The China Model: How Authoritarianism Works

I went to the lecture on Chinese authoritarianism at the Mortara Center today and it was full of the themes we've thus far discussed in class. The speaker, Andrew Nathan, is a renowned scholar in the field of comparative politics. The topic of discussion was China's authoritarianism and what it means in a comparative politics context.

Nathan's lecture corroborated much of what we've talked about in class. He called the Chinese government smart, adaptive, resilient; it has much discipline in how it approaches and adapts to the circumstances. As well, he also talked about two types of legitimacy in China: is it legitimacy dependent on performance or is it (for the Chinese people) a legitimacy dependent on something else? Indeed, he noted that economics was playing a large part in the answer.

One final point I would like to bring up in this very brief summary of Nathan's lecture was the idea that of the "China Model" and how it is, according to Nathan, non-transferable. That is, the type of government that persists in China cannot successfully replicate itself in other environments such as in Russia or Switzerland. A major factor as to why has much to do with the strength (and health) of the ruling party. He emphasized how in China, succession to senior government posts meant that the individual had to have been involved in Chinese politics for a long, long, long time. It's not like in America where just about any one (with the requirements imposed by our Constitution) can enter politics. He made the analogy that a governor of Arkansas could have been the "some guy"; in China's case, this is not possible. The ruling elite is comprised of individuals who have had experience over the course of many years and is well-versed in party policy and ideology to undertake these policies with some sort of GOAL. In the "democracies" (quoted because democracies are different all around), the constant change between generations and the assumption of power by those not necessarily experienced delays the "health" of the governing system and does not allow it to persist in the same way as the Communist party of China.

What does this all mean for China? As we've discussed in section and class, China's growth is interlinked with economics but does that justify party legitimacy? Is it historical legacy, a society heavily dependent on centralized bureaucracy? Is it materialism, a society having given up values of substance for economic well-being and prosperity? As Beth pointed out, what keeps the Chinese system going?

I offer the hypothesis that it's a culmination of all of these factors, defined by nationalism. Chinese nationalism is unique; after all, it is a paradox if one were to perceive nationalism in a socialist context. A society without "labels" is one core goal of communism, where nations can shed their boundaries and borders and become one massive society. At the same time, this rise in Chinese nationalism is contributed to economic success and to history. In terms of the historical, China's role during the cold war was an extension of USSR influence. While the US attempted to keep the USSR under control, perceiving it as the opposite extreme of democracy, China was the wildcard, its role heavily downplayed or upped depending on the circumstances and the shifts in US-USSR politics. When the USSR fell, the Chinese became the focus, a giant nation that had the potential to spread an Asian iron curtain. But that wasn't the case. Instead, China moved ahead with economic reforms and now, when as Nathan had said, many had predicted a collapse, China still stands tall. The historical element is that China never had that Western-Chinese faceoff. China closed its borders for many years during the cold war, only playing a role if it saw its security threatened (i.e. Korean War). But when communism over Europe collapsed, China's role transformed; it was forced to get out of its self-imposed isolation. China's leaders had to adapt to this changing circumstance. Seeing how the USSR could fall due to a USSR-US faceoff that had taken some 40 years to end, I think China wasn't prepared to have that same China-Western faceoff in the post-USSR world, so great was the fear of the end of the communist party. To allay those fears, the party leaders turned to economics.

Economics thus became a tool for political finessing. By increasing economic reforms, China emphasized its new role as not necessarily political, thereby averting all US attention on it as political, but by economics. Welcoming investors and business, China re-entered the world on an economic note. Doing so averted political disaster for its leaders and gained its leaders legitimacy at home. The Chinese, satisfied with an increase in the standard of living, could view the new world attention on China (more positive than the USSR's) as a form of national pride. Both the economic and historical factors thus gave way to the nationalism that has been used repeatedly by the CCP for maintaining its control.

This is how I view the China question; how this form of authoritarianism continues to persist might puzzle scholars. But, it's not without imitators. Other authoritarian systems such as Vietnam have followed this approach, opening the market all the while maintaining one-party rule. The question, then, should be what does China's authoritarianism mean as an isolated situation, but what does this authoritarianism mean for future regimes that follow China in this post-communist world?