The Order--the Disintegration of the Order--the New Order
----- The Political Transformation and the Establishment of the Constitutional Democracy in China

Yang Jianli

The leaders of Chinese Communist Regime have been practicing the strategy of “Stabilization, Development and Reformation” (SDR). They claim to be able to well harness the 1,300,000,000 Chinese people into the next century by this strategy. From the very surface, this is a fairly plausible "country-governing motto''. In fact, such political motto is certainly not to be easily picked at----for any country whose history is yet to be ended. Yet, the intertwined relationship between these three aspects (SDR) is not necessarily in the benevolent causality under any conditions. The result of the interacting depends on the concerned social, economic and political conditions; in other words, everything depends on the impetuses behind each of these three aspects (S.D.R.), and on what kind of dynamical system within which they are interacting.

The reform that began 20 years ago in China became necessary because the totalitarian-public-ownership system which has existed ever since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took over, was facing the dead end. In short, the old system was established by depriving the private property through the barrel of gun and under the threat of guns. It was a cruel, terrifying process, but since theoretically everyone could be deprived of his property, the specific operation became relatively simple. Yet, the economic reform is, in a way, a counter-process of the establishing of the old system of public ownership. In another word, one important aspect of the economic reform is to distribute among individuals the public property nominally owned by everyone. Different from the establishing of the old system of public ownership, the distribution can never be the same to everyone, and is forever more complicated than the previous scrambling. What's more, no one is really satisfied in the process of distribution. Is it impossible to solve this problem? Yes, and it is not so difficult---as long as the mechanism of free speech and press freedom and public opinion can be introduced to supervise and restrict the Communist Regime which is designing and executing the reform, the reform can be relatively fair to everyone. Regrettably, the Communist Regime never bothered to do so. The Reform has always been under the control of the Communist Regime, yet the Communist Regime itself is never under any restriction. This, is the very crux of the whole Reform.

Being free to execute the Reform, or rather, free to control the distribution of the public property, is the sweet dream of the executor but the nightmare of the ordinary people---the prices and risks are piled upon them who have no share in the controlling power. Therefore, the Communist Regime has been facing two challenges ever since the beginning of the Reform: one is from the human rights activists asking for the freedom of speech and self-organization, the other one is asking for the punishment of the government corruption by social justice. Sometimes, these two challenges merge together, forming a forceful charge against the core of the Communist power. Though the request for political reformation and democratization had once been sympathized by some enlightened Party members, the Party's ruling policy has always been "Firmly Encircling and Suppressing". "Stability is the first priority. " ---this used to be Deng Xiaoping's iron rule and is completely succeeded by Jiang Zemin.

Stability means keeping the present social order. Yet, the present social order without the natural adjustment of the public opinion can only be kept by power, by suppressing the public opinion. Power, leads the Reform; power, enhances the development; power, executes the distribution of the public productive materials; power, keeps the present social order ---yet, power, is not under the supervision of the public opinion. Consequently, it leads to the complete corruption of the power. The only source of the power is the one-party dictatorship. The only power to be able to restrict the power is still the power. This, reinforces the absolute importance of the power, at the same time, worsens the corruption. The corruption makes the people antagonistic to the government officials, causes strong conflicts among the different interest groups in the whole society, and more and more protests and demonstrations are charging the present social order ---the power which is supposed to be responsible for keeping the order is becoming the source of the destruction of the order. In this situation, the Communist Regime still uses its power to suppress the public protests. In this way the Communist power is getting increasingly malignant in a vicious circle: using power to keep the order; power swells; power deteriorates; power impedes the keeping of the order; the order is badly threatened; still using power to keep the order .... The longer this vicious circle runs, the less confident the Party is about the political reformation. This is because the political Reformation means the vested interests will lose, maybe just partially, their powers. The longer the bureaucrats stay in this vicious circle, the more profits they get, the more evil deeds they have done, the more political punishment they may turn out to get. The longer the political Reformation is delayed, the less the possibility of saving both the Party and the country can be. That's why Jiang Zemin has not only not begun the political Reformation everyone has been expecting since the economic Reformation 20 years ago, but swore to "strangle the seedling of the upheaval factor" with gnashed teeth. If the reason the Communist Regime suppressed the charges people made earlier, was due to the intolerance and its almighty power, then it has to suppress the challenges now because it's no longer strong enough to endure any challenges.

