China’s Future: Implications for US Interests

Introduction and Key Findings
Robert Sutter
September 1999

The National Intelligence Council (NIC) routinely sponsors conferences with outside experts to gain knowledge and insights to sharpen the level of debate on critical issues. The views expressed in this conference summary are those of individuals and do not represent official US Government positions or views.

Strategic Analysis Program

The National Intelligence Council and the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress hosted an all-day seminar at the Library of Congress on September 24, 1999 assessing the five-year outlook for China's domestic development and international security behavior. Entitled "China's Future--Implications for the United States," the seminar featured seven formal presentations by prominent academic specialists complemented by commentaries by nine China specialists from the US Intelligence Community. The Directors of the China offices in the State and Defense Departments offered concluding remarks on the implications of the conference findings for US policy toward China. Panelists and commentators focused specifically on political leaders and institutions, economic and social trends, security and foreign policies, and the overall prospects for China through 2005 (see seminar program). The main thrust of the deliberations reflected cautious optimism about China's future. The regime appears resilient enough to deal with most anticipated problems internally. China is wary of the United States and is gradually building military power. But unless Beijing is challenged by unexpected circumstances, China is unlikely to break with the United States or engage in disruptive military buildups or aggressive foreign behavior.

Political Leaders and Institutions
China's current third-generation leadership and its likely successors will continue the process of political regularity and institutionalization that has made China's political behavior much more predictable than it was during the Maoist period (1949-76). The political leaders lack charisma but are more technically competent and much less ideologically rigid than past leaders; they are aware of the problems they must face and are prepared to deal with at least some of the most important ones.

Some of the seminar participants noted that the coming fourth-generation leaders did not share the same background; a number also questioned the capabilities of the leaders in comparison with their predecessors. Fourth-generation leaders came of age during the Cultural Revolution but often have diverse political views and lack the binding solidarity of experiences that the previous generations of leaders gained on the Long March and during the Anti-Japanese War, for example. Collectively, fourth-generation leaders are seen as less dogmatic and confrontational, more compromising, and more highly educated. The level of political skills of the fourth generation also was questioned.

Composed of large number of lawyers and economists, the fourth generation is more capable and innovative than previous leaders when confronted with economic and social problems; their behavior is more technocratic and pragmatic when dealing with domestic and foreign policies. Despite being more highly schooled than their predecessors and the beneficiaries of numerous and varied exchanges with the United States and other countries, the forthcoming leaders have a limited understanding of the West.

The institutionalization of China's politics is the result of a proliferation of institutions from the top down. Accompanying this growth in the number of institutions is a distinct break with the Maoist past as evidenced by growing regularization and routinization. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and National People's Congress (NPC) sessions and plenums have been regularly scheduled and held since the late 1970s, and planning and budgetary cycles are adhered to. The principles of class struggle have been replaced by budgets geared to a socialist market economy and political constituencies. Socialist laws continue to be promulgated, although enforcement remains problematic. Some seminar participants argued that however important institutionalization is, one of the most significant changes in China's political landscape is occurring outside of the state--the growth of civil society amid the increasing wealth and influence of businessmen and academics.

A stabilizing factor, increasing institutionalization means less arbitrary decisionmaking. A disadvantage is that China's current (and future) leaders may not be as decisive as Deng Xiaoping because they are hemmed in by the growing bureaucracy and procedures.

The military has less representation at the top-level CCP Politburo. Some participants approved this development, but others saw a bifurcation between the CCP and the People's Liberation Army (PLA). This trend also occurred in the Soviet Union before its demise and could be a precursor to future instability in China. An urban, educated elite, the current leadership is civilian based: only two of the twenty-four members of the Politburo have military experience or could be considered "military politicians." The majority of Politburo members, seventeen of twenty-four, have experience in the more modernized, coastal provinces. Seminar participants pondered the meaning of the civilian majority and wondered if the military will be able to muster sufficient support for its modernization programs.

Leadership succession, nepotism and favoritism, and increased corruption also were discussed. Though China's politics are becoming more stable and predictable, with the battles being fought on the institutional level, personal rivalries and relations will remain important and cannot be ignored.

Economic and Social Trends
Economic growth will outpace population growth, continuing the overall rise in the standard of living that has characterized Chinese development over the past two decades. A young, highly trained labor force with modern technical skills will increase in numbers. The infrastructure of rail, roads, and electronic communications greatly reduces perceived distance and helps to link the poorly developed interior to the booming coastal regions. Chinese development remains heavily dependent and will deepen its dependency on foreign trade, investments, and scientific/technical exchange. The regime faces daunting problems--notably ailing State Owned Enterprises and a weak banking/financial system. Also worrisome are the increasing number of unemployed and laid-off workers, decreasing inventories, a high real-interest rate, the divestiture of military enterprises, and bad loans and bankruptcies. The leadership has taken concrete steps recently to remedy a few but certainly not all of these problems and weaknesses.

One result of China's external outreach will be the growing importance of ministries with outside thrust, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (MOFTEC). The latter, especially, will become more important if Beijing joins the World Trade Organization (WTO). Central regulatory bodies such as State Economic and Trade Commission (SETC) also will become more important; the old bureaucracies and their stakeholders associated with the planning system, such as the State Planning Commission (SPC), will become less important and have to reinvent themselves for alternative functions. If China must privatize and institute a market economy to be successful, the changes this approach creates in society will clash with the very nature of the Communist ideology and authoritarian political system favored by Beijing.

