China’s Power Struggle Like a Family Spat; Elders Try to Repair Split

A Chinese power struggle is a bit like a family squabble that spills out onto the front yard where all the neighbors can hear the arguments and insults. Amid the tumult, family elders are meeting in the kitchen, behind drawn shades and away from prying eyes, to try to patch things up and hold the clan together.

Having watched earlier such outbursts, and knowing who controls the family checkbook, outsiders can guess how it will turn out. But with strong young people chafing at the old ways and demanding changes, the household patriarch may have to give way, and neighbors could find quite a different family living next door.

It has been something like that for China specialists this week as they watch the struggle in China. The past is a guide, but not necessarily a blueprint, for tomorrow’s China.

As it has for 40 years, the Chinese Communist Party holds the reins in China. Its top leaders--and their outlooks and loyalties to each other--shape policy and the government that carries it out.

The party in theory grows from the grass roots--from party cells in local factories, farms and enterprises all the way up to the policy-making Politburo in Beijing. Formally, the National Party Congress is chosen by provincial congresses and meets every five years to select a party Central Committee, currently about 177 people plus 110 alternate members. A plenum of the Central Committee then is supposed to choose the Politburo.

In practice, specialists believe, it works from the top down. The party’s Politburo makes sure that most of the right people get elected to the Central Committee by keeping a close eye on who gets into the provincial and local meetings that pick delegates to the National Party Congress. The process is somewhat like party bosses in a democracy giving bigwigs parliamentary seats in safe districts to ensure that they get elected.

The day-to-day decisions of the party’s 17-member Politburo are made by its five-member Standing Committee. This powerful group is nominally chosen by the full Politburo, but outsiders assume that the actual choice of members is made by China’s preeminent leader, Deng Xiaoping, in consultation with other senior party leaders.

Indirect Election

Government bodies have a similar origin, with a National People’s Congress--China’s Parliament--picked by local assemblies. But in this system of indirect election, the Communist Party plays a large role in selection of local representatives, and thus of the National People’s Congress. The NPC then names the State Council--equivalent to a cabinet--and the premier.

Michel Oksenberg, professor of political science at the University of Michigan, notes that “this is the theory.”

“The reality is that on the government side, there is a premier, a limited number of vice premiers (currently three), and a limited number of state councilors, a total of 10 or 15 people, and they are called the Standing Committee of the State Council. The Standing Committee of the State Council is the real decision-making body on the government side.”

The military, the third main element, is controlled by the party’s Military Affairs Commission, headed by Deng.

“The Military Affairs Commission is under the direct control of the party,” Oksenberg said. “The key point is that the party controls the gun, and what’s significant is that it’s not the government that controls the gun. It’s the Politburo, through the chairman of the military commission, who controls the army.

“And that’s Deng. He has kept that position, as Mao Tse-tung did until the end.”

Oksenberg suggests another way of looking at power and control in China.

“In reality, I’d say, depending on how you count it, there are between 25 and 35 leaders in China who are equivalent to the board of directors and management committee of a large American corporation.”

These two or three dozen include the preeminent leader--Mao until his death in 1976, then an interregnum, now Deng--plus the party chief (Zhao Ziyang), the premier (Li Peng), one or two vice premiers, and perhaps one or two more at the apex of the party.

Also in the elite few dozen, Oksenberg said, are leaders of education and propaganda--the “mouths of the party center”--and a number of respected elders--”elephants,” some Chinese call them--who do not owe their positions to the preeminent leader.

Some of these veteran, respected party members find a spot on party bodies such as the Central Advisory Commission, which has no direct power but can heavily influence the outcome in key bodies such as the Politburo.

In fact, specialists note that some major decisions of the Chinese Communist Party are made at “expanded” meetings of party bodies and that the outcome may hinge on who is allowed to attend.

“Whether it’s an expanded meeting of the Politburo or an expanded meeting of the (Politburo) Standing Committee doesn’t make any difference,” said Roderick MacFarquhar, professor of government at Harvard University and director of Harvard’s Fairbank Center for East Asian Research. “All these people who are meeting are, as far as can be judged from outside, meeting as equals. All these terms (titles of bodies) are in a sense meaningless.

“Decision-making is larger than the one or two people who are supposed to be in charge,” MacFarquhar said. “The question always is who decides who attends what kind of meeting.”

“We’re seeing a decision made by an amorphous body,” he said, “a mix of Central Committee, Politburo and Central Advisory Committee, probably in proportions that enable the person calling the meeting to stack it in his favor.”

Politburo May Meet Today

Noting reports that the Politburo may meet today or Friday, MacFarquhar said that apparently means the top party leadership is ready to make known its decision in the current power struggle.

The party leaders have already held the expanded Politburo meeting, he said, “and probably have decided what to do, and the coming meeting of the Politburo will be the formalization.” Oksenberg said that the past few weeks and the coming Politburo meeting show that the “struggle has clearly begun for who will be China’s next preeminent leader.

“The two contenders are Zhao and Li, and each is calling his assets into play,” Oksenberg said.

“Deng, as head of the Military Affairs Commission, has thrown his weight behind Li, but not all military men have followed Deng. The outcome will be decided in the Politburo and the Military Affairs Commission.”

But China’s seething social and political conflicts may not be settled by a party verdict handed down by a few top leaders.

MacFarquhar sees a need for other steps, interim moves to defuse the crisis, followed by long-range changes to give more Chinese a sense of participation.

“In a crisis like this, a real conflict between society and state,” he said, “you want to temporize, take the pressure off, defuse the conflict. “So you could call a meeting of the National People’s Congress. The actual summoning of the supreme organ of state would defuse the crisis and allow time for debate.”

“Second, as in Gorbachev’s Russia, it’s clear that having elections and breathing some life into moribund bodies is healthy, it blunts criticisms and gives society channels to make its voice heard.”

Communist leaders, he said, could add a bit of democracy by enlivening a peripheral organization called the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference as a forum for minor parties to speak out and voice criticisms of Communist policies.

Bremner, an assistant foreign news editor, was chief of The Times’ Hong Kong bureau from 1970-1972.

THE PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY

Facts and figures on China’s army (based on 1986-87 data):

TROOPS: Estimated 3.2 million personnel, including army, 2.3 million; navy, 340,000; marines, 56,500; air force, 470,000

TERMS OF SERVICE: Selective conscription--army, marines, 3 years; navy, 5 years; air force, 4 years; (estimated 1.35 million conscripts--men and women aged 18-22)

RESERVES: 4.4 million (obligation to age 45); army, 1.8 million; navy, 115,000;marines, 50,000; air force, 200,000

PARAMILITARY: 12 million, including people’s armed police, 1.85 million; basic militia, 4.3 million (men and women aged 18-28 who have had or will have military service, serve 30-40 days per year with active forces); and ordinary militia, up to 6 million (ages 18-35, some basic training but generally unarmed)

BUDGET: $5.47 billion

COMMAND STRUCTURE: Effective commander in chief is Deng Xiaoping, chairman of the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission; defense minister, Qin Jiwei; army’s chief of staff, Chi Haotian

SOURCES: The International Institute for Strategic Studies’ The Military Balance 1987-88; Defense & Foreign Affairs Handbook 1986