Shanghai scandal: initial thoughts
This Monday, Chen Liangyu, the Chief of the Communist Party in Shanghai, was dismissed from the Party and duly removed from the Politburo for his alleged involvement in graft and misappropriations of State funds in Shanghai. He is the highest-ranking official to be removed from the Politburo and the Party in more than a decade. Moreover, one of this protégés, Sun Luyi, the deputy chief of the Shanghai Communist Party, has also been implicated in the ongoing investigation in the developing scandal in Shanghai.
This scandal is interesting for a myriad of reasons. The first of which is that, as the 17th Party Congress is scheduled for next year—at which Hu Jintao et. al. will presumably anoint the next generation of Chinese leaders—Hu, his protégés from the Communist Youth League, and the faction for Beijing are trying to outmaneuver the so-called “Shanghai Gang,” which was long under the leadership of the now-retired ex-President Jiang Zemin. Therefore, the attack against Chen and the Shanghai leaders was done to a) send a message to senior cadre regarding possible Party excommunication following illegal actions and graft b) undercut the influence of the Shnaghai faction before the 17th Party Congress and c) reassert the authority of President Hu and Premier Wen.
As I am not an expert on Chinese politics, my insights into the personal animosities and background of the current situation will not be trenchant, so I will not bother in making all of you read them. I do, however, want to point out a few things that I find to be of note.
1. Beijing has dispatched 100 investigators to Shanghai to look into the misappropriation of funds and granting of large service and building contracts. This is a very explicit attempt by the central state to reassert control in Shanghai, the financial capital of the Mainland that has enjoyed a relative amount of freedom since Jiang Zemin assumed the Presidency in the mid-1990s.
2. In the International Herald Tribune, there was a report stating that Jiang Zemin had approved of—or at the very least not objected to—President Hu’s move against his old protégés in Shanghai. The Tribune went on to cite several anonymous sources within the government to confirm and substantiate this report. Yet this is a one-party authoritarian state, so very little, if anything that comes from a government source—anonymous or not—can be taken at face value without considering the ways in which it might “help” the ruling faction within the Politburo. Let me explain. President Hu is in control of the Party, State and Military—he surely does not need to approval of Jiang to move against the Shanghai elites. The government sources pointing towards Jiang having given his approval must be thought of as a way to bolster the legitimacy of a move that Hu could have taken with or without the support of Jiang. Therefore, it is very possible that Jiang never gave his blessing to this move but, because such a blessing would help President Hu and his pose both legitmate the move against Chen and shore up their power before the 17th Party Congress next year, the official Party-line is that Jiang condoned the move. The real point I’m trying to make is that everything in an authoritarian state has to be read into, and if the western press is willing to look at these things from a Western heuristic, without a proper understanding of Chinese culture and the way in which an authoritarian state works, they run the risk of misunderstanding the moves being made here. My goal with the language, the home stay, and my continued reading on the China, then, is to try and understand what all of this means from a Chinese—and not an American—frame of reference.
Finally, tomorrow is National Day, which commemorates the founding of the People’s Republic. I plan to spend most of the day talking to people and walking around Tiananmen Square, which should be very interesting.
This scandal is interesting for a myriad of reasons. The first of which is that, as the 17th Party Congress is scheduled for next year—at which Hu Jintao et. al. will presumably anoint the next generation of Chinese leaders—Hu, his protégés from the Communist Youth League, and the faction for Beijing are trying to outmaneuver the so-called “Shanghai Gang,” which was long under the leadership of the now-retired ex-President Jiang Zemin. Therefore, the attack against Chen and the Shanghai leaders was done to a) send a message to senior cadre regarding possible Party excommunication following illegal actions and graft b) undercut the influence of the Shnaghai faction before the 17th Party Congress and c) reassert the authority of President Hu and Premier Wen.
As I am not an expert on Chinese politics, my insights into the personal animosities and background of the current situation will not be trenchant, so I will not bother in making all of you read them. I do, however, want to point out a few things that I find to be of note.
1. Beijing has dispatched 100 investigators to Shanghai to look into the misappropriation of funds and granting of large service and building contracts. This is a very explicit attempt by the central state to reassert control in Shanghai, the financial capital of the Mainland that has enjoyed a relative amount of freedom since Jiang Zemin assumed the Presidency in the mid-1990s.
2. In the International Herald Tribune, there was a report stating that Jiang Zemin had approved of—or at the very least not objected to—President Hu’s move against his old protégés in Shanghai. The Tribune went on to cite several anonymous sources within the government to confirm and substantiate this report. Yet this is a one-party authoritarian state, so very little, if anything that comes from a government source—anonymous or not—can be taken at face value without considering the ways in which it might “help” the ruling faction within the Politburo. Let me explain. President Hu is in control of the Party, State and Military—he surely does not need to approval of Jiang to move against the Shanghai elites. The government sources pointing towards Jiang having given his approval must be thought of as a way to bolster the legitimacy of a move that Hu could have taken with or without the support of Jiang. Therefore, it is very possible that Jiang never gave his blessing to this move but, because such a blessing would help President Hu and his pose both legitmate the move against Chen and shore up their power before the 17th Party Congress next year, the official Party-line is that Jiang condoned the move. The real point I’m trying to make is that everything in an authoritarian state has to be read into, and if the western press is willing to look at these things from a Western heuristic, without a proper understanding of Chinese culture and the way in which an authoritarian state works, they run the risk of misunderstanding the moves being made here. My goal with the language, the home stay, and my continued reading on the China, then, is to try and understand what all of this means from a Chinese—and not an American—frame of reference.
Finally, tomorrow is National Day, which commemorates the founding of the People’s Republic. I plan to spend most of the day talking to people and walking around Tiananmen Square, which should be very interesting.
posted by jr at 11:50 PM
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