China’s earthquake leaves the Communist Party even stronger

China’s earthquake leaves the Communist Party even stronger

Tony Karon

June 02. 2008

Earthquakes and floods are seldom kind to authoritarian regimes, because of the harsh spotlight they shine on a dictatorship’s ability to provide for its people in their hour of greatest need. The military regime in Burma may survive for some time, but it will certainly have been weakened by its handling of Typhoon Nargis. The generals may not need the votes of the people to keep them in office, but they will be weakened by the fact that they depend on an army composed of the sons of ordinary citizens who have been left to rot by the regime.

For those who assume that the Chinese Communist Party will, sooner or later, share the fate of all of the Leninist regimes of Eastern Europe, the Sichuan earthquake might have seemed like a moment of truth. If so, the truth turned out to be quite different to that imagined by the prophets of doom. If anything, the leadership in Beijing, and such key institutions as the People’s Liberation Army, have actually strengthened their standing among ordinary Chinese by their handling of the disaster.

Premier Wen Jiabao flew to the crisis zone within two hours of the temblor, and spent weeks there, moving among the people, offering comfort, sharing their frustration and simply being present, exhorting soldiers and local officials to do more. And tens of thousands of soldiers were quickly on the scene, often using their hands to dig out victims. They may not always have been especially professional or effective, but they were present in the hour of need – just like the propaganda posters have always promised they would be.

The Chinese authorities on the whole proved remarkably efficient. They also allowed unprecedented media coverage of the event, recognising, perhaps, that as long as Beijing was perceived to be doing all in its power to help, the result of such coverage could only be positive. Indeed, it appears to have fostered a sense of active solidarity between wealthier city dwellers and poor peasants that would have warmed Chairman Mao’s heart.

The relief effort may still face epic challenges, but it has drawn widespread international applause. And domestically, it has reinforced the nationalist narrative of the Chinese people and their Communist leaders facing a crisis together. The widespread fury earlier this year against perceived Western support for Tibetan protesters could be recast in a manner more in tune with the objectives of a leadership whose economic objectives are premised on a strong business partnership with the West – Sichuan portrayed a nation standing together against nature’s wrath rather than resisting the perceived schemes of foreigners to keep China down. And it placed the Communist Party at the helm of the national effort.

Journalists touring the quake zone have found overwhelming support and enthusiasm for the efforts of “Grandfather Wen” and the government in Beijing – far more so than any of the victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans expressed for the Bush Administration.

President Bush’s inept handling of that crisis allowed him to be perceived as having abandoned the victims of Katrina; Premier Wen and President Hu Jintao proved to be far more adept at portraying themselves as reliable stewards of the public welfare. China may not be a democracy, but its leaders are increasingly mindful of the need to maintain the support of the governed and to achieve a national consensus that legitimises their rule.

The idea of a nationalist central state playing the role of populist moderniser is already a reality in China. And far from pressing for Western-style democracy, the middle class created by the new prosperity largely recognises the Communist Party’s claim to lead and manage the transition to a capitalist way of life.

The problem for the leadership in Beijing comes at the local level, where the transition from state ownership to private ownership of land, resources and economic enterprises creates an irresistible incentive for corruption. In every corner of China today there are tales of peasant farmers fighting corrupt local officials

These officials, and the violence they deploy through the local police are probably the greatest threat to Communist Party rule in the long run. The Sichuan quake may, in fact, have offered Beijing an opportunity to distance itself in the public mind from the local corruption and to align the central government with ordinary citizens in a struggle against those officials. Most of the rage among parents who lost children in the poorly constructed local schools in Sichuan is directed against the local officials accused of taking kickbacks to approve shoddy construction. And reports are now emerging of Beijing using local volunteers to monitor the disbursement of relief funds, as a hedge against local officials embezzling the money.

The quake experience may yet reinforce the hand of those in the Beijing leadership inclined to experiment with more localised bottom-up methods of making government more accountable, consultative and responsive.

The British political scientist Mark Leonard, in a thoughtful survey of the political debate within China, noted earlier this year: “In the long term, China’s one-party state may well collapse. However, in the medium term, the regime seems to be developing increasingly sophisticated techniques to prolong its survival and pre-empt discontent. China has already changed the terms of the debate about globalisation by proving that authoritarian regimes can deliver economic growth. In the future, its model of deliberative dictatorship could prove that one-party states can deliver a degree of popular legitimacy as well.”

Beijing’s response to the Sichuan quake may well have reinforced, rather than weakened, the Communist Party’s hold on power by making it more agile and responsive to the needs of those it governs.

Tony Karon is a New York-based analyst and editor, who blogs at Rootless Cosmopolitan