Vilified abroad, popular at home: China's Communist Party at 100

[xizhimen]

Vilified abroad, popular at home: China's Communist Party at 100​

February 18, 2021

A year ago Feb. 7, China’s brave coronavirus whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang died after treating patients in Wuhan, triggering an unprecedented online torrent of grief and anti-government rage along with calls for freedom of speech.

The widespread public outrage over the government’s initial mishandling of the virus outbreak and suppression of Dr. Li’s warnings amounted to what longtime observers called an existential crisis for China’s Communist Party and Xi Jinping, its leader since 2012.

Angry residents brazenly heckled a visiting party Politburo member. Some yelled “it’s all fake” from their apartment windows during the draconian lockdown in Wuhan, the city of 11 million people that is now estimated to have suffered half a million cases and at least 3,800 deaths.

But only five months later in August, with the virus under control, a jam-packed pool party in Wuhan with DJs and dancers in neon tutus was captured in a viral video – a testimony to China’s success in largely quashing the outbreak at home. By January, China’s rapid economic recovery saw the country emerge in many ways stronger from the pandemic year. Its economic output grew by 2.3% in 2020 to become the only major world economy to expand.

This stark turnaround has shored up popular support for the party inside China, bolstering the belief of Mr. Xi and other leaders that China’s authoritarian system is resilient and on the rise, despite a sharply negative turn in attitudes toward Beijing in Western democracies. “The best criteria” for judging a country’s system, said Mr. Xi, sitting with folded hands before a huge mural of the Great Wall in a virtual address to the World Economic Forum Jan. 25, is whether it delivers “political stability, social progress, and better lives.”

Indeed, as the Communist Party prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary this summer, experts in China and abroad are delving into why the country’s increasingly autocratic regime enjoys such domestic popular support, especially as Mr. Xi tightens party controls and his own personal grip on power.

“How do you now explain the fact the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] at least appears to be fairly resilient?” says Edward Cunningham, director of Ash Center China Programs at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Overall, popular satisfaction with China’s government has grown stronger over the past 20 years, according to Mr. Cunningham and other Harvard researchers who led an independent, multiyear survey of Chinese public opinion. The 2003 to 2016 study drew on face-to-face interviews with more than 31,000 people in urban and rural China, but did not include most ethnic minorities or migrant workers. In 2016, fully 93% of those surveyed expressed satisfaction with the central government, with 32% saying they were “very satisfied.” That same year, 70% of respondents voiced approval for their local governments, which deliver most public goods and services, marking a significant increase from 44% in 2003.

These trends are likely continuing today, says Mr. Cunningham, pointing to anecdotal evidence. “The recent COVID case is a useful example,” he says. “At the outset, citizens were unhappy with the local government response, but as the central government engaged in lockdowns and the situation improved, satisfaction with central government actions rose, eventually spreading to views of local government as well.”

China’s swift curbing of the virus contrasted sharply with bungled responses in the United States and other developed countries, swelling domestic support for the regime, experts say.

“Within China itself, when they apply the lens of China’s response to the virus, both in public health and economic terms and political terms, versus the American management of the virus domestically and many other Western countries, it has further consolidated Xi’s hold on the Chinese leadership,” says China scholar Kevin Rudd, president of the Asia Society.


Popular satisfaction in China should not be underestimated, says Elizabeth Economy, author of “The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State.” “The vast majority of Chinese feel a lot of pride in how their country has developed economically, and in the greater role China now plays on the global stage,” says Dr. Economy, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California.

Still, the latest developments also shed light on how the country’s authoritarian leadership, even while amassing greater power and control with a high-tech surveillance state, must continue to respond to popular needs, complaints, and pressure. With a population of 1.4 billion, China faces serious demographic, environmental, and economic problems going forward. The party’s often-obscured quest to retain legitimacy drives much of China’s behavior at home and abroad – and could unravel if it doesn’t meet rising expectations.

“China has politics, too,” says David Lampton, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.


How this political dynamic evolves in the world’s flagship communist state will have major geopolitical implications for the world over the next decade and beyond.

Delivering the goods​

When A Bo was growing up in a high mountain village in China’s southwestern Yunnan province in the 1970s and ’80s, his family was so poor that they had to eat wild fruit and herbs. One dirt road led to his village, and when heavy summer rains turned it to mud, travel was all but impossible.

“We were always hungry,” he recalls. Today, with government help, Mr. A Bo’s family and many others in his village have worked themselves out of poverty. He raises ducks, pigs, and cows on a small farm and works at construction and other odd jobs. His village has running water and paved roads. And while his modest income “doesn’t count as very good, it’s a lot better than before,” he says with a laugh.


In December, Mr. Xi announced that China had eradicated extreme poverty in Yunnan and across the country, completing the massive task of lifting 850 million people out of destitution since 1981. The milestone offers one powerful example of how Mr. Xi and the party continue to gain legitimacy for their authoritarian rule in the eyes of China’s people.


“The government helped us build houses ... and gave us livestock to raise,” says Mr. A Bo. “If we didn’t have their help, we wouldn’t have paved roads or running water, so the common people are relatively happy.”

As a result, rural people and migrants with lower incomes, such as Mr. A Bo, have been a key source of support for China’s central government, multiple surveys show, constituting essentially an important political base for the party.

“There is a very high degree of satisfaction in rural low-income areas for the Chinese Communist Party,” says Matthew Chitwood, a U.S. fellow with the Institute of Current World Affairs, who recently returned from living for two years in Yunnan’s remote mountain village of Bangdong. There, he says, “Xi is the poster child of the party and the poverty eradication campaign.”

“My neighbors in Bangdong are living their best lives now,” he says. “Their lives have dramatically improved from even five years ago, and they attribute that directly to the party.”

