China General Discussion

[jaichind]

My take on the Bo Xilai incident.  Various friends of my refers to it as a CCP civil war.  My view is that it is more of a guerrilla war at this stage. To understand this civil war one has to understand the last significant CCP civil war, the Tienanmen crisis of 1989.

Back then Deng Xiaoping led the Right faction which was for economic reform and some of which were for political reform. The Left was led by Chen Yun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Yun) who led what is now called the "Old Left" which was for the economic/political policies of the 1950s plus some market reform. Leaders of the Old Left all were victims of Mao and his various purges over the years and were opposed going to a system like the 1960s or 1970s. Significant leaders of the Right in the 1980s were Hu Yaobang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu_Yaobang) and Zhao Ziyang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhao_Ziyang). Both were for different degrees of political reform which they saw as necessary to break the power of the Old Left who were getting the the way of market reform. Another leader on the right was Xi Zhongxun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Zhongxun) who if anything was even more radical in his demands for political reform. On the issue of political reform Deng did not agree with his diciples. Another major figure of the Old left is Bo YiBo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Yibo) who suffered at the hands of Mao and was more liberal on market reforms than most on the Left but was dead opposed to any political reform. In 1987 a battle broke out between Right and the Left which let to Hu Yaobang stepping down (Chen Yun hated Hu who other than Xi was one that was more for political reform) but in return the Right won on market reform policy issues, and in turn Zhao Ziyang took on the reins as the COO for the Right (Deng was chairman of the board). When Hu died in 1989 it triggered student protests who supported Hu and were angry at the way he was forced to stepped down. The Left took advantage of this to start the Right-Left battle and at the same time Zhao took advantage of this to push Deng out of the way to make himself the #1 on the Right. Zhao lost that battle as Deng threw his weight behind the Left to defeat what he saw as a power grab by Zhao which resulted in the crushing of the student protests. Bo YiBo was also critical to the victory of the Left and Bo was very much for a strong show of force to make sure that political change is not dictaed by protests. Zhao bitterly opposed to move to use military force and Xi Zhongxun as well. Zhao was ousted and Xi retired in anger. One Wen Jiabao (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wen_Jiabao) who was Zhao secretary and very close to Zhao was also very bitter about this turn of events but instead of being forced to retired was kept on due to the intervention of Deng.

After the crisis the Left was in control by by 1991 Deng and the Right struck back, retook power and the new nominal leader Jiang Zemin executed on the policy of the Right. Wen's career with Deng's support despite what happend in 1989 continued to rocket upward. So that by 2002 when Jiang retired and Hu JinTao took over as #1, Wen was made #2. Now here is where Bo Xilai comes in. Bo Xilai is the son of Bo Yibo. Wen always blamed Bo Yibo for his old mentor being ousted (when he really should blame Deng but it is hard to blame your benifactor) and looked for ways to block Bo's career in politics. Likewise Bo hated and feared Wen due the the rivalries between his father and Wen's mentor back in the 1980s. Bo decided to protect himself by re-invinting himself as a neo-Maoist populist and aligned with a new movement called the "New Left." The people that make up the New Left in the CCP mostly have no direct contact to the various Mao's purges most because of age (they were too young.) The New Left uses Maoist arguments on equity and social justice to attack market reforms where the Old Left was mostly using arguments of "control." The Old Left themselves were purged and put in jail by Mao in the name of social justice and were very negative on using those arguments. But Neo-Maoist populist New Left have no such contraints. Bo Xilai is special because he himself was locked up by Mao in the 1960s due to his father Bo Xibo and would otherwise NOT be inclinded to use Neo-Maoist arguments. But I guess to protect himself he took on the mantle of the New Left. The New Left became a significant power in the CCP due to some negative affects of market reform (income inequity, loss of welfare state like support, and just a more riskly world for anyone in the labor market.) Because of the New Left support of Bo, Wen was not able to get rid of Bo but kept him out of the central government and instead made him party secretary of Chungking as a result of Right/Left compromise. Bo ran ChungKing as a personal Neo-Maoist populust fiefdom. Bear in mind, despite all his propaganda about Neo-Maoism, he was basically a opporturnist (Like Chen Shui-Bien) and had no issues with all kinds of domestic and foreign capital and do their thing in Chungking to keep up economic development as long as him and his wife got their share of the cash.
 
Now fast forward to 2011-2. It turns out that one Xi Jinping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping) will be made the #1 in CPP after Hu retires. Bad news for Bo, because Xi Jinping is the son Xi Zhongxun who was a rival of Bo YiBo and really hated the 1989 crackdown and blamed Bo YiBo for it (Deng was a major benifactor of Xi Zhongxun and Xi Jinping so they really tried not to blame Deng for 1989 but Bo. Same logic as Wen.) Bo decides to double down and try to push himself a candidate for the #1 spot by making himself a "man of the people/fight for the people ect ect). It also involved stuff like bugging Xi. At this stage both Wen and Xi had enough. There were already lots of rumors of the slimy stuff that Bo was up to and they decided to use that to get rid of Bo once and for all. So his activities were disclosed to the public and Bo osted. The Right now also is using this to crack down on the New Left. The New Left is split on this. They are caught between defending Bo in the open which is really not sustainable or dump him but that would prove to the public that the idealism of the New Left is not pure since they pumped up Bo for year. The Taiwan Independence movement is trapped in the similar way with Chen ShuiBien. At this stage Xi will be in charge after 2012. Given how his father thought about 1989, he might even come back and reverse the decision of 1989 to beat back the New Left and link economic reform with political reform as opposed to the New Left argument that economic reform erodes social justic. One way or another the New Left will be in trouble but the social tentions that led to the rise of the New Left still remains. Only more radical economic market reforms is the way out in my view.


