Diffusion of Leadership Responsibility

This term approximates what the Chinese call "collective leadership," a political counterpart of the diffusion of economic responsibility (via such vehicles as the "responsibility systems" in agriculture and industry). Diffusion of responsibility in this broader sense has been among the pervasive tendencies of the past two decades, antedating the death of Mao to some extent in the form of decentralization and the "cellularization" of self-sufficient local units, but accelerating even more rapidly since then. Nor has this diffusion of responsibility been entirely welcome, contributing among other things to a loss of financial control over investment. Thus far, it does seem to have been irrevocable.^[40]

The political import of this trend has been a transition from the concentration of formal power and diffusion of informal power in the immediate post-Mao period to a diffusion of formal power and concentration of informal power in the period since 1980. During the Hua Guofeng interregnum, the positions of chairman of the Party, chairman of the CC Military Affairs Commission (MAC), and premiership of the State Council were all in the hands of one man—Hua Guofeng—for the first time in the history of the People's Republic. This concentration of formal power coincided however with a diffusion of informal power, as, due to his brief tenure in office and lack of base (zhengzhi jichu ), credentials (zige ), or seniority, Hua was obliged to seek the support of those who informally outranked him (e.g., Ye Jianying, Li Xiannian)—at the price of an obfuscation of mission and rehabilitation of those with whom he had a clear conflict of interest (Deng Xiaoping, Hu Yaobang). Following the

[38] See Xin Cheng, "Grasp Firmly the Central Line," HQ , no. 11 (June 1, 1982): 34–36.

[39] Ruediger Machetzki, "The People's Republic of China: The Condition of Its Economy and the Limits of Reform," Vierteljahresberichte (Bonn:^[*] Forschungsinstitut der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung) 92 (June 1983): 123–35.

[40] See Barry Naughton, "The Decline of Central Control over Investment in Post-Mao China," unpub. paper, December 20, 1983; also Christine Wong, "Material Allocation and Decentralization: Impact of the Local Sector on Industrial Reform," in Elizabeth J. Perry and Christine Wong, eds., The Political Economy of Reform in Post-Mao China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 253–78.

triumph of Deng at the Third Plenum, the growing discrepancy between formal and informal power forced Hua into the role of a figurehead who announced policies made by a collective leadership.^[41] Even this role was eventually to be denied him, as this hapless and unlikely relict of the age of individual heroism was progressively divested of his premiership (at the Third Session of the Fifth NPC, in September 1980), his chairmanship of the Party and the MAC (Sixth Plenum of the Eleventh CC, June 1981), and finally of his Party vice-chairmanship (Twelfth Party Congress, September 1–11, 1982).

Deng Xiaoping's reforms were designed to preclude the possibility of any future recurrence of the cult of personality by institutionalizing the principle of collegiality and by diffusing power throughout the governmental structure. The first stage in this effort consisted of reestablishment of the Central Party Secretariat at the Fifth Plenum of the Eleventh CC (February 1980) under the leadership of Hu Yaobang. Deng Xiaoping unveiled the general outlines of a more comprehensive reform in his August speech to an expanded Politburo meeting, extended and elaborated two months later in the still more ambitious proposals of Liao Gailong, a Party historian and member of the CC Policy Research Section. This platform has since become known as the "Gengshen reform" (1980 is "Gengshen" in the traditional Chinese sixty-year cycle, an obvious reference to the "100-Day Reform" of 1898). With specific regard to the redefinition of leadership entailed (other aspects of these reforms will be examined later), the Gengshen reforms envisaged a functional division of authority (the separation of Party and state and an independent judiciary in particular, but also including autonomous economic/financial, cultural, educational, and scientific and technological organizations), a system of "checks and balances" (zhiheng ) among different leadership organs, even the abolition of the Politburo as the central decision-making forum (to be replaced by a Central Executive Committee, staffed by representatives of these larger bodies).^[42]

In the course of discussion and ratification, the Gengshen reforms seem to have encountered strong resistance, for they were watered down considerably. Still, their intent is discernible in the Party and State Constitutions approved by the Twelfth Party Congress (September 1982) and the Fifth Session of the Fifth NPC (December 1982), respectively. Whereas a Central Advisory Commission was introduced to fill out the troika of CC, Central Disciplinary Inspection Committee (already introduced at the Third Plenum), and CAC, for example, it was not

[41] See for example his report to the Third Session of the Fifth NPC, which closely echoes Deng Xiaoping's speech on reform to an enlarged Politburo meeting in mid-August. Hua Guofeng, "Report on the Work of the Government," BR , no. 38 (September 22, 1980): 21.

[42] Xu Xing, "Conservative System Reforms," ZM , no. 73 (November 1983): 54–57.

vested with meaningful political functions,^[43] and the idea of a check-and-balance relationship among the three organs yielded to the notion of "consultation and assistance" that has historically governed the relationship between CC and CPPCC (that is to say, the CC is to retain primacy). The Politburo also survived, but the "chairmanship system" (i.e., the positions of Party chairman and ranked vice-chairmen) was eliminated, to prevent the chairman from accumulating too much power. This change leaves the Party general secretary as de facto chair of the CC and its Politburo and Standing Committee, though formally he chairs only the Secretariat, having the right to "convene" (zhaoji ), but not "preside over" (zhuchi ) these other organs. In terms of informal power, Hu is at this point not even first among equals in the collective leadership of the Politburo or its Standing Committee. For the first time since the founding of the PRC, leadership of the Party has been separated from chairmanship of the MAC, in effect dividing executive control over Party, state, and army among three leaders—and coincidentally obscuring the succession picture, by making it unclear which position it is most relevant to inherit. As at the center, the leadership has stressed that the system of collective leadership should be fully implemented at all levels throughout the Party structure. Within the Party committees, decisions must be made by majority vote and not unilaterally by the first secretary. If a first secretary departs from the system of collective leadership, all members of the Party committee (and not the secretary alone) must bear responsibility.^[44]

In view of the cultural propensity to defer to strong leadership and the long and rather discouraging history of constitutional engineering in modern China, the efficacy of this diffusion of leadership responsibility is uncertain. As noted at the outset, its purpose has been ambiguous, serving at once to inhibit the concentration of power in a general sense and to undermine the position of Hua Guofeng in particular. The articulation of a complex system of organs and offices both superannuated Hua's functionaries and provided new sets of offices for Deng and his lieutenants to fill with their protégés, with the paradoxical effect that the formal diffusion of power coincided with an informal concentration of power, as Deng's factional rivals were slowly squeezed out of the emergent formal network. Whether this reorganization actually results in an elaborate façade for the reconcentration of leadership under a single head

[43] It is not equipped to prepare resolutions, and is not staffed on any principle of functional specialization, but rather on power-political considerations. Deng once even suggested that the CAC was a transitional institution, to be abolished within ten to fifteen years. Wenjian Huibian , p. 171; as quoted in Tang Tsou, "Reflections on the Formation and Foundation of the Communist Party-State in China," unpub. paper, University of Chicago, 1983.

[44] Tsou, "Reflections."

thus remains to be seen. The operating assumption of the reformers seems to have been that "structure is fate"—that although the current leadership may still be more hierarchically ordered at an informal level than appears on the surface, ultimately the constitutionally diffused distribution of functional authority will enable a balance of power to emerge. Informal relationships, it is assumed, will eventually come to complement rather than undermine formal structure, as they are usually found to do in studies of Western bureaucratic behavior. The real test of the efficacy of these reforms must await a clear-cut divergence between factional ambitions and the constitutional distribution of power.