Bruce Dickson

For decades, Western observers have assumed that China’s one-party system cannot survive the transition to a modern, developed economy. The theory is that rising standards of living will lead China’s growing middle class to demand more political rights from the government, as happened in neighboring South Korea, for example. Though events on the ground in China have yet to lend credence to the theory, it remains attractive to many analysts -- and predictions of the Communist Party of China’s collapse continue to be made.

In his recent book, The Dictator's Dilemma:The Chinese Communist Party's Strategy for Survival, Bruce Dickson tackles this narrative head on. Dickson, professor of political science and international affairs and director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., looks at public opinion in China to get at the elusive question of what Chinese people actually think about their government. He discussed his findings, and the implications for China, in an interview with The Diplomat’s Shannon Tiezzi.

The Diplomat: Your book is based on two public opinion surveys in China – something of a rarity. How do you go about conducting a large-scale survey on the sensitive topic of attitudes toward the Communist Party of China?

Bruce Dickson: First, you need to work with an experienced and reputable survey research center in China that knows how to design and implement large surveys. In order to get credible results, you need to work with other scholars who are experts in this area.

Second, you need to avoid sensitive questions, because respondents will either give the politically correct answer or not answer at all. Whereas we get new and almost daily approval ratings about President Obama and more recently Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, in China you can't ask about specific leaders by name. You can ask about central or local officials in general, but not individuals.

And third, questions that used to be sensitive -- like corruption and pollution -- are not so sensitive anymore. In casual conversations, people freely complain about corruption, pollution, health care, congestion, food safety, and so on. Asking about them in surveys is now pretty standard.

Your title, “The Dictator’s Dilemma,” comes from the tightrope walk that authoritarian governments must tread. They use repression as a primary tool to cement authority, but the more they repress – and, particularly, the more broadly they cast their nets – the greater the likelihood of public backlash. Xi Jinping has raised the temperature considerably on rights issues; has that been reflected in public sentiment?

Most of the questions about repression, such as censorship and NGOs, were only asked in the 2014 survey, so I can't say how the uptick in repression is reflected in public opinion. One hint of this comes in questions about whether people fear retaliation when they criticize local or national leaders. There was a slight increase in this type of political fear, and a much larger increase in people who say they never criticize their leaders. This is one goal of repression -- to silence critics of the regime. But levels of political fear are only weakly correlated with regime support, at least so far.

One of your key takeaways is that Chinese people are generally satisfied with the performance of the CPC – and, correspondingly, there is little public support for dissidents and democracy activists. Given that, what impact do you think these figures actually have in China?

Dissidents and democracy advocates in China have a very tough job. They face suppression from the state and skepticism from their fellow citizens. Moreover, they have a hard time convincing people of the advantages of liberal democracy. The incomplete transitions to democracy in many of the post-Soviet countries and more recently in the Middle East, plus the gridlock in the United States and much of Europe, do not instill much confidence that China would be better off.

The kicker is that most Chinese believe their country is already increasingly democratic and are satisfied with the level of democracy they currently have. But they define it not in terms of elections, a multiparty system, rule of law, and so on, but whether the government is doing things on behalf of the public. Because most people are experiencing higher standards of living, more mobility, and more opportunities, they see China as becoming more and more democratic, even if outside observers -- and democracy activists in China -- don't see it that way.

There’s a widespread assumption in the West that because China is not democratic, the government is not responsive to public opinion. To what extent do you think public attitudes on hot button domestic issues – the environment, food and workplace safety, corruption – impact policymaking at the center?

Because the policymaking process in China is so non-transparent, it can be hard to determine how responsive it is. There are a variety of channels for people to make their views known -- the petition system, the online open-comment period for new laws and regulations, deliberative polling in a few places -- but it is not always apparent if these views are being heard by decision makers or are just window dressing. It is nevertheless true that the government is devoting more resources to some of the most salient policy issues, like pollution, food safety, working conditions and low wages, corruption, and so on. The concern is that the longer these problems fester, the more likely they are lead to greater popular dissatisfaction, even protests and instability. So Chinese leaders are not accountable to their citizens via elections, but they are responsive in some ways.

The CPC bases its legitimacy, in part, on the massive achievement of lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty over the past 30 years. However, the younger generation was born and raised in an already prosperous China, and has no memory of the hardships of the pre-“reform and opening” era. Do you think this generation gap will make younger Chinese more demanding vis-a-vis their government, as they have not personally lived through the country’s economic miracle?

This is the expectation of modernization theory: as a country becomes more prosperous, its citizens will become more demanding. Young people in China do not have the same reference points as older cohorts, and may not be moved by stories of the bad old days. The Party also provides limited information on what life was like in the Maoist era. While it is true that younger people are less satisfied with the work of the government and have lower regime support, we don't know if this is due to a generational change or simply life cycle effects. Young people tend to be more dissatisfied in any country, and as they get older their views often change.

We see some sign of changed attitudes in NIMBY [Not In My Backyard] protests against the building of chemical plants, power plants, waste dumps, and other unwelcome projects. In these disputes, people are trying to protect their quality of life and property interests. But despite the anticipated "revolution of rising expectations," there is little evidence so far. For most people, material interests still trump political demands.