The 17th National Communist Party Congress

17th National Party Congress—The State of the Union

On Monday night 10/15 I stayed up and watched a good bit of Hu Jintao's 2-hour plus speech at the opening session of the 17th National Party Congress (NPC). Though I have watched these before, this one more than ever struck me as so similar to presidential State of the Union messages in the US: look authoritative and confident, stay on the scripted message, hit the major themes repeatedly, have good applause lines, and give the pundits something to chew on after the show. It was all there. Only George Bush was missing.

Actually, though evening classes and reading essays leave me little time for TV, I noticed a number of programs in the week prior to the opening of the NPC that were clearly meant to prime the political pump. One chronicled the abolishment some years ago of the hukou (户口) policy, which had tied rural people to the countryside by making it technically illegal for them to move about freely to seek work. In fact, due to the old policy it was easier for employers to exploit rural émigrés who were “secretly” “sneaking” into the city to work in the booming construction field in particular. Now that the policy is gone workers can come freely to the city, though it's an open question as to whether they are less exploited. In any case, the TV program had a clear spin interviewing former rural residents now working in computer fields or showing young women in clean, quiet high-tech production industries. Indeed, the population shift is massive. An article in the local paper just a few days ago reported that in Henan Province alone from now until 2010—three years—two million will move from the countryside to medium and large cities. Though these clean and quiet workplaces may likely be the exception rather than the rule, there is no doubt that the new policy has greatly contributed to China's current economic boom just as the US a century or more ago evolved from a nation of small farmers to one of urban factory workers.

What then were some themes of Hu's speech and what do they tell us? Let me mention a few that struck me as hinting at some underlying tensions that the government is struggling with and that are of major concern across the population. Two related phrases that were repeated by Hu and discussed afterward were “scientific development” (科学发展) and the pursuit of “both good and rapid development” （又好又快的发展）. These, of course, are related to the issue of whether or not the government is going to be able to continue sustained growth without overheating the economy. The follow-up pundits made much of the fact that the word “good” preceded the word “rapid” in the second phrase, suggesting an awareness of the need for careful choices, not just unrestrained and uneven growth. By some accounts the income gap in China has outstripped even that of the United States. The differences in opportunity and quality of life between the city and the countryside are also of serious concern. So the question of who the future growth is going to be good for is on the table more than ever. In this context, Hu's emphasis on “social harmony” (社会和谐) is also telling because it indicates awareness that if the benefits of development are not more equally distributed there will be trouble. While the lid is still pretty much on the kettle, the potential for its flying off is never far removed. This is not a matter of altruism or even justice. The regime's fate depends on it and they know it.

Indeed, Hu frankly stated that the very survival of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) depends on solving the problem of corruption. There has been some very good foreign reporting on issues of corruption, particularly land grabs by local party officials of farm land, which is then sold or leased to “developers” often over the protests of farmers, usually older ones because many younger people would often just as soon throw in the towel and seek their fortunes in the city. Some of the protests have been met with violent suppression while others have been left to simmer. The question is whether there is more to this phenomenon than numerous or even patterned instances of blatant corruption. In my view there is.

In fact, the CCP needs to deal with two non-voting but very influential constituencies as it tries to “modernize” and “develop” China (= industrialize production and turn the population into consumers). The first is the ever more powerful urban business class, many of whom go through revolving doors with party members and their families. Like their American counterparts, they never seem to have quite enough, and they are always ready to tell others how good their acquisitive behavior is for everyone else. The second is the majority of the population, which is either still on the land or working in factories or the growing service sector, many of them mom and pop small enterprises. Lots of these folks are struggling with marginal salaries and worries about health care, but are also as hopeful as they are wary and suspicious. On the surface, the party's strategy seems pretty straightforward—alternatively throw bones at one group and then the other to keep the lid on the kettle and stay in power. It's kind of like the Wall Street crowd switching its contributions from Republicans to Democrats in the current election cycle.

However, the picture I see in China is in fact a good deal more complex than that. Besides just staying in power, or indeed for the sake of doing so, the CCP has to make China into a modern world economy capable of competing with the established industrialized economies like the US and Japan as well as local rival rising star India. In order to do that, the thinking goes, farmers have to be gotten off the land and into urban production facilities. This is what the Meiji autocrats accomplished in late 19th century Japan and what the combination of poor European immigrant workers and robber baron capital did in the US. Now it's China's turn—the same top down exploitative process—but about 100 years or so later, a mere blink of the eye when it comes to Chinese time.

Making this transition with both of the above constituencies hot on their heels in the context of a very volatile world economy is no mean task. Even Bill and Hilary would be challenged. Given a recent history of high-handedness, corruption, and the legacy of Tiananmen, one might wonder how they have survived even this long. There is an answer, but it goes beyond the superficial and self-serving conventional western press explanations of Stalinist repression, lack of human rights, not enough churches, or whatever.

During the week of the NPC, evening television programs of nationalistic song, dance and pageantry were everywhere. I even saw an old Korean War propaganda film rerun as well as a current TV drama about the WW2 Chinese resistance against Japan. Of course, these broadcasts did not just happen by accident during NPC week. They were meant to recall the Chinese Communist Party's finest hours. Certainly not everyone is enthusiastic about the regime, and almost across the board people are concerned about rising income gaps, rural health insurance, unemployment and inflation, but the celebrations about the success of the Chinese economy and the Chinese nation are far less about the CCP government polity than they are about the Chinese people's feeling of having finally arrived after more than a century and a half—yes, a short time by Chinese historical standards but excruciating nonetheless—of weakness, imperialism, and national humiliation. It is hard to tell government statement chickens from public opinion eggs when one reads official editorials about the right of all Chinese people to have a comfortable life (小康) as their Western and Japanese counterparts do and not just be free from hunger and cold (温饱) because this is indeed a matter of national consensus. Equally it is a matter of human rights and justice in the mind's eye of the majority of Chinese, and at this time in their history it is of the highest priority.