Talk Elections

A rare crack in the facade of unity of the CCP.

Link (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-17377445)

Not sure yet what this merits yet... The Financial Times' coverage thus far is the best, although it's behind firewall, so you'll have to search Google News to get the links.

Yep, this is very, very big news. I won't be surprised if he gets detained and charged with corruption. There's a tradition that every time a new batch of leadership ascends, they must throw a regional party boss under the bus. My gut's been telling me this has been coming for a while, but I didn't expect this immediately after the closing of the NPC. It's too early to say what specifically will happen, but expect a purge of anyone associated with him in the next few months.

Also, can we have a "China General Discussion" thread here? It's partially out of narcissism since I'll be hogging it, but we can't not have one.

EDIT: The official media reports that Bo is "no longer serving", and not "fired" as Chongqing Party Chief. He needs some face after all.

Oh, wow.


I think the general rule is that if someone wants to set up such a thread they can do.

You are impressed by this?


Who was thrown under the bus in 2002-2003?

I'm not sure if that's quite the right word. It's more a use of 'oh wow' to mean 'this seems to be somewhat on the important side'.

For discussion of politics and general social and economic issues regarding China.

Chen Xitong was Mayor of Beijing and Politburo member until he was ousted in 1995 and accused of massive corruption. He was a rival of Jiang Zemin who was consolidating power from Deng, who was slowly fading after 1992. Of course, Jiang's people made bigger takings than Chen, but that doesn't matter.

Chen Liangyu (no relation) was Mayor and Party Chief of Shanghai until 2006, when he was accused of misusing pension money on real estate developments. Hu Jintao had only finished receiving all official titles from Jiang in 2005, and Chen was a protege of Jiang. Best to get him jailed.

Some people are now speculating Bo will retain his Politburo membership and get appointed to a sinecure, to allow him some face, and perhaps he's too powerful to officially throw under the bus. But since he was fired so dramatically I won't be surprised if he meets the same fate of both Chens.

Projecting China's collapse is fashionable among political journalists.
Obviously it's a good story. But how realistic is it?

The Coming China Collapse: Economic, Political Or Both?
http://seekingalpha.com/article/308830-the-coming-china-collapse-economic-political-or-both (http://seekingalpha.com/article/308830-the-coming-china-collapse-economic-political-or-both)

I bet none of the western pundits who constantly predict a "Chinese collapse" have ever spoke with any ordinary people who are supposedly deeply disgusted at everything.

Can somebody merge this thread into the new China general discussion thread for me?

Simply put, Bo had annoyed too many Politburo members with his populist, semi-neo-Maoist propaganda campaigns. He also built a Machiavellian reputation and, apparently, engages in corruption on a whole other dimension. A Politburo member's salary can't pay for his son's studies at Harrow and Oxford, and then for his red Ferrari.

Most alarmingly, Bo had acted like a warlord by ordering a 70-vehicle police convoy to drive from Chongqing to Chengdu to surround the US Consulate when Wang was inside. Reportedly he was furious when Wang surrendered to centrally-controlled Ministry of State Security personnel rather than his people. Anyone who's learnt about 20th century Chinese history understands how scary that episode was. It also reveals how China's most important problem, and what scares the Party leadership the most, is warlord-like behavior of regional bosses and not Tibetans, Falun Gong, or democracy dissidents.

I know not much about Chinese politics but the impression I get from Hu Jintao is that he does not have the control his predecessors did... can some one speak to the power of the Chinese leader nowadays

Since Mao's death, there's the understandable aversion to one-man rule. During the 1980s, the three highest positions (General Secretary of the Party Central Committee, President of the State, and Chairman of the Central Military Committee) were held by three separate people, with Deng exerting paramount influence. This arrangement came undone during the Tiananmen Square crisis when infighting erupted. Since then the three highest positions have been held by one person.

Out of the 20-something strong Politburo, the nine member Standing Committee generally makes top decisions by consensus. The General Secretary/President/Chair of the CMC is first among equals rather than an Emperor. Regional Party bosses and retired Party leaders also exert behind the scenes influence.

An update on this fast-moving situation: the PLA Garrison Command in Chongqing, as well as the Chongqing City Party Committee Office, the local Party Orgburo, the local Party Propaganda Department, the local Party United Front Bureau, and the local Party Political and Legal Bureau have all pledged strong support for the Central Committee's decision, and stands beside them politically, ideologically, and materially. In particular, the PLA Garrison Command has promised the cleanliness, stability, and unity with the Central Committee and the CMC.

In plain language, this means the Central Committee is/was nervous about Bo loyalists in the Chongqing local Party and government apparatus. The fact that military units stationed in the city are pledging loyalty to the Central Committee is unsettling. Bo is being thrown under the bus which is driving back and forth over his corpse.

link (http://www.chinapost.com.tw/china/national-news/2012/03/19/335036/Thousands-mourn.htm)Of course nothing will come of this, still F-ed up.

link (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/21/inside-the-ring-436080940/)The article then goes on and on (and on) about the DoD's lack of cybersecurity for some reason.  Weird article all around.  Weird that news of a possible coup in the capital of one of the most important countries in the world took so long to get "out".  Weird that nobody is making a bigger deal out of this.  Weird that the article itself doesn't seem to make a big deal out of it.

I call BS on these "rumours". The photos supposedly showing tanks in Beijing were quickly found to be shopped. It appears that while some increased security exists, it seems to be due to a visit by a North Korean delegation and isn't any more than during regular "sensitive" periods. Besides, wouldn't foreign media immediately broadcast live pictures if there really was a coup going on?

IIRC, the last time the Party has abruptly conducted mandatory study sessions was immediately after the Tiananmen Square thingy.

In sorta PRC related news, Japan is preparing for the possibility of shooting down the Norks missile they (the Norks) plan on testing next month.  A PAC-3 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAC-3#MIM-104F_.28PAC-3.29)* is on it's way to Okinawa as we speak.


*modern Patriot missile defense system....much more advanced than the one that made the name (in)famous in Gulf War I


In other, sorta related to PRC news, the S.Koreans and the US are looking at increasing the range of offensive missiles the S.Koreans posses.  Apparently they are currently limited to the 300km range and will likely soon change the agreement to allow them to have a 1000km range.  The reason given is that the Norks posses weapons that can reach all of S.Korea so they feel the S.Koreans should have the same ability against the north.

It's strange this thread isn't more active when China is at this very moment in the most significant upheaval since at least the Tiananmen Square thingy. The details are something beyond Tom Clancy's imagination.

I concur.  I've heard talk of purges.  A guy on another MB I read suggested as many as 52, including Bo.  Do you have any new details?

It gets even more bizarre. Now Britain has demanded an investigation into the death of its citizen Neil Heywood, who officially died of alcohol overdose and was cremated without an autopsy. Reports say he was either a businessman too well connected to Bo Xilai, or the personal butler of Bo Xilai's son, Bo Guagua. By the way, Guagua hasn't been seen at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government since his dad was fired.

The Chongqing government and party apparatus is being purged of Bo's people and the effect seems to be immediate. The local TV station has cut a show of communist patriotic songs and has resumed commercial advertising for the first time in a year. Signs have appeared in city parks warning residents not to "disturb the enjoyment of others", putting an immediate end to Bo's trademark campaign to have residents sing communist songs (and in any case only older people have participated). People who held signs in support of Bo in public have been rounded up by plainclothes police (yes, China is now cracking down on real, genuine communists). The city's mafia and pimps have become active again.

Elsewhere there's infighting in the Politburo and my guess is that last week's "coup attempt" was actually a BS rumor spread by Zhou Yongkang (the Politburo person for security) to rattle Hu and Wen. It was earlier rumored he was detained, but then he met with Indonesia's Foreign Minister which puts an end to these rumors. The Great Firewall sporadically unblocked information about Tiananmen Square and overseas dissidents. An online tribute to Zhao Ziyang isn't being shut down.

Wang Yang, the Party Chief of Guangdong and a liberal counterpart to Bo, has spoken about the importance of open communication with the public, and announced a crackdown on the mafia in the province. Meanwhile, Hu Jintao met as CPC General Secretary with Wo Boxiong, the Honorary Chairman of the KMT. They came to the conclusion that China is "one nation" with Taiwan and the mainland as "two regions". What this will mean is unclear.