Manifestations of social discontent seen recently with demonstrating peasants and laid-off workers and Falungong sect members are likely to continue, but these developments have a long way to go before they pose a major threat to the regime. Notably, they need to establish communications across broad areas, establish alliances with other disaffected groups, and put forth leaders prepared to challenge the regime and gain popular support with credible moral claims. Success also requires a lax or maladroit regime response. The attentiveness of the regime to dissidence and the crackdown on the Falungong strongly suggest that Beijing will remain keenly alert to the implications of social discontent and prepared to use its substantial coercive and persuasive powers to keep it from growing to dangerous levels.

A variety of current sources of social tension and conflict in China might present opportunities for expressions of discontent. Groups that might exploit such tensions include those people living in the poorer interior provinces (versus the richer coastal regions), ethnic minorities, farmers, members of the unemployed or underemployed floating population, laid-off state-enterprise workers and other laid-off workers, students and intellectuals, and members of sects such as the Falungong.

Security and Foreign Policies
China will remain dependent on its economic connections with the developed countries of the West and Japan. Nonetheless, Chinese nationalism will exert pressure to push policy in directions that resist US "hegemony" and the power of the United States and its allies in East Asia, notably Japan. Beijing will resolve these contrasting pressures by attempting to stay on good terms with its neighbors and by keeping open economic and other channels with the United States while endeavoring to weaken overall US power and influence in East Asia and elsewhere in its long-term attempt to create a more "multipolar" world. Military modernization will continue at its current or perhaps a slightly more rapid pace--an outlook that poses little direct challenge to the already modern and advancing militaries of the United States and its allies and associates in East Asia, except in such nearby areas as Taiwan, where the Chinese development of ballistic and cruise missiles poses notable dangers.

China also sees a challenging international security environment and is apprehensive about several international security trends. It is particularly concerned about the perceived US "containment" and military "encirclement" of China, US national and theater missile defense programs, and the potential for Japan to improve its regional force projection capabilities. Despite some successes in military modernization, the PLA remains limited in its ability to quickly absorb sophisticated weapon systems and to develop the joint operations doctrine necessary to use these weapons effectively.

Taiwan, however, is China's main security focus, and it is the biggest problem, both politically and militarily, in China-US relations. The issues of continuing US arms sales and missile defense deployments in the region remain problematic for the future. China and the United States are attempting to find common ground and interest in rebuilding in the wake of the Belgrade embassy bombing. Beijing will continue to press for reunification with Taiwan. China's overtures to South Korea and Japan are a possible counter to Washington's moves vis-a-vis Taiwan.

What Could Go Wrong
The relatively sanguine outlook noted above would be fundamentally called into question by possible scenarios addressed at the seminar.

Internal Paralysis/Overriding Crisis. A combination of political, economic, and/or social crises could overwhelm the Chinese regime and lead to policy paralysis or regime failure. A major downturn in the economy, a rapidly developing, politically oriented dissident movement backed by large numbers of economically and socially disaffected people, combined with leadership divisions and a struggle for power at top levels in Beijing, would be the main ingredients for this scenario to come about. The possibility of this happening over the next five years was noted by several speakers, though it was generally seen as less than likely.

Crisis Over Taiwan. This scenario assumed that Taiwan would continue down the path toward independence, continue to receive strong backing from the US, and Beijing would feel it had little recourse other than major military pressure on Taiwan (conferees generally agreed that PLA modernization would not be sufficient to enable it to invade the island successfully). The crisis would lead to a break in economic and other constructive US-PRC ties, resulting in a stand-off, developing into a new cold war between the United States and China in East Asia. Several speakers expressed worry that anticipated trends regarding Taiwan could lead to this scenario, though they judged it unlikely that the PRC would allow a standoff to reach the point of cutting off advantageous economic relations with the United States.

US Policy Implications. Seminar commentators were downbeat about the near-term outlook for progress in US-China relations, noting that domestic trends in both capitals make forward movement difficult, with the possible exception of an agreement on China's entry into the WTO. A few endeavored to defend the administration's efforts to "build a constructive strategic partnership" with the PRC--a concept roundly criticized by the nongovernment specialists at the seminar. US-China military relations were seen as likely to develop only slowly over the next few years.

Welcome
9:00-9:05 AM
Robert L. Worden, Chief, Federal Research Division

Opening Comments
9:05-9:15 AM
Robert G. Sutter, Moderator, National Intelligence Officer for East Asia

Panel One
9:15-10:45 AM
Political Leaders and Institutions

Li Cheng - Recent Leadership Trends and Changes

Lyman Miller - Institutional Trends and Prospects

Commentators: Kurt Hockstein and Clifford Edmunds

Panel Two
11:00-12:30 AM
Economic and Social Trends

Barry Naughton - Evolving Economic Developments

Martin Whyte - Social Trends and Stability

Commentators: William Newcomb and Karen Jones

Panel Three
2:00-3:30 PM
Security and Foreign Policies

David L. Shambaugh - Trends in International Security Policies

Commentators: Ronald Christman, Donald Kilmer, and Paul Heer

Panel Four
3:45-5:15 PM
Summary: Overall Prospects for China

Ezra F. Vogel and Arthur Waldron - Political, Economic, Social, and International Security Trends, 2000-2005

Commentators: Stephen Schlaikjer and John Corbett

Ronald Christman is with the Defense Intelligence Agency.

John Corbett is with the Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.

Clifford Edmund is with the Foreign Broadcast Information Service.

Paul Heer is with the Council on Foreign Relations.

Kurt H. is with the Central Intelligence Agency.

Karen J. is with the Central Intelligence Agency.

Donald Kilmer is SIGINT National Intelligence Officer, National Security Agency.

