WORKING PAPER

The Chongqing Model and the

Legitimacy of the CCP in the

Reform Period

Srinivasan Ramani

Senior Assistant Editor, Economic andPolitical Weekly

P.K.Anand

Ph.D Scholar, China Studies, Centre for EastAsian Studies

School of International Studies, JawaharlalNehru University

Word Count: 6926 (Including References & Notes)

The Chongqing Model and the

Legitimacy of the CCP in the

Reform Period

Srinivasan Ramanii, P.K.Anandii

On October 22nd, 2012, close to 700 academicians andformer officials of the Chinese government wrote anopen letter addressed to the regime, opposing theexpulsion of former politburo member Bo Xilaiiii. Theletter was published on a website, redchinacn.net, oneamong a slew of websites which are patronised by or are

dedicated to those adhering to the “new Left”, (amongothers), in China (Xu 2012: 13). The general view inthe West and one that is propounded by the regimeitselfiv is that Bo Xilai’s fall into disgrace is theresult of personal corruption, nepotism and illegalactivity, but those in the “new Left” have not acceptedthis story (completely), as is clear from the letter aswell as opinion pieces elsewhere (Xu 2012). Thealternative explanation emanating from such sections isthat

The sudden removal of Bo Xilai from the post ofsecretary of the Communist Party of China in theChongqing metropolis and his suspension from theCPC politburo and central committee points not justto a power struggle in the upper echelons of theparty but also a rejection of the “Chongqing model”by the leadership. By itself, the Chongqing modelwas a redistributive, reformative programme thatintended to address the failings of neo-liberalism,but its repression has united leftist opinion infavour of Bo Xilai. (ibid: Abstract)

What is this “Chongqing model” that those in the “newLeft” claim, has raised the hackles of the ChineseCommunist Party and its regime, so much so, that itcould ‘target’ one of its “own” and someone earmarkedfor future leadership? Who are the “new Left”? What istheir ideological and political basis as a group? What

do these events portend towards the legitimacy of oneparty rule by the Communist Party of China in thatcountry? What is the relation of these events to theresilience of the efforts of the Chinese regime toinstill stability through structural reform within itsone party system? These are some of the questions thatwe would attempt to answer in this essay.

Before we embark upon to answer the above questions, itis imperative that we provide a quick overview ofChina’s political economy - its contradictions and itsdiscontents - to get a picture of why the “new Left”claims that the “Chongqing model” is a viable“alternative”.

China’s economic trajectory and issues

It is without doubt that China’s rapid and sustainedeconomic growth since its transition from a statesocialist economy in 1978 to one that is reliantheavily on private enterprisev in a mixed economic model(Dic and Yu 2010) is remarkable. As Dic Lo and Yu Zhang(2010:98) point out, in the period between 1978 and2007,

the average annual growth rate of Chinese GDP reached ahigh of 9.8%. And this has been mainly based onproductivity growth, with the average annual growthrate per worker GDP registering 7.6% during the period.

Following a period of “labour intensiveindustrialisation” to gradually, “an alternative,capital-deepening path” (ibid: 102), China’s economicgrowth trajectory has been characterised by agrarianreform and massive industrialisation, the shift ofemployment from agriculture to industry - predominantlyexport driven (ibid), heavy drop in poverty ratevi,among other significant structural changes.

The flip side of this economic trajectory - itself acomplex story that is a subject of debate on whether ornot it follows a typical neoliberalisation of late(ibid) - is that this has resulted in increasingeconomic, spatial (Ravallion and Chen 2007:18-25) andsocial inequalities (Kwan Lee & Selden 2010:30-33),growing exploitation of labour (expressed in thedeclining share of labour wages in overall GDPvii),rising corruption and increasing concentration ofwealthviii.

