Appunti Cinese 2

LEZIONE 10 - 29/10/2026

Let's start with elite politics and factionalism in the People's Republic of

China: networks and political survival. Here the first slide tries to

communicate the idea or a few examples of what a faction or what a

network is in the People's Republic of China. We already had an

opportunity to indirectly refer to factions and factionalism in China when

discussing the changes in the Central Military Commission and briefly

making reference to the case of Bo Xilai (Bosili). Today we will go deeper

into the topic of elite politics and factionalism, and during the second part

of class, there is a video to watch and analyze in a simple way.

Before the class actually starts, always remember that when we talk

about factionalism in the context of this class, we are talking about a

simple hypothesis that we have to consider and test. The one thing that I

discourage, because in my opinion it is a waste of time and energy, is

memorizing the list of factions that might exist at any point in time in

China, as well as memorizing the names of their members. Why?

Because the geography of factions changes constantly. Some factions

that existed four or five years ago might no longer exist today. Therefore,

going through lists of factions—which you can find everywhere on the

internet—and memorizing members' names, such as the Shanghai

Clique, the Petroleum Clique, or the Chongqing Mafia, is something you

shouldn't do. More important than remembering who belongs to which

faction is developing the ability to spot a faction when you encounter it

and to analyze its dynamics. There are a few simple techniques and

models developed from the early '70s that allow us to perform this

analysis.

First and foremost, what is really important is to identify a faction and

avoid confusing an interest group (a group of people who might work in

the same province, ministry, or party organ) with a true faction. Most

analytical approaches worked really well until 2012, when the geography

of factional infighting changed and became much less visible than in the

past. This doesn't mean we are unable to identify factions today, but we

should weigh available evidence carefully to avoid using weak claims or

hypotheses.

The topic today is inequalities, and we start with a brief discussion of the

meanings of factionalism. The word is one and the same, but the

meanings attributed to it change depending on context. In official

discourse in the People's Republic of China, factionalism has an

extremely negative meaning. If you browse newspapers like the People's

Daily, you will notice constant calls for unity or achieving an organic unity

with the party. In Marxist-Leninist logic, the existence of interest groups

is highly negative—it is seen as a symptom of disloyalty towards the

party, and in theory such interest groups should not exist. It is a negative

political label that can be used instrumentally against those who lose

political clashes. Outside of official party speak, factionalism is a

longstanding characteristic of the PRC political system, a mechanism

used to articulate specific interests, and an analytical tool. Chapter 1 of

William Joseph's textbook lists several available approaches to studying

the politics of China, referring to "