Cheng Li, the William R. Kenan Professor of Government, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal article, "China's Study-Abroad Program," on Thursday, Jan. 6. According to the article, "the Communist Party's Organization Department selects promising officials to study at Harvard, provincial and municipal governments have begun asking other Western public-administration schools to train their cadres." Li, an expert on China's leadership and author of China's Leaders: The New Generation, says he believes these programs will have a substantial impact on China's political transformation. "Although the lessons focus more on technical aspects of governance, their essence is to make government more accountable to the public and to emphasize the importance of the rule of law. This will help familiarize future Chinese leaders with international norms and values, and make the policy-making process in China more scientific, rational and democratic," he says.
Li suggests Beijing's leadership may be unable or unwilling to anticipate the full potential of this experiment. "Deng Xiaoping didn't foresee the consequences of economic reforms" when he launched them in 1979, he says. But China now is undergoing economic democratization and has become one of the most open economies in the developing world. He says many officials participating in the programs are future candidates for vice ministers or deputy provincial governors -- positions of considerable influence that often lead to high-ranking national posts.
