The Context 89

In this Phase, the earlier economic reform measures paid off and generated double-digit annual growth in China. The country’s economic transformation gave birth to new types of institutional contradictions that concerned Chinese elites.

Institutional Contradiction 1: Authoritarianism vs. Elite Legitimacy

The Chinese economy had become deeply interdependent with the rest of the world since its entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. China wanted to be regarded as a cooperative and respectable member in the international community so as to preserve a favorable trading environment. To show its compliance with world society values, China joined international organizations and also signed a series of international treaties, including the signing of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights on 199814. China also hosted international conferences and forums promoting rights-related concepts and practices. For example, in 2004 China’s ministry in charge of its population policy (i.e., National Population and Family Planning Commission) organized an

international forum to celebrate the 10th _{anniversary of the International Conference on}

Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994, which marked the first time a rights-based approach to population policy was established in the international

community.

Despite these aspirations, China’s human rights record was tainted; it was generally regarded as a source of “anxiety” by the international human rights system. Chinese elites had to grapple with the “deep tensions between China’s traditional statist conception of sovereignty and its efforts to be regarded as a benign and responsible global power” (Sceat & Breslin, 2012). This tension was not only present in the international arena, it

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https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/10/08/china-ratify-key-international-human-rights-treaty. Accessed on March 8, 2016.

also spilled over to domestic domains because Chinese citizens were increasingly aware of Western values of human rights and democracy and would evaluate their government with these international benchmarks. Thus, Chinese elites faced eroding legitimacy both internationally and domestically.

To alleviate the contradiction between authoritarianism and the need to be viewed as a legitimate regime, Chinese elites symbolically adopted human rights concepts and practices in various domains. Rights-related concepts, such as the rule of law, social justice, equality and transparency were incorporated into government policies to varied degrees. The implementation, however, tended to be superficial. A typical example was the phenomenon of “rights on the book”. By 2000s, China had established laws

protecting the rights of women, children and the disabled and its criminal procedure protected defendants’ rights in trial processes. Nonetheless, courts, being dependent on the government, often “shut the courthouse door to sensitive cases or unpopular and powerless litigants” (FF Memo, Law, Belkin, 2008). Similarly, although the government made efforts to be transparent and “service-oriented”, significant gaps persisted between rhetoric and actions, as an FF officer noted:

For all the rhetoric in recent years about openness of information on governmental affairs and despite experiments with approaches like public hearings and press conferences, few institutionalized norms or procedures yet exist for ensuring that

openness. (FF Memo, Governance, Hartford, 2007a)

This officer also pointed out that as of 2007, the practice of direct elections, initiated in early 1980s in villages of Southern China, remained confined to the lowest administrative level of villages without a prospect to scale up.

Yet another example was superficial treatment of inequality. In Phase 3, deepened inequality led to social unrests across China. As the FF Beijing Representative observed,

“[t]he fact that social disturbances have increased dramatically in the past 10 years (reaching some 87,000 protests in 2005) has led to a strong focus on maintaining stability” (FF Discussion Paper, 2007). As a result, the government announced grand programs to combat inequality, such as the “Harmonious Society” movement that

intended to “harmonize” the relations of different social groups. Yet in reality, the government often used such rhetoric to shut off dissent, as one FF officer explained: While the leadership's call for building a "harmonious society" was previously taken to emphasize the need to redress widening inequalities resulting from the unfettering of market forces, it is now often encountered as a call for the dampening of debate or protest…Some local whistle-blowers have suffered severe legal repercussions. Our grantees have been feeling the pressures in a variety of ways, including visits from state security agents, denial of permission to hold some public meetings, and more

complicated requirements for approval from higher level authorities before they can formally apply for grants from us or other foreign donors. (FF Memo, Governance, Hartford, 2007b)

Elite legitimacy was further strained by the country’s authoritarian cultural tradition. One example was the stigma on AIDS. Although the central government acknowledged the existence of AIDS in China in the early 2000s, local elites continued to deny the existence of AIDS in fear that their regions would lose business and tourism. Surveys indicated that many senior party members believed AIDS was a consequence of immoral behaviour. As an FF officer lamented:

Despite legal protection against discrimination, People living with HIV/AIDS in China have lost their jobs, been driven from their homes and disowned by their families. They have been barred from attending school, receiving health services, getting married, or visiting public swimming pools… fifteen years after the first AIDS case was reported in China, and at a time when one million individuals may be infected, only a handful of people living with HIV or AIDS have voluntarily gone public. (FF Memo, Sexuality and reproductive health, Lee, 2003)

Hence the institutional contradiction between authoritarianism and Western concepts of rights and social justice, which was increasingly used to assess elite legitimacy, resulted in elites’ superficial adoption of rights-based concepts and practices. Such being said, symbolic adoption still created a political space for other actors to promote rights-related concepts and practices legitimately, although such actions needed to be conducted with great caution.

Institutional Contradiction 2: Market Economy vs. Domestic Social Service Gaps

In the communist system, the government used to be the sole provider of a comprehensive array of social services. With the economic transition to a market

economy, the government receded from providing many of such services. The

contraction of the government’s role took place during the increasing stratification of the Chinese society; as a consequence many poor social segments were too deprived to fend for themselves. Hence, one major problem the elites wrestled with in Phase 3 was a lack of social service to disadvantaged citizens and subsequent social disturbance. The aforementioned extensive social protests (87,000 in year 2005) worried elites.

Increasing social service gaps also worried many average Chinese citizens. Starting from the 1990s, grassroots NGOs — non-profit organizations set up and managed by Chinese citizens without government involvement — emerged as a spontaneous response to the deprived state of many social groups. It was for the first time since the founding of PRC that a large group of extra-institutional organizations went into existence.