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Chinese Politics in the Hu Jintao Era: New Leaders, New Challenges (East Gate Books)

Description

Drawing on hundreds of interviews with top Chinese officials, parliamentarians, scholars, and businessmen, Willy Lam, a renowned journalist and writer on Chinese affairs, presents a first-hand, multi-dimensional account of twenty-first century China and the impact of fourth generation leaders, including President Hu Jinato and Premier Wen Jiabao. Lam goes behind the glitzy facade of nouveau-riche Beijing and Shanghai to examine how the Hu leadership has tried to extend the Communist Party's "mandate of heaven" by tackling an array of daunting problems: the weakening legitimacy of the Party's leadership; restive peasants; angry workers; political stagnation over the lack of reform; foreign relations difficulties; unreliable energy supplies; resurgent nationalism; and the increasingly dubious "Chinese model" of development. The author assesses possible contributions that the new classes of private businessmen, professionals, and intellectuals - as well as new ideas such as nationalism, globalization, and federalism - will make to economic prosperity and political liberalization. The book also includes a chapter on foreign policy, which contains an insightful account of Beijing's evolving and sometimes difficult relations with the United States, Europe, Japan, and other major countries and blocs, as well as the role of the People's Liberation Army.

Reviews

Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2010-06-26
Summary: "Recommended, with a few caveats"

Willy Lam has a masterful grasp of the Chinese political situation. He discusses everything from the Machiavellian manoevering of China's top leadership seldom discussed in the outside world, as well as the things that truly matter to the Chinese people - the farmers, the urban middle class, the migrant workers. His carefully crafted analysis sheds some real light into the political philosophy of Hu Jintao, and to a lesser extent, Wen Jiabao. His characature of Hu has stood the test of time even four years after the book's publication - China's leader is obsessed with political stability, lacks exposure to foreign ideas, but is a brilliant politician.

Lam is dead-on on much of his analysis, but you can tell throughout the book that he subtly pushes for Western-style political reforms, which clouds the otherwise impartial narrative that makes the book such a wonderful read. Especially after the onset of the Global Financial Crisis, I have come to question Lam's wisdom on China's political reform imperative. It also does not adequately explore some of the divisions between the Chinese leadership. Lam attributes much of China's recent power struggles to old-fashioned Jiang-era cronyism and factionalism rather than an bona fide differing views on policy, which I think was not given enough air time.

This book is a good read though, for anyone who wants to gain an understanding of what's in the heads of China's leaders and where the country is headed. Beware of the abundant use of Chinese terminology and otherwise esoteric contents that may not be accessible for your average reader.

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Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2007-03-16
Summary: "Thoroughly researched volume based on impressive array of sources"

This book and its author came highly recommended. At first, I was slightly put off with the journalistic/impressionistic style at times almost reading like a compilation of articles with some degree of repetition. I suppose this is the price you pay for the vast and impressive array of sources the book is based on. Patience is, however, highly rewarded as the following systematic conclusions gradually emerge from the very rich empirical material: The Hu/Wen leadership is aware of the downside risks of China's growth model to social instability and hence the party's 'mandate of heaven.' While needing to sustain fast growth to create some 25 million new jobs a year (!) to facilitate social stability, the party also needs to take account of the grievances of peasants dispossessed by land grabs by corrupt cadres and entrepreneurs and migrant workers exploited in the 'world factory' on China's eastern provinces; to address severe problems of pollution (= 8-12 % of GDP) and energy inefficiency; to supply education and public health services to vast segments of the population who have to forsake it for financial reasons and more generally to improve governance to the benefit of 'the masses' in order to remain in power learning from and emulating the longevity of other dominant parties in successful developmental states (Singapore and for a long time Japan and Taiwan) or even European social democratic parties.

