Conclusion

China's clampdown on the prodemocracy movement on 4 June 1989 and the repression of participants afterward makes it quite clear that the political system has changed little in the ten-year reform period of Deng Xiaoping's regime. The regime's violent reaction to the movement could not be foreseen, especially because it involves the loss of international credibility so carefully nurtured by China. But there was clear evidence that the reforms aimed at separating Party from government and admin-

istration from business were superficial: little had changed in the authority relations between various levels of government, especially below the province.^[75]

Part of this evidence lies in the lengthy stalemate between Hubei and Wuhan over the limits of jihua danlie . Wuhan could not muster the strength, even with central backing, to convince the province to give up key economic decision-making power. The parameters of bargaining were set by Hubei. Ultimately, Hubei's ability to impose its will on Wuhan's economy in late 1988 doomed jihua danlie to failure. Reimposition of provincial authority came in the wake of inflationary pressure, as was discussed above, and after a January 1989 drop in industrial production in Wuhan and a number of other Hubei cities. Viewing Hubei's overall industrial production increase of 2.4 percent for January 1989 as fifth from the bottom nationwide (the national average was 2.8 percent), the vice-governor, Xu Penghang, noted that production in Wuhan, Huangshi, Shashi, Jingmen, and other areas actually declined. In a mid-February speech, he demanded that "all levels" and "all localities" arrange production in line with "lists ... drawn up by the state and the provincial authorities."^[76]

The implication here is obvious; the central-cities policy, as implemented in Hubei and Wuhan, failed. The policy's success, as Li Chonghuai wrote, depended on successful implementation of management reforms designed to cut tiao-kuai lines of authority. But management reforms have not been implemented. Changing the power relations configured by tiao-kuai lines of authority over economic activity requires reform of the political system, not just the economic system, something the events of June 4 have shown is not acceptable to the Deng regime.

Efforts to cut tiao-kuai through economic system reform alone, for example, by creating yewu lines of authority exercised by industrial corporations, has failed in this task. As in the case of the Bengbu City Chemical Industry Corporation, enterprise managers see yewu lines of authority in terms of tiao-kuai lingdao guanxi . The number of lines "tying enterprises hand and foot" have increased rather than decreased.

Efforts to decentralize authority, giving it to provinces in the late 1970s and early 1980s, to key cities in the mid-1980s, and, in some

functional areas, to smaller cities in the late 1980s,^[77] have reduced somewhat the power of tiao-tiao lines of authority but, by giving provinces and some cities greater financial resources and authority over such items as materials distribution and personnel, have increased the power and number of kuai-kuai lines of authority. "At the moment, kuai-kuai is tighter than tiao-tiao. Tiao-tiao interference is still great. But the real problem is kuai-kuai interference. At this level, the provincial level, there is no real understanding of what needs to be done for economic development, or at least no real willingness to do it."^[78]

The results of jihua danlie , then, at least in Wuhan, have been tension as Wuhan attempted to compete with Hubei for kuai-kuai authority. A business source said that "Wuhan's tiao-tiao is the Center, its kuai-kuai is Hubei. Now [after separation] Wuhan is trying to break its kuai-kuai from Hubei and Hubei is very upset with this. There is a severe lack of cooperation between them. This is compounded by the confusion of the reform period."^[79]

The tiao-kuai lines of authority that constitute China's structural organization are, theoretically, supposed to cooperate in a system of dual rule that never really did work.^[80] In the absence of cooperation between the two, the Chinese Communist Party is to act as the mediating, unifying force, with leadership coming from the Center.

But how can officials who disagree while wearing their administrative hats suddenly find the willingness to cooperate when they put on their Party hats? They cannot, so tiao-kuai competition exists within the Party as well, a mirror image of what is more easily seen in the government. And, while Wuhan and Hubei vie for kuai-kuai power, their respective Party committees are likewise engaged. This can be seen in the differing points of view expressed by Hubei's provincial Party secretary, Guan Guangfu, and Wuhan's Party secretary, Zheng Yunfei. The latter is also a member of Hubei's provincial Party Committee.

A business source, also a Party member, said, "In reality, Wuhan and Hubei cannot cooperate at both the administrative and the Party level. The split has created a kuai-kuai competition within the Party. There always was tiao-tiao competition between the Center and local Party branches."^[81]

Economically speaking, the central-cities policy is an effort to decentralize decision-making power closer to the point of production in order to maximize efficiency and flexibility and to push growth. Politically speaking, it is an effort to decentralize power to a key city that has become a competitor with its provincial government. The competition is a predictable result, given that there is no strong consensus about the policy's goals.

Herein lies China's Catch-22, put into terms of the Law of Countervailing Goal Pressures used by Downs: economic development requires innovation, which, especially in a planned economy, "creates a strain toward greater goal diversity in every organization." But Hubei's fear of losing power to Wuhan is based on its "need for control and coordination, [which] creates a strain toward greater goal consensus." Thus goal consensus "is a vital part of any true decentralization of authority."^[82]

But the functional aspects of the central-cities policy encourages heterogeneous goals between the two territorial actors. The policy, with jihua danlie , is broad in scope. It has multiple, highly complex, and vaguely defined functions, which must operate simultaneously. There is considerable conflict about these functions as they relate to relative power between Hubei and Wuhan. All this presages conflict between the actors involved. Despite Wuhan's continuing efforts to wrest greater authority from Hubei, its kuai-kuai leader, in the absence of specific policy changes granting the city greater power, there has been no real decentralization of authority to the municipal level.^[83]

When territorial actors compete for power in such an atmosphere of mistrust, under vague guidelines, and with no legal system that might mediate disputes, the result will be continual delay in making timely decisions because required policy action by those in authority, who are caught in the web of tiao-kuai hierarchies, needs to be bargained.