M******8
发帖数: 10589 | 1 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/533a6374-1fdc-11e3-8861-00144feab7de.
By Jamil Anderlini
As the economy slows and middle-class discontent grows, it is the question
that’s now being asked not only outside but inside the country. Even at the
Central Party School there is talk of the unthinkable: the collapse of
Chinese communism
http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/07b7be80-1ffd-11e3-8861-
Tiananmen Square, Beijing, last month
Tucked away between China’s top spy school and the ancient imperial summer
palace in the west of Beijing lies the only place in the country where the
demise of the ruling Communist party can be openly debated without fear of
reprisal. But this leafy address is not home to some US-funded liberal think
-tank or an underground dissident cell. It is the campus of the Party School
of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the elite
training academy for the country’s autocratic leaders that is described in
official propaganda as a “furnace to foster the spirit of party members”.
The Central Party School was established in 1933 to indoctrinate cadres in
Marxism, Leninism and, later, Mao Zedong Thought, and past headmasters have
included Mao himself, recently anointed president Xi Jinping and his
predecessor Hu Jintao. In keeping with some of the momentous changes that
have occurred in Chinese society, the curriculum has been radically revised
in recent years. Students still steep themselves in the wisdom of Das
Kapital and “Deng Xiaoping Theory” but they are also taught classes in
economics, law, religion, military affairs and western political thought. As
well as watching anti-corruption documentaries and participating in
revolutionary singalongs, the mid-level and high-ranking party cadres who
make up the student body are given lessons in opera appreciation and
diplomatic etiquette.
A more significant change for an institution founded to enforce ideological
purity is its relatively new role as an intellectual free-fire zone, where
almost nothing is off-limits for discussion. “We just had a seminar with a
big group of very influential party members and they were asking us how long
we think the party will be in charge and what we have planned for when it
collapses,” says one Party School professor who asked not to be named
because he was not authorised to speak to foreign media. “To be honest,
this is a question that everyone in China is asking but I’m afraid it is
very difficult to answer.”
How long the heirs to Mao’s 1949 revolution can hang on to power has been a
perennial question since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and the
disintegration of the Soviet Union. Many dire predictions of imminent
collapse have come and gone but the party has endured and even thrived,
especially since it opened its ranks to capitalists for the first time a
decade ago. These days the revolutionary party of the proletariat is
probably best described as the world’s largest chamber of commerce and
membership is the best way for businesspeople to network and clinch
lucrative contracts.
In less than five years the Chinese Communist party will challenge the
Soviet Union (69 or 74 years in power depending on how you count it) and
Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (71 years until 2000) for the
longest unbroken rule by any political party. Modernisation theory holds
that authoritarian systems tend to democratise as incomes rise, that the
creation of a large middle class hastens the process and that economic
slowdown following a long period of rapid growth makes that transition more
likely. Serious and worsening inequality coupled with high levels of
corruption can add to the impetus for change.
All these factors now exist in China but some political theorists,
including many at the Central Party School, argue that the country is
culturally and politically exceptional and the wave of authoritarian
collapse still surging through the Arab world will never reach Chinese
shores. Others, including influential Chinese intellectuals, distinguished
western sinologists and even liberal-minded senior party members, believe
these are the final days of the Communist era and the party will be washed
away if it does not launch serious political reforms soon.
http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/0ecd23ae-1ffd-11e3-8861-
Professor Lin Zhe outside the Central Party School. Corruption, she says,
could 'lead to the demise of the party'
“One thousand autumns and 10,000 generations”
Chen Shu is a professor of party history, “party-building” and Mao Zedong
Thought at the Central Party School and his views reflect orthodox thinking
within the upper echelons of the party. For all the intellectual ferment and
free exchange of ideas that goes on inside the campus walls foreigners are
still forbidden from entering without special permission, a rule that harks
back to when the school’s very existence was a state secret. Chen has
graciously agreed to meet the FT in a tea house across the road from the
Summer Palace but he is impatient when asked what he thinks the future holds
for the party.
“Those theories about a China crisis or China collapse are all completely
western,” he says, in a tone that makes clear “western” is
pejorative. “The more pressure placed on Chinese culture and the Communist
party, the more united and cohesive they become and the more capable they
are of producing miracles.”
