This is a valuable addition to the debate on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the prospect of political change and societal stability in China. In the last decades, scholars have looked at many dimensions of state and society in China, such as administrative change, center–local relations, corruption, nationalism, and political protest. They have arrived at different, and sometimes opposite, conclusions as to whether the CCP can hold on to power and the types of political transitions that will occur. David Shambaugh enters this debate with refreshing questions: What has the party leadership learned from the demise of actually existing socialisms that began almost two decades ago? What kinds of political systems or features have the leaders considered, rejected, or appropriated in renewing CCP rule? What kinds of changes has the leadership made based on what it has learned from situations around the world?
The core of this analysis begins with high-level reactions to the 1989 Tiananmen protest movement and the subsequent crumbling of communist parties in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, with Deng Xiaoping and his deputies vowing to combat efforts to force the “peaceful evolution” of communism to capitalism led by the United States. A few years later, the Central Party School, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and other research institutes in China began to produce sophisticated, country-by-country analyses of the failure of communism, many of which were written for internal party consumption. Apparently trite, these analyses, together with the ones on still successful communist regimes, legitimized the uncompromising position that the CCP has since taken on its one-party rule. More importantly, the studies proffered ideas on how to reform CCP rule without risking its survival.
Politically oriented research that served the party did not stop there. Researchers investigated the “color revolutions” in former Soviet republics, accusing nongovernmental organizations and the United States of promoting upheavals. Scholars studied single-party rule and single-party dominance in national politics around the world, delving into the political systems of Syria, Malaysia, Mexico, and so on. They were particularly interested in how ruling parties maintained political control and longevity, especially the positive mechanisms that these parties use to rally popular support. Researchers looked into the transformation of social democratic parties in Europe as well as European welfare states—and even American democracy.
The book, then, turns to the ideological and organizational reforms that the CCP has implemented since the mid-1990s. Among other things, Shambaugh discusses Jiang Zemin's notion of “Three Represents,” Hu Jintao's concept of “socialist harmonious society,” party building, and cadre training. China scholars will find few surprises in this part of the book. However, the previous discussion of politically purposive research carried out widely by party-sponsored organizations provides a new and essential context for understanding the rationales of the reforms. The discussion of the reforms therefore improves our understanding of them. Shambaugh shows that the party is no longer a politically principled organization, but a reflexive one insistent on keeping its rule. It no longer has the capacity to mobilize society; however, it has changed the way it governs. He indicates that it is unlikely that China will see Western-style democracy soon and points to other probable scenarios. Given the lessons the party leadership has learned from around the world, he concludes, it is quite possible that “a new kind of political hybrid” (p. 181) will emerge in Chinese society. This important observation opens the door for future investigations and theorization of the nature of the party and the state in China.
China's Communist Party is a page-turner, well researched and informative. My only complaint is that each of the chapters reads like an independent piece. There is a fully justifiable rationale underlying how the chapters are organized. The reader, however, is left at times to make sense of the connections, because there is a lack of a closely knitted dialogue that runs through the chapters. This becomes obvious with the transition from party research on political systems to substantive reforms undertaken by the party. How were the lessons learned by the party leadership, say, from Singapore's political system, the longevity of Cuban socialism, and the recent transformations of welfare states implemented in China's political and economic reforms? What were the kinds of features debated, selected, and modified by the party leadership? In fact, some of the changes in party organization (for example, enforcing cadre training and launching “the campaign to maintain the advanced nature of party members,” p. 128) remind us of the principles of party discipline articulated by none other than Chairman Mao during the party's Yan'an years. Others have argued that the party leadership has been exploiting the Confucian tradition to maintain CCP rule. How has the party integrated the lessons from its past with the lessons it has learned recently from other countries? How has the party been appropriating traditions ideologically and organizationally? Tackling these and similar questions may take the analysis of CCP rule to other new dimensions of theoretical significance.