It's overused to call things historic, but I do think this is an historic time for China.

Weird that the "hardliners" are bing purged by, at least in theory, the more....liberal group.  Usually it works the other way around.  Those with the pull know who butters their bread, and it ain't old Reds (or new Reds trying to bring Red back in fashion).

Uh, all I see so far is a lot of rumors and innuendo. Bo Xilai hasn't even been kicked out of the Politburo, has he? Given the inaccurate rumors that have flown around weibo, and how little in China has changed for the past twenty years, one can forgive us outside observers for a little skepticism here. Arguably, it shows how hungry people are for change that they'll grasp on anything to try to make it blow up into something bigger than it is.

Which is why even the "liberal" people know they must occasionally be nasty. Hu and Wen haven't forgotten Mao's saying that power flows from the gun.


I think there's too much on the ground change in Chongqing for this to be nothing. And, especially since the Central Committee is nervously trying to ensure everyone with guns is on their side, it's proof that some people with the power to command troops are upset at whatever's going on.

Whether Bo is still in the Politburo seems academic by now. It's not unprecedented that someone can be purged while retaining a token space in the Politburo, but that window has probably passed for him. A lot of muckraking is going on, but a lot of concrete things are happening, which can't be ignored.

Philippine, Chinese ships face off near Spratlys (http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20120330_06.html)

Good luck to the Phillipines - standing up to the Chinese takes guts. Cooperation with Vietnam is definetly the way to go on this one.

Another big update: Bo Xilai has been fired from the Politburo and Central Committee and is being investigated by the Party Central Investigations Committee. The press release still referred to him as Comrade, proof they acknowledge he still has a base of support. In the same update, they named Bo's wife and the family servant as suspects in the death of Neil Heywood.

Philippine warship 'in stand-off with Chinese vessels' (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17673426)


Now the Paracels are at least partly Chinese, and some of the Spratleys are far enough from the nearest land that a Chinese claim to at least some of them is not inherently bogus, but Scarborough Shoal is clearly Philippine.

()

It's good to see the Philippine Navy sticking it's biggest/best/newest ship out there.  I hope the PLA doesn't push the issue to try to cover up the BS happening back home, but if they do, I'm certain the rest of the people in the neighborhood plus the USA will teach them a lesson in not beind a dick to your neighbors.

China should simply reach an agreement with the ASEAN countries with claims in the Spratlys to jointly divide and explore the area. Otherwise, it doesn't matter what you claim, they can't go ahead to exploit any potential oil reserves in the region due to the territorial disputes anyway.

Why would the countries with good claims to the Spratlys concede anything to the PRC?  The Paracels, sure, share the wealth, but not the Spratlys.

Why would the PRC concede anything from the islands it controls in the Spratlys? And why would the PRC contemplate relinquishing control over the Paracels, which it gained by defeating South Vietnam in 1974 (when they were collapsing)? Remember, when Chiang Kai Shek heard the PLAN was about to attack the South Vietnamese (his ideological comrades in arms) on the Paracels, he specifically ordered his forces not to impede them, so this isn't an issue specific to the Communist (in name only) regime.

Besides, China isn't the only nation with sketchy claims in the South China Sea. Vietnam also claims virtually the entire basin as its own, on the same "traditional fishing grounds" reasoning. A practical solution will require all sides to give up claims they have held for a long time.

So you think they should get ALL the Paracels AND get a share of the Spratleys?  You've seen the map right? 
()
I do agree that Vietnam's claim is ALMOST as absurd as the PRC's (there is that faint praise thing again).  The PRC's claim the Spratleys because some old chinese pottery washed up on shore there once, do we really want to have that set some kind of precedence?  I'm sure there are some old Roman coins around Cyprus, should they share oil revenue with Italy?

Like it or not, the PRC de facto controls all the Paracels and a good section of the Spratlys. In both cases this occurred after Chinese naval victories against Vietnam (South Vietnam in 1974, all Vietnam in 1988), which the KMT in Taiwan explicitly didn't impede when their SOP was to sink any PLAN vessels.

And besides, where does Vietnam's claim to virtually the same area come from? Where does the Philippines claim over the entire Spratlys come from? According to the map, the only somewhat understandable claim is from Malaysia.  Politicians from all countries are using this as a chance to wave the flag and distract from domestic problems. Therefore, for China (which includes the RoC in Taiwan, which makes the exact same claim) to unilaterally relinquish its claim is as logically absurd as the US unilaterally relinquishing nuclear weapons during the Cold War.

As for the Cyprus analogy, AFAIK Italy doesn't claim anything around Cyprus.

The people that are for a return to the pre-67 borders for a new Palestinian state aren't going to like that train of thought.  But I'll concede here that the PRC could share in any resources found around the Spratleys.

How do you feel about the current situation in the Scarborough Shoal?  And other issues with Chinese fishermen fishing in waters that clearly are not theirs?

To reach a political agreement settling the area of control, and thus not have to spend money on an arms race. Instead giving them the opportunity to jointly explore and exploit the area. The current situation is unresolvable and is preventing the area from being used, although if you are an environmentalist with Greenpeace that may be a good thing. :) But the main Filipino interest in the area is for the potential economic benefits, just as with China and everybody else [well, except for some hotheaded nationalists and generals who have both their own self interest and pigheadedness to ignite reason for China's sabre-rattling]. In the status quo, it provides no benefits and is only a sink for military spending. This is one area where Europe is still far ahead of Asia; they would recognize great power politics as 19th century thinking. Asia would do well to banish it into the past as well.

link (http://www.france24.com/en/20120422-taiwan-plans-buy-four-warships-usTaiwan to buy 4 US warships)

Change of command for the PLA's 2nd Artillery (the group that controls the much talked about anti-ship missiles and the nukes).  link (http://the-diplomat.com/flashpoints-blog/2012/05/22/china%E2%80%99s-2nd-artillery-in-transition/)

On the contrary, I think the US should lead an agreement among the disputing nations to the detriment of China. The US must leverage its position in SE Asia to form a bloc of nations opposed to China. Getting an agreement would be a good way to do that. But I'd like to see an APTO, so what do I know.

Also, what came of that letter by party members calling for the dismissal of Bo's security chief? To me it sounded surprisingly brash, or is this more common than I think?

That will not work. All these countries have disputes among each other over the basin, and trying to forge an anti-China coalition will merely blow up in Uncle Sam's face down the road when two US allies are threatening each other.

In addition, many of these countries have friendly relations with China, including Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Indonesia.

And here's the final kicker: Taiwan has been engaging in standoffs against Vietnam and plans to beef up its military presence in the South China Sea using Stinger missiles it purchased from the US. Taiwanese officials have also visited the area to call for stronger defense. Two days ago, the director of the Taiwanese intelligence agency stated that the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam privately urged Taiwan not to ally with Beijing on the territorial dispute. In other words, there's the real possibility that if push comes to shove, Taiwan will be using its US-equipped military to attack other US allies in order to do the bidding of Beijing. China would be essentially outsourcing its wars to a party it officially regards as a renegade in true Sun Tzu fashion. It's impossible to overstate how catastrophic that would be to US interests.

Out of the US wheelhouse- it depends entirely on what China does. If China plays nice and builds economic relations with ASEAN, then they will be drawn into the Chinese orbit and there's nothing the US can do about it. However if China is aggressive and bullying, it'll drive these countries into the arms of the US and all we have to do is open them- which shouldn't be hard (given that we've been there before already- the muscles are already well trained). In other words I think it's more of China's choice than the US choice how this plays out. The US can't force China's neighbors to be hostile to China. Nor should it.


What letter?

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.


 

China starts "combat ready" patrols in disputed seas
 link (http://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-rt-china-southchinasea-update-1l3e8hs3sz-20120628,0,955435,full.story)
Also reports out of Philippines are saying that there are Chinese fisherman on the Scarborough Shoal again.