However, the author with thought-provoking reference to China's earlier failure to follow the example of e.g. Meiji Japan sheds doubt on the party's ability to act 'out of the box' and implement the necessary reform breakthroughs to maintain social stability and preserve economic progress and thus avoid so-called Latin Americanisation. These reforms include allowing independent trade unions and farmer associations to give the vulnerable and potentially disruptive segments of society the means to self-defense and evolutionary self-improvement; creating an independent judiciary, prosecution and regulatory agencies (environment, financial supervision, state auditors, corporate governance etc.) and instituting elections up to county level to increase accountabililty and checks and balances to the crony and corrupt collusion between party cadres and entrepreneurs - a source of much resentment and disillusion among ordinary Chinese. The author interestingly highlights that China compares unfavorably with other Chinese development success stories in this respect (Singapore + Hong Kong and one could add Taiwan, Korea, and Japan). One senses here the inherent comparative disadvantage of a totalitarian political system relative to mere authoritarian or conservative states in gradually allowing at least a functional minimum of pluralistic representation of interests in society + checks and balances in the political system as means to ensuring social harmony and perpetuation of party rule (cf. the LDP in Japan) in spite of this being the bottom line of the leadership. This self-imposed handicap is all the more telling in view of the author's interesting revelation that the top leadership is perfectly aware that innovation in political and economic institutions was the key difference behind the rise of England and fall of Spain from superpower status in earlier centuries. Far from allowing a minimum of representation + checks and balances,however, the author portrays a seemingly nervous party increasing the pressure even on within the system grievances and reformists (to say nothing of the pressure on the exercise of fundamental freedoms).

In the arena of foreign relations results are better linked to the leadership being less ramshackled by political contradictions of its own creation. Successes include the conclusion of a free trade agreement with ASEAN so far winning the race for influence against a Japan handicapped by agricultural protectionism and laying the first building blocks of a Chinese sphere of influence in the (distant) future; progress towards mutual economic dependence with US; displacing the US as Japan's largest trading partner(including Hong Kong); securing supplies of technology from Europe and Russia (military); securing supplies of raw materials from Asia (100 billion US$ deal with Iran!;), Africa (Sudan, Angola, Gabon) and Latin America (Venezuela, Brazil); improved ties with India to counter upgraded US-India relations perceived as part of a US containment agenda(trade agreements with India on the horizon?); establishment in mid 2005 of a (somewhat obscure) "strategic triangular relationship" with Russia and India to boost economic, energy, high tech and diplomatic cooperation (concrete content supposedly to be fleshed out along the way); countering US influence in Central Asia together with Russia; and increased international standing and leverage playing the part of the honest broker over the North Korean nuclear issue.

Foreign relation challenges particularly in relation to the US stem from China's stance on Iran and Sudan, which one senses China could leverage to greater international influence and prestige along North Korean lines. Add to this well known trade and exchange rate issue. Failure to lift the EU arms embargo helped by the Taiwan related anti-secession law caused Beijing to forego access to high tech military and dual use products from EU countries which could have put immense pressure on US producers and administration to follow suit. Another significant failure is increased rivalry with Japan, which has strengthened defence links with US. The rivalry with Japan is compounded not only by nationalism - which the party in a tell-tale sign of the challenges it faces to maintain social order at times had to struggle to keep under control - but now also by access to essential raw materials, fast growing huge China being a full six times less energy efficient than Japan. A specific example of failure in this respect pertains to Japan's upper hand (so far) in the game for access to Siberian oil where Moscow deftly plays China and Japan against each other to exact maximum concessions.

The big question left by this book is: will China pull it off, gradually grow out of its problems relying on minimum functional solutions as the party leadership believes it can or will it be caught up by the inherent contradictions of its political set-up? I highly recommend this book.

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Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2007-01-08
Summary: "Review from Radio Free Asia-"

OK, here's the deal. I have NOT read this book. It is very new. However, I HAVE read articles on CNN.com by the author, and he is a very lucid and insightful analyst, with many contacts and lots of experience reporting on Chinese politics. He actually used to write for the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong's main English-language paper, but after the '97 Handover, Lam found himself writing too much on the fringe for editors who were looking for a more favorable look at China issues than Lam was willing to provide. I found this review on Radio Free Asia's website, and thought it was informative.

