China’s civil society and democratic prospects from a global perspective—Teng Biao interviews Professor Chen Jianmin

Teng Biao (hereinafter referred to as Teng): Professor Chen, thank you for accepting our interview. First of all, can you briefly introduce and evaluate the great pioneering contribution of your supervisor, Professor Juna Linz, to the study of democratic transition? How do you and he discuss and analyze the Chinese system in the post-Mao era? Is it a totalitarian, authoritarian or post-totalitarian system?

Chen Jianmin (hereinafter referred to as Chen): I think Juan Linz’s contribution is very important to democratic transition. Regarding the classification of non-democratic regimes, he was the first to distinguish totalitarianism from authoritarianism. He not only looked at the political level, but also first looked at whether there was diversity in the social and economic levels, and then whether there was an official ideology. Also, whether the state regularly mobilizes the people and whether it allows space for private life. Finally, look at how leaders are created. His classification is very important because he focuses on the issue of transformation. If the starting point is different, the problems faced by transformation will be different. He believes that it is impossible to switch from totalitarianism to democracy immediately. He believes that it must first go through a liberalization process and gradually become authoritarian; authoritarianism also needs a long process to become a more mature authoritarianism, and then switch to democracy. is relatively stable. He did not rule out the possibility of a faster transition. He just said that if we enter democratization before liberalization matures, we will face more obstacles, and then after democracy is established, the difficulty of consolidating it will be even greater. But the subsequent changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union posed a challenge to him; it can no longer be said that it is impossible for totalitarian countries to democratize. He later pointed out that in fact, many such countries have experienced a period of loosening up control and are no longer as totalitarian as before. He proposed Post-Totalitarianism, which is similar to totalitarianism in many aspects, but has begun to have more economic and social diversity; it has official ideology, but social mobilization has decreased; in terms of leadership, , more and more are technocrats who have risen through the bureaucracy.

He used to only regard Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany as totalitarians. Later, I talked to him about what China was like during the Cultural Revolution, how to mobilize and control, and he also accepted that China was also a totalitarian society during Mao's period. After the reform and opening up, it gradually moved towards post-totalitarianism. From his perspective, after Xi Jinping came to power, China may move towards totalitarianism again. However, it has not yet completely become totalitarian, because there are still private enterprises today. Although the state advances and the private sector retreats, economic diversification has not been completely abolished. In terms of ideology, they talk about socialism, but in fact they talk more about the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and use nationalism as ideology. In terms of mobilization, the people still have their own private lives, but the political control over the people may be more stringent than in the Mao era, through big data, high technology, etc. Therefore, although there is no frequent mobilization, it does not mean that you can maintain a true freedom. private life.

Teng: Yes, in fact many Western scholars call China after the reform and opening up, from Deng Xiaoping to Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao, authoritarian. But I think it is inappropriate to call it authoritarian.

Chen: That’s not appropriate. If we equate China’s system at that time with Singapore’s, it would be far from the truth.

Teng: Yes, the authoritarianism in Taiwan before the lifting of martial law was very different from the Communist system in the Jiang-Hu era.

Chen: That’s right. Therefore, Taiwan can still transform relatively peacefully. Of course, Taiwan was also severely suppressed during the White Terror period, but it did not really experience totalitarianism.

Teng: In the past decade or so, there seems to be a “paradigm shift” in democratization research, that is, the main factor explaining democratic transition and regression has shifted from “economic development” to “unequal distribution.” Is “modernization theory”—that economic development ultimately “leads to” democratization—no longer valid?

Chen: You are right. In 1959, Seymour Martin Lipset published his first article discussing the impact of economic development on democratization, laying the foundation for this so-called modernization theory. Later, this theory actually faced great challenges in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Latin America and South Korea. These places used to have democratic elections, but after economic development, democracy regressed. By the 1980s, modernization theory was revived. Because those countries, including South Korea, Taiwan, etc., experienced democratization after their economies took off. Therefore, everyone re-examines the significance of modernization theory. Larry Diamond also wrote that economic development does have a positive impact on democracy, but the process is not linear, but an N-curve, which means it may fall off in the middle and then go up again. [1] But for this kind of summary, I think the time period is still too short. It is not easy to summarize the theory of democratization. You say it is this N, how do you know what will happen in the next 10 or 20 years? It may fall down again and become an M. This is what is happening in many developed countries now. It turns out that the most important core of this theory is that economic development will cause changes in the class structure, which is the expansion of the middle class. The class structure has changed from a pyramid to a diamond-shaped structure. The middle class has received a higher education, has more money and time to invest in civil society, and will accept some democratic reforms rather than revolution. Therefore, the expansion of the middle class is of great significance to Democracy plays a key role.

