China's President Xi Jinping shakes hands with National People's Congress Chairman Zhang Dejiang

Politics

La bonne façon de juger la gouvernance chinoise

Mar 26, 2018 Andrew Sheng and Xiao Geng

HONG KONG – A la suite les « deux sessions » en Chine – les réunions annuelles du corps législatif national et de l'organe suprême de conseil politique – tous les observateurs occidentaux, semble-t-il, discutent de la suppression de la limite de deux mandats pour le président. Selon les médias internationaux, Xi Jinping est en train de consolider son pouvoir et pourrait même être occupé à poser les bases d'un culte de la personnalité à la Mao Zedong. Pourtant, cette lecture est fondamentalement erronée.

La vision occidentale prédominante selon laquelle l'autorité croissante de Xi représente une tendance dangereuse reflète en partie l'inquiétude à propos des défis démocratiques de plus en plus importants aux États-Unis et en Europe. Néanmoins, cela n’a pas beaucoup de sens d’observer les développements politiques chinois à travers un prisme occidental, en particulier à un moment où le monde est en train de se déplacer d'un système unipolaire à un système multipolaire.

Les changements récents en Chine devraient plutôt être considérés comme faisant partie d'un processus plus large, dans lequel des systèmes de gouvernance concurrents émergent pour faire face à des défis complexes, globalement connectés, tels que les technologies de rupture, les rivalités géopolitiques, les changements climatiques et les changements démographiques. En bref, les pays tentent de trouver leur équilibre de gouvernance.

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Andrew Sheng

Writing for PS since 2011
135 Commentaries

Andrew Sheng is a distinguished fellow at the Asia Global Institute at the University of Hong Kong.

Xiao Geng

Writing for PS since 2012
125 Commentaries

Xiao Geng, Chairman of the Hong Kong Institution for International Finance, is a professor and Director of the Institute of Policy and Practice at the Shenzhen Finance Institute at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 6 Comments on this article

Alexander Smith Mar 30, 2018

"Two thousand years ago, the Chinese philosopher Han Fei argued that effective governance required three things: the rule of law, bureaucratic tools, and political will."

Please expand on the work Xi is doing for the rule of law, and for strengthening the independent bureaucracy, because it sure looks like he is destroying all the meagre progress of the last 30 years in the former, and centralising all important decision making to his whims in the latter.

As for your claim that the formation of the NSC is evidence that accountability has increased, you have observed the same marked restriction of press freedoms during Xi's reign as the rest of us, haven't you? Not only did not a single Chinese citizen outside those couple of thousand in the hall vote on the major constitutional change to remove presidential term limits, they weren't allowed to discuss it on any online platform whatsoever.

To say that a lack of evidence of internal dissent, in a country without press freedom or the rule of law, a country that now spends more each year managing domestic security (read social unrest - have they exceeded 100k incidents a year yet?) than it does foreign security, is evidence that China's governance is in any way superior to checks and balances on power is just.....you'd have to be wilfully ignorant....
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j. von Hettlingen Mar 27, 2018