Li Cheng is Professor of Politics at Hamilton College.

Lyman Miller, is a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Barry Naughton is Professor of Economics, University of California, San Diego.

William Newcomb is with Intelligence and Research, Department of State.

Stephen Schlaikjer is China Director, Bureau of East Asian Affairs, Department of State.

David Shambaugh is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and Director of the China Policy Program, George Washington University.

Robert G. Sutter is National Intelligence Officer for East Asia, National Intelligence Council.

Ezra Vogel is Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University.

Arthur Waldron is Lauder Professor of International Relations, University of Pennsylvania and Director of Asian Studies, American Enterprise Institute.

Martin King Whyte is Professor of Sociology, George Washington University.

Robert L. Worden is Chief, Federal Research Division, Library of Congress.

Figure 1
China and Neighboring Countries

Cheng Li

While this generation of leaders will be diversified in their foreign policies as well, most of them tend to emphasize (or perhaps overemphasize) the importance of economic might, more specifically, the role of science and technology in what they often call the information age. They will work hard to change China's international image. They are cynical about the moral superiority of the West, resentful of Western arrogance, and doubtful about the adoption of a Western economic and political system to China. Yet, even at the time of crises, such as the tragic incident in Belgrade, they understand the need for cooperation rather than confrontation. Their policies toward the US will be firm, but not aggressive.

Shortly after Jiang Zemin and his so-called "third generation of leaders" replaced Deng Xiaoping, China began to face a new round of political succession. This is no surprise because Jiang is already 73 years old, and two other top leaders, Premier Zhu Rongji and head of the National People's Congress Li Peng, also are in their early 70s. The average ages of members of the Standing Committee, Politburo, and Secretariat of the 15th Central Committee (CC) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1999 are 67, 65, and 65, respectively.¹ When the next party congress convenes in 2002, these three pivotal, hierarchical leadership organizations all will be occupied by people with an average age of 68 to 70.

Jiang and other top leaders certainly are aware of the importance of selecting their own successors. Jiang reportedly will hand over, one at a time, three important posts that he currently holds (President, Secretary General of the Party, and Chairman of the Military Commission) to the new generation of leaders.²

The elevation of 55-year-old Hu Jintao to vice president of the state during the Ninth People's Congress (NPC) in 1998 was the first major sign of the rise of the fourth generation of leaders. Along with Hu, two other Politburo members in their 50s, Wu Bangguo and Wen Jiabao, are now in charge of China's industrial, agricultural, and financial affairs on the State Council where they serve as vice premiers. Zeng Qinghong, who is in his late 50s, is now the head of the Party's Organization Department and is in charge of personnel affairs in the CCP. The rise of the fourth generation of leaders is most evident at the provincial and ministerial levels. Li Changchun, 55, the youngest in the Politburo, serves as Party boss of Guangdong (now China's richest province). Li Keqiang, 44, was recently appointed Governor of Henan (now China's most populous province). Last year, all ministries and provinces went through a reshuffling of their top leadership. After the rearrangement, 14 of the total of 29 ministers in the State Council were born in the 1940s. So were 12 Party bosses and 21 governors and mayors in the total of 31 provinces and directly administered cities.³

Although the top Chinese leadership still is largely ruled by the third generation of cadres, elites in their 50s and late 40s (young by Chinese standards) are aggressively beginning to take the helm in both central and local administrations. Suggesting now that the political future of these prominent individuals in the new-generation leadership is assured would be premature. In PRC history, many appointed heirs (e.g., Liu Shaoqi, Lin Biao, and Wang Hongwen under Mao; Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang under Deng) suddenly fell from favor. One of the current front-runners in the fourth generation of leaders--even if not Hu Jintao--however, probably will succeed Jiang in the not too distant future. More important, this generation most likely will govern China at the beginning of the next century.

What are the main characteristics of the fourth generation of leaders? In what ways do they resemble or differ from their predecessors, Jiang Zemin and the third generation of leaders? What are the principal criteria and institutional restraints for advancement to high office in this generation? In addition to intergenerational differences, are there any important intragenerational differences among the new leadership? The fourth generation of leaders emerges at a time when China faces many perplexing economic and socio-political problems such as unemployment, income disparity, and official corruption. What initiatives and constraints do the fourth generation of leaders have as they respond to all these challenges? To what extent will the coming of age of the fourth generation of leaders change the way Chinese politics operates? Research on Chinese politics in general, and its leadership in particular, will be invaluable if it can begin to address any of these questions.

Summary of Key Findings

This paper shows that this generation of leaders is truly unique because they had their formative years during the Cultural Revolution (CR) and therefore can be identified as members of the CR generation. The CR, arguably the most extraordinary event in contemporary China, and the dramatic changes thereafter, had an ever-lasting impact on the collective characteristics of this generation:

• Because of the disillusionment that they experienced during their formative years, the fourth generation of leaders in general are less dogmatic ideologically and more open minded than their predecessors.

• Because of the national madness and fanatic violence that they witnessed during the CR (and the lessons they learned from it), the fourth generation of leaders is less confrontational and more compromising than their predecessors in dealing with both factional politics and social unrest.

• Because of all kinds of hardships they went through at a young age, especially those who were sent to the countryside to work as farmers for years or even a decade, they have a deep understanding of China, particularly its problems. As a result, they probably are more capable in dealing with tough challenges that the country faces.

• Because of their common technical educational backgrounds, their domestic and foreign policies are likely to be technocratic.

