Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T20:15:03.137Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Modernization of Factionalism in Chinese Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Lowell Dittmer  and
Yu-Shan Wu
Lowell Dittmer
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Yu-Shan Wu
Affiliation:
National Taiwan University
Get access

Abstract

The informal dimension has always been important in Chinese politics, due to a traditional bias against legalism and favoring the sentimentalization of personal qualities. We contend that it remains so still, albeit in altered form. Rather than being oriented solely to personal or in-group security, factionalism in the context of the more secure bureaucratic environment of the reform era has come to embrace policy goals and material interests as well. Thus, informal politics proliferates, and factional fortunes tend tofluctuateaccording to the patterns of China's political business cycle.

In the post-Mao era the radical reformers led by Deng Xiaoping have favored rapid growth, even at the expense of stability. The conservatives surrounding Chen Yun consider stability the paramount goal, believing that it should override considerations of growth. The synchronization of reform and business cycles, plus the appearance of periodic social movements whenever the growth rate slumps, makes reformers and conservatives vulnerable to charges of mismanaging the economy for their respective policy preferences. As long as the business, reform, and movement cycles coincide, wide policyfluctuationsdriven by a politics of blame are inevitable.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , July 1995 , pp. 467 - 494
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Riker, William H., The Theory of Political Coalitions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967)Google Scholar.

2 Haruhiro Fukui and Shigeko Fukai, “Informal Aspects of Electoral Politics in Japan” (Paper delivered at the Conference on Informal Politics in East Asia, Hong Kong, August 17–18,1992).

3 Peter Nan-shong Lee, “Informal Politics and Leadership Succession in Post-Mao China” (Paper delivered at the Conference on Informal Politics in East Asia, Hong Kong, August 17–18,1992).

4 Dittmer, Lowell, “Bases of Power in Chinese Politics: A Theory and an Analysis of the Fall of the ‘Gang of Four,’” World Politics 31 (October 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, “Chinese Informal Elite Politics: Toward a Reconceptualization” (Paper delivered at the Conference on Informal Politics in East Asia, Hong Kong, August 17–18,1992).

5 Dittmer (fn. 4,1978), 33.

6 Benjamin C. Ostrov, “Formal Organization and the Birth of Clientage in the PRC: The National Defense R & D Sector” (Paper delivered at the Conference on Informal Politics in East Asia, Hong Kong, August 17–18,1992).

7 Nathan, Andrew J., “A Factionalism Model for CCP Politics,” China Quarterly, no. 53 (1973)Google Scholar.

8 Tsou, Tang, “Prolegmonenon to the Study of Informal Groups in CCP Politics,” China Quarterly, no. 65 (1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Pye, Lucian, The Dynamics of Chinese Politics (Cambridge, England: Oelgeschlager, Gunn and Hain, 1981)Google Scholar.

10 King, Ambrose Yeo-Chi, “Kuan-hsi and Network Building: A Sociological Interpretation,” Daedalus 120, no. 2 (1991), 67Google Scholar, 69.

11 Ibid., 65.

12 Harding, Harry, “Competing Models of the Chinese Communist Policy Process: Toward a Sorting and Evaluation,” Issues and Studies 20, no. 2 (1984)Google Scholar.

13 Allison, Graham T., Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little and Brown, 1971), 42Google Scholar.

14 Lieberthal, Kenneth and Oksenberg, Michel, Policy Making in China: Leaders, Structures, and Processes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

15 Pye (fn. 9).

16 See Harding (fn. 12), 16; see also Solinger, Dorothy J., China's Transition from Socialism: Statist Legacies and Market Reforms, 1980–1990 (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1993)Google Scholar, chap. 2.

17 Nathan (fn. 7).

18 Harding (fn. 12), 27.

19 Lee (fn. 3).

20 Harding (fn. 12), 30; see also Teiwes, Frederick C., “The ‘Rules of Game’ in Chinese Politics,” Problems of Communism 28, no. 5–6 (1979)Google Scholar.

21 See Esherick, Joseph W. and Perry, Elizabeth J., “Leadership Succession in the People's Republic of China: Crisis or Opportunity?” Studies in Comparative Communism 16, no. 3 (1983), 176CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Parish, William L., “Factions in Chinese Military Politics,” China Quarterly, no. 56 (1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Dittmer, Lowell, “Patterns of Elite Strife and Succession in Chinese Politics,” China Quarterly, no. 123 (1990), 410Google Scholar.

23 Ibid., 420.

24 Shirk, Susan, The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993)Google Scholar, albeit in an earlier draft that excluded the portions cited above.

25 If we calculate the frequency of social protests, including strikes, demonstrations, etc., as reported in the Chinese newspapers, and compare it with the inflation rate, we find a striking correlation. From 1980 to 1993 the correlation coefficient between the frequency of social protests and inflation rate in the PRC is 0.728. If we take the two variables in their natural log forms, the correlation coefficient rises to 0.747. Since the Chinese economy responded only slowly to contractionary policies, overheating was usually followed by a painful period of sustained high inflation plus slower growth. Social protests were most frequent in this context. Our findings on the relationship between frequency of social protests and rate of inflation lends support to this observation.

26 Yin I-Ch'ang, “Ts'ung li-shih kuan-tien k'an ching-chi t'iao-cheng” (Economic adjustment viewed from a historical perspective) (Paper delivered at the Eleventh Sino-American Conference on Mainland China, Taipei, July 1982).

27 Lin, Chong-Pin, “China: The Coming Changes,” American Enterprise, no. 2 (1991), 21Google Scholar.

28 Sheng, Hua, Xuejun, Zhang, and Xiaopeng, Luo, “Zhongguo gaige shinian: huigu, fansi han qianjing,” Jigji Yanjiu, no. 9 (1988), 32Google Scholar.

29 Wu, Yu-Shan, Comparative Economic Transformations: Mainland China, Hungary, the Soviet Union, and Taiwan (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1994)Google Scholar, chap. 3.

30 Wu, Yu-Shan, “Reforming the Revolution: Industrial Policy in China,” Pacific Review, no. 3 (1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Xiaoping, Deng, “Deng Xiaoping tongzhi zai Wuchang, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shanghai dengdi de tanhua yaodian,” in Zhonggong Shenzhen shiwei xuanchuanbu, ed., Yijiujiuer nian chun: Deng Xiaop-ingyu Shenzhen (The spring of 1992: Deng Xiaoping and Shenzhen) (Shenzhen: Haitian chubanshe, 1992)Google Scholar.

32 Xiangdong, Fang, “1988–1991 nian zhili zhengdun guigu ji dui weilai jingji yunxing de zhan-wang,” Jingji lilun yujingjiguanli, no. 6 (1991), 1–8Google Scholar.

33 The usual interpretation of this retreat from austerity is that Zhu made many enemies, alienating fellow reformers with his Chen Yun-like stance and infuriating vested interests (e.g., the provincial authorities, the PLA) by choking off credit. Thus, in talks with intimates in September 1993, Deng Xiaoping himself reportedly called for another season of “sustained, high-speed, and healthy growth,” and Zhu was obliged to ease credit by approving loans worth about $62 billion for the last quarter of 1993. Much of the new credit has been used to pay the salaries of workers and civil servants. Lam, Willy Wolap, “Zhu Rides Out the Storm,” World Press Review 41, no. 2 (1994), 43 ff.Google Scholar

34 Yin (fn. 26).