Zed Books Ballot Box China: Grassroots Democracy in the Final Major One-Party State (Asian Arguments)

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Ballot Box ChinaGrassroots Democracy in the Final Major One-Party StateBy Kerry BrownZed Books LtdCopyright © 2011 Kerry BrownAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-1-84813-819-3ContentsACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, vi, ABBREVIATIONS, vii, MAP OF CHINA, viii, Introduction, 1, 1 A brief history of elections, democracy and civil society in modern China, 5, 2 Democracy ... with Chinese characteristics, 30, 3 The village election process, 57, 4 The great debate: where is Chinese village democracy going?, 94, 5 The big picture: elections as part of the dynamics of a society in change, 118, Last words, 163, NOTES, 167, BIBLIOGRAPHY, 176, INDEX, 178, CHAPTER 1A brief history of elections, democracy and civil society in modern ChinaWe have been told on innumerable occasions and in innumerable sources in English, Chinese and other languages that China has no history of democracy. One of the most forceful proponents of this view is the current leadership elite in Beijing. To the Communists democracy is a promise, which stands many decades down the line, after China has become a strong, wealthy country, and 'improved the quality' of its people.The Communists have aggressively promoted a narrative supporting this in which the long sweep of Chinese history has been characterised as 'feudalistic' from the earliest dynasties, over four millennia ago, down to the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911–12. Using templates largely borrowed from Marx, the class struggle has continued throughout the centuries between an imperial court elite based in the various shifting capitals of multiple predecessor countries and states that existed before the creation of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the vast majority of the population, divided between landowners, usually small ones, farmers and peasants. Lacking any meaningful industrialisation while Europe and North America were undergoing the first Industrial Revolution, China remained a country based on an agrarian economy deep into the twentieth century. Social relations were seen as being overwhelmingly exploitative, with the Communists talking in the early years of their revolution of 'a dog eat dog society' where the peasant and working class fed the elite with their sweat and blood.After the fall of the Qing in 1911, Republican China undertook a series of political and economic reforms which were meant to drag the country into the twentieth century, establishing at least some industrial capacity in urban centres like Shanghai. By 1920, however, of a population of over 400 million, only 2 million were categorised as proletarian. While Qing-era economic activity had involved surprising levels of sophisticated artisanship, by 1930 there was little proper infrastructure, and a largely stagnant industrial base. Severe political instability and disunity did not help things. Tragically, what had been built in the first quarter of a century of Republican rule was blown away by the devastating Sino-Japanese war from 1937 onwards. Tellingly, China's victimisation was at the hands of the one Asian power that had managed so far to adopt a Western industrial model and gain from it. This was not lost on China's intellectual elite.The May 4th Movement of 1919 (see below) celebrated the twin hopes of 'Mr Science' and 'Mr Democracy'. This slogan was to echo hauntingly across the ensuing decades. A student uprising, mostly taking place in Beijing, it had been caused initially by the ceding of German's concessions in North East China to Japan as a result of the Versailles Treaty at the end of the First World War. In July 1921, largely as an offshoot of the intellectual ferment which had produced the 4 May events, the Communist Party under the tutelage of the International Comintern of the Soviet Union held its First Congress in Shanghai. But with only a few dozen members the Chinese Communists were doomed to an early history scarred by struggle, setbacks and tragedy, not th