Leadership Change and Chinese Political Development

Abstract

This article has three goals. The first is to characterize the nature of the current Chinese political system, culminating at the 16th Party Congress, as a combination of economic, domestic political and foreign policy reform. Economically, it represents a continuation of marketization, privatization and globalization under more centrally controlled auspices. Politically, it represents a continuation of Dengist emphases on elite civility and administrative institutionalization. And in foreign policy, it brings China to the threshold of great power status, as the old ambivalence between overthrowing the international system and assuming an important role within it nears resolution. The second purpose, viewing “Jiangism” in comparative developmental terms, conceives political development in terms of both state-building and nation-building: the greatest emphasis has been on the former. The third goal is to subject Jiangism to immanent critique by pointing out the most conspicuous emergent contradictions. These seem to include gaps between rich and poor and between east and west, a largely unsuccessful attempt to reform the nation's industrial core and its attendant financial system, and a paradoxical inability to police the state even while increasing state capacity.