In the past three decades, the CCP has transformed from a one-party personal dictatorship to an increasingly open party system. This differentiates the CCP from other communist parties in the Eastern bloc before they collapsed. After the fall of communism, Eastern European states chose the Western path, allowing different interests to found different political parties. To avoid the misfortune of party collapse, the CCP has chosen a different way by opening up the political process to all social and interest groups. Due to this approach, China has evolved into an open party system under one-party rule.
Openness is becoming an important feature of China’s party system. Any political system that is not open will become exclusive and closed. Only with openness can politics be inclusive. In the West, political openness materializes through external pluralism, i.e., multi-party politics, in which each kind of interest can find representation in a party. In China, political openness is realized through a set of mechanisms I call “internal pluralism,” which means the openness of the ruling party. When different interests emerge in society, the ruling party opens itself to them, absorbing them into the regime and representing their interests through different institutions and mechanisms.
The institutional transformation of the CCP has been very rapid. Since no opposition party is allowed, for any social groups, entering into the political process of the CCP is the most efficient way to express their interests. The “Three Represents” concept proposed by Jiang Zemin in the early 2000s typically reflects the CCP’s realistic perception that it has to represent different social interests. Today, China’s increasingly large middle class, including private entrepreneurs, has demonstrated very strong demand for political participation. This is why the ruling party kept pace with the times by not only providing constitutional protection to non-state-owned sectors, including private enterprises, but also allowing and encouraging private entrepreneurs to join the ruling party. The change in the nature of party membership is an indicator. In the Maoist era, workers, peasants and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) constituted the majority of CCP membership, but since the reform period, intellectuals, professionals and the newly risen social stratum have made up an increasing proportion of members in the party. After the successful incorporation of private entrepreneurs into the party and the political process, the CCP has now begun to put an emphasis on “social governance” to expand its ruling foundation by absorbing more social forces, which have gained significant growth and development in the past decades. As the social base of the CCP enlarges, the demand for intra-party democracy has also increased. This is why the ruling party has been searching for various forms of inner-party democracy in the past decade. Scholars have coined China’s political development as “corporatism,” in which expanding middle classes, particularly private entrepreneurs, become the allies of the state, not independent civil society outside the state.
Nevertheless, the effectiveness of such internal pluralist openness is no less than that of any other system. Internal pluralism has differentiated China from other regimes in the Arabic world where most regimes are closed, with one family (monarchy) or a few families chronically monopolizing political power and dominating the country. The number of people entering into politics from lower social levels is much larger in China than many other countries, including democratic ones. The rule of the CCP is not based on a political family. It is a mass party with highly diversified interests.
A key feature of China’s party system is that political openness has facilitated the rapid alternation of political elite in a highly institutionalized manner. The nature of Western democracy is to realize peaceful alternation of political elites through periodical elections. China has steadfastly refused to follow the path of Western democracy; instead, it has developed a very efficient system of power succession. The late Deng was successful in establishing a number of important political institutions, including term limits, age limits and collective leadership.
The first is the term limit. The term limit matters. In general, leaders including the General Secretary of the CCP, the President of State, Premier and other important positions are allowed to serve at most two terms in office, i.e., 10 years. This system is not hugely different from many Western presidential systems. Obviously, the term limit is an effective institutional tool to prevent personal dictatorship which was prevalent under Mao, and to a lesser degree, under the late Deng. That is to say, although China does not have a Western form of democracy, it has found an alternative way to prevent personal dictatorship. When a person or a family has dominated a country for several decades, the system is prone to malpractices and abuses, which are unacceptable to the society.
The age limit also matters. It provides an exit system for aged political leaders and bureaucrats, i.e., the retirement system. In other political systems, the retirement system applies to civil servants, namely, bureaucrats. But in China, the system applies to all, including political leaders, civil servants, congress representatives, heads of social organizations and all other important governmental and semi-governmental organizations. For example, at the Political Bureau Standing Committee level, those who are 68 and above will have to retire regardless of the system of two-term limits; and those who are 67 and below can stay. (Of course, the exit age is changeable, depending on the need of the time.) At the ministerial level, those who are 65 and above will have to retire. At the bureau level, those who are 55 and above will have to retire.
Both the term limit and age limit have enabled Chinese political elites to renew themselves at an extremely fast pace and can thus effectively reflect generational changes and changes of interests. Compared to many other political systems, the Chinese political system facilitates the rapid and massive renewal of public officials. With the rigid enforcement of age limit, there are thousands of officials leaving their positions every year, with the same number of officials assuming these positions. Although such rapid mobility has its own disadvantages, it undeniably reflects the changes of times.
A third institution is ruthless meritocracy. In many political systems, particularly democracies, one had to get enough votes before getting political power. Indeed, voting has also come to China and it is becoming increasingly important to test one’s popularity among colleagues or among the people. However, before voting, there is the additional process of selecting. One has to meet all requirements such as education, working experiences (in different parts of the country and at different bureaucratic levels) and many other performance indicators. As a matter of fact, China has several thousand years of meritocracy, and the CCP has increasingly relied on this system for its talent recruitment.
A fourth institution is the so-called “collective leadership” or “intra-party democracy.” The institution was designed by the late Deng Xiaoping. The Maoist personal dictatorship almost brought down the whole party. As the victim of the Maoist personal dictatorship, Deng designed the system of collective leadership, which means that members of the Political Bureau Standing Committee collectively excise political leadership. Such a system is characterized by internal pluralism. There are serious checks and balances in the highest leadership of the CCP. The Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, the highest and most powerful decision-making body, is often regarded as the symbol of highly centralized political system or authoritarianism. However, its members have almost equal power, with each having his decision-making area and having the most important say in that area. Some China scholars call this system “collective presidency,” meaning that major decisions are collectively made.
However, the system also has serious flaws. In theory, the system provides a strong institutional foundation for the number one, such as Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping, since the number one concurrently holds the three most important positions in China’s political system, namely, the General Secretary of the CCP, the State President, and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission. However, in reality, to hold the three positions does not mean that the holder will be powerful enough to engage in meaningful reforms. The system of division of labor among Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) members tends to veer towards fragmentation since each member only looks after his own territory, and has the most important say in that domain. There was no effective coordination. Therefore, “collective presidents,” at times, have led to situations where there is no president; collective decision has resulted in no decision maker, and collective responsibility has led to situations where no one bears responsibility.