André Laliberté

Contemporary China Center, Australian National University Review: [untitled] Author(s): André Laliberté Source: The China Journal, No. 62 (Jul., 2009), pp. 165-168 Published by: Contemporary China Center, Australian National University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20648135 . Accessed: 01/04/2011 18:46 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ccc. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Contemporary China Center, Australian National University is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The China Journal. http://www.jstor.org REVIEWS 165 to ineffective top-down controls could introduce political liberalization through the back door. Joseph Fewsmith argues that, in response to rent-seeking, a number of local innovations in grass-roots leadership selection and consultation are proceeding across China. While not democratization, these minor adjustments constitute part of Leninist adaptation. David Shambaugh provides further insight into the Party's survival strategies: its close analysis of Soviet, Eastern European and regional transitions underlined the vital importance of Party unity and rejuvenation, controlling civil society and watching foreign forces. The response has involved eclectic borrowing of reforms from other countries and grafting them onto a Leninist core. While successful thus far, the long-term compatibility of these borrowings remains to be seen. This analysis is inconclusive on whether democracy will emerge from incremental political change in China. As many as four contradictory pathways to democracy are proposed: as the logical outcome of current reforms; as their unexpected outcome; as an altogether unlikely outcome; and as one possible (but unlikely) result of a system collapse. This suggests that insufficient basis exists for reasonably answering such a question. Indeed, when democracy is more narrowly defined as competitive elections for public offices, clear consensus emerges that this is not on the horizon in China's near political future. Given the wide array of political changes documented in this book, but the very limited prospects for democracy, what might be concluded is that democracy is of little use as a concept in assessing China's current phase of political transformation. Other, less pre-determined frameworks can offer better interpretations of the changes taking place, including theories on institution-building, political participation and changes in governance. Extrapolating from the book's interesting findings, specific questions can already be posed, such as: (1) how the tension between protecting ?lite interests and satisfying broader constituencies is being handled; (2) how and when pluralization and exclusion occur in changing political processes; and (3) what relationship there is between erosion of political legitimacy and various reforms. Answering such questions will unveil, not the ultimate destination of China's political reforms, but rather the processes, actors, likely paths and important veto points critical to a realistic assessment of the PRC's future political development. Stephen Trott University of Toronto De Facto Federalism in China: Reforms and Dynamics of Central-Local Relations, by Zheng Yongnian. Singapore: World Scientific, 2007. xxvi + 429 pp. US$87.00/?47.00 (hardcover). Zheng Yongnian argues that, by using a simplistic dichotomy between "unitary states" and "federalism", researchers looking at relations between the centre and local governments in China have failed to see that formal organizational changes 166 THE CHINA JOURNAL, No. 62 have lagged behind important informal behavioral changes in these relations. He uses the concept of de facto federalism to describe this singular pattern (p. 29). After explaining why the structural, procedural and cultural approaches to the study of central-local relations are lacking when each is taken individually, Zheng introduces the new institutional approach to provide an integrated approach for analyzing this central-local dynamics. In Chapter 2, he introduces the three institutions that he sees embedded in China's de facto federalism: coercion, bargaining and reciprocity. Chapter 3 argues that central-local relations have become increasingly reciprocal in the post-Mao era because of three factors. First, coalitions have emerged between reformers in the central government and local leaders, after the former implemented nationwide major reforms which the latter succeeded in initiating. Second, the reform era eroded the authority of central leaders in Beijing, reducing the role of Party ideology. Finally, a system of local elections gave legitimacy to local leaders. In the three chapters that follow, Zheng looks at three case studies illustrating this pattern of reciprocity. He observes that the Jiangsu provincial government obtained considerable autonomy in de facto federalism but did not use this to adopt policies differing from those of the central government. This tacit understanding between the central and provincial governments was possible because both levels of government agreed on the goals of economic growth. One of the positive