Starr Chap 4 Politics and Power Above all

Starr Chap 4: Politics and Power Above all else is maintain political STABILITY with the party on TOP

Outline of Past Leaders • Mao -- founder • Deng Xiao Peng -- developer • Jian Zemin – maintainer/sharer • Hu Jintao – first transfer of power • Xi Jinping – back to autocratic roots

Revised – Socialism with Chinese Characteristics • Three represents in CCP 1. Labor 2. Peasants 3. Entrepreneurs (rich capitalists that we like) Jack Ma – Chinese “Steve Jobs”

Political Process – How to 1. 2. 3. 4. Consensus – striven for Negotiate – everything, constantly Guanxi – networking, constantly Saving Face – win/win Culture Matters (1 minute) http: //www. crisisnegotiatorblog. com/2014/01/saving-faceconcept-of-mianzi-in-china. html

Corruption Context 1. Gaunxi – provides stage 2. Belief in bettering family/self – party bureacrats 3. Incomplete markets

Anti-corruption campaigns 1. Slaughering the chickens to scare the monkeys? ? ? 2. Even political scores 3. Starr – without rule of law will fail, Xi may not agree 4. Save the party? ? ? https: //blogs. wsj. com/chinarealtime/2015/12/29/chines e-communist-party-modernizes-its-message-with-rapaganda/

A total of 485, 000 party members faced disciplinary action in 2019, with 19, 000 cases being handed to prosecutors.

Power Struggle or Strengthening the Party: Perspectives on Xi Jinping's Anticorruption Campaign C Kautz - Journal of Chinese Political Science, 2020 - Springer

Grassroots -- Elections • Limited to villages and neighborhoods • Pyramid Voting National People’s Congress Local People’s Congress – county, city…

Upper Level Elections Another core problem with China’s democracy at the top level is ‘equal candidate voting’. Essentially, this system rules that the top posts in the government must be elected in such a way that the number of candidates is equal to the number of positions. For example, since there is only one position of the Chairman, there can only be one candidate for the NPC to vote for.

Petitions & Protests 1. All have the right to petition, but… does the CCP listen? • Relates to Confucian ideal to remonstrate 2. May be as many as 100, 000 protests annually

https: //www. nytimes. com/2018/06/25/world/asia/chinaveterans-protests. html

Mobilization is an academic journal that publishes original research and academic reviews of books concerned mainly with sociological research on protests, social movements, and collective behavior. The journal was established in 1996 by Hank Johnston (San Diego State University). Johnston edited the journal for eleven years after which he was succeeded by Daniel J. Myers (University of Notre Dame) and then Rory Mc. Veigh (University of Notre Dame). 2019 impact factor of 1. 327, ranking it 76 th out of 150 journals in the category "Sociology" and making it the second highest impact journal in social movement studies, behind Social Movement Studies. [1]

Big Protests • Overthrowing the Gang of Four 1976 • Tainanmin Square 1989 • Falun Gong 1999 Local Protests – estimates (numbers uncertain) • 8, 700 in 1993 • 87, 000 in 2005 • 180, 000 in 2010 (Cai Yongshun, 2010)

Starr’s hopes that are questionable • Lawsuits – unlike Starr hopes haven’t really occured

Starr’s hopes that are questionable NGOs – CCP/State highly suspicious of outside groups • Require a Govt sponsor, regional spatial size, limited membership, no outside funding • A number of internationally famous Chinese environmentalists are virtually unknown in China and remain under self-imposed censorship

Reality Check https: //gulfnews. com/uae/environment/chinas-army-of-green-activists-1. 2071769

http: //www. chinadevelopmentbrief. cn/articles/consumer-publicinterest-litigations-struggle-to-get-off-the-ground/ …”by September 2016, 31 Consumer Associations had been established at the provincial level, 351 in the prefecture-level cities and 2852 at the county level. ”

Public Interest Litigations • “Consumer Associations [have] the right to initiate “consumer public interest litigations”, many breakthroughs have been achieved in this field. ” • “On the other hand, from the first implementation of the new consumer law in 2014 until today all of the Consumer Associations only instigated a total of less than twenty public litigation cases. ” -many of which went nowhere

ENGO’s and Environmentalists • Very strict limits The position of independent ENGOs is becoming trickier, as shown by Beijing Global Village, founded by star activist Liao Xiaoyi and very active in the Qufu region in the coastal province of Shandong; members have taken part in household waste recycling schemes and organic bean growing. Because my visit clashed with an official one by a powerful CPC apparatchik, being seen with foreign press was out of the question. The imminent 19 th Party Congress has meant the party is more repressive, bringing great uncertainty for green activists, including figures once favourably regarded by the regime, such as Liao Xiaoyi. “Everyone is being extremely careful, ” she said. “But we’ve met and made friends, and that’s great. Come back next year. ”

I was unable to meet Chai Jing, the filmmaker whose documentary on air pollution, Under the Dome, was downloaded 155 million times on the day it went online in 2015. She is under surveillance and declined an interview. The situation is also difficult for lawyers. Hundreds have been accused of ‘subverting the power of the state’ and have been repressed since 2015. https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v= V 5 b. Hb 3 ljjbc

Reigning in the Billionaires in a civil “lawless” society https: //www. npr. org/2021/05/13/995590100/chinese-billionaire-arrested-and-business-seized-by-state

https: //www. sbs. com. au/news/china-s-president-xi-jinping-in-anticorruption-rap-song

Takeaway 1. Four principles of political activity: Consensus, Negotiate, Guanxi, & Saving Face 2. Corruption remains a problem due to – Gaunxi, Incomplete markets, bettering family/self 3. Open elections limited to local village areas 4. Upper level elections are opaque 5. Petitions and Protests of varying importance 6. NGOs especially ENGOs looked on with suspicion by Party/Govt 7. Above all else – STABILITY is treasured with CCP in control