Maybe it's time to revive this thread. Some articles of interest:

China's second quarter GDP grew at a rate of 7.6%, less than the government-set goal of 8% for the first time. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/13/china-economic-growth-slows-gdp)

After housing prices in major cities slightly increased, the Ministry of Land and Resources maintains price controls and warns of further tightening. (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-07/20/c_123436824.htm)

Officials in Southern China have a very Chinese way of dealing with the homeless. (http://www.chinasmack.com/2012/pictures/spikes-under-chinese-overpasses-to-prevent-sleeping-homeless.html)

Hardliner Zhou Yongkang approves of Guangdong's handling of the Wukan incident, strangely enough. (http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2012-07-04/102524711201.shtml) Nobody knows how much power he still holds.

First comment: "American homeless not only get free food provided for them every day, there are even volunteers who regularly come give them medical checkups.
If a certain country [China] keeps cracking down on the homeless, the homeless will end up having to go to public places to sleep."

Which America is this?

Yeah, this is totally the socialist way to treat the indigent.

Most importantly, that last sentence would be better translated as "With a certain country cracking down on the homeless, they can only sleep in public places from now on."

Anyways, statements about the rest of the world by Chinese highlight more about China than anywhere else.


With Chinese characteristics, of course. Even if the intention was to prevent illegal parking the officials must've felt good about the alternative purpose.

Naturally.

It wouldn't even have been considered particularly Confucian for...millennia.

Confucianism's death spiral since the 20th Century has only been accelerated by capitalism's introduction. These days it exists to justify "filial piety" by the middle aged, a concept whose roots are probably resentment and the lack of a national safety net.

The problem with Chinese philosophy is that thought flourishes absent central control, but once one state unifies the nation all philosophy is replaced by a certain flavour of absolutism. The last wave of Chinese philosophers was American-educated and heavy pragmatics, so maybe there's still room for growth there.

I believe I once identified 'that godawful Fa Jia ideology from the Spring and Autumn Period' as the real governing philosophy of modern China, not communism, Confucianism, or any combination thereof, and I stand by that.

You could just say "legalism", there's no need to be obscurantist.

Finally, a decade and a half after pointing this out to my Chinese History professor and getting rebuffed, I can bask in the content glow that I'm not alone. :)

*goes back to occasional lurking*

The only reason I prefer the Chinese term is because 'legalism' is also a common abstract English noun. Then again, since I'm specifying 'godawful', 'Chinese ideology', and 'Spring and Autumn Period', you're probably right.


:)

The big news in China remains the torrential downpour (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-07/26/c_131741274.htm) which struck Beijing. 77 confirmed deaths, but it's a figure that will definitely rise up; I'm sticking to a final toll of at least 100. The hardest hit area is Fangshan, a mostly rural district of Beijing where more than 70000 houses were washed away.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-18943003) But life goes on - people have to go to work, though the massive migration of labour into Beijing lead to developing the sprawling city we see today.


In other news, Bo Xilai's wife has been officially charged (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-07/26/c_131741188.htm) for the death of businessman Neil Heywood today. It is accepted that she killed him over profit-sharing disputes, and was confirmed as such in a Xinhua press release.

Thousands in Hong Kong protest China patriotism classes (http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=832585&publicationSubCategoryId=200)

China summons US diplomat in South China Sea row (http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20120805-363525.html)If the PRC ends up going to war with anybody over this, they are fools and only have themselves to blame for the ass kicking they are going to receive.

Protests in Vietnam as anger over China's 'bullying' grows (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/06/protests-vietnam-china-bullying-grows?newsfeed=true)

Increasingly outspoken military alarms China's leaders (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48563506/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times/?__utma=14933801.2049232207.1342401522.1344388122.1344417789.71&__utmb=14933801.2.10.1344417789&__utmc=14933801&__utmx=-&__utmz=14933801.1344306669.64.2.utmcsr=nbcnews.com|utmccn=(referral)|utmcmd=referral|utmcct=/&__utmv=14933801.|8=Earned%20By=msnbc%7Ccover=1^12=Landing%20Content=Mixed=1^13=Landing%20Hostname=www.nbcnews.com=1^30=Visit%20Type%20to%20Content=Earned%20to%20Mixed=1&__utmk=152277689)

(good lord what a horrible looking url inside that "link")

Just a question about China: to anyone who knows enough about the country to know its general demographics, if it were to become a democracy today and hold elections, how would, say, Conservative, Liberal, Socialist/Social Democratic, Green, and Neo-Communist parties fare given people's general attitudes?

Way, way, way too many hypotheticals.

But anyone who thinks that a democratic China will automatically be pro-western is naive and delusional. Even compared to now.

Time for another update, I guess:

-The South Sea dispute is so last month; the latest border flare-up focuses on the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. As the Japanese government prepare their purchase of the islands, thwarting an attempt by Tokyo mayor Shintaro Ishihara, the process has drawn the ire of nationalists and the press. The Chinese government recently fired up their rhetoric and sent a fleet (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-19553736) for the first time today.

Unlike the South Sea problem, the Senkakus dispute is a lot more serious. The islands were forked over along with Taiwan to Japan back in the 19th century, but never taken back due to the then-nationalist government's pro-US sentiments and all. That, and hatred of Japan has been a political trope in China for decades.

Would there be shots fired? Probably not. The foreign ministry's at the "strongly condemn" (http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/zxxx/t968188.htm) level, and the government's trying to be as rhetorical as possible and to avoid conflict. But the protests and the fleet patrols will be going on for quite awhile, since...

-Xi Jinping is missing. Since his last appearance on September 1, the vice-president of China and heir presumptive to the CPC throne is nowhere to be found. Rumours abound that he has either hurt his back, had a heart attack or got involved in a car crash. Ten days of disappearance is cause for worry (like when former leader Jiang Zemin perhaps died (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14054456) last year), but not long enough for one to assume internal meddling. If it's the latter, then small islands are the last thing Chinese should be worrying about.

Revisions to my previous post:

-The military is eager, and the top brass desperate, for an official American stand on the Senkakus issue. The States don't have a clear position on the issue, but ought to defend against any attempt at invasion. Obviously the Obama administration don't want to get entangled in a diplomatic bear trap two months before the election, but the tactical silence may have prevented immediate gunfire.

There's a correlation between how long Xi Jinping is out for and whether the military acts on its own with a battle over the Senkakus. The next week should show whether a big power vacuum is plaguing China right now - or not. I've conveniently glided over how I can only speak in hypotheticals at this point, but what else can you do when the planned succession seems to be spinning out of control?

The Party Propaganda Office is in this respect still stuck in the old ways. They could easily halt any rumours by releasing a picture showing Xi Jinping sitting on a chair wearing a bedroom gown regardless what's going on in the backrooms. Back problems while swimming is a completely plausible explanation for being away.

Today Xinhua reported that Xi Jinping sent condolences over the death of a veteran general. Which means he's still around doing...something.

Six China ships near disputed isles: Japan coastguard (http://www.france24.com/en/20120914-six-china-ships-near-disputed-isles-japan-coastguard)It probably won't, but this could escalate quickly.

The PRC still doesn't understand how our Freedom of Speech works.

Oregon town angers China with controversial mural (http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2012/0910/Oregon-town-angers-China-with-controversial-mural)At least they ain't killing ambassadors.

Japan warns nationals in China after assaults (http://www.chinapost.com.tw/asia/japan/2012/09/15/354388/Japan-warns.htm)

1) I'm sure the Chinese understand what freedom of speech is, but if there's one Marxist concept the elite still retain (and most Chinese learned from instinct) it's that of base and superstructure. (http://english.illinoisstate.edu/strickland/495/base.html)

I'm not sure how far up the chain was this Oregon controversy decided. My gut feeling is not very, but now the entire foreign affairs ministry has to defend them.

2) The Senkaku protests are like the Middle Eastern ones going on right now: small and dispersed, but given more media attention then they necessarily need. This is nowhere near the first time there's been a wave of anti-Japanese sentiment. It's just that, now with an expansive social networking system, the protests will go on longer. They're hard to contain when people who burn Japanese cars become internet memes.

The situation is spiraling out of control. High command can control whether Chinese patrol ships fire on the Japanese, but not how certain groups in the country continue to embarrass China further. One can't cover up riot control in the big cities like one does in the countryside.

They've certainly done it before.  And it's not out of the realm of possibility that these demonstrations are state sponsored.

Chinese people should focus on China's problems and not so much on Japan.

