THE COMMUNIST PARTY’S MODEL OF GOVERNANCE IN THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

The model of governance in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has been successful in bringing about economic development and leading to a rise in income levels. Of particular relevance in this regard is its Open Door Policy which may have arguably kick-started the engines of growth in the PRC. However, despite its successes over the decades since its formation, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has had to deal with new challenges, in the absence of a pre-existing template for ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’.

The Party often highlights some of the achievements of its authoritarian model of growth as having contributed to lifting more than 800 million people out of poverty, as well as making significant improvements in access to health, education and other services, all of which have arguably led to China’s status today as an upper-middle-income country. On the other hand, although China has been able to address extreme poverty, a significant number of people still remain vulnerable and poor, with incomes below a threshold more typically used to define poverty in upper-middle income countries. Over the years, structural constraints including a declining labor force growth, diminishing returns on investment and slowing productivity growth have hampered China’s growth. Underlying this assessment is the fact that China’s rapid economic growth has exceeded the pace of its institutional development. There are important institutional and reform gaps that China needs to address to ensure a high-quality and sustainable growth path. In this regard, the Chinese President Xi Jinping himself has pointed to the urgency in bringing about some changes in the role of the state where the focus is on implementing reforms at the institutional level. Owing to its size and global footprint, China is central to many regional and global development concerns which range from issues pertaining to developmental assistance and investment to more geo-strategic and environmental aspects.  

Understanding Chinese-Style Democracy

With the gradual evolution of the CCP’s brand of socialism, it can be observed that the market-oriented development model gradually led to the emergence of command authoritarianism under the conditions of complexity and pluralism. This evolution has brought about some changes in its nature of governance over the years. Although China maintains an authoritarian regime, most governments at the local level have employed a wide variety of participatory practices that include consultation and deliberation. A system of direct village elections was initiated in 1988 and accordingly, every village in China, with a combined population of more than 600 million, is required to hold direct elections regularly for a new village committee. This system exists as a democratic setup in rural areas, under what the Chinese refer to as ‘Organic Law of Village Committees’. These committees have been empowered to decide on several important issues, including land and property rights. The village committees are to assist the local people’s governments. However, this system is overseen by the CCP to ensure that grassroots democracy is compliant with socialist principles as enshrined in the PRC’s constitution.

It must be noted that since village committees are formally excluded from China’s five-level governmental apparatus comprising of central, provincial, municipal, county and township levels as well as the rising trend of village-urban migration, such grassroots elections have only been able to play a limited role in China’s democratization, or ‘Chinese-style democracy’ as Xi Jinping mentioned during his meeting with Joe Biden in 2022. Gradually, semi-competitive elections have been witnessed at the township level. Since 1998, there have also been signs of increasing experimentation with the same, especially in places such as Lingshan in Sichuan province, Caiji in Jiangsu province and Dapeng in Guangdong province. On the other hand, there have been several instances where corruption and bribery have marred many of the elections to the CCP’s branches as well as the self-governing bodies in the villages at the grassroots level. In this regard, an investigation conducted by provincial prosecutors shows that the heads of more than half of the 18 villages or communities in Longquan township of Haikou city, Hainan province, were elected after buying votes or fêting voters. Owing to the fact that village committees are formally excluded from China’s five-level governmental apparatus, China's current system of grassroots elections is ill-equipped to promote democratization and accountability.

Public Perception about Chinese Governance

A report published by the Roy and Lila Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University observes that Chinese people experienced very high satisfaction with the central government. In 2016, the last year the survey was conducted, 95.5 per cent of respondents (in China) were either ‘relatively satisfied’ or ‘highly satisfied’ with Beijing’s policies. In contrast, Gallup reported in January 2020 that their survey of U.S. citizens’ satisfaction with the American federal government revealed only a 38 per cent satisfaction rate. The Harvard University report also shows that since 2003, there has been a near-universal increase in Chinese citizens’ average satisfaction towards all five levels of government. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC was quick to highlight these findings, emphasizing that more than 90 percent of respondents (of respondents polled in the survey carried out by the Ash Center) are satisfied with the Party and their government, the highest rate among countries for years running. Additionally, a trust and credibility survey (Edelman Trust Barometer) published in 2022 by Edelman, a renowned US public relations consultancy firm, shows that as many as 91 percent of Chinese citizens trusted their government in 2021, which was the highest among all surveyed countries.

The survey further revealed that citizens respond mostly to real and measurable changes which enhance their material well-being. Although this is very much in line with the general principles of the Chinese constitution of 1982 which guarantees more economic rights than political ones to the citizens, for government leaders, this can often mean a double-edged sword. It is logical to assume that citizens who have grown accustomed to increases in living standards will expect such improvements to continue. Given the gradual introduction of democratic principles into the Chinese mainstream in recent years, public dissatisfaction could lead to a reformed version of authoritarianism. The impact of Glasnost and Perestroika in the erstwhile Soviet Union could serve as a reference in this regard.