Indeed, satisfaction levels since the early 2000s have risen most among China’s poorer residents like Mr. A Bo, signaling that despite growing inequalities created by economic reforms, marginalized people are not a swelling source of political resentment, the Harvard survey found. “There is still little evidence of a ‘social volcano’ of bottom-up discontent,” says Mr. Cunningham.

The anti-poverty campaign trumpeted by Mr. Xi is one example of the party’s overarching strategy of “performance legitimacy.” Under Chairman Mao Zedong, the party rallied support around Marxist-Leninist ideology and waging the 1949 revolution. But after Beijing launched market-oriented economic reforms in 1978, the party adopted a more pragmatic strategy to maintain public backing by achieving concrete development goals.

Sam McNeil/AP
The Chinese government built new houses in Ganluo County in southwestern China for members of the Yi ethnic minority, who were relocated from their mountain villages as part of an anti-poverty initiative.

This performance legitimacy approach is rooted in China’s ancient, dynastic concept of the Mandate of Heaven, which emperors could retain or lose depending on how well they governed, says Dingxin Zhao, dean of the sociology department at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China.


Today, the Communist Party works to secure this mandate above all through robust economic growth and “delivering the goods” – from roads to jobs, Mr. Cunningham says.

The party has also bolstered its rule though social policies aimed at reducing inequalities unleashed by economic reforms. These include rural health care, free education, agricultural subsidies, and poverty alleviation. “Social policy ... has contributed decisively to the regime’s stability and general support of the regime,” says Dr. Zhao.

Another popular policy has been Mr. Xi’s anti-corruption drive, launched soon after he took charge in 2012. “From the minute he became general secretary of the Communist Party, [Mr. Xi] talked about the need to root out corruption,” which he said “could mean the death of the Communist Party and the death of the Chinese state,” says Dr. Economy.


Rampant official corruption unleashed along with China’s market-oriented economic reforms has stirred deep public discontent. More than half of Chinese surveyed in 2011 described local government officials as “unclean” or “very unclean,” ineffective, and favoring the wealthy, the Harvard survey shows, dismaying villagers such as Mr. A Bo.


“It was chaotic,” says Mr. A Bo, who recalls corrupt local officials setting up roadblocks and charging tolls, or restricting the water supply.

Mr. Xi responded with the most sweeping anti-corruption campaign in modern China – arresting thousands of party and government officials of all ranks. Although the campaign was also viewed as part of Mr. Xi’s efforts to purge opponents and consolidate power in his own hands, it sharply curbed official abuses encountered by the public, surveys show.


Today, local thugs no longer control roads around Mr. A Bo’s village. “Now those people don’t dare do that ‘underworld’ activity, or they will be arrested,” says Mr. A Bo. “Now it’s peaceful ... and everyone can use the roads.”

Double-edged sword​

Such concrete gains in prosperity and well-being, and progress on problems ranging from corruption to environmental pollution, have boosted the party’s performance legitimacy nationwide – including among China’s new middle class.

Mr. Zhang, a retired private entrepreneur who was born and raised the son of a factory worker in Beijing, is on the lower rung of this emerging tier. Among the fastest growing in the world, China’s middle class swelled from about 3% of the population in 2000 to more than half, or 700 million people, in 2018.

Mr. Zhang (who asked to withhold his first name to protect his privacy) has benefited not only from China’s economic boom, but from housing security and government spending on his health care and pension. He sums up popular attitudes with a simple story typical of his generation. “When I was small, all we wanted was to be able to fill our stomachs. ... Then, gradually, you could eat well. If you wanted to eat an apple, you could buy an apple. If you wanted to eat meat, you could buy meat,” he says.

In Mr. Zhang’s eyes, steadily rising living standards equate to Beijing doing a good job. “If my life is better day by day, if year by year it’s going in a good direction, then what do I have to be upset about?” he says.

“Of course,” he adds, Chinese people still complain about things around the dinner table. “Above all, we curse about Chinese officials’ corruption. But what country doesn’t have ‘bad eggs?’” he asks, using Chinese slang for “scoundrel.”

Today, such sentiment buoys Mr. Xi politically as the Communist Party nears its July centennial. “By the end of 2020, Xi Jinping had recovered his political position comprehensively,” says Mr. Rudd, the former prime minister of Australia. Mr. Xi is further entrenching his power with the aim of effectively becoming China’s “leader for life” at the next party congress in 2022, he says.

Yet despite the current strength of Mr. Xi and the party, experts point out that performance legitimacy is inherently fragile. It depends upon a continuous, tangible improvement in people’s material well-being. Ever rising expectations create both positive energy and risky tensions – a double-edged sword for the party and its limited resources. “Performance legitimacy relies too much on performance,” says Dr. Zhao. “Your relationship with the people is ... transactional. People judge you ... day by day, case by case.”

One major obstacle to raising living standards is the sheer size of the low-income population: 600 million of China’s 1.4 billion people have a per person income of only about $150 a month, according to official data. Although the party has achieved its poverty alleviation target – a very low bar – it now faces the harder task of shrinking the income gap between urban and rural China, and between the coast and hinterland.

“You basically have two different Chinas and two different economies operating,” says Dr. Economy. “So when do you begin to take care of the people who have been left behind?”

Beijing knows it will face increased difficulty retaining this performance-based mandate as the population rapidly ages, economic growth continues to slow, and stimulus financing dramatically increases debt. Moreover, China faces rising opposition overseas, where unfavorable public opinion toward Beijing has reached its highest level in 12 years and the lack of confidence in Mr. Xi has surged, according to a Pew Research Center poll of 14 countries with advanced economies in North America, Western Europe, East Asia, and Australia.