This paper also argues that the fourth generation of leaders is distinctive not only for its shared characteristics, but also for its intragenerational differences. The fourth generation of leaders is more diversified than previous generations of CCP leaders in terms of formative experiences, political solidarity, career paths, and occupational backgrounds:

• Although members of this generation of leaders share similar memories of the CR, they often have a diverse spectrum of political affiliations. This generation of leaders can be divided into three distinct groups based on the period in which they joined the Party: prior, during, and after the CR.

• Unlike the previous generations of leaders who usually shared such strong bonding experiences as the Long March, the Anti-Japanese War, and the Socialist Transformation, this generation of leaders lacks political solidarity. Members of the fourth generation of leaders were often on conflicting political sides during their formative years.

• There are now more diversified channels through which new leaders can advance their political careers. Nepotism and favoritism in various forms, for example, school ties, blood ties, mishu (personal secretaries), and tongxiang (fellow provincials), have played a very important role in elite promotion. But at the same time, even the political establishment is strongly restricting nepotism and favoritism. Deputies in both the Party Congress and the NPC increasingly have used their votes to prevent both princelings and those favored by top leaders from being elected.

• Although both the third and fourth generations of leaders are known for the predominance of technocrats, more lawyers and financial experts are in the fourth generation than in any previous generation.

All these changes and trends will have strong implications for the transformation of the Chinese political system.

Sources of Data and Methodology

This paper is primarily part of the author's ongoing study of Chinese technocrats and their generational differentiation. A more quantitative analysis of the fourth generation of leaders will appear in a coming issue of The China Quarterly.⁴ A detailed discussion of the generational change of the PRC leadership, including case studies and more qualitative analysis, will be published in the author's forthcoming book China's Leaders: The New Generation.⁵ The data of this study are largely from the following sources:

1. A quantitative analysis of biographical information about members of the fourth generation of leaders. The data are based on two pools of comprehensive biographical sources. The first pool includes data on 298 political elites, obtained exclusively from the 1994 revised edition of Who's Who in China, which lists a total of 2,121 current leaders at all levels above medium-sized city government.⁶ The 298 leaders under study are members of the youngest group included in the volume, all of whom were born between 1941 and 1956. The second pool is based exclusively on biographical data of all members of the 15th CC of the CCP and the 15th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), which were released to the public in 1999.⁷ This source contains a total of 459 top Party leaders and almost half of them, 224, who were born between 1941 and 1956, are under scrutiny. The biographical information of a total of 522 leaders from both pools, including their demographic distribution, educational backgrounds, and career paths, is coded for analysis through a Microsoft Excel program.⁸

2. An examination of informal networks of prominent figures in the new generation, especially those who have made their career advancement through school ties, blood ties, patron-client connections such as work experience as mishu. In addition to the above data, this study uses other sources from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan, seeking verification from multiple Chinese publications and the increasing availability of Internet information from the PRC and elsewhere.⁹

3. A qualitative examination of values and policies of new leaders. For most of the PRC's history, differences and conflicts in views and policy preferences among leaders usually have been unknown to the public until the political winner announces the defeat of his enemy. But during the late 1990s, Chinese leaders seem more accessible and more open about their views and policies. In 1998, for example, almost all newly appointed cabinet ministers appeared, one at a time, on a prime-time talk show on China's Central Television.¹⁰ In 1999, all provincial governors and party secretaries did the same. Meanwhile, numerous books written by, or about, new leaders recently have been published in China.¹¹ The Internet version of Renmin ribao (People's Daily) now routinely provides links to the writings and speeches of China's ministerial and provincial leaders. The increasing transparency of the views of individual leaders provides important information about their policy preferences in dealing with domestic issues and their perceptions of China's strategic interests in a changing world.

Each source represents a particular methodological approach. By putting all of them together, however, we can develop a comprehensive understanding of the main characteristics of China's fourth generation of leaders.

Defining Political Elite Generations in China

Analysis must start with concepts and their definitions. The term 'political generations' is frequently used but not carefully defined. Like many other biological and sociological categories "ethnicity," "class," and "ideology," "generation" can be imprecise at the boundaries.¹² Defining "where one generation begins and another ends" is arbitrary.¹³ In scholarly writings, generational boundaries often are based on the combination of both birth year and shared major life experiences during formative years.¹⁴ In Chinese studies, a political generation is often defined as a group of birth cohorts within approximately 15 years.¹⁵ These age cohorts have experienced the same major historical events during their formative years (described as between approximately 17 and 25 years of age).¹⁶

The term "political generations" that many sinologists have used in their studies may be more accurately identified as "political elite generations" because the concept has often been based on the distinctive political experience of elites.¹⁷ One can identify five political elite generations in CCP history: 1) the Long March veterans, 2) the Anti-Japanese War officers, 3) the Socialist Transformation cadres, 4) the CR grown-ups, and 5) the Economic Reform elites (see table 1).¹⁸

This categorization is also identical to the generational classification of China's leadership used by the current Chinese authorities. This scheme is, of course, highly political because Jiang Zemin has identified himself as the "core of the third generation of leaders," and used this identity to consolidate his political legitimacy as an heir to Deng. As both a Communist student activist in France in the early '20s and a member of the Long March, Deng should not be seen in the same generation as Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang. But by identifying Deng as the core of the second generation and himself as the core of the third, Jiang skipped the real core members of the second generation, such as Hu, Zhao, Wan Li, and Qiao Shi.¹⁹ More importantly, by appointing the core members of the next generation, Jiang has attempted to diminish the pressure of power contenders in his own generation, such as Li Peng and Zhu Rongji. Similarly, Hu Jintao, Zeng Qinghong, and their same-age cohorts, who used to be identified as the 'third echelon' (disan tidui), are now more inclined to be seen as the core of the fourth generation that is in line to succeed Jiang.

