Remaking the Chinese State: Strategies, Society and Security (Asia's Transformations)

304 Pages·2001·1.67 MB·English

by  Chien-Min Cao

Remaking the Chinese State
After more than twenty years of economic and political reform, China is a vastly different
country than the one left by Mao. Almost all of the characteristic policies, institutions,
and practices of the Maoist era have been abandoned. The goals of the revolution in
China’s domestic and foreign policies have been replaced by emphasis on economic
modernization. It has sustained a remarkably high rate of growth, allowed a private
sector to re-emerge and gradually supplant the public sector, increased the level of foreign
trade and investment, and joined a host of international organizations concerned with
economic and military affairs. Many in Chinese society enjoy higher standards of living,
migrate in search of better paying jobs, and enjoy opportunities for foreign and domestic
travel and access to higher education and new sources of information. On almost any
dimension, China today is a more vibrant, dynamic, and colorful place than it was at the
end of the Maoist era.
Despite these dramatic changes, other fundamental features of domestic politics and
foreign policy remain unchanged in China. The Communist Party remains the pre-
eminent political authority and continues to prevent the formation of new organizations
outside its control. Local officials promote economic growth but have not fully embraced
the logic of the market economy. China remains wary of international pressures, whether
economic, political, or military, and its ideological rhetoric often obscures its pragmatic
behavior.
This book explores the strategies of reform in China and their implications for its
domestic and foreign policies. Although these reforms have been cautious and incre-
mental in nature, they have been radical in their cumulative impact. This book avoids
simple generalizations about the nature of Chinese politics or China’s future path. Instead
it offers comparisons and contrasts between policy areas and regions within China to
create a more complete picture of this complex and ever-changing country.
Chien-min Chao is Professor and Director of the Sun Yat-sen Graduate Institute of
Social Sciences and Humanities at Chengchi University, Taiwan. He has published widely
on Chinese politics. Bruce J. Dickson is Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies
and the Asian Studies Program in the Elliott School of International Affairs, and
Associate Professor in Political Science and International Affairs at the George
Washington University. He is the author of Democratization in China and Taiwan: The adapt-
ability of Leninist parties and Communism in China: Institutional and comparative perspectives.
Asia’s Transformations
Edited by Mark Selden
Binghamton University and Cornell University, USA
The books in this series explore the political, social, economic, and cultural consequences
of Asia’s twentieth-century transformations. The series emphasizes the tumultuous inter-
play of local, national, regional, and global forces as Asia bids to become the hub of the
world economy. While focusing on the contemporary, it also looks back to analyze the
antecedents of Asia’s contested rise.
This series comprises two strands: Asia’s Transformations aims to address the needs of
students and teachers, and the titles will be published in hardback and paperback. Titles
include:
Debating Human Rights Chinese Society
Critical essays from the United States and Change, conflict and resistance
Asia Edited by Elizabeth J. Perry and Mark Selden
Edited by Peter Van Ness
Mao’s Children in the New China
Hong Kong’s History Voices from the Red Guard generation
State and society under colonial rule Yarong Jiang and David Ashley
Edited by Tak-Wing Ngo
Remaking the Chinese State
Japan’s Comfort Women Strategies, society, and security
Yuki Tanaka Edited by Chien-min Chao and Bruce J. Dickson
Opium, Empire and the Global
Political Economy
Carl A. Trocki
Routledge Studies in Asia’s Transformations is a forum for innovative new research intended for
a high-level specialist readership, and the titles will be available in hardback only. Titles
include:
1 The American Occupation of 3 Internationalizing the Pacific
Japan and Okinawa* The United States, Japan and the Institute
Literature and Memory of Pacific Relations, 1919–1945
Michael Molasky Tomoko Akami
2 Koreans in Japan* 4 Imperialism in South East Asia
Critical voices from the margin A fleeting, passing phase
Edited by Sonia Ryang Nicholas Tarling
*Now available in paperback
Remaking the
Chinese State
Strategies, society, and security
Edited by Chien-min Chao
and Bruce J. Dickson
London and New York
First published 2001
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
Selection and editorial matter © 2001 Chien-min Chao
and Bruce J. Dickson
Individual chapters © 2001 individual contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Remaking the Chinese state: strategies, society, and security/edited by
Chien-min Chao and Bruce J. Dickson.
