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Author: Frederick C. Teiwes

Abstract: This Working Paper is a pre-publication review of an immense documentary collection prepared over the past 25 years by Warren Sun, Adjunct Associate Professor at Monash University and Affiliate Member of the Sydney CSC. It is based on the intellectual premise that elite politics in the CCP cannot be understood without deep penetration into the details of political decision-making and conflict. In its absence, simplistic narratives emerge and become widely accepted, especially when the Party itself is creating the basis for the narrative. This is most prevalent for the immediate post-Mao period as a Hua Guofeng-Deng Xiaoping struggle between different ideological lines and in the profound misunderstanding of Hua as a limited, merely transitional political leader.

Hua nianpu uses a wide range of sources to uncover details that contest such views. These include: the contemporary PRC public record; official documentary collections; internal Party documents including unpublished speeches and compendia of circulars at major Party meetings; memoirs, oral accounts, and recollections published in the PRC by or about leaders; studies by Party history scholars in PRC journals; more-adventurous books published in Hong Kong by Party historians and former officials; interviews with scholars and retired officials; and unique interviews with officials who worked as secretaries or as aides to very senior figures and their family members, especially members of Hua’s family. However, these sources have limitations that must be considered critically and discussed in terms of what they can and cannot provide. Taken together the detailed information compiled in Hua nianpu undermines central features of the accepted narrative, most notably by showing that the 1978 work conference and the subsequent Third Plenum were joint Hua-Deng ventures to advance modernization, and when unanticipated developments weakened Hua, Deng did not act against him. Instead, he worked to lower tensions and to return the focus to their original joint plan.

Hua nianpu is a major basis for our joint book project, Hua Guofeng, Deng Xiaoping, and the Dismantling of Maoism. But this nianpu is entirely Professor Sun’s creation and exacting work. The target for submission of both these projects to their respective publishers is early 2025.

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Author: Frederick C. Teiwes and Warren Sun

�������ٰ�������:��This Working Paper is a draft chapter for a book on the poorly understood CCP elite politics of the early post-Mao period, tentatively entitled Hua Guofeng, Deng Xiaoping, and the Dismantling of Maoism. Nowhere is this period more misunderstood than in the area of ideology and its notional centrality to an imagined Hua-Deng power struggle. In the accepted narrative, a critical feature of this struggle is the February 1977 “two whatevers” editorial notionally requiring support for all of Mao’s decisions, that allegedly sought to prevent Deng’s return to work and to enforce a rigid ideological framework preventing significant change from Mao’s practices. In fact, Deng’s return to high office had been decided at the start of January, and more importantly, from the earliest days of Hua’s leadership, the task was to move away from Mao’s Cultural Revolution but to maintain regime stability and unity by expressing fealty to a leader still deeply worshipped in major sections of the population and respected by Party leaders, notably those of the revolutionary generation. Claims that “whateverists” engaged in an intense struggle with reformers seeking a pragmatic approach under the slogan “practice is the sole criterion of truth” beginning in May 1978 are not totally amiss, but they exaggerate the situation and do not adequately account for the fact that the conflict was largely among lower-level figures on the theoretical front who did not deeply engage the top leadership. There were nuanced differences between Hua and Deng on the “criterion of truth” question but nothing fundamental, and neither wanted ideological issues to disrupt the economic agenda of the fall 1978 pre-Third Plenum work conference. At the conference, however, arguments initiated by progressive theorists resulted in official acceptance of the criterion position, although there was high-level concern, most prominently expressed by Deng, for proceeding with caution, particularly as it related to Mao’s prestige. More broadly, in Party ranks many felt the plenum’s policies had gone too far and were leading to disruption in society. At the end of March 1979, Deng reacted with his “four cardinal principles” speech that demanded adherence to the political practice of Mao’s pre-Cultural Revolution period. This not only alarmed progressives but it also created leadership concern that the practical focus of the Third Plenum policies was being undermined. Deng then sought to bolster those policies, but at the time of the 30th anniversary of the PRC, he still gave priority to the “four principles” and defence of Mao. Indeed, he explicitly affirmed a lavish claim concerning Mao’s essential role in the Party’s successes, the same claim that had appeared in the “two whatevers” editorial more than two and a half years earlier.

