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Do you read the economist often? If you go to the current issue, how many negative articles about the USA and UK can you count? It ain’t zero, heck, just by the counts alone it is easy to argue that the economist is softer on China than it is on the UK and USA.
You should read Pravda. It criticized the USSR quite often too.
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Do you read the economist often? If you go to the current issue, how many negative articles about the USA and UK can you count? It ain’t zero, heck, just by the counts alone it is easy to argue that the economist is softer on China than it is on the UK and USA.
> If you go to the current issue, how many negative articles about the USA and UK can you count? Many, that criticize those countries from the perspective of what the power elites of those same countries want them to do.
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> If you go to the current issue, how many negative articles about the USA and UK can you count? Many, that criticize those countries from the perspective of what the power elites of those same countries want them to do.
Ah, then what is your point if they call out American aggression anyways because that aligns with the power elite interest (as they did during the Iraq war)?
That other countries are their subjects upon which to use carrots and sticks, however, they agree perfectly.
I've just started reading Silent Invasian: China's Influence in Australia, which made headlines around the world last year when its original publisher decided not to publish it out of fear of what the Chinese Communist Party and its proxies in Australia would react. That China has this sort of influence (see also all the airlines and hotels and other companies that bent over backwards to apologise for listing China a…
When ever I see people comment on the Philippines I wonder if they have any idea just what’s going on in the Philippines. I’m still yet to meet a single Filipino who does not like duterte.
Popularity (both apparent and actual) and respect for human rights are frustratingly orthogonal.
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Democracy doesn't guarantee peaceful transfer of power. The absence of democracy does not guarantee violent transfer of power.
There is a difference between “garauntee” and “in general”. Concrete might not shatter during an earthquake, but it is definitely more likely to than wood or steel (which can bend). Compared to a democracy, the CCP is like concrete: hard and strong but with a catastrophic breaking point.
I submit the dissolution of the Soviet Union is an example of a large communist goverment transferring power outside the party without it being 'catastrophic'. While it was a politically and economically turbulent time, control of the goverment was relinquished without civil war. Some protesters were killed in various countries, but there were many orders of magnitude less death in the USSR relinquishing control than the USSR to gaining control.
After meeting not one, but now around ~15 CCP members/officials of different statures in the party hierarchy. I can say that indeed a lot of things that drive the current generation of CCP's "hereditary nobility" (people in late forties to ~55 now) are manifestations of their social ineptness and insecurity. Their comparison to frailing 19th century European nobility, I think, is totally appropriate. What they afraid…
Thank you for this insight ... could you guess or know how many of these CCP functionaries, in spite of their insecurity, pursue their duty in good faith, versus engaging in self-dealing etc.?
It was in Jiang's times when things turned "position in the party !== automatic position in the government." Jiang was waaay to afraid of party members. He saw the party as a dual structure:
1. An assembly of oafs, and loosers
2. Along with a hornet's nest of Maoists, Hua-ists, Deng-ists, and 20 other "ists," all of whom were a threat to his rule.
So he simply decided to recruit technocrats from aside. All kinds of good boy Harvard graduates were perfect for that role, for them being politically insulated from the rest of Chinese politics. And as an added benefit, they can actually run the government more or less well.
What the CPP is today? In its majority, the same thing it was in Jiang's times, except Jiang is not the top dog anymore, and an average age went up even more.
What things can change? The party is getting older, and few young cadres they have come from communist families. Those amount to around a half of new members of twenties age cohort. The other half are just people for whom the party member card is nothing more than a way to get free rides on public transport, along with a very very very remote hope that this will get them to a position of prominence.
Xi came to power in large thanks to that cohort of party members who thought of themselves being marginalized, and thrown away to dustbin of history. His political platform inside the CCP was pretty much like "Make the party membership great again." But you guys probably know, every communist is very good at reneging at his promises, and Xi is not an exception. Aside for few symbolic nods, I don't think he will run the country in a manner much different from how things were in Jiang's era.
He himself is afraid of the colossus which is the CCP, for him it is also a dark lake full of his own set of "-ists" and, worse for him, people who are genuine reformers. He is much favoring the party becoming a seat of few gerantocrats who will be dying one after another.
BTW, the two dudes who voted against Xi on the last congress were Jiang and Hu.
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Thank you for this insight ... could you guess or know how many of these CCP functionaries, in spite of their insecurity, pursue their duty in good faith, versus engaging in self-dealing etc.?
It is really hard to get promoted as an idealistic CCP functionary, so if anyone makes it to the somewhat upper stages, they will most definitely be in on whatever their peers are doing (meaning, they have enough dirt so that their peers don’t have to worry about them ratting them out, and they will put on great shows to please anyone higher than them so they can keep getting promoted). In the west, it is like findin…
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Ah, then what is your point if they call out American aggression anyways because that aligns with the power elite interest (as they did during the Iraq war)?
The power elite has competing fractions, which are aligned for the most part (e.g. in economic policy), but have different (and often merely token) differences in other areas, like when to use the carrot and when the stick in foreign policy matters. That other countries are their subjects upon which to use carrots and sticks, however, they agree perfectly.
It isn’t as bad as The People’s Daily, for example.
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There is a difference between “garauntee” and “in general”. Concrete might not shatter during an earthquake, but it is definitely more likely to than wood or steel (which can bend). Compared to a democracy, the CCP is like concrete: hard and strong but with a catastrophic breaking point.
I don't think it's true even in the general case, or if it is true that countries with more open elections have more peaceful transfers of power then I think that the peaceful transfer of power can be more accurately predicted by other variables such as college education rate, gdp per capital, or length of constitution. I submit the dissolution of the Soviet Union is an example of a large communist goverment transfer…
China has no choice to keep pumping their economy. Even a mild recession could lead to really bad things.
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I don't think it's true even in the general case, or if it is true that countries with more open elections have more peaceful transfers of power then I think that the peaceful transfer of power can be more accurately predicted by other variables such as college education rate, gdp per capital, or length of constitution. I submit the dissolution of the Soviet Union is an example of a large communist goverment transfer…
Historically, autocracies rarely end well. Even the USSR’s dissolution led to a decade of chaos. In any case, can you tell me how the people will remove Xi if they ever become unhappy with him? I mean, peacefully of course. China has no choice to keep pumping their economy. Even a mild recession could lead to really bad things.
Xi answers to the communist party. The communist party is more invested in staying in power than keeping Xi in office. Every five years the National Congress of the Communist Party of China convenes, which selects the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, the Central Committee, and has the authority to change the Community Party of China's Constitution.
China has had a long run of good years. It'll be interesting to see how the party reacts to unruly citizens.