With greater industrialisation resulted greaterproletarianisation, with the huge migration of ruralpeople into urban industrial workforce as well as theshift of labour from the faltering state ownedenterprises in the early 1990s. And as the marketeconomy developed - so did its accompanying featuressuch as property development and consumerism. This alsoresulted in “commodification of land, labour andconsumption in rural areas and the extraction of

surplus from the peasantry and rural industry” (Walker& Buck 2007)

The Chinese government and the Communist Partyleadership had been cognisant of these problems. The HuJintao (presidency)-Wen Jiabao (premiership) based itspolicy regime on building a “harmonious society”cognisant of the problems of inequality becoming one ofinequity. As Bramall (2010:35) says,

Finally, in 2005, perhaps in light of intensifiedsocial discontent about inequality, the Hu-Wenleadership once again “re-emphasised the primacy ofsocial justice, let 1.3 billion people enjoy the fruitof socio-economic development” (Yang 2006; Lou 2006).Social justice is now enshrined as a pillar of theCCP’s project to construct a “harmonious society”...

Yet, he (ibid) goes on to say,

but does the state, at the centre and particularly inthe localities, have the vision, the institutions, thewill and the resources to overcome deepeninginequalities? If the Hu-Wen era has displayed greaterattention to the issues of rural “immiseration”, it isdifficult to discern the emergence of a far-reachingprogramme directed towards substantially improving thelot of the least advantaged, villagers, migrants,residents of the poorest regions and minority

nationalities, or constraining the rapacious behaviourof capital and officialdom.

This is the primary concern of various scholars,including with those within the “New Left” about thepolicies and priorities of the Hu-Wen regime, despitestated intent to address some of the pressing falloutsof the reforms regime in place since 1978. Robert Weil(2010) also points out to similar issues, but in moredetail, for example regarding the “New SocialistCountryside” initiative announced by the regime in 2005to alleviate rural unrest -

Changes in the rural areas, for example, which Hu andWen have labelled the “New SocialistCountryside”,...have bettered the lot of many farmers,especially after the neglect and “free market” excessesof former president Jiang Zemin and premier ZhuRongji...But the parallel result of the “New SocialistCountryside” has been to lessen the ability of ruralcommunities collectively to increase production andmeet social needs...projects. Far from restoringsocialist collectivisation, the “NSC” often bypasseswhat cooperative models there are, and results in everwider class divisions, as wealth and authority – andrural poverty – are further concentrated.

Legitimacy, Contestation and the “New Left”

It is therefore that a debate has raged in China as tothe future course of the political economy and the newtrajectory to be adopted - in particular to address therising tide of inequality, corruption and significanttransitions in the economy as it faced newexternalities - a global financial crisis and transferof low end work to other countries.

This debate was precipitated since the 2008 financialcrisis. Besides other crisis affecting its autonomousregions due to socio-political and ethnic reasons,there was also a slowdown in the economic growth storyin China in 2009 (although relative to other majoreconomies, the growth rate of 6.1% was much higher)thereby reducing the increases in the labour force forthat year. With rising inflation -especially in foodprices - and concomitant falls in resident incomes(Guoguang 2010), the government was forced to provide a“stimulus package” to the economy to spur domesticdemand and to attempt at decoupling the excessivedependence on the external market (ibid: 30). This wasalso accompanied by growing unrest involving migrantworkers in coastal regions, farmers and workerselsewhere apart from a myriad other “incidents” and“protests” (ibid: 32).

But how has the Chinese regime managed to retain itslegitimacy among the Chinese people as the guarantor of

power and authority even in a period which unleashed avariety of contradictions as explained above?

Heberer and Schubert (2006) point out

China's economic modernisation and the economicbenefits that it generates for the overall majorityof the people – at least in absolute terms – mustcertainly be pointed out as one reason for theCCP's continuous political dominance.

They go on to suggest that the Chinese regime hasmanaged to do the above by embarking upon implementingthree concomitant visions of “economicdevelopmentalism”, “institutionalised personalism”defined as political leadership that is governed by aset of established rules and procedures and“percolation” - the uniformity of this rule basedleadership across various sections of the Communistparty leadership and the regime (ibid: 14-16).

The above measures were not just expedient in the wakeof economic reforms and the managed transition fromstate socialism and done as a result of caution overpolitical change, in light of what transpired in othersocialist nations that also underwent political reform,but had to eventually give up on socialism. Thesemeasures were institutionalised by the leadership topreserve the one-party rule as much as to provide

legitimacy for it and to present it the onus to guidethe changes without interfering extensively in economicmanagement.

