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1.媒體來源:

The Christian Science Monitor
(美)基督教科學箴言報

2.記者署名:

By Ann Scott Tyson Staff writer

3.完整新聞標題:
Vilified abroad, popular at home: China's Communist Party at 100
在國內受到擁護 在國外受到指責 ：中共的建黨100周年

4.完整新聞內文:


A year ago Feb. 7, China’s brave coronavirus whistleblower Dr. Li Wenliang
died after treating patients in Wuhan, triggering an unprecedented online
torrent of grief and anti-government rage along with calls for freedom of
speech.
一年以前的2月7日，中國勇敢的新冠疫情吹哨者李文亮醫生在照顧病人後去世，在中國網
絡上觸發了空前的哀悼和反政府怒火，要求言論自由。
The widespread public outrage over the government’s initial mishandling of
the virus outbreak and suppression of Dr. Li’s warnings amounted to what
longtime observers called an existential crisis for China’s Communist Party
and Xi Jinping, its leader since 2012.
一些長期的中國觀察家說，公眾對政府起始對疫情的處理不當以及對李醫生發出警告的壓
制的憤怒的蔓延，給中國共產黨和其領導-習近平帶來了自2012年以來最大的危機。
Angry residents brazenly heckled a visiting party Politburo member. Some
yelled “it’s all fake” from their apartment windows during the draconian
lockdown in Wuhan, the city of 11 million people that is now estimated to
have suffered half a million cases and at least 3,800 deaths.

But only five months later in August, with the virus under control, a
jam-packed pool party in Wuhan with DJs and dancers in neon tutus was
captured in a viral video – a testimony to China’s success in largely
quashing the outbreak at home. By January, China’s rapid economic recovery
saw the country emerge in many ways stronger from the pandemic year. Its
economic output grew by 2.3%  in 2020 to become the only major world economy
to expand.
https://i.imgur.com/avpMVip.jpg

This stark turnaround has shored up popular support for the party inside
China, bolstering the belief of Mr. Xi and other leaders that China’s
authoritarian system is resilient and on the rise, despite a sharply negative
turn in attitudes toward Beijing in Western democracies. “The best criteria
” for judging a country’s system, said Mr. Xi, sitting with folded hands
before a huge mural of the Great Wall in a virtual address to the World
Economic Forum Jan. 25, is whether it delivers “political stability, social
progress, and better lives.”

Indeed, as the Communist Party prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary
this summer, experts in China and abroad are delving into why the country’s
increasingly autocratic regime enjoys such domestic popular support,
especially as Mr. Xi tightens party controls and his own personal grip on
power.

“How do you now explain the fact the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] at least
appears to be fairly resilient?” says Edward Cunningham, director of Ash
Center China Programs at the Harvard Kennedy School.
你現在如何解釋中國共產黨看起來相當富有活力這一事實？”哈佛大學肯尼迪學院阿什民
主治理和創新中心中國項目主任愛德華· 坎寧安說。
Overall, popular satisfaction with China’s government has grown stronger
over the past 20 years, according to Dr. Cunningham and other Harvard
researchers who led an independent, multiyear survey of Chinese public
opinion. The 2003 to 2016 study drew on face-to-face interviews with more
than 31,000 people in urban and rural China, but did not include most ethnic
minorities or migrant workers. In 2016, fully 93% of those surveyed expressed
satisfaction with the central government, with 32% saying they were “very
satisfied.” That same year, 70% of respondents voiced approval for their
local governments, which deliver most public goods and services, marking a
significant increase from 44% in 2003.
坎寧安和哈佛大學其他研究人員牽頭開展了一項歷時多年的中國民意調查。他們說，總體
而言，民眾對中國政府的滿意度在過去20年裏提高了。

These trends are likely continuing today, says Dr. Cunningham, pointing to
anecdotal evidence. “The recent COVID case is a useful example,” he says. “
At the outset, citizens were unhappy with the local government response, but
as the central government engaged in lockdowns and the situation improved,
satisfaction with central government actions rose, eventually spreading to
views of local government as well.”


China’s swift curbing of the virus contrasted sharply with bungled responses
in the United States and other developed countries, swelling domestic support
for the regime, experts say.
專家們說，中國的抗疫果斷行動與美國等發達國家的一團糟局面形成鮮明對比，進一步提
振了國內民眾對中國政府的支持。

“Within China itself, when they apply the lens of China’s response to the
virus, both in public health and economic terms and political terms, versus
the American management of the virus domestically and many other Western
countries, it has further consolidated Xi’s hold on the Chinese leadership,
” says China scholar Kevin Rudd, president of the Asia Society.


