Can ‘People’s Representatives’ Light a Fire Under Beijing?
Russell Leigh Moses is a Beijing-based analyst and professor who writes on Chinese politics. He is writing a book on the changing role of power in the Chinese political system.
Party cadres awoke to another firestorm this week. No, it wasn’t Mongolia. That unrest was handled deftly, with the usual dash of force — and more than the normal dollop of promised subsidies to the disaffected.
This outbreak was different: Over the past weekend — in an unusual challenge to the Party’s increasingly fierce grip on Chinese politics — roughly 30 activists, scholars and online commentators announced that they planned to run for office as “people’s representatives” to various local legislatures, or People’s Congresses.
Many of the aspiring candidates are well known across the blogosphere, and enjoy substantial followings among the attentive public. Their writings are shrewd, with one of the most popular—Li Chengpeng—commenting on his blog recently that the wall in China that separates policy-making from the people is one that might be remodeled by simply putting in a few windows.
There is more than a measure of courage here. While any citizen over the age of 18 can technically run to serve in the People’s Congresses, those that are nominated typically have to achieve Party approval. Those who have tried to nominate themselves in the past have rarely had much success in getting very far into the process; many have found themselves on the wrong end of government wrath.
Yao Lifa, perhaps the most well-known of the first group of “self-recommended” candidates years back, was successful at gaining entrance in 1998 but was shunted aside in 2003 and has been harassed off-and-on ever since. Such an attempt may be even more treacherous now, because if consensus exists on any one issue within the Party in 2011, it is the need to crack down on opposition movements of any sort, be they ethnic or otherwise.
But there is also a good deal of cleverness afoot. None of the self-nominated are violating the election rules simply by announcing their intention to run. And while this is clearly a carefully coordinated campaign, there is no ideological platform — nothing like Charter ’08 to enable officials to easily label this small band as anti-Party instigators and squeeze.
In other words, this handful of would-be politicos could be quite a handful for Beijing to cope with.
Be it desperation or determination, the campaign has sparked some at the top to weigh in, and with some speed. An essay in the main Party newspaper People’s Daily on Wednesday might well be read as a first reaction from some at the top–a temporary referendum on the issue of elections, candidates and qualification. Ostensibly about the oversight of cadres, the piece is a pastiche of pronouncements about what elections should mean in the wider context of reform, and cites Deng Xiaoping’s famous saying about “crossing the river by feeling for stones.” The implication seems to be that that reform of any sort needs to proceed cautiously, but that nothing needs to be ruled out right now.
Appearing in the wake of those bloggers busting out, the commentary has to sound oddly empowering to those who find political experiments more appealing than instantly unsafe.
Still, this attempt at a new sort of activism is no reason for conservatives in the Party to panic. Nor should it be seen as a source of too much glee for proponents of political reform. After all, the political handcuffs here have gotten even tighter in recent months. Reformers within the Party are still struggling to find enough leverage to get open discussions about political restructuring underway. And there are more than enough conservatives around who want to make the new slogan of “social management” stand for “stability-plus.”
This swell of independent candidates may want to stand apart but they need to recognize political realities. Their prospects will depend upon how well reformers can protect them from the fury of conservatives who see any challenge from outside Party ranks as a menace. There might just be enough members of the Communist Party who would like to move away from just fighting the fires of unrest to something more visionary.
But this situation could get ugly quickly. It’s going to a be a major challenge for the Communist Party to let the presently disenfranchised participate in the existing processes without everyone fretting that those challenging the current way of doing political business are really out to burn down the house.
Party cadres awoke to another firestorm this week. No, it wasn’t Mongolia. That unrest was handled deftly, with the usual dash of force — and more than the normal dollop of promised subsidies to the disaffected.
This outbreak was different: Over the past weekend — in an unusual challenge to the Party’s increasingly fierce grip on Chinese politics — roughly 30 activists, scholars and online commentators announced that they planned to run for office as “people’s representatives” to various local legislatures, or People’s Congresses.
Many of the aspiring candidates are well known across the blogosphere, and enjoy substantial followings among the attentive public. Their writings are shrewd, with one of the most popular—Li Chengpeng—commenting on his blog recently that the wall in China that separates policy-making from the people is one that might be remodeled by simply putting in a few windows.
There is more than a measure of courage here. While any citizen over the age of 18 can technically run to serve in the People’s Congresses, those that are nominated typically have to achieve Party approval. Those who have tried to nominate themselves in the past have rarely had much success in getting very far into the process; many have found themselves on the wrong end of government wrath.
Yao Lifa, perhaps the most well-known of the first group of “self-recommended” candidates years back, was successful at gaining entrance in 1998 but was shunted aside in 2003 and has been harassed off-and-on ever since. Such an attempt may be even more treacherous now, because if consensus exists on any one issue within the Party in 2011, it is the need to crack down on opposition movements of any sort, be they ethnic or otherwise.
But there is also a good deal of cleverness afoot. None of the self-nominated are violating the election rules simply by announcing their intention to run. And while this is clearly a carefully coordinated campaign, there is no ideological platform — nothing like Charter ’08 to enable officials to easily label this small band as anti-Party instigators and squeeze.
In other words, this handful of would-be politicos could be quite a handful for Beijing to cope with.
Be it desperation or determination, the campaign has sparked some at the top to weigh in, and with some speed. An essay in the main Party newspaper People’s Daily on Wednesday might well be read as a first reaction from some at the top–a temporary referendum on the issue of elections, candidates and qualification. Ostensibly about the oversight of cadres, the piece is a pastiche of pronouncements about what elections should mean in the wider context of reform, and cites Deng Xiaoping’s famous saying about “crossing the river by feeling for stones.” The implication seems to be that that reform of any sort needs to proceed cautiously, but that nothing needs to be ruled out right now.
Appearing in the wake of those bloggers busting out, the commentary has to sound oddly empowering to those who find political experiments more appealing than instantly unsafe.
Still, this attempt at a new sort of activism is no reason for conservatives in the Party to panic. Nor should it be seen as a source of too much glee for proponents of political reform. After all, the political handcuffs here have gotten even tighter in recent months. Reformers within the Party are still struggling to find enough leverage to get open discussions about political restructuring underway. And there are more than enough conservatives around who want to make the new slogan of “social management” stand for “stability-plus.”
This swell of independent candidates may want to stand apart but they need to recognize political realities. Their prospects will depend upon how well reformers can protect them from the fury of conservatives who see any challenge from outside Party ranks as a menace. There might just be enough members of the Communist Party who would like to move away from just fighting the fires of unrest to something more visionary.
But this situation could get ugly quickly. It’s going to a be a major challenge for the Communist Party to let the presently disenfranchised participate in the existing processes without everyone fretting that those challenging the current way of doing political business are really out to burn down the house.
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