China: Reformation and its Growing Influence

In this blog, I will explore the most important factor for effective reformation in China in the post-Mao era and the factors that suggest that China's growing influence in the world. 

Historically, the power to make reformations through policy was contingent upon the power of the leader rather than the fixed rule of an established institution. By power, I here mean, the strength of the leader's faction in the Chinese Communist Party(CCP) and the relative ease with which the leader controlled the bureaucracy, State-Owned Enterprises(SOEs), mining and energy factions, and the public security apparatus. The major reforms occurred in the form of policy wave through the push of the central government aided by the bureaucracy and the local bodies.

Image Source: Straits Times

Let us compare two leaders--Zemin and Jintao--in terms of the leader's power and their effectiveness in leadership. Jiang Zemin, who was appointed as the leader in 1987, only consolidated his power in 1997 after the death of Deng Xiaobo. He was not able to bring any major changes until 1998. The political environment became better for Zemin as he had a few oppositions within the party and other relevant actors after 1997. After the consolidation in power, he brought about the policy wave mainly through privatization of small and medium-sized enterprises, the reformation in private housing and the joining of the World Trade Organization(WTO). In addition to Zemin's control in the party, this policy wave was successful because of the positive international environment, good ties with the United States and resizing of the bureaucracy. Zemin had gone to a successful trip of the United States and had cut majors tariffs for the entry into the World Trade Organization(WTO). He purged Chen Xitong, the party secretary of the Bejing who may have opposed him and streamlined bureaucracy leaving fewer or weaker bureaucrats to resist the policy. For effective implementation of policy, there should be a good tempo between the executive leaders and Xi maintained a close relationship with the Prime Minister in that direction.

Image Source: ThoughtCo

Hu Jintao, on the other hand, was a weak leader primarily because he did not have Communist Youth League people around him on the Politburo Standing Committee and because he did not have good relationships with the Prime Minister.  Similarly, the state-owned enterprises became very powerful during his era which impeded his effectiveness in power. He had to face the challenge from one of the eight immortals, Bo Xilai, who was backed by the energy sector so much so that he could not even close private coal mines that were killing 6,000 people a year. Therefore, there was no policy-wave during Hu's period. We can safely from these two examples that the extent to which a leader holds power in the party, government and with its actor is important in making reformations.  From the perspective of making ground-breaking reformations, why should we in Nepal complain about the Prime Minister getting more powerful if the concentration of power in the chief leader is good?

Now that we have laid out the leadership as the most important factor in the transformation of China, let us now delve into the factors that suggest that China's growing influence in the world.  We will first start with leadership.  XI Jing Ping has a different approach to the foreign policy than his predecessors--he is very proactive and has focused on self-identifying China as a big power. He is very affirmative on setting Chinese broad national interest, especially in matters of its territory.  The Chinese leadership is now thriving for world leadership rather than keeping a low profile. We see this trend before Xi was the president and Xi now is firmly committed to reshaping the international system as he has formally given up Deng Xiaoping's' lying low' strategy. Although China has succumbed to the global political order than most of the post-war socialist countries, China has been constrained by the international system. However, China is trying to reform the international system either by participating in international organizations or by creating new ones. As China gains more power, it may want to break up or reform the current international economic and political order.

Image Source: Zee News

Since China is rising in the unipolar system, China wants to pre-empt the United States’ contention policy in the different regions of the world. It is doing so by participating in existing international and regional organizations like WTO and ASEAN to make reforms to its best interests and to enforce its influence. Moreover, it is also establishing new international organization such as Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank(AIIB), similar in modality to World Bank and IMF established after the second world war, or the Pan Pacific Free Trade Area, which is the direct competitor of the American TPP idea. On top of that, China is now starting to build military bases in foreign countries which is now beginning to China. Similarly, China, under Xi's leadership, has initiated one road one belt initiative to counter American Initiatives such as Millennium Corporation Challenge(MCC). This scenario may lead to confrontation between the United States and China diplomatically and economically. The present sanction against Hawaii by the United States is one such example.