“The party’s leaders believe they have a narrow window of strategic opportunity to strengthen their rule ... before China’s economy sours, before the population grows old, before other countries realize that the party is pursuing national rejuvenation at their expense,” says retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, former U.S. national security adviser and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Rolling back reform​

On a sunny October morning in Shanghai, Jack Ma, co-founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba and one of the richest men in China, took to the podium at a global finance summit and made a bold call for innovation of China’s financial system.

China’s banks exhibit a “severe pawnshop mentality” that hurts entrepreneurship, he said, criticizing the nation’s financial regulators as anachronistic. “We shouldn’t use the way to manage a train station to regulate an airport,” Mr. Ma said. “We cannot regulate the future with yesterday’s means.”

Soon after, Mr. Ma was reportedly dressed down by regulators and then disappeared mysteriously from public. The highly anticipated initial public offering of Alibaba’s financial technology arm, Ant Group Co., was halted and the firm placed under investigation, reportedly on the orders of China’s top leader Mr. Xi. In January, after missing major appearances, Mr. Ma resurfaced in public for the first time in months in an online video of a small local ceremony.


The incident demonstrated how, in Mr. Xi’s China, Beijing will not tolerate constructive criticism – even from a top entrepreneur such as Mr. Ma. The imperative of party power and control means subordinating everyone and everything, including top business magnates and their firms.

Facing uncertain economic growth, China’s post-Mao leaders have looked for alternative ways to secure Communist Party rule into the future. After launching market-oriented economic reforms in 1978, leader Deng Xiaoping and his followers moved to bolster legal sources of legitimacy by strengthening government institutions, promoting a meritocracy, setting standards for a smooth leadership succession, and allowing new avenues for political participation.

In a 2009 paper, Dr. Zhao warned that moves toward “legal-electoral legitimacy” were vital. Otherwise, Beijing would “face a major crisis when the Chinese economy cools off.”

But since 2012, Mr. Xi has moved in the opposite direction. “You had a very dynamic, vibrant political birthing process underway, and for Xi, that was very threatening,” says Dr. Economy.

Mr. Xi has rolled back political reforms, strengthened ideological indoctrination and censorship, and tightened party controls. He has concentrated power in his own hands to a degree not seen since Mao – ending term limits and paving the way for his lifelong rule.

Under Mr. Xi, the party has also reined in big companies and curtailed civil society by shuttering nongovernmental organizations. He has jailed activists, from feminists to human rights lawyers, and imposed broad population control measures such as facial recognition surveillance and a social credit system that rates citizens’ behavior. Harsh crackdowns have arbitrarily detained an estimated 1 million Uyghurs and members of other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in the western region of Xinjiang, while curtailing basic freedoms and purging pro-democracy elected officials, students, and others in Hong Kong.

Yet by monopolizing power, Mr. Xi also positions himself as a singular point of blame for any national crisis or setback that can’t be deflected onto local officials. Indeed, Mr. Xi himself is fixated on domestic opinion, prioritizing it over international events, says Steve Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a nonprofit that promotes engagement between the countries. “President Xi gets up in the morning and he ... gets briefings on Tibet, Xinjiang, Chengdu, Wuhan,” he says. “The Chinese view the threats as internal.”

Ultimately, the increased repression can stifle, but not destroy, pressures from members of China’s increasingly urban, educated, middle class for a greater say in their futures. “Even authoritarian governments have to respond to the elites in their society,” says Mr. Orlins.

Discontent over the direction Mr. Xi is moving the country runs deep among some Chinese, from intellectuals and entrepreneurs to migrant workers and activists. Others in China’s creative class feel broader reforms are needed for people to realize their full potential.

Tu Guohong lives quietly as an independent artist, writer, and art scholar in Chongqing, a megacity in China’s southwestern Sichuan province. A graduate of an art school, Mr. Tu uses Western-style oil painting to depict working-class Chinese in traditional urban settings. His subject matter is varied, though. He is especially proud of a series of portraits depicting former President Barack Obama as a Chinese peasant.

Asked about his views on the overall level of support for the government, Mr. Tu, who says he doesn’t generally talk about political problems, chooses his words carefully.

“I don’t know what most people think, but they seek a happy life,” he says.

“As for myself, I want China to follow Deng Xiaoping’s road of reform and opening. Not only economic reform, but also cultural – a nation’s development is not just dependent upon the economy, but also on the humanities,” he says. “China should not go backward.”

Vilified abroad, popular at home: China's Communist Party at 100

As China’s Communist Party prepares for its 100th anniversary, it has shored up popular support at home. But challenges lie ahead.

www.csmonitor.com

 

[ekemenirtu]

Even if the party is not popular, it is not as if the citizens have much of a choice in a one party state.

Dissenting voices will be crushed and have been crushed for decades. A significant case might be that which occurred in Tiananmen Square. I might be wrong, however.

 

[xizhimen]

Even if the party is not popular, it is not as if the citizens have much of a choice in a one party state.

Dissenting voices will be crushed and have been crushed for decades. A significant case might be that which occurred in Tiananmen Square. I might be wrong, however.

China has democratic election mechanisms on the upper elite level, but not on the grassroots level. Chinese Confucius thoughts never believed that all people have equal able intelligence thus should have equal rights in leading and managing a country.

 

[ekemenirtu]

China has democratic election mechanisms on the upper elite level, but not on the grassroots level. Chinese Confucius thoughts never believed that all people have equal able intelligence thus should have equal rights in leading and managing a country.

Were the numerous Chinese imperial dynasties adherents to Confucian thoughts?

Can we say imperial dynasties are the most prefered method of governance under Confucianism if we go by history?

Can we say a one party state is the prefered method of governance under Confucian thoughts as they exist right now in China, Viet Nam and maybe in North Korea, too?

