As Hongyi Lai noted, the breakup of the party state in China had been predicted on several occasions since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. And yet, the Chinese Community Party (CCP) remains strong. Lai noted that the party state is the key to national unity and a driver of economic reform in China. For this and other reasons, Lai predicted, "China will probably remain authoritarian for years to come. It is not likely that the party state will collapse any time soon."
Lai contrasted the very different behavior of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). He noted, for example, that the CCP took "highly pragmatic U turns" in 1992, when China officially adopted a "socialist market economy" as the goal of reform, and again in 1997, when the Chinese president and the head of the Chinese Communist Party Jiang Zemin promoted further marketization and authorized private Chinese entrepreneurs to join the Party. These measures aided economic growth and enhanced the representation of economic elites in the Party. Since 1978 the CCP has undertaken pragmatic, incremental, and successful economic reforms to boost domestic demand and stimulate economic growth. The CPSU, however, failed to make these types of pragmatic adjustments. Lai noted that the two parties also differed in their willingness to crack down on protests against the regime. In the same year (1989), for example, that the Chinese reacted harshly to the Tiananmen Square protests, Gorbachev decided not to suppress protesters in East Germany.
The two parties have also demonstrated a very different tolerance for dissent. "China has no tolerance for questioning of communist ideology unlike the CPSU under Gorbachev," said Lai. The two parties also dealt very differently with active social groups. "China treats social groups differently depending on their potential to challenge the CCP," explained Lai. After 1989, social groups gained political space and influence in the former USSR and Eastern Europe.
Lai noted that China's economic growth enables the CCP to spend more resources on quelling the most politically threatening social groups. In the end though Lai attributed the survival of the party state in China to its willingness to "do whatever is necessary to maintain its rule."
Hongyi Lai, who is an associate professor at the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham, made his remarks during a day-long conference at the School of Public Policy at Central European University on March 21, China's New Normal: Transitions at Home and Abroad.