Gonzaga Debate Institute 2010 Bravo Lab China da

Infighting Bad - Economy

Infighting will destroy the Chinese economy, Hu will make concessions if resistance increases
Richmond – March 9, 2010

(Jennifer, “China's Challenge”, Right Side News, http://www.rightsidenews.com/201003098978/politics-and-economics/chinas-challenge.html)

Institutional and local government resistance to re-centralization has hounded the policy from its inception, and resistance has grown with the economic crisis. Money is now pouring into the economy via massive government-mandated bank lending to stimulate growth through investments as exports wane. Consequently, housing prices and inflation fears now plague the government - two issues that could lead to increased social tensions and are already leading to louder questioning of Hu's policies. With just two years to go in his administration, Hu already is looking to his legacy, weighing the risks and rewards between promoting long-term economic sustainability or short-term economic survival. The next two years will witness seemingly incongruent policy pronouncements as the two opposing directions and their proponents battle over China's economic and political landscape.

Infighting Bad - Economy

Political tensions and internal conflicts would collapse the Chinese economy
Bandow 2007

(Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, “China: Fragile Superpower”, Antiwar.com, September 8, http://original.antiwar.com/doug-bandow/2007/09/07/china-fragile-superpower/)

At least, that’s the conventional wisdom. And it is likely correct. But not necessarily, suggests Susan Shirk, a professor at the University of California (San Diego). China suffers from important weaknesses as well as enjoying significant strengths. The result is potential danger for America. Shirk worries that “unless we understand the fears that drive China’s leaders’ international behavior and craft our own policies accordingly, the historical odds predict war, not peace.” Shirk’s challenging summary of China is simple: “Strong abroad but fragile at home.” Her analysis ably backs up that conclusion. Beijing’s economic miracle is beyond doubt. Shirk, who first visited the PRC in 1971, describes a China which is unrecognizable today. From 1978 to 2004 “China’s GDP grew at an average rate of 9.5 percent,” she explains. Despite the PRC’s growing population, China’s per capita GDP jumped eight percent annually. Incomes lag outside of Beijing, Shanghai, and other leading cities. Nevertheless, vast numbers of Chinese peasants and laborers have escaped poverty. China’s growth has transformed that nation in another way. Once as isolated as it was poor, the PRC now is highly dependent on other nations, demonstrating what Shirk calls “an unusually high degree of openness to the world economy – foreign trade is 75 percent of its GDP.” She points to the slogan in the PRC that “China needs the world,” and especially the U.S., which, Shirk writes, “is China’s largest overseas market and the second-largest source of its foreign direct investment on a cumulative basis.” Washington and Beijing have much at stake in their relationship. Nevertheless, Shirk asks: “How long can the Chinese economic miracle last?” Chinese officials have much to fear. Their nation might be headed to great power status. Or to economic or social implosion. Although the PRC’s potential is great, its pitfalls also are many. For instance, Beijing is a rapidly aging society, with demographic trends accelerated by China’s coercive attempt to limit population growth. Under present trends, writes Shirk, “in 2065, 54 percent of the population will be over sixty and only 22 percent will be working.” That is not a prescription for a economic power. Beijing’s most important economic partner is the U.S., but tensions remain high. Complaints over high trade deficits, Chinese currency valuation, and extensive intellectual piracy have led to frequent calls in America for retaliation. Observes Shirk: “Chinese officials are growing increasingly nervous about the risk of a protectionist backlash,” which would harm both economies. China’s most serious domestic economic problem may be its shaky banking system. But there is much more. Writes Shirk, “the greatest risks to the Chinese economy, however, are more political than economic. The biggest question hanging over China is its political stability.” Threats to the existing communist autocracy are many. Impoverished egalitarianism has given way to pervasive economic inequality. Rampant corruption has generated extensive public anger. “Social” goals, particularly environmental protection and health care, remain unmet.

Infighting Bad – Party Legitimacy

Economic problems and social tension during the succession will deadlock the government and destroy Party legitimacy.

Li 9 (Cheng, Dir. of Research, John L. Thornton China Center, “China’s Team of Rivals ” Brookings Foundation Article series,Marcy http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2009/03_china_li.aspx) MKB

The two dozen senior politicians who walk the halls of Zhongnanhai, the compound of the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership in Beijing, are worried. What was inconceivable a year ago now threatens their rule: an economy in freefall. Exports, critical to China’s searing economic growth, have plunged. Thousands of factories and businesses, especially those in the prosperous coastal regions, have closed. In the last six months of 2008, 10 million workers, plus 1 million new college graduates, joined the already gigantic ranks of the country’s unemployed. During the same period, the Chinese stock market lost 65 percent of its value, equivalent to $3 trillion. The crisis, President Hu Jintao said recently, “is a test of our ability to control a complex situation, and also a test of our party’s governing ability.”With this rapid downturn, the Chinese Communist Party suddenly looks vulnerable. Since Deng Xiaoping initiated economic reforms three decades ago, the party’s legitimacy has relied upon its ability to keep the economy running at breakneck pace. If China is no longer able to maintain a high growth rate or provide jobs for its ever growing labor force, massive public dissatisfaction and social unrest could erupt. No one realizes this possibility more than the handful of people who steer China’s massive economy. Double-digit growth has sheltered them through a SARS epidemic, massive earthquakes, and contamination scandals. Now, the crucial question is whether they are equipped to handle an economic crisis of this magnitude—and survive the political challenges it will bring. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic, and the ruling party is no longer led by one strongman, like Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping. Instead, the Politburo and its Standing Committee, China’s most powerful body, are run by two informal coalitions that compete against each other for power, influence, and control over policy. Competition in the Communist Party is, of course, nothing new. But the jockeying today is no longer a zero-sum game in which a winner takes all. It is worth remembering that when Jiang Zemin handed the reins to his successor, Hu Jintao, in 2002, it marked the first time in the republic’s history that the transfer of power didn’t involve bloodshed or purges. What’s more, Hu was not a protégé of Jiang’s; they belonged to competing factions. To borrow a phrase popular in Washington these days, post-Deng China has been run by a team of rivals. This internal competition was enshrined as party practice a little more than a year ago. In October 2007, President Hu surprised many China watchers by abandoning the party’s normally straightforward succession procedure and designating not one but two heirs apparent. The Central Committee named Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang—two very different leaders in their early 50s—to the nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, where the rulers of China are groomed. The future roles of these two men, who will essentially share power after the next party congress meets in 2012, have since been refined: Xi will be the candidate to succeed the president, and Li will succeed Premier Wen Jiabao. The two rising stars share little in terms of family background, political association, leadership skills, and policy orientation. But they are each heavily involved in shaping economic policy—and they are expected to lead the two competing coalitions that will be relied upon to craft China’s political and economic trajectory in the next decade and beyond.