You're underestimating the passion of "fenqing". They believe the government is too soft on foreign policy, and many have openly demanded that Japan be wiped out of existence. They believe that Japan is merely being used as a surrogate by its puppet master as part of its grand strategy towards the Pacific, which is considered shameful. But even then there's a general sense that the government isn't standing up for China (e.g. "why are we lending trillions of dollars to a country that hates us?"). So the government doesn't want these riots to occur, but is simply more afraid of harshly cracking down on these rioters than peasants rioting over land grabs.

So they are like Egypt then, with much of the populace clamoring for a war the leaders know they'd lose.

These "fenqing"? It is astonishing and depressing how anyone could still adhere to fascism in this world!

In the past few days the protests have turned violent. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/world/asia/anti-japanese-protests-over-disputed-islands-continue-in-china.html) The strategy adopted by anti-Japanese activists has been to "boycott Japanese goods", also intimidating others from buying or showing theirs off. In cities like Beijing, the greatest extent this boycott has been a drop in Japanese restaurant visits. It's in Central and Southern China where one starts seeing Japanese cars and factories being burned.

Most of the Chinese literati never bought into the Senkakus outrage, and they're helping turn public opinion against the hooliganish fenging ("angry youths"). The media is backpedalling quite a bit, too.

Even then I'm sure the average Chinese thinks the Senkakus purchase both reflects a consensus among the Japanese and a shock tactic from a belligerent Japanese government, which is clearly not the case. I can't really blame the CPC for that, though. There are forces within the party who benefits from jingoism, but very few who empathizes with the rabble.

All this was started by Hong Kong-based pro-democracy activists who landed on the islands in question on the anniversary of Japan's surrender, and then were seized by the Japanese coast guard. The next day there were spontaneous anti-Japanese riots in dozens of Chinese cities. From the perspective of these pro-democracy activists it was a very shrewd and clever way to provoke the Chinese people to spontaneously riot for *any* reason.

So, in fact, the CPC never wanted to provoke anti-Japanese sentiment, but is now forced to by a few political dissidents. That is unless they're the best manipulators in all history and even have dissidents on their payroll.

China sending ships to those waters just to appease a few protestors in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen is really quite silly.  Despite some mild fusses, nobody made much of a deal out of those islands until they were identified as possible oil exploration targets in the late '60's.  The U.S. military has actually used one of them, with the permission of the Japanese government, for training exercises in the last few decades too.  Chinese protestors have intermittently grown hot and bothered about Japan and boycotted Japanese goods since the May 4th movement in 1919.  But, despite the fact that the islands sometimes, as a proxy, inspire hostilities that are over other stuff, China is not going to get in any real skirmish with Japan over them.  They're really not that stupid.  Even with their constitution and self-defense forces provisions, Japan has outstanding air force technology (they make most of our warplane electronics and wing tech), and their naval armada, I'm told, is larger than the British fleet.  They also give lots of annual aid money to China and were the first international helpers on the scene after the terrible earthquake in Sichuan in 2010.  So, for all the aggrieved chest-beating, China is not really going to throw down over those tiny islands.  Both countries have much more important things to worry about. 

Indian, Chinese soldiers face off (http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_indian-chinese-soldiers-face-off_1742572)

Beijing hints at bond attack on Japan (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/9551727/Beijing-hints-at-bond-attack-on-Japan.html)

So Xi hasn't been killed or sidelined...

Is this only another proof of Chian regime's lack of transparency ?
Or was this an attempt to counter-attack from conservatives/maoists after Bo Xilai's fall ?

I mus say that, while Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao were said to be "reformers", they were disappointing (especially Hu).
This time round, I feel that there may be some reformist changes and not only from the PM (it's almost a tradition now to have a "reformist-liberal" PM: Zhao Ziyang, Zhu Rongji, Wen Jiabao, Li Keqiang probably), but also from the Nr.1.

And with the end of Zhou Yongkang and the likely promoting of Wang Yang, Wang Qishan and Meng Jianzhu (a more moderate security man), maybe it's time to be mildly optimistic about Chian politics.
The problem seems to lie in the army, currently...

China warns Philippines against shooting down drones (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/China-warns-Philippines-against-shooting-down-drones/articleshow/16575827.cms)dicks

Two big pieces of news:

Bo Xilai has been stripped of Party membership and a criminal investigation into abuses of power, bribery, and being a playboy (which is illegal for civil servants). The charges go back to his time not only as Chongqing Party Secretary but far before that, as Minister of Commerce and Mayor of Dalian. It's an open admission that the Party itself has been condoning corruption among its top ranks.

Also the Politburo has decided to start the 18th Party Congress on November 8. It's expected that Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang will become General Secretary and Prime Minister, and that the military and Politburo will experience high turnover. Everything else is still up for speculation, though presumably Bo supporters won't be going anywhere.

I continue to hold out hope that the CCP will decide that political reform is in its interest. The Arab Spring has shown that forcible revolution from below is unpredictable and can arise at any time, and that ideologically vacuous authoritarian regimes cannot hold effective power in the face of such a sustained uprising. At least, without destroying the country in the process, and even the PLA is not likely to accept such an outcome. On the other hand, the CCP can look at democratic transitions in Spain, Latin America, the former communist bloc, and even Taiwan as examples where top-led political reform led to positive outcomes for the incumbents. They were still politically privileged after the transitions and in many cases led majority parties and even ruled the country.

In foreign relations, the relation between the US and China will be the most important of the next 50 years. In the worst case scenario, world war or a repeat of the 20th century in Asia. In the best case scenario, the two countries learn to accomodate and cooperate with one another. The relationship will be much easier to manage if China becomes democratic. Currently, ideological considerations prevent the US from ceding power in the western Pacific to China, as it views China's authoritarian regime as a potential threat. A democratic China that embraced liberal values would be more like Japan or South Korea. It would mean the US would probably give China more breathing space in the western Pacific. In that sense, it would be worth more than 10 aircraft carriers...

The only big question now is how many members on the standing committee. If seven, the most likely lineup would be Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Wang Qishan, Li Yuanchao, Zhang Dejiang, Liu Yunshan and Wang Yang. Chances of a nine-member committee seem low. Wang Yang may be replaced by Zhang Gaoli.

Of the eight mentioned above, Li Keqiang, Li Yuanchao, Liu Yuanshan and Wang Yang are followers of Hu from his Communist Youth League days. Zhang Dejiang and Zhang Gaoli are followers of Jiang Zemin. Xi Jinping and Wang Qishan are nominally pro-Jiang, but are politically versatile "princelings".


People on this forum should know the CPC has tried to establish "intra-party democracy" for decades. Ever since they were almost pounded to oblivion during the Mao days, the elite have always been afraid of charismatic, totalitarian rule. Intra-party democracy - including secret ballot voting and increased influence of local delegations - is intended to maintain a balance among the elite and to demand compromise.

With that said, such compromise means a charismatic leader, liberal or otherwise, will get shot down very quickly. Even if he makes it to the top, he will find himself in the struggle between the centre and the regional party bosses. It is that struggle which is becoming the big deal in Chinese politics, as a self-perpetuating elite tries to keep the rabble down (particularly when it comes to foreign relations).

What I can't understand in these speculations, now widely spread, is that who will be in charge of Security matters.
Or they don't want a military or police guy in the Standing Committee ? Weird.
Or Xi will be in charge himself ? Or Liu Yunshan ?

That's the burning question, isn't it? Nobody can even speculate because the answer's in flux.

• Jiang Zemin has had a voice in public safety - with his protégé Zhou Yongkang - and in the military. China's Central Military Commission is, in fact, still stacked with mostly Jiang appointees. Many of them are retiring this year, but they have lasted long enough to force the fourth generation's hand during its reign. Could they last longer?
• Hu Jintao is still trying to establish military support before he gives up his title as head of the Military Commission. Whether this means he delays passing army leadership to Xi Jinping remains to be seen. If rumours of Zhang Dejiang being appointed public safety czar is true, Hu has to do even more sleights of hand behind the scenes.
• Xi Jinping, though he's a compromise candidate, has good relations with the military. The problem is he takes the throne as Jiang and Hu continue to battle for the military. Once Xi becomes head of the military, he needs to figure out who to appoint as to not upset either wing of the Standing Committee.
• Let's not forget the generals themselves. Their education has made them believe China is constantly under threat from the myriad of nations on China's borders. Some of them adhere to the aggressive rhetoric of Mao's era. Few want to concede their influence in the leadership.