Table 1
Political Elite Generations in Communist China

In studies of Chinese political elites, generational classification based on age should also allow for some exceptions. For instance, Hu Yaobang is usually seen as a member of the second generation of leaders, although he took part in the Long March (Hu was one of the youngest people in the March). Most political leaders in the PRC, however, fit into the generational classification listed on table 1. For example, the formative years of a majority of the third-generation leaders occurred after the Japanese occupation. Among the 24 members of the Politburo in 1998, only one joined the Party before 1945.²⁰ Most of them began their careers during the Socialist Transformation in the 1950s.

The CR Generation and the Fourth Generation of Leaders

How is the fourth generation of leaders defined? On what basis does one determine the age cohorts of this generation? The fourth generation is composed of those who grew up, or had their formative years, during the CR. Generally, they acquired their first political experiences in the course of the CR. This study defines the CR generation as the one that consists of those who were born between 1941 and 1956. They were 10 to 25 years old when the CR began in 1966. They are 43 to 58 years old in 1999. Determining the cutoff age of this generation is somewhat arbitrary. Yet this definition is largely based on both the "15-year span of a generation" and "formative years between 17 and 25." The oldest among this group was 25 years old when the CR began, and some may have finished college and started working by the mid-60s. The youngest member was 10 years old, a bit too young to be an active participant, but certainly old enough to have memories of the beginning of the CR. Most of them were either in high school or in college in 1966, and therefore a majority of them served as Mao's Red Guards. They were the most active participants of the CR. The so-called three old classes (laosanjie), the high school classes of '66, '67, and '68, constituted a large portion of the CR generation. Some were among the twelve million young men and women who were sent to the countryside in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Some later returned to school to complete their education, especially after 1977, when Deng reinstituted entrance examinations for higher education. They managed to get their careers back on-track (see figure 2).

The CR certainly affected this generation of leaders in ways that were remarkably different from other generations. Despite some important differences between subgroups of this generation, virtually all of them believed in Mao and Maoism (at least in the early stages of the CR). Later, however, they were disillusioned and felt manipulated, or even betrayed. Their idealism was shattered, their energy wasted, their education lost, and their careers interrupted. Some scholars argue that, as a result of the CR, this generation also "acquired a variety of political skills and . . . the habit of independent thinking."²¹ As a Western journalist described them, members of the CR generation "learned hard lessons about their society and its political system."²² Many fourth-generation leaders are outspoken about how the CR affected their political attitudes. For example, Chen Zhili, new minister of Education and a rising star among the fourth-generation leadership, wrote in 1999 that "the great calamity of the CR inflicted upon my family and myself made me first wander and wonder, and then wake up to reality, becoming politically and intellectually mature."²³

One important conceptual distinction should be made here: the fourth generation of leaders is the CR generation, but not vice versa. This is the distinction between political elite generation and political generation. In the CR generation, those who had a college education and/or became political leaders were only the tip of the iceberg. An overwhelming majority of the CR generation lost the opportunity to be educated during the CR and now often face unemployment and such other problems as the increasing cost of educating their children and caring for their parents. There are profound differences among the members of the CR generation.

Figure 2
China: PRC Fourth-Generation Leaders

An interesting phenomenon in China today is that many leading figures in various walks of life are members of the CR generation. These include leaders of the dissident community such as Wei Jingsheng, Wang Juntao, and Wang Xize; Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige in film-making; Chen Yifei and Luo Zhongli in fine arts; Liang Xiaosheng and Wang Shuo in literature; Jing Yidan and Yang Dongping in mass media; Li Xiaohua and the Liu brothers in business; He Qinglian and Hu Angang in economics; Li Yinhe and Jin Dalu in sociology; and Zhu Xueqin and Qin Hui in history. They differ profoundly from each other, but they are all very much aware of their CR identities and often attribute their careers to the lessons learned, the hardship endured, and the wisdom derived during the CR.²⁴ For example, Hu Angang, an economist at China's Academy of Social Sciences, spent seven years at a collective farm in Heilongjiang during the CR. He recently claimed that "one who has no knowledge of rural China does not know about China; one who does not understand China's poverty-stricken regions does not have a real understanding of China."²⁵ After becoming a well-known economist in China's capital, Hu has continued to frequently visit the rural areas in poor and remote provinces.

Within the fourth generation of leaders, there are some important contrasting subgroups, shaped by variables such as when they graduated from college, when they joined the Party, and what their class or family backgrounds were. A survey of the period during which leaders joined the Party, for example, presents an interesting finding: about half of the fourth generation of leaders (50.9 percent in the first pool and 48.6 percent in the second) joined the CCP during the decade of the CR. This is surprising because one of the major criteria of the elite recruitment policy during the Deng era, particularly in the early 1980s, was to eliminate those "beneficiaries' of the CR," people who advanced their political careers during that decade. Apparently, no sanctions are taken against young political activists from the CR taking leadership positions. They differ significantly from those who joined the CCP either before or after the CR. Those who joined the Party before 1966 were often labeled "revisionists" or "capitalist roaders," and some were persecuted. Those who joined the Party soon after the CR were usually the people who had long been denied the opportunity for a political career because of their class and occupational backgrounds. Liu Mingkang, vice Governor of Fujian and a senior economist with an MBA from the University of London, did not join the Party until 1988. Xu Kuangdi, Mayor of Shanghai, joined the Party as recently as 1983. These people were politically inconspicuous before the 1980s, when many of them worked as engineers or college professors. In about a decade, they have risen to China's top leadership positions.

