“Win support from the people,” Yuhua Wang, Assistant Professor of Government at Harvard University, repeated the words from one of Xi Jinping’s speeches that was given to justify China’s massive anti-corruption campaign. The exact scope and motivations for President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign is, as yet, unknowable, Wang stated; but clearly, a major public aim of CCP Chairman Xi Jinping was to build regime support by cracking down on bad actors in the government.

Prof. Yuhua Wang gave a talk titled “Why Xi Jinping’s Anti-Corruption Campaign has Undermined Chinese Citizens’ Regime Support?” at the Stanford China Program on November 12^th, 2018, based on a national-level survey analysis that he had conducted with his co-author, Prof. Bruce Dickson at George Washington University. Rather than focusing on Xi’s motivations for undertaking his crackdown, however, Wang and Dickson tried to measure the impact of Xi’s anti-corruption campaign on public perception of the central government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Did the campaign, in other words, shore up public support for China’s central government and Party, as Xi hoped it would – or did it, in fact, undermine regime support?

Professor Wang first offered some background on how this anti-corruption campaign got started around 2012-2013, shortly after Xi Jinping became Chairman of the CCP. A staggering 261 vice-ministerial officials and 350,000 officials had been investigated to date; and, even those at the highest levels of China’s leadership – former Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee members, for instance –were not immune from scrutiny. And, equally unprecedented, media coverage of these corruption cases – from Bo Xilai to Zhou Yongkang and Xu Caihou – were extensive, exposing their lavish lifestyles and illicit dalliances on social and traditional media. Wang speculated that such lurid publicity most likely shocked the public, potentially turning citizens against even the central government, which consistently enjoys significantly higher levels of public trust than local governments in China. He decided, therefore, to explore with his co-author what the effects of such exposés might be on public perception of the central regime.

Replicating the same questionnaire and sampling design, Wang and his co-author took a national random sample in two waves – one before the anti-corruption campaign in 2010 and a second one during the campaign in 2014. They interviewed approximately 4,000 people across 25 provinces in China in order to measure potential shifts in people’s attitudes towards the regime over those four years. The findings were, indeed, illuminating:

First, Wang stated, increasing frequency of corruption investigations in a locality was correlated with a greater drop in popular regime support (defined as trust in central government or support for the CCP) in that locality. Higher volume of corruption investigations in a locality was also negatively correlated with people’s perception that government officials were generally honest and clean. The corrosive effects of the campaign, furthermore, proved strongest on those who had initially believed in the integrity of government officials; but for those who were already cynical about official corruption, the campaign had a smaller effect. Lastly, higher the survey respondent’s use of social media like WeChat, stronger the negative effects on his/her support for the regime. The authors also took into account how the chilling effects of the campaign may be negatively impacting local economies and how that slowing economy may actually be the primary cause behind decreasing public regime support. To account for this potentially confounding effect, Wang looked for evidence as to whether the campaign had contributed to a slowdown in China’s economy by 2014. Perhaps because 2014 was still early on in the campaign, he stated that they found no evidence of slower GDP growth rate, growth rate per capita GDP, etc., in the regions where they had undertaken their surveys.

Overall, Wang’s research calls into question whether Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign is, in fact, advancing one of his main goals– i.e., to increase people’s faith in the central regime – or whether it is actually proving counterproductive to his aim. In fact, Wang’s research seems to indicate that the more Chinese citizens are exposed to evidence of government corruption, the more the central regime appears to suffer a loss in credibility. Wang was careful to point out, however, that they were barred, due to political sensitivity, from asking any questions regarding respondents’ attitudes towards Xi Jinping himself. Thus, it is still an open question whether popular support for Xi Jinping himself is increasing even though public trust in the regime might be decreasing.

The recording and transcript are available below.  

A group of more than 100 leading American Asia specialists, former U.S. officials and military officers, and foreign policy experts has signed an open letter calling on President Trump and Congress to develop a U.S. approach to China that is focused on creating enduring coalitions with other countries in support of economic and security objectives rather than on efforts to contain China’s engagement with the world.

The signatories include five FSI scholars: Shorenstein APARC Fellow Thomas Fingar, Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow David M. Lampton, FSI Senior Fellow and APARC’s China Program Director Jean C. Oi, CISAC Senior Fellow Scott D. Sagan, and FSI Senior Fellow Andrew G. Walder.

In the letter, published in the Washington Post, the signatories express their concern about the growing deterioration in U.S.-China relations and outline several elements of what they describe as a more effective U.S. policy toward China.

China’s troubling behavior in recent years, the signatories write, presents serious challenges that require a firm U.S. response. The best American strategy “is to work with our allies and partners to create a more open and prosperous world in which China is offered the opportunity to participate.”

China’s engagement in the international system is essential to the system’s survival, argue the signatories, and “efforts to isolate China will simply weaken those Chinese intent on developing a more humane and tolerant society.”

Read the full letter in the Washington Post.

The views expressed by the signatories to the open letter are their own and are not opinion or information of Stanford University or of FSI.

Asia Health Policy Program Director Karen Eggleston and colleagues examine China’s progress in enhancing financial protection under its social health insurance to achieve universal health coverage.

In 2009, China launched comprehensive health system reforms to address challenges such as increasing rates of non-communicable diseases and population aging, problems with health financing and healthcare delivery, and overall growing health expectations of its people. Promoting universal health coverage by building a social health insurance system was a central pillar of the reforms.

After a decade of system reforms, has the Chinese government made good on its commitment to bolster universal health coverage? In a new article published in a BMJ collection, a team of four co-authors including Karen Eggleston, APARC’s deputy director and director of the Asia Health Policy Program, evaluates China’s progress towards enhancing financial protection of social health insurance and identifies the main gaps that need to be filled to achieve universal health coverage. Their article is part of a special BMJ collection with Peking University that marks the tenth anniversary of China’s health system reforms by analyzing their accomplishments and challenges ahead.

The 2009 reforms aimed to cover the entire Chinese population with one of three (since 2012 one of two) basic social health schemes. To provide added financial protection to patients with critical illnesses, catastrophic medical insurance was initially launched in 2012 and implemented nationally in 2015. Eggleston and her co-authors determine that the expansion of health insurance has had several major successes. First, it improved access to and use of healthcare. In 2011, China achieved near-universal health insurance coverage, with more than 95% of the Chinese population covered by health insurance. Moreover, the annual inpatient hospital admission rate increased from 3.6% in 2003 to 17.6% in 2017, and admission rates for outpatient services were much higher than the global average.

Second, the expansion of health insurance coverage reduced the share of out-of-pocket heath expenses in total health expenditure, thus raising the level of financial protection. Third, catastrophic medical insurance was also effective in supplementing the basic social health insurance schemes and provided extra financial protection to a range of vulnerable groups. By 2017, more than a billion people in China were covered by such insurance.

However, much remains to be done. Out-of-pocket health expenditures remain fairly high and are one of the main reasons for catastrophic health expenses and low financial protection in China, which disproportionately affect deprived populations. Catastrophic medical insurance currently does not target underprivileged people, while medical aid is relatively small in scale and covers only a minority of patients with catastrophic health expenses.

Eggleston and her colleagues conclude that the Chinese government should focus on underprivileged populations within the current insurance system and enhance their financial protection as an important element of targeted poverty alleviation. Such targeting, the researchers emphasize, requires a clear and integrated policy encompassing the basic social health insurance schemes, catastrophic medical insurance, medical aid, and improved healthcare efficiency.

Forty years after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China, the two superpowers are competing and contesting every arena, from trade to AI research and from space exploration to maritime rights. Instead of what Americans referred to as engagement and Chinese called reform and opening, many experts and analysts now characterize the relations between the two countries as dangerously brittle. Some see a new kind of Cold War in the making. Such assertions, however, argues Shorenstein APARC Fellow Thomas Fingar, “both ignore history and impute a level of fragility that has not existed for many years.”

Fingar reflects on the U.S.-China bilateral relationship in a new article, “Forty years of formal—but not yet normal—relations,” published in the China International Strategy Review. He claims that the relationship is resilient and not destined for conflict, albeit it is beset by a host of aspirational, perceptual, and structural differences.

A political scientist and China specialist who served over two decades in senior government positions, Fingar urges readers to remember that assertions of fragility of the U.S.-China relationship undervalue the strength, scope, and significance of interdependence, shared interests, and constituencies in both countries. These, he says, have a substantial stake in the maintenance of at least minimally cooperative relations.

U.S.-China relations are indeed highly asymmetrical: Chinese citizens and organizations have far greater access to the United States than Americans do to China, notes Fingar. He also recognizes that the troubles that have soured the relationship are more intricate and often more sensitive than those of the past. Decades ago, most of the issues that arose were handled at the governmental level. But now “the number and variety of players with stakes in the relationship and disputes with counterpart actors are much greater.” Furthermore, explains Fingar, the U.S. business community is expressing a stronger voice for government action to change Chinese behavior and is not as consistent an advocate of stability in U.S. policy toward China as it used to be. “This is an extremely important development,” he says, “because it reverses a key dynamic in the U.S.-China relationship.”

Ultimately, however, the two countries and our institutions and people are linked by myriad ties that bring mutual benefits as well as the constraints of interdependence. “I remain confident that we will continue to be able to manage the relationship,” concludes Fingar. He expresses disappointment, though, that normalization of U.S.-China relations remains a work in progress and cautions that merely managing the relationship to prevent it from deteriorating is an unsatisfactory goal that should be unacceptable to both sides. Not only does such a low bar limit what each counterpart can achieve, but it also inhibits the kind of cooperation required to address transnational challenges like climate change, infectious disease, and proliferation of dangerous technologies.

Karl Eikenberry, director of the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative, spoke with "Bloomberg Markets: Asia" about the ongoing trade disputes between the U.S. and China. Video of his interview—conducted on the sidelines of the Morgan Stanley China Summit in Beijing—is posted below.