Xi Jinping's comprehensive governance
- By Robert Lawrence Kuhn
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E-mail China.org.cn, August 21, 2017
Editor's note: Robert Lawrence Kuhn, a public intellectual and renowned China expert, delivered a speech at the BRICS Seminar on Governance in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, on August 17. China.org.cn is authorized to publish the full text of his speech.
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Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn, chairman of the Kuhn Foundation, speaks at the BRICS Seminar on Governance opened in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, on Aug. 17. [Photo by Li Jia/China.org,cn] |
Global governance is perhaps the most pressing need of our complex and often fractious world. Never before have we faced such divisive and interwoven challenges – political, economic, social, technological, ethnic and religious. Given such unprecedented global uncertainties – anti-globalization, Brexit, Trump, regional conflicts too numerous to name – there is a great need for a new approach to global governance.
President Xi Jinping is now proposing a grand vision of global governance – stressing the strength of stability and the goal of mutual prosperity – with China playing a dramatic new role in seeking global win-win cooperation. BRICS is one platform in an increasing complex environment of global governance. The Belt and Road Initiative provides a mechanism to facilitate development in developing countries and reverse devastating disparities in economic and social well-being.
To appreciate China's approach to the global governance system, it is first instructive to appreciate China's approach to its own domestic governance.
When, in late 2016, President Xi was designated as the "Core" of the CPC Central Committee and indeed of the entire Party, it sent an unambiguous signal that China required strong leadership to deal with China's own unprecedented and complex challenges. China is now facing multiform, cascading waves of challenges: domestically – slow growth, industrial overcapacity, endemic pollution, imbalanced development, income disparity, social injustice, social service demands; internationally – wars, regional conflicts, sluggish economies, volatile markets, trade protectionism, ethnic clashes, terrorism, geopolitical rivalries, territorial disputes.
Moreover, because China must deepen reform to achieve its oft-promised goal – a "moderately prosperous society" (by 2020) – the resistance of entrenched interest groups must be overcome. In fact, the necessity of having a leadership core in order to maintain stability and expedite reform is the first and foremost of what I found to be four factors relating to Xi's elevation to core.
A second factor is that not only does Xi have the responsibility for China's transformation, but also he is accountable for it. Moreover, he has shown courage in confronting and dismantling a vast, corrupt system of graft, bribery, patronage and illicit wealth accretion.
A third factor is that Xi as the core does not end, and even may not diminish, the cardinal principle of "democratic centralism." The Party bolsters each of the concepts: encouraging the democratic solicitation of input and feedback from Party members, lower-ranked officials, and the general public; while strengthening centralism through Xi's core leadership of the principal levers of power (his positions as general secretary of the Party, head of state, chairman of the Central Military Commission, and head of various "Leading Groups," including reform, security and cyber).
A fourth factor is that a core is required to manage the Party more strictly and thereby to give Party members and the public more confidence. Witness Xi's relentless and unprecedented anti-corruption campaign, which is altering how officials in government and managers in industry work and even think. Let no one assume that Xi's battle against corruption has been risk-free.
Significantly, these four factors undergirding Xi as core map onto Xi's overarching political framework, his strategic blueprint called "The Four Comprehensives."
President Xi's comprehensive governance begins with his "Four Comprehensives," his overarching political theory, enumerating what he contends are the four most critical categories for making the Chinese Dream, his grand vision, a reality – comprehensively build a moderately prosperous society; comprehensively deepen reform; comprehensively govern the nation according to law; and comprehensively strictly govern the Party. In short, the "Four Comprehensives" express Xi's approach to governance.
While foreigners often dismiss the political aphorisms of China's leaders as simplistic sloganeering, they miss an opportunity to enrich their understanding of the realities of China. Chinese officials certainly take the "Four Comprehensives" seriously. I know: I have had private conversations and conducted public interviews in my focusing on "Xi Jinping: Governance Philosophy and Political Thought" for "Closer To China," my weekly television program on China Global Television Network [CGTN]). Here is what I've found.
First is the effort to promote, at home and abroad, Xi's way or style of governance and his high-level, integrated political thinking. But why governance? Why "Four Comprehensives?" And how do they relate?
Each of the "Four Comprehensives" has its own nature, a distinct linguistic character. "Moderately prosperous" is a goal. "Deepen reform" is a means. "Rule of law" is a principle. "Strict discipline of the Party" is an action or state of affairs. Moreover, each has been a major policy in itself, suggested and supported by previous leaders for many years: "moderately prosperous society" since 2002 (15 years); "reform" since 1978 (39 years); "rule of law" since at least 1997 (20 years); "discipline of the Party" (in a sense) since the Party was founded in 1921.
So what's Xi's purpose for combining the four now? What's the structural commonality? What's the unifying innovation?
