Understanding China: Neo-Communism and Chinas Softpower

Der Autor:
Erping Zhang ist Direktor der Vereinigung für Asienwissenschaften in New York. Seine Forschungsschwerpunkte liegen auf Chinas politischer Ökonomie, seiner Außenpolitik, Sozialem Wandel und Menschenrechten. Seine Publikationen umfassen ein großes Feld China-relvanter Themen.
Mr. Zhang war Gremiumssprecher am Weltgipfel zur Informationsgesellschaft in Genf, im Europäischen Parlament und in der US-China Economic and Security Review Commission - Er sprach außerdem im US Kongress, im Italienischen Parlament, im Schwedischen Parlament, im Norwegischen Parlament, der Koreanischen Nationalversammlung und vor der US Kommission für Internationale Religionsfreiheit. Er ist bereits bei CNN, BBC, ABC, PBS, RAI und VOA aufgetreten. Er sprach vor der Menschenrechtskommission der Vereinten Nationen, dem Rat für Auswärtige Beziehungen und hielt Vorträge in Harvard, Yale, Princeton, der Universität von Toronto, der Stockholm University, an der er auch als Gast-Dozent für Asian-Pacific Studies tätig war.
Mr. Zhang hat einen Abschluss an der internationalen Universität von Beijing, der Universität von Georgia, der Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy an der Tufts Universität und an der John F. Kennedy School of Government an der Harvard Universität.

Zusammenfassung:
Auf dem Felde der China Studien debattieren westliche Gelehrte und Politiker voller Enthusiasmus über Themen wie: Wie die chinesische Gesellschaft wirklich ist, wohin sich China entwickelt und welche Chinapolitik für den Westen sinnvoll ist. Dies sind wichtige Fragen, angesichts dessen, dass 1/4 der Weltbevölkerung aus Chinesen besteht, und angesichts des ständig wachsenden bilateralen Handels und der Globalisierung. Die meisten Sinologen betrachten China durch eine ideologisch, oder gar politisch gefärbte Brille. Einige beugen sich sogar den Forderungen der kommunistischen Herrscher, um spezielle Vorteile oder den Zugang zum Parteistaat zu erhalten. Ihre Ansichten teilen sich oft in zwei Lager: China ist eine Bedrohung oder China ist ein Ausnahmefall. China ist jedoch komplexer als dies. Durch den Vergleich mit dem traditionellen chinesischen kommunistischen Modell und dem gegenwärtigen wirtschaftlichen und politischen System in China kommt er zu dem Ergebnis, dass sich China weder sehr von dem alten kommunistischen Modell unterscheidet, noch dass es ganz dem alten Kommunismus gleicht, wie bei vielen Menschen die romantische Vorstellung herrscht. Er beschreibt das gegenwärtige China als Neo-Kommunismus, ein Modell, das dazu neigt, alles zu absorbieren, mit dem einzigen Zweck, die kommunistische Diktatur aufrecht zu erhalten und zu legitimieren.

Das Referat

Encountering the sweeping skyscrapers of Shanghai and Beijing for the first-time, the traveler is easily lulled into believing he is in a normal, bustling East Asian city much like Seoul or Taipei. The neon lights are vibrant, the energy upbeat. But is today’s People’s Republic of China (PRC) really more like South Korea with its bustling economy and society, or does it still have a lot in common with the anachronistic, propagandistic North Korea? The traditional Communist economic model is now what Marx would call “contaminated” by the capitalist greed, but the ghost of its draconian grip on society remains fearsome. So how do we define China today, in terms of its political and economic system? It is hard to put a finger on it, as it is a nation that displays different faces at the same time. Economists and Sinologists alike have not made it any easier to get a clear picture of China, defining China as state capitalism, socialism with Chinese or Nazi characteristics, neo-Leninism, socialism with market orientations, or a hybrid of the above – the list goes on. Although these descriptions appear to capture some aspects of China today, they fail to fully convey a real sense of what is going on.

Most nations in the world now engage in some form of trade or commerce with China, so many governments seem prepared to willfully ignore the fact that China remains a party state ruled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and that, unlike the Eastern bloc, it has never renounced Communist dictatorship. For the U.S., the growing trade deficit with China and the tremendous U.S. debt that is now held by Beijing in the form of government bonds only makes it more difficult to come up with a coherent China policy. The EU is similarly preoccupied with and perplexed by trade and trade deficits with China, whether as a collective or as individual members.

