Imperialism, Revolution and Beyond
For the past fifty years, in both China and the U.S., The framework used to describe modern Chinese history has been the imperialism of Western countries, China's revolutions, to fight against both the imperialists and the incompetent Chinese governments that failed to defend China and make the country strong. This framework, as Terrill rightly points out, oversimplifies matters and prevents a more complex picture of China from emerging that would prove more useful in the understanding of China.
Today many problems China faces are universal, including,
Aging population: by 2030, 25 per cent of Chinese will be over 65.
Relationship between civilian and military power: historically, Chinese party leaders also led the army, as in the cases of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. Jiang Zemin, Communist party secretary after 1993, was the first civilian leader to assume the leadership of the Central Military Commission. As reform goes under way, the military, which, like other sectors of Chinese society, has relied more and more on financial self-support and profit-making (e.g. issuing calendars with models standing beside tanks or holding machine guns). Preventing the military from discontent becomes a huge task.
An inadequate healthcare system to respond to epidemics, such as AIDS, because healthcare is insufficiently and unevenly developed, leaving many in the countryside behind. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao had wanted to bridge the gap between the rural and urban in healthcare through the "barefoot doctor"--an urban youth sent to the countryside for reeducation hastily trained in medicine (e.g. in a month or two) and serving as doctor to the peasants around him/her. After the CR was over, and urban youth returned to the cities en masse, the barefoot doctors were mostly gone from the countryside. State subsidized healthcare, available to some extent in the CR and before, was gradually withdrawn from much of the Chinese countryside because of the policy of privatization and the lack of a welfare system to take care of the indigent.
Political escapism: to Terrill, political apathy and lack of public discussion of politics serves as a time bomb that leaves many problems unchecked.
Legitimacy and succession of government in the absence of elections: this problem is being gradually resolved, as the retirement system is gradually set in place (averaging ten years per top leader). Succession still depends on hand-picked candidates instead of elections, though.
Absence of an authentic banking system: Chinese banks are insolvent and survive only because of a lack of public accountability of the banks to their clients. [On the other hand, things might not be that bad as banks in many other countries in the world, even with public accountability, face similar and other problems that add instability to them]
Dangers to the environment: environmental pollution is one of the greatest problems facing China today. As I was going up and down the southeastern Chinese coast in summer 2005, the sky was fogged with grayish yellow industrial pollution. I only saw blue sky in two days during a two week trip. Much air pollution comes from soil pollution, and soil pollution directly affects the food grown in the soil and leads to even greater health problems. Soil pollution comes from inadequate enforcement of environmental laws for companies that heavily pollute the environment.
How stable is the Chinese Communist regime?
As China reforms and industrializes, it will more and more face a similar package of problems faced by the Western world either at present or from an earlier age. As it is, Terrill argues the Chinese Communist Party strives to maintain its control of China through economic growth and nationalism. He believes the Chinese Communist regime did not collapse like that in the Soviet Union because the latter could tolerate less contradictions (economic capitalism and political communism). One big difference between the Soviet Union and China that Terrill does not point out, though, was that over 80 per cent of Soviet population was industrial workers, while over 80 per cent of Chinese were farmers at the time of reform (1978). Dismantling the Communist rule over the industrial sector therefore was much harder for Russia than for China.
Terrill questions whether China is going for a full fledged capitalism or just introducing capitalism to preserve an authoritarian regime. He argues private enterprises in China face great pressure of development. Since his book was written (paperback published in early 2004), China has continued its privatization move. One thing Terrill points out that continues to be true is the Chinese attempt to combine a market economy with Communist paternalism. (Terrill, 317)
Terrill also discusses a series of factors that may affect the future of Chinese politics. I list them below and discuss some of them:
Diminishing leadership quality (318): Terrill argues that Communist leaders' quality of rule diminishes from Mao to the current Communist Party secretary of China Hu Jintao. This may not be true. Hu may not compare to Mao in statue and prestige, but may be a better administrator, as we have learned only too many of Mao's administrative errors (such as the GLF and CR).