The economic developmentalism approach involved amongothers, the preponderance of market forces andenterprise over political control – a reverse of whatwas known and common in both industrial as well asrural economic enterprises in the state socialist erabefore 1978. The developmentalist approach is explainedby Heberer and Schubert (ibid: 15) as “the functionalseparation of the Party and the government (danzhengfenkai) and to shield SOE [State owned Enterprises] fromthe influence of local governments (zhengqi fenkai)” .

While these approaches have guided the Chinese party'srule since the reform period, it must be examinedwhether the regime has managed to retain its legitimacywith these approaches and whether or not thecontradictions in the Chinese political economy haveaffected both its thinking and its implementation initself. Here is where two contending notions of demands forchange in the Chinese political-economic model came tothe fore. While one set of dissidents demanded“constitutional democracy” replacing one-party rulewithout changing the reform story (ibid: 33), the otherwas articulated by the “new Left”, a loose grouping ofintellectuals and academicians who had argued for a“democracy with Chinese characteristics”, suggesting

that “the current economic reform should not only focuson boosting economic growth, but also on establishing asolid social safety net and enhancing social equity.”(Freeman and Wen 2012: 3) even during the mid- reformperiod in the 1990s.

The “New Left”, a hitherto marginalised set ofintellectuals that include economic nationalists,redistributivists, and some who yearned for thenostalgic “Maoist” past, now had more resonance withtheir ideas - especially that of the redistributivistsfollowing the structural crisis endured by China in theaftermath of the global economic crisis. It must alsobe said that this emphasis was abetted by the populistrhetoric adopted by the Hu-Wen regime as it embarkedupon the “harmonious development” strategy as well.This brought the intellectuals in the “New Left”movement in touch with prominent Communist Partyleaders who saw a coherence in the views of the “NewLeft” and the central strategies made by the party andthe regime to balance the uneven development andstructural issues in China’s economic trajectoryix.

For example, strategies such as “Go West” (WesternDevelopment; Xibu daikaifa) had already been put in place tobalance the development of some of the major cities inChina’s interior as opposed to the highly developedcoast based cities. One such large scale “experimentalzone” earmarked under the “Go West” strategy was the

Chongqing municipality in south-west China. Thismunicipality is among the four directly controlledmunicipalities or provincial municipalities (apart fromBeijing, Tianjin and Shanghai) and thus providing itwith “autonomy, power and implementation levers to testnew approaches to sustainable urban development”.(Jianming et al 2012). i Srinivasan Ramani (email: srini@epw.in) is senior assistant editor, Economic and Political Weekly, New Delhiii P.K.Anand (anand.p.krishnan@gmail.com) is a Ph.D scholar in China Studies in the Centre for East Asian Studies, in the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru Universityiii http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-20024880, accessed on October 24th 2012iv The Peoples’ Daily - the organ of the CPC - published a commentary herearguing for the disciplinary action against Bo Xilai in the following words: “dignity and prestige of the law must not be violated” and that “[n]o matter who it touches and how high their position, any violation of party discipine or stat law with be dealt with seriously” (Fewsmith 2012: 7), also at http://bjnews.com.cn/news/2012/04/11/193138.html (accessed on October 24th 2012). v See Engardio (2005) cited in Szamosszegi and Kyle (2011:4)vi See Bramall (2010:44), who says - “Official Chinese data show a fall inthe absolute poverty headcount from 250 million in 1978 to 14.8 million in 2007 (CPIRC 2008). These magnitudes are not reliable; it is hard to square an absolute poverty figure of 250 million with the high levels of life expectancyrecorded in the late 1970s. However, there is little doubt that absolute poverty has fallen sharply over the last three decades.”vii See Li (2011) who says, “China’s rapid capitalist accumulation has beenbased on the ruthless exploitation of hundreds of millions of Chinese workers.From 1990 to 2005, China’s labor income, as a share of GDP, fell from 50 to 37percent.”viii See Harvey (2007: 145), who says in his chapter titled, “Neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics”: “The accumulation of wealth at the other end ofthe social scale is a more complicated story. It seems to have proceeded in part via a combination of corruption, hidden ruses, and overt appropriation ofrights and assets that were once held in common.”

