Chinese politics: the Chongqing mirage

Whatever reform China needs, it is not Bo Xilai's model

Editorial, guardian.co.uk, 03/28/12

Western correspondents in Chongqing probing the background to the spectacular fall from grace of city boss Bo Xilai have found themselves pondering who to cast if this tale was a film noir. Robert De Niro, perhaps? Or might there be a role for Edward G Robinson? Certainly there is something about the extraordinary mixture of populism, demagoguery, organised crime, corruption and large-scale money-making in one of the world's biggest urban regions, more than 30 million people and still growing, that recalls the dark landscape of American gangster movies or makes observers go further back to reach for Dickens or Balzac.

New details are emerging about the real nature of the campaign against organised crime which for a while made Bo a political star, a man heading for high national office and even a man destined to fundamentally change all of Chinese politics with his so-called "Chongqing model". The elements of that model included responsiveness to public opinion, an enthusiastic pursuit of public support that had some of the style, at least, of electoral politics, a revival of Maoist slogans and images, and a war on corruption and crackdown on criminal gangs which led to thousands of arrests.

Now that Bo has lost his position, his critics are freer to point to evidence that the campaign against crime violated the law even by China's loose standards, used torture and illegal detention, extorted money from companies, and targeted Bo's political rivals while sparing his allies. On top of that, some of Bo's apparently commendable activities in city beautification and police reorganisation, as well as his famous "red songs" programme, were sustained by profligate spending that has left the city hugely in debt. Whatever it is that China needs in the way of reform, and the leaders in Beijing are pretty clear that it needs something, that something is not the Chongqing model. It provided an impression of rapid movement and beneficial change which was misleading. It promised social justice and clean government without delivering it. And it suggested a quasi-democratic accountability might be on the horizon when it was not.

Instead, citizens found themselves marshalled into patriotic choirs or sent off for stints in the countryside in a parody of cultural revolution measures that was more silly than sinister but was in any case irrelevant to China's real problems. The higher leadership, worried about the volatility and unpredictability Bo was introducing into politics, were probably right to close down the Chongqing experiment. That does not mean, unfortunately, that they have anything so far to offer their people other than the continuation of a very imperfect political status quo.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/mar/28/china-politics-bo-xilai-editorial

有个说法，薄去重庆就是为了探索新的模式，薄出事后中央也把薄事件和重庆路线区分对待，并未否认重庆模式，虽然新书记在纠正薄的一些做法

记得有人评价中国，说中国内部的差异比别国国家之间的差异还大，这话真没错。新疆、西藏不说，东部南北方差别也比国家之间大。南方人天高皇帝远，过惯了无拘无束的日子，自由主义严重，基本是个很原生态的社会（这些是我对中国南方的评价）。广东是中国开放最早，最先富裕起来的社会，过了很多年发现，中国最贫穷的地方也在广东。即使现在GDP很高了，也不见广东想着办个高水平的大学，搞点基础研究什么的，这些不挣钱的活在他们眼里大概是傻瓜才去做的事，这就是中国南方

重庆模式相当理想，但任何模式能够行的通一定要有物质基础，重庆如何做到的我并不很清楚

经济发展模式重庆和广东条件不一样，不好比较，但广东那个模式一定不行。中国靠出口发展的道理已经快到头了，早几年就已经在转型，广东的模式更没有借鉴意义

Xi Jinping rise and Bo Xilai demise: China will move forward with reform, slowly

Robert Lawrence Kuhn /March 26, 2012

The dismissal of Bo Xilai, China's controversial Politburo member, shows that Xi Jinping, slated to be China's next president, and top Communist Party members will move forward with reform step by pragmatic step, not backward to Maoist nostalgia or cult-of-personality populism.

Xi Jinping, the current vice president slated to be approved as general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in the fall and as president of China the following March, will be the first leader not chosen peremptorily by China’s prior leaders. Rather, he was selected through a broader polling of CPC officials. While neither transparent nor anonymous, the process is a big advance in China’s long march toward “intra-party democracy.”