Xi Jinping’s Governance in China (2014) begins by acknowledging the challenges that the PRC would face in the 21^st century.  He argues that the CCP would need to drive reform and take the opening up of China to a deeper level, modernise the national governance system and marshal its enormous strength behind the Chinese Dream for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. According to his assessment, under the leadership of the Communist Party, China is striving to build a bright future for socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The Market-Reforms Era

Much like most other parts of the world, reforms in China were introduced gradually. They started in the rural areas in the early 1980s through what was known as the household responsibility system, along with township and village enterprises. This was followed by the gradual opening up of the economy to foreign trade and investment in the 1990s. Reforms in the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) were also gradual and started gaining momentum only in the mid‐1990s. Under Deng Xiaoping, China’s motto was "crossing the river by feeling the stones". It is also observed that this gradual approach to reform was in sharp contrast to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, mainly due to China’s own initial economic conditions, political development and external environment.

A sudden policy departure in China’s leadership started to take shape following the global financial crisis of 2008-09, after which it appeared to be favoring the transition into an authoritarian political structure controlling a more market-influenced economy as preferable not only in terms of a transition strategy but also for long-term development. One of the reasons for this shift was the free fall in international demand, which adversely affected China’s export sector. Internationally, the demand for Chinese products had been increasing continuously for seven years since 2001. However, in the last two months of 2008, China’s exports dropped 2.2 percent and 2.8 percent year-on-year respectively. This was supplemented by the collapse of the commodity markets in August 2008. These concerns would contribute towards a more rigid, state-controlled economy in the PRC.

Scholars observe that Xi Jinping has been more strident than his predecessor in extolling the virtues of the CCP-led model. There is a growing consensus that Chinese leaders today are less willing to be told by others how they should regulate their economy, value their currency and run their internal affairs owing to this rediscovered pride in their economic and political model. This is in line with their efforts to create an alternative global economic order in recent years based on China-led/backed financial and developmental institutions around the world.

Inspired by the erstwhile Soviet Union, the CCP which came to power in 1949 guided by Mao Zedong’s vision of the future, propagated the idea that modernity meant urbanisation and industrialization with socialized production. Traditionally, the CCP has been known for its apprehension of the private sphere and this is also apparent from its policy during the early 1950s which sought to eradicate remnants of private industry in the urban areas. Additionally, cities were seen as carriers of indolence, corruption and other traits that ran counter to the perceived revolutionary heritage. However, following the economic reforms of 1978, the percentage of the population living in cities, which stood at 17.9 per cent in 1978, has risen to 65 per cent in 2023, albeit with its own set of challenges in administration.

Emerging Challenges to the CCP’s Model of Governance

There is a general consensus among scholars that the economic model that has served China well in the past needs to undergo fundamental changes in order to maintain its economic momentum. The country has been facing increasing social challenges such as an ageing workforce as well as the integration of millions of migrants into urban areas. There is also a growing risk of deflation and weak economic activity aggravating each other. Additionally, one may observe a significant departure in China’s environment policy over the decades since the rule of Mao who saw nature as something to be conquered and tamed and who often disregarded natural limits that resource endowments place on growth. On the one hand, this development strategy favored rapid exploitation of natural resources in order to build up a heavy industrial base, while on the other, the associated policy of below-cost pricing for water, coal and other inputs contributed to further exploitation of resources. Therefore, the rapid economic growth and urbanization since 1975 have come at the cost of enormous environmental damage within China, and natural resource constraints are arguably a potential brake on China’s future development.

These problems will be exacerbated further by the political challenges posed by endemic corruption, the aspirations of the expanding middle class and the slow but gradual emergence of new social media. After positioning himself at the helm, Xi Jinping proceeded to deal with these legacies and potential future challenges. One of its direct results has been a reassertion on the primacy of the party along with tighter controls over the state and society than has been the case for many years, while trying to make more effective use of its market and economic potential.

A recent essay by Xi Jinping, published in the English edition of Qiushi, a bi-monthly journal of the CCP Central Committee, reiterates the need for the PRC to move away from global economic norms set by the West. At the Central Financial Work Conference, held towards the end of December 2023, he also stated that enhancing the Communist party’s leadership was ‘at the top of the agenda.’ In his essay titled ‘Chinese Modernization Is Socialist Modernization Led by the CPC’, Xi addresses the need for the emphasizing the leading role of the party in the modernization of China as he writes: ‘Party leadership has a direct bearing on the fundamental orientation, future, and ultimate success of Chinese modernization. Party leadership determines the fundamental nature of Chinese modernization. The nature, purpose, founding mission, convictions, policies, and principles of the Party determine that Chinese modernization is socialist modernization, and not modernization in any other form’.

Conclusion

The CCP’s model of governance has been able to adapt and adjust to the changing contours of internal and external forces, ever since the birth of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Depending upon the context, this model seems to sway between ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ on the one hand and ‘Chinese-style democracy’ on the other. Over the years, there have been multiple experiments, although with varied degrees of success, in economic and social reforms, franchise as well as increasing state control over citizen’s rights. However, new challenges loom on the horizon as widening income gaps, overpopulating urban spaces, a relatively weak demand, could potentially lead to yet another readjustment of the governance model in China. It is therefore, pertinent to observe such transitions as they would not be as subtle as they have been in the past. Given the emerging discussions on what has been regarded as the Beijing Consensus, as an alternative to the existing Washington Consensus, the adjustments to the CCP’s model of governance in future would have regional and potentially global repercussions.