ‘efficiency’ — primarily efficiency in managing such a populous state without creating chaos, which implies the necessity of having a strong Party Center that will be heard to avoid individual discretions that will create principal-agent problem. Therefore, ‘reform’ is seen as the key word, but things need to go at the Party Center’s pace. The unavoidable consequence is the possibility of having imprecise calculation from the Party Center regarding what is demanded by the public, which may result in inadequate supply. If the good were to be democracy, I am unsure whether there is a strong demand after the Party has successfully repressed/demonized liberal democracy and defined socialist democracy as following the Party’s leadership. Consequently, a predicament is some in the Party Center genuinely want socialist democracy, but their offer may not be appreciated by the public. Importantly, it is only some within the Party Center that desire so, perhaps the stronger voice is put onto criticizing the U.S. based on what the official media has been emphasizing for the past few months. Election, after all, is a public information campaign that requires the state to inform the electorate that there is an election going on. For the massive propaganda machine that Beijing is equipped with, they have failed the job in informing the electorate. The safe bet would be that they are reluctant in increasing propaganda work on local elections.

Then why committing on socialist democracy at a stage where economic development is still prioritized? As I was once told: “The reason why we do not implement every thing on our Constitution is not because we are hypocrites, it is because we set out our goals clearly and will strive to accomplish them in the future.” (Though this means punishing those who abide by the Constitution.) A perfect example would be the rise of talks on ‘common prosperity’ and the crackdowns on big cooperations. Many would remember Deng’s call for ‘letting some rich first’ as scholars have marked that as a turning point of political ideology in Beijing where Marxism is officially abandoned. Indeed, some even labeled that as a transition towards a post-socialist stage. However, few actually remember Deng’s immediate words next is to stress ‘common prosperity’, which Xi currently thinks is a political task he is required to fulfill, just like the need to end ‘tao guang yang hui’ and embark on a ‘new era’. Perhaps, the Communist Party of China does actually desires communism, but patience is learned after the failure of experimentation in early stages. Then, in the same vain, perhaps socialist democracy is wanted by Beijing, but the pace needs to be carefully controlled by the Party Center.

Ultimately, we return to the question of whether the demand will outpace the supply, or the speed of reform, the lack of which will be detrimental to the legitimacy of the Party. Then, an analysis of what makes the Party legitimate should be performed. Perhaps the most popular one is performance legitimacy, and its subcategories are numerous — economy, stability, international status, environment, individual income, social equality, social justice, crisis management, etc. — and perhaps this is the necessary consequence in having an extremely empowered Party Center as the public simply attribute all faults (and hopefully merits) to policymakers. Another is a weak legitimacy — cultural-historical legitimacy — because its effects are diminishing with an increase in time. The Party won the war, (mostly) reunited China, and is serving as a medium that passes down the Chinese culture, so it has a level of legitimacy, but all that is in the past, and the Party should, and I think already, know this alone is inadequate. Interestingly, the Party now is promoting its political system as another legitimacy as it argues for the institutional superiority over supposedly more advanced liberal democracy. For decades, Party theorists have been attempting to showcase Beijing can embark on an alternative pathway of development successfully, and the argument has become more convincing after ‘the crisis of liberal democracy’ in recent years. This source of legitimacy is Party leadership, which currently entails ‘whole-process democracy’ and ‘governance by law’ among others. Here, institutional legitimacy entails an ideological and moral highpoint that can be obtained to judge other systems condescendingly, or to be regarded as a model. After all, the Party argues that a socialist state should be able to address problems that cannot be addressed by capitalist ones.

Importantly, I argue that the three categories themselves do not change, only that its compositions change through time as people are educated differently to serve different interests across time and space. In other words, the capacity of constructing new factors within the three categories of legitimacy is significant. When the education/propaganda is sufficient, it would be possible for a regime to convince the population that certain achievement, interpretation of the culture or history, and form of institution can be legitimate. Crucially, the three factors tend to act in conjunction with one another. For example, Xi’s call for entering in a ‘new era’ marked by ‘common prosperity’ is simultaneously aimed at boosting social equality/justice, rejuvenating China, and forming a superior political system that cannot be obtained without Party leadership.

Since Deng’s leadership, the keynote in Beijing has become ‘reform’, though for many observers, the focus has been put onto the economic front. However, as the market evolves, political reforms are needed to encourage a reasonable response to emerging problems, and Beijing has done so whilst buttressing Party leadership. Then, a logical question would be if the Party needs to diminish its influence for its own sake. In other words, is the current Party-led political reform that prioritizes the consolidation and expansion of Party influence a sustainable pathway and would not jeopardize its own legitimacy in the future? As a politics student, a surprising thing that I learned just now is that ‘talking about politics’ means ‘being absolutely loyal to Party Center’, which defies the purpose of critical thinking, a key part of how I am assessed in essays. I guess, another way of framing the question would be — is critical thinking a thing to be celebrated or should we prioritize political loyalty?

As all philosophical questions lack a definitive answer, perhaps the safest bet would be to value the path-dependent argument of incrementally and cautiously making real-life policies because radical changes require absolute confidence in the betterment of the alternative. Therefore, it is rational to argue for a weaker, but still absolute, Party leadership that tolerates a more diverse source of voices so that dissenters can be utilized to strengthen China instead of wasting valuable resources to erase their existence. Party leadership at the national level should be respected, as the efficiency argument holds ground when cross-examining case studies of liberal democracies in Western societies. We should at least acknowledge that the political system Beijing currently practices is at least not inferior to its Western counterpart, in terms of performance legitimacy. However, at lower levels, especially at grassroots levels, perhaps a remedy to political indifference, rising consumerism, and the imperfection within institutional legitimacy would be greater emphasis on democracy. That is to say, Beijing should encourage a greater level of public participation in politics at grassroots levels to avoid unwise top-down decisions that are normally obtained without public consultation, such as the mandatory Mandarin education in Inner Mongolia that sparked an unusual protest. Moreover, this serves to partially address Beijing’s constant headache of local officials’ reluctance to innovate, and for local leaders, they can be emboldened to issue policies that are more suitable or beneficial for their own regions.

Unrelated stories: 1) I was labeled as an unpatriotic person by a taxi driver for raising the concern some academics have regarding the tough zero-tolerance policy regarding COVID-19. One must differentiate patriotism from nationalism, and nationalism from populism. Perhaps, a patriot is a person who upholds rational calculation to maximize state interest, but is irrational when it comes to questions of principles. For Beijing, there just happens to be too many principles. Here we go with the endless and answerless philosophical questions again. (It is also important to understand the object that receives patriotism, nationalism, and populism — Beijing encourages a harmonious nation composed by 56 nations, so the nationalism allowed is not the nationalism commonly understood in the West.) 2) I now remember a thing people used to say about how great life is under Party leadership — you can get delivery promptly and cheaply, unlike in the West. Now we are increasing the labor rights of workers, which will ultimately increase the cost of enjoying their services, I wonder if the same people can remember their contempt for the West. 3) There is a little newly built museum in the middle of Sanlitun (the CBD of Beijing) for the Party centenary celebration. I paid it a little visit prior to 7.1 and saw singers singing the Internationale, right in the middle of where the big money and FDI are. Not sure how to feel about that. 4) I am attempting to increase the use of Beijing wherever I can, because when people say ‘mainland’, they include Hainan, when people say China, they exclude Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.