CHINA: LOCAL FACTIONALISM AND ORGANIZATIONAL REFORM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP85T00287R000401130001-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 5, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: June 9, 1983
• Content Type: MEMO

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Central Intelligence Agency
DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE
9 June 1983
China: Local Factionalism and Organizational Reform
Summary
The factionalism that continues to trouble many Chinese
provinces will impede the efforts of recent provincial appointees
to improve central control of local politics and facilitate
implementation of reforms. Although today's factionalism is
fundamentally different in scope and scale from that of the
Cultural Revolution, the factions generally are direct
descendants of that period. We view the coming party
rectification as a principal motive behind the current media
emphasis on the problem; intitial guidelines name "factionalists"
as a main target of the purge.
There is little doubt that the rectification itself will be
used as a weapon by dominant local groups in factional
infighting. Newly appointed local leaders will be forced to work
within the framework of local politics, forming new ruling
coalitions by choosing sides among contending groups, and
consequently restricting the reach of rectification to political
losers. The time consuming process of building new coalitions
will almost certainly cause other reform initiatives to suffer.
A Problem of Increasing Immediacy
A recent flurry of articles in the national and local media
has called attention to the continuing problem of local
This memorandum was prepared by
the Domestic Policy Branch o the China Division of the 25X1
Office of East Asian Analysis, Deputy Directorate of
Intelligence. Questions and comments are welcome and may be
directed to the authors 25X1
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factionalism. On 22 March, for example, People's Daily published
a remarkably candid article indicating Beijing's anxiety that
local factionalism will undermine the reform effort and impede
the coming party rectification. Its author, Li Qiming, was for
six years a secretary on Yunnan's party committee (eventually
rising to the province's second highest post) and before the
Cultural Revolution a Shaanxi party leader. Both provinces have
a history of turbulent, faction-ridden politics.
Although Li asserts that factionalism has been on the wane
since the Cultural Revolution, his catalogue of criticisms
suggests the dimensions of the continuing problem. From Li's
discussion, it is clear that:
-- Factional alignments are still critical in personnel
matters, and despite Beijing's best efforts, people are
often appointed to posts on the basis of their factional
support rather than their professional merit. Competing
factions often seek to maintain local political
equilibrium by agreeing to paired appointments that create
numerical parity within organizations.
-- Factional alignments forged during the Cultural Revolution
continue to operate and determine friends or foes,
regardless of their policy views. Officials who should
have been dismissed long ago for enormities committed
during the Cultural Revolution have been able to hang on
to power through the "old boy network" of factions.
-- Issues are of purely secondary or instrumental importance;
the real differences between factions are over
personalities and old political scores. As a result,
factional infighting turns on the strategic disclosure of
sensitive personnel information, rumor-mongering, false
accusations, secret caucusing to select allies for office,
and summary appointments without reference to superior
party organizations.
-- Factions continue to seek and receive the support of
higher levels officials, up to and including national
figures. Patrons and clients both work together to
squeeze out "strangers" and promote "acquaintances."
-- Factions refuse to let bygones be bygones. The attention
devoted to settling old accounts perpetuates an endless
cycle of political vendetta that disrupts more urgent
undertakings.
Factionalism in Action
We cannot make a firm judgment about the degree of
factionalism in all the provinces, but we are convinced the
problem exists to some extent in all of them. Factionalism is
certainly not as violent or as disruptive as it was during the
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late 1960s and early 1970s--armed clashes between rivals seem to
be a thing of the past--yet there is little doubt in our mind
that it frequently inhibits Beijing's ability to implement its
program.
Events in Yunnan demonstrate how factional interests can
coopt national policies and turn them to their own ends.
in Yunnan, a recent trial of Red Guard
remnants there--which was heralded in the press as a reformist
victory--was actually the result of moves by one faction, whose
members now hold the upper hand, against rivals from the Cultural
Revolution. The dominant faction was able to use the current
campaign against those guilty of Cultural Revolution excesses--
which certainly includes both groups--to remove factional rivals
who had managed to retain posts in Yunnan; arrests of
"factionalists" continue.
Patron-client networks are important even to reform-minded
officials supposedly trying to overcome reliance on them. For
instance, Guangdong Party Secretary Lin Ruo, one of Premier Zhao
Ziyang's fair-haired boys, has used his new position to protect
the jobs of older cadre with whom he has personal connections and
who should, according to reform guidelines, be retired.
Fujian, for centuries a fractious province, illustrates the
problems a new party boss faces as an outsider dealing with
securely lodged local factions. Xiang Nan, a close associate of
Hu Yaobang, was appointed first secretary two years ago with a
mandate to bring the province, one of the most faction-ridden and
violent during the Cultural Revolution, into line after another
candidate, a native Fujianese, declined the job. Xiang was
confronted with an array of factions, some of which dated from
before 1949.