The problem is that there are two forces in the development of new capitalism. One is neoliberalism, which advocates a more flexible economic model and reduces elastic production by half to outsourcing (outsourcing); the other is globalization. The rapid development of information and technology has promoted the globalization of production and trade, causing companies to move production lines to developing countries like China. These two forces have brought about great changes in the class structure of developed countries. First, an M-shaped society emerged, with the middle class shrinking and shrinking, and the gap between the rich and the poor widening. There is a word in Japan called "lower class", which refers to a society with downward mobility, increasingly moving from the middle class to the lower middle class. People at the bottom have no jobs because industries have moved to China. The emergence of this state is not at all the impact of economic development on social structure as conceived in the original modernization theory. Instead, it is more and more like the capitalism that Marx said will eventually lead to polarization and so-called pauperization. Looking at what is happening in Europe and the United States today, Marx's speculation seems to be getting more and more correct, but the revolution he predicted has not happened. This may be because after experiencing the communist rule and collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the new generation of intellectuals have great doubts about socialism. Even though European and American societies are experiencing many internal conflicts and seem to have the conditions for revolution, they no longer have revolutionary ideology.

Teng: Behind the West’s engagement policy with China is its belief in modernization theory, right?

Chen: Yes. Doing business with China, conducting more cultural exchanges, etc. will definitely promote changes in social structure and culture, and then political reforms will occur. This is a very important background for the impact of modernization theory on diplomacy and trade. Clinton and many other Western leaders did this. However, what this theory fails to see is that the entire development environment experienced by post-development countries is very different from the time when capitalism began to develop in the 18th and 19th centuries. At that time, it was a completely market economy, not relying on the government; it was not until the door to trade with Eastern countries was opened that the government intervened in colonialism. But in China, we basically relied on capitalists (the middle class at that time) to develop capitalism through the market. But the experience of post-developed countries is not like this. They face global competition from mature capitalist countries, and they rely more on government assistance to promote economic development. Therefore, there is the so-called developmental state. Including South Korea, Taiwan, etc., the government will actively support industrial development by developing land, tax incentives, cultivating talents, etc., and even implement trade protection. In terms of finance, although Hong Kong is the freest economic system in the world, during the financial crisis in 1998, even Hong Kong The government has to directly intervene in the stock and foreign exchange markets to bet against Soros's hedge funds. The economic role played by the government is becoming more and more important because it needs to respond more efficiently to the rapidly changing environment of globalization, resulting in power being more concentrated in the executive branch rather than the legislative branch.

By the same token, China's economic development is very different from the historical experience of Western capitalism. In the early days of China's economic reform, Victor Nee proposed the Market Transition Theory (Market Transition Theory [2] ), believing that China would take a market-driven direction, and entrepreneurs would make more money than cadres, etc. But later it was discovered that the government and the party did not withdraw, but directly participated in the economy. For example, in many early township enterprises, the chairman of the board was a local cadre, etc. Under this situation, the so-called middle class that emerged in China is no longer independent of the aristocratic class like the early Western capitalists. It wants to fight for political rights and will not pay taxes without votes. In China, both private entrepreneurs and state-owned enterprise executives are inextricably linked to the government and have become vested interest groups. This is an aspect that the "contact policy" ignores; the current global structure of new capitalism is completely different from that of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Teng: As some scholars (such as Qin Hui) have pointed out, a lot of the problems encountered by Western capitalist countries today, such as debt, trade, unemployment, threats to democratic systems, etc., are actually related to China’s involvement in globalization. The reason Low human rights advantage in China. Only economic globalization, without democracy and human rights standards, may even lead to an institutional "bad money driving out good money." China's economic boom has made the authoritarian system more ambitious and has become the biggest threat to global freedom.

The Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem) revealed in its 2023 report "Defiance in the Face of Autocratization" that the level of global democracy has returned to 1986, with a closed dictatorship appearing for the first time in the past 20 years. The number of closed autocracy exceeds the number of liberal democracies. 28% of the world's population, approximately 2.2 billion people, live in authoritarian countries; only 13% live in free democracies. The proportion of trade between democratic countries in total global trade has dropped from 74% in 1998 to 47% in 2022; autocratic countries are increasingly independent of the import and export of democratic countries; in contrast, democratic countries are more competitive with autocratic countries in terms of trade dependence has doubled in the past 30 years. What do you think of the resurgence of authoritarianism—what Larry Diamond calls the Ill Wind? What do you think of the resurgence of authoritarianism? Democratic countries are becoming more and more economically dependent on authoritarian countries. You must have had a very personal experience when traveling from Hong Kong to Taiwan?

Chen: It is an obvious fact that Western democracies are becoming more and more dependent on the Chinese market. However, China is also very careful, knowing that over-reliance on Western investment and technology threatens national security, so it must develop business opportunities along the Belt and Road. In China Do more trade within a more controllable scope; will not be vulnerable to sanctions.

Hong Kong has long faced the issue of over-reliance on the Chinese economy because it is the most frontline area facing China. Anson Chan, Chief Secretary for Administration in the early days of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, warned about this very early. Those pro-Beijing politicians and businessmen criticized her for being too resistant to the integration of China and Hong Kong, but she felt that the value of Hong Kong lies in its international nature and that it must maintain close relations with the West in all aspects (finance, trade, tourism, etc.). But for people in the business community, China's development brings unlimited business opportunities and a large amount of hot money, which is a temptation that is difficult to resist. In the end, Anson Chen left the government under various pressures and switched to the democratic camp, but was suppressed by the CCP. Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying is more focused on developing "domestic diplomacy" than consolidating Hong Kong's international competitiveness.

Although Hong Kong has benefited from China's economic development, it has also paid a heavy price. For example, most of the so-called blue-chip stocks on the Hong Kong stock market have become Chinese state-owned enterprises, and the rise and fall of the entire stock market is completely affected by China. China's economy has been in such bad shape recently that many Western investors feel that Hong Kong stocks are overly dependent on China and are reluctant to invest too much money. Another example is the retail industry. A large number of jewelry stores and pharmacies are not facing local residents, but Chinese tourists. The result is that, on the surface, there is a lot of money coming in, but after the entire structure is completely dependent on China, it becomes very fragile. In the 1980s and 1990s, China felt that Hong Kong was a driver and locomotive for China's economic development. Later, it changed and felt that Hong Kong's economy depended on China. Therefore, in politics, you have no room for negotiation, and it will not show mercy when it wants to hit you. You have no bargaining power.

Teng: It seems that economic dependence on authoritarian countries may be a very big political problem. What about Taiwan?

Chen: Taiwan is very different. Taiwan's two major parties have very different attitudes towards trade policies with China. The Kuomintang believes that it should be fully opened up and promote the "three direct links" (mail, commerce, and aviation) at an early stage, and then have closer cooperation in tourism and trade. There was also a services trade agreement to be signed in 2014, but it was blocked by the Sunflower Movement. Many industries in Taiwan have moved to China. Except for those who make semiconductors, because it involves safety issues. When the Kuomintang was in power, it was clear that it wanted to go west. The west is China. Only by running west can there be opportunities for development. As a result, many problems such as the penetration of red capital into Taiwan’s media emerged. The Democratic Progressive Party does not want to see this state of affairs. It feels that if this continues, Taiwan's ability to be independent will become less and less. Of course, some Taiwanese shops complain that business is not as good as before. The economies of many countries, such as Australia, also suffer from the problem of over-reliance on China, but because of this, they are bullied by China, and the people are very angry. In recent years, these countries have been adjusting their policies; they are alert that excessive economic dependence on China will lead to complete political restrictions by China.

