Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
characteristics” for short. Today the ideology-over-democracy notion
is summed up in Jiang Zemin's “Three Represents” theory, first pro-
pounded in 2002, which holds that the Party (and thus not the Chinese
public itself) represents the best interests of “advanced social produc-
tive forces” (the economy), China's culture, and “the fundamental
interests of the majority” (the popular consensus).
Actually, the view that correct ideology makes democracy and
democratic institutions unnecessary was also shared by the former
Soviet Union. Both the Soviet and the Chinese Communist political
systems “utilized ideology to buttress the legitimacy of the system,
and held that leaders embodied the correct ideology, leaving no room
for private, individual interests or for organized opposition to the
state” (Lieberthal 1995, 157).
Will China someday have a democratic form of government? Prior
to the Tiananmen crackdown, some Western observers were optimis-
tic about the prospects for democracy in China. Merle Goldman's
1993 topic Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China, for example, covered
the democratic thought of the group around Hu Yaobang, the demo-
cratically minded general secretary of the Party until his death in the
spring of 1987. But now, for the time being or at least ever since
Tiananmen, the Chinese Communists seem to have ruled out any
possibility of allowing the emergence of a multiparty democratic sys-
tem in China. On 9 March 2009 Wu Bangguo, China's second-highest
ranking Communist Party member, iterated tersely that China would
never implement democratic reforms. Wu represented the Party's
conclusion that a multiparty political system, an independent judi-
ciary, and the separation of powers were unworkable for China.
“Without a single Communist Party in control, [China] would be torn
by strife and incapable of accomplishing anything,” he stated flatly
(NYT, 9 March 2009).
The Chinese Communist Party today is not as fearful of a violent
overthrow of its rule as it is of what it calls “peaceful evolution” (hep-
ing yanbian) away from its one-party dictatorial rule. The Chinese
Communists fear that economic development, rising standards of
living, and the influences of Western (and perhaps South Korean) cul-
ture will combine to make the Communist Party less appealing to the
Chinese people and lead to the formation of other, more democrati-
cally minded parties and a multiparty democratic political system.
This is in fact what may well happen in the long run, but exactly
how long that long run will be is anybody's guess. Meanwhile the
Party maintains a hyper-vigilant, almost paranoid defensive stance
against “peaceful evolution” and regularly inveighs against it in