The influence of the “New Left” translated into rolefor some of its intellectuals in advocating andadvising policy positions of the local government inChongqing. Soon, certain reforms introduced by thegovernment - the local party secretary in 2008 was BoXilai, a politburo member and a powerful figure who wasamong a set of the CPC leadership, called the“princelings” for being members of second-generationcommunist families of erstwhile popular revolutionaries- were feted by those in the “new Left” asrepresentative of the redistributivist and alternativepolicies that they had recommended. The “Chongqingmodel” was soon touted as a model worth emulating inother provincial and “late developing” cities as well.

What is the “Chongqing model”?

Since mid-July 2006, a series of “programs” - the“five-Chongqing program” for sustainable living; the“Crime Crackdown program”, the “Singing Red Songsprogramme”, the “Ten Livelihoods, Fifty things”program, a “mass contact program” and “Commonprosperity” were initiated. We discuss some relevantfeatures among these to establish the salience of the“Chongqing Model” and its claims of being an

ix Check this interview of “new Left” intellectuals Cui Zhiyuan and Wang Hui in the New York Times and hosted on the former’s homepage - http://www.cui-zy.cn/Recommended/Personalpapers/CuiNewYorkTimes.pdf (accessed on October 24th 2012)

alternative model to the general developmental paradigmin China.

Major Features of the Chongqing Model:

Some political economists and social scientists fromthe “New Left” group have identified the programmesimplemented in Chongqing as the “Chongqing experiment”featuring what they call the “third hand”. They argue(Huang 2011:570) that this “experiment” represents a

contrary “model” demonstrating a new possibility thatis neither simply market capitalism nor plannedsocialism, but a combination of the two that draws onreconfigured aspects of both… Chongqing’s leaders haveshown practical and ingenious market and businessacumen, on one hand, and a deep commitment to socialequity on the other. They have used what has beententatively conceptualized as a “third hand” approachto development, undergirded by a “third finance”

Cui Zhiyuan, an influential academic from TsinghuaUniversity, and who was a policy advisor to theChongqing municipality suggests that (Cui 2011: 655)the “Chongqing experiment demonstrates that publicownership of assets and private business are notsubstitutes for one another. Rather, they can becomplementary and mutually reinforcing”. Taking cuefrom western economist James Meade, Cui (2011: 655-7)suggests the need for an “optimal mix” between public

and private ownership of assets and that this “may haveindependently…[i]mplemented .. [i]n practice” inChongqing, “when the government can get market revenuesfrom public assets, it can reduce the tax burden onprivate business and individuals, therefore realizingthe co-development and mutual reinforcement of publicand private ownership of business”.

Cui argues that the “broader context of Chongqing as anational experimental zone for integrating rural andurban development from 2007” laid the basis for theimplementation of the “model”, with some of itsfeatures such as the “Mass Line” has the potential to“revitalize the party’s relationship with the people[and] may indicate the future path of the ChineseCommunist Party”.

In other words, the intellectuals of the “new Left”were harping upon the model from a different discoursethan the normative suggestions from the “reformists” /“rightists” (Freeman and Wen 2011:9). In the view ofthe “new Left”, the Chongqing model - with itsemphasis on redistributivist policies and “co-existenceof the public and the private”, the reorientation ofthe mass line of the Communist Party seeking Gramsciannotions of hegemony – offered a template of“democratization” that necessarily was opposite to therecommendations of the “reformists” who argued for more“opening up” and “privatization” with concomitant

efforts toward the transformation of the politicalsystem into possibly a multi-party system(ibid).

We shall now look deeper into the Chongqing model bystudying the specific features of it more closely.

Land Financing was one of the key aspects for developmentin Chongqing. Specifically tuned to address the issueof inequality in the region, the programme envisagesthe local governments’ “use of anticipated appreciationof land earmarked for development to fund urbandevelopment.” (Huang 2011: 575) In China, whilepeasants control the rights of agrarian land, theownership is with the collective, and the governmentcan take over land for non-agricultural purposes. Huangstates that this financing works in terms ofanticipating the rise in the land’s market value andthis appreciation is used for funding infrastructuraldevelopment. As Huang (2011:576) mentions -

When the land is finally ready (becoming “ripe land”)with the necessary infrastructural support forresidential, commercial, or factory use, the localgovernment can assign the use rights (for a certainnumber of years, upto a maximum of 70 years forresidential use and 50 years for industrial use) toprivate developers at a very much higher market prices,many times its cost for infrastructural construction,and many more times the original cost for therequisitioning of the land

Huang goes on to add that Chongqing’s income fromassigning land to private developers alone amounted to98 billion yuan in 2010, as compared with just 0.2billion yuan in 2001, before the Chongqing governmentundertook the systematic “storing up” of land fordevelopment purposes.

