The Chinese Corporatist State by Hsu Jennifer Y. J.;Hasmath Reza;

Author:Hsu, Jennifer Y. J.;Hasmath, Reza;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1092640
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

The Janus-faced ACFIC

During the first half the twentieth century, self-initiated-and-managed business associations with voluntary memberships did exist in China and for some time even enjoyed lively growth.3 When the CCP took power in 1949, the new government understood that they must keep the domestic capitalist enterprises up and running in order to maintain stable economic and social order. However, such a symbiotic relationship between the Communist state and the capitalist firms was not always friendly and did not last for long. Soon after the CCP came to believe that the national economy was under its control, it launched the campaign of transforming the capitalist firms into the newly established socialist and planned economy, and the whole campaign was completed in merely three years (1953–1956). With their members gone, the business associations disappeared automatically. Even the most prominent of them, the ACFIC, one of the non-Communist political groups of the People's Political Consultation Assembly (PPCA, zhen xie), could not survive the incessant waves of political campaigns and movements, with the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution being the most disastrous.

One of the most important contributions Deng Xiaoping made to China was shifting the nation's attention from political campaigns to economic reconstruction. In 1979, he met the remaining top business leaders who survived the Maoist era thanks to the protection by top leaders such as Zhou Enlai, among others, and encouraged them to expand their businesses. Soon afterwards, the ACFIC was resurrected and later held a national congress.

Among all the business associations in China, the ACFIC is politically unique and most powerful. Not only does it have the largest number of members but most of its members also enjoy leadership and influence in their area or industry. However, political prominence does not automatically come with autonomy; the ACFIC seems to have no choice but to take up multiple identities and functions (Janus-faced, to use Margaret Pearson's (1994) term in her study of associations of foreign firms in China). Although recognized as a “people's organization” under the leadership of the CCP, a directive issued by the CCP's Central Committee in 1991 (zhong gong zhongyang tong zhan bu guan yu gong shang lian rou gan wen ti de qing shi) outlines that the ACFIC is “the bridge connecting the Party and the Government with the people in the non-state economic sectors” and “the aid of the Government for administrating the non-state economy.” In other words, it is a “non-governmental civil business chamber in China” (Huang 2005:3–4) that represents the interests of the various types of non-state businesses (individual businesses, partnerships, limited and share-holding firms, constituting roughly 70 percent of all ACFIC members), while it simultaneously helps the CCP keep watch over them. It is only possible for one organization to fulfil the dual demands when there are no conflicts between the two sides. How the ACFIC manages to fulfil its functions will be one of the issues we shall look at in the next section.

Beyond these political requirements, however, as Kennedy correctly points out, “the Chinese government has never had a fully articulated and coordinated strategy” (2005: 29).

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