Popular satisfaction in China should not be underestimated, says Elizabeth
Economy, author of “The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese
State.” “The vast majority of Chinese feel a lot of pride in how their
country has developed economically, and in the greater role China now plays
on the global stage,” says Dr. Economy, senior fellow at the Hoover
Institution at Stanford University in California.

Still, the latest developments also shed light on how the country’s
authoritarian leadership, even while amassing greater power and control with
a high-tech surveillance state, must continue to respond to popular needs,
complaints, and pressure. With a population of 1.4 billion, China faces
serious demographic, environmental, and economic problems going forward. The
party’s often-obscured quest to retain legitimacy drives much of China’s
behavior at home and abroad – and could unravel if it doesn’t meet rising
expectations.


“China has politics, too,” says David Lampton, senior fellow at the Foreign
Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
“中國也有政治。”大衛 蘭普頓說。他是約翰霍普金斯高級國際研究學院外國政策學會
的高級研究員。

How this political dynamic evolves in the world’s flagship communist state
will have major geopolitical implications for the world over the next decade
and beyond.
中國這種政治動機（指中共為了維系執政正當性，需要不斷滿足民眾增長的各項需求）的
演進，將會在未來幾十年內在地緣政治上影響這個世界。

Delivering the goods
交付產品

When A Bo was growing up in a high mountain village in China’s southwestern
Yunnan province in the 1970s and ’80s, his family was so poor that they had
to eat wild fruit and herbs. One dirt road led to his village, and when heavy
summer rains turned it to mud, travel was all but impossible.
上世紀七八十年代，阿波（音）在中國雲南省深山的村子裏長大。因為窮，一家人不得不
吃野果野草。一條土路通往該村，雨後土路一片泥濘，村裏人沒法出門。

“We were always hungry,” he recalls. Today, with government help, Mr. A Bo’
s family and many others in his village have worked themselves out of
poverty. He raises ducks, pigs, and cows on a small farm and works at
construction and other odd jobs. His village has running water and paved
roads. And while his modest income “doesn’t count as very good, it’s a lot
better than before,” he says with a laugh.


https://i.imgur.com/hZdxUmd.jpg
Courtesy of Matthew Chitwood/File
Local villager A Bo (center) joins guests during his daughter’s wedding
feast on Dec. 30, 2018, in Liming, China. Beijing’s poverty eradication
program has lifted the lives of rural poor people, bolstering support for
China’s Communist Party.
上圖中間的人是阿波。這是她女兒在2018年12月份的婚宴。北京的消滅貧困計劃讓很多農
村的窮人改善了生活，讓中共政府獲得了支持。

In December, Mr. Xi announced that China had eradicated extreme poverty in
Yunnan and across the country, completing the massive task of lifting 850
million people out of destitution since 1981. The milestone offers one
powerful example of how Mr. Xi and the party continue to gain legitimacy for
their authoritarian rule in the eyes of China’s people.



“The government helped us build houses ... and gave us livestock to raise,”
says Mr. A Bo. “If we didn’t have their help, we wouldn’t have paved roads
or running water, so the common people are relatively happy.”
阿波說：“政府幫我們蓋房子……給我們牲畜飼養。沒有他們幫忙，我們就不會有平整的
馬路和自來水。所以老百姓都挺高興。”

As a result, rural people and migrants with lower incomes, such as Mr. A Bo,
have been a key source of support for China’s central government, multiple
surveys show, constituting essentially an important political base for the
party.
多項調查顯示，像阿波這樣收入較低的農村人口和外出務工人員是中國中央政府的主要支
持力量，基本上構成了中共的重要政治基礎。

“There is a very high degree of satisfaction in rural low-income areas for
the Chinese Communist Party,” says Matthew Chitwood, a U.S. fellow with the
Institute of Current World Affairs, who recently returned from living for two
years in Yunnan’s remote mountain village of Bangdong. There, he says, “Xi
is the poster child of the party and the poverty eradication campaign.”