 

[xizhimen]

Were the numerous Chinese imperial dynasties adherents to Confucian thoughts?

Can we say imperial dynasties are the most prefered method of governance under Confucianism if we go by history?

Can we say a one party state is the prefered method of governance under Confucian thoughts as they exist right now in China, Viet Nam and maybe in North Korea, too?

Different wrappings, same core. China current governing system is still based on meritocracy, not much different from imperial dynasties. Elites are being selected by universal standard national examination system, Gao Kao and national civil servant examination are similar to the past 科举.

 

[ekemenirtu]

Different wrappings, same core. China current governing system is still based on meritocracy, not much different from imperial dynasties. Elites are being selected by universal standard national examination system, Gao Kao and national civil servant examination are similar to the past 科举.

How could anybody believe that the imperial dynastic system was democratic at all?

The emperor could arbitrarily decide to impose any law, execute any citizen, raise or lower taxes or issue any legal decree. The citizens had no say in the affairs of the country.

 

[xizhimen]

How could anybody believe that the imperial dynastic system was democratic at all?

The emperor could arbitrarily decide to impose any law, execute any citizen, raise or lower taxes or issue any legal decree. The citizens had no say in the affairs of the country.

Chinese current governing system is similar to Imperial system in the past but not the same. the top leadership is a collective managing team, check and balance is being exercised at the upper level of the leadership.

 

[ekemenirtu]

Chinese current governing system is similar to Imperial system in the past but not the same. the top leadership is a collective managing team, check and balance is being exercised at the upper level of the leadership.

Just like during the imperial dynasties, Chinese citizens today have no say in the affairs of the country.

If Confucian thoughts promote such a system, can such a system be called democratic?

if such a system is not democratic, why would an average Chinese citizen favour Confucian thoughts over democracy?

If democracy grants the voiceless and the powerless the right to decide their future, why would the powerless and voiceless citizens choose imperial dynasties or a one party state?

This may be difficult to answer while living in a one party state. I do not want you to take any risks only for the sake of a discussion on an online forum.

 

[xizhimen]

Just like during the imperial dynasties, Chinese citizens today have no say in the affairs of the country.

If Confucian thoughts promote such a system, can such a system be called democratic?

if such a system is not democratic, why would an average Chinese citizen favour Confucian thoughts over democracy?

If democracy grants the voiceless and the powerless the right to decide their future, why would the powerless and voiceless citizens choose imperial dynasties or a one party state?

This may be difficult to answer while living in a one party state. I do not want you to take any risks only for the sake of a discussion on an online forum.

China is not a democratic country, no doubt about it. Many Chinese public hate the word democracy, it doesn't have to be a positive word in China.
Democracy is a widely discussed topic in Chinese social media, I won't risk anything to talk about it.

See the change of Chinese people's viewpoint about democracy and the west in the past 20 years.

 

[Zapper]

Vilified abroad, popular at home: China's Communist Party at 100​

February 18, 2021

A year ago Feb. 7, China’s brave coronavirus whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang died after treating patients in Wuhan, triggering an unprecedented online torrent of grief and anti-government rage along with calls for freedom of speech.

The widespread public outrage over the government’s initial mishandling of the virus outbreak and suppression of Dr. Li’s warnings amounted to what longtime observers called an existential crisis for China’s Communist Party and Xi Jinping, its leader since 2012.

Angry residents brazenly heckled a visiting party Politburo member. Some yelled “it’s all fake” from their apartment windows during the draconian lockdown in Wuhan, the city of 11 million people that is now estimated to have suffered half a million cases and at least 3,800 deaths.

But only five months later in August, with the virus under control, a jam-packed pool party in Wuhan with DJs and dancers in neon tutus was captured in a viral video – a testimony to China’s success in largely quashing the outbreak at home. By January, China’s rapid economic recovery saw the country emerge in many ways stronger from the pandemic year. Its economic output grew by 2.3% in 2020 to become the only major world economy to expand.

This stark turnaround has shored up popular support for the party inside China, bolstering the belief of Mr. Xi and other leaders that China’s authoritarian system is resilient and on the rise, despite a sharply negative turn in attitudes toward Beijing in Western democracies. “The best criteria” for judging a country’s system, said Mr. Xi, sitting with folded hands before a huge mural of the Great Wall in a virtual address to the World Economic Forum Jan. 25, is whether it delivers “political stability, social progress, and better lives.”

Indeed, as the Communist Party prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary this summer, experts in China and abroad are delving into why the country’s increasingly autocratic regime enjoys such domestic popular support, especially as Mr. Xi tightens party controls and his own personal grip on power.

“How do you now explain the fact the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] at least appears to be fairly resilient?” says Edward Cunningham, director of Ash Center China Programs at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Overall, popular satisfaction with China’s government has grown stronger over the past 20 years, according to Mr. Cunningham and other Harvard researchers who led an independent, multiyear survey of Chinese public opinion. The 2003 to 2016 study drew on face-to-face interviews with more than 31,000 people in urban and rural China, but did not include most ethnic minorities or migrant workers. In 2016, fully 93% of those surveyed expressed satisfaction with the central government, with 32% saying they were “very satisfied.” That same year, 70% of respondents voiced approval for their local governments, which deliver most public goods and services, marking a significant increase from 44% in 2003.

These trends are likely continuing today, says Mr. Cunningham, pointing to anecdotal evidence. “The recent COVID case is a useful example,” he says. “At the outset, citizens were unhappy with the local government response, but as the central government engaged in lockdowns and the situation improved, satisfaction with central government actions rose, eventually spreading to views of local government as well.”

China’s swift curbing of the virus contrasted sharply with bungled responses in the United States and other developed countries, swelling domestic support for the regime, experts say.

