The Impact of the Emergence of a Middle Class on the Adoption of Multiparty Democracy in China - Essay Example

IMPACT OF RISING MIDDLE CLASS ON DEMOCRATIZATION AND THE STATE OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN CHINA

The Impact of the Emergence of a Large Middle Class on the Adoption of Multiparty Democracy in China

This first part of the essay revisits the question of whether the growing large middle class and rising personal incomes in China are likely to lead the country to adopt multiparty democracy. Historically, China has been led by the Communist Party, and its rule has been unchallenged due to the denial of the necessary democratic space to form opposition politics (Bedeski, 2002: 19; Hague and Harrop, 2013: 71). The outright answer to this question is that the Chinese middle class is an ally of the authoritarian regime of the country and lacks the will to press for greater democratic space due to its current role in the regime, fear for instability, and the regime’s continued stranglehold of this section of the population. Chen and Lu (2011) provide a strong piece of empirical evidence to this end by stating that the Chinese middle class’s dependence on state is negatively correlated with its support for democracy. This finding hints to the detachment between democracy and willingness to engage in civil and political activities among the Chinese middle class. Expounding further on this finding, the Chinese middle class does not appear to appreciate the contribution of democracy in the growth of the country. The reason for this lack of interest could be traced back to the perpetual lack of political freedom in the country. In fact, China has never been democratic (Hague and Harrop, 2013: 71) and a majority of the population has no real understanding of how democracy works. Therefore, the low sense of concern could be due to a lack of any experience or feeling of what multiparty democracy is.

Ultimately, understanding the role of the middle class begins with knowledge of the role they play in the civil aspects of Chinese life. The middle class is expected to espouse new and high values, and new type of behaviours. The middle class’s preference for new values has been seen to lead to demands for political and social participation, a move that has contributed to democratization (Hefele and Dittrich, 2011: 57; Schortgen 2012: 449). Jing (2007: 51) notes that the Communist Party has played a role in the integration of the growing middle class into the party’s decision making system. According to Jing (2007), involvement of the middle class in party activities has been necessitated by the huge economic capital they hold, implying that their actions (in civil life and economic development) cannot be ignored. However, the role of the middle class (particularly the entrepreneurs) is currently limited to the economic realm, although there are indications for greater participation in future. In the sense that it is the party that saw the need to incorporate the middle class into the political and economic systems of the country signals to a deviation from the traditional way of ascending to significance or recognition. Corroborating this view, Suzuki (2016: 1) echoed Macfarquhar et al.’s note that the Chinese middle class is unlikely to mature and assert itself as a political movement both in the short- and long-term.

Hefele and Dittrich (2011) question whether the middle class’s clamour for greater participation in socio-political aspects of Chinese society represents a real opportunity for China to transform into a multi-party democracy. In any case, the Communist Party - albeit the systemic transformation it is undergoing - is clearly unrelenting in its quest to remain the only political body in the country. Li (2010: 20) suggested that despite literature on the relationship between the West’s middle class and political agitation, the Chinese middle class has not acted as a catalyst for democratization – rather, they act as allies of the authoritarian regime of the country. Li provides a hint into the supposed collaboration between the political regime and the middle class – fear of instability that would impact businesses negatively. Apparently, part of the Chinese middle class (about 2.6% of the entire population estimate for 2006) are considered an important part of the population by the regime, majorly because of the high capital associated with them (Jing, 2007: 51). They have a high purchasing power, and collectively drive the internal market, a key component of domestic consumption. Furthermore, they have enterprises that manufacture goods that are sold internally or exported to foreign markets, further underscoring their high importance to the sustenance of the economic revolution the country is undergoing. According to Li (2010), Chinese owners of mid-sized enterprises fear that the presence of multiple political parties would destabilize the country and lead to a collapse of these entities.

The preceding argument can be captured in the sense of why the middle class spearheads clamour for democratization. Chen and Lu (2011: 706) argued that the middle class has newfound economic freedom which increases their push for greater autonomy, a move that drives them towards the search for democracy in countries that are led by authoritarian regimes and stronger democracy where the existing regimes are already democratic. This notion brings about the fact that the process of democratization continues as long as more individuals are joining the middle class from the lower socioeconomic classes. In contrast to this dominant tendency among the world’s middle class (whose definition varies across jurisdictions), the Chinese middle class has not appeared to push for their democratic space but were invited into political participation by the political regime. While this factor may not appear to have drawn enough interest among researchers and commentators, it appears an open secret that their integration into the political hierarchies is a deliberate, clever move to prevent a possible uprising that could result from denial of freedom, which is a basic characteristic of the authoritarian regime of China.