In the face of recent development in China – the abolition of presidential term limits and the fear that the country would slide from autocracy into dictatorship – Andrew Sheng and Xiao Geng say the “right way” to judge Chinese governance is not to see it through our Western lens. They simply mean to say: “Leave China alone” and it does not have to live up to the “Western expectations.” Besides the current global order – Pax Americana – is unravelling, and the world “is shifting from a unipolar to a multipolar system.”
China derides liberal democracy and decries Western criticism of its governance model. Indeed, Beijing had during Trump’s campaign laughed at the pitfalls and perils of Western democracy, which has been undermined by “serious internal threats” like the rise of populism that advocates nativism, protectionism and against globalisation, from which Beijing has hugely benefitted. Its vast pool of cheap labour helped keep prices down in the West, fuelling resentments among the working class in Europe and the US.
Unlike most major economies, China had survived the 2008 global financial crisis and thrived. The West was totally ill prepared, because governments overspent for years and ran high deficits to keep the welfare state afloat and secure their re-elections. When they had to borrow massively to stabilise the economy, austerity measures were implemented. Their inability to manage the economic meltdown and failure to address social grievances resulting from income inequality and dwindling living standards, enable populists to beat mainstream parties in elections.
The “political polarization, rising debt, and failing infrastructure” in Europe and across the US underlie China’s argument that Western democracy is dysfunctional, and vindicate its form of governance as a bulwark against disruptive forces that would jeopardise the country’s long-term goal to secure economic growth and stability. So seeing Xi’s “growing authority” as a “dangerous trend,” may just be a distraction from the “anxiety over growing challenges to democracy” in the West.
The authors say China under Xi does not seek to emulate the “failure” that dogs Western democracies, which embrace this “short-termism.” They say the “short electoral cycles” in the West force politicians to pander to voters and focus on “cyclical issues” instead of “structural impediments to long-term productivity gains and income growth.” These myopic policies are not always optimal, offering only instant or short-term solutions, while politicians often “neglect long-term risks and opportunities.”
But the Chinese leadership is risk averse, and has little appetite for a trial-and-error process. In the West disaffected voters have the choice to unseat their politicians in the ballot box, hoping that those elected would deliver. Chinese citizens can not vote and escape the iron grip of their Communist Party. Perhaps its cadres foresee the logisitic headache of holding elections cyclically in a country with 1.4 billion inhabitants. With more than one political party vying for power, it will spell the end of the Communists’ monopoly power.
The authors say Chinese leaders indulge in long-term planning “in terms of decades,” and Xi has “set a 30-year target for modernizing the country’s economy and governance – a long-term goal that reflects the kind of vision that few countries have managed to articulate, let alone implement.” This should justify the removal of the presidential term limit, allowing the leader to realise his “vision” and improve his “chances of success.”
Obviously the current system enables an “effective response” to problems. In the West an executive action is subject to checks and balances. The authors say the National People’s Congress “has approved a major overhaul of China’s governance structure, creating a new National Supervision Commission to check corruption by all Chinese officials, regardless of their affiliations or status in the Communist Party of China.” But the Commission does not control executive power, making the whole country vulnerable to the whims of one man, who has abolished the “first among equals” leadership. As a core leader, Xi will emerge as an all-powerful leader.
What the authors fail to see is that “short electoral cycles” do not plunge the West into chaos. On the contrary they strengthen democracy and make their people resilient to disruptive forces, like populism and hostile propaganda. Despite political turmoil in the US and uncertainty in some EU countries, their civil society is robust and institutions are strong – they function even in the absence of a government.
China has come a long way since Deng Xiaoping’s economic reform in the 1980s. It seeks to rule the world by 2049, when it celebrates the centenary of the People’s Republic of China. In our world of economic interdependence China has become “too big to fail.” Many believe that if the country sneezes, the rest of the world will catch a cold. Hence it is crucial that it continues to thrive, but it remains to be seen whether its model of governance would outdo liberal democracy.
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Marc Laventurier Mar 27, 2018

You'll know the CCP is serious when instead of harnessing every scrap of information (and pliant commentators) to keep itself in power, and then aping the literally bankrupt institutions of capitalism, it dedicates itself to a true 'Star Trek' socialism where human integrity and well being are the direct motivation, unmediated by the squalid scramble after paper profits under a regime of manipulated and inefficient faux Darwinism. What is likely to happen as the CCP busies itself with decades of such planning is that a transnational non-profit technological institution functionally equivalent to a highly advanced socialism will end up interfacing with the PRC much as WalMart has, possibly, including from within.
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Marc Torras Mar 26, 2018

I agree that removing the 2 term limit is, in the short term, the best for China. Xi is a strong leader, charismatic, well prepared and Chinese love him. Problems with strongmen happen usually after a few years, or when the strongman dies and the replacement does not have the same legitimacy or is not up to the task.
Deng Xiaoping put this rule for some reason. Mao was very good for China at the beginning, but terrible after a few years. China needs a strong government, but it does not need another Mao. Time to time.
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Dzhamil Faria Mar 26, 2018

By human biomechanics : the Man walking (on 2 legs) is unstable and disharmonic. Shall the Man walk on all his 4 limbs again as he was?
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