China has gone through more than three decades of reforms. The reforms in economic domain has resulted many successes as the market system has been established, China becomes a member of the World Trade Organization, and the economic growth rate has been at the second highest in the world since 1990s. After seeing the success of the reforms in the economic realm, the intellectuals studying China started to have a natural curiosity about the reforms in the political realm (Kang 2003, 6).[1] In the political realm, the intellectuals focus on three major problems. First, what changes have been taken place since the 1980s? Second, can China maintain political stability? Third, will China democratize? The answers to all these three questions are quite polarized. For example, some scholars agree that there have been enormous political changes since 1980s, while others have opposite ideas (Kang 2003, 7). In this paper, I will review the literature relevant to aforementioned three questions. The literature is reviewed in a sequence based on the methods used as much as possible: (i.e. structural, sociological, functional, political-strategical, behavioral, political cultural and rational choice.)

The Political Developments in China

Lipset (1959, 105) postulates that certain social and economic conditions, including economic wealth and capitalism as well as the others, lead to democracy.[2] The studies of Landsberg and Burkett (2005), Kang (2003), and Sun (1999) supports Lipset’s hypothesis. However, the studies of Sun (1999), Kang (2003, 84), and others show that the path from social and economic conditions is not as straight as they are in the Lipset’s hypothesis.

Kang (2003), using structural and sociological methods argues that both the growth of Chinese civil society and the transformation in the Chinese political system has deeply affected by the economic reforms.[3] More specifically, China has had two options of political response to the economic developments: democratization and the refurbishing its current political system[4]. China opt the latter, as the democratization option is not good fit to the cultural and political circumstances. The latter option calls for focusing on the workings of administration and governance, while liberalizing the economy. This is, indeed, a form of "New Authoritarianism” which is a soft version of Mao’s totalitarianism (Kang, 2003).

To Gallagher (2002, 338), Lipset’s theory explains the democratization trend in East Asia during the 1970s and 1980s, but not the democracy trend in China in the recent decades. Gallagher (2002, 339), in her sociological approach claims that foreign direct investments (FDI) emerged along with the "reform and openness” is a key factor in China’s ability to reform economy while delaying democratization, because the FDI strengthened the political status quo and weakened the labor class which may be the mobilization force for the reforms in political realm. In fact, FDI liberalization has been the major force of the Chinese economic growth, as it has made great contributions to the widening economic opportunities among Chinese regions, firms and workers. Meanwhile, FDI liberalization has put pressure on the regions, firms, and workers. Regions and state-owned firms compete for attracting FDI; firms compete against foreign invested firms for market share, profits and skilled labor; and workers compete for jobs. Such competitive pressure has increased the societal fragmentation; reduced the power of the previously powerful urban working class; and reduced "the societal resistance to reforms, which in turn has delayed demands for political change” (Gallagher 2002, 341-344).

            The effects of the FDI cannot be confined within the economic realm as the historical materialism implies that economic realm has effects on ideological and political realms. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has reduced its commitment to its ideological principles implying state ownership, elevated role of working class, and economic justice. These principles have lost their values in favor of improving the Chinese economy (Gallagher 2002, 371).

In the political realm, the FDI does not have considerable changes. Moreover, it has served to strengthen the status quo. Yet, Gallagher contends that the delay in political change may have benefits. The delay provides opportunity for building societal foundation of democratization. This foundation includes the formal institutions to mediate conflict and a strong middle class to build a stable democracy. Both the formal institutions and strong middle class provide stability which is necessary during the transition from socialism to liberal democracy (Gallagher 2002, 371).   

The Gallagher’s study does not answer how much time the Chinese political system needs to wait for the formation of the strong middle class. Moreover, in Gallagher’s conceptualization, the economic circumstances characterized by the competitive market can not lead to formation of a strong middle class.

Sun (1999) has more concrete ideas about the lag between the reforms in economic and political realms. To Sun (1999), corruption helps political reform lag behind economic reform in China. But this idea does not necessarily leads us to conclude that eradicating the corruption opens way to the political reforms. Indeed, Sun proposes that corruption creates economic and social problems leading to crises of political legitimacy, and pushes for political change, as testified by the Tiananmen incident (Sun 1999, 16). Therefore, Sun and Gallagher’s ideas together imply that both corruption and eradicating corruption leads to political reforms in the long term. This conclusion is parallel to the Landsberg et al’s (2005) one of the conclusions implying that Chinese economic developments will eventually lead to a formation of bourgeoisie; and emergence of bourgeoisie accelerate the political reforms. To Landsberg et al. (2005) the economic developments in China have already had a significant political consequence which is the flexibility in centralized political control. Indeed, the election started at county level in 1998 is a concrete evidence of the political changes.