Lin Zhe is a Central Party School professor who has spent the past two
decades researching how the party tackles corruption in its ranks. At the
same tea house she cheerfully predicts the party will celebrate its
centenary in power in 2049 and says that it is preparing, as the Chinese
saying goes, to rule for “one thousand autumns and 10,000 generations
”. But both Lin and Chen also caution that the party’s legitimacy is
threatened by endemic corruption that has spread to every level in the
system. “This problem is very dangerous and, as China’s top leaders have
said, it could lead to the demise of the party and the demise of the nation,
” Lin says.
Authoritarian resilience
In his 1992 book, The End of History and The Last Man, Francis Fukuyama
argued that western liberal democracy represents the final form of human
government and the endpoint of ideological evolution. His argument was
boosted by the dramatic expansion of democracy during the 20th century. In
1900, no nation in the world had competitive multi-party politics with
universal suffrage and only about 12 per cent of humanity lived under a form
of government that could be regarded as somewhat democratic, according to
the American NGO Freedom House. By the dawn of the 21st century, 120 of the
world’s 192 internationally recognised countries were governed by electoral
democracies and 60 per cent of the world’s population lived under a
democratically elected leadership.
Next image Next ThumbnailsPrevious ThumbnailsFukuyama, now a senior fellow
at Stanford University, says he is convinced that China will follow the path
of most other countries, probably through a gradual liberalisation that
eventually yields democracy. But if that does not happen, he says popular
uprisings of the kind seen in the Arab spring are also possible.
“China’s political model is just not sustainable because of the rising
middle class – the same force that has driven democracy everywhere,” he
says. “The new generation in China is very different from the one that left
the land and drove the first wave of industrialisation – they’re much
better educated and much richer and they have new demands, demands like
clean air, clean water, safe food and other issues that can’t just be
solved by fast economic growth.”
Estimates of the size of China’s middle class vary depending on the
definition used but one thing is certain: it was virtually non-existent two
decades ago and is now growing exponentially. The consultancy McKinsey says
that what it calls the “upper middle class” – a segment of the population
with annual household incomes of between $17,350 and $37,500 – accounted
for 14 per cent of urban Chinese households last year but will account for
54 per cent of households in less than a decade.
China has often been held up as evidence to debunk Fukuyama’s theory, with
critics arguing that the party’s process of constant reinvention is far
more responsive to the needs and demands of its subjects than traditional
authoritarian systems. Until a few years ago, David Shambaugh, director of
the China Policy Program at George Washington University and a leading
expert on China’s political system, was a strong proponent of this view.
But he has changed his mind and now believes that the party is in a state of
decline that echoes the dying days of Chinese dynasties throughout history.
The signs include a hollow state ideology that society does not believe in
but ritualistically feigns compliance with, worsening corruption, failure to
provide the public with adequate social welfare and a pervasive public
sense of insecurity and frustration. Other signs include increasing social
and ethnic unrest, elite factionalism, over-taxation with the proceeds
mostly going into officials’ pockets, serious and worsening income
inequality and no reliable rule of law.
http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/135e2972-1ffd-11e3-8861-
The Central Party School in Beijing, training academy for China’s political
elite
Shambaugh says a powerful indicator of just how little faith exists in the
system is the number of wealthy Chinese elites with offshore assets and
property, offshore bank accounts and children studying in western
universities.
“These individuals are ready to bolt at a moment’s notice, as soon as the
political system is in its endgame – but they will remain in China in order
to extract every last Renminbi possible until that time,” he says. “Their
hedging behaviour speaks volumes about the fragile stability of the party
state in China today.”
The mummy in the crystal coffin
Hanging directly above Tiananmen – “the gate of heavenly peace” – at the
south entrance of the Forbidden City, a giant portrait of Mao Zedong stares
out across the eponymous square to the imposing mausoleum where his
mummified corpse lies draped in a Communist flag. Every morning of the week
except Monday, long lines of Chinese tourists snake across the square as
they wait for a glimpse of the great helmsman in his crystal sarcophagus.
A decade ago it was common to witness loud emotional outbursts and swooning
pilgrims dropping to their knees in the presence of China’s dead “red
emperor”. But on a recent weekday, the dominant sentiment among onlookers
seemed to be indifference or mild disappointment. “I waited in line for an
hour for that?” said one middle-aged man with a regional Chinese accent. “
I’m pretty sure that was just a wax dummy; what a waste of time.”
