China's Trapped Transition_ The Limits of Developmental Autocracy - Minxin Pei [48]
First, township voters recommended candidates who met the criteria set by the local party organization. Then, the five top vote-getters gave campaign speeches at a voters’ meeting. Afterward, voters elected one of the five as the formal candidate for the township mayor. These two ballots functioned as popular votes, but had no legal standing or binding power. Finally, the township party organization reviewed the final candidate and nominated him to the township People’s Congress for confirmation.133 A similar method was used by Buyun township in 2002.134 In 2004, seven townships in Shiping County, Yunnan province, also used a similar method to elect their mayors. It is worth noting that none of these initiatives received the explicit endorsement of the CCP’s central leadership. Local reformers took on considerable personal political risks for pushing electoral reforms. For example, a township CCP secretary in a township in Chongqing was suspended for trying to hold a competitive mayoral election.135
There is doubt whether such hybrid procedures really advance democracy in the rural areas. Melanie Manion argues that various electoral experiments at the township level were designed to align voter preferences with those of the local party committees. On the one hand, since ordinary people’s choices were limited by the party’s own preferences for particular candidates, their ability to influence the electoral outcome was limited. On the other hand, the adoption of such a device would enhance the party’s own legitimacy at the local level because its own candidates would appear to have received popular endorsement. 136
Illiberal Adaptation
The survival of the CCP regime does not solely depend on its ability to deliver satisfactory economic growth. An authoritarian regime governing a fast-changing society faces two choices. One is to adopt a strategy of liberal adaptation. This addresses the rising tensions between an authoritarian regime and an increasingly pluralist society through political reforms that may strengthen the rule of law; establish institutional checks and balances; gradually expand political participation; and permit more space for civil society. Theoretically, an authoritarian regime that has adopted a strategy of liberal adaptation should have less of a need for repression and co-optation because the ruling elites can rely on newly acquired democratic legitimacy to secure their social support. But for a regime that has opted for only the most restrictive forms of political liberalization, illiberal adaptation is a far more attractive strategy for political survival. Instead of favoring far-reaching institutional reforms to restructure regime-society relations, authoritarian regimes that choose illiberal adaptation maximize their control of the state’s repressive apparatus and growing economic resources to develop, refine, and implement more subtle and effective means of maintaining political control. Applied skillfully, this strategy can help an authoritarian regime to divide, weaken, and contain the social forces that may threaten its political dominance.
In the Chinese context, the CCP’s strategy of illiberal adaptation consists of strictly limited political reform, selective repression, improved technical capacities for dealing with social unrest and emerging technological challenges, and co-optation of new social elites.
Selective Repression
A key feature of a developmental autocracy, as compared with a totalitarian regime, is the selective use of repression. Whereas totalitarian regimes arc defined