林保華

The CCP, reform and the Third Plenum

    By Paul Lin 林保華
Taipei Times 2024.7.30

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has formally convened the third plenary session of its 20th Standing Committee. Since the third plenary session of 1987, when the party introduced economic reforms and policies to open up the country, the theme of each third plenum has been the proposal of a new reform blueprint.

However, since the reforms of former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) in the late 1980s, particularly after the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4, 1987, China’s so-called reforms have been limited to the economy.

Marxist philosophy has one important basic principle, the “dialectical” relationship in which the base determines the superstructure and the superstructure has a countervailing effect on the base.

The base is the relationship between production ability and production — an economic base. The superstructure consists of government, legal and other structures. When the base changes, the superstructure responds, but this change is not passive: The superstructure can also change the base. “Leftist governance and rightist economics” warp and skew this relationship.

China’s economic opening up was the foundation for change. When private ownership was allowed, the superstructure had to change accordingly. China’s constitution permitted engagement with an economic system of ownership by “all” Chinese and collective ownership.

Beijing also proposed a system that protected private ownership, forming public-private partnerships on the surface. However, if China wanted to adopt capitalism, the constitution would need to be amended to one appropriate for a capitalist economy with private ownership at its heart, bringing about changes to the economic base.

However, the CCP wanted to develop a private economy with the national economy guided by the state, limiting the development of private ownership.

In 1992, the CCP began to focus on the idea of a “socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics.”

Although former CCP leaders such as former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) and former Chinese vice president Zeng Qinghong (曾慶紅) allowed the the CCP to become more capitalist, they stopped short of changing its name and reforming the Chinese Constitution.

When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) came to power, he declared that “the country would advance, but private ownership would not.”

The CCP superstructure kept moving further to the left, and Western countries’ fairy-tale faith in the capitalist transformation of China was shattered.

Still, China’s economy is still enmeshed in the global economy. It would not be a simple matter for China to withdraw. If Beijing seeks to overturn the “US imperialism” it decries, it would need the US’ advanced computer chips. It would also need to bar foreign investment in its telecommunications and media industries, and rely on its own market for its manufactured goods.

Moreover, that dispute has migrated to other countries, including simmering conflicts in African countries. Xi’s idea of dual circulation cannot succeed, because even if China were to reopen to foreign investment, the country’s anti-espionage laws and arbitrary searches and arrests have already scared international investors.

The Third Plenum would not be able to resolve these issues. Xi’s leftward lurch means China would likely be better off resurrecting a planned economy. Doing so would prevent China from dumping its surplus products on international markets, meaning it would no longer need to do its accounting in US dollars, allowing it to free itself from its trade dispute with the US.

Paul Lin is a Taipei-based political commentator.

Translated by Tim Smith