China's Trapped Transition_ The Limits of Developmental Autocracy - Minxin Pei [53]
Co-optation
The co-optation of social elites by the CCP, a logical complement to selective repression, has proved to be highly successful in shoring up the CCP’s base of support, particularly after the suppression of the prodemocracy movement in 1989.159 Some observers even characterized the CCP’s strategy of co-optation as one of building a state-corporatist regime.160 The implementation of this strategy was facilitated by the party’s continual control of critical economic resources, as a result of partial economic reforms, and instruments of patronage, such as appointments, promotions, and professional and financial rewards, and by the increasing quantities of such resources available to the party as a result of economic growth.
The Co-optation of the Intelligentsia
The CCP had a contentious relationship with the intelligentsia in the 1980s. Dominated by the liberals, the Chinese intelligentsia in the 1980s constantly challenged the CCP’s authority and demanded political reforms. The CCP responded with periodic crackdowns, such as the antispiritual pollution campaign in 1983-1984 and the campaign against bourgeois liberalization following the student demonstrations at the end of 1986 and beginning of 1987. In the aftermath of the Tiananmen crackdown, the regime gradually adjusted its policy toward the intelligentsia. This strategic modification became more evident in the 1990s as the CCP accelerated economic liberalization. Fortuitously, the CCP’s strategic adjustment occurred at a time when the majority of Chinese intellectuals were moderating their demands. The tragic set-back of Tiananmen and the turmoil following the collapse of communism in the former Soviet bloc undermined the rationale for the continuation of a confrontational approach. With the purge of liberal leaders such as Zhao Ziyang and Hu Qili at the top of the CCP hierarchy, the incarceration of many student leaders and activists, and the exile of the leaders of the Tiananmen movement, the intelligentsia had lost their strongest advocates, allies, and leaders. At the same time, the dramatic economic liberalization the regime took after Deng’s southern tour in 1992 seemed to kindle the hope that economic reform would create more favorable conditions for political reform.
Taking advantage of these adverse circumstances for the Chinese intelligentsia, the CCP launched a systematic campaign of co-optation to recruit loyalists from among the intellectuals and professionals. This campaign mixed the traditional (and most likely ineffective) tools, such as ideological indoctrination, and the more sophisticated ones, such as salary increases, recruitment, cultivation, promotion, and special rewards. Published official documents indicate that the party began a concerted campaign to expand recruitment and give the party more patronage power on college campuses in the early 1990s. A joint directive issued in August 1993 by the CCP’s Central Organization Department (COD), the Central Propaganda Department, and the State Education Commission delineated two specific tasks for party organizations in universities.
First, they were to recruit a group of outstanding cadres under the age of 45 into college administrations. The directive mandated that each college and university must have at least one to two such cadres. The implicit goal of this recruitment and promotion drive was to create avenues of political advancement for the intellectuals on college campuses, which were a hotbed of liberal ferment in the 1980s. To give the party more patronage power, the directive instructed that the party committees in universities would have decision-making power on the university’s annual work plan, appointment and dismissal of cadres in departments, the promotion of academics, budgeting, and major capital projects.