Is there reason to fear that the gradual and intermittent liberalisation of recent years will be undone?
Sebastian Heilmann, a sinologist from Trier, once differentiated between the “normal mode” and “crisis mode” of politics in China. In the normal mode, political decisions are reached in lengthy processes of compromise, allowing leeway for gradual reforms or experiments. By contrast, in crisis mode, the party leadership once again seizes all power, severely constricting others’ room to manoeuvre. At the moment, the leaders of the party and the state are striving for centralisation, but they are not yet in crisis mode – as they were, for instance, during the crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 1989 or even during the Olympic Games. Right now, the situation in China is relatively calm, so consultation on how to deal with the financial crisis domestically and internationally is feasible. Liberalisation, up to now, has always been closely linked to economic reforms, with the state slowly retreating from society in general. That had an impact on people’s everyday lives, and the reforms to