fallouts of that decentralization is that it convinced the central government that granting some measure of autonomy to the province did not have adverse consequences for the country's unity. In the next chapter, Zheng looks at the relations between the central and Zhejiang provincial governments, but also at Wenzhou municipality, thereby adding a level of complexity and nuance to his study of decentralization. He shows that Wenzhou, a dynamic centre for the private sector up to the 1960s, departed the most from the socialist model, and therefore received little support from the central government at the beginning of the reform process, when the reformers' hold on the central government had yet to be entrenched. Zheng argues that, despite conflicts between the local government and the centre over the pace and the extent of reform, the central government did not reclaim the powers which it had delegated to the province, but instead provided incentives to local leaders to ensure their cooperation with the centre. The third case study focuses on Guangdong, a province which gave great difficulty to the central government because of the strength of localism, and where a policy of recentralization has been applied more recently. The chapter explains the quandary the central government faces when trying to clamp down too harshly on localism: central leaders fear the risk of the political fragmentation inherent in strong localism, but they also recognize its importance in fostering economic growth. However, Guangdong, where the reassertion of central control remains to be firmly implemented, may represent an exceptional case. In Chapter 7, Zheng looks at the options available to provinces lacking the resources and endowment of rich coastal provinces examined in his previous REVIEWS 167 chapters. When provinces lack the resources to bargain, they may face difficulty in gaining support from the centre and in benefitting from reciprocity. In his study of the Economic Cooperation Association of Southwest China (ECASC), which includes Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet, Zheng documents the strategy of collective bargaining adopted by provinces with little resources in order to obtain support from the centre. The concluding chapter discusses the institutionalization of de facto federalism. Zheng makes clear that this is not an option for the current government, because it fears the consequences of such an evolution. He explains that, although pragmatic policies of decentralization adopted as a result of the reform policies have prevented the central government from intervening arbitrarily in the economy and have thereby favored the growth of a market economy, top leaders remain reluctant to institutionalize de facto federalism. For central leaders, he argues, federalism represents an ideology meant to divide politically China as a sovereign state. He also notes that some provinces are inherently hostile to federalism because they could benefit from a strong central government's ability to redistribute wealth. He concludes that de facto federalism provides the central government with greater flexibility than does de jure federalism, and suggests that the latter may become a reality only incrementally, as a result of future reform policies. This study provides a good analysis of the structure and the pattern of relations between the wealthy coastal provinces and the centre. As such, it sheds light on a relationship that matters very much to how we understand the factors that have facilitated China's economic growth. However, it nevertheless leaves behind the more complex pattern of relations between the centre and the majority of the provinces in central and Western China, a region which lacks the clout and the resources to bargain with the central government. The ECASC case study offers a good example of collective bargaining, but it is not clear whether this strategy is the norm or an exception. Ideally, it would also have been interesting to include more studies of lower levels of governments, as well as of how autonomous regions have fared in the context of de facto federalism. This is a minor quibble, because there is only so much that one can accomplish in a study of such a scale, but another important dimension of federalism could have received more attention. Historically, federalism has not been intended primarily as a mechanism favoring macro-economic efficiency but as a strategy to accommodate pre existing states with different interests which have agreed to delegate part of their sovereignty to a higher authority (the United States, Australia, Germany) or as a political compromise to reconcile different ethnic or religious groups that were compelled to live within the polity inherited from colonial rule (as with India or Nigeria). Neither of these situations applies to China, so the relevance of federalism to the current strategies used by the Chinese government remains debatable. Yet, some illustrious Chinese analysts have reflected on this issue, within the frameworks of socialism (taking the Soviet Union as a model) or 168 THE CHINA JOURNAL, No. 62 liberalism. They have argued that federalism