Long-term outlook for China's political reform

Zhang, Wei-Wei

In: Asia Europe Journal, 2006, vol. 4, no. 2, p. 151-175

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    Summary
    China's post-1978 economic reform is generally acclaimed as success, for the Chinese economy has expanded nine-fold in a matter of 25years and the country rose from the world's 34th largest trading nation in 1978 to the third largest in 2004 ahead of Japan. Interestingly, the Chinese experiment is often described in the West as "economic reform without political reform”. This begets the question: how could a politically un-reformed system be able to deliver such an economic miracle? In reality, China has conducted, by its own standards, major political reforms since 1978. Though far short of the Western expectations, the Chinese experience since 1978 should better be described as "great economic reforms with lesser political reforms”, without which China's economic success would be inconceivable. China's "lesser political reforms” have reduced country's opportunities for greater political change, thus alienating many reform-minded intellectuals. Nevertheless, it may also have helped China avert the possible economic and social upheavals which could have resulted from rushing too fast into a radically different economic and political system. There is a strongly held belief, especially among the more ‘ideological' observers of Chinese affairs that unless there were a radical political reform, perhaps tantamount to a revolution, to rid China of its "oppressive” Communist Party, the Chinese system would inevitably collapse just like what had happened in the USSR and Eastern Europe. As the party has been in power, China had been predicted to face collapse in the aftermath of the Tiananmen crisis of 1989, the Soviet Union's disintegration of 1990, the death of Deng Xiaoping in 1996, and the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and the 2003 outbreak of SARS. Yet all these forecasts turned out to be wrong and the track record of the China doomsayers over the past 20years is indeed poor. Will China become a democracy through its political reform in 20years? Indeed, a full democracy could be the best scenario for China, the region and beyond, but it is difficult to give a definitive answer, which will, to a great extent, depend on how to achieve democracy in China, i.e. the costs/risks involved, as well as what kind of ultimate shape such a democracy will take. If full-fledged democratisation will take more time, the pressure for a more accountable government and more democratic society is growing, and this trend will continue with the rise of China's middle class and civil society. Therefore, the most likely scenario for China in the coming two decades is that China will continue its own approach to political reform, and the relative successful experience of China's economic reform may well set a pattern for China's political reform in the years to come. As part of Europe's general approach towards China's political change, it is in Europe's interest to assist, in line with the view of most Chinese, gradual reform rather than revolution or ‘regime change', which could produce hugely negative consequences for China itself, Sino-European relations and European interests in China and even East Asia