Bo Xilai affair a turning point for China's top leadership
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A revelatory story emerged in China this spring: Bo Xilai, Chongqing’s powerful Communist Party head, was stripped of both his post and party membership and accused of shocking abuses of power, including covering up his wife’s alleged involvement in the death of a shadowy British businessman.
On May 2, the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center held a special seminar to make sense of what this unusual high-level scandal could mean for the future of China’s current political system, erupting just months ahead of a once-in-a-generation leadership transition.
Minxin Pei, director of the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at Claremont McKenna College, said the scandal is a severe test for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which balances on a knife’s edge as it prepares to replace the majority of its Politburo members—the highest CCP echelon. The Bo affair has exposed the existence of serious corruption at a very high level of government, calling into question the party’s image and credibility.
“This is the biggest threat to party unity since 1989,” he said.
More potentially damaging still, however, is the negative light it has cast on China’s overall political system. The scandal has revealed weaknesses and loopholes in the power structure, and the government’s poor crisis management skills.
“The Bo Xilai affair is the beginning of the end of the Tiananmen era,” Pei said. “Twenty years from now, historians will make this point.”
Xueguang Zhou, a professor of sociology and Freeman Spogli Institute senior fellow, agreed with Pei’s analysis that Bo’s fall from power has tarnished the party’s image and deeply disrupted the cohesiveness of its upper leadership.He spoke also of the outpouring of criticism on social media sites for the government’s inability to reign in corruption—so much so that censors have not been able to keep up.
“These voices have been so fierce in criticizing the top leadership that it has huge implications for the emergence of China’s civil society,” Zhou said.
He expressed his concern for the future of local politics after the smoke from the Bo affair has cleared. Although it is widely acknowledged in China that shady political dealings go hand-in-hand with local-level politics, positive innovations in governance also frequently occur at the city and county level.
“I hope that local governments will still have the power to experiment,” he said.
After all is said and done, China’s top leadership is at a major turning point. Only time will tell the full impact of the fall of Bo Xilai, both during this year’s power transition and the evolution of China’s government structure in the coming decades.
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Graham Brown
Walter H. Shorenstein
Asia-Pacific Research Center
616 Serra St., Encina Hall E310
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
0
gkbrown@stanford.edu
Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellow on Southeast Asia
Graham K. Brown directs the Centre for Development Studies at the University of Bath. He has held research positions with Oxford University, and with the Consumers Association of Penang, Malaysia. His many publications include a chapter on Malaysia in The Political Function of Education in Deeply Divided Societies (2011). His current work focuses on the interactions between inequality, identity, and security, with particular reference to Southeast Asia.
Qiang Mai
Walter H. Shorenstein
Asia-Pacific Research Center
616 Serra St C332
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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maiqiang@stanford.edu
Visiting Associate Professor
Mai Qiang joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) during the 2012–13 academic year from the Harbin Institute of Technology’s Management School where he serves as an associate professor.
His research interests encompass the process of reform in Chinese state-owned enterprises; decision making in hierarchical organization structures; evolution mechanisms underlying risk decisions; and operations research. During his time at Shorenstein APARC, Mai will participate in an interdisciplinary study evaluating the degree of internationalization that occurs in transnational enterprises in China and the United States.
Mai holds a PhD in management science and engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology.
Twenty years of inter-Korean relations and the North Korean nuclear issue
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Lim Dong-won, former South Korea unification minister and architect of Nobel Peace Prize winner Kim Dae-jung's Sunshine policy, spoke at Stanford on May 18 in conjunction with the English-language release of his memoir Peacemaker.
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Global Dynamics of Culturalized Conflict in Southeast Asia: Postcards from Eurabia
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In popular discourse, variations on Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis have cited cultural differences to explain conflicts ranging from Hindu-Muslim violence in India to the Rwandan genocide. Few scholars take these accounts seriously. Culture differences are multiple and ubiquitous. Were they sufficient causes of conflict, the world would have undergone far more inter-group violence than has in fact occurred. Social scientists have instead focused on a far wider range of reasons, including skewed distributions of material resources and the political mobilization of group identities by rival elites.
Yet those who are involved in or affected by such conflicts often describe or explain them in cultural terms, and this affects how the conflicts evolve. The empirical divisions expressed by a supposedly “ethnic” conflict can also change, as can the material issues involved, such that whatever first led to the conflict may no longer be relevant. In this process, global and local fears and narratives can intersect. Drawing on quantitative evidence and case studies from Southeast Asia, Graham K. Brown will explore how and why these shifts occur.
Graham K. Brown directs the Centre for Development Studies at the University of Bath. He has held research positions with Oxford University, and with the Consumers Association of Penang, Malaysia. His many publications include a chapter on Malaysia in The Political Function of Education in Deeply Divided Societies (2011). His current work focuses on the interactions between inequality, identity, and security, with particular reference to Southeast Asia.
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room
Graham Brown
Walter H. Shorenstein
Asia-Pacific Research Center
616 Serra St., Encina Hall E310
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
0
gkbrown@stanford.edu
Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellow on Southeast Asia
Graham K. Brown directs the Centre for Development Studies at the University of Bath. He has held research positions with Oxford University, and with the Consumers Association of Penang, Malaysia. His many publications include a chapter on Malaysia in The Political Function of Education in Deeply Divided Societies (2011). His current work focuses on the interactions between inequality, identity, and security, with particular reference to Southeast Asia.
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The Next Phase of China’s Health System Reforms
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In spring 2009, China’s leadership announced ambitious national health reforms. Have the five stated goals of the first three years of reform been met? What policies will China pursue in the next phase? As a prominent advisor to China's State Council Health Reform Office, Liu will discuss progress and prospects for reforms—especially the role of the private sector within the health system—within the context of China’s 2012 leadership transition.
Gordon Liu is a professor of economics at Peking University's (PKU) Guanghua School of Management, and director of PKU's China Center for Health Economic Research. Previously, he served as a tenured associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2000–2006), and as an assistant professor at the University of Southern California (1994–2000).
Liu's primary research interests include health and development economics, health policy and reform, and pharmaceutical economics. His current research is funded by the State Council Health Reform Office, the National Science Foundation, UNICEF, and the China Medical Board.
Liu currently serves on the State Council Health Reform Advisory Commission, and the Expert Panel for the State Ministry of Human Resource and Social Security. He serves as co-editor for the journal Value in Health, and as editor-in-chief for China Journal of Pharmaceutical Economics. He sits on the editorial boards for the European Health Economic Review, Global Handbook for Health Economics, and Chinese Journal of Health Economics.
He received his PhD in Economics from the City University of New York Graduate School while working as a graduate research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research under the supervision of Michael Grossman (1986–1991). He obtained post-doctoral training at Harvard University with William Hsiao (1992–1993). Liu has served as the president for the Chinese Economists Society, and chair for the Asian Consortium for the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research.
Philippines Conference Room
Gordon Liu
Professor of Economics
Speaker
Peking University Guanghua School of Management
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