Response #2: "Reform and Openness"（改革开放）

At the beginning of the semester, Professor King identified performance as a method by which a state can claim legitimacy, in addition to the more traditionally recognized methods. I remember thinking of China as soon as we were discussing this method of legitimation. Although China's CCP lacked the rational/legal method of claiming legitimacy, and it can be argued that the CCP largely lost its charismatic leadership after the death of Mao Zedong, the process of democratization did not occur because the CCP's performance in saving/reforming China's economy has really solidified its claim to legitimacy.

Gallagher points out that the economic reforms and their success has "[bought] the existing regime time to implement politically difficult reforms and to reformulate the ideological foundation of their legitimacy to rule" (372). Since the end of Mao's rule, the CCP has been suffering from a legitimacy deficit. The death of the charismatic leader forced the party to seek ways in which it can consolidate its rule over China, and I believe it has relied on its performance to achieve this. Examples can be the CCP's successful economic policies, successful deterrence of Taiwan from declaring independence, and its successful hosting of the 2008 Beijing Olympics (not to mention that China's "performance" was stellar in the games).

While the argument Gallagher makes is convincing, I challenge her qualification of the general argument that the role of FDI in China's economic reforms "has led to a delay in political change" rather than stopping it altogether (371). I would like to propose at least the possibility of the CCP managing to permanently hold its power and legitimacy in mainland China. Whether this view will hold true is for the future to tell, but we should remain open to this possibility and avoid the democracy-biased view of the transition paradigm theorists, as Carothers would argue. Perhaps the somewhat unconventional coexistance of a capitalist economy (though it is not complete) and authoritarian rule in Mainland China will prove to be viable and stable in the long run.