China's Trapped Transition_ The Limits of Developmental Autocracy - Minxin Pei [3]
China’s lagging political openness is reflected in the low scores the country receives from several widely used international indexes. The Polity IV Project consistently rates China as one of the most authoritarian political systems in the world.17 Similarly, the Freedom House’s survey rates China as almost completely “unfree.” In fact, China’s ratings for the 1990s were slightly worse than those for the 1980s.18 Data compiled by Transparency International, a nongovernmental organization (NGO) that surveys perceptions of corruption worldwide, suggest that China is perceived as one of the more corrupt countries.19 The International RiskGuide,which assesses risks stemming from corruption, weak rule of law, bureaucracy, repudiation, and expropriation, has also portrayed China in a mixed light. Its ratings for the period from 1984 to 1997 show that corruption had worsened in China and that the level of bureaucracy remained essentially unchanged. On the positive side, the guide suggests that the legal system may have improved moderately from a very low base, and that the risks of debt repudiation and asset expropriation were considered negligible.20
Various measures of governance confirm the underdevelopment of key public institutions in China. In a “quality of governance ranking” compiled by Jeff Huther and Anwar Shah of the World Bank in 1998, China was placed in the bottom third of the eighty countries ranked. China received a score of 39, similar to that given to poorly governed countries such as Egypt, Kenya, Cameroon, Honduras, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Nigeria.21 Judged by another set of measurements used by the World Bank’s Daniel Kaufmann, Aart Kraay, and Massimo Mastruzzi to track governance in 199 countries from 1996 to 2002, China was grouped among the countries commonly associated with weak states.22
On “voice and accountability,” China was ranked 186, ahead only of failed states and the most repressive countries; it was comparable to Angola, Belarus, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan. China was behind most former Soviet-bloc states and major developing countries, including Russia, Ukraine, India, and Mexico. In terms of “regulatory quality,” China was placed at 116, in the company of Nicaragua, Cambodia, Papua New Guinea, Egypt, and Mali. China’s ranking was below India, Mexico, and Russia, three countries normally known for weak regulatory regimes. On “control of corruption,” China was ranked 111, along with Colombia, Ethiopia, Iran, and Romania. Although China fared better than Russia, it was judged to be less capable of controlling corruption than India, Brazil, and Mexico. China did better on the other three governance indicators. In terms of “government effectiveness,” China was placed at 71, in the company of Namibia, Croatia, Kuwait, and Mexico; it was slightly ahead of Russia and India. On “political stability,” China was ranked 87, comparable to Belarus, Mexico, Tunisia, and Cuba. China scored higher than India, Russia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. In terms of “rule of law,” China was ranked at 94, comparable to Mexico, Madagascar, and Lebanon, and better than Russia but worse than India.23
Such ratings, however, should not completely negate the substantial—and in many aspects, positive—changes that have taken place in the Chinese political system since the late 1970s, particularly in the areas of elite politics, institutional development, and state-society relations. Some of these changes have been forced on the ruling regime by the necessity of economic reform, while others were the products of regime-initiated policies or societal pressures. As a result, politics in China following two decades of economic reform exhibits tentative