Within the fourth generation, variations in joining the Party suggest that seniority of Party membership, which was crucial in the promotion of political elites for most of the PRC history, has now become less relevant. More important, this generation of leaders lacks political solidarity. Similar to the leadership in post-Communist Russia, China's fourth generation of leaders may lack a common ideology and a willingness to commit to the existing political system. They also lack a fundamental consensus on major socio-economic policies.²⁶

Quantitative Findings and Contrasting Trends

This section presents quantitative findings in three aspects of the fourth generation of leaders that deserve close attention: 1) the uneven distribution of birthplace, with local leaders often selected from their native places; 2) the dominance of technocrats and the emergence of lawyers, economists, and financial experts; and 3) the role of informal networks in elite promotion and institutional restraints on nepotism. In each of these three aspects, contrasting trends coexist. The interactions of these conflicting trends will determine the future direction of the elite formation and the political participation in the country.

Birthplace: Uneven Distribution, Localism, and Countermeasures
Several recent studies of post-Mao leadership show an over-representation of elites who were born in eastern China, especially in Jiangsu and Shandong Provinces.²⁷ This trend of unbalanced representation by birthplace is also evident in this study of the fourth generation of leaders (see table 2). The largest proportion of the fourth generation of leaders in both pools, about 40 percent, are from eastern China, especially from Jiangsu and Shandong. In the 1999 pool, only 1.8 percent of the leaders were born in Guangdong and 2.7 percent in Sichuan. This contrasts with the early years of the reform when the country was controlled largely by "strong men" from Guangdong (e.g. Ye Jianying) and Sichuan (e.g., Yang Shangkun, Zhao Ziyang, and indeed Deng himself), who appointed many of their fellow natives to important positions.²⁸

The large portion of the third and fourth generations of leaders who were born in Shandong and Jiangsu is due to several factors: the legacy of the Anti-Japanese War, during which many third-generation leaders joined the army from Shandong, more advanced educational systems in some regions, and the correlation between economic wealth and the formation of political elites. The high percentage of Shandong natives in leadership, some speculate, stems partially from the role of Zhang Quanjing, a native of Shandong and former head of the CCP Organization Department. Zhang did not get enough votes to be elected to the CC in the 15th Party Congress largely because of his history of regional favoritism.²⁹ Similarly, the high percentage of Jiangsu natives in leadership may be, in part, because Jiang Zemin, a Jiangsu native, likes to promote his fellow Jiangsuese. Jiang was also known for favoritism in appointing many members of the "Shanghai Gang" to the central leadership.

Table 2
Distribution of Birthplaces, by Province, of the Fourth and the Third Generations of Leaders
Source and Notes: Liao and Fan, Zhongguo renming da, (the 1994 edition); and Shen, Zhonggong di shiwujie zhongyang weiyuanhui zhongyang zhongyang jilü jiancha weiyunahui weiyuan minglu. China News Analysis, (July 1-15, 1997), Li and White"The Fifteenth Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party," 246. Population and GDP data are calculated from Zhongguo tongji nianjian, 1996 (China Statistical Yearbook, 1996), State Statistical Bureau, comp. (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe, 1996), 42-43, and 73. Percentages do not add up to 100 due to rounding. The data were accumulated and tabulated by the author.

Nepotism based on native places has faced much resistance even from the Party establishment. Some institutional arrangements have been made to curtail over-representation of certain regions in the central leadership. In the 15th CC, all but one of the thirty-one province-level administrations have two full members.³⁰ No province as such has more than two full seats in the 15th CC. This pattern of distribution can also be found in China's six greater military regions of which each occupies two seats in the full membership of the CC. Also, each province and ministry has one representative in the CCDI. Hu Angang even proposed a "one province, one vote" system for the membership of the Politburo. In his view, this would give every province a voice in Party policy and narrow the disparity between coastal and inland provinces.³¹

Another important trend in the formation of provincial and municipal leadership during the reform era is the selection of local officials for leadership positions in their native areas. This trend challenges the "law of avoidance" by which mandarins were prohibited from serving in their native provinces and counties, a policy characteristic of traditional China for centuries that continued during the Mao era.³² But this has changed during the reform era.³³ The trend of selecting local elites from the same region seems to continue in this new generation of leaders: 47 percent of provincial and municipal leaders in the 1994 pool and 46 percent in the 1999 pool work in their native provinces, percentages are higher than those of the third generation (37 percent).

These findings are closely connected with two recent developments in China's civil service: the reform of the Chinese nomenklatura system and the local cadre elections. The nomenklatura system has been the hallmark of the personnel systems of Communist regimes.³⁴ Since the 1980s, the system has changed in China: the traditional policy was that appointees must be chosen by superior organizations two levels above; now, immediately superior administrative levels choose appointees.³⁵ In practice, this means that provincial party secretaries and governors are responsible for appointing the "second tier" provincial level officials and mayoral and prefecture heads of medium- and small-sized cities. As a result, the total number of cadres who are supposed to be appointed by the CCP Organization Department decreased from 13,000 to 2,700.³⁶ The lists of names for the province-level nomenklatura are now composed disproportionately of people from the province in question.

