A Conversation with Fang Ning

This image of a chef and menu is perhaps a bit exaggerated, but it nicely shows Westerners what the Chinese mean when they talk about their democracy. To answer the question, however, I think we first need to take a more principled look at the issue of democracy itself.

In 1990, CPC General Secretary Jiang Zemin gave the first guiding speech on building democracy in China, which formed the foundation for the past 30 years of discussions. He mentioned two forms of democratic process: elections and consultations. These two forms are of course not mutually exclusive, and one finds elements of each in both Chinese and Western democracy. Over time, China became more and more consultative, and the election process became less and less pronounced as a result. In the West, on the other hand, democracy seems discursively and even normatively to be more and more reduced to the mere process of elections.

Democracy is a question of the generation and allocation of power, that is, how power is generated and in whose hands it is held. In a democracy one must be elected, meaning you get empowered by and through the process of elections. China does not have such a system, but it has a substitute mechanism, which I call “tiered election”. What is a tiered election? In the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party in Japan, and the Republican Party and the Democratic Party in the United States, they put forward candidates for parliament, prime minister and president who are elected by the party, as in the case of the primaries in the US general election, which are elected by extensive grassroots elections.

In China, the CPC's delegates to party congresses, such as the 20th National Congress, are also mainly elected by grassroots and local party organisations. However, such elections are held at different levels. In general, there are recommendations from grassroots party organisations and elections are organised by grassroots and local party committees. For example, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) has to recommend party representatives for the 20th National Congress, and first of all, the grassroots party committees submit their recommendations to the Party Committee of CASS on the basis of consultation with party members. Next, the CASS Party Committee will hold a party congress to elect the candidates to the authoritative agency of the upper level under the direct leadership of the central government for the 20th National Congress. The third level is the party congress organized by working committee of this upper level agency to do the final election of the party delegates to the 20th National Congress. This is a bottom-up, hierarchical election process. It can be said that the recommendations and elections involved all levels of party organisations and members of the Communist Party. This is what I call a tiered election.

The numerical distribution of delegates is based mainly on the number of party organizations and the number of party members, but also taking into account factors such as the number of delegates from previous Party Congresses. For example, there were only five or six Party delegates from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who could eventually attend the 20th Congress.

Not necessarily. In general, it is a bottom-up, tiered, differential election with no prior list, but the list recommended on the grassroots level is usually reviewed and approved by the higher party organisation before it is finally put up for election.

How many delegates are sent to the Party Congress from private companies is generally decided by the provinces. The provinces work out their distribution key of delegates, such as whether ordinary party members should come, model workers, men and women, age, etc.

There definitely be party representatives for private entrepreneurs.[1]

In short, there is an electoral mechanism, but it must go through a process of recommendation, vetting and approval or ratification from above. This is known as "democratic centralism" in the Chinese Communist Party's political system and in the system of internal party democracy, which is "democratic" from the bottom up and "centralised" from the top down. I would like to point out that although such an election is not a competitive election in the Western style, there is a mechanism for elimination. In practice, if a candidate has a bad reputation and is not well perceived, he will be defeated in a narrow election. This happens from time to time.
[1] Enterpreneur delegates for the first time participated in the Congress in 2002, the 16th Congress, seeting the increase of number from 7 to 27 in 2017, the 19th.

Yes, you even voted for yourself at the very beginning of the recommendation. From a political science point of view, the electoral process in China and in the CCP is essentially a tiered election. Becoming a delegate to the Party Congress, becoming a middle or senior cadre, or becoming a recommended candidate for the Central Committee are all elected, but in a tiered manner.

All cadres in China, from the village or neighbourhood to the province level, are annually evaluated in terms of their work performance but also their leadership qualities or policy implementation abilities, and not least the support they receive from subordinates and colleagues. For example, the director of our institute is recommended by the whole institute, based on the opinion of the colleagues. If none of the department heads below the director support him, even the best will not be suitable for a delegate recommendation, no matter how good his evaluation is or how much higher party levels want to promote him.

China may not have an election on the surface, but it actually has a tiered system of nomination and representation very different from the West, in which one person has one vote.

