If we here at the Discourse had headlines or did mega-features with super-serious titles like National Review’s infamous “Against Trump” issue, today’s would be “Is China An Anocracy?”1
I was inspired, wierdly, by an episode of Games Studies Study Buddies, in which the hosts were not completely comfortable with a book’s description of China as “authoritarian state capitalism”.
This got me thinking about other situations where people have been uncomfortable with tagging a single label onto a country’s system of political economy, one being last year’s discussion of how Imperial WWII-Era Japan fit into a rare category called “anocracy”.
The way I’d define anocracy, based on what I’ve read, is this: (1) It has multiple competing centers of power, each with strong foundations of legitimacy in traditional society, (2) its internal politics are hard to understand because external commentators coming from different sets of ideological priors will naturally seize on aspects of struggles that they find most recognizable among the variety of power centers, and (3) its external actions are thus highly unpredictable, as insiders take drastic actions against each other while outsiders struggle to keep up with the chaos.
Basically, unlike anarchy, where no one’s in charge by design, or monarchy, where factions of nobles institutionally identical to the throne occasionally band together to challenge it, in anocracy, no one’s in charge, but many different institutions would like to be.2As to the actual question, I’d suggest the answer is “not yet”.
China does have competing centers of power. The military, the princelings, the communists, the capitalists, nationalists, traditionalists, etc. But the CCP is clearly still running the show.
However, what’s changing are some trends old and new. For one, China’s leadership class is increasingly reliant on nationalism to shore up support at home. Mao, Deng, and other previous leaders may have occasionally made nationalist appeals, but those were always carefully calibrated to not alarm foreigners like ourselves. Xi, on the other hand, both views nationalism as a critical part of his program, unlike the others for whom it was a tool, and as an expression of expansionism for its own end, as we’ve seen in the South and East China Seas, Hong Kong, and now Taiwan. It’s playing a fundamentally different role for him than it did for them.
Moving on, China’s long march towards “authoritarian state capitalism” as an economic model has now been in place since the 70’s “opening” with America. That’s 50 whole years! Today, we’re essentially looking at the result of that process: A more-confident-than-ever second generation of Chinese capitalists like Jack Ma. These capitalists grew up in a society with parents or even just members of their communities and nation who were taking advantage of economic liberalization. What’s important here is that they’re not potential immigrants, they’re potential exiles. They think of themselves as Chinese, they care about China, they aren’t going to leave without a fight, and they want to see China become more capitalist. And they also have the tools to wage this fight: although they’ve recently been on the downswing with Xi cracking down on their companies and consumers, the one thing they DO have is money. In historical political economy, which is essentially what we do here at the Discourse, never ignore a powerful class with a lot of money. It doesn’t mean they’ll win; it just means they’ll try. They have a lot to lose.
Moreover, although much is being made right now of Xi’s antics towards Taiwan3, it’s not guaranteed that the military agrees with him. The PLA is not as democratic as its official “conscript” status might imply — unlike many other conscription armies, it benefits from enough conscripts that service is essentially by volunteer. But the generals and various other commanders face the same fundamental difference with political leadership as any other army: their job is to make sure they win the conflict. So, even if they’re perfectly loyal Communists, if they don’t think they can win a conflict that Xi has ordered them into, or do it exactly to his specifications, they may well decide that he’s become incompetent, and act for the greater good of the CCP. Of course, this all depends on their leanings and mental states, which this humble blogger doesn’t have the best of research on at the moment.
At any rate, the point is that there are at least three different identifiable power centers. One currently has superiority over the other two, as evinced by Xi’s recent crackdown. But that crackdown may be, like all crackdowns, either a sign of weakness or a show of force, and it’s impossible to tell until after the fact. By the end of the decade, the emperor may well be shown to have had no clothes.At the same time, looking at last year’s item makes me wary of just declaring The Chanocracy and calling it a day. After all, last year I was worried about Iran. It’s not sufficient to just go around tarring all of America’s adversaries with bad puns on anocracy just because they’re annoying adversaries whom we don’t understand well.
And, to be honest, every country exists on a spectrum from anocratic to enocratic (“eno-” meaning “one” or “any one”).
What’s definitely true is that we should all fear an anocratic China, or “The Chanocracy”. It would be far more likely to start a war over Taiwan, and make it harder to end that war. If Xi sees his grip on power slipping, he will flail, and lash out. That’s dangerous for all of us.
Hence the meme in today’s sub-lede: “Chanocracy = China + anocracy = Ch-anocracy”.
Medieval Europe as a whole is another great example: alternating structures — military, religious, political — vied for power over the same peasantry.
Whose cause I wholly admit to being partial for. I’ve never even been there, although I hope to some day, but I’ve worked with many Taiwanese, and their country doesn’t deserve the CCP.