--Reviewed by RFA Executive Editor Dan Southerland

In late 2003, China's new president Hu Jintao made a speech celebrating the late Mao Zedong. He said not a word about Mao's disastrous mistakes.

According to author Willy Lam, this was a wake-up call for many Chinese intellectuals, who until then had regarded Hu as a reformer who would eventually open up China's political system.

"Given that even official party documents had faulted Mao for having made serious mistakes during the Cultural Revolution...a number of intellectuals in Beijing thought that Hu had gone too far," writes Lam in Chinese Politics in the Hu Jintao Era.

Since President Hu took control of China more than three years ago, China watchers have been debating his effectiveness, his ideological leanings, and his grip on power.

Although Hu's staying power is now proven, his effectiveness is still up for debate. And many are still puzzled over his ideology. What are his deepest convictions? How does his thinking compare with that of previous Chinese leaders?

Apart from Xinjiang party boss Wang Lequan, Hu and Wen were the only two cadres in the 25-member Politburo with substantial experience in the western provinces.

---Cautious conservative---

Lam resists indulging in wishful thinking about Hu. Instead, he has gathered abundant evidence that Hu is a cautious conservative unlikely to embark on the political reforms that Lam thinks are essential to China's long-term stability.

President Hu, Lam says, "does not believe that there is anything intrinsically wrong" with one-party, authoritarian rule.

Although Marxism has been discredited around the world, Hu still believes that it is a scientific system. And, in Lam's view, Hu is more a disciple of Mao than of the pragmatic Deng Xiaoping.

In foreign policy, Lam says, Hu has secured closer relations with Russia and tilted away from the United States.

To Lam it seems evident that Hu has been following ex-KGB officer Vladimir Putin's approach to muzzling dissent.

After the "color revolutions" in countries such as Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan in the first half of 2005, Hu "repeatedly warned" of the danger of dissident groups and nongovernmental organizations working with "anti-China forces abroad" to undermine communist party rule.

Under Hu, Beijing has tightened its grip over Tibet and Xinjiang. Hu's decision to elevate a political ally, Wang Lequan, party secretary of Xinjiang, to the Politburo, "seems to attest to the leadership's desire to maintain ironclad control over the resource-rich and trouble-prone autonomous region."

The high point for Hu among "liberal" intellectuals inside and outside the party came in the fall of 2002 when he fired China's health minister for covering up the SARS epidemic and seemed to promise more transparency regarding major issues.

---End of the honeymoon---

By early 2004, though, the honeymoon was over. The party began to crack down on newspapers and television stations that challenged party orthodoxy or dared to report on Chinese society's "dark side." Beijing also began more actively policing the Internet.

The authorities arrested or placed under surveillance dozens of pro-reform and pro-democracy editors, writers and "Net-dissidents." They also targeted lawyers who were defending farmers who had lost their land to unscrupulous local officials.

But Lam is no China basher. On the positive side, Lam points out that Hu appears to be more concerned about the problems of corruption, inefficient government, and the plight of ordinary people than Deng Xiaoping or Jiang Zemin ever were.

Hu's strategy, Lam says, is to position himself as a "people's president" and "a spokesman for the large number of Chinese who had lost out in the course of Deng Xiaoping's nearly three decades of reform and open-door policy."

Lam notes that both Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao have had real experience in dealing with the poorest Chinese. Early in their careers, the two worked in grassroots-level jobs in impoverished Gansu province.

"Apart from Xinjiang party boss Wang Lequan, Hu and Wen were the only two cadres in the 25-member Politburo with substantial experience in the western provinces" of China, Lam says. The other members of this supreme body had ties to Shanghai and other coastal cities.

And both Hu and Wen have proven so far to be more popular than ex-President Jiang Zemin, according to Lam.

A particular strength of Lam's book is that it touches on all aspects of Chinese life: The farmers, the workers, the military, and the newly rich sons and daughters of the Communist Party elite who have plunged into lucrative businesses.

This is a dense book, because Lam supports his conclusions with an incredible amount of detail. But it's also a must-read for those who care about China's rise and its meaning for us all.