Cadre Country: How China became the Chinese Communist Party

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Essentially, the Party has been able to justify itself as the key driver of prosperity, improved social service delivery, and stability. This framing has resonated with enough Chinese ‘outsiders’, who have seen improvements in their quality of life compared to previous generations. Such ‘lived experience’ helps to justify the Party’s claim that change now is too risky. However, China’s poor economic growth in 2022, in part because of the CCP’s approach to COVID-19, may pose a significant challenge to Xi’s legitimacy. Award-winning historian John Fitzgerald focuses on the stories the Communist Party tells about itself, exploring how China works as an authoritarian state and revealing Beijing's monumental propaganda productions as a fragile edifice built on questionable assumptions. In the traditional account, China is a normal sovereign nation, one that happens to be ruled by a communist party, though it has reformed to enable significant capital markets to grow rich. It denies the public a say on the issues, yet there are clear responsibilities for the leadership (such as economic growth) which drive the political landscape. It takes decades of patient observation, experience and study of China to produce a book like this. Cadre Country is a must read for specialists and the general public.’ – Anita Chan, Australian National University Since the founding of the Communist Party in China just over a century ago, there is much the country has achieved. But who does the heavy lifting in China? And who walks away with the spoils? Cadre Country places the spotlight on the nation's 40 million cadres - the managers and government officials employed by the ruling Communist Party to protect its great enterprise. This group has captured the culture and wealth of China, excluding the voices of the common citizens of this powerful and diverse country.

Fitzgerald primarily examines China from 2008 onwards in the post-Global Financial Crisis era, which has seen rapid economic growth in China. Fitzgerald notes that while ideology was the central guiding objective during Mao’s rule, during the Reform and Opening Up Period from the late-1970s onwards, economic modernisation preoccupied the party. In 2012, Xi came to power heralding a new era in which he has sought to re-emphasise ideology as a core guiding value for the CCP and the PRC more broadly. As Fitzgerald writes, Cadre Country is ‘about the party and government officials who run the country, known as cadres, and about the system of cadre rule that grants them status and privileges not enjoyed by ordinary people’. CCP members are essentially ‘employees holding established positions in the party and state system, on full benefits.’ In addition, Fitzgerald scrutinises the Party’s key claim that it achieves goals because of its long-term planning, for example in infrastructure, compared to democratic short-termism. But, as the book observes, long-term planning removes the autonomy of individuals, families, and private firms. Fitzgerald cites the violations of individual autonomy during the One Child Policy (1980-2016) to illustrate his claim. He is surely right. Yet what is interesting is that Western governments increasingly perceive that long-term planning has enabled China to develop economically. For example, leaders in the United States and European Union have recently announced plans related to technology development to compete with China. Award-winning historian John Fitzgerald focuses on the stories the Communist Party tells about itself, exploring how China works as an authoritarian state, and revealing Beijing’s monumental propaganda productions as a fragile edifice built on questionable assumptions.

About the speaker

In October 2022, at the 20 th Communist Party Congress, China’s President Xi Jinping cemented his power to win a third term of leadership and become the most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. To understand the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), its political organisation, and how it has maintained its grip on power, China historian John Fitzgerald’s 2022 book Cadre Country is a great place to start. It takes decades of patient observation, experience and study of China to produce a book like this. Cadre Country is a must read for specialists and the general public.’ – Anita Chan, Australian National University Dong Wang is distinguished professor of history and director of the Wellington Koo Institute for Modern China in World History at Shanghai University (since 2016), a member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, and an elected Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. John Fitzgerald is an historian of China and the Chinese diaspora. He headed the Asia-Pacific Centre for Social Investment and Philanthropy at Swinburne University after serving five years as China Representative of The Ford Foundation in Beijing (2008-13). From 2015 to 2017 he served as President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. His recent books include Cadre Country: How China became the Chinese Communist Party (2022), Taking the Low Road: China’s Influence in Australia’s States and Territories (edited, 2022), and Chinese Diaspora Charity and the Cantonese Pacific, 1850–1949 (edited with Hon-ming Yip, 2020).

Take the famous urban-influx of migrants, where farmers left their fields and moved into Chinese big cities, fueling economic growth. Fitzgerald cites studies suggesting there are at least 130 million such migrant laborers (up to 10% of the population), who while working in the cities are still legally treated as part of their former rural environments. As such, they cannot gain access to urban healthcare, education or welfare services. Absent secure housing or support, as many as 60 million children are left behind with grandparents in rural environments, or taught in near-illicit migrant schools on the outskirts of the major cities. These workers have contributed as much as 1/3rd of the total growth of China over the last few decades, yet they remain virtual foreign workers in their own country.Cadre Country is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the workings of the Chinese Communist Party and the limits of its achievements. Cadre Country is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the workings of the Chinese Communist Party and the limits of its achievements. China’s communist party regards itself as engaged in a global information war. In his new book, Cadre Country, historian John Fitzgerald probes some of the key stories the party tells to advance its cause. In this talk, he focuses on one story that resonates in China and internationally, China’s ‘Century of Humiliation.’ Where does this term come from, when it is deployed, and why? Since the founding of the Communist Party in China just over a century ago, there is much the country has achieved. But who does the heavy lifting in China? And who walks away with the spoils? Cadre Country places the spotlight on the nation’s 40 million cadres – the managers and government officials employed by the ruling Communist Party to protect its great enterprise. This group has captured the culture and wealth of China, excluding the voices of the common citizens of this powerful and diverse country.