 

[jaichind]

Based on my many visits to different parts of Mainland China, I tend to agree that if Western style elections were held on Mainland China today (not that I feel that such a system would be optimal given the current situation on Mainland China today, in fact I feel it would be a bad idea), the CCP would win.  On the other hand, the CCP would likely lose in many regional elections (mayors, governors, county magistrates.)  On the whole the population support CCP at the macro level but are very negative on CCP at local government levels.

So what? The Communist Party also enjoy genuine legitimacy among most Chinese people. All dictatorships know they need to somehow sustain genuine popularity. Even Hitler was adored by ordinary Germans until Barbarossa started turning bad; people were even signing petitions asking the Fuhrer to rein in the Gestapo! If multiparty elections were held in China starting tomorrow, the Communist Party would win a landslide, though the candidate nomination process will get literally bloody. And while Putin will tolerate the opposition venting frustration in public, rest assured he'll deploy his entire security apparatus if they become a serious threat to his rule. I'm not sure Xi Jinping enjoys half the authority Deng Xiaoping had to order the security forces to break up a repeat of 1989. Li Peng is blamed more for the massacre more than Deng Xiaoping even by dissidents.

Finally, there are mass riots almost every month in China. I'm not sure how that is considered less of a test of the Party's popularity than periodic elections, since there's much more at stake.

[jaichind]

Given I am from Taiwan Province I tend to be biased in favor of the Taiwan model.  Even in the 1950s the KMT held elections at the local level and was ready to and indeed lost some of them but the central government was not open to popular election.  It was only in the 1990s when that took place.  In fact the Taiwan experience should be a cautionary tale,  macroeconomic policy in the 1950s to 1980s were excellent but began to drop in quality starting in the 1990s with the rise of populist pressures of an election system.  Elections at the highest level did not prevent corruption as corruption in last twenty years are no better and in fact worse than it was in the 1950s-1980s.  Popular democracy from a pure econimical point of view was a net negative.

Frodo, it's really hard for me to predict that.  There are a lot of political theorists in Singapore and even in mainland China writing about the need to establish culturally Chinese forms of democracy.  One of those theorists, in mainland China, is named Jiang Qing, and he is an advocate of a kind of tricameral legislature in a parliamentary system with familiar forms of upper and lower house being elected and majority parties choosing a prime minister, while a third house, so so-called "House of Junzi" (Noblemen), constituted of people who have passed updated Confucian-style civil service exams, would serve in a policy advisory and approval role.  I don't think his works have been translated into English though.  There is another theorist in the Philosophy Department at the National University of Singapore named Sor Hoon Tan who several years ago wrote a book called Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction, in which she suggests that the development of democracy in China will have to begin with community and region-level cooperative associations and then work its way into municipal, provincial and then national levels of government, so that the populous can become socialized into and learn how to decide matters of importance to them through collaborative deliberation.  She is often invited to China to give talks, though, and her book has just been translated into Chinese as well. There are other political theorists in mainland China who write more superficially and vaguely about developing democracy in China too, but these two are probably the most serious academic advocates, in my view.

But this is all on the level of theoretical works.  The problem with the CCP is that they just maintain very tight control of municipal and provincial political processes, and even though there is marked factionalism within the party, the selection process of new generations of leadership is the result of a combination of influence and power-peddling and "inbreeding" at the highest levels.  I concede freely that it's hard for me to see, even among people like Wang Yang, how that insular system can unravel without literally being cracked open.  But the potential costs at this point, given the sheer numbers of people with so much at stake in the system, including the PLA, would, in my view, by incredible and not obviously worth it.  Revolutions in China in the past century have been utterly disastrous, and have never produced their intended results.  Will a thoroughgoing political restructuring happen in China in the next fifty years?  I don't know, but at the moment, I don't honestly see a path to it.  I wish something like what Tan talks about could slowly unfold, but I'm not terribly optimistic that it will.  

[jaichind]

I find the CCP line "without the CCP, there would be no new China" with great revulsion.  "New China" was a disaster from the 1950s to the 1970s.   Only by betraying their basic principles did the CCP manage to survive and make up for some lost ground from the disasters of their program.  The KMT also claims the rights to the founding of a "new China" a la 1911.  Of course even as a radical right KMT supporter, over the last few years I also have moved againist the idea of "New China" given the record of 1911-1949.  Overall I have now moved to a position that the fact that Old China failed was a myth.  Yes, we were defeated in 1895, but it was a close run affair and could have easily gone the other way.  The record 1911-1978 "New China" was a great disaster with the exception of the early 1930s when the KMT did produce some economic advancement in Southern China most of which were wiped out in the war with Japan.   I suspect many Chinese with a good historical perspective would most likley feel the same way I do.  But they are unlikely to confront the consequence of such fact, which is all the efforts of the last 100 years a waste.  We destroyed at great expense something that really did not fail to create a disaster that we are just recovering from.

