FRONT PAGE: "China's Students Feel a Faint Tug From the Ghosts of Tiananmen," by Sharon LaFraniere, New York Times, 22 May 2009.
Reporter interviewing students at Peking U yields the same sense I get every time I go to Beijing and interact with students (Peking U in the past, Tsinghua more lately):
... a layered portrait of today's students: disinclined to protest, but also lacking the economic grievances that helped ignite protests in 1989; proud of China's achievements and flocking to the Communist Party, but seldom driven by ideology.
As I have argued for a while, calling China "communist" is a joke. The Party clings to the name but ditched the ideology a long time ago. It is a center-right ruling party that favors less government involvement in the economy over time (the PRC government controls not that much more of its GDP than the U.S. government does now) but a firm grip on political expression (meaning, it wants to retain its rule above all else--hardly a unique aspect to the Chinese Communist Party [single-party states share this focus the world over] and nothing that defines its alleged "communism" [by most objective definitions, China wouldn't appear in the top 30 of a list of truly socialist states in the world, as its current form of marketism is brutally atomistic--as in, every Chinese for himself]).
Since this party is focused on only two things (its continuing regime legitimacy and buttressing that through rapid and comprehensive economic development) and the bulk of the population (students and non-students alike) are focused primarily on the second point (getting ahead themselves), there is a profound reluctance to mess with the political formula as it now stands (Chinese know their history).
What there is, among the populace, is a growing sense that government must be more responsive to particular needs, and so long as your agitation focuses on that particular need without challenging the party's ultimate rule, your political expression is allowed. Cross that line and you're in the cross-hairs.
The basic reality, as captured by a Peking U. prof (paraphrased here): "... many students supported democracy in theory but did not want to risk their futures to fight for it." This utilitarian approach is actually criticized by Party papers: the elite apparently worries about the lack of idealism among the young.
But that's a poor term to use here (idealism). I find the students highly idealistic, just not politically activist in their mindset (policy-active but not politically-active--and yes, there is a difference). And no, the current economic downturn does nothing to encourage any movement in the direction of more activism--just the opposite.
So, the balance remains: generally proud of the country's achievements and ready to credit the Party for them, but an underlying sense that the Party--all by itself--does not represent the nation's full future, and yet, given the challenges of getting ahead individually, no great social rush to push that envelope for now.
The Party recognizes the danger of a depoliticized youth, and so ramps up its efforts to recruit. Only 1 percent of students were Party members in 1989, but now it's up to 7 percent. This is considered a great gain, but to me, the total remains pathetically low. Give the same students a choice in parties, like we have here in the States, and those percentages would increase several fold--in aggregate. But in China, where there is only one choice, 93% still say, "no thanks." And the seven percent that do reach for that option do so primarily to improve job prospects. Virtually no one who joins, we are led to believe, takes the propaganda very seriously. One student says, "Even the teachers know they are teaching rubbish."
The good sign here: continuing interest in Tiananmen and a curiosity about what really happened. Students feel embarrassed that foreigners know the country's recent history (as in, the last several decades) better than they do.
In sum, I see a population responding logically to the incentive structure as presented. Enough for now, yes, but it won't be enough down the road, which is why single-party rule in China is simply doomed--to the country's great long-term benefit.
Not only will life get too complex (especially in the economy) for a single party to pretend it can manage it all, but the global environment will draw China into more risky positions, demanding more risk-taking behavior from the government. And with more risk will come more failure, and with those failures will come the social demand for pluralism--as in, the ability to throw one set of bums out and replace them with a suitable alternative.
No doubt, the original alternatives will all arise within the Party itself. Also no doubt that, eventually, the crisis will come that will force the Party to allow itself to lose its rule in order to salvage its legitimacy ("Let that faction run the place for a while, and when they fail, we'll come back even stronger!").
How fast will this evolution happen? What is your big hurry, I might ask? Does the United States have any desire to own the problem of China's 6-700 million rural poor? We have little desire to own Africa's similar version, so what makes you think our desire for democracy-now! would make us any more interested in China's internal impoverished population?
So long as the getting-ahead philosophy is encouraged by a center-right party that clings to its past roots, that pool should be progressively decreased, and that alone should make us happy with the status quo, leaving the question of political evolution to the locals themselves.
And when enough of the population is elevated into something better, then yes, we will expect them to want something more from their political elite--like the right to change them out on their timetable instead of the party's.
Until then, be careful what you wish for but realize that your wishes are meaningless compared to what the average Chinese wants.
Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 7:52AM 