(Asia’s transformations)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. China–Politics and government–1976–. 2. China–Economic
policy–1976–2000. I. Zhao, Jianmin, 1954– II. Dickson, Bruce J.
III. Series.
JQ1510 .R463 2001
320.951–dc21 2001019959
ISBN 0-203-16737-6 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-26223-9 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0–415–26026–4 (Print Edition)
Contents
List of illustrations vii
Notes on contributors ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction: Remaking the Chinese state 1
B RU C E J. D I C K S O N A N D C H I E N - M I N C H AO
PART I 17
Political strategies in the reform era
1 Rationalizing the Chinese state: The political economy of
government reform 19
DA L I L . YA N G
2 Reappraising central–local relations in Deng’s China:
Decentralization, dilemmas of control, and diluted effects
of reform 46
JA E H O C H U N G
3 China’s agricultural reforms: A twenty-year retrospective 76
RO B E RT F. A S H
PART II 101
The social consequences of economic reform
vi Contents
4 Clashes between reform and opening: Labor market
formation in three cities 103
D O ROT H Y J. S O L I N G E R
5 The interdependence of state and society: The political
sociology of local leadership132
DAV I D S . G. G O O D M A N
6 The reform of state-owned enterprises in mainland China:
A societal perspective 157
T E H - C H A N G L I N
PART III 169
Foreign policy and security issues
7 Reform and Chinese foreign policy 171
LOW E L L D I T T M E R
8 Twenty years of Chinese reform: The case of
non-proliferation policy 190
BAT E S G I L L
9 Soldiers of fortune, soldiers of misfortune:
Commercialization and divestiture of the Chinese
military–business complex, 1978–99 204
JA M E S M U LV E N O N
10 Confidence-building measures and the People’s Liberation
Army 228
K E N N E T H W. A L L E N
11 The possibility of cross-Strait political negotiations 257
C H O N G - H A I S H AW
Index 279
Illustrations
Figures
9.1 Nominal and inflation-adjusted defense budget 207
Tables
2.1 Number of mandatory plan items under SPC’s control 53
2.2 Number of plan items for industrial production in selected provinces 54
3.1 Average per capita output of major items of agricultural production 78
3.2 Agricultural growth in China 86
3.3 Farm sector productivity in China 87
3.4 The relative importance of improvements in yields and sown area
adjustments in generating output growth 88
4.1 Population distribution in the three cities 108
4.2 Health of the local economy 109
4.3 Domestic markets 110
4.4 International involvement 111
4.5 Unemployment 111
4.6 Migrants 112
4.7 Per capita arable acreage 114
5.1 Average fixed assets and profits after tax for different categories of
enterprise 137
5.2 Shanxi local elites: demographic background 140
5.3 Shanxi local elites: highest educational level 142
5.4 Shanxi local elites: careers 143
5.5 Shanxi local elites: membership of CCP 144
5.6 Shanxi local elites: living standards 146
5.7 Shanxi local elites: number and education of children 148
5.8 Shanxi local elites: family membership of CCP 149
6.1 Pension for SOE retirees 163
9.1 Partial list of divested PLA and PAP enterprises 215
10.1 Comparison of the Sino-Indian Agreement on LAC, Sino-
Russian/ Central Asian Republics Shanghai Agreement, and
the OSCE Vienna Document 241
Contributors
Kenneth W. Allen focuses on China’s foreign military relations and the PLA
Air Force. He served in the US Air Force from 1971 to 1992, including assign-
ments in Taipei and Beijing. He received a BA from the University of
California at Davis, a BA from the University of Maryland in Asian Studies,
and an MA from Boston University in International Relations.