According to academician, Cui Zhiyuan, in keeping withthe announcement made at the annual meeting of theNational People’s Congress (NPC) in March 2007, thetargets for Chongqing were to become the economiccentre of upper Yangzi river, to be the major growthmodel in the whole of western China and to achieve amoderately prosperous society. “Chongqing establishedthe first and only “land exchange market” in China inDecember 2008.” (Cui 2011: 649)

Cui Zhiyuan prefers to see this unique institution inthe context of the twin strategy envisioned in thecountry, namely synchronising the development of urbanand rural areas through speeding up the process ofindustrialisation and urbanisation and also maintaining1.8 billion mu of cultivated land for ensuring China’sfood supply.

In order to maintain the drive for industrializationand urbanization, even while being cognizant of theneed for equitable development, the Ministry of Land

and Resources in 2005 brought out a policy guideline toregulate the non-agricultural use of land and use iteffectively to guide urban development. This coverssuch land part of the peasants’ households, whichovertime have been converted back to agricultural useor such land on which rural industries are no longer inoperation. Cui Zhiyuan further says that (2011)

It in fact provides a vehicle for this extra quota ofland to fetch a fair value. In this market, what isbeing exchanged is not land ownership itself or the useright to the land, but rather a quota, so-called “landcertificates”. These certificates signify the amount ofrural non-agricultural land that has been convertedback to cultivation. The peasants or rural industrieswho have converted their residential plots or factorysites back to cultivated land are entitled to sell thecertificates in the “land exchange market” todevelopers, who are required to buy them in an auction.If a developer wins an auction and thus gets a “landcertificate”, then it can use this quota to purchaseland-use rights in urban areas and develop that land.

Land Certificates, also known as “land transactionvoucher” was part of the credit system and known inChinese as ‘Dipiao’. ‘In order to secure newagricultural land in the countryside, farmers have totransform their residential areas (zha ji di). Localgovernment policy is thus to expand the cultivable area(by transforming residential areas into agricultural

land) while reducing the number of farmers.’(Lafarguette 2011: 62) This essentially means that thepeasants are given the right to share in thedevelopment of their land. According to Cui Zhiyuan,this resembles the carbon emission permits trading. Infact, he draws the experience and formulations of HenryGeorge, the pioneer of land reform movements in manywestern countries. The Land Exchange market has likenedto George’s Land Value Tax or Single Tax, wherein theargument was to levy a tax on the annual value of landheld as private property, in order to ensure thateconomic rent of land is shared by all in the societythan being owned privately. The general idea was toensure that the peasants also are participants in thedevelopment process, thereby ensuring social equity atlarge. As Huang (2011:598) says,

A key factor in the sustainability of Chongqing’s “landfinancing” is that unlike most other large cities inChina, it has managed to keep its real estate priceswithin reasonable limits, at 6,000-7,000 yuan a squaremeter, compared with , for example, Shanghai andBeijing’s 30, 000 yuan plus.

Reforms in the Hukou System of Urban Registration: The otherimportant aspect of the rural-urban integration hasbeen reform in the Hukou system or urban registration.The Hukou system is highly restrictive and placeslimits on the number of migrants who can come and

settle in urban centres. As Hou Huiqin et al 2012:179suggests,

Chongqing is the first to start the reform of thehousehold registration system to meet the living andworking needs of migrant workers. This is making itpossible for migrant workers to enjoy city residentialamenities such as social security, medical care, andschooling of their children.

Cui (2011:652) adds,

From August 15 2010, until the end of July 2011, morethan 2 million rural migrant workers have changed theirhousehold registration from rural residence to urbanresidence. The only condition for the migrant workersto qualify is that they have been working in the cityfor more than five years.