Among China watchers, it is fashionable to be in one of two camps, the “China exception” camp or the “China threat” camp. The China exception camp is mostly made up of left-wing academics, business investors, and others who argue that China is no longer the old demon-like Communist state, or in some cases, that it is as capitalist as the West can be. The belief in this camp is that economic development will set China free, and whatever the regime seems to be doing along the way is nothing but part of the bumpy road to a more democratic society driven by an expanding middle class. For the moment, this view appears to be prevailing, hence a policy of appeasement is endorsed, even in the face of China’s rampant human rights violations. Worse still, political reform remains as unattainably distant as at the launch of economic reform three decades ago.

This China exception camp tends to look derisively at the more pessimistic “bombs and guns” types that tend to form the China threat camp. The exceptionists mock what they consider to be an over-blown, knee-jerk reaction to military expansion on the part of the PRC. Since the end of the Cold War, it has become terribly outré to be anti-Communist; and socialism is considered an acceptable part of popular culture. Thus, for the China threat camp, an emerging economy of 1.3 billion people as the world’s factory of consumer goods ought to be democratized and become an open society, so as to ensure peace and stability in the region and in the world. China’s close ties with North Korea, Iran, Sudan, Cuba, and some other authoritarian regimes remains disturbing to the free world. The fear of watching the rise of a fourth Reich without containment is central to this China threat camp, but its Cold War rhetoric tends to alienate the intellectual community and is certainly unwelcome among investors who seek to profit from China’s cheap labor market. The concerns of the China threat camp are not altogether unfounded. Last year, China just allocated another 14.7 percent budget increase to its military, amounting to an estimated $40 to $70 billion if state military factories are included. Given its size, the “Middle Kingdom” has no serious military rivals in the neighborhood; so the Pentagon and EU are pondering the reason behind this build-up. Beijing has also spent an estimated $1 billion on Internet surveillance and censorship directed at its own population, in the face of some 87,000 riots and mass protests officially acknowledged in China last year. Perhaps China has embraced a different form of market economics that is at odds with the ways of free societies.

So, who is right? Both views seem to have their merits, but their primary limitation is that they are rooted in political ideology: either liberal or conservative. The West needs to find a truthful and pragmatic means of understanding the China of today or it will risk feeling its way blindfolded, unaware of what surprises may lie ahead. One must thus see that China is a state operating under “neo-Communism,” a system that is markedly different from traditional Communism, but at the same time not as different as many might wish.

Not so long ago, China was a typical Stalinist Communist state modeled after the former Soviet Union. It followed the traditional Communist orthodox doctrine of class struggle between the proletarian and bourgeois classes in which the CCP relied on the working class - the peasants and the workers. Unlike Mao and his cadres, recent leaders such as Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao inherited their power, and have never enjoyed the legitimacy of the early revolutionary figures. Economic growth is an inevitable means for the CCP to maintain power, at least for the time being. Today, the regime is combining coercion with patronage toward business interests, the intellectual elites, the military, the bureaucracy, and foreign investors in an effort to hold onto its influence and relevance. In fact, it has abandoned its traditional partner – the 800 million-strong working class, mostly peasants who live under $1 a day according to the World Bank. Unlike the past when the CCP monopolized and controlled both material wealth and the means of production, it is now willing to share part of this wealth with the people as a substitute for political power. In the face of incoming political and economic fallout in the early 1980s, the CCP under Deng Xiaoping was forced to liberalize part of China’s planned economy and has integrated itself with the global economy, abandoning its previous policy of isolationism.

Over the years, the CCP has called for “stability above all” and “harmonious society,” precisely because China’s dynamic society is neither stable nor harmonious. The CCP has also sought to sustain its longevity through a new clause on CCP dictatorship recently incorporated into China’s Constitution. Since 2005 there has been a concerted “baoxian yundong,” which translates as “a campaign to preserve the advantages of the Communist Party.” More significantly, the CCP bylaws still advocate “worldwide revolution through violence” as prescribed by Marx. In reality, Beijing still rules via violence, terror, and censorship much as the old Communist state did – just look at the ruthless crackdown on outspoken intellectuals and lawyers, peaceful Falun Gong practitioners, Tibetans, and unarmed students in Tiananmen Square. Above all, the CCP has now absorbed capitalists into its membership, effectively co-opting the wealthy into the Communist camp. Joint ventures and foreign investors in China must allow their Chinese employees to establish the CCP branches, in an effort to control the population.