There are also party bosses in the provinces and the cities, who have their own attitudes when it comes to domestic safety. A good performance brings them closer to the top, even if there runs the risk of a PR disaster.

This thread could be a lot more interesting if we had some idea of whether Xi Jinping is a Mikhael Gorbachev-in waiting. 

Mikhael Gorbachev? Gimme a break. Chiang Ching-kuo or Lee Kwan Yew? Maybe.

The seven members of the new Politburo Standing Committee have just emerged and Xi Jinping is  speaking. He speaks in plain Chinese avoiding the staid and wooden language of Hu Jintao. He pays necessary lip service to Party talking points but is like night and day compared to the past two General Secretaries. Hopefully he'll also avoid the cringe-inducing antics of Jiang Zemin. The other members are:

Li Keqiang
Zhang Dejiang
Yu Zhengsheng
Liu Yunshan
Wang Qishan
Zhang Gaoli

Seems like a list which ruffles as few feathers as possible and which satisfies both major factions.

Wang Yang isn't there? All the press reports are saying the progressive reformist faction got crushed by the dead hand of Jiang. China may really need an Arab-Spring like event to get political change.

I don't think even Wang Yang desires real political change. At most he would support a Singapore-like regime.

It's especially noteworthy that Zhang Dejiang (who studied economics at Kim Il Sung University in North Korea ::)) is third (!!) on the Standing Committee.

Looks like Jiang had his way as much as he could.

A fantastically staid new generation. Signs, perhaps, of the party elites wanting to create as much consensus as possible at the highest level. It's surprising how little influence Hu ended up wielding; so much that one may think he consented to this. Xi has also been appointed as the leader of the Party Military Commission.

Liu Yunshan will maintain China's censorship infrastructure, and probably will reflect a belief that domestic unrest, unable to be quelled within the following five years, needs to be hidden. Zhang Gaoli should be the ranking vice-premier, Wang Qishan in charge of party discipline and Yu Zhengsheng head of the Political Consultative Conference. Li Keqiang ought to be premier, but the no.2 position has usually been head of the People's Congress and all. I suppose Zhang Dejiang being premier is not entirely out of the question, if that means Xi Jinping was decided to take a more prominent role in public media.

We knew Hu's policies of indigenous innovation and heavy investments in modernization will continue, but members of this group have a strong interest on coercing local party bosses and encouraging foreign investment/trade. You could say this is the Chinese liberals' most despised outcome, or you could say all five new members will retire at the next congress - and maybe Hu is focusing on that battle.

What is also surprising is that, with only 7 members and all with the same age and similar careers, we don't have any clue on who is supposed to be part of the "next generation" of leaders.

Not certain, but there may be a new age limit of 67 years for Politburo Standing Committee members. This means in 2017, all but Xi and Li would be required to step aside. Hopefully by then Jiang or his ghost won't be able to stack the new Politburo with his cronies again.

There's speculation that current Inner Mongolia Party Chief and Hu Jintao protege (no relation) Hu Chunhua would be in a good position to be the sixth PRC leader. We've just witnessed the second non-violent transfer of power in China in the past century. Since Deng Xiaoping decided Hu Jintao would succeed Jiang Zemin, this is also the first transfer of power without Deng Xiaoping's involvement.

A violent transfer of power might be preferable, if it gets rid if the CCP

Not if it brings back the 1910s, 20s, and 30s. Or the 60s.

Yeah, Hu Chunhua, for something like 2 years now. Praise all the stupid Westerners with their smartphones for this :P After all, the rare earths have made this region richer and richer...

You're right, we'll see in 2017 who is scheduled to take the lead in 2022.

OMG, I've just realized that our French presidential election is now on the same years as "transitions of power" in PRC. :D

Thats not necessarily the most likely scenario(s) and an ever stronger and richer China under authoritarian leadership is not an attractive development.
Communist one-party states gone capitalist seems much less likely to develop into democracies than right wing dictatorships, so violence of some kind might be the only way to topple the regime.

Chinese civil wars generally cost tens, hundreds of millions of lives.  It's easy for us sitting in comfy chairs by the glowing lights of our computer screens to wish for the overthrow of a regime, especially when we don't have to suffer the costs.  Sometimes the satisfaction of fulfilling our own political ideals comes at too great a cost for others.  Just a thought.

Was the Syrian uprising a mistake then? Should the opposition of that country simply surrender to Assad, for the sake of preserving a harmonious society?

Beet, China and Syria are two different situations, their political circumstances and demographics and recent histories are quite distinct--I don't think the same dynamics obtain in both societies. 

It's kind of ironic that the last Chinese leader who didn't care if tens of millions of people had to die to satisfy a higher ideal was Mao.

China is not Syria? Kind of like how Egypt is not Tunisia?

There's a difference between killing others to satisfy an ideal and rising up as a people in the fight for freedom. The former requires a disregard of human dignity, whereas the latter requires a refusal to disregard it. The American revolution could not have happened without it, neither. If submission was the best of all worlds, then Wang Jingwei had the right idea and the Chinese should have simply sat out the war waiting for the other allies to liberate them.

By far the vast majority of deaths under Mao were done out of circumstance - starvation, disease, mob violence during the Cultural Revolution, etc. Comparatively few (still being several millions) were actually massacred under Mao's orders.

And besides, Mao also led a rebellion against a cartoonishly incompetent, corrupt, and oppressive regime (which was well on the path to fascism until 1937) to fight for freedom - first against the Nazi German-backed KMT, then Japanese, and then against the US-backed KMT once again.

I thought Beet is intellectually honest enough not to invoke Godwin's Law so easily.

You are the one who invoked it, sir. I had hope, however slim, for this government until the present Party Congress. Face it, the reformist energy of the Deng era was not completely exhausted after 1989, however, it is completely exhausted now. The present thugs in charge of Beijing are just a clan of gangsters out to plunder the nation for the enrichment of themselves & family & defend the status quo at all costs. And FYI, most of the deaths under Mao were under the Great Leap Forward, not the Cultural Revolution, which was the prime example of disregard of human dignity, not a fight for freedom.

You can't seriously compare the present Communist Party of China with Imperial Japan. The final years of the Qing Dynasty, perhaps. Kaiserreich Germany, definitely possible. But comparing it to something equivalent to Nazi Germany is inviting ridicule.

If you really had hope then you've been fundamentally misreading the politics for years. No matter what beliefs seem to unite the factions within the Party, they are all determined to keep the Party's hegemony. Even the so-called liberals like Wang Yang. And doesn't so-called reformist Wen Jiabao have his fingers in the property and jewelry sectors? There's literally no one who is a competent administrator and is clean.

When Mao was a rebel, he also praised the values of freedom and democracy. The People's Daily even wrote an editorial denouncing one party rule as inherently leading to disaster. Of course he was a complete Machiavellian, even more so than Stalin. More recently I personally know two people who were directly involved in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and who knew many student leaders. Both separately had harsh words for the student leaders' sheer lust for power and disregard for any democratic decision making. Chai Ling in her own words "hoped for a bloodbath" and even accused the producers of a documentary revealing these words as being "agents of Satan", bringing a libel suit against them which was laughed out of court.

These were their words and not mine. And if you can't lead a student movement democratically, how can you lead 20% of humanity democratically? Hence, it's incredibly naive to take anyone who professes respect for "freedom" and "democracy" at face value.

And besides, take a guess who would win a democratic election held in China tomorrow, and what message would he send to voters. Hint: it definitely won't be a pro-western liberal. And even if he did win, think of how constrained he would be to actually keep his promises. Even Obama with his formidable coattails in 2008 was unable to seriously challenge the status quo aside from a half-hearted health care bill.

No, I compared it with Wang Jingwei's collaborationist government. The argument for the Wang Jingwei regime was not the same as the argument for Imperial Japan. It was essentially that by not resisting Japan, China would get better 'terms' of occupation and it would save lives, and so on. It is impossible to say that had the KMT & CCP not resisted the Japanese invasion, lives would have been saved. The point is, there is a time when a man must fight.


