Damage Control: The Chinese Communist Party in the Jiang Zemin Era [Paperback]

Wang Gungwu (Editor), Zheng Yongnian (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 9812102515 | ISBN-13: 978-9812102515 | Publication Date: February 2004

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with its 66 million members, is the largest ruling political party in the world. Scholars and policymakers are watching whether the Party will wither away as a result of drastic socio-economic changes. With the decline of Marxism and Maoism, will the Party be able to renew its ideology to justify its existence? Will it be able to stay relevant? Will it be able to govern 1.3 billion people effectively? Will it be able to introduce democracy as China's new organizational base? The CCP is not just a Party, as understood commonly in the West. The latest version of the Party Constitution states that the Party is the vanguard of not only the working class, but also the Chinese people and the Chinese nation. Thus the Party will, to a large extent, decide what role China will play in world politics. At the party's 16th Congress in November 2002, Jiang Zemin stepped down as Secretary General. This was the first time in the People's Republic of China's history that a physically healthy party boss stepped down without intensive political struggles among top leaders. The development of the CCP has been one of the major areas that the East Asian Institute has monitored over the years. This collection represents a joint effort by scholars in the institute to understand the CCP under Jiang Zemin. All the papers were previously circulated as working papers and background briefs produced by the East Asian Institute, and were refined and updated for this publication.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Wang Gungwu is Professor and Director of the East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore (NUS). He has taught at the University of Malaya (in Singapore and in Kuala Lumpur). Some of his other appointments: Faculty Professor, NUS; Vice-Chancellor University of Hong Kong (1986 to 1995); Distinguished Professorial Fellow, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies; Emeritus Professor, Australian National University. Zheng Yongnian is currently a senior research fellow at the East Asian Institute of the National University of Singapore. He is also a co-editor of China: An International Journal. He is a recipient of the Social Science Research Council-MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Dr Zheng has extensively studied both China's domestic political economy and its external relations. His papers have appeared in journals such as Political Science Quarterly, Third World Quarterly, Japanese Journal of Political Science, Asian Journal of Political Science, and Pacific Review. He is the author of Bringing the Party Back In: How China is Governed (2004), Discovering Chinese Nationalism in China (1999) and Globalization and State Transformation in China (2004). He also co-edited Reform, Legitimacy and Dilemmas(2000), The Nanxun Legacy and China's Development in the Post-Deng Era (2001), China's Post-Jiang Leadership Succession (2002), and Damage Control (2003).

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Marshall Cavendish Academic (February 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9812102515
• ISBN-13: 978-9812102515
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,951,360 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)