This, is the ancient regime the Communist government is striving to maintain.

The Disintegration of the Ancient Regime

The Communist power keeps creating new conflicts all the time --- conflicts between the people and the officials, conflicts between everyone. No one is satisfied. Everyone has the qualification to complain, since the opportunities and distributions are seriously unequal. Yet, the high economic growth rate in the recent years kept giving most people a raise in yearly income, therefore, the common dissatisfaction is not intensified, and the democratic movement has not formed a strong, mass-based alliance to force the Communist government to perform political reformation. In this situation, the political high pressure and violent governing are still able to maintain the ancient regime.

Comparatively speaking, the economic growth rate in China has been low since last year. This means the unfair distribution is leading to the low or zero even negative increase in most people's income. In other words, this is now a zero sum society. The serious corruption of the bureaucrats became the direct cause of the intensified conflicts. The unemployed workers and surplus labor force in the countryside are making the unemployment rate in China into two figures.

The chronic disorder in the banking system and the Asian Financial Crisis made the foreign investors hesitant, even stopped investing. This had led directly to the low economic growth that had long depended on the foreign investment. The policy of increasing the National investments on infrastructure offered many more opportunities for power-money exchanges. In this situation, the interest conflicts between classes, esp. the conflicts between ordinary people and the power group will be intensified. Now, the protests and insurrections by the factory workers, peasants, unemployed people are increasing by leaps and bounds in every province and autonomous region, and the scales of these protests and insurrections are keeping increasing, sometimes the protests can gather as many as a couple of ten thousand people. Though these protests didn't arouse much international attention, compared with the Tiananmen Square Event, they were firmly based on the specific economic needs of these people at the grassroots. Therefore, the charge they made to the OLD regime is EVEN more BASIC of an essential one. What's more, the democratic movement that works at establishing Opposition Party as its recent goal, is directly aiming at the current political system in China. This vicious circle may break at any point now.

Usually, the dictatorship ancient regime can be disintegrated in the following three conditions:
A. The totalitarian government has achieved well economically, and the international and domestic political atmosphere is relatively friendly. The government has a long-term goal of democratization, and is confident enough to take up the political reformation actively. A case in point is the KMT government in Taiwan.
B. The totalitarian government can not solve various social conflicts, and it becomes the source of all the conflicts finally. Facing the great pressure from both inside and outside, the current government gives up its maintaining of the ancient regime. And it passes its power onto the new regime, since it has no power and credit to set up new social order. Cases are the Eastern Europe in 1989 and the Indonesia in 1998.
C. The totalitarian government can not solve various social conflicts, and it becomes the source of all the conflicts finally. The totalitarian government insists on using violence to maintain its dictatorship. The suppressed people finally overthrow the current government by organized violence. A good example was the last dynasty in China ---Qing dynasty.

No one expects the third (SCENT) type. About the first type, sadly, the current Chinese leaders are not confident enough to follow this route. More importantly, the leader group has not shown any long-term democratization goal yet. It is worse than in the 80s. At that time, people could still distinguish the Reformists and the Conservatives. The second type, is the most possible future for current China, and is the best possible result we can hope for.

Even if it will be the second type, the disintegration of the ancient regime will appear as a turmoil. People are usually optimistic about political "turmoil" at first, just like the Cultural Revolution in 1966 in China, because the "turmoil" at first usually directs at the corrupted bureaucrats. Yet, the "turmoil" will always soon go awry, and ordinary people will suffer. At this point, people will long for stability, order. In the distressed people's eyes, any order is better than disorder. That's the public opinion basis on which Mao Zedong could easily re-establish the Communist bureaucrats who were toppled by mass campaign in the earlier stage of the Cultural Revolution. And these reestablished bureaucrats set up even crueler totalitarian order.

