Could a systemic crisis lead to political changes in China?

China’s economic reforms have achieved great results over the past four decades, but some scholars, including Chinese governance expert Minxin Pei, believe the regime must change the country’s political system.

(Roma) -  The uncertain outcome of trade talks between Washington and Beijing, and the slowdown of the Chinese economy, have made the debate in China over reforms more vibrant than it was just a year ago.

Deng Xiaoping’s post-1978 “reform and opening up” policies ignited the Chinese economic miracle, but the current leadership in Beijing does not seem open to systemic adjustments, turning the country into a real market economy.

Zhang Jun, dean of the School of Economics at Fudan University, defends China’s economic trajectory from mounting criticism. In an opinion piece on April 2, Zhang said that after the financial crisis in 2008, “the Chinese authorities remained dedicated to their long-term plan to revise the country’s growth model, by shifting away from exports and towards domestic consumption.”

He emphasized that thanks to this effort, many millions of Chinese had reached the middle class over the past decade.

However, influential pro-market economist Wu Jinglian thinks China is heading in the wrong direction. In a video message delivered at a seminar hosted by the Hongfan Institute of Legal and Economic Studies in mid-January, Wu said that state control of the economy was inconsistent with the country’s reforms plan, which is aimed at market liberalization, and could lead to “crony capitalism” in China.

But economic reform in China, as elsewhere, is inextricably linked to political advances.

Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in the US, believes the Chinese leadership is unwilling to liberalize the economy because it wants to retain political control.

Economic freedom could indeed promote free speech and, accordingly, spark demands for political and religious liberties, so undermining the communist regime.

Causing quite a stir in and outside China, economist Xiang Songzuo of Renmin University said last December that for the Chinese economy to continue to grow in a stable way, the government must reform the tax system, the political structure and state governance.

But perhaps only an economic crisis – also fueled by trade pressure from the US – will lead to serious political changes in China, similarly to what happened with the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

“An economic crisis may be a necessary, but sufficient, condition to fundamental political change,”  Pei told AsiaNews. “It takes more than smaller paychecks for people to become thoroughly disenchanted with a political regime.”

Pei noted that in Chinese history, “fundamental political change occurred only after a systemic crisis that not only caused economic hardship, but also completely discredited the ruling elites’ ideological claims, moral authority and emotional connection with their people.”