“Within China itself, when they apply the lens of China’s response to the virus, both in public health and economic terms and political terms, versus the American management of the virus domestically and many other Western countries, it has further consolidated Xi’s hold on the Chinese leadership,” says China scholar Kevin Rudd, president of the Asia Society.


Popular satisfaction in China should not be underestimated, says Elizabeth Economy, author of “The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State.” “The vast majority of Chinese feel a lot of pride in how their country has developed economically, and in the greater role China now plays on the global stage,” says Dr. Economy, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California.

Still, the latest developments also shed light on how the country’s authoritarian leadership, even while amassing greater power and control with a high-tech surveillance state, must continue to respond to popular needs, complaints, and pressure. With a population of 1.4 billion, China faces serious demographic, environmental, and economic problems going forward. The party’s often-obscured quest to retain legitimacy drives much of China’s behavior at home and abroad – and could unravel if it doesn’t meet rising expectations.

“China has politics, too,” says David Lampton, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.


How this political dynamic evolves in the world’s flagship communist state will have major geopolitical implications for the world over the next decade and beyond.

Delivering the goods​

When A Bo was growing up in a high mountain village in China’s southwestern Yunnan province in the 1970s and ’80s, his family was so poor that they had to eat wild fruit and herbs. One dirt road led to his village, and when heavy summer rains turned it to mud, travel was all but impossible.

“We were always hungry,” he recalls. Today, with government help, Mr. A Bo’s family and many others in his village have worked themselves out of poverty. He raises ducks, pigs, and cows on a small farm and works at construction and other odd jobs. His village has running water and paved roads. And while his modest income “doesn’t count as very good, it’s a lot better than before,” he says with a laugh.


In December, Mr. Xi announced that China had eradicated extreme poverty in Yunnan and across the country, completing the massive task of lifting 850 million people out of destitution since 1981. The milestone offers one powerful example of how Mr. Xi and the party continue to gain legitimacy for their authoritarian rule in the eyes of China’s people.


“The government helped us build houses ... and gave us livestock to raise,” says Mr. A Bo. “If we didn’t have their help, we wouldn’t have paved roads or running water, so the common people are relatively happy.”

As a result, rural people and migrants with lower incomes, such as Mr. A Bo, have been a key source of support for China’s central government, multiple surveys show, constituting essentially an important political base for the party.

“There is a very high degree of satisfaction in rural low-income areas for the Chinese Communist Party,” says Matthew Chitwood, a U.S. fellow with the Institute of Current World Affairs, who recently returned from living for two years in Yunnan’s remote mountain village of Bangdong. There, he says, “Xi is the poster child of the party and the poverty eradication campaign.”

“My neighbors in Bangdong are living their best lives now,” he says. “Their lives have dramatically improved from even five years ago, and they attribute that directly to the party.”

Indeed, satisfaction levels since the early 2000s have risen most among China’s poorer residents like Mr. A Bo, signaling that despite growing inequalities created by economic reforms, marginalized people are not a swelling source of political resentment, the Harvard survey found. “There is still little evidence of a ‘social volcano’ of bottom-up discontent,” says Mr. Cunningham.

The anti-poverty campaign trumpeted by Mr. Xi is one example of the party’s overarching strategy of “performance legitimacy.” Under Chairman Mao Zedong, the party rallied support around Marxist-Leninist ideology and waging the 1949 revolution. But after Beijing launched market-oriented economic reforms in 1978, the party adopted a more pragmatic strategy to maintain public backing by achieving concrete development goals.

View attachment 14520
Sam McNeil/AP
The Chinese government built new houses in Ganluo County in southwestern China for members of the Yi ethnic minority, who were relocated from their mountain villages as part of an anti-poverty initiative.

This performance legitimacy approach is rooted in China’s ancient, dynastic concept of the Mandate of Heaven, which emperors could retain or lose depending on how well they governed, says Dingxin Zhao, dean of the sociology department at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China.


Today, the Communist Party works to secure this mandate above all through robust economic growth and “delivering the goods” – from roads to jobs, Mr. Cunningham says.

The party has also bolstered its rule though social policies aimed at reducing inequalities unleashed by economic reforms. These include rural health care, free education, agricultural subsidies, and poverty alleviation. “Social policy ... has contributed decisively to the regime’s stability and general support of the regime,” says Dr. Zhao.

Another popular policy has been Mr. Xi’s anti-corruption drive, launched soon after he took charge in 2012. “From the minute he became general secretary of the Communist Party, [Mr. Xi] talked about the need to root out corruption,” which he said “could mean the death of the Communist Party and the death of the Chinese state,” says Dr. Economy.


Rampant official corruption unleashed along with China’s market-oriented economic reforms has stirred deep public discontent. More than half of Chinese surveyed in 2011 described local government officials as “unclean” or “very unclean,” ineffective, and favoring the wealthy, the Harvard survey shows, dismaying villagers such as Mr. A Bo.


“It was chaotic,” says Mr. A Bo, who recalls corrupt local officials setting up roadblocks and charging tolls, or restricting the water supply.

Mr. Xi responded with the most sweeping anti-corruption campaign in modern China – arresting thousands of party and government officials of all ranks. Although the campaign was also viewed as part of Mr. Xi’s efforts to purge opponents and consolidate power in his own hands, it sharply curbed official abuses encountered by the public, surveys show.


Today, local thugs no longer control roads around Mr. A Bo’s village. “Now those people don’t dare do that ‘underworld’ activity, or they will be arrested,” says Mr. A Bo. “Now it’s peaceful ... and everyone can use the roads.”

