COMMENTARY
Commentary: Power and the Party
August 23, 2007
Christopher Bjorke, AFP

Beijing needs to enforce higher standards on local officials, give enterprises more freedom to prosper.

The Chinese Communist Party thinks its authority extends even over the weather. In preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, authorities have ordered scientists to produce a quota of blue skies during the events, according to the New York Times this week.

Total state power, it seems, can go to one's head.

China's Communists have held power since 1949 and have met challenges to their authority with coercion and sometimes violence. According to an opinion piece in the Aug. 22 Times, Beijing has used the 2008 games to clear out or lock down any elements that do not fit into their view of how an Olympic host city should look. This ranges from the relatively benign, such as encouraging polite behavior, to oppressive, such as placing dissidents under house arrest.

But even if the Communists' authority seems monolithic when they wield it over dissidents and other individuals, its power in many economic areas-specifically rule of law-is as weak as its ability to control the clouds in the sky.

Peripheral weaknesses

Along with the good news about China-its ascension to third place among world economies seems increasingly likely-there has been a glut of bad news, with lead-tainted toys only the latest in a list of bad food, bad medicine, bad tires and so on. Beijing's inability to stop faulty products, along with labor abuses and rampant pollution despite heavy-handed crackdowns gives the lie to the party's power.

The predicament, as laid out recently in the Wall Street Journal, is in China's local authorities. At the beginning of the country's turn toward capitalism, party officials in cities and provinces were given free rein to promote economic growth within their own fiefdoms.

Now these places are producing embarrassments and problems along with export goods, leaving Beijing with the challenge of forcing standards on local authorities without disrupting the investment and growth that they have been so successful at attracting.

Meanwhile, China is removing restrictions on foreign firms and certain financial vehicles. The China Securities Regulatory Commission in August began allowing listed companies to issue bonds, Reuters reported. Also, foreign banks, which were recently given the right to offer yuan accounts, are flourishing in the first half of this year, with banks like Standard Chartered doubling its business revenue and HSBC enjoying a 50% increase in deposits, according to Chinese state media.

Legal experts often praise the soundness of China's laws as they are paper but lament its inability to enforce them. Beijing needs to use what power it has to exert pressure on the lower party cadres that flout environmental, labor and consumer standards and give more leeway to the people and firms that can help them grow under the rule of law. Otherwise, another string of embarrassments could produce darker clouds for China than those that might rain on its Olympics.

Commentary on developing China issues appears in every edition of China Headlines. Comments can be sent to Christopher Bjorke at cbjorke@chinaforum.com.

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