Corruption (318): this certainly is one of the biggest problems facing the Chinese state, because of the lack of political transparency, and a dual economy (market and government regulated). China's entry into the WTO (2001) was partly motivated by some reformers in the Chinese government to use external pressure for market economy (WTO criteria) to make the government relinquish its control on the economy and reduce corruption.
Succession struggle (319): this has so far turned out to be less problematic than discussed by Terrill. Jiang Zemin, Communist Party secretary who retired in 2003, has since also relinquished his power over the military to the new party secretary Hu Jintao.
Overpopulation and a displaced rural population in the cities (321-322): the over 100 million floating (largely rural) population in the cities, to Terrill, is like a ticking time bomb. The Chinese government obviously has noticed this problem. There is a noticeable policy change from the Jiang Zemin era (1993-2003) and the Hu Jintao era (2003-now): the former emphasized economic growth at the expense of social disparity, while the latter emphasizes bridging the gap between different regions and between the wealthy and poor.
Lack of political accountability (322-324): to Terrill, the Chinese Communist regime, like the imperial court, is out of touch with the ordinary Chinese people. Even in the reform era when Jiang Zemin tried to make the Communist party represent people it usually treated as targets of reeducation, it did not mean the people were really represented, Terrill argues, as Chinese parents often represent their children without consulting the latter.
Terrill concludes that the Chinese Communist regime is highly unstable because of a disconnect between its political system, social stratification (Communism was to establish equality in society), and belief system. (324-326) Most urban professionals in China today seek self-fulfillment but it does not seem to have spread to the realm of political freedom (of the few political activists in China, most are persecuted). In rural China, there is also a disconnect between the belief system and the Communist system. In addition to Terrill's discussion, I want to emphasize the rapid growth of religious denominations especially in rural China, including Christian ones (there are 80 million Christians in China today, both rural and urban, but more rural), and other religious groups, including Buddhist ones and Falungong, a synthesis of Buddhism and Daoism. Given the disconnects between the Chinese state and the social and belief systems in China, the Communist regime is in deep trouble. He foresees several scenarios:
The Communist regime manages to get by through continued reliance on economic growth and nationalism.
The central government loses control of the provinces and China sinks into chaos.
CCP transformed like Taiwan and South Korea.
CCP cannot handle the pressure of existence in the WTO. Communism crumbles in China as it did in the USSR in 1991.
Split of the right and left within Communism in China. The People's Liberation Army steps in to take care of the right and the old triumphs over the new in Chinese politics.
The military takes over over the split between the left and right in the CCP, and a quasi-fascist state is established under military rule.
The right and left in the CCP split, the army takes over and supports the social democrats. A Chinese "Yeltsin" appears, and the CCP quietly evolves through an internal reform.
In conclusion, Terrill argues that China has largely borrowed from the wrong aspects of Western society and its own past. From the West it borrowed the values of wealth and power, and from its own past, the tradition of autocracy.
How much should one believe in Terrill's arguments and predictions?
While Terrill makes some interesting observations, reality, as Terrill himself points out, often differs from rhetoric. And the practice of the Chinese Communist regime has shown no signs so far of the intensification of internal strife as so frequently appearing in Terrill's predictions. Of all the scenarios Terrill predicts, one thing for sure is true: the Communist state is very much out of touch with the social or belief system in China today. From Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao, one consistent policy is to address the issue: for Jiang, from an ideological point of view (by broadening Communism) and for Hu from a social/economic perspective (taking care of the more backward regions and the poor sector of population). The Communist regime continues to exercise a tight leash on the people over their right to criticize the government. As time goes on, however, it is possible that a peaceful evolution within the Communist party will take place. China may never become a real democracy in the Western sense, but an authoritarian form of government, not too different from the top-down governments of Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, may happen in the next 20-30 years.