Double-edged sword​

Such concrete gains in prosperity and well-being, and progress on problems ranging from corruption to environmental pollution, have boosted the party’s performance legitimacy nationwide – including among China’s new middle class.

Mr. Zhang, a retired private entrepreneur who was born and raised the son of a factory worker in Beijing, is on the lower rung of this emerging tier. Among the fastest growing in the world, China’s middle class swelled from about 3% of the population in 2000 to more than half, or 700 million people, in 2018.

Mr. Zhang (who asked to withhold his first name to protect his privacy) has benefited not only from China’s economic boom, but from housing security and government spending on his health care and pension. He sums up popular attitudes with a simple story typical of his generation. “When I was small, all we wanted was to be able to fill our stomachs. ... Then, gradually, you could eat well. If you wanted to eat an apple, you could buy an apple. If you wanted to eat meat, you could buy meat,” he says.

In Mr. Zhang’s eyes, steadily rising living standards equate to Beijing doing a good job. “If my life is better day by day, if year by year it’s going in a good direction, then what do I have to be upset about?” he says.

“Of course,” he adds, Chinese people still complain about things around the dinner table. “Above all, we curse about Chinese officials’ corruption. But what country doesn’t have ‘bad eggs?’” he asks, using Chinese slang for “scoundrel.”

Today, such sentiment buoys Mr. Xi politically as the Communist Party nears its July centennial. “By the end of 2020, Xi Jinping had recovered his political position comprehensively,” says Mr. Rudd, the former prime minister of Australia. Mr. Xi is further entrenching his power with the aim of effectively becoming China’s “leader for life” at the next party congress in 2022, he says.

Yet despite the current strength of Mr. Xi and the party, experts point out that performance legitimacy is inherently fragile. It depends upon a continuous, tangible improvement in people’s material well-being. Ever rising expectations create both positive energy and risky tensions – a double-edged sword for the party and its limited resources. “Performance legitimacy relies too much on performance,” says Dr. Zhao. “Your relationship with the people is ... transactional. People judge you ... day by day, case by case.”

One major obstacle to raising living standards is the sheer size of the low-income population: 600 million of China’s 1.4 billion people have a per person income of only about $150 a month, according to official data. Although the party has achieved its poverty alleviation target – a very low bar – it now faces the harder task of shrinking the income gap between urban and rural China, and between the coast and hinterland.

“You basically have two different Chinas and two different economies operating,” says Dr. Economy. “So when do you begin to take care of the people who have been left behind?”

Beijing knows it will face increased difficulty retaining this performance-based mandate as the population rapidly ages, economic growth continues to slow, and stimulus financing dramatically increases debt. Moreover, China faces rising opposition overseas, where unfavorable public opinion toward Beijing has reached its highest level in 12 years and the lack of confidence in Mr. Xi has surged, according to a Pew Research Center poll of 14 countries with advanced economies in North America, Western Europe, East Asia, and Australia.

“The party’s leaders believe they have a narrow window of strategic opportunity to strengthen their rule ... before China’s economy sours, before the population grows old, before other countries realize that the party is pursuing national rejuvenation at their expense,” says retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, former U.S. national security adviser and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Rolling back reform​

On a sunny October morning in Shanghai, Jack Ma, co-founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba and one of the richest men in China, took to the podium at a global finance summit and made a bold call for innovation of China’s financial system.

China’s banks exhibit a “severe pawnshop mentality” that hurts entrepreneurship, he said, criticizing the nation’s financial regulators as anachronistic. “We shouldn’t use the way to manage a train station to regulate an airport,” Mr. Ma said. “We cannot regulate the future with yesterday’s means.”

Soon after, Mr. Ma was reportedly dressed down by regulators and then disappeared mysteriously from public. The highly anticipated initial public offering of Alibaba’s financial technology arm, Ant Group Co., was halted and the firm placed under investigation, reportedly on the orders of China’s top leader Mr. Xi. In January, after missing major appearances, Mr. Ma resurfaced in public for the first time in months in an online video of a small local ceremony.


The incident demonstrated how, in Mr. Xi’s China, Beijing will not tolerate constructive criticism – even from a top entrepreneur such as Mr. Ma. The imperative of party power and control means subordinating everyone and everything, including top business magnates and their firms.

Facing uncertain economic growth, China’s post-Mao leaders have looked for alternative ways to secure Communist Party rule into the future. After launching market-oriented economic reforms in 1978, leader Deng Xiaoping and his followers moved to bolster legal sources of legitimacy by strengthening government institutions, promoting a meritocracy, setting standards for a smooth leadership succession, and allowing new avenues for political participation.

In a 2009 paper, Dr. Zhao warned that moves toward “legal-electoral legitimacy” were vital. Otherwise, Beijing would “face a major crisis when the Chinese economy cools off.”

But since 2012, Mr. Xi has moved in the opposite direction. “You had a very dynamic, vibrant political birthing process underway, and for Xi, that was very threatening,” says Dr. Economy.

Mr. Xi has rolled back political reforms, strengthened ideological indoctrination and censorship, and tightened party controls. He has concentrated power in his own hands to a degree not seen since Mao – ending term limits and paving the way for his lifelong rule.

Under Mr. Xi, the party has also reined in big companies and curtailed civil society by shuttering nongovernmental organizations. He has jailed activists, from feminists to human rights lawyers, and imposed broad population control measures such as facial recognition surveillance and a social credit system that rates citizens’ behavior. Harsh crackdowns have arbitrarily detained an estimated 1 million Uyghurs and members of other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in the western region of Xinjiang, while curtailing basic freedoms and purging pro-democracy elected officials, students, and others in Hong Kong.

