Hearing the Voice of The People at Last.(public opinion in China)(Brief Article)(Column)

To those long accustomed to viewing china as a repressive autocracy, the idea that public opinion might influence government policy sounds farfetched, if not utterly impossible. In their eyes, China's unelected rulers need not pay any heed to what their people think. They also find it inconceivable that, given the government's control of the media and tools of political manipulation, the Chinese public can form any independent opinions. Such views, however, are simplistic and out of date. Public opinion is now a force that leaders must often reckon with--precisely because of the ways in which the Chinese leadership itself has changed.

In the era of Mao Zedong and, to a lesser extent, Deng Xiaoping, Beijing made crucial domestic- and foreign-policy decisions with scant regard for what ordinary Chinese thought. Thus, Mao could invite Richard Nixon to China during the Cultural Revolution--when every Chinese was taught that the United States was an evil imperialist power. Likewise, Deng singlehandedly finessed the sticking point of continued American arms sales to Taiwan when Sino-American negotiations over the normalization of relations hit an impasse in 1978.

The passing of such powerful leaders has resulted in a collective leadership of equals in Beijing. Nominally, top officials like Jiang Zemin seem to hold more power than others. In reality, they are coalition builders. And although trading political favors remains the dominant currency in coalition politics, public opinion has gradually gained importance as a factor that can shift policy debates in cases when the internal political balance is extremely delicate. Leaders who represent different bureaucratic and ...