1/25/2024 0 Comments Welcome to plutocracyThis will allow the CP to maintain both its monopoly on politics and its grip on the essential pillars of the economy, while accepting a certain number of compromises with society, and particularly its new elites, through the development of more equitable conflict resolution institutions (legal arbitration and conciliation institutions), of more or less institutionalised systems of consultation (people’s congresses, think tanks, opinion polls) as well as through the setting up of proto-democratic mechanisms within the apparatus of a Party where promotion will remain above all based on co-optation mechanisms. For a number of reasons which we will explore briefly, this successful adaptation 4 is highly likely to continue in the foreseeable future, which is to say in the medium term. But what I would like to try to show here is the China’s great ability to adapt-and therefore to resist-the Chinese CP, its leadership and its nomenklatura, as an institution exercising political power in a monopolistic fashion and seeking to preserve this monopoly.ĢSince the launching of reforms in 1979, this adaptation has been based on both a redefinition-in reality a reduction-of the political sphere, and an undeniable “modernisation” of the state and of its relations with society. In September 2004, a few days before succeeding Jiang Zemin at the head of the country’s powerful Central Military Committee, did not Hu Jintao, head of the Party and of the state declare that Western democracy was a “dead-end” for China? 3 Pressure in favour of greater liberalisation and even democratisation of the Chinese regime does indeed exist, within the Communist Party (CP) as well, and it would be wrong to ignore or overlook it. But what will replace it? We know that a democratic transition is clearly not envisaged by the current political leadership. One cannot help thinking that the present political regime, directed by a single party which, despite all its metamorphoses, still claims to be communist, will, eventually, disappear. This does not mean that any break with the present political system and, in particular, any transition to democracy should be ruled out. For a multiplicity of reasons its path has been different and is likely to continue to be. However, does a move to another system necessarily translate into a transition to democracy? Is it not possible that China might once again innovate and succeed in emerging from communism by means of an evolution towards a more flexible but stabilised authoritarianism, consultative yet elitist and corporatist, endowed with a certain legal modernity but not with the rule of law and still only partially institutionalised? In short, might not China be evolving towards what I would be tempted to call “enlightened” but plutocratic authoritarianism? Top of pageġWhat does the future hold for the Chinese political regime? 1 This is a particularly difficult question to answer, as China, more than many other countries, has evolved in an atypical way, both when it was a totalitarian state and since the death of Mao Zedong, and especially since the end of the Cold War and of European communism 2. That changes introduced within the system might eventually favour a change of system cannot be ruled out. Moreover the numerous social and economic as well as international constraints-such as maintaining its position vis-à-vis the United States-which China must overcome, as well as the “class” interests of the political and economic elites that lead the country, militate against any quick escape from authoritarianism. Since the launch of the reforms in 1979, most striking has been China’s tremendous ability to adapt to-and therefore to resist-the Communist Party, its leadership and its nomenklatura, as an institution exercising political power in a monopolistic fashion and seeking to preserve this monopoly while maintaining an increasingly plutocratic grip on the most strategic segments of the economy.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |