Holding China Together: Diversity and National Integration in the Post-Deng Era (2005)

Holding China Together: Diversity and National Integration in Post-Deng Era, edited by Barry J. Naughton and DaIi L. Yang. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. xii + 304 pp. US$80.00 (hardback). China's long-sustained economic development of past quarter-century has often been met with scepticism by scholars and business people alike. The PRC's rapid development during 1980s sparked a heated debate over viability of Chinese economic reform process. Concerns fueled by 1989 Tiananmen crisis and by sudden collapse of Soviet Union in 1991 gave rise a fairly common view that China might disintegrate. Holding China Together is both a response that alarmist literature and an attempt analyze more critically the impact of greater regional diversity and openness on national unity, national integration, and capacity of national government adopt policies in national interest (p. 5). This edited book follows in steps of Goodman and Segal's China Deconstructs, one of earliest attempts at explaining continued but changing nature of institutional, political and economic foundations of China's unity. In its introduction and elsewhere, Holding China Together emphasizes role of Chinese government's ability to reformulate power relationships and rebuild institutions on an altered basis (p. 6) as a crucial element in promotion of national unity. The contributors of chapters make use of a multidisciplinary and principalagent analysis tackle issues of political and administrative decentralization and policy implementation. The various chapters delineate how increased centrifugal forces (new market rules and incentives, regionalism, social diversity) interact with centripetal forces (institutional reform, strengthening of administrative and political hierarchies, enhanced professionalization and transparency of administrative system, cultural forces). Although authors agree on increased participation of new social and economic actors, principal mover in most cases is depicted as being top leadership of Communist Party and government. The overall argument is that diversity and integration have developed in a dynamic tension, one which may provide just kind of creative pressure that helps keep China's social and economic transformation moving forward (p. 7). The first part of book is concerned with reform of national political and administrative systems. The chapters reinforce importance of nomenklatura system of personnel management in sustaining national unity. In first two chapters, by Cheng Li and Zhiyue Bo, an extensive description and analysis of elite recruitment and management is developed, followed by Susan H. Whiting's excellent account of cadre evaluation system at grass roots. Dali L. Yang's chapter wraps up this first part of book with a broader national perspective on ongoing reconfiguration of government and various sectors where central policy has become more authoritative. Cheng Li describes Chinese political process as involving negotiation between a stronger-and in many instances more legitimate-localism and central government's strengthening of institutional control over localist interests. He also alerts us continued importance of informal networks in formation of national and provincial political elites, reflecting still contradictory nature of political system. Zhiyue Bo describes political process as being only partially institutionalized. Nevertheless, he considers that Communist Party's ability initiate move toward a more rules-based political system has helped maintain Party's political resilience, thus promoting national unity. Susan H. Whiting moves local vs center debate grass roots. Concentrating on policy implementation, she looks at consequences of conflicting interests between local officials and their superiors, and how this clash becomes strongly influenced by cadre evaluation system. …