Teng: The top three countries that are most economically dependent on China are Australia, Taiwan and South Korea. China is also increasingly using economic coercion to achieve its political goals. Democratic countries should pay attention to these issues when doing business with a super-large authoritarian country like China.

The Communist Party of China often says that Chinese people are not suitable for democracy. China has its own traditional culture and is not suitable for Western culture. Taiwan should be the most powerful rebuttal: Taiwan’s current level of democracy is among the best in Asia, and some indices have surpassed Japan, South Korea and many European and American countries. In addition, do you think that, as Fukuyama said, democracy, politics and market economy are the end of the development of human history?

Chen: If you say that Chinese culture is not suitable for the development of democracy, Taiwan is the best refutation. Research by Max Weber and others believes that some cultures may not be able to develop capitalism or democracy on their own, but he does not mean that there is no possibility of connection. Now is a globalized world, with many cultures interpenetrating each other, so cultural determinism does not hold true. But it is too optimistic to claim the end of history. After Fukuyama's "The End of History" was published, Huntington wrote "The Clash of Civilizations". Then the 911 incident appeared. Everyone will think that the "Clash of Civilizations" is a very practical term, that is, Islamic civilization, Confucian civilization and Western civilization. It will be difficult for these three civilizational systems to compromise in the long term, and civilizational conflict will be the dominant mode of future conflicts. However, in Confucian culture, Taiwan and South Korea have refuted the view that this kind of civilization cannot move towards democracy. A great culture often has rich connotations. In Chinese culture, Mencius talked about people-centeredness very early, and Islam also has some elements of tolerance. Of course, it can be said that it is more difficult for some cultures to develop democracy than for others. As an Islamic country, Turkey has practiced democracy for a long time, but has regressed in recent years. History does not develop in a straight line; it is a very long and tortuous process. I also believe that the value connotation of democracy best corresponds to modernization.

For example, Weber talked about the issue of legitimacy (also translated as legitimacy or legitimacy). Charismatic and traditional legitimacy is difficult to encounter or effective in modern society. To maintain a stable modern country, it is necessary to find a rational and legal basis, which is most relevant to democracy. of. Talcott Parsons discussed the characteristics of modernity, such as universality rather than particularity, which are also most compatible with democratic systems. It seems that human society is indeed moving in this direction, but the process is more complicated than we imagined. I am not so optimistic about the mighty world trend.

Teng: I agree with your judgment. I think human society will eventually achieve freedom and democracy, but it will take a long time. One of the reasons is human nature. I think liberal democracy is consistent with human nature. People's pursuit of dignity and freedom will inevitably push mankind towards liberal democracy.

Chen: I would like to add one more thing. I think that in human nature, finding freedom and finding security are two very basic needs. That’s why Erich Fromm talked about escaping freedom, because when people are free, they have to bear some responsibilities, which is stressful anyway. In fact, a lot of people are willing to give up their freedom for the sake of security, including Western people. When faced with terrorism and the COVID-19 epidemic, they are willing to accept more movement controls, etc. In fact, security and freedom are often in a contradictory state. It takes a lot of education and enlightenment processes to let everyone know how precious freedom is.

Teng: Under an authoritarian system, no one is free from fear. Even high-ranking officials may be arrested and tortured at will. So in this sense, freedom and security are not in conflict.

——Let’s go back to China. China is a very large country in terms of population area, total economic volume, etc. There are different ethnic groups and religions in different places, and the level of economic development is also very uneven. Will these factors definitely become obstacles to democratization? Is it particularly difficult for large countries to undergo democratic transformation?

Chen: I think that big countries will face more problems than small countries. There will be very diverse ethnic, religious, and linguistic problems. When integrating through democratic means, it will be very difficult. So it’s not just a matter of size, but also how to deal with diversity.