The trend toward recruitment of more native-born elites is strengthened by the local cadre elections and by the "election with more candidates than seats" (cha'e xuanju), which has been adopted in Party congresses in various levels (from grass-roots to the central committee) since 1992. As a result, governors and Party secretaries have increasingly acted as representatives of their provincial interests, rather than satraps of the central authorities. In the 1990s, local people's congresses occasionally even have refused to approve candidates endorsed by the central authorities, producing what the Chinese official journal, Liaowang, called "unexpected results."³⁷

The central authorities certainly are aware of the trend in selecting local officials from their native places. The CCP Organization Department has recently made efforts to limit the number of provincial top leaders who work in their native areas. In June 1999, it issued "The Regulation of Cadre Exchange," which specifies that 1) county and municipal top leaders should not be selected from the same region; 2) those who head a county and city for over ten years should be transferred to another place; and 3) provincial leaders should be more frequently transferred to another province or to the central government.³⁸ In 1999, only six provincial party secretaries served in the province in which they were born (seven in 1998 and nine in 1997). The tension between the demand for regional representation and the restraint on the rise of localism has become a crucial issue in Chinese politics. This is, of course, not entirely new in the PRC history. What is new is the growing public awareness of this tension and ever stronger institutional and popular resistance toward both the political control from the center and region-based favoritism.

Educational Background: Dominance of Technocrats
and Rise of Lawyers and Economists
An important change of leadership in China during the reform era is the dramatic increase in the number of political elites with higher education, especially those majoring in engineering and the natural sciences. This study of the fourth generation of leaders confirms the trend (see figure 3). In the 1994 pool, approximately 90 percent of leaders received tertiary education or above; among them, 72.1 percent attended a university and 9.1 percent have postgraduate degrees. In the 1999 pool, over 98 percent of leaders received tertiary education or above. The percentage of those who received postgraduate degrees also increased to 17.4 percent, almost double that of the 1994 pool. The percentage of postgraduate degrees and four-year college degrees in the fourth generation (81.2 percent in the first pool and 76.3 percent in the second) is higher than that of the third generation (58.6 percent).

Figure 3
Education Trends of Third-and Fourth-Generation Leadership

While some leaders in the third generation attended schools in both former Communist-bloc and Western countries, no one in the fourth generation of leaders studied in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. This situation should not be surprising because between 1949 and the early 1960s, the period during which the third generation of leaders attended college, China sent about 11,000 students abroad, an overwhelming majority of whom went to the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries.³⁹ Now some of them have become top leaders in the country. Seven of 22 current full Politburo members (32 percent) studied in the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries, including four standing members: Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, Wei Jianxing, and Li Lanqing.

China did not send any significant numbers of students abroad until 1978. According to a recent report released from the official Xinhua News Agency, from 1978 to 1998, China sent about 293,000 people to 103 countries as students or visiting scholars.⁴⁰ Over half of the total (160,000) went to the US.⁴¹ Among these 293,000 students and visiting scholars, 96,000 (32.8 percent) returned to China.⁴² From 1992 to 1998, the rate of those who returned increased by 13 percent each year, partly due to China's reform policy and rapid economic and social development.⁴³ Returned scholars and students also have emerged in the fourth generation of leaders under study. In the 1994 pool, six leaders received their degrees from foreign universities (mainly Europe and North America). A few leaders had academic experience in the US as visiting scholars. For example, Chen Zhili worked at Pennsylvania State University from 1980 to 1982. Jiang Enzhu, director of the Hong Kong Branch of the Xinhua News Agency, was a visiting senior research fellow in both the Institute of International Affairs at Harvard and the Brookings Institution. The presence of the Western-trained elites in China's top leadership, however, is still marginal.

Probably the most important difference between the third and fourth generations lies in the distribution of disciplinary training. Table 3 shows the distribution of academic majors among those who have a tertiary education or above in the 14h CC and two study pools of the fourth generation of leaders. The members of the 14th CC consisted mainly of the third generation of leaders. This comparison reveals several important trends. First, the predominance of those trained in engineering and natural sciences is evident in both generations (the relatively low percentage on the 14th CC may be because the academic majors of 36.7 percent of the study pool were unknown). These engineers- or scientists-turned-politicians can be defined as technocrats, people who have three traits: technical educations, professional experience, and high posts. In a more inclusive definition, the category of technocrats also includes experts in economics and finance.⁴⁴ Using this definition, technocrats account for 65.9 percent in the 1994 pool and 56.9 percent in the 1999 pool. The real number of technocrats in the fourth generation of leaders should be even higher, because some who attended the military academy also studied engineering.⁴⁵

Table 3
Comparison of the Distribution of Academic Majors of Members of the 14th Central Committee of the CCP and the Fourth Generation of Leaders
Source and Notes: Data on the Fourteenth Central Committee are from Zang Xiaowei, "The Fourteenth Central Committee of the CCP," 797 and Li and White, "The Fifteenth Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party," 250. Data on the fourth generation of leaders are from Liao and Fan, Zhongguo renming da, (the 1994 edition); and Shen, Zhonggong di shiwujie zhongyang weiyuanhui zhongyang zhongyang jilü jiancha weiyunahui weiyuan minglu. The data were accumulated and tabulated by the author. Percentages do not add up to 100 due to rounding.

Second, table 3 shows that the percentage of the fourth generation of leaders who are trained in economics and management, including finance, accounting, and statistics, is about three times higher than that of the 14th CC. Currently, young leaders who are in charge of China's financial system are usually economists by training. Dai Xianglong, governor of the People's Bank, Li Jinhua, auditor-general of the State Council, Jin Renqing, vice minister of Finance and director of State Administration of Taxation, and Wang Chengming, party Secretary of the People's Bank, are all economists who graduated from China's Central Institute of Finance and Banking before the CR. Just a few years ago, the most important posts in China's financial system were usually occupied by third-generation leaders who were trained as engineers.