Yes, it's very suspicious how on the eve of the Chinese political decision, all these reports suddenly come out about Wen Jiabao's family wealth, as if the same were not true of all of the same thugs. If any of these things came as a surprise to you, you have been naive about politics for years.


Ah, so the democracy activists in China are just like Mao now? How Orwellian.


Ah, the Chinese people are demons who can't handle self determination like proper western whites. I see now. CCP forever! Long Live the Harmonious Society and the Three Represents!

First, if I had to take a wild guess at the five new members of the politburo in 2017, they would be Hu Chunhua, Zhang Chunxian, Sun Chunlan, Wang Huning and Liu Qibao. Those are, of course, mostly useless.


Exnaderite already covered the most important point - politicians labeled as "reformers" would never support key reforms, and they believe in maintaining the Party's existence. They are reformers in the sense that they want to push inner-party democracy, be given the power to expel the bad apples at will and perhaps be more receptive to complaints in rural areas. There is, in hindsight, good reason why they were not chosen. The Party is teetering as it is, and creating rifts between the centre and the regions is very dangerous.

And, as I have said, there is a pretty substantial market liberal wing in this Standing Committee. Certainly they will follow the economic reforms of Deng and Jiang. And it is a bit naive not to realize there is already revolt going on in China, and has been for the past five years. You cannot expect a mass movement uniting a billion people for regime change unless it is civil war.

I try not to subscribe to the "suzhi" argument that uneducated Chinese cannot sustain a responsible democracy. But, even now, one of the more interesting phenomenons in China is the development of a civil society in certain areas. There's a glut of lawyers, engineers and activists taking arms in areas where the local Party officials failed - doing the job the centre wished it has time to do. That you deny the Chinese people the ability to mobilize themselves except as some revolutionary mob is a bit jarring.

I'm the one in the middle, here. I think there can be good reforms from inside the party, but I refuse to accept a future that has no reform, and that is what I see from this Standing Committee. You guys are trying to argue from two extremes -- on the one hand, that the present government is best, on the other hand, that the reformists are insufficiently reformist. I think there could have been progress in reform within the current strucuture of government, only I do not see that happening. But I also not accept that continuing with the status quo is simply acceptable, either.


And the most prominent one was denied an economic portfolio.


Are you kidding? Deng launched the economic reforms. Jiang allowed Zhu Rongji restructured the entire economy and shut down thousands of state enterprises. These men will not follow anything as significant. I'm getting sick and tired of the alarmists saying that if Chinese people stand up for things such as religious freedom, it would mean armageddon. By all appearances this is the least reformist government China has had since 1976.


Nice. The "revolutionary mob" dog whistle language tells us all we need to know about your mentality. It's great that Chinese people are attempting to construct a civil society under the hellish political party they are oppressed under, but attempts at supporting rule or law or activism or environmentalism will fall short in the end without broader institutional support- including from the political system. Even if they win in the short run, in the long run the 'troublemakers' will be retaliated against. Just look at Chen Guangcheng. And things are getting worse, not better. As the present Party Congress undeniably underscores.

But Wang Jingwei's government was a puppet of Imperial Japan. Imperial Japan was, as you may recall, making Nazi Germany seem as amateurs. The same argument was made by virtually all the pro-Nazi puppet governments across Europe. There *is* always a breaking point, but to compare life in today's China to life under Wang Jingwei's puppet government is laughable.

That Wen Jiabao has sketchy deals was an open secret for years. I myself am doing research for a professor writing a book on this issue. But regardless, even the most reformists on the Politburo understand they must "hang together or hang separately", so don't expect a Gorbachev or a Yeltsin. They know they can get away with corruption so long as it doesn't threaten the Party's leadership. In which case, even their erstwhile allies will turn on them.

Well, Mao himself was a democracy activist at one point. The last batch of democracy activists weren't entirely democratic either. Everyone in China above age sixteen has either read The Art of War or is familiar with the principles.

A better comparison is post-Soviet Russia. Yeltsin seized power from Gorbachev by riding the demands for faster reforms (as opposed to Gorby's half-hearted reforms), leading to a decade of national decay and misery for the Russian people under the guise of "democracy". Meanwhile, former Party bureaucrats became billionaires by scooping up state assets for nothing. A decade later, a former KGB agent staged a coup and immediately began consolidating power. He then jailed said Party members-turned-billionaires and renationalized their assets, while blaming westerners and democracy for the chaos under Yeltsin and calling the end of the Soviet Union the "biggest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century". So under these circumstances, wouldn't continued gradual change under a less naive Soviet leader even if it does lead to intra-Party corruption be better both for Russians and the world than the sudden collapse of 1991? The world dodged a bullet there; it's entirely plausible that Yeltsin's Russia would have met the fate of Weimar Germany.

Underlying point, it's extremely dangerous if any long-standing dictatorship (especially a superpower with nukes) ends chaotically. The best case scenario would be a gradual transition to a Singapore-like regime. In any case the Party leadership is facing constant pressures which will force even Jiang's cronies to admit complacency is not an option even for their selfish goals. There must be plenty of Politburo members secretly praying for Buddha to send Jiang on the path to reincarnation.

I expected better from you. ::)

Well yes, there is more modern technology in China today. Of course, the CCP has killed far more Chinese than Imperial Japan, so I suppose you have a point there.


Wow, you've really jumped the shark with this one. I'm not a Maoist, and the Tian'anmen Square protests was not a Maoist uprising. The real Maoists are hardline progovernment ultraleftists, which is precisely the opposite of the liberals, but I think you already know that, you're just obfuscating it in an Orwellian manner. What's true is false, and what's false is true, and so on.


No.


And after a decade, the people still did not choose to return to the Soviet Union.


LOL. Could you get any more mouthpiece-of-the-party hardliners? This argument was very convincing in 1993. It was still somewhat convincing in 2006. It's not longer convincing. You know what? A Putinite regime would be a massive, revolutionary improvement over the current regime. For all of United Russia's authoritarianism, the press in Russia is freer than in China, there is more room to participate in politics, to engage in civil society, in Russia than in China. There are elections in Russia and not China, and yes, they do reflect changes in the popular will to some extent. The only people who long for a return to pre-1991, even with all the setbacks of the 1990s, are people in their 70s and 80s. I would be overjoyed with a pseudoauthoritarian regime in China, similar to the one Russia enjoys.


Congratulations, you've just lost the debate, according to Godwin's law. (Amazing that you violated the law after having the brass to accuse me [falsely] of doing it)


Yes, it's dangerous for the frog to jump out of warm(ing) water, but it's also dangerous for it to stay. In some ways, a long, slow ossification of society, a decline by stagnation, Japan-style, is even worse than a 1990s-Russia style disaster. Russia has recovered from the 1990s, and has more personal freedom and wealth than ever. Japan is still sinking. Sometimes the sudden shock is worth more than the suicide of complacency. I don't think time is on China's side because the population is aging and one day, the largest generation will be in the sunset of their lives. If the country hasn't reformed by then, the biggest opportunity has already been lost.


Congratulations! We agree!


That how I'd felt before. But as you said, even the reformers don't want much reform, and now even they have lost. I don't see much room for hope at this point.

I wonder when this veil of silence over the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution will end. Only recently did the KMT/CPC civil war become acceptable to discuss. But the reasons to revolt in today's China don't fundamentally exist.

To be fair, the Tiananmen Square protests were driven by government corruption rather than one party rule per se. The pro-democracy liberals were a loud minority. But the intention is not to make two plus two equal five, but merely to state that due to historical precedent, there's good reason to be suspicious of anyone claiming to champion freedom and democracy. Not just in China, but all over the world. The US State Department can use this piece of advice.

Doubtful there's really that much difference between Putinite Russia and the Chinese oligarchy. According to the last Democracy Index, China is ranked next to Azerbaijan and Belarus. Similarly authoritarian Russia is ranked between Jordan and Madagascar. Most creepy? China was ranked 3.14, the same score of Mubarak's Egypt in 2010. Putinite Russia may be better, but not by that much. All the tricks the CPC uses to maintain power, Putin also uses to a somewhat lesser extent. With the added plus of allowing the Kremlin-controlled opposition to win elections which don't fundamentally challenge his rule. Finally, believing the end of the Soviet Union was a mistake is different from wanting it back. But rule by a former KGB officer/Tsar is somehow creepier than rule by an oligarchy of seven.