In fact, democracy can also deal with the multicultural and multiracial issues of a large country. After World War II, there was a lot of reflection on democratic theory. Before World War II, many so-called countries were actually just a collection of tribes. The colonists used force to bring them together and turned them into one country after the war. Different tribes not only have different languages, races, and cultures, but also have many conflicts with each other. After the colonists withdrew, these problems emerged, such as the split of India and Pakistan. Separatism and even civil wars occurred in many former colonial countries in Africa. British colonies are spread all over the world, but its democratic system is only suitable for countries with a single ethnicity, culture, race, and language. If the British system is forcibly introduced into these multi-ethnic former colonial countries, a certain ethnic group with a larger population will win in the election. With a majority vote, other conflicting minority groups will lose their sense of security and would rather split off than be permanently defeated in the election. Is there any other way to handle this? Arend Lijphart responded to this problem in the early days with consociational democracy and later with consensus model of democracy [3] . You see that in Belgium and Switzerland, the minority does not obey the majority, but allows different ethnic groups to share power. They are talking about a grand coalition government, using a proportional representation system to form a parliament, and so on. I think these are very important considerations. The most important thing in the United States is the federal system, which allows cultural differences in different places and a high degree of local autonomy, which is worth learning from China. Regarding the issue of Quebec in Canada, they can have a civilized discussion, and finally allow the local government to decide its future through a referendum. Although the result is not independent, it shows how to deal with this multi-cultural sovereignty dispute through rational discussion and civilized methods. .

Teng: Whether you are talking about democracy or democratization, civil society is inseparable from it. Promoting the development of civil society in China is not only a focus of your academic research, but also a core concern of your political and social participation. After China's reform and opening up, civil society has struggled to grow. From the Democracy Wall to Tiananmen Square, and later to Charter 08 and the rights protection movement, it was once quite vigorous. How do you evaluate the rise and development of China's civil society? A series of suppressions after Xi Jinping came to power. , control, has it completely destroyed civil society?

Chen: This is a very profound process for me. Let’s talk about the Democracy Wall Movement first. Although it is not large in scale, it really enlightened a large number of people, including myself. At that time, there was a trend of big-character posters in Beijing, and then all of them were withdrawn at once. The public had no way of reacting, which shows that civil society is very weak. Many people say that 1989 was the time when Chinese civil society emerged. However, the Workers’ and Students’ Federation that emerged at that time were all temporarily organized in Tiananmen Square. In fact, they did not exist before; there were salons in universities, but they were not organized A civilized civil society is still far away. With the crackdown after June 4th, basically all those organizations no longer exist. Once again, civil society has not yet taken shape. American political scientist Zou Tang said that in 1989, students could not leave the stage, and they would have to settle the score after leaving the stage. So we must seize this opportunity. There are more than one million people walking together in the square. We must not give up until we achieve the goal, because retreating is more dangerous and no civil society can protect you. He used the concept of a zero-sum game to analyze the logic of the radicalization of the movement. There is no way out, and failure is inevitable. If there is a relatively strong civil society, we can be more strategic and advance and retreat. Hong Kong has a strong civil society, and the democratic movement is more strategic, striving for "staged victory" and then retreating until 2019, after the great showdown, when the CCP completely purges civil society. The situation will never be the same again.

In NGO circles, many people would say that 2008 is the first year of Chinese civil society. After the Wenchuan earthquake, hundreds of NGOs went to the disaster area to provide services and participate in rescue and post-disaster reconstruction. In fact, before 2008, many non-governmental organizations had been established in Beijing, Guangdong, and Yunnan and were quietly doing a lot of things. They did not appear all at once. Charter 08 was also published that year, but when you directly touch on issues of democracy and freedom, you will soon encounter the iron fist of dictatorship. But if you are only engaged in environmental protection, women's rights, and labor work, even if there are initiatives, there will still be a lot of room for development at that time.