“My neighbors in Bangdong are living their best lives now,” he says. “
Their lives have dramatically improved from even five years ago, and they
attribute that directly to the party.”
他表示：“邦東的鄉親們現在過上了從未有過的好日子，生活與五年前相比顯著改善，他
們把這直接歸功於黨。”

Indeed, satisfaction levels since the early 2000s have risen most among China
’s poorer residents like Mr. A Bo, signaling that despite growing
inequalities created by economic reforms, marginalized people are not a
swelling source of political resentment, the Harvard survey found. “There is
still little evidence of a ‘social volcano’ of bottom-up discontent,” says
Dr. Cunningham.
哈佛大學的調查發現，自21世紀初以來，像阿波這種中國較貧困居民的滿意度上升幅度最
大。坎寧安說：“至今仍沒有什麽證據表明存在自下而上的社會不滿情緒。”

The anti-poverty campaign trumpeted by Mr. Xi is one example of the party’s
overarching strategy of “performance legitimacy.” Under Chairman Mao
Zedong, the party rallied support around Marxist-Leninist ideology and waging
the 1949 revolution. But after Beijing launched market-oriented economic
reforms in 1978, the party adopted a more pragmatic strategy to maintain
public backing by achieving concrete development goals.


https://i.imgur.com/wp8VJsG.jpg
The Chinese government built new houses in Ganluo County in southwestern
China for members of the Yi ethnic minority, who were relocated from their
mountain villages as part of an anti-poverty initiative.
中國政府在西南的甘洛縣為少數民族彜族修建的新房子。他們從山上的小村子裏搬到這裏
，這是消滅貧困計劃的一部分

This performance legitimacy approach is rooted in China’s ancient, dynastic
concept of the Mandate of Heaven, which emperors could retain or lose
depending on how well they governed, says Dingxin Zhao, dean of the sociology
department at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China.
“這種用政績來讓統治獲得合法性根植於古代中國的天命概念，根據皇帝把國家治理的多
好，他會維系或者失去“天命””，趙鼎鑫，浙江大學社會學系主任，如是說。

Today, the Communist Party works to secure this mandate above all through
robust economic growth and “delivering the goods” – from roads to jobs,
Dr. Cunningham says.
如今，中共通過強健的經濟增長和向民眾“交付產品”-從修建公路到提供就業機會-來確
保這個所謂的“天命”。坎寧安博士如是說。

The party has also bolstered its rule though social policies aimed at
reducing inequalities unleashed by economic reforms. These include rural
health care, free education, agricultural subsidies, and poverty alleviation.
“Social policy ... has contributed decisively to the regime’s stability and
general support of the regime,” says Dr. Zhao.


Another popular policy has been Mr. Xi’s anti-corruption drive, launched
soon after he took charge in 2012. “From the minute he became general
secretary of the Communist Party, [Mr. Xi] talked about the need to root out
corruption,” which he said “could mean the death of the Communist Party and
the death of the Chinese state,” says Dr. Economy.
另一項深得人心的政策是習近平在2012年執政後立即發動的反腐行動。坎寧安博士說，習
近平剛剛成為中共總書記的時候提到，一定要根治腐敗，否則會亡黨亡國。
Rampant official corruption unleashed along with China’s market-oriented
economic reforms has stirred deep public discontent. More than half of
Chinese surveyed in 2011 described local government officials as “unclean”
or “very unclean,” ineffective, and favoring the wealthy, the Harvard
survey shows, dismaying villagers such as Mr. A Bo.
隨著中國的市場經濟改革而來的猖獗的腐敗讓公眾極為不滿。在2011年，哈佛大學民調顯
示超過一半的中國人認為地方政府不幹凈，或者非常不幹凈，低效並且偏袒有錢人。
“It was chaotic,” says Mr. A Bo, who recalls corrupt local officials
setting up roadblocks and charging tolls, or restricting the water supply.
阿波先生說，那時候很混亂，地方官員設置路障，收取過路費，或者限制水的供應。

Mr. Xi responded with the most sweeping anti-corruption campaign in modern
China – arresting thousands of party and government officials of all ranks.
Although the campaign was also viewed as part of Mr. Xi’s efforts to purge
opponents and consolidate power in his own hands, it sharply curbed official
abuses encountered by the public, surveys show.

Today, local thugs no longer control roads around Mr. A Bo’s village. “Now
those people don’t dare do that ‘underworld’ activity, or they will be
arrested,” says Mr. A Bo. “Now it’s peaceful ... and everyone can use the
roads.”
如今，地方惡霸不再控制阿波村子周圍的道路。“現在那些人不敢再做哪些黑社會行為，
他們會被抓起來”，阿波說，“現在非常安寧，每個人都可以使用那些道路”

Double-edged sword
雙刃劍
Such concrete gains in prosperity and well-being, and progress on problems
ranging from corruption to environmental pollution, have boosted the party’s
performance legitimacy nationwide – including among China’s new middle
class.
這樣的繁榮與民生切實成果以及在從反腐到治汙各方面的進展，增強了共產黨在全國範圍
內的擁護度。包括在中國新的中產階層中的擁護度。

Mr. Zhang, a retired private entrepreneur who was born and raised the son of
a factory worker in Beijing, is on the lower rung of this emerging tier.
Among the fastest growing in the world, China’s middle class swelled from
about 3% of the population in 2000 to more than half, or 700 million people,
in 2018.


