On October 1 in Beijing, a massive military parade and celebration will mark the sixtieth anniversary of the communist victory in China. Minxin Pei explains the importance of the anniversary to China’s domestic and foreign policy.
Pei says that while the Chinese communist party has had a good run for the last 30 years, its prospects for the future are less clear. “Maintaining high rates of economic growth—the key to the party’s survival—amid an aging population, resource scarcity, rising social inequality, ethnic tensions, environmental degradation, and economic imbalances will be no easy task…yet for now, the party knows that its only option is to keep the economy humming.”
What are the plans for the celebrations? What is the significance of the event?
By official accounts, the military parade on October 1 will be far greater and grander than the last such parade, held a decade ago. The 66-minute performance will feature all branches of China’s armed forces, showcasing immaculately uniformed, goose-stepping soldiers alongside the country’s latest advances in weaponry. China will show off its newest solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles, airborne warning and control systems, supersonic anti-ship missiles, and indigenous fighter jets. In addition to the military parade, a procession of civilians will represent various professions and social and ethnic groups. And of course, all the senior party leadership will be on the reviewing stand atop Tiananmen.
These festivities are politically significant for the Chinese Communist Party, which wants to convey an image of strength to both the Chinese public and the international community. In particular, the Chinese government wants to boost its political legitimacy by demonstrating its achievements.
How has the communist party maintained control for six decades?
To be honest, the party’s first three decades in power (1949−1978) were a period the current Chinese government would rather forget. During these years, radical Maoist policies nearly destroyed the party’s rule. Mao systematically purged moderates who disagreed with him and launched a series of catastrophic political campaigns, including the Anti-Rightist Movement (1957), the Great Leap Forward (1958), and the Cultural Revolution (1966−1976), all of which did enormous damage to China and to the party’s legitimacy. The Great Leap Forward, Mao’s forced industrialization campaign, caused mass starvation in China and the deaths of more than 36 million people. And the Cultural Revolution brought China to the brink of civil war and total collapse of government authority.
Only after Deng Xiaoping instituted economic reforms in 1979 did China begin developing into the great power it is today. This period, 1979 to the present, is what the Communist Party wants people to remember and celebrate. Needless to say, the party’s strategy of staying in power has changed almost completely during this period. At home, the party relies on promoting economic growth, raising the standard of living, co-opting social elites, and using selective but effective measures of repression. Abroad, Beijing pursues a generally cooperative and pragmatic foreign policy that embraces globalization and avoids needless conflict with the West, in particular the United States. This strategy has delivered rich dividends to the party. One can argue that the party has never had it so good.
In July, ethnic violence broke out in Xinjiang and the government also faces the seemingly intractable problem of ethnic unrest in Tibet. How is the country’s leadership managing these ethnic tensions? How will simmering disputes impact the government’s authority?
The re-emergence of ethnic separatism is undoubtedly very bad news for Beijing. International experience shows that ethnic conflicts are among the toughest for any country to solve. Authoritarian regimes have even greater difficulties finding political solutions in this area because their promises carry little credibility among aggrieved ethnic minorities. Chinese leaders fully understand this. They are caught in a dilemma: they are afraid that if they back down and accommodate the ethnic minorities, they will appear weak and encourage the ethnic minorities to escalate their demands; but if they crack down harder, they will also exacerbate the minorities’ grievances and fuel extremism, even terrorism.
For now, Beijing appears to have settled on a hardline policy that focuses on maintaining stability through more intense security measures. It will likely complement this approach with greater economic incentives for the ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang and Tibet. Simmering conflicts with the Uighurs and the Tibetans make Chinese rule in these areas more costly and less stable, but Beijing can control the challenge to its authority because the Han ethnic majority of the Chinese population supports the government’s position. As long as that public support persists, Beijing will feel little political pressure to change its policies.
How is the government responding to protests over land rights, pollution, and corruption?
While not necessarily changing its policy or allowing genuine democratic reforms and the rule of law to respond to these social and political problems, the Chinese government has nevertheless tried different tactics to deal with them. It occasionally punishes local officials to show that it cares about public opinion and wants to solve these problems. It has increased its spending on environmental protection as well—though the problem is so huge that even greater spending will be required. While the legal framework protecting property rights remains patchy, rising civic activism has made it harder for local officials to confiscate land or relocate urban residents by force, as they did before.
