Alan P. L. Liu - Mass Politics in the Peoples Republic: State and Society in Contemporary China

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Mass Politics in the Peoples Republic

POLITICS IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Haruhiro Fukui

Series Editor

Mass Politics in the Peoples Republic: State and Society in Contemporary China,

Alan P.L. Liu

Popular Protest and Political Culture in Modern China,

Second Edition, edited by Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom and Elizabeth J. Perry

Southeast Asia in the New International Era, Second Edition,

Clark D. Neher

China Under Reform,

Lowell Dittmer

Global Television and the Politics of the Seoul Olympics,

James F. Larson and Heung-Soo Park

Japans Foreign Aid: Power and Policy in a New Era,

edited by Bruce M. Koppel and Robert M. Orr, Jr.

To
Alex S. Edelstein
Mentor and Friend
and to the memory of my sister
Donna H.C. Liu

First published 1996 by Westview Press

Published 2018 by Routledge

52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright 1996 by Westview Press, Inc., A Division of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:

Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Liu, Alan P. L., 1937

Mass Politics in the Peoples Republic : state and society in contemporary China /

Alan P.L. Liu.

p. cm. (Politics in Asia and the Pacific)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-8133-1334-1 (alk. paper). ISBN 0-8133-1335-X (pbk. alk. paper).

1. Political participationChina. 2. Political cultureChina. 3. Public opinion

China. 4. ChinaPolitics and government1949-I. Title. II. Series.

JQ1516.L541996

323.0420951dc20

96-6850
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-367-00411-8 (hbk)

Contents

1. xiv

Guide

Tables

Figures

Maps

I would like to thank Haruhiro Fukui for including this book in his series. I also wish to express my great appreciation to Nancy Lynch for her careful editing. I am indebted to the librarians at the Oriental Collection of the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Additional thanks go to Senior Editor Susan McEachem of Westview Press and an anonymous reader of the first version of this book.

Alan P.L. Liu

ACFTU	All-China Federation of Trade Unions
CCP	Chinese Communist Party
CPPCC	Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference GNP Gross National Product
NIC	Newly Industrializing Countries
NPC	National Peoples Congress
PRC	Peoples Republic of China
SMO	Social Movement Organizations

1
Introduction: Rise of the Mass in Chinese Politics

The first interesting fact is, as is seldom suspected, that the Chinese are great critics of their rulers, perhaps even more so than western people. What makes the Chinese such great critics erf their government is the fact that they are consistently and thoroughly cynical about most of their officials all the timea fact which is often superficially ignored through the apparent quiet submission of the people to their oppressors.

Lin Yutang (c1937)

On April 5, 1976, a mass demonstration occurred at the Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The size of the crowd at the height of the protest was estimated to be about 100,000.demonstrations throughout the 1980s, and unrest among peasants and workers in the 1990s are examples.

The dawn of the mass age in China meant that the Chinese political system from now on cannot simply be the expression of one charismatic rulers will as it was under Mao. Public opinion must be taken into account. The various post-Mao reforms were the Communist Partys long-delayed reactions to the general sentiments and demands of the public in China. Nowadays, the pent-up feelings of ordinary Chinese threaten to erupt like a live volcano that might destabilize, if not dethrone, the Communist Party. Lowell Dittmer argued that the strife among the Chinese elite is significantly affected by the scale of social unrest. It is thus time to inquire into the cultural, political, social, and economic roots of Chinese mass behavior.

Until recently, U.S. scholars specializing in China paid episodic attention to Chinese mass sentiments. The concept of public opinion did not appear in the lexicon of contemporary U.S. Sinology until the 1980s. Prior to that, China specialists studied Chinese public views and reactions largely in connection with government-initiated campaigns such as the Hundred Flowers movement in 1957 and the Cultural Revolution of 19661969. These works tended to concentrate on the intellectuals, intellectuals-in-waiting (students), or urban occupational groups.

My study focuses on the sentiments and reactions of four nonelite groups: peasants, workers, educated youths, and ethnic minorities. In my view, the opinions of these four groups constitute the Chinese public opinion. I shall endeavor to prove that public opinion, as the concept is generally understood in the West, has existed in the PRC since its inception. More important, public opinion in China, as in the United States, has played an influential role in shaping major political outcomes. I shall employ a developmental and comparative perspective to analyze the views of these four groups. In this chapter I will explain the presuppositions that inform subsequent analyses.

The analytical framework of my work may be set forth simply and briefly: The workings of Chinese public opinion are significantly affected by the Party-state structure, the segmented Chinese social structure, and an environment of conflict. But first let me clarify the meaning of public opinion in the Chinese context.

When one ventures into scholarly definitions of public opinion in the United States, one quickly comes across a number of dualities. First, public opinion may be defined restrictively or broadly. The former defines public opinion exclusively in a democratic political context. In his classic essay The Historical Development of Public Opinion, Hans Speier said that public opinion refers to opinions on matters of concern to the nation freely and publicly expressed by men outside of the government who claim a right that their opinions should influence or determine the actions, personnel, or structure of their government.

But surely opinions on governmental matters exist beyond the Habermasian limits or Speiers democratic systems. A broader definition of public opinion is both more realistic and fruitful for comparative analysis. Bernard Berelson defined public opinion as peoples response (that is, approval, disapproval, or indifference) to controversial political and social issues of general attention.defined by Berelson and Pool exists in all types of societies, although the working of public opinion differs across states. A general definition of public opinion is more intellectually meaningful and fruitful than a restricted one because public opinion is system-sensitive. Public opinion does not exist in a vacuum. It is significantly affected by the overall cultural, political, social, and economic environment. Psychologist Daniel Katz wrote:

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