李世默：这个百年，这个党（9）

This has created a level of institutional complexities that have periodically caused uncertainties in governance. The issue has been at times particularly acute in the relationship between the party and the State Council. Ever since the early days of the People’s Republic, periodical debates broke out about the degree of integration, or separation, between the party led by the Central Committee and its Politburo and the government run by the State Council. During the first 30 years under Mao, the “great helmsman” has been driven back and forth between being only the leader of the party while leaving the government to be run by separate institutions and asserting direct control over all national powers. Such institutional conflicts, combined with the varying characteristics of the personalities involved, were partially responsible for the disastrous Cultural Revolution.

Both constitutionally and practically, the party is the supreme political institution for the nation. Yet, the “three-carriages” governing model puts up a pretense of separation. This conceptual contradiction has remained a stubborn stumbling block in China’s political development. With the creation of the National Security Committee and the Central Reform Leading Group, the Third Plenum initiated the most significant departure from the old Soviet model. The party has now moved firmly to the front and center of political governance, further cementing its constitutional authority. The NSC’s responsibilities cover all aspects of China’s domestic and international security policies from the police force to the Foreign Ministry. The CRLG will spearhead the nation’s most strategic economic initiatives. Both are now under the firm control of the party’s Politburo. In a practical sense, the Chinese system has, in some respects, moved closer to the semi-presidential system employed by countries like France.

This brings China’s institutional conception closer to reality and will serve as an immensely stabilizing force in governance. It may also signal a potential political breakthrough. It is important to note that the idea of modern political parties was imported into China from the West more than a hundred years ago. But the CCP in essence is not the same as political parties in Western countries in which the establishment of the nation state came first and the parties materialized later to represent “parts” – as the term party means – of the population in the political system. What happened in modern China was the reverse. The party came into existence first and, after 28 years, it founded the People’s Republic. From day one, the CCP claimed to represent a plurality of the Chinese nation. That claim was checked by the party’s Marxist-Leninist heritage of being the vanguard of the proletariat.

However, as the party and the nation matured, the national dimension of its DNA has been prevailing. General Secretary Jiang Zemin began the articulation of this evolution with his “Theory of the Three Represents” more than ten years ago. It began the process of making the party represent cross sections of Chinese society and have since inducted new elements, including private business people, into the party ranks. In effect, like the centuries-old Mandarin class of the Chinese dynasties, the CCP is, and behaves as such, a governing organization, not a political party. Its claim of representation is of the entirety of the Chinese nation not certain sections of it, and its ranks are open to all who are qualified by merit. By formally ending the Soviet styled “three carriages” model and structurally infusing the party and government, the Third Plenum further advanced this  process and marked an important inflection point for the party as a maturing governing institution that is both connected to China’s unique cultural heritage and unmistakably modern.

In the long run, China’s governance will likely be qualitatively different from the model currently employed by most countries in which multiple parties compete to represent different interest groups through elections. The CCP is evolving into a governing organization that would embody a plurality of Chinese society, not dissimilar to the centuries-old Mandarin class of the Chinese dynasties - although unmistakably modern. The future of Chinese political governance, then, will depend on the development of the CCP and its institutional capabilities to continue to adapt to a rapidly changing society.