Corruption remains a serious challenge to the party. Its current approach to this scourge is a mix of selective prosecution and technocratic fixes, tightening some regulations and improving the techniques of detection. But the party has resisted more radical approaches, such as further liberalization of the economy, greater freedom of the press and civil society, and a more independent judiciary to fight corruption. That is the key reason why corruption among officials remains such a widespread problem.
China will soon surpass Japan as the world’s second largest economy. With the country’s economic rise, what role will China play in Asia and the world?
This is a huge question. Nobody knows for sure. China’s role in Asia and the world is evolving, as the country gains economic clout and its interests expand. For now, its strategy is “selective cooperation and leadership.” While China generally abhors playing a leadership role out of fear of overextending its limited resources and stepping on the United States’ toes, in recent years Beijing has shown that it is not completely averse to limited cooperation on its own terms.
This means that China will gradually increase its contribution of global public goods, such as security and free trade. There are two challenges in this regard. First, the Chinese government does not feel that doing so will get it a lot of political credit at home, because China’s domestic needs are huge. Second, the international community has very high expectations of China. So whatever China does will likely come as something of a disappointment.
What do China’s actions in Africa, Latin America, and other regions signal about its developing foreign policy?
Several factors motivate China’s foreign policy makers. They want to maintain China’s status as leader of the developing world. So they have devoted considerable attention to cultivating relations with the governments in these areas. A more recent, and definitely more urgent, need for China is to secure access to natural resources, such as energy and commodities. Beijing views such access as critical to its economic security because China is a resource-scarce manufacturing powerhouse, and must import the commodities that supply its factories and power plants.
Because China is a latecomer to world commodities markets and lacks the reach and sophistication of entrenched Western multinational corporations, Chinese leaders attempt to compensate for their weakness by flexing the muscles of the Chinese state, using giant state-owned companies and cash-rich state-owned banks to compete for natural resources in these regions. Unfortunately, this policy has met with fear and suspicion among Western governments, companies, and local authorities in these regions. And of course, China’s policy has benefited some rogue regimes, such as those in Sudan, Burma, and Zimbabwe, which have capitalized on Beijing’s needs in return for its support.
China’s military capabilities will be on display during the commemorations. Over the past two decades, China has increased defense spending and improved its military arsenal. How does the Chinese military compare with other great powers?
Despite rapid strides in military modernization, China still has a lot of catching up to do. It certainly lags behind the U.S. military across the board. Its equipment is mostly of 1980s or 1990s vintage. Most of its neighbors, including Japan, India, South Korea, and Taiwan, have more advanced and better-trained air forces and navies than it does. Training, morale, and logistics are serious challenges as well. Joint operations and coordination among various branches of the armed forces are a work in progress. Of course, China has closed the gap significantly in the past two decades, but it would be a stretch to say that China has the world’s second-most capable military.
President Hu Jintao is supposed to step down in 2012. Who will be the next president? Is there democracy within the party?
Xi Jinping, the 56-year-old vice president, is Hu’s designated heir. Although the party leadership has made pledges of increasing democratic procedures within the party, actual progress to this end has been minimal. Leaders are not yet selected by secret ballot or open contest within the party. Key appointments come about as a result of bargains struck among various factions. The process is as opaque as it was 30 years ago, and local party bosses have practically unchecked power. The rank and file of the party have few regularized channels to influence personnel decisions or policy making within the party.
What is the future of the communist party in China after 60 years in power? Are there any challenges to one-party rule?
While the party has had a very good run since 1979, its future prospects are less clear. Challenges to one-party rule will come from all directions. If the party succeeds in maintaining high rates of economic growth, then urbanization and the rapid increase in the ranks of the middle class will make it very difficult for the party to keep its political grip. And at the same time, if the party fails to deliver the economic goods, it will lose its legitimacy and its hold on power will grow shaky. For now, the party knows that its only survival strategy is to keep the economy growing.
Minxin Pei is an adjunct senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Tom and Margot Pritzker ’72 Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College.
