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Policy Oscillations in the People's Republic of China: A Critique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Andrew J. Nathan
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Extract

That Chinese policy since 1949 has been characterized by a pattern of left-right oscillations is one of the most widespread, but least examined, assumptions among analysts of Chinese politics. In the popular press, we often read of a “return to a moderate phase” or a “resurgence of radicalism,” while in academic writing, we frequently find contemporary Chinese history set in periods according to the alternate ascendancy of “bureaucratic” or “mobilizational” “models” or of “realist” and “visionary” groups of leaders. Of course, to some extent the policy oscillations model is only a kind of shorthand, convenient for summarizing the content of policy and its changes. We all understand that there have been secular changes in China both in what has been accomplished and in the terms of policy debate. Thus, it has become increasingly common to describe the pattern of policy change in China in terms of a combination of cyclical and secular patterns, to refer to policy oscillations in passing while presenting a chronology which actually indicates secular change, to offer the oscillations model explicitly as just a convenient simplification; or to ignore oscillations entirely in discussing the development of policy.

Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 68 , December 1976 , pp. 720 - 733
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1976

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References

* I gratefully acknowledge the comments on earlier drafts of this paper of Thomas P. Bernstein, Steven I. Levine, Sharon G. Nathan, Michel C. Oksenberg, Thomas G. Rawski, Thomas W. Robinson, Lynn T. White, III, and Roxane Witke.

1. Townsend, James R., Politics in China (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1974), pp. 141–60; Byung-joon Ahn, “The Cultural Revolution and China's search for political order,” The China Quarterly 58 (April/June, 1974), pp. 249–285.Google Scholar

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4. Oscillations writers agree most readily in their interpretations of policy cycles of 1955–62. For the early 1950s. some writers see several cycles while others perceive a pre-cyclical mixture of policies. For the period since 1962, some scholars see two major cycles while others see a greater number of more subtle cycles, and still others consider cyclical patterns to have been superseded by secular patterns in either 1962 or 1965. Since this critique is directed at the idea of cycles as such, I will not consider further the distinctions among various periods.

5. For arguments linking foreign policy to domestic policy, see Zagoria, Donald, “The strategic debate in Peking,” in Tsou, Tang (ed.). China in Crisis, Vol. II, China's Policies in Asia and America's Alternatives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1968), pp. 237–39;Google ScholarWhitson, William W. with Chen-hsia Huang, The Chinese High Command: A History of Communist Military Politics, 1927–1971 (New York: Praeger, 1973), pp. 518–47;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Hinton, Harold C., “Evolution of foreign policy” in Wu, Yuan-li (ed.). China: A Handbook (New York: Praeger, 1973), p. 297. The oscillations element is present in these analyses to varying degrees and with differing chronologies.Google Scholar

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7. Ibid. p. 709.

8. Skinner, G. William and Winckler, Edwin A.. “Compliance succession in rural Communist China: A cyclical theory;.” in Etzioni, Amitai (ed.). A Sociological Reader in Complex Organizations (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969), 2nd edit., pp. 410, 424–26.Google Scholar

9. Eckstein, “Fluctuations,” pp. 721–22; Skinner and Winckler. “Compliance.” pp. 432–38.

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12. Ibid. p. 55.

13. Ibid. p. 493.

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17. Nathan, Andrew J., “A factionalism model for CCP politics,” The China Quarterly, No. 53 (1973), p. 60. I do not think that the factionalism model is invalidated for China if one rejects the notion of policy oscillations, but this is a question for consideration in some other context.Google Scholar

18. As noted earlier, many oscillations writers themselves point this out with respect to particular periods.

19. “On contradiction,” Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1965), Vol. I, p. 313.Google Scholar In another context Mao is reported as observing approvingly that “the principle of Kings Wen and Wu was to alternate tension and relaxation”; see Rice, Edward E., Mao's Way (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), p. 478.Google Scholar

20. Yu, Hung. “History develops in spirals,” Peking Review. No. 43 (25 October 1974), pp. 10–11, transl. from Hung-ch'i (Red Flag). No. 10 (1974).Google Scholar

21. Ibid. pp. 11–12.

22. Rawski, Thomas G., “Recent trends in the Chinese economy,” The China Quarterly, No. 53 (1973), pp. 1–33.Google Scholar