Why China is not a true Political Meritocracy
Through literature, news articles and propaganda, we are often told that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Government is a meritocratic organization, where all senior Government officials have earned their way to the top by proving themselves worthy over decades of ruling experience. The oft-cited comparison is that made with Barack Obama, who was one of the youngest American Presidents, elected to office at age 47, and who had not previously been a leader in American politics before being elected to the highest position in the land. When compared with Chinese politics, Obama may not have even been a provincial level governor at this age, and would certainly not have been in the running to rule the country. Chinese leaders who make it to the higher echelons of the CCP generally have decades of experience running committees at village, township, city and provincial level. They are rigorously evaluated and re-evaluated as their careers progress, through various testing criteria administered by the all-encompassing CCP Organisation Department. However, in this essay, I will argue that, while it is more meritocratic than some democracies in the West, the CCP falls short of its meritocratic ideal due to issues such as cronyism, job trading, factionalism at the higher levels of the party and, most importantly, a lack of a real guiding vision as to what constitutes a leader of true merit.
What is a Political Meritocracy?
Political meritocracy is broadly defined as a political system which is designed to identify, evaluate and promote leaders with certain, valued, qualities through the echelons of the hierarchy over time. In contrast to electoral democracies, the elite leaders are not selected by the masses through voting. Rather, (in the ideal), they rise to the top through proving themselves to be capable leaders over time, by consistently displaying qualities deemed meritorious by the institutions which select them.
In the Chinese context, it is impossible to fully know the criteria by which promotions are evaluated, as the criteria has changed over time and is not in the public domain. It is known that the ruling party stresses the need for leaders to have: extensive prior experience, due to the size and complexity of China; a track record of success, via examinations and performance reviews of past leadership posts (usually based on economic criteria); a high degree of intelligence, with university-education a must; and to be a ‘virtuous’ person, i.e. to be free from vice and corruption, and to be a moral person — a Confucian ideal which has stayed integral to Chinese politics to this day. (Bell, 2018)
History of Political Meritocracy in China
This system and its ideals have evolved throughout millennia of Chinese political experiences and thought.
The foundations of the modern Chinese meritocratic ideal can be traced back to the teachings of the ancient Chinese philosophers; Confucius, Mencius and Xunzi. Confucianism stressed the importance of virtue in a leader and the need to display virtuousness over a long period of time ‘See what a man does, mark his motives, examine in what things he rests, “How can a man conceal his character?”. (Slingerland, 2003) The ideal that leadership should be earned, not a birthright, can be found in Mencius’ teachings ‘Gentlemen should not succeed to office by heredity; one man should not hold multiple offices; promote only gentlemen fit for the task; do not execute a grandee by your sole judgment’ (Eno, 2016)
Ancient teaching on meritocracy began to manifest itself during the middle empire period (600- 900 AD), when the ‘first large-scale examination system for selecting civil officials’ was instituted. However, it is during the Late Imperial period in Chinese history that the meritocratic ideal was most influential in past Chinese governance. During the period from approximately 1400 to 1900 which encompassed parts of both the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Chinese bureaucracy and ruling classes were filled with people from diverse backgrounds who all had one thing in common. They had all passed through the rigorous and extensive examination process required to become a civil servant in Imperial China. Earning the right to serve in the Imperial court was an extraordinarily selective process, as illustrated by the percentage who succeeded during the Ming dynasty. Of the ‘some 1.5 million local Chinese’ who attempted the imperial exams every two years, only 75,000 progressed to the next stage. Out of these 75,000, only 6,000 exam-takers would progress to the final stage and ‘the right to become palace graduates’. These 6,000 represent the elite 0.004% of the 1.5m who originally took the exam, and not all of these 6,000 would be selected to join the ranks of the bureaucracy. (Elman, 2013) 4
The syllabi of these exams changed frequently throughout the period, often due to doubts of the ‘efficacy [of these subjects] as preparing grounds for government problem solving’. Subjects ranged from classical learning, poetry, natural studies, history, literature and music, combining ‘rote memorization during childhood, continued with youthful reading, and concluded with mature writing’. Clearly, the ideal was to have an elite class of civil servants and rulers who had proved themselves the worthiest of all Chinese to govern the land, through deep learning and application of varied subject matter, as well as extensive, repeated examination. Despite criticisms that the system reproduced the elite, the system created a ruling class so knowledgeable and tested that by the 16th Century, the Europeans ‘marveled’ at the system and its educational achievements. (Elman, 2013)
The chaotic period post-1905 saw the abrupt removal of the examination system at the end of the Qing Dynasty. Attempts were made to reinstate it along Sun Yat-Sen’s ‘5 Branches’ line (which stressed the need for competent bureaucrats and civil servants) during the reign of the Kuomintang Government, before the system’s collapse during the Second Sino-Japanese War. (Roberts, 1999)
The Organisation Department’s Origins in the Mao Years
However, the main foundations of the modern system for evaluating and promoting individuals within Chinese state-organs can be traced back to the caves of Yan’an, where Mao and the remnants of the nascent Chinese Red Army were based after the Long March, hiding from both Nationalist armies and the expansionist Japanese.