Like Sun who proposes that corruption leads to political reforms through the social and economic crises, Landsberg et al (2005) contend that the rapid economic growth has the similar impacts. In fact, the Chinese rapid economic growth has come along with increasing unemployment, increasing economic insecurity, increasing economic inequality, intensified exploitation, declining health and education levels, raising government debt, and unstable prices. All these factors provide potential for the mobilization of the disadvantaged people. This potential along with the emergence of middle class leads to the political reforms.   

To Liping et al (1999), the delay in formation of the middle class constitutes a threat to Chinese political system. To Liping et al, the weakened class may have hostile feelings toward the rich class (1999, 5-55). That hostility may grow up so that it may turn the China to a Latin America type society.  On the other hand, Kang’s functionalist approach claims almost the opposite (2003, 86). To Kang, overall the Chinese politics is stable, since the resistance can not reach to the threat level as the population is scattered geographically and the state has coercive mechanism to suppress any threat in its infancy. Landberg et al. (2005) in their book also notes that the current position of the middle class is not strong enough to constitute a threat to the status quo.

The weakened class in Liping et al’s study is the class of workers and peasants. The structural studies of Gallagher, and Liping et al. implicitly assume that that current situation of Chinese peasantry and workers provide major obstacle for the Chinese democracy. Indeed, this assumption is based on Moore’s seminal work. Moore explicitly argues that peasants are major obstacles to a transition to democracy (Moore 1966, 418). But the survey results presented by Zhong (2005) as well as the facts indicate the opposite. Zhong (2005) finds that Chinese peasants are ready for democracy.^[5] The facts are those the electoral reforms in China happened in rural areas among peasants (Shi 1999, 387). To Shi, using Huntinton’s political strategic approach, the electoral reform has been done because of the strategic decisions of political elite influenced by pressures from the peasants and the Party members who have opposite ideas to the political leadership. The political polarization (i.e. soft-liners and opposition within the CCP) has debated about the form of electoral reform. For example, the reform leader, Premier Zhao Ziyang feared losing control over rural reform and therefore opposed introducing elections into Chinese villages. After the political leadership ratifies the electoral law, they attempted at manipulating the electoral procedures for the sake of maintaining their authority. On the other hand, the pressure for fair elections from peasants has always influenced the strategies of the leader (Shi 1999, 389-410).

Zhong (2005, 210), based on the results of a survey concludes that the Chinese peasantry is ready for democracy. More specifically, a survey in southern Jiangsu province, one of the most developed rural areas in China, shows that the peasants had high levels of democratic values and political efficacy, as they endorsed the elections, supported the freedom of expression and shows the political tolerance. In addition, Zhong reports that the rural respondents have higher level of democratic culture than the urban respondents. Regarding the urban people’s attitude toward democracy, Nathan (1993) reports the results of a survey. A survey conducted in Beijing in December 1988, four months before the Tiananmen Square demonstrations, produced that 72  % of the respondents agreed that democracy is the "best form of government”; 79% of them do not believe that democracy cause chaos in China; 50 % of them trust the government; and 65 % of them are in favor of citizens’ influence in government. The survey and 1989 Tiananmen incidents demonstrate that the Chinese public retains faith in socialism and the Party. They desire more freedom and democracy (Nathan 1993: 284). Furthermore, Nathan strengthens his arguments about the Chinese public attitude toward democracy by analyzing some more variables. In his analysis, he concludes that, China has enough levels of literacy, GNP, public access to mass media, strong police and military institutions for keeping pace in democracy (Nathan 1993: 281).[6] After this preliminary conclusion Nathan (1993) continues to explore why China still does not have democracy. He proposes political cultural explanations: "Chinese people’s cultural-psychological structure” is not adequate for democracy; Chinese people need to be transformed by Western style Enlightenment process to be qualified for democracy (Nathan 1993: 282). He lists the cultural characteristics relevant to his argument. Cited from Pennock, Nathan’s list include values as dignity, autonomy, and respect for other; belief in individual rights; trust, tolerance and willingness to compromise; commitment to democratic procedures and values; public spirit; and nationalism, among others (Nathan 1993: 284).

