Depoliticized Politics Wang

In his essay Depoliticized Politics: From East to West, Wang Hui defines China’s tumultuous experience in the 20th Century as a “revolutionary century.” Founded upon the concept of class and culminating with the Cultural Revolution, the revolutionary spirit of the early years of the PRC provided political vitality to the Chinese party-state through public debates on modernity and democracy. Wang argues that the degeneration of the political vitality into a mechanism for “line struggle” in the course of the revolution triggered ‘depoliticization of politics’ in the Chinese party-state, which has become a defining characteristics of Post-Mao China. Wang further contends that the end of the revolutionary century can be marked by the failure of

In her book Made in China, Pun Ngai supports Wang’s point as she maintains, “fashioned with a neoliberal discourse of modernity, the new hegemonic machine is geared up to denounce class as a relevant social discourse and refute Maoism, especially its tenet of perpetuating class struggle, as an obsolete and harmful mode of thought” (Pun, p28). In addition, due to the lack of collective political body to represent workers’ rights outside depoliticized party apparatus, workers find themselves difficult to defend their rights. In Restructuring and the Historical Fate of China’s Working Class, Wang identifies, “lacking mechanisms for broad-based and systematic participation by the workers… there is no way for ordinary workers to defend their interests (Wang,

Fang affirms, “by putting an end to the internal ‘class struggle’… the current Chinese regime has been extremely successful in laying down a solid foundation for China’s social economic development, which institutionally discourages politics-related and war-related “destructive efforts.” (Fang, p233) Fang’s view is a direct opposite of Wang’s, who considers open debates on the party doctrines and policies as conditions for a sustainable political system rather than “destructive efforts.” Wang explains, “it is precisely these theoretical battles that maintain a party’s internal vitality” (Wang, p7). Furthermore, Fang argues that a “strong and stable top leadership” must “effectively keep under control the deep seated fear of disorder in both the bureaucracy and society” (Fang, p228). This statement implies Fang’s underlying assumption that the depoliticized state-party system is a solution for social disorder that produced the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. Whereas, in Wang view, depoliticization was, in fact, the cause of the social disorder during the Cultural Revolution. According to Wang, “the tragedy of the Cultural Revolution was not a product of its politicization… The tragedy was a result of depoliticization – polarized factional struggles that eliminated the possibility for autonomous social spheres, transforming political debate into a mere