Another important difference between the third and fourth generations is that the number of lawyers increased among the recently elected young leaders. In the 14th CC, the percentage of those trained in law was extremely low (0.6 percent), but in the fourth generation of leaders, 15 (5.5 percent) in the 1994 pool and 7 (3.2 percent) in the 1999 pool are graduates of law schools, such as the Beijing Institute of Political Science and Law. These lawyer-turned-politicians probably will follow the Party line in dealing with tough issues. However, the emergence of lawyers in provincial and ministerial leadership reflects the efforts of the central authorities to establish and consolidate the Chinese legal system during the post-Deng era. China probably has issued more laws and regulations during the 1990s than any other country in the same period. In the early 1980s, there were only 3,000 lawyers in a country of more than one billion people. By 2000, China probably will have 150,000 lawyers (the growth rate is even more rapid than in the United States, for better or worse!).⁴⁶

The contrasts among these groups in terms of their educational experiences and occupational identities are important variables that contribute to diversity of the new generation of leaders. Engineers, economists, and lawyers all are professional experts, but variations in their expertise will likely lead to differences in their political perspectives and policy choices. While engineers and economists tend to rely more on their own expertise in policymaking, lawyers may be more concerned about the procedures of decisionmaking and the socio-political consequences of policies.

Informal Networks and Their Limits: School Ties,
Princelings, and Mishu
One of the most important trends regarding the elite transformation in the reform era is the crucial role of informal networks, school ties (i.e., the Qinghua network), blood ties (i.e., children of high-ranking cadres), and patron-client ties (i.e., work experience as mishu), in the recruitment of elites. We now widely know that a significant portion of top leadership posts in both the Party and the state, in both central and provincial government, are occupied by graduates of Qinghua University, China's leading engineering school.⁴⁷ The over-representation of Qinghua graduates is also evident in the fourth generation of leaders. It includes state leaders such as Hu Jintao and Wu Bangguo as well as provincial top leaders, such as Tian Chengping, 53, Party secretary of Shanxi, and Li Jiating, 51, governor of Yunnan, and Xi Jinping, 43, acting Party secretary of Fujian. The number of Qinghua-trained leaders in this study is twice that of graduates of Beijing University. About 18 percent of the 15th CC members are also Qinghua graduates. During the reform era, Qinghua has worked to form an active network of alumni associations. For example, the number of alumni association members exceeded 2,000 in Shanghai and 1,000 in Guangzhou as early as in the mid-1980s, a period in which Qinghua graduates occupied top leadership posts in these two cities. The over-representation of Qinghua graduates in leadership, however, has recently met resistance. For example, Zhang Xiaowen, president of Qinghua and alternate of the 14th CC, was not reelected in the 15th CC.

In addition to school ties, having "blood ties," such as being the child of a high-ranking official, is important for the career advancement of the fourth-generation leaders. Previous studies of the third generation of leaders in the post-Mao era had similar findings. Many of the princelings in the third generation of leaders suffered tough times in their childhood. Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, and Zhou Jiahua, for example, all came from the families of Communist martyrs. They participated in the Communist revolution during the early years of their political careers. But the princelings of the fourth generation usually have had a privileged life (though in some cases the privileged life was interrupted briefly during the first few years of the CR). Because of this, they are less secure than leaders of the third generation, who could stand on their own. This was reflected in the election of the 15th CC in 1997. Many candidates with princeling backgrounds did not get elected because of opposition by the congress deputies. Bo Xilai, son of Bo Yibo and mayor of Dalian, was an example. Four princelings, Deng Pufang, Xi Jinping, Liu Yandong, and Wang Qishan, were among the seven alternate members who received the fewest votes. This suggests that nepotism in its various forms has received growing opposition, not only from Chinese society, but also from deputies of the Party Congress.

Patron-client ties, especially work experience as personal assistants to senior leaders or as office directors, also play an important role in elite formation among the new generation of leaders.⁴⁸ In the PRC the post of mishu long has served as a steppingstone for political elites. Song Ping, standing member of the Politburo in the 1980s, was Zhou Enlai's mishu in the late 1940s. Hu Qiaomu, also a member of the Politburo in the 1980s, served as Mao's mishu in the 1940s. During the CR, Chen Boda, standing member of the Politburo, served as Mao's mishu earlier in his career. Wang Ruilin, deputy director of the General Political Department of the PLA, served as Deng's mishu for over three decades prior to his current post. The fourth generation probably has had more mishu-turned-leaders than any previous generation. This study shows that, among the fourth generation of leaders, about 41 percent had work experience either as mishu, or as office directors. Table 4 shows some members of the fourth-generation leadership in the study pools who had work experience as office director and/or mishu. They usually work as mishu and/or office directors for a few years and then are promoted to much higher leadership posts.

The large number of mishu and office directors in the fourth-generation leadership is because senior leaders in the second and third generations relied heavily on the assistance from young, intelligent, and well-educated mishu. Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao served as mishu and office directors. Indeed, Wen Jiabao served as an assistant to three top leaders, Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang and Jiang Zemin, at different times. While Hu and Zhao were purged as a result of a power struggle, Wen remarkably survived and even was promoted. This example certainly shows Wen's "intelligence" and political capacity. In June 1999, the provincial Party committee of Heilongjiang selected a large number of young cadres with advanced degrees to serve as assistants to top municipal leaders in the province.⁴⁹ The central authorities have made some efforts to limit the nepotism and corruption that are related to the growing power of mishu in provincial and ministerial levels.⁵⁰