Theories about a China crisis are all completely western
- Chen Shu, professor, Central Party School
This subtle change in attitudes over the past decade represents a deeper
shift in Chinese society that is hard to quantify but increasingly obvious.
“The party’s ideological foundation is really very hollow,” says Perry
Link, a professor at the University of California Riverside and one of the
most well-respected western experts on China. “People join the party these
days to make connections and get ahead rather than for any kind of socialist
ideals.”
Probably the most important stimulus for heightened cynicism and questioning
of authority has been the rise of mass internet communication. China’s
online censorship regime is one of the most restrictive in the world, with
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and countless other online sites and services
blocked because of the party’s fear that these could be used to organise
political opposition. But an explosion of government-controlled domestic
alternatives, in particular the Twitter-like “Weibo” microblogging sites,
has still allowed people to partly circumvent party control of public
discourse in a way that has never been possible before.
As the Chinese economy slows and anger grows at a host of problems stemming
from a lack of political inclusion, it is this loss of control over thoughts
, ideas and messages that the party really worries about.
“Seven things that cannot be spoken of”
Shen Zhihua is a professor at East China Normal University who specialises
in the Soviet Union and is the son of People’s Liberation Army officers who
served alongside Mao in the revolution. He spent two years in prison in the
early 1980s after he was falsely accused of spying for the CIA. In
September 2009, Shen was among a small group of trusted scholars summoned by
former Chinese president Jiang Zemin to discuss the fall of the Soviet
Union. “Gorbachev betrayed the revolution,” Jiang told the group as he
asked them to identify the specific elements that led to the Soviet collapse.
http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/0a19b7f0-1ffd-11e3-8861-
Shen Zhihua, East China Normal University
Jiang’s view is the accepted orthodoxy among China’s leaders including
president Xi Jinping, according to Shen. In a speech to party members soon
after he was made head of the party and military late last year, Xi said
that the Soviet empire had crumbled “because nobody was man enough to stand
up and resist”.
“I cannot over-emphasise enough the fact that the CCP [Chinese Communist
party] leadership continues to live under the Soviet shadow – they
are hyper-conscious of the reforms Gorbachev undertook and absolutely refuse
to go down that path,” says Shambaugh from George Washington University.
Xi’s display of machismo fits with the more assertive stance he has taken
on the international stage as China continues to grow into its role as the
world’s “second superpower”. But as the new administration flexes its
muscles abroad, most prominently in simmering territorial disputes with
neighbours to the east, south and west, it paradoxically appears ever more
anxious and uncertain at home.
“China has a lot more power militarily, diplomatically and economically
than it did in the past and it can tell countries like the UK and US to back
off in a way it couldn’t before,” says Prof Link. “But for all this new
external power they seem a lot more fragile at home, a lot more concerned
about how long they can stay on top of this bubbling cauldron.”
Since his ascension, Xi has presided over a series of harsh crackdowns on
dissidents, free speech, ethnic separatists and civil society and has shown
absolutely no sign that he is the covert political reformer that some had
hoped. “Document Number Nine”, a secret memo that was distributed to
cadres in April and leaked through overseas Chinese media, shows how worried
the new leadership is about perceived threats to party rule. “Western
hostile forces and domestic dissidents are constantly infiltrating the
ideological sphere,” the document says. “In order to preserve the party’s
grip on power, attention should be paid to the mistaken ways of
thinking, positions and actions.”
The current system will definitely collapse. The question that really
worries me is what will come next
- Perry Link, University of California Riverside
According to the document, the party is engaged in a “fierce” struggle
involving seven grave threats that are now referred to in Chinese academic
circles as the “seven things that cannot be spoken of”. First on the list
is “western constitutional democracy” followed by other taboos such
as advocating human rights, an independent judiciary, media independence and
criticism of the party’s past.
“Many people are extremely disappointed by [Xi’s] words and his actions,”
says Shen Zhihua. “But there are some who defend him and say once he has
consolidated his power and stabilised the political situation then he will
push through reforms.” By this logic, Xi’s authoritarian lurch is more
tactical than strategic, a way of rallying the party faithful for the tough
reform agenda ahead.