Deng Xiaoping took a lesson from the Eastern bloc while trying to bring the PRC into the modern age: he signaled left, but actually veered towards the right. His maneuvers were so subtle that he succeeded in saving the CCP where others had failed. To survive, Deng had his Party take off its Mao jacket and put on a Western suit, while maintaining a Communist heart. Thus, a true neo-Communist state was born.

The neo-Communist state is a complex animal. It has taken on the trappings of a free country while maintaining the collective ambitions of a traditionally Communist state. It is a state where individuals are weak but the hand of the state is strong. It can draw upon the military and the entire state machinery to deal with an individual, a group, or a nation. It can act quickly, effectively, and resort to all means. Most free countries in the world tend to be “weak states,” meaning that while the hand of the state is weak, its individuals and corporate entities are strong under the rule of law. No matter how strong these individuals or corporations are, though, they are no match for the state resources of a strong state such as a neo-Communist state, which can muster all its resources to subjugate these strong entities. As Ethan Gutmann clearly described in Losing the New China, a number of foreign corporations that have attempted to enter the Chinese market have been forced to make a number of concessions in terms of technology transfer and political demands. Beijing has also been making a concerted bid for foreign oil companies, offering prices far higher than any private company can compete with. The world is watching, sometimes with indifference, as China obliges one multi-national corporation after another to play by China’s rules. So far, more than 300 foreign IT companies including Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and Skype, have surrendered and signed a so-called “Self-disciplinary Pledge” to conduct self-censorship on the Internet.

China’s domestic conditions are worrisome for both the regime and the public, if one looks at some raw numbers. According to an E&Y report this spring, China’s non-performing loans (NPL) have reached $911 billion or about 40 percent of its GDP, while its foreign currency reserves totaled nearly $800 billion (now reportedly $1 trillion). Further, China is spending 25-30 percent of its annual GDP to bail out its NPLs, while 70 percent of its GDP growth comes from foreign direct investment (FDI). Of the 2 trillion yuan in the Chinese social security fund, 700 million yuan has disappeared as a result of corruption, according to an official report. A recent WHO study shows that Beijing is the dirtiest of all major cities, recording 142 micrograms of particulates per cubic meter, compared with the WHO guideline of 20 and measurements of 27 in New York and 22 in Paris. Worse yet, the official data show that unemployment in 2007 will reach an all time-high, with 120+ million farmers migrating into cities to compete for jobs with 15 million urban dwellers. Still, 4.95 million university graduates are also entering the “grave” job market next year. John Fairbank, a Sinologist at Harvard, once observed that China is heaven for journalists but hell for statisticians, for most of the official numbers are unreliable.

One of China’s new soft power strategies is its effort to fund 500 Confucius Institutes overseas by the year of 2010, not to promote the teachings of Confucius, but rather to avidly promote simplified Chinese text with socialist characteristics. Though modeled after the German Goethe Institute, it should be noted that the government does not fund the propagation of Confucian teachings inside China, and even recently banned a private Confucian school, the Meng Mu Tang School in Shanghai, according to a Financial Times report. With more than 10 million children lacking access to basic education in China, one can’t help but wonder why Beijing is spending millions of dollars to establish Confucius Institutes overseas. Just recently, Beijing announced that 123 Confucius Institutes have been set up in 49 countries, at a speed of one new school in every four days. Amongst them, the newly launched Confucius Institute for Business at London School of Economics would most likely make Confucius frown or lose sleep if he were to be alive today, for Confucius has been known to value scholarship and despise commercial interest. Over 2,000 “special Chinese instructors” have been dispatched worldwide, given that an estimated 30 million people outside China are now learning Chinese. In his article “Beware China’s role in U.S. Chinese classes, Jonathan Zimmerman, a historian at New York University, cautioned against the Mussolini model – the Fascist Italy financed Italian language schools in America in the 1930s for its propaganda - being deployed by Beijing to infiltrate Western societies. “A strong nation comes with a strong language,” said Xu Lin recently, head of Confucius Institute Project in Beijing. But the question is whose language should be strong? That of the CCP or that of its own people, one might ask.

Despite the differences between the China exception camp and China threat camp, both now agree that China must become a responsible stakeholder in the international community; that is, that a country with its great influence and power must fulfill its commitment to human rights, intellectual property rights, and nuclear nonproliferation. The questions that confront all of us today are: How much have we as Western democratic societies done to change China into a more open society? How much is China as an authoritarian state changing our way of life? Is neo-Communist China actually good news for Europe and the rest of the world?