Trifling skills cannot help the Chinese Communist Party avoid its legitimacy crisis

Yang, Jian-Li

8/19/2001

In terms of concrete policy, everything that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is doing right now is in effect negating its justification for seizing the power in China over fifty years ago. If its reason for seizing the power is justified, its rule today is unjustified, and therefore it should be overturned. If what its doing today is justified, seizing the power fifty years ago is unjustified, and it has harmed the country for several decades and therefore should apologize by giving up power. The two opposite bad things are done by the same party, and while doing so it is “great, glorious, and correct” in both cases. How on earth can this be justified?!

Many commentators think that “three representations” and “accepting capitalists into the Party” is a great breakthrough of the CCP’s theory of party reconstruction. In general, unless coming across certain difficulty and crisis, a ruling party needs to stick to the old ways rather than making breakthroughs. There should especially be no need to make theoretical breakthroughs. What, then, are the difficulty and crises that CCP is facing right now? What CCP needs to break through is none other than the “legitimacy crisis” which is besieging it ever tightly. The legitimacy of CCP is not a new problem. In different situations, CCP always tries to find new ways to make breakthroughs on this problem, or at least not to let it directly threaten their actual rule. In fact, even CCP leaders know in their heart that political trifling skills cannot eliminate their legitimacy crisis from the root. This is because the rule of CCP is illegitimate from the start.

Sources of legitimacy

Before there was constitutional government in the world, the legitimacy of the rulers came from roughly four places. First, “monarchical power from god”, or “emperor as Son of Heaven.” Rulers of those countries that combine religion and government would use religion or para-religion to establish its legitimacy, making people believe that their rule follows the will of the Heaven. Second, using violence to overthrow the old dynasty and establish a new one, setting up a “rule de facto.” Over time, the human nature of benefit seeking and harm avoidance would make people accept such a rule practically or even mentally. Third, “rule by heritage.” Heritage is a default rule when there are no rules. It has ultimate importance for establishing the legitimacy of a new ruler in people’s mind, especially in the ethics of the ruling clique. Finally, “benevolent rule.” In today’s words, it is rule by achievements. Regardless of how the power was achieved in the first place, rulers often have to rely on achievements to build up their legitimacy, so as to establish “effective rule.” Rulers often lose their legitimacy due to lack of achievements or due to practicing tyranny, and are replaced by others. The legitimacy thus far mentioned in fact has no rules to follow. It refers only to the degree of people’s acceptance of and identification with certain government. It is completely different from the legitimacy based on constitution, especially democratic constitution.

It was after constitutional governments came into being that there were procedures that can measure the legitimacy of a government. That is, the source of power comes directly from the procedure stipulated by the constitution. It is the outcome of the procedure stipulated by the constitution. Neither “rule de facto” and “effective rule” is legitimate rule. Achievements is naturally one of the factors that can establish the legitimacy of a government. However, it can only be the input rather than the output of the procedure. Achievements can be self-boasted. Only procedures can be objective. Legitimacy should come first. How well the work is done comes only later. On the other hand, under a constitutional democracy, it is often the case that the party that has better achievements enjoy better probability of coming into power. This is exactly what is nice about democracy. After nearly three hundred years of practice, especially through the ups and downs of the last century, the human race has recognized that only when the legitimacy of government is established on the basis of constitutional democracy can the rights of the governed be maximally guaranteed, can their interests be steadily developed over a long period of time, and can the possibility of violence for violence and the cycle of turmoil and stability be eliminated from the root.

CCP’s legitimacy predicament

CCP came into power through violence. The victory of violent revolution has become the best justification for the violent revolution. It is often said that CCP’s rule is the people’s choice. We would like to ask, why didn’t the people of Taiwan choose CCP? Furthermore, why did the people of East Germany and North Korea choose the communist parties, but not the people of West Germany and South Korea? The key in fact is whether the people can indeed make a choice, and how much freedom they have in making a choice. For example, a bigger bully defeated a smaller bully with guns, and then declared in the village that he is the ruler of the village. He then establishes “rule de facto.” And this has nothing to do with the choice of the villagers. If winning a war establishes the legitimacy of rule, which dynasty, including the Nationalist government, is not established after winning a war? Why should CCP overthrow a legitimate government with violence? Naturally, CCP would say that it is corruption that made the Nationalists lose its legitimacy. If so, following the same criterion and logic, CCP has long lost its legitimacy and hence should be overthrown, since its corruption, political persecution, violation of human rights, and trampling of freedom of speech have exceeded the Nationalist party many times. However, CCP still would not allow any challenge to the “four adherences” which insists on the leadership of the CCP.

For over fifty years, besides sustaining its “rule de facto,” CCP has been trying to break through its legitimacy predicament with dogma and achievements. The following slogans or theoretical summaries are all fabricated for the sake of CCP’s legitimacy, and every Chinese who is over fifty-two has been fed with two or more of them: “great, glorious, correct,” “without CCP, there is no New China,” “serve the people,” “vanguard of the proletariat,” “only socialism can save China,” “continuous revolution under the proletarian dictatorship,” “four adherences,” “the preliminary stage of socialism,” “stability overrules all,” “three representations,” “recruit advanced elements from all walks of life into the Party,” so on and so forth. The theoretical poverty of CCP has come to the point of not being able to cover its whole body. Covering up its face would expose its private parts, and vice versa. If one does not believe it, just compare China’s constitution with the CCP Charter. It would be hard not to notice one part being exposed while other parts are being covered.