This was an important development aimed at endingdiscrimination and making the developmental experiencemore inclusive.

Low-Cost Public Rental Housing: This project has been one ofthe key features of the overall Chongqing model. Thesehouses were mainly aimed for the migrant population whowere being allowed into the urban centre in greaternumbers following the reform of the Hukou system. In hisanalysis, Philip C.C Huang (2011:591) states that theconstruction began for 40 million square metres of suchhousing which was completed within three years, with

rents being projected to be about 10 yuan per squaremetre per month, or a reasonable rent of 600 yuan amonth for 60 square metre –

To prevent the formation of cheap housing slums,the public housing buildings will be spread out in21 larger community groupings, so that the cheaperhousing will share in the same standards of publicfacilities and services.

Lafarquette (2011:63) adds,

The local government wishes to maintain control overthe allocation of social housing in order to ensurethat houses were not resold or sublet for profit. It isthus possible for tenants to become owners in aboutfive years, but they would not be able to resell theirproperty except to the local government.

Lafarguette further emphasises that the financing ofthis highly-ambitious programme was responsible andintegrated, with more than 75 billion yuan being neededfor building the first 30 million square metres ofsocial housing in three years; out of this, 25 millionsquare metres was financed by local and centralgovernments, with the rest funded by financialinstitutions through loans. Within this, the majorcontributions came from the banks and insurance firms.Further additions in the contribution were done throughsocial security funds, financial service providers andbonds, opines Lafarguette (2011:62) –

The main beneficiaries of the social housing policy aremigrant workers and young graduates coming to work inChongqing. They are also the first to receive the 3.38million new hukous handed out in 2010-11, the aim beingto distribute ten million in the 2010-2012 period.

He also comes up with the point that another way offinancing such ventures is through the imposing of atax on luxury housing, which amounts to a collection ofmore than 150 million yuan annually. In the opinion ofPhilip C.C Huang, the former Chongqing secretary, BoXilai was a guiding spirit behind the public rentalhousing project, wherein he borrowed from hisexperiences as the mayor of Dalian for eleven yearsfrom 1992 to 2003. Peter Martin and David Cohen (2011)highlight that this housing scheme has receivednational attention and the central government washaving a similar plan in the anvil, as part of the 12thFive-Year Plan.

“Smashing the Black Campaign”: Following the marketisationand opening up of the economy, there has been looseningof controls and increase in crimes like prostitution,gambling, drug trafficking and even human traffickingin many parts of municipal and metropolitan China. AsHuang (2011:602) mentions,

In addition, the migration of millions into the vastinformal economy operating largely in the margins oroutside the boundaries of formal law has provided

fertile soil for the rise of organized crime the localexpression is “black organizations”). And organizedcrime, in turn has penetrated into the government inmany places.

There was a stringent need to combat these crimenetworks in an effective manner. It was in thiscontext, Bo Xilai got Wang Lijun-who was in theforefront of tackling such crimes in Liaoning-toundertake serious measures in this direction inChongqing. The crackdown on crime started in June 2009,with several hundred teams of public security personneland armed police taking down 104 crime entities,leading to the arrest of more than thousand criminals.Hou Huiqin et. al (2012: 174) mentions

Thirty thousand police were involved, with 7000participating directly in the crackdown operations. Atotal of 204 special judicial investigation groups wereset up. Fourteen long-rampant organized crime gangswere broken up. Altogether, nearly 2000 ‘black societysuspects (organized criminals), were arrested, and 24crime chiefs, along with more than 200 other keymembers of criminal gangs, were brought to justice.

The emphasis was also laid on taking down the“protective umbrellas” that shielded crime. Huangpoints out that prominent officials like Wen Qiang–Chongqing Public Security Bureau’s executive deputyhead-and Zhang Tuo-deputy head of city’s Superior Court

were among those arrested and charged. In the aftermathof the appearance of Wang Lijun in the Americanconsulate in Chengdu-that acted as the trigger for thesubsequent expulsion of Bo Xilai from the CentralCommittee and Politburo-there have been various reportsof ‘high-handedness’ and human rights violations inthis campaign. However, in spite of the laterdevelopments, the steps undertaken by the Chongqingleadership won greater appreciation and approval oflocal populace. This campaign also created confidencein the policymakers and developed a conduciveenvironment for economic development.