Therefore, the moment the ancient regime is disintegrated will be and always is the most critical moment---the moment which may lead to an even worse dictatorship or a real democratization, the moment to test the achievements of the democratic movement. A lot of violent forces, economic disorder, ethnical conflicts and splits, etc., all these, will very likely produce the hotbed for the restoration of dictatorship. Therefore, how to avoid the restoration, and how to make China Constitutional Democratized should be the main task for the democratic movement.

With limited space, the author won't do further analysis on the general situation after the disintegration, the beneficial choices of different interest groups, and the possibilities of constitutional democratization in the future China. Hopefully, the author can have the chance to specify on this subject someday. Next, the author will discuss about the models of the Constitutional Democracy for the future of China, by doing so, the democratic movement can be established.

Models of Constitutional Democracy for Future China

Although the variety of conditions under which transition to democracy occurs is tremendous and there are important differences among types of democracy, fundamental constitutional models to be selected for China are not so difficult to be sorted out. The features of the ancient regime, the legacy of the history of modern China and the experiences of existing democracies will all contribute to shape their modalities. I make the following speculation.

Scenario A, the current Constitution of the People's Republic of China is to be used as the starting point of the process of establishing constitutional democracy. Except for its preamble that includes the notorious "Four Basic Principles" (keeping to the socialist road, upholding CCP leadership, following Maxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought and submitting to the people's democratic dictatorship), the Constitution itself promises to safeguard all kinds of human rights and freedoms and assures a considerable degree of democracy in the organization of the government and in the process of policy making.

So it is said that a (perhaps the) central problem with the Constitution is the lack of institutions to implement it or no respect for it on the part of the powerful. Of course, the Constitution cannot serve as a self-enforcing starting point until it is so amended as not to provide the advantage of any force, including the CCP, for example, abolishing the Four Basic Principles, and the elections for people's representatives of each level are open for all forces participate in the process.

Scenario B, people agree to go back to 1946 Constitution of Republic of China and start (or restore) the process of establishing a constitutional order from there. Political forces back then all participated in the process of its production and in its provisions are essentially in keeping with the spirit of constitutional democracy.

Scenario C, neither the current Constitution of PRC nor the 1946 Constitution of ROC is not to be agreed to start with and a entirely new constitution is to be adopted through a prolonged process of negotiation of all political forces.

Scenario A is more likely the sooner the Chinese government take initiative to launch the democratic transition and the more the process is controlled by CCP. The most natural way to adopt institutions constituting an equilibrium solution is to look for what Schelling called the focal points. And search for foci naturally leads to national traditions if these are available. This is why Argentines went back to the constitution of 1853 and Eastern Europeans those effected before the Communist era. The 1946 Constitution of ROC is the most democratic one, both in the process of its production and its provisions, among all constitutions ever adopted in the history of China. More importantly, the democratization in Taiwan in the last eleven years has been guided by the Constitution, in other words, the only Chinese tradition of constitutional democracy has been developed from it. No doubt it is one of the most salient focal point in the choice of constitutional framework. Taiwanese efforts to support democratization in the Mainland China is also an important variable in determining the probability that the constitution can actually be "restored". If Scenario C is to be realized, it is most likely that a kind of federal constitution will be adopted. As an effort to plan for the future of China, the Foundation for China in the 21st Century has organized many conferences on constitutional design for a democratic China and a draft federal constitution has been emerged from these conferences. The draft constitution, which has aroused extensive discussions among Chinese intellectuals (from the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong) of broad political spectrum and of different ethnic background and China experts from the West as well, may well serve as a first version on which later constitutional drafting work can be based.

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Source: "yangjianli.com".