The stratified electoral system in Chinese democracy must also be viewed in the context of China and the Communist Party's cadre personnel system as a whole. China's administrative system has five levels of administration: central government, provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government), cities (district cities), counties (cities) and townships. Chinese cadres can also be roughly divided into these five broad levels, which are generally divided into: national level, provincial and ministerial level, departmental and bureau levels, county and divisional levels and section levels. All cadres in China rise through the ranks in this section-level cadre system. And for each level, for each promotion, there is a process of recommendation or election and voting. In other words, each cadre is selected and promoted by "consulting" the cadres at their own level and at the next level, and only if they have a certain level of support can they be promoted. This is called the "popular base" in China. A more standard practice is to have a "consultation" among the cadres at this level and the next, i.e. a mechanism similar to the Western "referendum", where people "score" and "draw votes", in accordance with the "popular base". "This is a quasi-election by Western standards, and if a certain number of votes is not reached, the candidate is eliminated. In the past, there was a period of "voting" in which the result was determined by the number of votes, with the winner being the person with the most votes. After the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the "vote" system is generally no longer used, but it is still "vote based", and in general, at least half of the votes are required to be elected or to move on to the next round of competition, and those who do not have half the votes are generally not considered.

In short, in China there is no Western-style competitive election or ballot system. However, China does have an electoral system, which is a tiered electoral system.

As to why there is a need for stratification, I think there are considerations in terms of preventing populism. I once went to Hebei Province to conduct a survey of grassroots organizations. There were two county party secretaries. The first secretary said that “we must listen to public opinion”, that is to say, we must conduct write-in surveys. He promoted the idea that the broadest range of people and opinions must be taken into account. The second county secretary, on the other hand, was firmly against it, saying that people are not interested in long-term and strategic goals and that extensive public opinion consultation would actually give opportunities to cadres who could talk and put on a show, and that cadres who worked hard in a down-to-earth, quiet manner would never get more votes. For example, the head of the local tax authority would never be promoted based on a voting process, because people hate him for asking them for money. In my opinion, both county party secretaries have a point, and this is perhaps the paradox of electoral democracy itself. In other words, tiered elections may, to a certain extent, remedy the flaws of competitive elections, the ballot system.

I think at the current stage of China’s development, there are still advantages to the tiered electoral system. It must be acknowledged that elections are necessary in democratic politics. In universal suffrage, only people’s impressions of candidates matter, but it is hard to say whether these impressions are correct or not. On the other hand, of course, if there are no elections at all, it’s easy to operate “under the table” — recommendations and promotions become non-transparent, and there is a lack of feedback. Obviously, there is a contradiction here.

Generally speaking, I think that people in the tiered election system have to act relatively more responsibly and refrain from pushing candidates or issues indiscriminately. For example, if I, as a CASS director, were to push my vice-president towards a specific delegate, then I would really have to consider whether it would be appropriate for the development of the whole institution, because I am a cadre and have a responsibility for the institute. So, the broader opinion of my colleagues always needs to be taken in consideration, but it is still less competitive. By having our own cadres at this level elect the cadres at the next level, we can also avoid the "war of words", the claptrap of campaign propaganda and the confrontation that comes with elections.

The non-exposure of conflicts is very important. We see how politics in the West can drag the system as a whole into a vicious cycle of ever-accelerating antagonism, making it impossible to solve fundamental questions and develop long-term goals. Developed countries may be able to afford such political conflict structures, but developing countries definitely cannot. The social costs of making these conflicts public and confrontational are way too high.

At every layer we have coordination and deliberation processes. We do not compete, we do not have universal suffrage, but the Chinese procedures aim for responsible, more knowledgeable outcomes. There are certainly advantages, but that does not mean that the system doesn’t have its own specific problems and contradictions.

I would say that there is a basic consensus concerning the strategic direction of development and substantive goals in China. There might be different opinions about state-owned enterprises, more market or less market, more environmental regulation or less, how to implement welfare policies, and so on, but the goal is clear.

The CPC functions as a constitutive dual interface in this process: on the one hand, it generates the basic consensus while at the same time taking it up from society, repeatedly condensing and articulating it anew, and communicating it into the country. On the other hand, it translates this basic consensus into concrete policy goals and conveys it to organizations, enterprises, and state authorities.