At that time, on the one hand, the government felt that NGOs could provide some services and help the government deal with some social problems, but on the other hand, they were also worried that they would become an independent force to challenge the government. Later, the authorities slowly developed a method to deal with civil society, which is called classified management. Civil society groups are viewed from three aspects and then suppressed, restricted or included. First, it depends on the nature of the business. If it is fighting for democracy or independence, or even supervising the government, or requiring officials' property transparency, they will be ruthlessly suppressed; if it is advocacy, labor, gender, patient rights, or services such as those for people living with HIV, etc., they will be ruthlessly suppressed. The crowd will restrict your development and give you some interference, but it will not be completely eliminated; if it is a service-oriented project, such as the elderly, children, poverty alleviation, etc., they will support you and open up some space for you. The second is to look at your scale. If it were a nationwide network, he would find it difficult to control, especially after the Falun Gong incident in 1999. He would feel that any network that is large enough, even if it has no political intentions now, will one day threaten the regime. After 1999, I read an internal document that even discouraged the establishment of alumni associations. Even if it is not nationwide, if the scope of activities spans a community, the authorities will carefully monitor it. If you are only in a community, even the neighborhood committee can see you, which is the easiest to control. The third aspect is to look at the source of funds. If you take money from NED (National Endowment for Democracy), NDI (National Democratic Institute) and other institutions, it can easily be regarded by the authorities as colluding with foreign forces. If the money is taken from Hong Kong or Taiwan, the sensitivity is slightly lower but it still needs to be carefully monitored; if it is domestic money, it is safer for volunteers to pay a little. The authorities roughly use these three points (the nature of activities, scale, and funding sources) to determine what methods should be adopted to deal with different NGOs, whether to suppress, restrict, or incorporate them.

I think things will be very different after 2013. After Xi Jinping came to power, the Seven Don’ts, the Charity Law, the Overseas NGO Management Law, etc. were all aimed at controlling and suppressing, not developing. The result is that the original gray area has been cancelled, and some things that were just unregistered have become illegal. I have made a prediction before. I said that China's third sector will get bigger and bigger, but the civil society will get smaller and smaller. It sounds contradictory, but it actually means that many service groups such as social work organizations are allowed to exist, and the government even purchases their services, but these organizations will not fight for citizens' rights and encourage public participation. However, recently, even the concept of the third sector is no longer allowed. Now these civil society organizations are required to establish party groups. What is the third force? It is to be independent from the government. Genuine civil society has all but disappeared.

Teng: You once told an anecdote: the famous Professor Alfred Stepan, Juan Linz’s collaborator, once went to Brazil to visit a military leader who was the leader of the military government that democratized Brazil; He asked the other party why he delegated power, and the military leader said it was because he read Juan Linz's article. Knowledge, concepts and scholarship can actually influence real politics in this way! Do you think it is possible for Chinese intellectuals to influence the Communist regime? And, with the Communist Party’s information blockade and increasingly tight ideological control, can outspoken intellectuals still be able to influence Chinese society when they may not be able to protect themselves?

Chen: This question really touches my heart. We are all intellectuals who have gone overseas. We have to go outside because we cannot play our role in China. Let’s go back to Brazil first. The process of Brazilian democratization is beyond the imagination of many people. It has a military government. In order to protect its own interests, the military government will modernize its army more and more; but later, modern weapons must be managed by computers, and ordinary officers without knowledge background cannot control these modern weapons. Therefore, it is necessary to recruit a large number of people with higher education levels into the military. Compared with the police and civil servants, the Brazilian army is highly educated. They will read articles by scholars like Juan Linz and have such a broad background. The serious problem in China is the ignorance of the people and the shamelessness of the intellectuals. Too many intellectuals are willing to make suggestions and suggestions for this authoritarian regime. Look at the projects studied by scholars every year, such as institutional confidence, cultural confidence...

Teng: Many of those who receive huge project funding are studying things like "Xi Jinping's Thought on the Rule of Law" and "Xi Jinping's Thought on Diplomacy."

Chen: That’s right. Just look at how many research centers there are in Chinese universities with Xi Jinping as their name. ...Why has China been unable to democratize for a long time? One of the very important reasons is why it has not produced an independent civil society? Why do we not have an independent group of intellectuals? Chinese tradition is that "those who excel in learning will become officials", and scholars are the most Their dream is to be a national teacher, to go to study in the upper class, to give lectures in Zhongnanhai, and to be attached to the powerful, which has become something they show off. Never thought of playing a role outside the system. After the reform and opening up, some relatively independent intellectuals like you appeared, but their number was very small. However, do not underestimate the role of these few liberal independent intellectuals. They are isolated, but their persistence will still have a profound impact on the younger generation.

Teng: Karl Mannheim said that intellectuals should be a group that is free floating. Chinese intellectuals are attached to power, lack the tradition of freedom and independence, and are unwilling to go outside the system. I think one reason may be that there is no outside the system. Especially after the Communist Party came to power, there was basically no "outside the system" in the totalitarian system. After the 1980s and 1990s, there was a certain space and resources outside the system (roughly similar to civil society), but it was difficult to provide a basis for survival for intellectuals. .

