It is a sign of the still very much closed character of China’s communist governance and political structure, that much of the world will have been surprised by the sudden dismissal from its ranks of one of its senior political operatives. It is now well-known, following still largely secret internal consultations, that a change of leadership at the very top of the political system is soon to take place, following the selection of the country’s Vice-President Xi Jinping, as the next Secretary General of the Chinese Community Party. The party is the real locus of power in the country, taking precedence over the formal institutions of the state. So the taking of this decision indicates who will be the real leader of the country following the holding of the Party’s Congress towards the end of this year.
But in the wake of this, the dismissal of the head of the Party in the large region of Chongqing, Bo Xilai, expected to join the top leadership of the Party after the Congress, there is much speculation as to the reasons why this has occurred. Some speculate that Bo was resisting the pace of the economic changes being undertaken by the senior leadership of the Party towards a form of, in effect, state capitalism in China. One interpretation has been that Bo has been seen as opportunistically insisting that what has been called “red culture” – the emphasis on the priority to be given to revolutionary political solidarity, emphasizing equality, as a means of ensuring continuing ideological adherence of the masses to the party – is being underplayed by the leadership. From that perspective Bo is seen as cleaving to the old Maoist tradition that insists on ensuring that changes in the class structure as a result of economic changes do not dramatically operate to the detriment of the working class. And it has been noted that Bo has been given to ensuring the singing of the old “revolutionary songs”, emphasizing anti-corruption themes.
So his dismissal might well be seen as the result of a struggle not unlike those familiar to the functioning of communist systems, in which the loser is not allowed to take second place, but is required to leave the senior ranks altogether. But indications from those ranks of the Party suggest that the circumstances of Bo’s summary dismissal relate to a certain inability to control the situation in his own region, while playing at having the ability to operate at its highest ranks. In that regard, Bo appears to be being blamed for the near defection to the West of one of the senior functionaries in the political apparatus of his own Region, Wang Li Jun, who suddenly sought refuge in the United States consulate in the area, claiming to be about to be politically victimized, apparently by Bo himself.
That Wang was eventually coaxed into leaving the consulate would not have prevented attribution of responsibility to Bo, for what would be seen as an embarrassment to the national leadership. And this particularly after what had been lauded as a successful visit of Vice President Xi to the United States, intended in part no doubt, to emphasise the stability and continuity of the regime.
In a period of transition from communist organization of the economy to the use of capitalist techniques, without conceding that that is actually what is intended, there can be little doubt that factionalism, some of it ideological and some of it related to what can be leadership opportunism, would become increasingly apparent. In that connection, the Chinese Communist leadership is well aware of two things: the first, which Gorbachev in Russia had recognized nearly two decades ago, is that the old communist form of economic organization was not working in terms of putting enough bread on the people’s tables; and the second, that having accepted the legitimacy of drastic economic transition, the levers of the state must be retained in single party leadership. This latter, they are aware, Gorbachev was unable to ensure. The Chinese have also insisted that in the wake of the global changes taking place, particularly those deriving from the phenomenon of globalization that China now accepts as inevitable, their country should not become a victim of consequential changes in international geopolitics, as the Soviet Union became.
In the Chinese leadership’s view, recognition of this requires a commitment to economic stability that does not necessarily imply a transition from economic pluralism to political pluralism such as has happened in the Soviet Union-Russia, and which Western political analysts tend to predict. For as happened to Gorbachev, and would appear to be threatening the survival of Putin as he presides over a half-constitutionalist, half authoritarian political system, in large countries such as the old Soviet Union or China, political instability deriving from sudden change, is likely to have changes in the character of the state as a geographical space – secessions of distant border regions and threats from other neighbouring states of rectification of boundaries of areas deemed to have been imperialistically, and therefore illegitimately, acquired. Putin’s remark, some years ago, that in retrospect, the dissolution of the Soviet Union constituted a great disaster for the Russian people, indicates the Chinese concern.
So for the Chinese, domestic stability and geopolitical stability go together, imposing limits on the possibilities for domestic political or institutional change. From this perspective, the Chinese perceive the dynamics of domestic economic change as having practical implications different from the course which the last generation of Soviet leaders had experienced. The Party’s role as a disciplinary tool is now to be exercised as strongly, if not more strongly , than it had been exercised in the past era of commitment to communist economic as well as political management.
In that context they have probably seen Bo as breaking the rules of engagement within the system, hence the tendency to attribute to him the communist political sin of “ideological opportunism”. That part of Bolshevik practice is, for them, required to remain, regardless of the nature of the economic transformation being attempted. Bo seems to have attempted a form of populism – a methodology not accepted as legitimate in Communist practice where the party is the sole manager of political timing and popular response. In the leadership’s lexicon Bo broke the rules and has had to be punished. So at least for the time being, ‘plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose” – the more things change, the more they remain the same, and China’s political play goes on, whatever modernized face Vice-President Xi put to the Americans earlier this month.
