History's Lessons

For

more than half a century, Beijing has branded Chiang Kai-shek, the Generalissimo who ruled China for two decades, as an enemy of the people, heading a feudal, despotic regime that was swept away by the tide of historical inevitability in the communist victory of 1949. But now, 28 years after his death in Taiwan, the administration he headed on the mainland seems strangely familiar and relevant to the future of the world's most populous nation.

The parallels between the first decade of nationalist rule and the China of today are striking. So much so that the question arises of whether the leadership in Beijing can avoid the pitfalls that seriously weakened the Generalissimo's regime before its eight-year war with Japan began in 1937, and before the subsequent civil war with the communists dealt it a death blow.

Since Chiang's victory over the warlords who had carved up the country after the fall of the Manchu empire, the central government of China has been under one-party rule—first under the nationalist Kuomintang, followed by the communists. In the 1930s, as in the two decades since Deng Xiaoping opened China's door to market economics, the authorities counted on economic growth to make up for the absence of democracy and to win the allegiance of an emerging middle class. Progress was seen as a matter of technology rather than of political development—roads, railways and airlines then, a manned space mission now.

But, as is the case today, the rewards of such progress were spread very unevenly among China's huge population. There was a yawning divide between the fast-developing urban coastal regions, epitomized by Shanghai, and the vast, underdeveloped rural interior—a divide spotlighted at last week's Communist Party plenum in Beijing as a priority for action. The faster China grew, boosted by foreign investment and technology, the greater the wealth gap and the fault line in society. Then, as now, a pervasive internal security apparatus kept tabs on an evolving society. Chiang also sought a reform of personal conduct with his New Life movement, which tried to outlaw spitting, smoking and other bad behavior—just like the authorities last month decreeing a Public Morality Day.

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There are, of course, substantial differences between Chiang's regime and the current central government. Today's China has modernized to a much greater extent than during what is known as the "Nanjing Decade," named for the city the Generalissimo made his capital. Beijing's rule is actually more national than was Chiang's. Nor is there an equivalent of the Communist Party building up its strength for the eventual fight to the death.

Still, the echoes from the Nanjing Decade won't go away, providing an intriguing template from the past. In each case, the ruling party could draw support from the living memory of the chaos that preceded its rule: the postimperial warlord era for the nationalists, the Cultural Revolution for the post-Mao communists. But the fundamental question of the basis of a regime's legitimacy is as pertinent today as it was in the 1930s.

Nationalists and communists alike came to power through military victory, propagating a progressive ideology that was meant to correct the errors of the past. In each case, that ideology was not properly implemented or became outdated. Faced with the immense task of running a country as big and varied as China, Chiang tried to rule by issuing orders. Democracy was not on the agenda. Political power was to be exercised by the sole party on behalf of the people. That created a gulf between his government and those who found themselves kept outside the power structure, just as has been the case in the China that evolved from his defeat after 1949.

The combination of the economic carrot and the stick of repressive one-party rule proved insufficient to build lasting support for Chiang's rule. The nationalist era demonstrates how, by not involving the people in the way they are governed and by denying political pluralism, regimes easily become archaic and disconnected from their citizens, with no means of reinvigorating themselves.

Last week's Party plenum showed that President Hu Jintao's administration is aware of the need to be more responsive about China's social problems—but it skirted the issue of political reform. Unless it tackles that, along with a determined effort to broaden its appeal in ways which address popular concerns, the heirs of the victory of 1949 could find themselves sharing Chiang's predicament.