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Author: Marc Blecher

�������ٰ�������:��Chinese workers have been the subjects of a great deal of analysis by scholars, documentation by journalists and activists, and portrayal by writers, filmmakers and artists. Light has been shone on the rich tapestry of economic, social, cultural and political forces driving them into low-paid, dangerous, degrading, alienating, mind-numbing, transient employment, on the obstacles to improvement, on workers’ understandings of their world and their lives in it, on their passivity and resistance, and on the effects of their responses. A World to Lose seeks the foundation for all this in three questions: what kind of class is the Chinese working class? What are the historical forces and processes that have formed it and how does the pattern of class formation help explain the working class’s reactions historically, presently and even prospectively? It approaches these questions through the lenses of hegemony theory and political development/path (in)dependence.

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Author : Lauren A. Johnston

�������ٰ�������:��In 2019 Foreign Policy described China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as “the most talked about and least defined buzzword of this decade”. Given that confusion and the importance of leader political speeches in China, especially those of current President Xi Jinping, it is surprising that the BRI literature has little in-depth analysed the two launch speeches of 2013. This article seeks to fill that gap with study of those speeches and focus on the five cooperation-oriented areas announced in each. In comparative context those ten pillars appear not to be descended from New Era Chinese heaven but rather demonstrate substantive thematic overlap with the ten pillars of what was once relatively mainstream macroeconomic development policy, the Washington Consensus. Yet, in the case of the BRI there is a relative implicit implementation emphasis also. In forward context of contemporary global political economy tensions, the need to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, the G7’s Build Back Better and the European Union’s Global Gateway ambitions also, this article may offer a timely fresh and comparative lens on the BRI.

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Authors : Frederick C. Teiwes and Warren Sun

Abstract : This Working Paper is a draft chapter for a book on the poorly understood CCP elite politics of the early post-Mao period, tentatively entitled Hua Guofeng, Deng Xiaoping, and the Dismantling of Maoism. Conventional wisdom pictures the period up to the December 1978 Third Plenum as a struggle between Hua and Deng, reflecting neo-Maoist v. reformist tendencies, and won by Deng at the plenum. In fact, there was broad consensus between them, Hua was more proactive in key areas, and there is no evidence of anything approaching a power struggle. This paper, however, deals with an area where elements of accepted views of Deng hold up. In essence, Deng held both the foreign policy and particularly PLA portfolios, notably where they concerned the crucial relationships with the US, Soviet Union, Japan, and Vietnam. In external relations Deng was broadly regarded to have performed brilliantly, while Hua was thought a mere cypher. Overall, Hua was clearly secondary in external relations, but he took the bold step of initiating relations with revisionist Yugoslavia, made the most telling proposal in the highlevel negotiations with the US, and deeply impressed dominant European leaders Margaret Thatcher and Helmut Schmidt. Deng’s foreign policy outlook was deeply influenced by Mao, he could push Mao’s “horizontal line” concept to counterproductive extremes, almost losing the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty, and rather than brilliantly negotiating US normalization, the Chinese side was slow to grasp the outcome that was always there. Most significant, and revealing of the underlying dynamic of CCP politics, was the war against Vietnam. This was truly Deng’s war, opposed by not only Hua, but also by a broad array of senior civilian and PLA officials, including surviving marshals. This was essentially the first time since his return to work in 1977, in contrast to persuading his colleagues through intense effort, that Deng simply asserted his authority. Neither here or elsewhere, was argument decisive as it had generally been under Hua’s leadership to that point. What was decisive was Deng’s enormous prestige as the most outstanding of the surviving “old revolutionaries” who achieved the success of 1949. It was the same factor that allowed Deng’s quiet coup against Hua at the turn of 1979-80, with no significant resistance from Hua or anyone else, and with no explanation being made in any official forum until well after the fact.