Reflecting back on the preceding argument, three major factors have been attributed to the apparent failure of the Chinese middle class to push for multiparty democracy. One is that they have been cleverly integrated into the socio-economic hierarchies of the regime, giving them special importance and therefore making them to feel represented. Secondly, this class of the citizenry fears that multiparty democracy will polarize the local politics and lead to chaos, which could impact their businesses negatively. Thirdly, the government continues to deliberately hinder the population’s advancement towards the direction of multiparty democracy. Cumulatively, these three factors underlie the argument that the Chinese middle class, despite its growing economic strength, may not eventually lead to the adoption of multiparty democracy in China.

Civil Society in China: Reflections on Its Existence, Relationship with State, and Impact on Possible Democratization

The Chinese government, as discussed in the previous section, is unwilling to relent its grip on the political and social aspects of the country. On the other hand, civil society represents a movement that often opposes the government’s approaches where such are deemed to violate certain basic standards such as human rights. Being a developing country, the civil society has a duty to provide leadership and complement the government’s efforts to raise the living standards of the people. Due to the authoritarian nature of the Chinese government, it can be expected that suppression of basic rights and freedoms guaranteed by national constitutions elsewhere is rife. Therefore, a civil society in China would not only be important but has a lot of work to do; to at least ensure that basic freedoms are accorded to people regardless of their socio-political statuses. Inevitably, any drive towards reassurance of basic human rights and freedoms points towards empowering the people democratically. Yet such a move could evoke criticism and extreme overreaction from the authoritarian regime of the country since it would appear to challenge its legitimacy, power, and continuity. This section of the assay discusses the presence of a civil society in China and seeks to establish whether such a movement could ultimately lead to democratization of Chinese politics. The researcher affirms that a civil society indeed exists in China, but has limited capacity to bring along a shift from authoritarian to democratic leadership.The relationship between the state and the civil society organizations is marked with mistrust.

Importantly, the civil society comprises several forms of independent organizations (independent in the sense that their operations are not controlled by the government despite their activities being regulated through law), including the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and activists. Some of these work in education, environment, health, and civil rights sectors. The civil society exists in China, albeit with more challenges than they face in most other jurisdictions. Additionally, the Chinese civil society is relatively young considering that these movements could not be established during the Mao era since the regime took a totalitarian approach to leadership (Wang, 2010). Wang (2010: 73) provides an important indicator of the role that the Chinese civil society plays in society, showing that in China, civil activism has greater impact on ‘micro-level democratization’, that is, democratization at the grassroots level. However, the study found that civil activism had no correlation with macro-level democratization. This implies that the activities of the central government are not impacted by the civil movement in the grassroots level where activism is more prevalent. Again, we see a similar phenomenon to that of the middle class’s controlled participation in both civil and political activities of society. The Chinese government avoids a situation that would pose a challenge to the elite class in its hierarchies since this would almost certainly call for competing ideologies regarding the top leadership. This ideology is meant to aid self-conservation for the top leadership, and actively limits the ability of the civil society to democratize the country.

The civil society faces regular frustrations in trying to make the Chinese government more open and accountable to the population. Therefore, the two hardly have a harmonious working relationship, but the former is obliged to seek redress intelligently lest it is subjected to the stringent punishment for what is seen as trying to trigger opposition to the government. Nicholas (2012: 58) noted that the civil society is pushing for increased accountability within government, a target whose attainment would reduce the amount of corruption and lawlessness (expressed through such acts as land grabbing) and prepare the country for greater prospects of democratization. However, the present situation dictates the boundaries for the civil society, who live in perpetual fear of being seen to oppose the government and be subjected to unremorseful treatment (Nicholas, 2012: 58; Wang, 2010: 4). Following the recent ouster of authoritarian regimes during the Arab Spring, Schortgen (2012: 456) poses the question whether the same is possible in China, and duly replies to this question of interest by noting that the Chinese government exercises a rather more sophisticated form of social control and ‘coercion mechanisms’. The stringent system of social and political control makes it extensively difficult for the Chinese civil society to amass enough social support for anti-regime agitation or protests. A conclusive remark on the relationship between the Chinese government and the civil society, as observed by (Segbers, Keping and Jantschek, 2009: 25) is that both institutions live under enormous mistrust for each other. A more dynamic review of this state of mistrust would suggest that the government is fearful of the external/ international influence that the civil society organizations could get and use the same to destabilize the country. This further explains the strict control of the social media space within China.

This section of the paper dealt with the role of the Chinese civil society as a movement for democratization in China. While there is no doubt that the civil society is present in China, its scope is seen to be greatly limited by the restrictive system of governance exercised by the country’s authoritarian regime. More specifically, limitation of political space and strict control from the government makes the Chinese civil society an ineffective tool for delivering democracy in the country. The government’s secrecy and desire to retain an ‘unnecessarily’ high level of control yields mistrust with the civil society, and the latter’s activities have to appear to not undermine the legitimacy or power of the former. This implies that the civil society cannot exist without the goodwill of the state, which is derived through observance of the strict regulations for operation.