transparency in China, redux
transparency or threat?
Xi Jinping is notably thin-skinned. This is the guy who leads a CCP with a hair under a hundred million members out of a population of 1.4 billion. He is, like so many around the globe, carrying broader girth than he was when visiting Iowa in the 1980s following the Cultural Revolution food insecurity. As a result, Xi’s current profile looks remarkably like that of Winnie the Pooh.
Since actions create consequences, Winnie is hence banned in Beijing. American China hawks may be thrilled to point out the ludicrous, authoritarian nature of this act but the insecurity Xi manifests most definitely signals an anxious bunch in charge, men especially uncomfortable about transparency.
A Wall Street Journal report earlier this month reminded us of the prickliness and sensitivity, thus less-than-fully confident, this supposed omnipotent ruling elite and leader actually are. In particular, Rebecca Feng’s report yet again signals that transparency is not only neglected, but feared by Chinese officials.
The particular she referenced concerns China’s economic growth rates. Xi’s unceasing actions over fully twelve years to reestablish the CCP as the beating heart of Chinese life ensures that the Economic Small Leading Groups, CCP structures to compartmentalize decision-making, and their spokesmen across the business community, will avoid public policy interactions. Many of the thousands of professional economists China actually educated over the past forty-five years recognize the unmet need for reforms to free sustained growth. Instead, the Xi has repeatedly ordered, explicitly or more subtly, that policies will endorse his political vision of an economy under Party control, regardless of evidence of that condition’s decline.
Xi’s fear of anyone challenging his personal will invariably attempts to subjugate increasing tension between a population seeking a better standard of living (even if through temporary pain of reform) and one willing to tolerate Party-centric economic dislocation and stagnation. Don’t get me wrong: China is not in free fall as too many people are saying blithely but the PRC economy most definitely is no longer growing at the purported double digit rates it did when urbanization provided cheap labor. Those days are hard to imagine again as the population decline continues.
But Xi simply does not brook criticism of his policies nor, as the article notes, even reaction from those asked to execute it. In fact, I would argue we are seeing China increasingly pull back from any sort of genuine policy loop at all, though within the opaque Party such mechanisms may still function; without transparency, we simply do not know. The bulk of China’s population, however, is definitely not privy to intra-CCP conversations, merely to the outputs that will shape their lives.
Why does this matter? Xi’s dicta undermine the essential condition of interaction (actions between and among people) by which any regime most effectively governs. Vlad the Impaler does it but through harsher methods such as eradicating journalists or critics who miraculously are the most prone to fall off high level balconies than people in the world.
Transparency provides a pulse for a society by maintaining a feedback loop to policy-makers. Without it, any and all societies run the deep risk of 1. overestimating support, 2. depreciating national discontent and pain (or overly fearing the population on the other hand), and 3. providing evidence the governing elite actually makes the effort to solicit “bottom up” responses. While China is culturally prone to the Confucian norm of a top-down, compartmentalized “need to know” relationship-based order, a concept that the ruler must respond to the needs of the governed still exists. China is not, never has been, and likely never will be a system where the voices of the many decide on the specific individual ruler. But China most definitely retains the “Mandate of Heaven”, an enduring obligation of accountability, albeit weakly at times, to the people under that Mandate.
Xi’s determination to prevent transparency undermines his power, even if he keeps trying to pretend it’s not true. The on-going corruption issues of the PLA, for example, exemplify this. Xi’s twelve year opportunity to remake the PLA leadership, following dozens of senior officer trials and an overall purge against corruption, seems relatively ineffectual if the removal of the Defense Minister only four weeks ago is an indication. After a decade in power, the guys who are flag or general officers are, after all, Xi Jinping’s boys who ought be clean as can be. Instead, he does not want to spend too much time reminding anyone of that link.
The bubbas now facing Party (remember, this is a Party rather than a national army) disciplinary tribunals and lengthy incarcerations obviously were never going to volunteer they were corrupt. But how does a non transparent structure discuss why they become suspected? Power within China relies on relationships so the lack of transparency also prevents understanding whether the whole of the offender’s network of affiliates is gone or to answer whether the offender simply lost patronage within his network. Why should we assume this is any nearer the end of corruption than at any other time? This strikes me as fifty-fifty proposition as this basic element of cleaning up the officer corp will occur without genuine accountability through transparency.