“The more pessimistic, and frankly more realistic, interpretation is that
Xi has no fresh ideas so he just quotes Mao and tries to hold on tight to
power,” says one reformist “princeling” son of a former senior Chinese
leader, who knows Xi well but asked not to be named for fear of political
repercussions. “If that is the case, then China has no hope and eventually
the anger in society will explode into a popular uprising.”
No more miracles?
In the three decades since Deng Xiaoping launched market-oriented
reform and began opening China to the world, the country’s economy
has grown by an average of about 10 per cent a year. This spectacular
performance has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty
and led some to argue that China’s “market Leninism” has defied the
theory that societies democratise as they get richer. But according to Liu
Yu, an associate professor of political science at Tsinghua University
in Beijing, and Chen Dingding from the University of Macau, writing
in The Washington Quarterly last year, “those who argue for Chinese
exceptionalism overlook the fact that it is too early to tell whether China
has proved or disproved modernisation theory.”
China’s per capita GDP was about $9,200 in purchasing power terms in 2012
but, according to Liu and Chen, this has not yet reached the level where
countries with similar cultural and historical backgrounds began
transitioning to democracy. In 1988, democratising South Korea and Taiwan
had per capita purchasing power GDP of $12,221 and $14,584 respectively (in
2010 dollar terms), according to Liu and Chen. The levels for the Soviet
Union and Hungary in 1989, as they began their political transitions, were $
16,976 and $11,257 respectively (2010 dollars).
These numbers suggest continued rapid economic growth in China will put it
on the cusp of its own political transformation within just a couple of
years. By this logic, the party’s main source of legitimacy since
abandoning Maoism – its ability to provide rapid growth and rising living
standards – is the very thing that will eventually lead to its loss of
absolute political control.
But there are now strong signs that China’s investment-heavy, export-
oriented, state-dominated economic model is running out of steam and that
growth could slow more sharply than Beijing expects. China’s nominal year-
on-year GDP growth rate has slowed from 17 per cent in the fourth quarter of
2011 to about 8 per cent in the second quarter of this year and last year’
s growth was the slowest in 13 years. Most economists expect the pace to
moderate further over the next few years.
http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/0c7a04b4-1ffd-11e3-8861-
Mao Yushi, 'godfather of modern Chinese macroeconomics'. He predicts China
will face an 'unavoidable' financial crisis
By most measures, Communist China now has one of the most unequal societies
on earth, with most of the wealth concentrated in the hands of a small,
politically connected elite. If the current slowdown were to morph into an
economic crisis or trigger widespread unemployment, most analysts believe
the government would quickly face some sort of popular uprising. “In the
past two centuries, the last 30 years has been the only extended period
without war, famine or mass persecution, a period in which everyone’s lives
have been getting better and better,” says Mao Yushi, the 84-year-old
economist regarded as the godfather of modern Chinese macroeconomics. “The
legitimacy of the regime comes mainly from the success of economic reform
but the big problem is that expectations are now very high.”
The old economist was purged repeatedly during the Maoist era. He spent 20
years on and off doing hard labour in the countryside and enduring
beatings and humiliation. After his political rehabilitation he went on, in
1993, to found the Unirule Institute, an independent economic think-
tank, and he remains highly influential among reformers within the party and
government.
Mao predicts China will face an “unavoidable” financial crisis in the next
one to three years thanks to a huge build-up of bad debt and an enormous
property bubble but he thinks this could in turn push the country toward
democracy. “I think a financial crisis could actually be good for China as
it would force the government to implement economic and political
reforms,” Mao says. “That is the best-case scenario but the worst case
would be a violent uprising followed by a long period of unrest and
economic decline, like we see in Egypt.”
The negative example of Egypt is constantly invoked these days by both
Chinese and western political analysts. Like the former Egyptian dictator
Hosni Mubarak, the Communist party has been highly successful at squashing
any organisational force in society before it can take root.
“The current Chinese system will definitely collapse at some point – it
could be months, years or decades but when it collapses everyone will say of
course it was bound to happen,” says Prof Link. “The question that really
worries me is what will come next. The party has wiped out any group it
doesn’t control or which doesn’t see the world like it does and there is
nothing to take its place.”
