Hu Angang, the head of Tsinghua University’s National Research Center who advocated for a “collective presidential system,” has been out of the spotlight for a long time since Tsinghua University alumni launched an “anti-Hu” campaign in 2018, the pro-CCP Dovetail reports. I don’t know if this means his golden era has passed.
However, a few days ago, Tsinghua University held its 110th anniversary celebration, the Communist Party’s top leader Xi Jinping personally went to his alma mater, during which he attended a series of activities, in the official video footage released, Hu Angangang “low-key” appearance, which attracted people’s attention.
Xinhua news agency said, April 19 near noon, Xi Jinping ended his visit in the back of the West Gymnasium of Tsinghua University and held a symposium with the university’s teachers and students. During the period, at about 1:20, Xi Jinping came to the back pavilion of Tsinghua University’s West Gymnasium to attend a symposium with representatives of teachers and students. Tsinghua University Party Secretary Chen Xu, President Qiu Yong, civil engineering faculty Nie Jianguo, public administration faculty Mei Chiqi, recent doctoral graduates from the Department of Engineering and Physical Science Sun Qiming, and second-year undergraduate students from the College of Humanities Li Runfeng spoke. At that time, CCTV cameras swept through the attendees one by one, while Hu Angang sat in the front row of the audience between Wu Jianping, director of Tsinghua University’s Institute of Network Science and Cyberspace, and Zhang Mingkai, professor of Tsinghua University Law School, and kept his head buried in his pen.
He was born in 1953 and studied in the United States and Japan. In the 1980s, he was involved in the study of China’s national conditions and established his interest in the future, and in the 1990s, he co-authored the “China State Capacity Report” with Wang Shaoguang, which is credited with directly influencing the “iron-fisted prime minister” Zhu Rongji to promote the tax-sharing reform. “Hu Angang was definitely one of the most controversial new leftist economists in China more than a decade ago.
However, although Hu Angang has written extensively during his tenure at the National Research Center of Tsinghua University, especially the hundreds of volumes of National Condition Reports edited by him for the reference of senior officials at the provincial and ministerial levels, which “have been approved by the Party and State leaders more than a hundred times and have had a continuous impact on major national decisions”, he seems to have “stepped on the wrong side” at the most crucial point in time, i.e. around the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. But at the most critical time, that is, around the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, he seems to have “stepped on” the wrong rhythm.
In the fall of 2012, when Xi Jinping took office to eradicate the ills of “nine dragons ruling water” and to strengthen the authority of the CPC Central Committee and General Secretary, Hu Angang publicly advocated a “collective presidential system” that was more democratic than the U.S. presidential system in response to the constitutional debate at the time. In July of that year, on the eve of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Hu Angang published an article in People’s Daily (overseas edition) entitled “Ten Splendid Years, Where is China’s Success”.
The article mentions that the past 10 years have been a “glorious decade” for China’s overall development, an extraordinary 10 years …… Why is China so brilliant and so successful? …… From the characteristics and conditions of political development, the political advantage of the Chinese socialist system lies in a good Standing Committee of the Central Political Bureau …… The Standing Committee of the Central Political Bureau consists of nine members, representing the Party, the state and the military and other eight leading institutions. The division of labor and the coordination of synergy have formed a “collective presidential system” with Chinese characteristics. …… The “collective presidential system” has obvious information and decision-making advantages over the “individual presidential system” in terms of the interaction between the information structure of full information sharing and the decision-making structure of full democratic decision-making. It is more democratic, coordinated, and efficient.
Hu Angang (second from right) attends the Tsinghua University celebration on April 19, 2021, after a rather low profile due to controversy. (China CCTV video screenshot)
The following year, in 2013, Hu Angang went further and explained in his monograph “China’s Collective Leadership System” that they are equal as members of the leadership collective and that the decision-making process is collective, i.e. democratic discussion, one person, one vote, majority decision. This is based on the fact that the secretary is the “class leader” and the relationship between the secretary (class leader) and the members (a group of people) follows the democratic decision-making principle of “the minority obeys the majority”. This is the fundamental reason to ensure the correct decision of the Party Central Committee, and also the fundamental reason to correct the mistakes of the decision in time. The facts also show that the more equal and democratic the members of the leading group in decision-making, the more likely it is to be successful; conversely, the more likely it is that there will be differences in decision-making, decision-making failure, decision-making failure.
Of course, the “collective presidential system” was “bombarded” at the time, especially by liberals, and was not officially adopted by the Chinese Communist Party. (However, in 2017, in light of the changing political situation after the 18th CPC Congress, Hu Angang co-authored an “updated” version of “Innovating China’s Collective Leadership System,” which attempts to explain the relationship between the “leadership core” and others.)
It seems that Hu Angang was quite quiet for some time after that, except for 2014 and 2015 when he participated in the expert symposiums on the economic situation held by Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang respectively, and rarely stirred up public opinion again. Until early August 2018, an open letter signed by thousands of Tsinghua University alumni circulated on the Internet, quoting Hu Angang’s argument in a video speech in 2017 that “China has entered a period of catching up and surpassing the United States in all aspects, and its comprehensive national power is the first in the world”, saying that this study “ignores common sense and treats academics as nothing. He said that this research “ignores common sense and treats academics as nothing” and “misleads the country’s decision making and confuses the people at the bottom, and leads other countries to be wary and neighbors to be afraid.
This incident happened when the dark clouds of the trade war between China and the United States were rising, and the ZTE incident “woke up” the nationalistic exuberance in China, including the chief negotiator of China’s customs clearance and WTO accession, Long Yongtu, who openly criticized Hu Angangang or implied that blind optimism and arrogance could not grow, which made Hu Angangang very passive.
Hu Angang seems to have once again “stepped” on the wrong rhythm, and then fell into silence. However, according to the search, in fact, Hu Angang has not done nothing in these years, discouraged. In March 2021, Hu Angangang was interviewed by the Hubei media “Changjiang Daily”, saying that “the miracle in Wuhan is not a coincidence. It is a direct and full manifestation of the fundamental cause of the Chinese miracle, namely the unique advantages of China’s socialist system”.
In fact, in 2020 Hu Angang has already waved the flag for his so-called “China Road 5.0” in a new work. This seems to fit in with the “Chinese experience” and “Chinese program” that Beijing is trying to promote at the moment. In the post-epidemic era, Beijing is showing more and more blind confidence and arguing that China should be more active in the context of the “100-year change” (i.e., the rise of the East and the fall of the West), especially in rewriting the old global political and economic order dominated by Europe and the United States.
We don’t know whether Hu Angang can “step” on the right rhythm this time.
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