Well, the Party Congress is officially the will of the state and the will of the people. The Congress opens with the report to the Congress delivered by the General Secretary, currently Xi Jinping. The delivery of the report to the Party Congress generally takes several hours and could be understood as a kind of constitution for the next five years.

There is an established process around how the report is developed and how the basic consensus is formulated. Specifically, with regard to the topics and the resolutions of the report, there is first a process of solicitation followed by extensive research. Central agencies are involved in the coordination of these surveys and research, such as the General Office of the State Council and the General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and the research for the report generally starts just after the Chinese New Year of the previous year. For example, before the 19th National Party Congress in 2017, Liu Qibao [Vice-Chair of the Thirteenth Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and member of the 18th Politburo] came to the CASS in November 2016 to assign research tasks, and that’s how my research report came about.

All departments, all provinces and cities, autonomous regions, municipalities, ministries, various mass organizations, the legally permitted political parties, and universities and institutions like the CASS all have to conduct research. This research must be conducted through multiple channels, meaning that for any major issue or topic, five to ten work units, institutes, or think tanks work on the same issue and must do so separately to maintain their respective independence.

In 2016, the central government allocated four research tasks to CASS, one of which was on political science, which I was responsible for. When I received the assignment, I did not know that other scholars or institutions were doing the same research at the same time. When the various research reports were completed, they were aggregated by the three major institutions directly under the leadership of the central committee of the CPC, who then screened and condensed them and forwarded them to the Report Drafting Group, which is responsible for preparing the Party Congress Report. The draft is of course also discussed politically and negotiated several times before the final version is agreed upon.

The report is very complex and written in a highly formalized language. Every sentence, every word counts. In the following five years, whether national agencies or institutions at the provincial, municipal, and county levels, all have to align their agendas and priorities with the report. At the same time, they can apply for additional funding or personnel in order to do so. So, people attach great importance to implementing the report’s agenda. For example, if there is one sentence in the report that emphasizes the importance of philosophy and social sciences for prosperity and development, or states that social sciences and natural sciences are equally important, then universities and research institutes would invest more in social science departments and research. Such a sentence would be a great success for institutions like CASS.

The preparation, elaboration, and drafting of a Party Congress report is a long process of consensus-building. Thus, the content of the report already represents a consensus — where there is controversy, it will be omitted.

The historical relevance of the various congresses differ in two ways: firstly, the selection of the leadership, and secondly in terms of themes and issues.

Some congresses are historically important in terms of whether there is a generational change of party leaders, such as the 18th Congress. There are congresses where there are changes of Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, but not a change of the General Secretary.

The other question of a congress’s historical relevance is how it determines the direction of strategic development and defines the most important tasks and challenges. This question can only be answered retrospectively.

An important manifestation of a political system is its ability to institutionalize development structures and implement policies. Of course, there can be many criteria for a system to be good or bad. Deng Xiaoping’s three criteria — whether it is conducive to the development of the productive forces of a socialist society, whether it is conducive to strengthening the comprehensive national power of a socialist country, and whether it is conducive to improving the living standards of the people — are valid, but not comprehensive. For example, how can we judge whether opening up or closing down is the better solution in the current pandemic? We will see and judge when the pandemic is over.

It is difficult to decide whether to focus on the long-term interests of the people or the immediate interests of the people. So, each Party Congress determines concretely the policy priorities for at least the next five years. Each Party Congress has to unify ideas, and once everyone agrees on them, they have to be implemented. As I said before, what is written in the Party Congress report is agreed in principle beforehand, and controversial things are not written in the report.

This is a very big question. All political issues and questions in China are related to industrialization. We generally believe that China has had four industrializations. The first industrialization came with the Westernization Movement in the late 19th century. But when British and French forces occupied Beijing and burned down the Old Summer Palace (Yuanmingyuan Park is the formal English name), followed by Japan defeating China in the Sino-Japanese War, this first industrialization was buried.