Instead, aborted transparency leads to the type of messaging the Journal highlighted last week: less than subtle advice to tell the best side of the story—invariably Xi’s narrative. But, as has been true for the past twenty-five years at least, does the frustrated segment of the population believe anything the Party says? When Xi took power in 2012, some analysts argued he launched the anti-corruption efforts because of the mounting danger from popular cynicism regarding Party corruption and inability to carry out the societal commitments the CCP promised since its founding in 1921. By the end of Hu Jintao’s two terms in office in 2012, China was confronting expanding socio-economic gaps between the interior and the coastal regions as well as between Party elites and everyone else. Xi, it was said, well understood this risky condition for the PRC.
Instead of remedying the problems, Xi “fighting corruption” simultaneously silenced other mechanisms investigating how well the society is working. Xi has shut down journalists, nascent non-governmental organizations, and foreigners who might provide an alternate view from his. The General Secretary obviously fears anyone who challenging his views of “reality” and the threats to the Middle Kingdom. He wants an environment conducive to CCP governance unchallenged in perpetuity. Economic data, a prime measure of whether the society is offering hopes for various sectors, is always more optimistic when the CCP issues it than statistics merit yet anyone considering correcting data downward faces intimidation least going off the official script might occur.
Reports of the PRC building more detention facilities to support Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption efforts further illustrates the point. While the Party announces the investigations of accused officials, trials are not public explorations before a jury of peers—in a courtroom or broadcast across a nation. Instead, the quick efforts to go through the motions of a court case rarely reveal anything other than the most general parameters of one’s sins. In a society where much relies on relationships as noted, carefully developing, then presenting legal cases publicly would advance popular perception of the integrity of the process. But, Xi and the CCP obviously fear these trials could raise further questions they prefer not to confront.
The Party runs the risk of becoming ever more an echo chamber, discounting serious doubts while harassing those who peddle alternate perspectives. The late reformer Hu Yaobang’s death, even within the party four decades ago, led to student demands for some rudimentary recognition of his efforts on behalf of the people. This set off internal Party fears of losing control, ultimately fueling the Tian’anmen Massacre of June 1989. As the “conscience of the CCP”, Hu’s appeals for some integrity for processes within the Party sanctum was too threatening for many cadres to embrace. When the students and workers tried to commemorate his actions, the angst of more traditional authoritarian voices skyrocketed.
It’s quite possible internal CCP intrigue could be even worse in this increasingly divided China, despite its declining population. Luan or societal chaos is a constant anxiety at all levels so fear begins to appear in unexpected places. The internet is easy to monitor but the Party is hyper-vigilant about how the people are reactioning to any and everything. Perhaps the Party does realize poor transparency has already underplayed adequate realization of social frustration. The difference for Party members versus the average Haiyang or Jin on the street would seem substantial. Holding the Party accountable for its actions may be on the horizon, though who knows quite what would trigger the population to set that accountability into action.
China is not there yet but Xi obviously fears his own population because he does not want to hear from anyone with a view other than his. Not a good idea.
Authoritarians in any country recoil from transparency, of course. No one likes criticism but it represents one of most vital aspects of a functioning, sustainable government. Without it, temptations to manipulate facts, create fictions, and to penalize those most vulnerable explode—as does public frustration. This means Xi’s actions are a cautionary tale for any who rule without fully appreciating the voice of the governed. China doesn’t have a monopoly on non-transparent governance or behavior.
None of this means Xi will fall from power tomorrow, though he could. It means that the task of maintaining CCP power becomes ever more precarious. The lack of transparency may be good for undermining the Party long term but it will also breed greater cynicism of government and its role. Whenever the CCP opens the door for greater discussion, billions of voices will demand to be heard so we should not expect it to be a quick or easy process.
I welcome your thoughts on the role of transparency in governing. Perhaps you see it quite differently so let’s have a discussion. I hope you will offer your thoughts on the phenomenon in China or elsewhere.
Thank you for reading Actions today or any other day. I thank the subscribers who support is vital to all the sources I read.
It’s a dreary, rainy day on Spa Creek. We are woefully low on rain so the drops are welcome but it’s still a less than cheery day outside. It leads me to share Harry’s photos as he stores up energy for the next action packed day.
Be well and be safe. FIN
Rebecca Feng, “China Tells Chief Economists: Be Positive, or Else”, WallStreetJournal.com, 20 December 2024, retrieved at https://www.wsj.com/world/china/china-tells-chief-economists-be-positive-or-else-fbb4dcce?mod=Searchresults_pos5&page=1
robert L. Suettinger, The Conscience of the Party: Hu Yaobang , China’s Communist Reformer. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2024.
Yong Xiong, “China is building new detention center all over the country as Xi Jinping widens corruption purge“, CNN, 28 December 2024.