Mr. Zhang (who asked to withhold his first name to protect his privacy) has
benefited not only from China’s economic boom, but from housing security and
government spending on his health care and pension. He sums up popular
attitudes with a simple story typical of his generation. “When I was small,
all we wanted was to be able to fill our stomachs. ... Then, gradually, you
could eat well. If you wanted to eat an apple, you could buy an apple. If you
wanted to eat meat, you could buy meat,” he says.


In Mr. Zhang’s eyes, steadily rising living standards equate to Beijing
doing a good job. “If my life is better day by day, if year by year it’s
going in a good direction, then what do I have to be upset about?” he says.
在張先生看來，生活水平的穩步提高等同於中央政府治國有方。他說：“如果我的日子一
天比一天好，一年比一年興旺，那我還有什麽好抱怨的呢？”

“Of course,” he adds, Chinese people still complain about things around the
dinner table. “Above all, we curse about Chinese officials’ corruption. But
what country doesn’t have ‘bad eggs?’” he asks, using Chinese slang for “
scoundrel.”
張先生補充道，“當然，中國人仍然在飯桌上抱怨一些事情。尤其是我們會痛罵中國官員
的腐敗。但哪個國家不會有壞雞蛋呢”

Today, such sentiment buoys Mr. Xi politically as the Communist Party nears
its July centennial. “By the end of 2020, Xi Jinping had recovered his
political position comprehensively,” says Mr. Rudd, the former prime
minister of Australia. Mr. Xi is further entrenching his power with the aim
of effectively becoming China’s “leader for life” at the next party
congress in 2022, he says.


Yet despite the current strength of Mr. Xi and the party, experts point out
that performance legitimacy is inherently fragile. It depends upon a
continuous, tangible improvement in people’s material well-being. Ever
rising expectations create both positive energy and risky tensions – a
double-edged sword for the party and its limited resources. “Performance
legitimacy relies too much on performance,” says Dr. Zhao. “Your
relationship with the people is ... transactional. People judge you ... day
by day, case by case.”


One major obstacle to raising living standards is the sheer size of the
low-income population: 600 million of China’s 1.4 billion people have a per
person income of only about $150 a month, according to official data.
Although the party has achieved its poverty alleviation target – a very low
bar – it now faces the harder task of shrinking the income gap between urban
and rural China, and between the coast and hinterland.


“You basically have two different Chinas and two different economies
operating,” says Dr. Economy. “So when do you begin to take care of the
people who have been left behind?”
伊科諾米說，你基本上有兩個不同的中國和兩個不同的經濟體同時在運作，所以，你何時
開始照顧那些被經濟發展落下的民眾？

Beijing knows it will face increased difficulty retaining this
performance-based mandate as the population rapidly ages, economic growth
continues to slow, and stimulus financing dramatically increases debt.
Moreover, China faces rising opposition overseas, where unfavorable public
opinion toward Beijing has reached its highest level in 12 years and the lack
of confidence in Mr. Xi has surged, according to a Pew Research Center poll
of 14 countries with advanced economies in North America, Western Europe,
East Asia, and Australia.


“The party’s leaders believe they have a narrow window of strategic
opportunity to strengthen their rule ... before China’s economy sours,
before the population grows old, before other countries realize that the
party is pursuing national rejuvenation at their expense,” says retired Lt.
Gen. H.R. McMaster, former U.S. national security adviser and senior fellow
at the Hoover Institution.


Rolling back reform
改革倒退
On a sunny October morning in Shanghai, Jack Ma, co-founder of e-commerce
giant Alibaba and one of the richest men in China, took to the podium at a
global finance summit and made a bold call for innovation of China’s
financial system.
在十月上海的某個陽光明媚的上午，阿裏巴巴共同創辦人，也是中國首富的馬雲，在一個
全球金融峰會上大膽地呼籲中國金融系統的創新。

China’s banks exhibit a “severe pawnshop mentality” that hurts
entrepreneurship, he said, criticizing the nation’s financial regulators as
anachronistic. “We shouldn’t use the way to manage a train station to
regulate an airport,” Mr. Ma said. “We cannot regulate the future with
yesterday’s means.”


Soon after, Mr. Ma was reportedly dressed down by regulators and then
disappeared mysteriously from public. The highly anticipated initial public
offering of Alibaba’s financial technology arm, Ant Group Co., was halted
and the firm placed under investigation, reportedly on the orders of China’s
top leader Mr. Xi. In January, after missing major appearances, Mr. Ma
resurfaced in public for the first time in months in an online video of a
small local ceremony.


