Chinese bureaucracy on the defensive
CHINA their retreat.
In any case, the reforms have gone too far to be reversed or even halted for any length of time. From this point of view the 1989 repression was nothing more than a hiccup in the slow agony of the regime. Under the surface the bureaucratic apparatus is disintegrating, but is also reconvert-
To emerge from the isolation which fol-
THE second anniversary of the massacre in Beijing's
Tiananmen Square passed with little incident. The regime seems to have the situation under control. Here and there, there were demonstrations on university campuses by students wanting to show that they had not forgotten and continued to reject the regime. On the other hand, the atmosphere in Beijing is lighter than a year ago, as is the military presence. Meanwhile the organized opposition is for the most part to be found in exile in France and the USA.
Nonetheless there are many signs that the victors in the clash of Spring 1989 are in fact on the defensive.
ROLAND LEW
WO years after the Tiananmen repression, all the ills that afflict the country remain unresolved.
The same forces continue their silent struggle; conservatives versus liberals. The conservatives have not won a the liberals' definitive victory, while defeat was not an absolute one; they are beginning to regain ground and speak out.
Overall, however, the political situation is blocked by the presence of the old men who remain in the background while keeping a grip on real power.
Since autumn 1990, there have been increasing signs that the team around prime minister Li Peng is feeling under pressure. They have been unable to gain an ounce of legitimacy. They have several times tried to get the leading bodies of the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to condemn the reform policies and the reformers responsible for the popular upsurge.
But they have not succeeded: indeed, Li
Peng has not even been able to get the support of Deng Xiaoping, who is well aware of the isolation of the cabal completely identified with the June 1989 mas-
Reformers strengthen position
The reformers, meanwhile, are fecling stronger. They are able to take advantage of the lack of consensus among the old leaders who are no longer able to address the country's pressing problems. The first among equals of this group, Deng Xiaoping, continues to defend the economic reforms associated with his rule - a
However, it is less the battles at the top that will ultimately matter than the irresis-
10 tible pressure of social force and ecs-
International Viewpoint #210 • July 8, 1991 nomic needs. And the social and economic world which is developing has nothing to do with the ossified apparatus that dominates the CCP.
The rise of the conservatives drew its strength from the growing encountered by the reforms. The austerity policy imposed in 1988 gave them over economic decisions, and then the clash with the 1989 Democracy Movement gave them the opportunity to get rid of Zhao Ziyang, the reformist gencral secretary, and occupy the political centre stage. Now, the economic difficulties and social discontent resulting from their austerity programme are obliging the austerity policy about a sharp fall in inflation in 1990, the danger of a resurgence remains real — inflation was 6% in the first quarter of this year in the big cities. Urban unemployment, which fell steeply in the 1980s to around 2% in the big cities, rose again in 1989 to an official figure of 3.5% (the real figure is probably much higher), out the danger of what the regime fears most; urban unrest.
Regime buys social peace
After 1989, the regime bought social peace by raising urban incomes — 9.5% in the first three quarters of 1990 — without paying too much attention to produc-
On the other hand, those living in the countryside saw their purchasing power decline by 3.3% in 1989 and 4.4% in 1990. State industry stagnated in 1990, most growth — 3.9% in 1989 and 5% in 1990 — coming from rural industries. The weakness of the state sector is also the weakness of the conservatives, hence lowed the repression and also to attract foreign capital, gestures have had to be made. The relatively light sentences handed out in recent trials of well-known opporegime from the 1989 movement are without doubt one of these gestures. The new prominence of officials with reputations as reformists or at least pragmatists is also a sign of a need to reassure the outside world. One of them, Tian Jiyun, an associate of the ousted general secretary [Zhao Ziyang], has come back centre stage with responsibility for agriculture. His first act was to cancel an agricultural conference which was to discuss ways of relaunching some form of collectivization of rural life.
Capitalism is not yet on everyone's lips in China, but in fact it continues to make progress in forms both legal or illegal, undermining the logic of the state system. Even Shanghai, the bastion of the big state enterprises and for a long time untouched by the reforms, has started to dream of once again becoming the kind of international financial and commercial centre it was in the past. The force of economic facts is tending to become irresistible.
Absence of conviction in
CCP
Faced with this, there is a total absence of ideological conviction among the CCP cadres. Of course, there is the issue of the survival of the regime and those in power at all levels. But "socialism" in whatever form exists only in the shape of ritual phrases, which nobody is meant to take seriously. The real debates are about continuity, social stability, the union of the country, various types of state control, the extent of the opening to the outside world, and which foreign model to copy.
Whole swathes of the CCP apparatus are preparing for, or are already engaged in, the process of socially recycling themselves. Different sectors of the apparatus favour different variants of capitalism (private or with more state involvement). The apparatus is gripped by conflicts of interest and social differentiation.
