Reflective Essay

As China transitioned from a fragile Mao Zedong-led revolutionary communist state into an economically developing country experimenting with democratic practices, it is important to look at why this change has been made and how. The communist party’s goals and recruitment strategies have completely shifted and thus has allowed China to develop economically as well as politically. The goals of the communist party set during the Cultural Revolution were primarily focused on revolution, transforming all aspects of Chinese ideology and culture until the ideal communist country had been created.[1] However, as the leadership has changed over the last thirty years, the goals of the party and overall membership have transitioned away from its Maoist origin.

Presently, the new focus of the communist party is reform and economic modernization; these two goals thus require a different kind of communist party member. While under Mao’s regime, recruitment emphasized older men from the revolutionary classes; workers, farmers, and soldiers, who had gone through a vetting period to prove their loyalty to the communist party, now CCP leadership wants to recruit young, educated, urban elites.[2] This shift represents the need to refocus the communist party’s goals. Instead of eliminating intellectuals and business people due to the fear of them being counter-revolutionary, the CCP today recruits them into the party due to their various essential skill sets. Through this realignment of recruitment strategies, the communist party is able to sustain legitimacy because of their educated membership. With legitimacy comes power; the Chinese government can now push reform and policies spurring continued economic development which is their primary goal.

Not only has the communist party gained real legitimacy through their new recruitment strategies, but they have also gained wide reaching control over their citizens whether it is through education, internet, or other media outlets. While there has been what is considered a mass liberalization of commercial media in China, the CCP still has overarching control in terms of what the average Chinese person can access. Today there are varying degrees of liberalization in the media; heavily state-influenced, semi-official newspapers, and commercialized newspapers.[3] While there are sources which are not directly funded or influenced by the CCP, when extreme circumstances take place, the Chinese government still has the ultimate control over how the information is presented.[4] For example, when animosity towards Japan started growing at a rapid pace and protests were erupting, the Chinese government gave orders to the Foreign Ministry to adjust the propaganda so that the newspapers were not bashing the Japanese.[5] While the commercialized newspapers are not directly influenced by the CCP, they still dialed back the potency of their reporting on Japan so that the government could contain the protests. Moreover, while the communist party has made efforts in showing that they can allow some forms of democratic reform, they ultimately have the final say in terms of the media.

Furthermore, the primary concern of the CCP is to maintain its legitimacy. Therefore, officials have to be careful with the decisions they make because on one side they want to uphold control over their citizens and on the other side they have western, democratic countries pushing them to make liberal changes. The Chinese government is able to do this through censorship. Through a veil of public expression, Chinese citizens can post their opinions or thoughts online. As the government has slowly allowed social media to expand, a wide range of positive and negative opinions about policies and leaders has also expanded.[6] Through the transition away from Maoist viewpoints on how people can talk about their leaders, the CCP today has learned that individual complaints about their party officials or localized leaders are not a threat to their legitimacy or power.[7] The CCP’s major concern are any posts or websites that have collective action potential. They do not want any individual or group to become a locus of power and influencing public opinion other than the communist party itself.[8] The party worries that collective action outside of the central government can lead to factionalism, chaos and disorder.[9]  To counteract these challenges to the party, the CCP uses vast resources to censor anything that can fall under the category of collective action whether they are blog posts, internet pages or artwork.

While there has certainly been liberalization in art since the Maoist era, the CCP today controls and censors artist’s work in other methods instead of forcing them to create communist propaganda. Instead of excluding contemporary artists from society, the government has created designated art districts and a new national art institution which have raised China’s international status in the art world.[10] Through the liberalization of art in China, it has provided many economic opportunities which would not have taken place had the communist party continued their goal for revolution and ignored the possibilities policies of reform can provide. The art districts, however, are still held accountable to the government which means that the CCP has ultimate control over these artists. They have the power to eliminate pieces of art that are considered politically charged or ones that could garner the potential to influence or motivate a group of people; collective action.[11] Moreover, through the creation of these art districts and the national art institute, the Chinese government can build a stronger global image and promote economic growth through the exportation of art, while at the same time allowing for a certain degree of freedom of expression for contemporary artists.[12] On the other hand, this does not mean that artists are completely exempt from the harsh treatment of CCP officials. For example, as we saw in the documentary on Ai Weiwei, the Chinese government does not exclude high profile, world renowned artists from their extreme punishments for creating politically charged pieces of art; he was jailed for a long time because of his work.

Moreover, through the change in recruitment strategies and the liberalization of media, the communist party has been able to develop economically and politically. Recruiting more educated and younger people into the party creates greater legitimacy for the CCP due to a more intelligent party makeup. A transition from Maoist revolution to present day reform has allowed for greater opportunities of economic modernization in various different sectors like the art world. Furthermore, the power of censorship has been applied in such a way where the government can allow for the liberalization of media, whether it is internet social media, newspapers or the news, but can also quell any attempts of collective action. With this continued movement towards a loosening up of constraints on the Chinese population, the government is moving towards a new kind of democracy based off of a Chinese value system.

Word Count: 1189

Help Received: See works cited.

Works Cited:

Dixon, Bruce. “Who Wants to be a Communist? Career Incentives and Mobilized Loyalty in China.” China Quarterly. 217. (2014): 42-68.

King, Gary, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts. “How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression.” American Political Science Review. 107. No. 2. (2013): 326-343.

Stockman, Daniela. “Who Believes Propaganda? Media Effects during the Anti-Japanese Protests in Beijing.” China Quarterly. 202. (2010): 269-289.

Yu, Keping. “The People’s Republic of China’s Sixty Years of Political Development” with comment by Kenneth Lieberthal. In Lieberthal, Kenneth, Cheng Li, and Keping Yu (eds).

Zhang, Yue. “Governing Art Districts: State Control and Cultural Production in Contemporary China.” China Quarterly. 219. (2014): 827-848.

[1] Yu, Keping. “The People’s Republic of China’s Sixty Years of Political Development”

[2] Dixon, Bruce. “Who Wants to be a Communist? Career Incentives and Mobilized Loyalty in China.”

[3] Stockman, Daniela. “Who Believes Propaganda? Media Effects during the Anti-Japanese Protests in Beijing.”

[4] Ibid

[5] Ibid

[6] King, Gary, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts. “How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression.”

[7]Ibid

[8] Ibid

[9] Ibid

[10] Zhang, Yue. “Governing Art Districts: State Control and Cultural Production in Contemporary China.”

[11] Ibid

[12] Ibid