1) I was not the first to compare something to an equivalent of Nazi Germany.
2) Just search "Weimar Russia" and you'll see this was a serious concern during Yeltsin's days.

The Japanese leadership has not (yet, as long as government bond yields remain zero) experienced any shock to reform. Japanese people are generally rich and content with life. But even the most greedy of Politburo members cannot be tone-deaf to problems which while individually are manageable, become a threat when they pile up. They stand to personally suffer, after all. The problem comes when they reform enough to stave off threats to themselves, but not enough to address structural problems they have no interest in addressing. It's a risky game. But anyways, no one, not even pro-western liberals who are actually dissatisfied by CPC rule, want to follow Russia (which is ossifying again under Putin). They're far more interested in Taiwan. Where, by the way, both main parties recognize the importance of maintaining good relations with you-know-who.

Seems like Hu had pulled a trick by forcing five PSC members to step aside in 2017. Hopefully Jiang will have left, allowing different replacements. In retrospect it's a huge relief that Bo Xilai was dramatically turfed instead of allowed to linger around. And just this week, the foreign press reports the Chairman of PetroChina is being "investigated" over the mysterious Ferrari crash. A week is a long time in politics.

To say there is "no reform" is a bit extreme. In this Standing Committee I can see legitimate debates over the validity of State-Owned Enterprises and land reform. The way I see it is that the centre has to keep economic growth above 7%, or otherwise they are lost. If the public debt becomes unsustainable, I do believe structural changes will take place - though you are free to criticize me on that.
Of course this committee could've been better - replace Jiang's people with Wang Yang, Li Yuanchao and Liu Yandong and you have a hell of a leadership. I'm just disagreeing against your claims that this highest echelon of the CPC is the most conservative since 1976...

If you are referring to Wang Yang, I'm sure he will be assigned a vice premiership. Though he is not in the Standing Committee that does not mean he gets a nice administrative position. No one is denying he has talent, but that he is too stubborn to navigate the CPC's future problems.


Again, you miss my point; they are already standing up for those freedoms. But it is the regional officials who punish them, and not the centre. You have to keep in mind that this election to the centre is not the worst thing ever, but that this election does not settle the infighting within the party either.

Like I've said, this is clearly not the least reformist government China had. By all means this group of people is more receptive to the market than the second Hu Jintao Standing Committee.


Retaliation is not a sure thing. Local party bosses have a choice between punishing activism or learning from it -whichever option serves them better when they are reviewed.

The Chen Guangcheng case is an interesting point. The party elite wanted him to shut up, but it was the local party bosses who placed him under brutal house arrest. Instead of viewing it as a case where the CPC is incontrovertibly moving towards its doom, view it as just another example as the twisted promotion politics in the party.

I will not dispute that China has gotten worse in the past five years. But it is Hu's rather paralyzed central administration that fostered this regionalism and corruption. I do not think this standing committee will bring Armageddon to the Party. It can save it for another five years, which is not a completely bad thing.

Beet, I don't like the current standing committee either, neither do I like the autocratic and repressive ways that the government cracks down on speech, political dissent or certain kinds of religious practice.  Nobody is saying they approve of any of these things, and practically none of the Chinese friends or students I have approve of them either.

But what you're talking about is bringing about a political change in China through violence or mass rebellion.  That's a decision that the Chinese populous makes, not you.  Since the late '70's, the bulk of Chinese in the largest urban areas have felt, on the whole, that their lives have improved because of party governance, in terms of their economic well-being, their educational opportunities and in terms of their political lives (neither they nor their children have to worry about struggle sessions and neighborhood searches in passing anymore).  On top of that, rural economic reform was one of the first things the new regime in the late '70's and early '80's did, ending collectives, allowing farmers to develop side-industries and so forth.  In the last several decades, though many farmers have seen their production decline to the breaking point, in many cases they blame it on getting crowded out on the market and not because of government policies, and in any event, education has become more widely available to them in the last twenty-five years too. 

Now none of this is to deny that there are problems, and the Chinese populous not only knows about them and complains about them frequently, but they also often stage anti-government protests on a sustained basis when the problems appear to them to be stark or really threatening (factories poisoning water-stores in the countryside, for example).  But the appointment of a lackluster standing committee is not going to provoke the populous at large into a rebellious mood--as long as they are at least perceived to continue to attend to steps that result in economic development, and as long as they're perceived to stand strong for Chinese interests in international relations--given the legacies of the 19th and 20th centuries--, they're not going to get that riled over that.  They don't really expect the CCP to undertake dramatic government structural reforms.  If you find that disappointing, then blame the Chinese populous.  They don't, in the aggregate, maintain this stance out of ignorance nor out of some stereotypical cultural values regarding social harmony.  They don't believe or trust what government leaders say about many things, but they're not about to risk stark means which would constitute a major threat to their own lives and the lives of their families if they still see the balance of their circumstances as either favorable or tolerable and in the absence of anything which strikes that balance in the decisively opposite direction, it will stay that way.

And that lack of expectation is another element of CCP rule that explains the party's staying power.  The government does indeed help bring about such results by controlling the media and creating "nationalist diversions" at crucial times of political upheaval (think of how the Japanese "takeover" of Diaoyu Dao was made into a big deal at the very time when Xi disappeared and Bo and his wife were being dealt with).  In certain senses, protest and not outright uprising has been the most effective means of prompting government change, as the government has to large degrees accommodated such protests over the long run.  They have accommodated on hukou policy by relaxing restrictions, on "private schools" for urban migrant workers, on legally codifying more and more regional exceptions to one-child policy restrictions, and so on.  There is a nice collection of essays that illustrates this strategy of government accommodation to protest in edited by Mark Seldon and Elizabeth Perry called Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance in the Routledge series on Asia's Transformations that details a lot  of this quite well.  The government might just kill people who start a rebellion, but, depending on the conduct of the protest, they might accommodate protestors in various ways, and this latter fact, to me, at least partially explains why protests have become so prevalent in modern China. 

I agree with most of the sentiments you're expressing, Beet, but on the ground level, China is not Syria, and you that fact is too important to dismiss with a terse analogy that doesn't fit.  As fas the top leadership in China has been perceived by most of the populous in the last thirty years, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao were not even close to being perceived by the Chinese populous like Qaddafi or Asad were in Egypt and Syria, and even if people either don't know him yet or who don't think highly of him, Xi Jinping isn't perceived to be on a par with these other figures either.       

1. A civil war is not the only way to change regimes violently.
2. History doesn't necessarily repeat itself. The nightmare scenario of a return to 1920s warlord driven anarchy is not that realistic. It happened in a feudal China with much weaker institutions and a lower technological level.

My point was that the (now crony-capitalist) former communist one party states in Asia seems almost impossible to democratize, whereas right wing dictatorships in both Europe, South America and Asia have reformed when their economies developed to a certain level and the popular pressure from a larger and stronger middle class became to great. The crony-capitalist one party state seems to be the most tenacious kind of dictatorship, so the party itself is the most important obstacle to overcome.
A military dictatorship might actually be a necessary transitional stage since it would break the party's control over society. I see no real progress towards democracy as long as the party remain in control.

I appreciate your points, politicus, and I understand what you're saying  But it's hard for me to see a scenario where an attempt to violently overthrow the government would not invoke a civil war in China.  There are lots of people, many of them in industry, many with nationalist sentiments, and so forth, who have various but important things at stake in the current system.  I'm also not sure I'd like to see a military overthrow, since members of the PLA are not, to my knowledge, fans of democratization.  And, while the following is in no way meant to be a comment about any people's "ability to govern themselves," democracy is not like wallpaper; one doesn't just put it up in the form of certain institutions and expect it to function well immediately.  The development of democracy also requires a socialization process in which people of different cultural heritages have to imbibe lots of basic assumptions about citizenship for which there may not be many precedents in the culture in question. That's not a statement about any fixed cultural essence or innate ability of certain peoples, since I don't believe in either of these at all.  It's about process, I think.  And there is also something to be said for allowing societies do develop democracies according to their own precedents, values and goals. 

