Is China Unstable

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Is China Unstable

Is China Unstable?
Foreign Policy Research Institute Wire, July 1999
By Minxin Pei
Western attitudes toward China tend to oscillate between two extremes, often with confusing
rapidity. Not too long ago China was widely portrayed as an emerging military and economic
threat to the West. Its total economic output was projected to surpass that of the United States in
two decades. Its military modernization was expected to provide China the capability to project
its power far beyond its borders (and the recent Cox report on nuclear espionage has revived
those concerns). And its authoritarian regime was supposed to be able to retain its grip on power
for a long time.
Nowadays, however, the speculation about China's future has generally inclined toward
pessimism. The influential British magazine The Economist openly speculated about the break-up
of China in its last issue of 1998. Not long before that, the same publication ran a cover editorial
opining about the imminent collapse of the Chinese economy. And in a speech delivered in April
of this year, President Bill Clinton warned of the dangers of an unstable China which failed to
reform.
Even within China, signs of danger and nervousness abound. Arguably, the Chinese government
now faces the most severe challenge since the Tiananmen Square demonstrations a decade ago.
Unemployment is rising at a frightening rate. Several key anniversary dates fraught with symbolic
and real political dangers (such as the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic, the 10th
anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, and the 40th anniversary of the uprising in
Tibet) have prompted the government to maintain a tight watch over the country's tiny dissident
community lest something akin to the 1989 movement break out again.
In my judgment, the current pessimism about China's short- term prospects is as exaggerated as
the previous optimism about its long-term economic outlook. In fact, China is likely to retain its
short-term political stability despite many signs of potential turmoil, but will face rising instability if
the regime fails to undertake significant political reform in the next decade.
CHINA'S CURRENT DIFFICULTIES
While parallels between the problems China faces today and those it confronted during the
Tiananmen crisis a decade ago may be alluring, they are misleading. In 1989, the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) faced a genuine crisis of political legitimacy, which had its origins in
1978-79, when th...

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