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    China 2020: The Next Decade for the People’s Republic of China
    China 2020: The Next Decade for the People’s Republic of China
    China 2020: The Next Decade for the People’s Republic of China
    Ebook433 pages324 hours

    China 2020: The Next Decade for the People’s Republic of China

    By Kerry Brown

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    About this ebook

    This book presents eight separate essays and provides the reader with a unique perspective and objective judgement of where China will stand by the end of the current decade. It is suitable reading for foreign policy practitioners, academics and anyone interested in one of the world’s fastest-developing countries. The eight essays cover the following topics: China’s internal politics; China’s military; China’s economy; China’s international image and its international relations; China’s legal development and China’s western regional development plans. China 2020 assesses where these issues stand today and highlights their likely trajectory over the following decade. A unique feature of this book is that it looks in particular at the policy impact, both for China and other countries, and all the most and least likely outcomes for China’s development in these areas.
    • Concentrates on the practical policy impacts and the expected outcomes each of the above areas will have
    • Deals with issues like the opening up of China’s undeveloped western area. A subject with little coverage in other mainstream books on China
    • Takes a short to mid-term view of China’s development, so that the period is highly definable and the contours of what might happen are already clear
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherElsevier Science
    Release dateMar 4, 2011
    ISBN9781780632780
    China 2020: The Next Decade for the People’s Republic of China

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      Book preview

      China 2020 - Kerry Brown

      1

      China in 2020: the leadership and the Party

      Kate Westgarth¹

      To attempt to discuss how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese leadership might look in 2020 seems courageous, if not foolhardy. After all, Western predictions about China’s future are notable for their inaccuracy. In the aftermath of the Tiananmen protests in 1989 there was a general consensus in the first place that the regime could not survive long, and, when that proved to be inaccurate, that the cost of perceived repression would be economic growth and modernisation. Western and Western-based Chinese pundits have been foretelling China’s imminent collapse for the 20-odd ensuing years – but, so far at least, the PRC has confounded them all. So, in a departure from tradition, this chapter will not consider the future of the Party through a Western prism but through what Chinese Party members – in particular the current Chinese leadership Chinese leadership – Chinese leadership are saying about their own plans, fears, ideals and predictions for the future. It is also written on the assumption that Party rule will persist in 2020: to assume otherwise would suggest that consultation of a crystal ball is more appropriate than seeking truth from fact. Given the slow, cautious and incremental nature of reform and change in the Chinese system thus far, it also seems safe to say that moves proposed now are likely to take us well on the way to 2020 before we see their full implementation, or can judge their impact and assess their success. To put it another way, 2003 saw the first serious mention of what became Hu Jintao’s theories of Harmonious Society and the Outlook on Scientific Development. Seven years later, they are both still very much with us.

      The background

      Despite the CCP’s reputation for opacity, the Chinese leadership has recently shown a remarkable willingness to discuss the Party’s future. Indeed, a few days after the road map for Party building and ideology for the early twenty-first century was explicitly set out by Hu Jintao in his speech to the Fourth Plenum of the 17th Party Congress in September 2009, the CCP International Liaison Department (ILD) held an unprecedented briefing for foreign journalists and diplomats. Perhaps disappointingly for the hosts – who had taken the trouble to field Professor Wang Changjiang, a top Party building expert from the Central Party School – interest from the invited foreigners reportedly focused on the non-appointment of Vice-President Xi Jinping to the Central Military Commission rather than on the nitty-gritty of Party building (Ta Kung Pao, 23 September 2009), but the message was nevertheless clear. The ‘Decision on a Number of Issues in Strengthening and Improving Partybuilding in the New Situation’ was intended to be highly significant.

      So what exactly went on at the Fourth Plenum? Although the full speeches made by Hu and Xi have not been published (extracts from Hu’s appeared in a Xinhua report of 18 September 2009), we know that only those two made significant speeches. Hu first read out most of the Decision and was immediately followed by Xi, who provided the customary explanation of how the decision was drafted. This was significant in two respects, firstly in underlining the importance of Xi’s position as responsible for Party internal affairs as head of the Secretariat and secondly, by extension, as secure in his position as heir apparent to the position of General Secretary of the CCP. The issues surrounding leadership succession will be considered later. For now, let’s concentrate on the contents of the ‘Decision’, the circumstances that led to its adoption and the blueprint for the Party’s immediate future that emerged from the Plenum.

      A learning-oriented Marxist party

      In his speech, Hu Juntao was explicit that the CCP’s goal in the twenty- first century should be on the one hand the continued ‘sinicisation of Marxism’ (a concept first identified by Mao in the 1930s) and on the other ‘rendering Marxism timely and popular.’² In an interview with the New York Times two days later, Central Party School political scientist Gao Xinmin characterised Hu’s stated aim of popularising Marxism as a ‘theoretical breakthrough’ and described the CCP’s intent to construct a ‘learning-oriented Marxist political party’. There is a tendency among many Western analysts to pass rapidly (and cynically) over any discussion of CCP Marxist theory as irrelevant or essentially retrospective and conservative, and, as Cheng Li has noted, to consider the concept of intra-Party democracy to be little more than expedient rhetoric, with little real substance.³ Yet the evident importance placed on these concepts by the leadership strongly suggests a real rather than a merely rhetorical value, which we should consider seriously.

      On the theoretical front, the most important new thinking to come out of the Plenum is the new political campaign, which looks set to influence the inner life of the Party at least up to 2020 – the construction of a learning-oriented Marxist party (jianshe xuexi xing zhengdang). Since the Plenum, the senior leadership has busied itself with promoting the new concept. For example, Xi Jinping spoke on the subject at a CPS conference ‘to actively encourage the building of a learning-oriented Marxist party’, recommending the study of socialist theory with Chinese characteristics and applying the core values of socialism;⁴ Li Changchun further expounded on it when he launched the publication of new versions of The Works of Marx and Engels and The Specialised Works of Lenin;⁵ the CCP General Office issued its ‘Opinions on Promoting the Building of Learning- Oriented Party Organisations’ in February 2010, combined with a circular containing detailed implementation instructions;⁶ and Qiushi on 16 March 2010 commented on ‘A Major and Urgent Strategic Task – On Efforts to Build a Learning-oriented Marxist

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