In the book "Democracy in China", Professor Ci Jiwei of the University of Hong Kong believes that the progress of Chinese society, especially the development of the market economy, has greatly promoted what Tocqueville called the "Equality of Situation". Conditions), which can effectively promote China's democratization. Do you think this judgment is too optimistic?

Chen: This book is really a bit too optimistic. He hopes that those in power can reform, and that the Communist Party should promote democracy from top to bottom for its own interests. At the same time, he hopes that the people will not be too confrontational with the government, but will cooperate with the Communist Party to promote democracy, etc. wait. He used the book "Democracy in America" ​​as a reference. Some things are right, but I don't think he understands the current situation in China. For example, when the United States was founded, those who came to the United States from Europe felt a kind of Equality of Conditions, because there were no aristocrats at that time, they were all common people, and they traded through the market economy; the market would produce a very equal condition. Power, regardless of status, I can use my money to buy services and things, which is a very strong feeling of equality.

It can be said that when China first started reforming and opening up, it felt like this. The market will break some privileges. In the past, you could only enter the places where you were an official. Now I can enter if I have money. But if you look at China's economic development, will it lead to the kind of equal conditions that Ci Jiwei talked about? It’s very simple. If you want to grow your business, can you avoid cooperating with the government? The earliest theory of civil society is that the market is equal to civil society, because the power of the market (the invisible hand) is to push out the government’s hand. But in China, the power of the state has not retreated at all. As a result, if you have a relationship with the government, you may have more opportunities to climb up. Just think about official collapse, collusion between officials and businessmen, princeling factions, etc.

Yes, China has made progress compared with the Cultural Revolution era, and the poorest population has decreased; but China is now one of the countries with the most uneven distribution in the world. China's Gini coefficient was 0.28 in 1981, 0.38 in 1995, as high as 0.49 in 2009, and 0.47 in 2020. Because of serious corruption, the actual gap between rich and poor is worse than the statistics. The "equality of status" that Professor Ci talks about includes property rights, gender, legal rights, etc. Is it really equal? ​​Regarding property rights, have you seen how much land has been expropriated and houses demolished? Feminist activists were arrested for handing out flyers on Women’s Day. Is there really gender equality?

Returning to Tocqueville, he said that democracy in the United States is not only about "equality of conditions", but also a very important core concept is Habit of the Heart, the habit of the heart. People participate in many public affairs in local areas, adopt moderate and compromising attitudes, donate their time, participate in many associations, consider group interests, etc. None of these things seem to exist in China. China has gone from being very collectivist to being very individualistic, from one extreme to the other. Public awareness is very weak, which is related to the failure of the entire civil society to develop. Does the Communist Party really have the motivation to push the country to respond to the voices of civil society? I can’t see it. Even if there is a truly democratic society down there, the Communist Party will only use more cruel methods to suppress it. Hong Kong is such an example.

Teng: Many people say that after the reform and opening up, especially after the Tiananmen Massacre, the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party came from performance, the so-called performance legitimacy. There are also some people, like Daniel Bell, who emphasize China’s political meritocracy, or meritocracy. They claim that although China is not a Western-style democracy, it is better than Western democracy. It can always select the most talented officials and so on. Do you agree with these statements?

Chen: There is a great danger in relying solely on performance, especially economic performance, because the economy has its ups and downs. In democratic countries, politics is still very stable during economic crises. During the financial crisis, South Korean people will donate enthusiastically to help the government tide over the difficulties. You will see that legitimacy goes beyond so-called economic performance. Without another source of legitimacy, relying solely on economic performance is actually very dangerous. Juan Linz absolutely does not agree with the so-called performance legitimacy. He believes that performance is performance and legitimacy is legitimacy. The relationship between the two can only be discussed after they are separated. I don’t completely agree with Linz’s statement. Whether economic performance can be used as a source of legitimacy varies in different cultural backgrounds. China has had a people-oriented mentality for a long time, and economic performance can also be used as a source of legitimacy. The Chinese Communist Party now relies on performance plus nationalism. There are already big problems in the economy. What is the effect of using nationalism to manipulate it? I think it's not easy either. You see, the young generation is not all pink. What is more popular is lying flat and moisturized. There is also the White Paper Movement, and there are also a large number of rebels.