Drawing on both the centuries long history of the imperial examination system and its classification and ranking of individuals, covered above, as well as the Stalin-instituted Soviet Orgburo, Mao built up a new Organisation Department initially to test the revolutionary credentials of his followers, who ‘were forced to write and rewrite their personal biographies, some hundreds of pages long’ in order to prove they were not Nationalist spies or Japanese collaborators. (McGregor, 2010)
The origins of the Orgburo can be traced back to the Soviet VIII Party Congress in 1919, which established a formal body aimed at ‘systematically relocating party workers from […] one district to another’ with the aim of a merit-based promotion system based on tracking and evaluation of officials. In reality, it was used by Stalin to consolidate his power at the tail-end of the Lenin era. Stalin used his dual positions on the Orgburo and the Central Politburo to fill important Central Committee posts with his allies, thus ensuring his ascent to power after Lenin’s death. In this way, it is clear that although the ideal was for a governing body to ‘assume systematic control over the appointment of government officials’, in reality it was used from the outset as a political tool which promoted cronyism and negated the meritocracy. (Rigby, 1988)
As Mao consolidated his grip on the organs of the state post-1949, the CCP Organisation Department grew in size and scope in the decades that followed. By the late 1990’s, the organisations whose senior members were appointed by the CCP Organisation Department encompassed every aspect of Chinese politics, society, business and culture. Although it is beyond the scope of this essay to list these in great detail, even an overview of the key areas and positions gives a sense of the pervasiveness of the department.
Nominally, the Central Organisation Department manages all of the main Party Central positions (Secretary General of the CCP Central Committee, members of the CCP Standing Committee, members and alternative members of the CCP Politburo etc). Below this, all senior positions in the Party Bureaucracy (e.g. Heads of the Party School, of all Work Committees, Editors of all state-run media organisations) are part of this umbrella. The President of the Central Military Commission, the Chairmen of the National People’s Congress, the heads of state banks, bureaus, agencies, senior members of the judiciary, heads of trade unions and many more important positions are all under the remit of the department.
Most importantly however for the purposes of running a meritocracy, all senior positions at province, and sub-province (city, township, village) are decided by the CCP Organisation Committee, or its sub-Organisation Departments at each sub-level. This means that the Party Secretary of every province, every SAR and every centrally administered city; every mayor, every Governor, every Chairman etc. are all appointed by some level of the Organisation Department. (Chan, 2004)
Through extensive tracking of performance on criteria such as ‘economic growth, air quality, public order’ and many other factors, as well as peer reviews, psychological tests, lie detectors and interviews (McGregor, 2010), the Organisation Department is designed to implement the meritocratic ideal whereby leaders at each level of the Chinese body-politic earn their place through years of experience and a proven track record.
In contrast to democracies in the West, where almost anyone can run for most senior offices (Member of Parliament in the UK, Congressman or President in the USA), without having had to demonstrate any leadership capability or experience in the past, clearly China’s is, in principle, a more meritocratic system.
Issues with China’s Meritocracy
Theoretically, this system should ensure officials at every level have earned their place through merit, rather than guanxi (connections) or graft. However, there are countless cases of officials taking bribes and kick-backs in exchange for pressuring subordinates in their Organisation Department to accelerate promotions for allies or allow people to skip rungs on the promotion ladder. This ‘pay-to-play’ mechanism was especially rampant in areas that were experiencing rapid economic growth, as being in a position of power or officialdom could allow for extraordinary rent-seeking.
As an example, an official in Suihua, a rural county in Heilongjiang province, paid 300,000 RMB for a local government job which he was then able to leverage over a period of time to extract over 5 million RMB in rent-seeking from his position. (McGregor, 2010) At higher levels of government, such as at the Shenyang city-level government, officials including the former Mayor, Mu Suixin, were found to have extracted tens of millions of RMB in bribes for filling subordinate positions with those who were willing to pay for the privilege (China Daily, 2001). At all levels the low-to-medium tiers of government, at villages, townships and cities, unchecked construction and rapid economic growth led to huge monetary incentives to be the person who rubber-stamps deals, leading to frequent breakdowns in the meritocratic ideals of the system and unfettered rent-seeking from officials looking to line their pockets.
When one looks further up the hierarchy of the Chinese government, the dynamics of rising from provincial level to the central bureaucracy and above are different to the petty-graft and guanxi mechanisms that operate at the lower-to-medium levels. After the end of the ‘strongman’ era of Chinese politics, post-Mao and Deng, the dynamics at the higher levels became increasingly reminiscent of the intrigue and factionalism which characterizes other political systems. Although not formally recognized by the CCP, since the end of the Deng era, factions have existed within the upper-echelons of the ruling party. Around the time of the Jiang Zemin — Hu Jintao transition of power, four separate factions existed within the higher echelons, Jiang Zemin’s faction, Hu Jintao’s faction, the Communist Youth League of China faction and the ‘princelings’ (those whose father had previously served in a high position within the government).