Award-winning historian John Fitzgerald focuses on the stories the Communist Party tells about itself, exploring how China works as an authoritarian state and revealing Beijing’s monumental propaganda productions as a fragile edifice built on questionable assumptions. Since the founding of the Communist Party in China just over a century ago, there is much the country has achieved. But who does the heavy lifting in China? And who walks away with the spoils? Cadre Country places the spotlight on the nation’s 40 million cadres – the managers and government officials employed by the ruling Communist Party to protect its great enterprise. This group has captured the culture and wealth of China, excluding the voices of the common citizens of this powerful and diverse country.

An issue with much reporting and literature on the risks of China engagement, which includes Cadre Country, is that it risks downplaying how Australia has benefitted from China engagement and people-to-people links. China remains Australia’s largest trading partner and scientific collaboration continues to produce positive benefits. While the Wuhan Laboratory remains the source of controversy, scientific cooperation has produced mutual benefits. For example, in January 2020, University of Sydney Professor Edward Holmes worked with Fudan University Professor, Zhang Yongzhen, who held the genomic information, to tweet the genome of SARS-CoV-2, which made it available to the world and allowed for the rapid development of COVID-19 testing and vaccines. The challenge for Australia is how to mitigate the risks while maintaining the benefits of open engagement. Please be aware that the delivery time frame may vary according to the area of delivery - the approximate delivery time is usually between 1-2 business days. John Fitzgerald is an historian of China and the Chinese diaspora. He headed the Asia-Pacific Centre for Social Investment and Philanthropy at Swinburne University after serving five years as China Representative of The Ford Foundation in Beijing (2008-13). From 2015 to 2017 he served as President of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. His recent books include Cadre Country: How China became the Chinese Communist Party (2022), Taking the Low Road: China’s Influence in Australia’s States and Territories (edited, 2022), and Chinese Diaspora Charity and the Cantonese Pacific, 1850–1949 (edited with Hon-ming Yip, 2020). Earlier books include Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia (2007), awarded the Ernest Scott Prize of the Australian Historical Association, and Awakening China: Politics, Culture and Class in the Nationalist Revolution (1997), awarded the Joseph Levenson Prize of the US Association for Asian Studies. He is a graduate of the University of Sydney (BA 1976), Nanjing University (Language Cert 1977) and ANU (PhD 1983), and studied at UW Madison as a Fulbright post-doctoral fellow (1988). Fundamentally, Cadre Country seeks to scrutinise the CCP, its political organisation, and its key claims, including the centrality of the Party to China’s political stability, culture, economic growth, and that foreigners wary of China are ignorant or prejudiced. For example, he rejects the claim of the CCP and its advocates that the alleviation of poverty since the 1980s is due to the CCP’s reforms. Rather, he makes the case that it was due to the CCP finally loosening its grip over the Chinese people. The Party justifies its rule by emphasising how its leaders are selected on merit (and are thus responsible for economic expertise) rather than by democratic election (which the CCP sees as dangerous). Fitzgerald critiques this narrative as simply a way for the Party to entrench its system of political exclusion. Award-winning historian John Fitzgerald focuses on the stories the Communist Party tells about itself, exploring how China works as an authoritarian state, and revealing Beijing's monumental propaganda productions as a fragile edifice built on questionable assumptions.

In Fitzgerald's account, almost all of these claims are wrong. The title 'Cadre Country' one realises by the end of the book, should be taken literally. 'China' (a word only the CPC is allowed to use), is a 'defacto political nation' of around 40 million party loyalists, and ruling elite families. This 'Party-State' conquered the Chinese people in 1949 and remains, akin to a colonial regime, superimposed on top of the other nation. It rules by and for itself. It lives virtually distinct in life, from the services used and the food available to it, from the other nation. That second nation, the 'People-State' of 1.4 billion Chinese people are not simply prevent from having a say in how 'China' runs, they are not even part of the same system. Fitzgerald aims to bring an up-to-date account into the public sphere regarding the on-the-ground realities of China and the CCP’s rule, in comparison to work that often stays within insular academic and elite debates. This work forms part of Fitzgerald’s ongoing criticism of the pragmatic approach that Australian elites have taken in promoting deep engagement with China to develop economic opportunities while ignoring the more authoritarian, nationalistic, and ideological path of Xi’s China.It takes decades of patient observation, experience and study of China to produce a book like this. Cadre Country is a must read for specialists and the general public.’ – Anita Chan, Australian National University