Ideological Thrust and Significance: Re-awakening of the ‘Mass Line’strategy and reinvigorating the Classics: One of the definingfeatures of the Chongqing model has been the combiningthe elements of Maoist mobilisation strategies and theideology of governance, along with the invoking ofChinese classics, of both socialist and nationalistorientation. As Hou Huiqin et. al (2012:174) says,

Since June 2006, the Chongqing municipality has carriedout a series of in-depth mass campaigns: singing red(revolutionary) songs, reading classical books, tellingstories and spreading mottos. Singing red songs meanssinging uplifting songs on people’s liberation,socialist construction, socialist reform and opening,and mutual helpfulness, solidarity and courtesy, etc.Reading classic books means reading wonderful poetryand articles by famous writers of all periods, from

China and abroad. Telling stories means moving andinspiring people with tales of the revolution and ofthe period of construction, reform and opening up.Spreading mottos means disseminating the ideologicalessence of mottos and epigrams of the Chinese nationand of the entire human race.

The Singing of the Red Songs and reading of theClassics is a mass cultural activity, which is aimed atbuilding a system of public cultural services; throughthe mass participation of people in such activities,the pattern fits the mass mobilization strategies ofthe Maoist period. Cui Zhiyuan (2011) associates thesinging of “red songs” with Gramsci’s concept ofhegemony, in terms of evaluating it as having thepopular penetrative capacity. In the words of Bo Xilai,“it is a programme intended to reconstruct the nation’s“spiritual civilization”, targeting of course the crasscommercialism, pervasive individualism, and ideologicalvacuum that have characterized reform-era China.”(Huang 2011: 606)

Huang also finds that the “red songs” were drawn fromall different periods of the revolution, mostespecially the War of Resistance. Similarly, Huangopines that the “Classics” encompass the works of arange of thinkers from the Chinese Revolution as awhole as well as from non-Chinese thinkers. Theselections in the “Classics” range from Confucius toSun Yat-sen, from Wen Tianxiang to Lin Zexu, from Marx

and Lenin to Mao and Deng, from Fang Zhimin to NormanBethune, from Einstein to ‘Madam Curie’.

Overall, Bo’s emphasis seems more on moral values and aspirit of service than political ideology. His visionof a “red culture” is clearly intended to be broad andinclusive, rather than narrow and exclusive. Its intentis above all to regenerate a “spiritual” or moral corefor the Chinese people, given the current nihilism andcrass commercialism.’ (Ibid) The painful memoriesassociated with the Cultural Revolution have continuedto remain in the memories of the Chinese people even tothis day and hence, they are ever apprehensive of evensome trivial attempt of invoking Mao Zedong and histhoughts. Therefore, even these attempts of revivingthe “red culture” have been met with scepticism by therest of the country through the media. Paranoidcolumnists and academicians have been criticising theseexperiments and casting severe aspersions.

Great emphasis has also been laid on ensuring properaccountability and more serious linkages with themasses. The growing concern was the apprehensionsregarding the alienation of the people and theseparation of the party from masses. If economicdevelopment and progress is divorced off the people,then it raises serious questions regarding the rulingparty’s links with the common people. Thus, necessarymeasures had to be undertaken to make sure that the

relationship between the cadres and masses and partyand masses, was not affected. As Hou Huiqin et. al(2012:176) says,

Aware of the seriousness of this problem, Chongqingsince 2008 has successively promulgated a series of new‘Three Systems’, ‘Three-Into and Three-With and ‘ThreeGovernance’ measures to improve cadre-massrelationship.