 Huntington has similar ideas with Nathan:

"Modern democracy is a product of Western civilization. It is rooted in social pluralism, the class system, civil society, the credo of rule-of-law, the experience of a system of personal political representation, the separation between spiritual and secular authority, and the insistence on individualism. All these cultural traits can be found in the traditions of Western Europe, and began to appear there more than a thousand years ago.” (Cited from Huntington, in Kang  2003, 82).

            To Kang (2003, 83-6), Western style democratization is almost impossible in China, because political culture that has been evolved over two thousand years based on Confucians principles has the major characteristic of that "the executive force controls society”. Confucius focused on legitimacy of the ruling and emphasized that the rulers must carry out "a benevolent governance” or else they loose heaven and be overtuned by the people (Kang 2003, 84-5). Kang (2003, 85) notes that except for South Korea, the East Asian countries belong to the "Confucian cultural sphere” do not have Western style democracy.    

Wang and Titunik’s (2000) study has more details about the Confucian culture relevant to the governance. Wang et al (2000), in their analysis of the political culture, they conclude that the Chinese "Minben” tradition which emphasizes the importance of individual virtues in the political order is different than the Western democratic culture (Wang 2000, 73). Minben concept assumes that individuals are crated as "son of heaven” and they inherently serve for the public good in order not to loose their status of being the "son of heaven”. In Minben concept, the "good of the people” leads to accountable-government and producing public welfare, and democratic system is not necessary for these purposes. On the other hand, Western tradition assuming that every person is created with sin emphasizes the importance of the institutions (i.e. democratic system) for the accountability of governing and public welfare. The Minben idea has served for supporting authoritarian governments in the Chinese history. To Wang et al. (2000, 86) the Chinese political culture based on Minben makes China not ready for the Western style democracy; therefore, a gray democratization including partial institutionalization of Western democratic practices may be better fit to China.

Shi (1999) is suspicious about the effect of culture and civil society explanations about the Chinese political development. He argues that there is no civil society leading to neither "generalized mobilization" nor "voluntary organized social life", in China (Shi 1999, 388)  

The cultural explanations presented here reveal that individual agent is the primary actor bringing the change. The thin rational choice approach focuses on the individual while isolating him/her from the cultural and other non-materialistic influences. Given the fact that democracy is giving up of some controls by political elite, rational choice has potential for providing insights for the changes and prospects of democracy in China. To Shi, Chinese democratic reform has been retarded because the political, economic and cultural elite do not pay enough attention to the power and interests of the lower and middle strata of society. The elite currently have large share of society’s welfare and power, but they will incapable to hold their status in meritocracy of the democratic system; therefore, they don’t want to step forward to bring democracy to China (Shi 1999, 82-6).  

            Hu (1999, 11) argues that the Chinese elites support the political reforms only if they help the economic development. To Hu (1999), China has embraced a "development-fostering” way of political reform which ensures economic development and growth. The other way of political reform is the one pursuing Western style democratization such as direct elections of the president, multiple party, etc. To Hu (1999, 12) the Western style political reforms may not necessarily be a democracy suited to China. Moreover, the historical evidence of Russia and the Eastern Europe countries shows that the Western democracy does not guarantee success in economic realm. Hu (1999, 22) concludes that China follow its own unique model of economic development to bring its democratizing political reform at minimal social cost and price. As part of this progress, China has already started openness in the affairs of villages, local governments, state governments, urban communities, judiciary, and the factories (Hu 1999, 24). Despite the bias in Hu’s article, it provides an insider perspective from the Chinese government.

            Despite the methodological difference of Hu and Shi, their conclusions are parallel to each other to some extent. Indeed, there is a fear in the elite for the political changes. They know that they are the beneficiaries within the current system, but they don’t know what the new political changes bring about for their prosperity. They don’t want to take risk of uncertainty and political instability that will most likely to come up with the political changes.

Concluding Remarks

Every approaches presented in this study provides explanations for the Chinese political development, to some extent.

The emergence of Western style democracy has long way to come to China.

There are political and cultural barriers. The politicians do not want to relegate their power. Relegation of power is easy for a strong leaded like Chiang Ching-kuo (in Taiwan) whose personal authority overrides opposition in all sectors of the party and government, or for a new and popular leader like Gorbachev who can use his political "honeymoon” to introduce policy innovations. But there is little likelihood that such a strong leader will emerge in China after Deng. (Nathan 1993: 289).

