You will notice that I used some dubitative formulae - "if" true, it "could be" "quite" important.
Yes, I noticed. Very sensible, because as somebody put it: the nature of Chinese politics makes tea-leaves divinations scientific, when compared to China specialists analises. Trelawney, anybody?
Ultimately, the power of the CP does not depend on the number of memberships, but on its control of the Army, as was shown in Beijing sixteen years ago, and that is not likely to be given up any time soon.
Well, yes and no. Of course, ultimately the power of any state depends on its control of the army, and so it is in China, where by large party=state. But here is the problem: as in any other communist state the Party doubles all state organizations (so there is a ministry of defence and a military commision in the party structures) and very often the same persons control both posts. But to effectively control the state the Party needs large and reasonably well qualified membership, otherwise the people from „outside” will start to occupy the positions of power - even if only local power. And Party can’t rely on military, as it is the ultimate force - even CCP can’t call the tanks whenever the non-party mayor of some small city will act contrary to the Party wishes.
The Chinese state is in a way a „weak” state - the legal system is just being created, there’s no civil service, the healthcare, insurance etc. systems are all v. weak and in the process of creation. Therefore people start more and more rely on the old style family connections and other relations of the kind, which were always v. important, and now are coming even more important. With the large membership the Party could influence and/or control such networks. Without - they’re becoming fully independent.
Then there’s strong regionalism in China and the state again has relatively little control over the provinces - which for example can negotiate the amount of taxes they pay in the given year. Inter-party regional factions aside, it was a unifying factor, so the dwindling membership may again contribute to even stronger regionalism. I do not prophecying that China will split, but some parts (and not Tibet, rather Guangdong), may became very autonomous in everything, but the name (the Chinese like the names - they make a good substitute for reality).
So as far as the army is heavily politized, calling it in is a sign of weakness of the party, which can’t cope using other ways. The events during the Cultural Revolution, when Mao had to use troops to stop the fights between different fraction of Red Guards or 1989 are both good examples.
Tiananmen happened mainly because of the inter-Party conflicts; ultimately the power was seized by the hard-liner with the reformist Zhao Ziyang placed in house-arrest (he died this year BTW). If there were not for breaks, the matters wouldn’t go so far. Deng spent most of the time of students’ protest out of Beijing: he was shuffling military commanders to remove them from their troops (see the regionalism factor I wrote above) and „their” party affiliates. Only after this he could try to bring the troops into the city (local troops were not willing to act and the party grip by the city was really weakened - the workers were actively cooperating with students. e.g. they stopped the metro, so the units couldn’t get into the city centre)
The army in China is modernizing and - necessarily - professionalizing. With it always comes the danger that some people will be more loyal to the state thn to the party... China is an interesting case, because most of its communist terror was done without sophisticated secret police apparatus, soviet-style. They developed it only in the 80' - before it was relatively small (but v. dangerous) organization.
Yes, I noticed. Very sensible, because as somebody put it: the nature of Chinese politics makes tea-leaves divinations scientific, when compared to China specialists analises. Trelawney, anybody?
Ultimately, the power of the CP does not depend on the number of memberships, but on its control of the Army, as was shown in Beijing sixteen years ago, and that is not likely to be given up any time soon.
Well, yes and no. Of course, ultimately the power of any state depends on its control of the army, and so it is in China, where by large party=state. But here is the problem: as in any other communist state the Party doubles all state organizations (so there is a ministry of defence and a military commision in the party structures) and very often the same persons control both posts. But to effectively control the state the Party needs large and reasonably well qualified membership, otherwise the people from „outside” will start to occupy the positions of power - even if only local power. And Party can’t rely on military, as it is the ultimate force - even CCP can’t call the tanks whenever the non-party mayor of some small city will act contrary to the Party wishes.
The Chinese state is in a way a „weak” state - the legal system is just being created, there’s no civil service, the healthcare, insurance etc. systems are all v. weak and in the process of creation. Therefore people start more and more rely on the old style family connections and other relations of the kind, which were always v. important, and now are coming even more important. With the large membership the Party could influence and/or control such networks. Without - they’re becoming fully independent.
Then there’s strong regionalism in China and the state again has relatively little control over the provinces - which for example can negotiate the amount of taxes they pay in the given year. Inter-party regional factions aside, it was a unifying factor, so the dwindling membership may again contribute to even stronger regionalism. I do not prophecying that China will split, but some parts (and not Tibet, rather Guangdong), may became very autonomous in everything, but the name (the Chinese like the names - they make a good substitute for reality).
So as far as the army is heavily politized, calling it in is a sign of weakness of the party, which can’t cope using other ways. The events during the Cultural Revolution, when Mao had to use troops to stop the fights between different fraction of Red Guards or 1989 are both good examples.
Tiananmen happened mainly because of the inter-Party conflicts; ultimately the power was seized by the hard-liner with the reformist Zhao Ziyang placed in house-arrest (he died this year BTW). If there were not for breaks, the matters wouldn’t go so far.
Deng spent most of the time of students’ protest out of Beijing: he was shuffling military commanders to remove them from their troops (see the regionalism factor I wrote above) and „their” party affiliates. Only after this he could try to bring the troops into the city (local troops were not willing to act and the party grip by the city was really weakened - the workers were actively cooperating with students. e.g. they stopped the metro, so the units couldn’t get into the city centre)
The army in China is modernizing and - necessarily - professionalizing. With it always comes the danger that some people will be more loyal to the state thn to the party... China is an interesting case, because most of its communist terror was done without sophisticated secret police apparatus, soviet-style. They developed it only in the 80' - before it was relatively small (but v. dangerous) organization.
TBC
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