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15 The "State of the State"
Like nature, Sinology abhors a vacuum. Given
variety an d magnitude of systemic c h an g es th a
curred in th e post-Mao era, it is hardly surp
there s ho ul d b e substantial controversy over h
characterize China's evolving institutional
With Leninist regimes everywhere collapsing o
in g radical reconfiguration, a profound "para
has arisen. Does th e r e fo r min g Ch ine s e politica
more closely resemble communism, capitalism,
cianism? feudalism, federalism, or neo-fascism
tism or civil society?
Bereft of a theoretical compass, with no re
otl'the-sheJf models available to fill th e void l
demise of th e ol d Leninist order, more an d mo
have entered th e paradigm sweepstakes. Th e resu
a wild profusion o f new labels, accompanied
competition fo r shelf space in th e morphologic
place. Re ce n t c o me n de r s fo r taxonomic he g
clude: "nomenclature capitalism,"1 "bureaucra
ism,"2 "capitalism with Chinese characteristics,
socialism,"4 "incomplete state socialism,"5 "loc
socialis01, "6 "danwei socialism, '''7 "socialist corp
"corporatism Chinese style,"" "local state corp
"state-socialist corporatism,"I I "symbiotic clie
"Confucian Leninisnl,"13 "I£oinist palrimo
Merle Goldman and Roderick MacFarquhar, eds. 1999. The Paradoxof China's Post-Mao Reforms. Harvard University Press: Cambridge,Massachusetts, London, England.
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cial and subprovincial governments broad discretionary a
raise and allocate revenues, major differences remain ov
independent of their higher-level "principals" these erst
"agents" have actually become. At one extreme, it has b
that the reforms have so skewed the balance of fiscal an
Irdtive power in favor of the provinces that Beijing has lo
control over much of the country's economic life. IS
At the other ext rt ,me, it has been argued wit.h equal
decent.ralization has neither diminished Beijing's extracti
(expressed as the ratio of central government revenues to
undermined China's unitary political system (measured
gree of central control over key provincial appointment.s)
interpretation holds that "cenu'al leaders have not so
control as they have chosen not to exercise it because
officials are a powerful bloc in the process of selecting to
nist Party leaders."20 Yet. a fourth view holds t.hat the ent i
cent.er versus province has been improperly framed, sin
not a zero-sum game; and (b) "i t is quite crude to use, .
rary drop in the center's share of resources ... as the in
the relative power of center vs. localities."21The theory of rising provincial autonomy and incipient
ness achieved a certain prominence at the en d of the 198
group of provincial governors, led by Guangdong's Ye
successfully resisted the central government's repeated a
replace the existing system of contractually fixed provin
tances with a system of uniform direct taxes, a change t
have tilted the fiscal balance sharply in Beijing's favor.22
in this per iod tha t local governments in many areas, l
prospect of fiscal starvation induced by Beijing's austerit
1988, ignored central exhortations to curtail expansio
credit, investment, and construction, while at the same tim
a series of protective t rade barriers against product .s f
areas." As a result of such local defiance there were
references in the Chinese media to the rise of "feudal
,tconomies" (%huhou jingji) as well as a spate of oblique-
. es not so oblique-warnings of a possible economic b
.e country. 2'1
Of Principals and Agents
Gmtml-Local Relations
One of the morc intractable controversies in the recent literal
concerns central-local relations. While virtually everyone agrees
an d "bureauprenellrialism.,," In a f ield not normally known for its
fertile heuristic imagination, this profusion of colorful labels and
neologisnls seeins rather remarkable.
To a considerable extent, the current state of taxonomic anarchy
stems from three inescapable facts of reform. First, the "de-totaliza
tion" of the Leninist state is without historical precedent. Second,
China's reforming institutional landscape is complex and polymor
phous, rendering al.lempts broadly to elassify emergent forms and
functions hazardous at best. And third, the institutional landscape is
itself in a st ate of flux, presenting observers with a continuously
moving target.
In some ways th e problem is redolent of th e parable of the blind
men and the elephant: analysts probing different parts of China',
reforming political anatomy often produce substantially dissimilar
sketches of the body politic. Even in cases where the same (or
similar) part of the elephant's anatomy has been touched, there are
often significant differences of interpretation. Further compounding
this difficulty is the absence of a standardized conceptual vocabulary. ,This chapter represents a preliminary effort to describe China 's ')
elephant at this s tage of the reforms. It seeks to make sense o t i
China's sbifting political-economic landscape and to establish a COrb ttext for a"essing the disparate analytical perspectives and empirical "\
findings that appear in the literature generally an d in th e essays in, .this volume in particular. After reviewing some of t he mor e promi- .
nent academic disputes conce rn ing the impac t of reform on key •.
structures of power an d authority i n t he PRC, the chapter explores
various patterns of post-reform accommodation between state and isociety. I t then considers aggregate changes in state capacity, coo-"
eluding with an overall assessment of the "state of the Slate" in t h ~ f t .'<
post-reform era. f
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