Xiang's efforts were further frustrated by the effective
tactics of two factions who joined forces to oppose
implementation of many local reforms. Some factions have more at
stake than local political power; enmity in Fujian still
is so bitter that some people harbor fears of physical prisal
and seek protection through numbers in factions.
In a clear demonstration of the way in which a reform-minded
leader can find himself captured by the factional process, Xiang
Nan ultimately split one faction by striking a deal with some of
its members. He also felt compelled to rehabilitate a wing of
one faction (the Blacks) to offset the power of another (the
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Reds). The Black faction is now reported to be gathering
evidence of Cultural Revolution misdeeds and corruption to use
against the Reds in the coming party rectification campaign. The
Blacks were as guilty of Cultural Revolution excesses as the Reds
but, given their currently favored positio vert the
national campaign to their own purposes.
Working the System: Problems Ahead
For centuries the normal Chinese bureaucratic practice has
been to get things done through "personal relations" ( ug anxi),
and Beijing's current efforts to create strong institutions and
clear lines of authority have done little to supplant what
remains the rule of individually powerful men. Factions are a
natural upshot of guanxi, and, as the case of Fujian illustrates,
newly appointed local Teaders will continue to require the
cooperation of indigenous (and well entrenched) officials to
execute their responsibilities. The problem for Beijing is not
to dissolve the local networks--an unrealistic undertaking--but
to ensure they work to further central policies.
Beijing has sought to secure policy compliance generally by
concentrating on problems within the upper leadership strata at
both central and provincial levels and has relied upon personnel
changes to have a trickle-down effect on problems at lower
levels. The national leadership will continue its attempts to
resolve particularly difficult situations by direct inter-
vention--imposing hand-picked administrators, dispatching
trouble-shooting investigatory teams, and imposing by directive
its own solutions.
In addition, Beijing has placed greater emphasis on
standards of official conduct (including criminal sanctions) and
the strengthening of local party watchdog organs. The steady
drumbeat of media criticism from the central propaganda apparatus
may also help central's provincial agents to control the more
egregious aspects of factionalism.
The coming party rectification is almost certainly a
principal motive behind the current media emphasis on
factionalism. Beijing intends the purge to clear the lowest
administrative levels of Cultural Revolution remnants and other
officials whom it deems unsuitable for leadership posts, and,
according to initial guidelines, "factionalists" are a main
target.
There can be little doubt, however, that the rectification
will serve as a weapon of dominant local groups in factional
infighting. In our ,judgment, contending factions will vie for
influence within new leadership constellations, each seeking to
skew the focus of the rectification to its own advantage. The
persistently reasserted pattern of guanxi politics suggests that
local leaders will be forced to choose between groups and thereby
work within the framework of local politics to promote Beijing's
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policies. The taking of sides will consequently blunt the
rectification effort, largely by restricting its reach to losers
in local factional infighting.
Although it is ostensibly to Beijing's advantage for new
leaders to ally with local factions, the new ruling coalitions in
our judgment will form only slowly, and until the local political
situation is clarified, policy initiatives are likely to
falter. Considering Chinese precedent, delays may well rob
Beijing's other political and economic reforms of their momentum,
which will be difficult for new leadership teams to recapture.
Another embarrassing effect that new leading groups may generate
is the intensification of factional strife as local groups
compete for influence with newly arrived officials.
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China: Local Factionalism and Organizational Reform
Department of State
1 - Director, INR
1 - Director of Research, INR
1 - Chief, Northeast Asia Division Office of Analysis for East
Asia and Pacific (INR)
1 - INR/EC/RE
1 - Director, Office of Chinese Affairs, Bureau of East Asia and
Pacific Affairs
1 - Chief, Economic Section, Office of Chinese Affairs
United States Information Agency
1- Office of East Asia and Pacific Affairs (George Beasley)
Defense Intelligence Agency
3- - DIO for East Asia an d acific
1 - Chief, DE3
Central Intelligence Agency
1 - NIO/EA
1 - C/China
1 - OCR/EA
1 - OCR/ISG
2 - C/OEA/CH
1 - C/OEA/CH/DOM
1 - C/OEA/CH/FOR
1 - C/OEA/CH/DEF
1 - C/OEA/CH/DEV
1 - D/OEAA
1 - D/NIC
5 - OCO/IMB/CB
1 - PDB
2 - D/DDI
1 - OEA/NA
1 - OEA/SE
1 - FBIS China
1 - C/PES/DDI
1 - FR/RR
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