China is an oligarchy, not a dictatorship, and ultimate authority will not be vested individually with Mr. Xi, but collectively with the CPC Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), currently with nine members. Everything in China reports to one of these nine. Xi will be first among equals, but equals the nine are, and their final composition shapes policy.

OPINION: 3 reasons why China isn't overtaking the US

This explains the intense focus on the firing of Mr. Bo, because it was assumed he would become a PSC member in the once-a-decade top leadership shuffle. Media savvy, Bo had built a name for himself by promoting the “Chongqing Model,” a leftist-populist mixture of strong state, Maoist paeans (“Red songs”), crime crackdown, equality over productivity, and wealth redistribution.

It was never that simple. Even had he reached his peak, Bo would not have ranked in the PSC’s top half. Moreover, some of his purported backers did not share his somewhat recent leftist views. Elite politics in China is not simplistic and one-dimensional, the mere maneuverings of competing factions. Loyalties run on personal relationships as well as political philosophies, and coalitions wax and wane around specific issues.

While many people praised Bo for jailing corrupt officials (even for executing them) and for reversing garish economic disparity, many officials worried, privately, about the revival of political mass movements and the potential for chaos. The Cultural Revolution, China’s decade-long descent into ideological madness that would end up crushing millions, hovers like an unexorcised demon.

Following the bizarre “visit” to the US Consulate of Chongqing by Vice Mayor Wang Lijun, Bo Xilai’s right-hand man for anti-mafia strikes (which liberals said violated human rights), Bo was fired. Irrespective of Bo’s deeper offenses or coming fate, the political fallout is unambiguous: The leftist-statist Chongqing Model has collapsed. This will become clearer as the PSC slots are confirmed for reformers.

Of the nine PSC members, all will have run large geographic regions and/or ministries, and six or seven will have led at least two provinces or major municipalities (as party secretary or governor/mayor). As such, all will have worked with Western CEOs and other sophisticated foreign leaders.

ANOTHER VIEW: Will China's Communist Party prove James Madison wrong? Unlikely.

Like his colleagues, Xi is not given to radical change. Not incidentally, following the Bo tumult, Xi called for “purity” among officials and admonished senior comrades not to “seek fame and fortune.” Major decisions, Xi wrote, “should be decided according to collective wisdom and strict procedure.”

For 25 years Xi served in China’s grassroots, running every level of government – village, county, city, province. He led three dynamic regions – Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, and Shanghai – that were by population, economic vitality, and social complexity the equivalent of three European nations.

Xi differs from his colleagues by the travails of his youth – his revolutionary hero father, Xi Zhongxun, was purged and humiliated by Mao Zedong for 16 years. As a result, a teenage Xi Jinping was packed off to a poor, remote mountain village where he spent six years chopping hay, reaping wheat, and herding sheep. He lived in a cave house.

Xi was strengthened by the harsh experience. Although a “princeling,” the offspring of a political leader (a millstone in Chinese politics), Xi is known for a common man’s touch. Xi has said, “Many of my practical ideas stem from my life during that period, which has influenced me every minute, even today. To truly understand common folk and society is fundamental.” Take food quality: As governor of Fujian, Xi improved the process “from farm to dining table.”

Characteristically cautious, Xi told me when I met him in 2006, “We should not overestimate our accomplishments or indulge ourselves in our achievements.” He called for China to see “the gap between where we are and where we have to go.” In order to learn the best practices from abroad to adapt at home, Xi has visited 47 countries.

Xi advised me that “to understand our dedication to revitalize our country, one should appreciate the pride Chinese people take in our ancient civilization.” Chinese “made great contributions to world civilization and enjoyed long-term prosperity,” he said, “then suffered national weakness, oppression, humiliation. Our deep self-motivation is rooted in our patriotism and pride.”

