Uneven Opening of China's Society, Economy, and Politics: pro-growth authoritarian governance and protests in China

Abstract

The model of China's development has attracted worldwide and indeed China has undergone great transformation in the reform era. This article evaluates China's model of development especially the main defining component, i.e., China's model of governance. It suggests that China's model of development is marked by an imbalance between fast opening of the economy and the society and sluggish opening of the political system. The Chinese society has become much more open, reflected in the Chinese growing awareness of their legal rights. The Chinese economy has become highly internationalized and open. But much of Chinese politics is closed. China's governance, a major component of China's model of development, can be regarded as pro-growth authoritarianism. The Chinese state is effective in opening up the economy, promoting reform, and generating economic growth. Nevertheless, the Chinese state offers weak protection of people's rights and ineffectual mitigation of social grievances. These imbalances help produce social protests. A viable solution requires faster opening of the political process and greater respects for interests of the society and its members.

The economic costs of protests and policy recommendations for preventing them: the case of Hong Kong

“…Studies within this area have been preoccupied with how protests can arise from economic downturns (Evans, 2000; Munck, 2007; Silver, 2003). Lai (2010) examines the case of China to show how slow and uneven political opening coupled with high economic growth were what stimulated mass unrest (see also Wright, 2018). Gemici (2013) analyzes the case of Turkey to show how the economic crisis of 2001 (the collapse of anti-inflation and stabilization programs in Turkey) stimulated protest activity.…”

Social Movements in China: Augmenting Mainstream Theory with Guanxi

“…It is not unusual for local political, legal and media leaders to be involved in guanxi networks through which their shared interests are protected. Local party leaders typically control key personnel appointments, including membership of local political and legal committees, head of the Department of Propaganda and managers of leading state-owned local newspapers and TV stations (Lai, 2010: 827). Within such institutional arrangements guanxi inevitably plays a key role in official promotions (Zhong, 2003).…”

“…As a result of officials’ unresponsiveness to their grievances and complaints discontented citizens may be led to resort to collective action, even violence, and intentionally disrupt public order, destroy public property and attack government offices. The rationale is that by escalating a state of tension protesters may attract the attention of some higher authority to their grievances and hope that the higher authority will investigate and possibly intervene so that the contentious issues can be resolved (Lai, 2010: 830; O’Brien and Li, 1995, 2006).…”

The Right to Envision the City? The Emerging Vision Conflicts in Redeveloping Historic Nanjing, China

“…Overt urban conflicts such as these have not been common in the past few decades under China's pro-growth authoritarian regime (Lai 2010). Since the start of reform and opening up in the early 1980s, the central aim of Chinese urban policy has been developing the economy and shaking off a sense of backwardness (Zhang 2006).…”