As I see it, the "Four Comprehensives" emerge as Xi's prevailing political philosophy of governance via two linguistic devices and two pragmatic purposes. The linguistic devices are (i) combining the four policies into a single idea, and (ii) using the same word "comprehensive" as a descriptor of each. Combining them makes the point that these four are fundamental, the basic drivers, and that if achieved, all else to realize the Chinese Dream would follow. "Comprehensive" signals two notions: (i) each policy is facing critical challenges in the "new era" of the "new norm," such that each must be expanded beyond its prior formulation, and (ii) Xi is making a very public commitment to each policy, such that there is now no turning back.
The pragmatic purposes are (i) a candid compilation of experiences and assessment of current conditions and (ii) a priority to implement and act in order to achieve the dominant goal for 2020 – realizing the "moderately prosperous society." As less than three years remain until 2020, the "Four Comprehensives" highlight the deep-rooted complexity of what it will take to achieve the Chinese Dream and the need for a clarifying call to action to make it happen.
A senior theorist said that the "Four Comprehensives" are a "systematic approach to specific actions that directly benefit the people," a "new kind of theory" that demands specific implementation, and like subjects in school, "we will get a grade on each of the four; the people will give us our 'report card'."
How does the concept of "comprehensively" expand and enrich each of the four?
How does "comprehensively" expand and enrich the long-standing goal of a "moderately prosperous society," the first comprehensive? For example, farmers and the poor must be included. This is exemplified by President X's "Precision Poverty Alleviation Campaign," a massive and sustained effort to eliminate all extreme poverty in China by 2020. Speaking to the Politburo, Xi said, "The most arduous task for China to comprehensively build a moderately prosperous society lies in the vast rural areas, especially in those impoverished rural areas." Farmers, Xi said, must participate as equals in the process of reform and development so they too can enjoy its fruits."
"Deepen Reform," the second comprehensive, is the "power" or "engine" of Xi's governance. The message to officials is "focus on implementation; have a clear plan; know your numbers" – every administrative region (province, city, county) must have its numbers. I hear also of the "hard bones" of "interest groups" and "taking away their cheese." (Interest groups are defined broadly as whoever protects the status quo – typically some kind of monopoly or quasi-monopoly that control substantial resources – and the larger the resources they control, the fiercer they fight to resist reform.) For reform to progress, such interest groups must be disrupted.
"Rule of law," the third comprehensive, is perhaps the most misunderstood. While foreigners may focus on isolated cases, recent judicial reforms are a milestone: The power to control the court system – from financing the judiciary to selecting judges – is being transferred from the local level to the provincial level. The objective is to prevent local interference in the fair and equitable adjudication of cases and administration of justice. Another advance in civil society, underreported in Western media, is China's absolute prohibition, backed by senior leaders and finalized recently, of using executed prisoners as a source of organs for transplants.
"Strict discipline of the Party," the fourth comprehensive, stresses Xi's relentless determination to root-out corruption (bagging "tigers" and swatting "flies"), and to shrink the wasteful and detested perks of officialdom. Just as a blacksmith needs a hard hammer, an analogy goes, the Party needs strong members. In addition to building clean government that has the respect of the people, Xi's anti-corruption improves the efficient allocation of resources (by attenuating suboptimal transactions enacted for illicit, personal gain).
Xi's governance and Xi's "Four Comprehensives" work complementarily and recursively – the "Four Comprehensives" shaping governance and governance empowering the "Four Comprehensives." It is as if Xi is making governance a "Fifth Modernization." (In 1978, when reform began, Deng Xiaoping established the "Four Modernizations" – agriculture, industry, science and technology, and national defense – as the core of China's policy.) Now for the new era, Xi is challenging China to enhance its governance, which must be systemic as well as systematic.
Given the realities of a complex and fractious world, the world needs strong leadership. China wants the world to understand Xi's principles of governance, which, while designed specifically for China's special domestic situation, has broader applicability in that the same principles hold for global governance. This is good for the world and good for China.
How to apply each of President Xi's "Four Comprehensives" to governance of other countries and indeed to global governance? They should be considered as "best practices" to be adapted to local conditions. 1) China's goal of a "moderate prosperous society" can be generalized to formulating a visionary goal that is realistic and attainable. 2) Reform means changing the system to stimulate productive forces and economic growth, often by overcoming obstacles and disrupting forces of resistance. 3) Promote rule of law is essential to provide stability to society and to give confidence to investors. 4) Strictly governing the Party generalizes to assuring clean and competent governance.
China does not claim that constructing a new order global governance will be accomplished easily or quickly, or that its "China model" can be adopted without local adaption, but it is highly significant that President Xi is making a major commitment in dedicating China to participate actively and to take serious responsibility in this vital initiative for world peace and prosperity. As the world considers global governance structures, including BRICS, China's experience, under President Xi, can make a vital contribution.
(Adam Zhu contributed to this article.)
Robert Lawrence Kuhn is an international corporate strategist and political/economics commentator. He spoke at the book launch ceremony of "Xi Jinping: The Governance of China" and he is the author of "How China's Leaders Think". His new CCTV News show is Closer To China.