Statistical data shows that from the start of the Jiang Zemin era to the end of the Hu Jintao era, factional ties increased the chances for a provincial Party secretary to be promoted to a position within the elite echelon of the CCP. However, for promotions from provincial level to the slightly lower ministry-level, only economic performance (one of the only criteria that most scholars agree on as essential to an official’s promotion prospects) affected their chances of promotion. (Choi, 2012)
Prior to current supreme leader Xi Xinping’s ascension to Party Secretary of the Central Committee of the CCP, it was public knowledge that within the successor group to Hu Jintao, a rivalry between two faction groups existed, on one side the ‘princelings’ sect, represented by Xi Xinping, Bo Xilai and Wang Qishan, and the ‘populists’ (from families that did not have a history of prior elite service in the party) represented by Li Keqiang, Li Yuanchao and Wang Yang. (Li, 2009)
Evidently, near the summit of Chinese politics, the extent to which the meritocratic ideals still determine promotions is debatable. Clearly there are other factors, such as family connections and factionalism, that impact on elevation to the elite tiers of the politburo. In addition, there has been a long history of elite politicians using anti-corruption drives to consolidate power, eliminate rivals and further weaken the extent to which merit determines an official’s position within the hierarchy. The examples of the purge of Bo Xilai (seen by many as President Xi eliminating of a rival for the top leadership) (BBC, 2017) and Chen Liangyu (‘interpreted as Hu Jintao’s attack on Jiang Zemin’s faction’) (Choi, 2012)
This brings up the central problem with China’s claim to be a political meritocracy, that its definition of merit is unclear, unstated and thus impossible to verify. The selection process for the CCP Standing Committee is completely unknown to outsiders. Below this, the selection criteria for officials at any level above from the lowest villages and townships is extremely opaque. There is some knowledge about how the leader of the Organisation Department is chosen (through a ‘combination of nominations, written and oral examinations, and inspections’, followed by committee selection), but basically no information about how the Organisation Department’s own criteria for selecting and promoting officials across the huge range of political bodies, organisations, businesses, unions and associations that fall under its purview. (Bell, 2017)
In the mid 1990’s, some information regarding the criteria for evaluating officials at lower levels of Government (townships and villages) was released in the public domain. Economic development indicators, such as Gross National Product, industrial output, industrial profits, agricultural yields and tax revenues were heavily weighted as criteria for evaluation. Other criteria such as ‘Party Building’, that is, the strengthening of local Party organization, education and health indicators were also included in the performance criteria for cadres (Whitang, 2004) Clearly, in the past, merit was hugely linked to the economic performance of the official’s area, which makes sense given the government’s main priority during this time was mass poverty alleviation and rapid economic growth.
Today however, there is no such information available to observers and academics. As outlined above, promotion amongst the elite tiers seems to be at least partly-linked to an official’s prior economic performance and his/her connections to factions within the Central bureaucracy. In Late Imperial China, reams of materials were available on the content of the imperial exams, and often people would re-take the exams over decades in the hope that one day they would succeed and ascend to the palace civil service. It is hard to argue that this would be a worthwhile venture if the criteria for success was not transparent.
Conclusion
In modern China, leaders agree that the unfettered pursuit of economic growth above all else can lead to environmental degradation, rising inequality and a host of other negative externalities. If China is truly the meritocracy that it claims to be, then it is essential that it makes efforts to reform the system and criteria through which it classifies and rewards merit. GDP figures can no longer be a proxy for performance for officials
The three issues with China’s current system are hugely inter-linked. At the lower levels of government, the incentives for corruption, cronyism and petty graft can be lessened by building a more transparent selection process for officials that would eliminate the opportunity for officials in local level Organisation Departments to rent-seek through ‘pay-for-play’ methods.
As one examines the higher echelons of the Party, the same issues exist, but instead of petty corruption, the opacity which surrounds the selection of top leaders brings rise to allegations of factionalism and divisions within the Party. The legitimacy of CCP rule over China rests hugely on maintaining stability at every level of government. If factionalism and division give rise to public power struggles, as with the Xi Jinping — Bo Xilai purge in 2015, the image of stability and unity within the ruling elite begins to crumble.
The CCP must institute clear guidelines for what constitutes merit amongst its higher echelons of leadership and reform the Organisation Department and the Politburo selection process to reward leaders who have consistently displayed merit throughout their political career. If not, the Party leads itself open to accusations of corruption, cronyism, factionalism and opacity which could threaten the very foundations of Communist Party rule in China.
As such, I do not believe the system as it currently operates is a true meritocracy. It espouses meritocratic ideals, and at some levels, rewards them. However, there are countless examples across every level of government in China where merit plays second fiddle to cronyism, factionalism and guanxi. These are merely symptoms of a deeper problem which relates to the vagaries of a system that has little transparency about its selection of officials and one which still has not figured out how to define what it wants in its leaders.
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