Of course many on the Mainland buys the CCP line on "New China."  Over the last couple of decades the CCP policy are slowly converging toward my views (mostly a far right chinese nationalist capitalist view) and while on the Mainland I found myself with the ironic position of defending the CCP (as a hardcore supporter of the KMT) againist the attacks on the CCP by disgruntaled members of the CCP (some of them had been members for over 40 years.)  But while many on the Mainland would privately complain about the CCP their views on issues that the CCP blast out a lot of propaganda actually match that of the CCP.  One of the CCP policy which I oppose with intensity is the "One Chila Policy" which I view as genicide againist the Chinese people.  Even people who hold CCP in low esteem support this policy and I had many many debates with people while I am on the Mainland on this issue. None were turned by my arguments.  In other words, CCP propaganda, if repeated enough, works.  Another example is general rejection of the FaLungGong sect.  In my case I also am very negative on the sect which I view as a cult. But I found it interesting that people who had no problems saying they are negative on CCP also spout the CCP line on FaLungGong.

[jaichind]

As someone that went through Chinese and American educational system in equal amounts of time I completely with you.  I find the American system vastly superior to the Chinese system (both Mainland and Taiwan regions.)  To me it is not just creativity of which your position mostly matches that of myself so there is not much I can add on top of what you said.  It is also about teamwork.  One genius of the American educational system is its use of team sports as a critical part of the educational process.  Team sports simulates very well the corprate enviornment that most people have to go through.  They have to be team players that competes as a team againist external rivales and go through internal competition in a constructive way that does not hurt the effort to compete externally.  Chinese as individuals might be "smarter" than their Western counterparts using some educational metric but Chinese organization for sure lose to their Western counterparts.

Well I have just returned from discussing with some other Chinese and I am more depressed than ever. One guy I found, beats his cousin if he does not do well in school. The Chinese mentality is that education is everything. Not surprising, given China's history. But call me Westernized or whatever, I believe that success in formal education is missing the point. I really do believe that what drives economic growth is creativity, and that to have creativity one must cultivate the individual. This is one area where the West is still superior, and as uncomfortable as it is for Chinese to admit it, it is true. This is a problem shared by both Taiwan and mainland China.

I find it fascinating, the discourse over the one child policy is very, very different in China vs. the West. In the West, it is accepted that demographics is destiny, and that China's low birth rate means its future doom as a power. Economist even went so far as to project a date when the Chinese nation will no longer exist due to no Chinese bering born. Among Chinese, the view is totally different. It is accepted that China has too many people, and China's problems stem from being a poor country due to its large population. Under this view, China might gradually loosen the one child policy after GDP per capita reaches $10,000 or more, however it will not until then. The focus is more on quality of life rather than number of people. That said, I am opposed to the one child policy myself, but I do find it interesting how differently it is framed.

I do think that the Qing dynasty overthrow was fascinating because just on the eve of the Xinhai revolution they were moving towards peaceful reform towards what would probably have been some sort of constitutional monarchy with progressive economic policies. Particularly the years 1905-1911. Ironically the Qing government was horrible for China from 1790 until 1905, during all this time it remained in power. After 1905, it began to be progressive but was overthrown in just six years, followed by chaos. A case could be made that at every possible major historical turn in China's history, the worst possible result occurred.

[jaichind]

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/496864/20130805/china-one-child-policy-end-population-ageing.htm

"Chinese authorities have said they are considering lifting their controversial one-child policy by the end of 2015, according to reports"

It seems the PRC regime might switch to a two child policy.  Thanks goodness.  This is an absurd policy which outlived its usefulness back in the early 1990s as far as I am concerned.  Everytime I visit Mainland China this is the topic I debate locals the most where I fiercely oppose the "One Child Policy" and most locals tend to support it.  The other is my insistance on going back to the Traditional Chinese script from degenerate Reformed Chinese script.   

[jaichind]

The one child policy may be changed to a two child policy due to "demographic time bomb".  

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/23/china-may-adopt-two-child-policy-this-year-as-demographic-timebomb-looms

"Experts warn that China’s 1.3 billion-strong population is ageing rapidly, while the labour pool is shrinking. The country will have nearly 440 million over-60s by 2050, according to UN estimates, placing a massive strain on government resources.

Meanwhile, the working-age population – those aged between 15 and 59 – fell by 3.71 million last year, a trend that is expected to continue"

While I am not challenging the fact that this is an issue. We should put this in context.  PRC's fertility rate are somewhat low given its level of economic development but not dramatically so.  They are somewhat below economies like Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey but only slightly below Vietnam (this is the one that is surprising given its level of development) and Brazil.  In fact they are higher than Romania, Thailand and Poland.  I am not even going to mention ROK and ROC and of course Japan which are in a different league in terms of development.