Yet by monopolizing power, Mr. Xi also positions himself as a singular point of blame for any national crisis or setback that can’t be deflected onto local officials. Indeed, Mr. Xi himself is fixated on domestic opinion, prioritizing it over international events, says Steve Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a nonprofit that promotes engagement between the countries. “President Xi gets up in the morning and he ... gets briefings on Tibet, Xinjiang, Chengdu, Wuhan,” he says. “The Chinese view the threats as internal.”

Ultimately, the increased repression can stifle, but not destroy, pressures from members of China’s increasingly urban, educated, middle class for a greater say in their futures. “Even authoritarian governments have to respond to the elites in their society,” says Mr. Orlins.

Discontent over the direction Mr. Xi is moving the country runs deep among some Chinese, from intellectuals and entrepreneurs to migrant workers and activists. Others in China’s creative class feel broader reforms are needed for people to realize their full potential.

Tu Guohong lives quietly as an independent artist, writer, and art scholar in Chongqing, a megacity in China’s southwestern Sichuan province. A graduate of an art school, Mr. Tu uses Western-style oil painting to depict working-class Chinese in traditional urban settings. His subject matter is varied, though. He is especially proud of a series of portraits depicting former President Barack Obama as a Chinese peasant.

Asked about his views on the overall level of support for the government, Mr. Tu, who says he doesn’t generally talk about political problems, chooses his words carefully.

“I don’t know what most people think, but they seek a happy life,” he says.

“As for myself, I want China to follow Deng Xiaoping’s road of reform and opening. Not only economic reform, but also cultural – a nation’s development is not just dependent upon the economy, but also on the humanities,” he says. “China should not go backward.”

Vilified abroad, popular at home: China's Communist Party at 100

As China’s Communist Party prepares for its 100th anniversary, it has shored up popular support at home. But challenges lie ahead.

www.csmonitor.com

propaganda post by a paid chinese troll poster

 

[ekemenirtu]

China is not a democratic country, no doubt about it. Many Chinese public hate the word democracy, it doesn't have to be a positive word in China.
Democracy is a widely discussed topic in Chinese social media, I won't risk anything to talk about it.

See the change of Chinese people's viewpoint about democracy and the west in the past 20 years.

I am afraid that does nothing to improve CCP's cause.

It has been reported that many Western countries have been subjected to influence operations by the CCP. Many Western think tanks, media, government officials have been bribed, influenced or coopted by the CCP into toeing the communist party line.

We see in that WSJ video the opinions of a single person, as reported by two individuals who are probably also Chinese, trying to point out the virtues of Chinese one party system. It is not clear if such propaganda videos can be taken seriously.

For a starter, a single person's opinion can not be said to be representative of all of China. The best and most effective way of finding out the Chinese people's opinion is to conduct representative elections. Since China is currently not a democracy, as you have so graciously admitted and I thank you for your candid admission, that method is currently not feasible.

Since alternative opinions or voices are forcibly suppressed, the only permissible opinions are those praising the virtues of the CCP. It is hard to take any such propaganda seriously.

It is also not surprising that despite much self-aggrandization, the CCP has so far failed in its efforts to dislodge, defeat, dismember, eviscerate and devastate a smaller ethnically-Indian country.

This is unprecedented and unexpected. When we consider the performance of ethnic-Chinese majority states/countries worldwide, and those of other related majority ethnic/cultural group populated countries such as Japan or RoK, with that of Indian/related ethnic/cultural group populated countries, the difference possibly couldn't be any more stark.

Yet, when faced with a smaller country that is ethnically Indian, China has faltered for the last several years. That is ample evidence of Chinese failure. One possible explanation for this failure is the CCP's stranglehold on power and therefore, inability to utilize the potential of Chinese citizens to their maximum.

 

[xizhimen]

I am afraid that does nothing to improve CCP's cause.

It has been reported that many Western countries have been subjected to influence operations by the CCP. Many Western think tanks, media, government officials have been bribed, influenced or coopted by the CCP into toeing the communist party line.

We see in that WSJ video the opinions of a single person, as reported by two individuals who are probably also Chinese, trying to point out the virtues of Chinese one party system. It is not clear if such propaganda videos can be taken seriously.

For a starter, a single person's opinion can not be said to be representative of all of China. The best and most effective way of finding out the Chinese people's opinion is to conduct representative elections. Since China is currently not a democracy, as you have so graciously admitted and I thank you for your candid admission, that method is currently not feasible.

Since alternative opinions or voices are forcibly suppressed, the only permissible opinions are those praising the virtues of the CCP. It is hard to take any such propaganda seriously.

It is also not surprising that despite much self-aggrandization, the CCP has so far failed in its efforts to dislodge, defeat, dismember, eviscerate and devastate a smaller ethnically-Indian country.

This is unprecedented and unexpected. When we consider the performance of ethnic-Chinese majority states/countries worldwide, and those of other related majority ethnic/cultural group populated countries such as Japan or RoK, with that of Indian/related ethnic/cultural group populated countries, the difference possibly couldn't be any more stark.

Yet, when faced with a smaller country that is ethnically Indian, China has faltered for the last several years. That is ample evidence of Chinese failure. One possible explanation for this failure is the CCP's stranglehold on power and therefore, inability to utilize the potential of Chinese citizens to their maximum.

Not just the opinion of one person, as a Chinese, I can tell you what he said represents the general public in China. If you don't believe, come to China and ask any random person on the street.

What Does Democracy Mean To The Chinese? [Street Interview] | ASIAN BOSS​

 

[ekemenirtu]

Not just the opinion of one person, as a Chinese, I can tell you what he said represents the general public in China. If you don't believe, come to China and ask any random person on the street.

What Does Democracy Mean To The Chinese? [Street Interview] | ASIAN BOSS​

We might as well conduct such an interview in Pyongyang, DPRK or Latakia, Syria and you can find enough volunteers praising the current leadership and their 'infinite wisdom' in not granting democratic rights to the citizenry.