The cultural barriers are frequently cited in the literature. Chinese culture based on trust to individual, personal loyalty, frequent betrayals, extreme rhetoric, emotional intensity, etc. may provide some difficulties for the democracy movements (Nathan 1993, 290). But I am quite suspicious about the culture; because the power of desperation due to corruption, extreme poverty in some provinces along with economic inequalities, repression over ethnic groups is so significant as to overcome the cultural barriers. Furthermore, the democratic Taiwan which is culturally Chinese testifies the insignificance of the cultural barriers. [7] Indeed, the Taiwan’s democratic experience may give us an idea about how a democratic China will be. On the other hand, geographical factors and the larger population of China make it noncomparable to Taiwan to some extent. 

Kang notes that even if the participation through nationwide elections can be established, it is not easy to establish a fair competition mechanism.[8] In other words, electoral democracy may be possible but liberal democracy is almost impossible within the current structure of China because of the differences in Western and Chinese political culture[9] (Kang 2003, 79-82). Yet, electoral democracy does not produce any panacea to the Chinese major problems, political corruption, social inequality and economic instability (Kang 2003, 80).

If Chinese democracy begins, it may well have a single dominant party that stays in office permanently like those in Taiwan and Japan. The electoral mobilization is done on the basis of personal ties and payoffs from political machines rather than issues, and military will continue to be loyal to ruling party. The new government will not adopt federalism as the China seeks governmental efficiency through centralized system of undivided sovereignty. Diamond argues that the one-party will continue. Yet, economic development creating a more complex, pluralistic, self-confident and resourceful society, as well as leading to more flows of information, more space for independent organizations which cannot be managed with the monolithic, arbitrary and repressive domination will generate growing pressure for regime change toward democracy. However, it is possible that this pressure leads to a new form of authoritarianism as well (Diamond 1999: 266-7).

If China goes well, it itself constitutes a "wave” of democratic change in the world, because it is a rising super power with its 1.3 billion population (Diamond 1999, 267). It contributes to the world prosperity both as producer and as a market Otherwise, it will continue to pollute the earth, atmosphere and threaten the world’s security with its nuclear power. In this sense, weak China is more dangerous than the strong one, as it damages to itself and world. Now, it is doubtful that China is strong and stable. The democratic China will be stronger because, democracy provides peaceful and legitimate channels for resolving issues of power and policy; ways of forming a national consensus on important issues; increasing economic growth; protection for dissent; and preventing public unrest (Nathan 1993: 292).

References

Diamond, Larry. 1999. Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Gallagher Marry E. 2002. "Reform and Openness” World Politics, 54, 3, 338-72.

Landsberg, Martin Hart, and Paul Burkett. 2005. China and Socialism. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1959. "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy," American Political Science Review, 53,1, 69-105.

Nathan, Andrew J. 1993. "Is China Ready for Democracy” In The Global Resurgence of Democracy, eds. Larry Diamond, and Marc F. Plattner, pp. 281-292. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Oksenberg, Michel. 2001. "Will China Democratize?” In The Global Divergence of Democracy, eds. Larry Diamond, and Marc F. Plattner (eds.), pp. 348-354. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Palmer, Monte. 1997. Comparative Politics. Illinois: F. E. Peacock Publishers, Inc.

Shi, Tianjian. 1999. "Village Committee Election in China: Institutionalist Tactics in China”. World Politics, 51, 3, 385-412.

Sun, Yan. 1999. "Reform, State and Corruption: Is Corruption Less Destructive in China than in Russia?” Comparative Politics, 32, 1, 1-20.

Tsai Kellee S. 2005. "Capitalists without a Class: Political Diversity among Private Entrepreneur in China”. Comparative Political Studies, 38, 9, 1130-1158. Sage Publications.

Wang, Enbao, and Regina F. Titunik. 2000. "Democracy in China: The Theory and Practice of Minben” In China and Democracy, ed. Suisheng Zhao, pp.73-88. New York: Routledge.

Kang Xiaoguang. 2003. "China: Political Development and Political Stability in the Era of Reform”. The Chinese Economy, 35, 5, 6-92. M. E. Sharpe, Inc.

Zhong, Yang. 2005. "Democratic Values among Chinese Peasantry.” China: An International Journal, 3, 2, 189-211.