The Olympic curse
It is surely just a cute coincidence of history that no authoritarian regime
except Mexico’s has lasted more than a decade after hosting a modern
Olympic games – think Berlin in 1936, Moscow in 1980, Sarajevo in 1984 and
Seoul in 1988. Five years from now the Chinese Communist party, which saw
the 2008 Beijing games as its “coming out party” on the world stage, may
not only have defied this Olympic curse but also surpassed the life cycle of
the Soviet Union and helped debunk democratisation theory.
But even the party’s most ardent defenders concede that China’s leaders
cannot rule indefinitely without addressing the demands for political
inclusion from a growing middle class that cares more about clean air, clean
water, clean government and safe food than GDP growth rates.
After three decades of stellar economic expansion, China’s growth model is
starting to run out of steam and if it were to face an abrupt slowdown the
party would lose its most convincing source of legitimacy. If the new
Chinese president, Xi Jinping, were to seize the initiative and launch
meaningful political reforms then China might follow the example of Taiwan
and South Korea in the late 1980s and 1990s and orchestrate a peaceful
transition to a more pluralistic and democratic system.
On the verdant campus of the Central Party School, some professors are
already studying how such a feat could be achieved. But so far Xi has shown
no inclination to do anything except tighten the party’s grip on power and
punish those who question perpetual one-party rule.
Many people inside and outside the party worry that by trying to suppress
growing popular discontent using the same old tools of repression, the new
administration may wake up one day to find the masses in the streets. “Xi
Jinping and this administration provide the last chance for China to
implement a social transformation [to a more liberal political system] that
comes from within the party and within the system,” says Shen Zhihua. “
Without these reforms there will certainly be a social explosion.” | x****u
发帖数: 44466 | 2 崩溃倒计时
the
summer
【在 M******8 的大作中提到】
: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/533a6374-1fdc-11e3-8861-00144feab7de.
: By Jamil Anderlini
: As the economy slows and middle-class discontent grows, it is the question
: that’s now being asked not only outside but inside the country. Even at the
: Central Party School there is talk of the unthinkable: the collapse of
: Chinese communism
: http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/07b7be80-1ffd-11e3-8861-
: Tiananmen Square, Beijing, last month
: Tucked away between China’s top spy school and the ancient imperial summer
: palace in the west of Beijing lies the only place in the country where the
| h****l
发帖数: 2993 | | m**********n
发帖数: 27535 | | l****p
发帖数: 27354 | 5 比元朝好点，虽然和元朝的共同点都是 - 汉族屁民是三等人。
所以，我估计寿命是99年。
【在 h****l 的大作中提到】
: 如果不是不满百年，那就是300年左右，历史规律
| n*****8
发帖数: 19630 | 6 这个问题和LZ一贯脑残一样。
如果问土工能执政多久，可能几百年，
但要问作为政党存在多少年，可能是永远啊，老将们没盼望了。
:) | s*****r
发帖数: 11545 | 7 At least 300 years more. | G**L
发帖数: 22804 | 8 洋人不知道胡虏无百年之运这个说法。但也有满人过了百年，因为它汉化了。产党已经
把大部分共产教扔垃圾桶里了，还把孔老二又从下水道里捞出来，看看产党拒绝现代化
邪路还能活多久
the
summer
【在 M******8 的大作中提到】
: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/533a6374-1fdc-11e3-8861-00144feab7de.
: By Jamil Anderlini
: As the economy slows and middle-class discontent grows, it is the question
: that’s now being asked not only outside but inside the country. Even at the
: Central Party School there is talk of the unthinkable: the collapse of
: Chinese communism
: http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/07b7be80-1ffd-11e3-8861-
: Tiananmen Square, Beijing, last month
: Tucked away between China’s top spy school and the ancient imperial summer
: palace in the west of Beijing lies the only place in the country where the
| y**********g
发帖数: 2728 | 9 现在国内菜价奇贵，民不聊生。
普通的绿叶菜，动辄十几块钱一斤。 | m*****t
发帖数: 2800 | 10 老外就是迷信，怪不得唯心主义呢。
08年北京奥运时就说，纳粹德国办奥运3年后就发动世界大战，所以中国在2011年就会
入侵其它国家。 |
|
