The Chinese Communist Party’s Capacity to Rule

Since the beginning of human civilization, humanity has been looking for the best form of government. For thousands of years, our political systems constantly evolved with the changing political values and the progress of human civilizations, until the late 1980s — when it was claimed that this evolution had met an end. The collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union appeared to both mark the death knell of communism and suggest the superiority of Western liberal democracy. Since then, Western liberal democracy has been claimed as “the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution” and “the final form of human government” (Fukuyama, 1989). It seemed that, sooner or later, Western liberal democracy — the so-called “best” political system and the “ultimate” achievement of humanity — would defeat all other forms of political systems (of inferior quality) and become the only form of government in the world.

This chapter studies the CCP’s concerns about the continuation of its rule and how it addressed these concerns in post-Mao China (1976–2012). Existential crises have been a constant concern for Chinese leaders. This chapter argues that the CCP’s concerns mainly derive from: the gap between the reality of the political economy in China and the party’s ideological basis and commitment to socialism; the justification of its founder, Mao Zedong; and the negative consequences caused by rapid economic growth. These three sources of existential concerns have been shifting over the past four decades.

This chapter discusses concepts and theories of legitimacy and the English-language literature on the subject of legitimacy in China. The first part discusses Western theories of legitimacy — including normative legitimacy, empirical legitimacy, and critical legitimacy — and their limits in analyzing the case of China. The second part of this chapter reviews regime legitimacy in China from the Western perspective. It shows that ideology is a crucial topic that does not receive sufficient attention from the English-language literature on the subject of regime legitimacy in China.

The previous chapter studies popular legitimacy in contemporary China from the Western perspective. This chapter approaches this issue from the Chinese perspective. Chinese intellectuals may have valuable insights and perhaps better understand how China is ruled. So far, no systematic study has been conducted to link Chinese intellectuals’ opinions with the English literature — except for Gilley’s and Holbig’s (2009) work. Building on the pioneering work of Gilley and Holbig, my study identifies continuities, new trends, and shifts in emphasis in the Chinese elite debate about political legitimacy by analyzing 125 Chinese articles with “legitimacy” in the title, published between 2008 and 2012. As mentioned in the Introduction chapter, the Chinese debate on legitimacy was mainly inspired by the 2004 party resolution on strengthening the CCP’s ruling capacity. ¹ Thus, the debate on legitimacy between 2002 and 2012 largely reflects contemporary Chinese academic discourse on the subject of legitimacy. This chapter compares my dataset (2007–2012) with that of Gilley and Holbig (2002–2007) in order to provide a more comprehensive overview.

This chapter studies political ideology in contemporary China. As established in the Introduction chapter, a core argument in this book is that ideology plays a crucial role in maintaining party cohesion and the popular legitimacy of the CCP. In China, the CCP has made great efforts in reinventing its ideological discourses. Ideological reform has been considered by Chinese intellectuals as a leading strategy for maintaining legitimacy, as Chapter 4 discussed. All top leaders attached great importance to ideological work. According to Mao Zedong, “[G]etting to grips with the leadership of thought control is the first priority in maintaining overall leadership” (Mao, 1991: 435). In the words of Deng Xiaoping, “[D]uring the last ten years, our biggest mistake was made in the field of education, primarily in ideological and political education — not just of students but of the people in general” (Deng, 1989). Jiang Zemin said that “the first thing for strengthening the party is to grasp ideological and political work, because solving ideological and political problems is the premise and foundation for other works” (Jiang, 2005). Hu Jintao argues that “ideology is an important front that we fiercely fight against hostile forces; if this front has some problems, it might lead to social turmoil and even the fall of our regime” (Literature, 2006: 318). Xi Jinping stresses that “ideological work is extremely important” (Ni, 2013). This chapter will examine the CCP’s various ideological discourses (both formal and informal ideologies), the mechanisms of ideological promotion, and their effectiveness.

A core argument in this book, as established in the Introduction chapter, is that the institutionalization of power succession in China plays a key role in maintaining the CCP’s internal stability and its capability to maintain legitimacy. Leadership transitions have always been turbulent moments for authoritarian regimes (Clapham, 1988; Hughes and May, 1988). A challenging task for authoritarian regimes is to prevent the division between ruling elites during the process of power succession. Leadership transition rarely proceeds without violence in authoritarian regimes. Yet, owing to institutionalization, power succession in contemporary China has demonstrated a high degree of stability in the past two decades. This chapter studies the institutional development of the Chinese succession system and its impacts on party cohesion and legitimacy.

The “rise of China” is proving to be one of the most important developments of the early 21st century. While some scholars have been debating whether — or even when — China will lead the world (e.g., Beeson, 2013; Jacques, 2009), the CCP has been seriously concerned about the continuation of its rule. Not only the collapse of Eastern European communist regimes and the Soviet Union, but also the failure of republicanism and the KMT in China’s modern history have constantly alerted the CCP to the consequences of losing popular support and consensus among the elite. After Mao Zedong died in 1976, the CCP realized that its legitimacy was at an all-time low because of the long-term national chaos and the almost-collapsed economy. Since then, the CCP has taken a completely different performance-based approach from Mao’s ideology-based one.