All these programmes were aimed at invigorating theculture of mass work and ensuring that the cadres wereconstantly among the masses. ‘Chongqing has added tothis the twist of asking all cadres to engage in the“big visitation below”, inverting the shangfang or“visit above” process (in which thousands uponthousands of peasants appeal in person or in writing toupper levels to seek redress of grievances).’ (Huang2011: 605) The effort has been to combat thebureaucratic attitudes and bring the officials incloser contact with the people and with basic realitiesof life. This is reminiscent of Mao Zedong likening theguerilla to be “a fish in the water”x. Hou Huiqin et. al(2012: 176) add,

By the end of March 2011, Chongqing cadres at alllevels had received 4.355 million people and made atotal of 42.123 million visits, covering 97.5 percentof urban and rural residents. An information base ofsome 200,000 files had been established on the

condition of the people. Chongqing cadres have receiveda total of 3.369 million petitions from the masses, andhave resolved 2.81 million of the concerns raised; thishas caused the total number of petitions presented inthe city each year to decline by more than 20 percent.

Conclusions

The above illustrates the alternative paradigm of the“Chongqing” model and its “third way”/socialistreorientation approach to the existing developmentalparadigm in China. While Bo Xilai’s downfall seems tohave affected the prospects of the further emulation ofthe model elsewhere in China, indications are that thecommunist party has retained most of the features,despite the deposing of Bo Xilai except for referencesto the Cultural Revolution period and the televisionprogrammes and other “cultural interventions”, not tomention, going slow on some of the criminal cases thatwere launched by the erstwhile party secretary.

x “Many people think it impossible for guerrillas to exist for long inthe enemy's rear. Such a belief reveals lack of comprehension of the

relationship that should exist between the people and the troops. Theformer may be likened to water the latter to the fish who inhabit it. How mayit be said that these two cannot exist together? It is only undisciplinedtroops who make the people their enemies and who, like the fish out of itsnative element cannot live.” (From Mao Tse-Tung on Guerilla Warfare, ChapterSix titled ‘The Political Problems of Guerilla Warfare’) Accessed at http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1937/guerrilla-warfare/ch06.htm, accessed on October 24, 2012.

More hardline representatives of the “new Left” who areskeptical about the third way approach, but providetactical and moral support to it recognizing it as analternative, such as Zhun Xu (2012) and Minqi Lixi arguehowever that the trials of Bo Xilai are itself relatedto some of the initiatives that were targeted at cronycapitalism in the municipality. The argument is thatthe CPC leadership found it too dangerous for thecontinuation of the “populism” exhibited in Chongqingelsewhere, as this could see a sea of discontentagainst the party leadership itself, as the two authorsallege that this will reveal the nexus between bigbusiness and the regime.

That said, the continuation of the policies related toland financing, public housing and redistributivepolicies in Chongqing despite the fall to disgrace ofthe powerful party secretary, suggests that the CPCleadership, the outgoing Hu-Wen regime, is cognizant ofthe successes of this model. This could potentially seeemulation elsewhere in China – where conditions aresimilar and socio-economic issues are pressing vis-à-vis spatial inequality, urban-rural divide, migrationetc and are the key issues that are to be targeted asChina transits itself during the reforms period both

xi See interview with Minqi Li in the alternative internet based new service, “Real News Network” - http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=8925 accessed on October 24, 2012

economically and politically (the CPC leadership is setto change in the forthcoming 18th Party Congress).

It is increasingly clear that China is experiencingsimilar contradictions and challenges as evinced bydeveloped countries in Europe for e.g. during theirphase of capitalist consolidation and accumulation –and that it cannot postpone the debate on its economictrajectory nor can it ignore the lessons from the“Chongqing experiment”. The present economic trajectoryof the Chinese economy and the contradictions it hasunleashed have had effects upon its legitimacy initself and has brought upon intense pressure upon itsleadership by various kinds of ideological impulses andforces. In this, the “New Left”, through itspatronisation of the “Chongqing model” and support forBo Xilai has shown a markedly strong position callingfor reorientation of socialism in China bothpolitically and economically.

Thus far, the Chinese regime is more content to workupon minimal yet impactful economic changes that aresupported by the “New Left”, but are less thanenthusiastic about going about structurally differentpolitical reorientation beyond stabilisation andpersistence of its “institutionalised personalism”approach. Whether they would manage to continue to doso, in the wake of this new dissidence from the “NewLeft” as well as increased protests among the poor and

the marginalised in the Chinese society, remains to beseen. In that sense, the popularity of the “Chongqingmodel” and the contradictions that it has spawned, verymuch point to the future of China's unique political-economic system.

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