Robert F. Ash holds the Chiang Ching-kuo Chair of Taiwan Studies at the
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in the University of London.
At SOAS, he is also Coordinator of the EU–China Academic Network
(ECAN), and he was formerly Director of the Contemporary China Institute.
He has published widely on agricultural development in China.
Chien-min Chao is Professor and Director of the Sun Yat-sen Graduate
Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities at National Chengchi University
in Taiwan. He has been a visiting distinguished professor at The George
Washington University. His publications include Taiwan and Mainland China:
Relations and Foreign Competition (1992), Authoritarian Politics (1994), An Analysis of
Contemporary Chinese Politics (1997), and Cross-Strait Relations and Taiwan’s Foreign
Policies (2000). He is also co-editor of the book The ROC on the Threshold of the
21st Century: A Paradigm Reexamined (1999).
Jae Ho Chung is Associate Professor of International Relations at Seoul
National University, Korea. He is the author of Central Control and Local
Discretion in China (2000) and editor of Cities in China (1999) and Provincial
Strategies of Economic Reform in Post-Mao China (1998). He is currently working
on South Korea–China relations during 1949–99 and on China’s civil avia-
tion industry.
Bruce J. Dickson is Associate Professor of Political Science and International
Affairs and Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the Asian
Studies Program in the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George
Washington University. He is the author of Democratization in China and Taiwan:
The Adaptability of Leninist Parties (1997), and articles in Asian Survey, China
Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, Political Science Quarterly, and other publica-
tions. He is also Associate Editor of the journal Problems of Post-Communism.
Contributors ix
Lowell Dittmer is Professor of Political Science and former Chair of the
Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. He is
author (with Samuel Kim) of China’s Quest for National Identity and four other
books analyzing Chinese domestic and foreign policy, as well as many schol-
arly articles.
Bates Gill is Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies and inaugural Director of
the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution in
Washington, DC. A specialist in East Asian foreign policy and politics, his
work focuses on security and military–technical issues, especially with regard
to China. His next book, Contrasting Visions: United States, China, and World Order,
will be published by the Brookings Institution Press in 2001.
David S. G. Goodman is Director of the Institute for International Studies,
University of Technology, Sydney. His most recent publications include Social
and Political Change in Revolutionary China and Shanxi in Reform: Everyday Life in a
North China Province.
Teh-chang Lin is an Associate Professor in the Graduate Institute of Mainland
China Studies, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. He has
published many articles and books on the issues of foreign economic assis-
tance, cross-Strait political and economic relations, and economic
development in mainland China.
James Mulvenon is an Associate Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation
in Washington, DC, specializing in Chinese military and security affairs. He
has recently completed a book-length manuscript on the Chinese military’s
business empire, entitled Soldiers of Fortune (2000). His current research focuses
on Chinese strategic weapons doctrines (information warfare and nuclear
warfare), theater ballistic missile defenses (TBMD) in Asia, Chinese military
commercial divestiture, and the military and civilian implications of the infor-
mation revolution in China.
Chong-hai Shaw received his Ph.D. in history from St Louis University, USA.
He is now a Professor at Sun Yat-sen Graduate Institute of Social Science and
Humanities, National Chengchi University, Taiwan. His research fields are
cross-Strait relations, Sino-American relations, the ROC government and
constitution, nationalism, international politics, and studies on ethnic problems.
Dorothy J. Solinger is Professor of Political Science at the University of
California, Irvine, and Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at the East Asian
Institute, Columbia University. Her most recent book is Contesting Citizenship in
Urban California (1999) and she is a co-editor of States and Sovereignty in the Global
Economy (1999). Her current research is on unemployment in China.
Dali L. Yang is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the
Committee on International Relations at the University of Chicago. His
books include Calamity and Reform in China (1996), Beyond Beijing (1997), and a
forthcoming volume on governance and state–business relations.