The second industrialization occurred under the Republic of China, from 1928 to 1937, but the country was fragmented and controlled by rival warlords. The third was after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, from 1949 to 1978. These three decades surely had their achievements, but the problems were even greater, as the Cultural Revolution almost pushed the country to the end of its rope. China's fourth industrialisation effort began with the reform and opening up in 1978, and this time it was successful, with China leaping from a backward agricultural country to become a major industrialised country and now the world's second largest economy, achieving great leaps and bounds.

In terms of party congresses, I would like to emphasise the role of the 12th and 15th National Congresses of the Communist Party of China in the historical period of reform and opening up as particularly important. The Twelfth Congress set the general line of reform and opening up, and China's reform and opening up entered a period of comprehensive development. The 15th Party Congress was a crucial moment in the reform and opening-up process, and the main issue faced was the reform of state-owned enterprises, which was the most difficult, if not very dangerous, time for China's reform and opening-up.

Between 1997 and 1998, more than 10 million workers were laid off from state-owned enterprises, including collective enterprises. It was the most dangerous time for the country, although there were no waves on the surface.

Jiang Zemin was remarkable in that he was confident enough to smoothly navigate this dangerous period. Of course, it was really hard and unfair to the people who were laid off. We owe much gratitude to the people who endured this sacrifice. Deng Xiaoping broke the confines of thought and showed the way, but what Deng Xiaoping said he could see was actually done by Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. The 20-odd years from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao was a golden period of reform and opening up that carried forward and achieved great development for the country. The Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people will always remember the historical achievements of the older generation.

The CPC has proposed 100 years of development and modernization — only in 2050 will we be able to discuss whether the primary stage of socialism has come to an end. Mao Zedong took the lead in the primary stage of socialism, but his understanding was not clear. Deng Xiaoping understood that we could not mess around and that the primary stage of socialism had to be carried out on the path of industrialization. Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao took the lead and made great achievements in the leapfrog development of China's industrialisation and modernisation. The period from the 18th to the 20th National Congress and beyond is the final and most critical period for the success of China's industrialisation and modernisation. Looking ahead to the 20th CPC National Congress and the second "100-year goal", the 20th CPC National Congress has a long way to go.

In terms of party building, Xi Jinping’s emphasis is still more on governing the party strictly. Deng Xiaoping’s political system was not yet in place, Jiang Zemin’s was, and after Hu Jintao, the system was established. Of course, there are certainly problems with this system, including social division and corruption within the Party. Since the 18th Congress, the Party has tried to solve these problems.

I think that after the 18th Party Congress, some of the problems of the past two decades since reform and opening up, especially since the Fourteenth Congress, have been corrected. His legacy, which will be historically remembered and critically discussed in the future, is the strict governance of the Party and the “Four Comprehensives”: comprehensive construction of a modern socialist state, comprehensive deepening of reform, comprehensive rule of law, and comprehensive strict governance of the Party.

The last two generations of leaders had different priorities and could not focus on “governing the Party strictly”. The logic of the early reform and opening up period was, the less administrative control, the better.

It was different when Xi Jinping came to power. Corruption was alarming, bureaucratic groups and interest groups within the party and all kinds of social ills had accumulated over the past decades. The question was and still is how to manage it.

The legitimacy of the CPC lays in its ability to cope with these kinds of problems. This is exactly why Xi Jinping’s most important idea is to govern the Party strictly, to be bold and to fight against all kinds of problems, and this with unprecedented vigour, determination, policy strength, and resource investment.

To be fair, in history this decade will be predominantly characterized by strict governance of the Party. But in order to pursue a distinct path of development within the Chinese political system, there is no other way. As for how effective it has been, we cannot yet say, and there are various comments on that now. For example, the “Eight-Point Regulation of the Centre” [a set of regulations adopted by the Politburo] was introduced in 2012. They worked at one point, but are they still effective now? Are they effectively institutionalized?

When we talk about how a system comes about, it first begins as a precedent, secondly becomes a practice, and after three times it becomes an institution. If it is continuously successful, then it is a good system. The key to a good system is whether it works or not. It is written in The History of Song that “a good law without its people is not a good law”. Some cadres, including some from the central government, say that our policy is good, but it is not implemented well. This is a wrong perception. Is a poorly implemented policy still a good policy? Only a policy that is well implemented is a good policy. After all, “practice is the sole criterion of truth”.