maybe not so different

looking at China again

We are all aware of China’s incredible economic modernisation over the past forty-five years, instilling deep apprension they are leaving us in a cloud of dust as we wallow in whatever the correct term is for our current condition. Some Chinese see the modernisation as complete repudiation of the Century of Humiliation to assure no one dictates China’s future except the CCP, or at least Chinese citizens. Not everyone does, however.

The sum of Xi Jinping’s actions, however, since assuming power eleven hears ago next week indicates less confidence. His perpetual reminds the PLA it serves the Party rather than the country. He attacks western education as subverting the truth of China. He consolidated power via CCP anti-corruption campaigns keeping everyone worrying about loyalty questions. In sum, he uses various activities reeking of failing self-confidence rather than overwhelming power. As I have said repeatedly, we simply don’t have clear evidence of what internal CCP foretell.

We do know, from his public presentations and his words that the CCP propaganda machine promulgates as if they were etched in stone, Xi is advocating a diminishing role for women in China, except as baby and home makers. His presentation to the every five year CCP Women’s conclave last week provides detail.

Women played a role throughout the early years after the Party’s founding in 1921, through the Long March in the ‘30s and the final campaigns of the civil war a generation later but the history of their participation always strikes me as supportive. Communist dogma, however, lauds the equality indigenous to a Marxist-Leninist party, tactically welcoming supporters to solidify the movement. Mao’s second, third and fourth wives, all participated in the struggles before the CCP assumed power in 1949. Wife number two, Yang Kaihui, died after the Guomingdang captured her in 1930 and number three, He Zizhen, actively fought for the CCP.

Best known of his wives, of course, was Jiang Qing. A sometime actress, she used her position as his widow after September 1976 to continue the upheavals of the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution as a member of the Gang of Four. The Gang were all incarcerated for their efforts as the party reversed course to promote modernisation of the economy and society. Her position in the party hierarchy was more prominent than many other women but for messaging rather than policy substantial reasons.

The CCP does have many women among its ranks for pro forma reasons if nothing else because of the importance as a workers’ party, many of whom are women. The CCP also cultivates women for prominent roles in interacting abroad such as the ‘retired’ foreign policy specialist, Fu Ying. Others represent the Party and country as ‘designated barbarian interlocutors’ (my term) on China’s role in the South China Sea, mil-to-mil engagements, and other niche roles.

The PLA also has more female officers in fields such as cyber, for example. Thirty years ago, the overwhelming majority of females in the PLA served tea to foreign delegations while today they do play more substantial roles as well as in political commissar positions.

The irony of Xi’s plea last week for women to return to their traditional roles in the household is that it results from the ‘One Child Policy’ implemented in the late 1970s. Actions definitely created consequences.

The modernisation itself was largely a massive urbanisation project to bring numbers of inefficiently employed agricultural workers into urban factories. As international investment flooded into China to produce low-waged and lower-tech manufactured goods, men were needed for the infrastructure boom to get those products from city factories to ports. Women moved into humongous dormitories where they worked for several years before settling down permanently in the cities, either in their own homes or into marriages. Most never returned to their rural homes which is a partial explanation for the CCP turning the PRC from a largely rural population into an urban-majority country over two generations.

Those living in the cities fell under the One Child Policy so, if they married, these women had a single child and still faced the problems of being part of their husband’s family instead of helping her own family into old age. This decidedly sexist cultural tradition continues but is more important as fewer families had multiple children.

Additionally, China highly values education. With more families having a single child eligible to compete for the education slots, women competed well with their male counterparts. As women achieved higher levels of education, they went into business in various forms rather than staying home to have children. Many Chinese women, if affluent enough, studied in the United States or abroad where women role models differed from those at home.

Younger Chinese also reported in the late 2000s and early 2010s less confidence after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and increased pollution problems across the country resulting from rapid industrialisation at all costs. Younger, prosperous Chinese doubted the future of the nation altogether rather than a change created by the One Child Policy.

China’s women also see evidence of the superficiality of their societal position in several ways. The Standing Committee of the Politburo no longer has a token woman but is solely constituted of male CCP leaders.

The Party today confronts a reality of a female population with decidedly different motivations than in the 1970s when current leadership was growing up. Optimism for an apparently unstoppable economic model no longer sustains the country’s trust in the system. Women have tasted their own efficacy and independence. Women may well be gradually feeling the need to provide for their own parents in a new twist, although as generations pass the configuration of caregiving could transform itself.

The women of China saw whistleblowers in a ‘Me Too’ mini-movement harrassed, then marginalised over the past six years yet their stories do still circulate. Lurid tales of senior CCP officials pressuring young women into illicit relationships, then discarding them when it became politically inconvenient appeared online to the chagrin of sensors. Xi lectures on the need for upright values yet knowing he feels required to issue such reminders confirms the problem. The final straw of an erstwhile Foreign Minister Qin Gang allegedly ousted because the mother of his illegitimate child was a foreign spy always turns the blame on her actions rather than his in a culture prone to discount women across society.

When Xi’s competition for the General Secretary position in 2012 became enmeshed in corruption allegations, Bo Xilai’s wife went on trial for the far worse crime of murdering a foreigner. I have no idea who did what to whom and never will under CCP politics but it always struck me as interesting that no one ever asked if Xilai was her accomplice or perhaps even the perpetrator. The assumption was that she did the really horrible thing while he stood by.

Xi’s wife, Peng Liyuan, is a performer within the PLA and circulates with him much as any spouse of a state leader. She does not appear as politically engaged as Jiang Qing was with Mao but Peng is much more visible in an era of media madness. The CCP uses her as his asset but that is increasingly anamolous in a China seeking women returning to their former tasks as homemakers.

This is probably good news for those who worry about a China so far outpacing the United States. China is balancing a number of highly fraught issues rather than winning exclusively on its terms. Women seeking more sustained roles means many will reject the pressure to go back to babymaking and the household. The demographic imbalance in society already allows women to be choosier about marriage partners.

But the Party’s somewhat panicky urging to return to pre-Four Modernisation conditions would not solve things, either. Women make up a significant portion of China’s human capital—and the CCP knows it. As the country becomes more committed to stepping up to a service economy, women want and need to play a role for that new stage of transformation to occur.

Perhaps Chinese women, at least a few of them, are not all that different from western women. Each nation has a female population seeking to improve its lot while striking out on a new path from the secondary role solely as babymaker. Xi can ask to ‘foster a new type of marriage and childbearing culture’ but that could be an aspiration he can’t really force on the women of China without a cost he doesn’t want to pay.

Time will tell but it’s an interesting window into yet another challenge the CCP confronts. And it is one of their own making, albeit forty-five years ago. China, like any other state, can’t just operate on the old, however, but must address today’s issues to get to the future.

Thank you for reading this column. Please feel free to circulate elsewhere. Definitely feel free to comment, rebutt or suggestion more questions.

It was a warm but welcome Eastport walkabout today. Some colour valiantly hangs on into November. I hope your day was warm and welcome as well.

Be well and be safe. FIN

Alexandra Stevenson, ‘China’s Male Leaders Signal To Women That Their Place Is In The Home’, nytimes.com, 2 November 2023, retrieved at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/02/world/asia/china-communist-party-xi-women.html