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Author :

Abstract : The dominance of the China Threat discourse in Australia’s public affairs suggests poor prospects for any continued Australia-China relations, let alone positive interactions of mutual benefit. An exploration of alternative ways to approach Australia’s relationship with China may though prove not only more constructive but also better future-proofed. The first step is to recognize that while China certainly poses challenges to Australia the perception of threat is more relevant to the USA. The second is the recognition of differences and the development of ways to mediate those differences. And the third is to build on the complementarities for the benefit of both Australia and China, not just through economic but also through social interactions. As Europe discovered in the 1950s, the development of mutual understanding of other peoples, their cultures, and their social and economic systems is a precursor not simply to respect and the avoidance of unwarranted prejudice, but to cooperation for a wider public good.

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Author :

Abstract : Special Economic Zones (SEZ) have become the forefront in China to test legal and technological reforms for digital trade. This chapter explores three cutting-edge case studies in China’s SEZs: the Beijing blockchain-based Single Window deposit box; newly established big data exchanges in Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai SEZs; and pilot projects in financial, medical care and automobile industries to flow data across the border in the Shanghai SEZ. It scrutinizes China's experiments in the context of its applications to join CPTPP and DEPA. It argues that the development of Chinese domestic law for digital trade is shifting away from the traditional paradigm that uses international commitments to push domestic reform or make domestic law according to international law. The development of Chinese domestic law for digital trade relies much more on China’s domestic needs than what FTAs negotiations require. FTAs are increasingly becoming a tool for China to shape international law rather than a benchmark for legislating domestic Chinese law. 

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This Understanding China Brief results from a discussion organised by the China Studies Centre on 26 July 2024 to discuss the outcomes of the 3rd Plenum of its 20th Central Committee

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This Understanding China Brief results from a discussion organised by the China Studies Centre on 28 March 2023 to discuss the outcomes of this year’s ‘Two Sessions’.

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Abstract

An exploration of the significance of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party based on the linkages apparent in and through its proceedings. The article argues that the Congress represents less of a break with the past than the affirmation of policies and practices long since established in the CCP's operational handbook. The CCP is presented as both a learning organisation and the guiding presence that guarantees China's continued development. 

David S G Goodman, Director of the China Studies Centre and Professor of Chinese Politics

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This Understanding China Brief results from a discussion organised by the China Studies Centre on 31 October 2022 to decode the outcomes of the 2022 20th Congress of the CCP.

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This Understanding China Brief results from a discussion on 9 August 2022 to discuss the change and stasis in China’s international higher education environment.

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This Understanding China Brief results from a discussion organised by the China Studies Centre on 3 June 2022 to examine Australia-China relations after the Federal Election.

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Author : Lauren Johnston

�������ٰ�������:��The more than month-long strict ‘Zero-Covid19’ lockdown of Shanghai from April 1, 2022, drew international attention for the fact that one of the world’s richest and most trade-connected cities in the world even could be so shutdown. Economists have expressed fear that the scale of the disruption to China’s middle-class elite and to global supply chains may have lasting negative impacts for China’s economy and globalisation. In a case of making hay while the lockdown sun shines, however, while residents of Shanghai and to some extent also Beijing, have been locked inside, Beijing has been busy announcing some new hukou-related educational and civil administrative reforms. In total contrast to locking Chinese down, these may ultimately and in contrast come to underpin a far more mobile Chinese labour force, a more competitive business environment within China, and even more mobility of Chinese citizens globally. In this way, far from being incongruent with China’s economic development or globalisation, via the parallel hukou-related reforms that took place alongside the distraction of COVID19 lockdowns of early 2022, these may prove to have served to underpin not only China’s ‘high-quality development’ and ‘common prosperity’ agendas, but even the fluidity of the Belt and Road Initiative.

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The China Studies Centre, ������ and the Australian Centre on China in the World ANU held a to discuss this year’s Two Sessions and the outlook for 2022.

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This Understanding China Brief results from a discussion organized by the China Studies Centre and the Centre for Asia and Pacific Law of Sydney University on 10 March 2022 to examine the legal, political, economic, and international relations issues surrounding China arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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This Understanding China brief results from a discussion organized by the China Studies Centre and the Centre for Asia and Pacific Law of Sydney University on 3 February 2022 to examine four aspects of the Beijing Olympics: boycotts, COVID-19 control, law reform, and the economics of the Olympics. 

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This paper results from a discssion organised by our centre on 6 December 2021 to examine the resolution on CCP history. 

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