The incident demonstrated how, in Mr. Xi’s China, Beijing will not tolerate
constructive criticism – even from a top entrepreneur such as Mr. Ma. The
imperative of party power and control means subordinating everyone and
everything, including top business magnates and their firms.

Facing uncertain economic growth, China’s post-Mao leaders have looked for
alternative ways to secure Communist Party rule into the future. After
launching market-oriented economic reforms in 1978, leader Deng Xiaoping and
his followers moved to bolster legal sources of legitimacy by strengthening
government institutions, promoting a meritocracy, setting standards for a
smooth leadership succession, and allowing new avenues for political
participation.


In a 2009 paper, Dr. Zhao warned that moves toward “legal-electoral
legitimacy” were vital. Otherwise, Beijing would “face a major crisis when
the Chinese economy cools off.”
在2009年的論文裏，趙博士警告說朝著合法選舉的執政正當性走下去是至關重要的。否則
，當經濟增長慢下來時，北京將會面對很大的危機。

But since 2012, Mr. Xi has moved in the opposite direction. “You had a very
dynamic, vibrant political birthing process underway, and for Xi, that was
very threatening,” says Dr. Economy.


Mr. Xi has rolled back political reforms, strengthened ideological
indoctrination and censorship, and tightened party controls. He has
concentrated power in his own hands to a degree not seen since Mao – ending
term limits and paving the way for his lifelong rule.
習近平讓政治改革倒退，增強了意識形態上的教化和審查，強化了黨的控制力。他現在擁
有了自毛澤東之後最大的權力-結束了任期限制，為自己成為終生領導人鋪平了道路。
Under Mr. Xi, the party has also reined in big companies and curtailed civil
society by shuttering nongovernmental organizations. He has jailed activists,
from feminists to human rights lawyers, and imposed broad population control
measures such as facial recognition surveillance and a social credit system
that rates citizens’ behavior. Harsh crackdowns have arbitrarily detained an
estimated 1 million Uyghurs and members of other predominantly Muslim ethnic
groups in the western region of Xinjiang, while curtailing basic freedoms and
purging pro-democracy elected officials, students, and others in Hong Kong.

Yet by monopolizing power, Mr. Xi also positions himself as a singular point
of blame for any national crisis or setback that can’t be deflected onto
local officials. Indeed, Mr. Xi himself is fixated on domestic opinion,
prioritizing it over international events, says Steve Orlins, president of
the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a nonprofit that promotes
engagement between the countries. “President Xi gets up in the morning and
he ... gets briefings on Tibet, Xinjiang, Chengdu, Wuhan,” he says. “The
Chinese view the threats as internal.”

Ultimately, the increased repression can stifle, but not destroy, pressures
from members of China’s increasingly urban, educated, middle class for a
greater say in their futures. “Even authoritarian governments have to
respond to the elites in their society,” says Mr. Orlins.
基本上，不斷的壓制可以遏制但是不能摧毀城市受過良好教育的中產階級增長的對未來的
更有發言權渴望。中共也不得不響應一些社會精英的需求，奧林如是說。
Discontent over the direction Mr. Xi is moving the country runs deep among
some Chinese, from intellectuals and entrepreneurs to migrant workers and
activists. Others in China’s creative class feel broader reforms are needed
for people to realize their full potential.

Tu Guohong lives quietly as an independent artist, writer, and art scholar in
Chongqing, a megacity neighboring China’s southwestern Sichuan province. A
graduate of an art school, Mr. Tu uses Western-style oil painting to depict
working-class Chinese in traditional urban settings. His subject matter is
varied, though. He is especially proud of a series of portraits depicting
former President Barack Obama as a Chinese peasant.


Asked about his views on the overall level of support for the government, Mr.
Tu, who says he doesn’t generally talk about political problems, chooses his
words carefully.
當被問及他是怎麽看待社會對政府的支持度時，他說他不想談及政治。
“I don’t know what most people think, but they seek a happy life,” he says.
我不知道大多數人是怎麽想的，但是他們正在尋找一個幸福的生活，他說道。

“As for myself, I want China to follow Deng Xiaoping’s road of reform and
opening. Not only economic reform, but also cultural – a nation’s
development is not just dependent upon the economy, but also on the
humanities,” he says. “China should not go backward.”






5.完整新聞連結 (或短網址):


https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-...China-s-Communist-Party-at-100
https://reurl.cc/WEvA6Z

6.備註:

說大陸人民同中共之間的關係是交易型的有些太消極了。實際上絕大部分大陸人已經把中華民族
復興的希望寄托在中共身上了。並不只是為了追求好的生活才支持中共。

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