In terms of concrete policy, everything that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is doing right now is in effect negating its justification for seizing the power in China over fifty years ago. If its reason for seizing the power is justified, its rule today is unjustified, and therefore it should be overturned. If what its doing today is justified, seizing the power fifty years ago is unjustified, and it has harmed the country for several decades and therefore should apologize by giving up power. The two opposite bad things are done by the same party, and while doing so it is “great, glorious, and correct” in both cases. How on earth can this be justified?!

After seizing power, CCP did better in lying than doing anything else. Just as a recent example, one of its most profound summaries of CCP’s achievements is that the right of survival is the most fundamental human rights. By that they mean that first, rights other than that of survival do not have to exist; second, the rights of survival is what the CCP’s rule has achieved the most for the people. The absurdity of the first has been pointed out by many people. I am only going to point out the deceitfulness of the second one. Government officials are all provided for by the people, i.e., more formally, proved for by the money from tax payers. Isn’t their shameless corruption trampling the people’s rights of survival? Furthermore, are ordinary people free to cry hungry and pain when their survival rights are violated? Aren’t there thousands of incidents like Fanglin Primary School and Nandan tin mine every year? The centralized planned economy that CCP established has come to a dead end. To sustain their “effective rule,” CCP had no choice but to use the economy to save the Party. Isn’t the benefit of the reform in the countryside the same as that seen with the emperors of past dynasties? In fact, it is actually less than the old days, because under the emperors, the peasants actually had ownership of their land. Wasn’t there market economy well before CCP took over power? In fact, the market economy of the old days were freer than today’s market economy. “Opening up” - wasn’t China open to the outside world before CCP took over power? In fact, the kind of freedom of speech, press, and association enjoyed by the people then are still taboos in today’s China. That “China’s human rights conditions are now the best in China’s history” is a blatant lie. Where on earth is CCP’s legitimacy?

Even assuming that CCP’s rule was the people’s choice to start with, none of the democratic promises that CCP made during its revolution was implemented. Although CCP issued a constitution after coming into power, it never carried out constitutional governing even for one day, for it is violating the Constitution virtually everyday. Under a constitutional government, elected governments can do things only within the limit of the constitution. Once the limit is violated, their legitimacy is lost immediately. Nixon is such an example. Some may consider Hitler as a counter example. Hitler came into power legitimately through election. However, after coming into power, his unconstitutional deeds quickly rid him of his legitimacy. One should not recognize his “rule de facto” and “effective rule” as evidence for legitimacy of his rule. Another lesson Hitler teaches us is how much disaster a long-term “effective rule” of an illegitimate ruler can bring to the people. CCP has even less legitimacy than Hitler, because it did not even come into power legitimately in the first place.

Legitimacy is established by the people

From the above analysis we can see how far away CCP’s rule is from true legitimacy. Nonetheless, CCP might be only one step away from true legitimacy, and taking this step may leap over a whole era. The step is to let the people make another choice. Many governments that did not come into power through constitutional democracy became legitimate by opening up election and let the people make another choice. The Nationalist government is a best example. Before opening up the ban on political parties and free election, although the Nationalist government allowed certain amount of freedom of speech, association and participation in politics, it never confidently justified for its one-party rule. Instead, it always came up with various reasons, such as for suppressing the CCP rebellion, to show that its one-party rule is only temporary, and done because there was no better alternative, and that it will eventually give democracy back to the people. It was not until the people reselected it following principles of constitutional democracy that the Nationalist Party began to govern with full confidence. Naturally, democratic elections cannot guarantee that it will govern forever, but the possibility of its legitimate rule is guaranteed forever by the constitutional democracy. What CCP authorities should remember is that, it is possible to turn a new leaf. The key lies in its own choice. It is useless to counter other countries’ interference with China’s internal affairs, or to demand other countries to recognize its government as the only legitimate government of China. Whether a government is legitimate it not confirmed by other governments. Rather, it is determined by its own people. If the CCP government wants the label of “sole legitimate government,” why not let the Chinese people reconfirm it.

CCP always insists that the realization of communism is a long historical process, and that during the process the leadership of CCP should be maintained. Well, Jiang Zemin’s “July 1st” speech announces that the process of realizing communism is even longer than declared before. Doesn’t this mean that the rule of CCP will be maintained for even longer? As a matter of fact, by proposing “three representations,” “benevolent rule,” and “accepting capitalists into the Party,” CCP not only tries to set up a personal monument for Jiang Zemin, but also exposes its unsolvable legitimacy crisis. Neither Jiang Zemin’s left wing dictatorship nor Deng Liqun’s right wing dictatorship can break through this predicament. As the two wings openly split, CCP’s legitimacy crisis will only become increasingly exposed.