Bei Danning and others do not fully understand the West. They will compare the elected mayors and presidents in the West with China, but the West actually has two systems, one is the political officer system, and the other is the civil service system; the civil service system is actually produced using the method of meritocracy, and passes examinations , depending on their professional abilities and so on. Those bureaucrats often only focus on a narrow department and lack a macro vision to look at national problems; so other politicians who can transcend bureaucrats are needed to drive the development of the country. The two parts complement and balance each other. Sometimes politicians want to implement a policy and find that there is a lot of resistance in the bureaucracy. They feel that it is too idealistic to achieve it. Therefore, it is a one-sided view to say that there is no such kind of meritocracy in the West. Also, the so-called Chinese model has never been able to solve the problem of power inheritance. There is no check and balance of power, and there is no system for the peaceful transfer of power.

Teng: Bell Danning’s core point of view is absurd and completely lacks a sense of reality. A related question is, will China's economic decline or economic crisis produce social and political crises in China? Will it bring more uncertainty to China's democratization? Or, in other words, more opportunities?

Chen: The disintegration of the Soviet Union was of course related to its poor economy, but China's current economic level is still relatively strong compared to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe back then. It relies on domestic sales, coupled with the Belt and Road Initiative and the like, it may last for a long time. There are many countries in the world with poor economies that have maintained authoritarian systems for a long time, such as North Korea. Therefore, the economic crisis may not immediately lead to the collapse of the regime. I think it is more likely that China will stay in this medium-developing country for a very long time and will be unable to move up. What will happen is a Decay, not a Collapse, but a rout, rather than a sudden collapse. We see that the political power of the people is very weak. Although there is a lot of dissatisfaction, they cannot organize it. Look at the White Paper Movement. If you don't generate a big political force to shake the regime within a few days, it won't be sustainable. The Internet is also tightly controlled, and the reform wing of the party has been stifled.

China has fallen into a development trap, the middle-income trap, and it is difficult to get out of it. How long will it take before there is a coup? The coup was unpredictable, and there was currently no way to identify another faction. Even if it is a coup or the dictator dies naturally, it only provides a political opportunity, but democracy may not appear immediately, and a Putin may appear. Juan Linz talks about the consolidation of democracy, and there are five very important forces: market economy, civil society, rule of law, political society (party), and state bureaucracy. If there were no or very few of these five things before democratization, then democratization would easily lead to regression or collapse. Therefore , what China was relatively able to do before democratization, including market economy, civil society, and basic rule of law, are what we should strive to do. This is also an important reminder from Juan Linz.

Teng: You were inspired by China’s Democracy Wall and Taiwan’s Beautiful Island, and later became an important promoter of Hong Kong’s democratic movement. In recent years, you have closely observed Taiwan’s society and politics. How do you view this connection between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and the three places? Should society support each other?

Chen: These three places are now in different situations. The issue Taiwan is considering now is deepening democracy. Of the five conditions just mentioned, Hong Kong basically already has them, but it does not yet have democracy. This political lag is huge and it is easy for huge conflicts to arise. China's five conditions are all very weak. The market economy has gone half way, and then the state advanced and the people retreated. Civil society was suppressed after it started. In terms of the rule of law, you and many legal professionals have been working hard for a long time, and there is still no relatively independent one today. Rule of law. China does not have the conditions for democratic consolidation, which does not mean that it is completely impossible to democratize. It just means that it faces more challenges and more difficult tasks.

Teng: Thank you very much for your answer.

[1] See: Diamond, L. (1992). Economic Development and Democracy Reconsidered. The American Behavioral Scientist , 35 (4), 450–499.

[2] See: Nee, V. (1989). A Theory of Market Transition: From Redistribution to Markets in State Socialism. American Sociological Review , 54 (5), 663–681. https://doi.org/10.2307/ 2117747

[3] See: Lijphart, A. (1999). Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-six Countries. Yale University Press.