THE MONITOR'S VIEW: Future of China economy will force political reform

One could see this determined mind-set during Xi’s recent US trip, for which my colleague Adam Zhu and I prepared with Xi’s senior staff. Known for his disdain of “empty talk,” Xi chided his staff: “Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear. Tell me what you really think.” Reflecting his view that engaging the world is not just a matter of meeting other leaders, Xi’s visit to the US had a clear tripartite structure: diplomacy in Washington, people in Iowa, and business in Los Angeles. Throughout the visit, Xi was a man at ease – initiating spirited conversations, offering firm handshakes. He was having a grand time.

Xi’s personal motto is “Be proud, not complacent. Motivated, not pompous. Pragmatic, not erratic.” Comfortable with authority, Xi manifests none of the airs of a high official impressed with his own status.

Xi, of course, upholds the primacy of the party. Yet, recognizing China’s “earthshaking change,” he advises officials to embrace greater change – to “emancipate our minds and overcome the attitude of being satisfied with the status quo, the inertia of conservative and complacent thinking, the fear of difficulties, and timid thinking.”

Though some would have Xi quicken reform, political as well as economic, he will likely move slowly. Stability will continue as China’s touchstone.

One challenge for Xi Jinping is high expectations. A senior aide confided, “Xi is ready, but it won’t be easy.”

OPINION: China's political system is more flexible than US democracy

Where exactly Xi and his fellow Politburo Standing Committee members will take China is not clear. What is clear is that they will move forward with reform step by pragmatic step, not backward to Maoist nostalgia or cult of personality populism.

Robert Lawrence Kuhn, an international corporate strategist and investment banker, is a longtime advisor to China’s leaders. He is the author of “How China’s Leaders Think” and “The Man Who Changed China,” the biography of former President Jiang Zemin.

© 2012 Global Viewpoint Network/Tribune Media Services. Hosted online by The Christian Science Monitor.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0326/Xi-Jinping-rise-and-Bo-Xilai-demise-China-will-move-forward-with-reform-slowly

開欄文介紹的專題共有四篇文章；總計12,000餘字。所以我沒有轉貼。

第一篇文章： 《「重慶路線」和「廣東路線」 -- 兩個不相容的發展經濟方式》(“Chongqing and Guangdong: two conflicting models")

作者： Yang Chan

內容： 07/30/2011在北京舉行的圓桌論壇 – 理性探討「廣東路線」和「重慶路線」 – 摘要。

(“A rational discussion of the ‘Guangdong Model’ and the ‘Chongqing Model’”)

參與者：

Mao Yushi, President, Unirule Institute, Beijing.

Xiao Bin, Professor and Vice President, Department of Public Affairs, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou.

Yang Fan, Professor, Department of Commerce, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing.

Zhang Musheng, Vice Secretary, The Chinese Tax Institute, Beijing.

Qiu Feng, Vice President of the Science Committee, Unirule Institute, Beijing.

Xiao Shu, Senior Analyst, Nanfang Zhoumo weekly newspaper, Guangzhou.

Li Weidong, Political Analyst, former Director of the monthly China Reform, Beijing.

Shi Xiaomin, Senior Economist and Vice President, China Society of Economic Reform, Beijing.

Zhang Shuguang, Researcher, Institute of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; President of the Academic Committee, Unirule Institute, Beijing.

Xu Dianqing, Professor, National School of Development at Peking University.

Gao Quanxi, Professor, Faculty of Law at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Li Shengping, Political Analyst and former Director of the Beijing Institute for Research in Social and Technological Development.

Cai Xia, Professor, Department of Teaching and Research on the Construction of the Party, Party School of the Central Committee of the CCP, Beijing.

Yang Ping, Director of the bimonthly Beijing Cultural Review.

Wang Zhanyang, Professor and Director, Research Department of Political Science, Institute of Socialist Studies, Beijing.

Zhou Hongling, President, Beijing “New Era” Institute for Research in Public Education.

其他三篇文章的作者則是外國學者。但其內容都大量引用(中國大陸)國內資料。請用開欄文中的連接參閱全文。

本文於 修改第 4 次