Much of this change is taking place at the provincial level. Indeed, the regime at the centre is meeting unbreakable resistance in dealing with the regional authorities, even if the first task of the recentralization policy after 1989 was to bring the provinces to heel, and restrict the significant degree of economic autonomy that some regions, above all along the coast, had won over the previous decade.
ALL THE BLACKHANDS
At the heart of the battle was the vexed question of the sharing out of tax revenues between the centre and the provinces. The outcome has been a wide variation of arrangements which are HAVE BEEN LOCKEDUP! far more the result of the balance of forces than of any structured policy. Overall the provincial authorities have jealously and successfully preserved the powers and revenues that they have
The dead end was particularly clear at the December 1990 Central Committee plenum, which was supposed to discuss the future options for the eighth five-year plan (1991-1995) and a ten-year plan. The formulas used in the draft texts are so vague either as a reform manifesto or a programme for the strengthening of central power and the planned
The session of the National Political cartoon published in the Hongkong Standard People's Assembly (the Chinese parliament) in March this year, whose responsibility it is in principle to finalize the options for the two plans, was similarly inconclusive. This lack of direction works to the advantage of the reformists.
Recently some reformist figures ousted in 1989, such as Hu Qili, formerly in charge of ideology, have regained their official positions, suggesting that the political wind is moving in their favour. There are analogies with the situation at the end of Mao's era: those who appear to have the power are weakening, undermined by attacks at all social levels, and notably by authorities at the local level. They are above all condemned by their lack of popular legitimacy.
Li Peng's gloomy economic
Li Peng's speech at this National People's Assembly session was hardly a triumphal celebration of economic success. He revealed that the budget deficit had reached the record level of 15bn yuan in 1990; in fact, it will be nearer to 50bn yuan. One third of the income has been devoted to writing off the debts of state enterprises, those very enterprises that were supposed to become the jewel of "revitalized socialism". This is hardly surprising seeing that the conservatives are in
A clear sign of the weakness of this apparently strong regime has been the recent borrowing by the government. Two years earlier, a forced loan was imposed on wage-carners in the form of direct subtraction from wage-packets, that is a wage outright authoritarianism inconceivable today. In order to give the lender an impression that they are getting a good deal, the new loan carries an interest rate of 10%. The operation has been entrusted to a banking syndicate in charge of raising and investing the loan, since the government does not inspire the necessary confidence. The loan was successfully raised, which has meant a step forward in the reform of the banking system and thus of the reform in general.
Thus, whatever the manoeuvrings at the top, everybody knows that nothing of substance can happen while the old leadership remains entrenched. The strength of such a regime lies mainly in the weakness of the opposition. Silenced for the most part in China itself, the activity takes place abroad, where much energy goes into power struggles in the small opposition associations or the settling of obscure scores. This is the typical fate of exile politicians but it has the effect of reducing the credibility of the only opposition that can openly state its case. In the country itself it seems that mass dissent has been overtaken by a retrcat into private affairs. The working class continues to defend its interests and conquests remarkably effectively, but without any broader perspecA country increasingly out of control
The country is becoming increasingly out of control, as is shown by the millions of illegal immigrants in the cities, or the significant mobility in the countryside that contrasts with the supposed system of fixed residence of the Maoist era. Chinese sociely is changing and fragmenting. making it ever harder to govern, let alone regiment, which is now simply unthinka-
Today's China is something quite different from that of the rigid Maoist period. However this same fragmentation makes it equally difficult to develop an opposition project that can bring together signifi-
Indeed it is not only the regime that fears social instability, the same concern is shared by many oppositionists.
It is hardly surprising therefore to find voiced as rarely among the opposition as
Class organization just beginning
Forty years after the establishment of the "Communist" regime, the development of social self-consciousness, the conscious organization of classes and notably of the working class, have only just begun. This too makes it more difficult to foresee the quick emergence of a coherent and social rooted opposition.
This is the result of complex factors, and of the rather chaotic development of Chinese society in this century, or, to be more precise, the delays in the formation of a modern social structure, a delay accentuated by the policies of the "Communist" regime.
This latter, while devoting considerable effort to devcloping the country, has nonetheless denied and indeed blocked the evolution of modern social classes.
Faced with this absence, the future Chinese crisis may well be marked once more by authoritarianism and the denial of the frecdom of action of social classes, whoever wins the coming struggle for 11 power. * July 8, 1991 • #210 International Viewpoint
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CHINA EXCEPT THE ONES THAT COUNT!
A marriage of
YEMEN convenience tance was massacred in Jordan; the left
Baathists were defeated in Syria; the guerilla movement in Dhofar was crushed by the intervention of the Shah of Iran, and a
THE UNIFICATION of the Arab Republic of North Yemen and the People's Democratic Republic of South Yemen, ratified on May 22, 1990 by the parliaments of the two countries, was, although discreet, an Important event for the Middle East.
This "soft" unification, unlike its German equivalent, was carried out with the agreement of the existing governments;