It has been observed that even the most autocratic and anti-democratic regimes around the world explicitly or implicitly approve of democracies.

For example, none of them object to voting on such matters as choosing the host for FIFA World Cups or Olympic Games or regional games such as the Asian Games.

If it were to be so decided that the hosts for FIFA World Cups, Olympic Games or regional games such as the Asian Games were to be decided by a tyranny of a handful of Western countries, these same regimes would object to the idea and rightly so.

However, when it comes to granting democratic rights to their citizenry, they are found resorting to 'inventive methods' to justify autocracy.

 

[xizhimen]

Did the pandemic shake Chinese citizens’ trust in their government? We surveyed nearly 20,000 people to find out

Washingtonpost
May 5, 2021 at 6:00 p.m. GMT+8

More than a year into the coronavirus pandemic, the vast majority in many Western countries think China handled the outbreak poorly. Their views toward China have become overwhelmingly negative. U.S. citizens’ confidence in President Xi Jinping to do the right thing in world affairs has also significantly declined.

But has the pandemic shaken the long-standing support of Chinese citizens for their government? Empirical research, including mine, has shown that the Chinese government’s handling of the pandemic has actually boosted its legitimacy. Here’s what we found.

We surveyed nearly 20,000 people across China
I conducted a large-scale online survey in the immediate aftermath of the reopening of Wuhan in late April 2020. The survey differed from many other surveys that are simply posted through online platforms that yield no details on who has access and who has responded. I designed an innovative approach that captures aspects of face-to-face survey approaches.

In collaboration with 17 Chinese academics, we recruited more than 600 students from 53 universities across China to conduct one-on-one interviews online. This helped ensure that the survey was widely distributed across all regions. We assigned each team leader a unique access code for his or her survey link, so we could protect and monitor each survey. Respondents were assured that their responses would be anonymous.

In the end, we interviewed 19,816 individuals from 31 provinces or provincial-level administrative regions across China. The resulting sample was roughly comparable to the census in terms of age and urban-to-rural ratio, but it did have higher participation rates of female and more educated respondents.


The pandemic boosted citizen trust in their government

The 2018 World Values Survey reported that 95 percent of Chinese citizens said that they have a great deal or quite a lot of trust in national government. Comparatively, about 69 percent felt the same way about their local government.

Since the Chinese government already enjoyed very high levels of trust from its citizens before the pandemic, did this trust increase? Our surveys asked about trust in government at five different levels — the township, county and city level as well as the provincial and national levels.

The data show that Chinese citizens’ trust in their national government increased to 98 percent. Their trust in local government also increased compared to 2018 levels — 91 percent of Chinese citizens surveyed now said they trust or trust completely the township-level government. Trust levels rose to 93 percent at the county level, 94 percent at the city level and 95 percent at the provincial level. These numbers suggest that Chinese citizens have become more trusting in all levels of government.

Our survey also asked respondents how their trust in government had changed since the outbreak. Nearly half of respondents (49 percent) said that they had become more trusting in the national government since the pandemic started, with 48 percent reporting no change and only about 3 percent said they had become less trusting. The vast majority (63 percent) reported no change in their trust in local government, 30 percent reported positive change, and just 6 percent reported they were now less trusting in their local government.


Chinese citizens often report hierarchical government trust — this means they trust national-level institutions more than institutions at the local level.

Despite the high levels of trust we recorded across all levels of government during the pandemic, this pattern holds: Trust drops from 98 percent at the national level to 95 percent at the provincial level and down to 91 percent at the township level.

High levels of trust mean a lot
So what does this all mean? Understanding the impact of political trust requires making a distinction between diffuse and specific trust. Diffuse trust is moral, value-driven and reflects a deep-seated orientation toward political community as a whole. Specific trust, in contrast, is based on how citizens evaluate government outputs and performance.

Of course, survey respondents may have an individual response pattern that reflects their diffuse or specific orientation toward trust. Some respondents may trust all levels of government equally, some may trust some levels more than others, while others may distrust all levels of government.

The research shows the patterning of answers helps identify when trust denotes a critical evaluation of institutional performance. Critical trusters have variability in their answers — they’re making a specific assessment of the performance of each government level. In contrast, diffuse trusters trust all levels, while cynics distrust all levels.


Our data suggest that only about 1 percent of Chinese citizens have expressed cynicism about the government during the pandemic. About 55 percent of Chinese citizens are diffuse trusters and 44 percent are critical trusters.

Critical trust is based on citizens’ reasoned evaluation of the performance from each specific level of government during the pandemic. If trust is specific, then low trust might merely represent criticism and high trust could reflect citizens’ satisfaction with government performance.

Among the 44 percent of respondents who have placed more trust in some levels more than others, the mean level of trust is 89 percent. The fact that trust is high among Chinese citizens who look at government performance with a critical eye suggests that high government trust in China during the pandemic reflects Chinese citizens’ true satisfaction with their government performance.

Of course, caution is certainly warranted about how Chinese citizens rate their government. Still, the high levels of trust among Chinese citizens — and what we know about citizen surveys in China — suggest that these results cannot be simply reduced to a misrepresentation out of political fear. These findings are consistent with what other survey scholars have repeatedly shown. Experimental studies also show Chinese citizens do express their genuine attitudes toward their government without fear.

In China, like other countries, a crisis may activate collective angst that makes people “rally around existing institutions as a lifebuoy.” The increase in Chinese citizens’ trust in government I have shown here could indicate a rally ’round the flag phenomenon. To track how the pandemic may change how Chinese see their government over the long term, however, will require collecting more data.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...hake-chinese-citizens-trust-their-government/