could provide a solution to the vexed problem of Tibet's inclusion in China in a way that both maintains China's unity and respects genuine autonomy for minority nationalities. This was the argument made by Yan Jiaqi, who promoted the idea of a confederation between the provinces of continental China, on the one hand, and Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Taiwan, on the other. Yan's view represented a bold approach which could have helped to resolve the fundamental contradictions inherent to a unitary multinational state like China. Instead of tackling that issue head on, Zheng notes in his penultimate paragraph that Yan was criticized by colleagues. One reservation to this otherwise sober and well written analysis of de facto federalism is that such important dimension of federalism is overlooked. Overall, this book represents a good study of the Chinese state's ability to provide a flexible institutional framework favoring economic growth. It will be of interest to those studying comparative public administration and the political economy of emerging markets. Andr? Lalibert? University of Ottawa Democracy is a Good Thing: Essays on Politics, Society, and Culture in Contemporary China, by Yu Keping. Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2009. xxxii + 219 pp. US$34.95/?19.99 (hardcover). Globalization and Changes in China's Governance, by Yu Keping. Leiden: Brill, 2008. 275 pp. 69.00/US$ 103.00 (hardcover). These two books should establish Yu Keping, already a well-known public intellectual in China, as a major thinker and commentator on Chinese politics, society and intellectual currents in the English-speaking world. The essays display a remarkable breadth of interest, thoroughness of research and depth of reflection. Perhaps the most salient contribution is Yu's argument for incremental democracy in China, but his contribution does not reduce to a single theme. His research on village-level civil organizations, his musings on the tensions between modernization and cultural autonomy, and his intellectual histories of modernization and federalism are all worthy of close attention. Democracy is a Good Thing is the better-prepared of the two anthologies. Cheng Li narrates Yu's career from his membership in the legendary 1978 university cohort and his later studies with Professor Zhao Baoxu at Peking University to his current positions as deputy director of the Translation and Compilation Bureau of the Central Committee and professor of politics at Peking University. Li also presents a clear and brief analysis of Yu's thinking on democracy. The book includes a bibliography of Yu's writings over the last ten years. By contrast, Globalization and Changes in China's Governance is a bare bones collection, without index or introduction. Thus Democracy is the place to Article Contents p. 165 p. 166 p. 167 p. 168 Issue Table of Contents The China Journal, No. 62 (Jul., 2009), pp. 1-252 Front Matter A Chinese State Enterprise under the Reforms: What Model of Capitalism? [pp. 1-26] Political Machinations in a Rural County [pp. 29-59] Rural Cadres and Governance in China: Incentive, Institution and Accountability [pp. 61-77] The Politics of Fee Extraction from Private Enterprises, 1996-2003 [pp. 79-102] Rebirth and Secularization of the Central Party School in China [pp. 105-125] Reviews Review: untitled [pp. 127-130] Review: untitled [pp. 130-132] Review: untitled [pp. 133-134] Review: untitled [pp. 134-136] Review: untitled [pp. 137-138] Review: untitled [pp. 138-140] Review: untitled [pp. 140-142] Review: untitled [pp. 142-144] Review: untitled [pp. 144-147] Review: untitled [pp. 147-149] Review: untitled [pp. 149-151] Review: untitled [pp. 151-153] Review: untitled [pp. 153-154] Review: untitled [pp. 155-157] Review: untitled [pp. 157-159] Review: untitled [pp. 159-161] Review: untitled [pp. 161-163] Review: untitled [pp. 163-165] Review: untitled [pp. 165-168] Review: untitled [pp. 168-170] Review: untitled [pp. 170-172] Review: untitled [pp. 173-174] Review: untitled [pp. 174-176] Review: untitled [pp. 176-178] Review: untitled [pp. 178-180] Review: untitled [pp. 180-182] Review: untitled [pp. 182-184] Review: untitled [pp. 184-185] Review: untitled [pp. 186-187] Review: untitled [pp. 187-190] Review: untitled [pp. 190-192] Review: untitled [pp. 192-193] Review: untitled [pp. 194-195] Review: untitled [pp. 195-197] Review: untitled [pp. 197-199] Review: untitled [pp. 199-201] Review: untitled [pp. 201-203] Review: untitled [pp. 203-206] Review: untitled [pp. 206-210] Review: untitled [pp. 210-212] Review: untitled [pp. 212-214] Review: untitled [pp. 214-216] Review: untitled [pp. 217-218] Review: untitled [pp. 219-221] Review: untitled [pp. 221-223] Review: untitled [pp. 223-225] Review: untitled [pp. 225-226] Review: untitled [pp. 226-229] Review: untitled [pp. 229-231] Review: untitled [pp. 231-232] Review: untitled [pp. 233-235] Review: untitled [pp. 235-237] Review: untitled [pp. 237-239] Review: untitled [pp. 239-241] Review: untitled [pp. 242-243] Review: untitled [pp. 244-246] Review: untitled [pp. 246-248] Review: untitled [pp. 248-250] Review: untitled [pp. 250-252] Back Matter