In a certain way, maybe having a lackluster regime like this one will enhance the likelihood of popular discontent, if they are really not only as politically anti-reformist but also economically incompetent as I am hearing.  If they do a bad job, it might prompt a change in course.  Other only superficially political reformers like Wang Yang and Wen Jiaobao might actually, by virtue of their very competence, ensure the persistence of the political status quo for a longer period.

In any case, it's perhaps just not in me to call for massive civil unrest that would inevitably result in incredible personal devastation for so many people, which furthermore has no guarantee of succeeding, just to witness the furthering of what my own political ideals are.  And revolutions are a tricky business too; lots of things can go wrong with them, lots of things can be made worse, and those things are especially prone to happen without the social transformations that building a democratic culture and not just a democratic polity require.  Sun Zhongshan, in some inexact and general but important ways, was right about some of these issues, but his ideas were overtaken after his death by the fervor of the Guomindang and Gongchandang parties, which were, as it happens, both revolutionary parties.   

First of all, how is Xi Jinping better than Assad? And secondly, how do we know what the Chinese people think without a poll? I'm shocked at how conservative people are here. When the Egyptian protests broke out, hardly a single person except the jmfcsts and myself opposed it. I opposed it because I mistakenly thought it was going to be a 1979 Iran style Islamic revolution. Yet when it comes to China I am the biggest democrat on the board. And I didn't even support democracy in China until last week.

You can only bask in the glories of the late '70s and early '80s for so long. Deng Xiaoping is dead. We're in the 21st century now. In terms of political evolution, China is last among major countries. Behind India, behind Africa, behind Russia and South America. Even Iran has elections. Sun Yat Sen would be aghast, that 100 years after the revolution that capped his career, China is still like this. In his lifetime he saw the beginnings of national electoral democracy in China, in ours lifetimes we fail to see even that. The Yuan Shikais still control China. The future belongs to countries with strong institutions, the rule of law, transparent and inclusive political systems, cultural pluralism, and deep capital markets. All of which the CCP blocks. The CCP doesn't even support the interests of China in foreign policy. The CCP's dominance makes Taiwan much more hostile to China, as the prospect of any sort of even loose union with a dictatorship is justly abhorrent to most Taiwanese. As long as the CCP is in power, the U.S., the world's sole superpower, will see China as an adversary. The CCP is massively detrimental to China's interests in international relations if looked at from this perspective.

Every single one of you experts is apologizing for the CCP. This is a political party, mind you, that bans religion, bans freedom of speech, bans political opposition, forcibly appropriates property, forces women to have abortions, is openly corrupt, is propping up regimes such as North Korea, committed Tiananmen, and so on. How long must Korea endure the perpetual division of its country, with one half being effectively a giant prison? When will Chinese acknowledge that the division of Korea is China's doing, and without the CCP, Korea would have been united long ago? This is just amazing.

Screw the CCP. These guys can be thrown against the wall, that's my view and I know you guys have the "mature" considered view, and I'm the one who advocates chaos and I don't know history and there are real consequences and dangers and blah blah blah. But I think if things don't change in 10 years, 20 years and more you will see that keeping this party in power without reform-if that is what happens- was a historic mistake and a tragedy. And for every Martin Luther King Jr., there's a Malcolm X. For every moderate reformer there's got to be a radical behind him making the establishment fear enough not to string the moderate reformer up on a telephone pole the first time they get the chance. And whether it's a General Secretary who's willing to let puppet states be free like Gorbachev, or a fruit vendor in Tunisia, it's clear that change doesn't happen without action. It's determined by people and what they do.

You can see legitimate debates? Amazing! They will go into their little room and who knows what they could be doing in there, they could be having a giant circle jerk, a bunga bunga party, or they could be having high minded debates about the "validity" of land reform. Or they could be dividing up the spoils. Who knows? It's all inscrutable to us. In five years, they will emerge again, and divide the spoils again.


Well we better hope that China's economy massively crashed then.


Um, speculating that there could be legitimate debate doesn't prove it's not the most conservative leadership since 1976. There's been legitimate debate in every Standing Committee since then. Of course, we don't really know what's going on.


No, I'm referring to Wang Qishan.


It's the center that keeps the regional officials in power. This whole idea about the corrupt local officials, and if the peasants could only get to see the Emperor King he would in his enlightened majesty cure everything is not uniquely Chinese, but it is practically universally naive. Peasants' superstition should not be brought up as serious points here.


Really? That's not what I'm getting from the sources I'm reading- most of the sources say the chances for economic reform have dimmed.


Every country has promotion politics, not every country does what happened to Chen Guangcheng- having him put under house arrest.


So your conclusion is-
1) The continuance of the party is good
2) Everything bad is Hu's fault, hence the current pro-Jiang standing committee is even better

BS on both counts.

Um, we found out that Putin is actually still popular in some parts of Russia. Maybe not in Moscow, but in the rural areas of Russia, they actually do support him. The point is, there were Tian-anmen style protests in Russia and Putin allowed it repeatedly. He did not send out the troops to commit a massacre or hunt down the opposition like what happened with Falun Gong. There was an election where United Russia actually emerged ahead. His popularity is tested. Russia is light years ahead of China right now in political development- and that's saying something.

Thank you! One of the biggest propaganda points of the CCP (all of which have been repeated here) is that "without the CCP, there would be no new China" i.e., we would go back to warlordism and Japan would conquer China again, and everyone would get addicted to opium and women would have their feet bound and so on. Utter BS. It's like they trot out that line about how they liberated Tibet from slavery-- implication being that without them, slavery would still be legal in Tibet or the Dalai Lama supports slavery. Or how they're so good for implementing land reform, not mentioning that Chiang Kai-Shek also did land reform on Taiwan. In '76 Mao had everyone so terrified, when he died, Chinese people were afraid they wouldn't knwo what to do without him. His first successor actually had a policy "whatever Mao wanted, is right". Only later, people realized they were better off without Mao. The CCP is the same way. They've got everyone thinking they're the only one keeping the ship afloat, when in fact China would be better off if its 1.3 billion people were granted the freedom to have a real civil society. They rule by fear. I know their talking points and pretty much all of them have been used in this thread. I don't think there's ever been a thread in the history of Atlas Forum with such sustained and voluminous defense of an authoritarian regime by almost all of the resident country experts. The only one that comes close was seanobr's fascinating but apologistic posts on North Korea.

One more post. anvi's post is not totally apologistic so let me respond to a few of these points


Has something changed since last year (http://www.economist.com/node/21528301)? Or last month (http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china-news/chinese-migrant-workers-children-face-new-education-hurdle-292228.html)?


Again, has something happened since last year (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-10/10/content_13858298.htm)?


I don't see any significant change. The screws are tightening, not loosening. Hence the need for a radical change in direction, and not more soothing gradualism.

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.

Isn't it a bit naive to think that even if the Communist Party vanishes never to reconstitute in any reincarnation, everything will magically change everything down to the village level? In any post-CPC regime, the government will be filled with ex-Party members who enjoy the same networks. The State Owned Enterprises will still be filled with Party hacks who will still zealously guard their privileges. Ditto the lower levels of government, and the PLA. I even know a Chinese student who's engaged to a daughter of one of Li Peng's cronies. He looks forward to his plum job in the power sector, safe in the knowledge that even if a regime change occurs, not that much will change, after I specifically asked whether he fears for job security. What does that tell you?

Bottom line: merely occupying Tiananmen Square for a few weeks and somehow getting the entire Politburo to resign and introduce major reforms will not lead to regime change. The CPC will still exist in all but name, since all the bureaucratic power structures behind it will merely profess solidarity and carry on as usual. Therefore, for a real regime change you seem to advocate to occur, the entire power structure would have to be destroyed. Mao came close to doing so, but still came short. The last time a massive bureaucratic power structure was destroyed was under Stalin in the 1930s. I don't see that as a role model for democracy.

My question would be, what would you yourself do if you magically became all seven Standing Committee members tomorrow? By 2020, there must be a mass media not under significant intimidation, there must be passably free and fair elections, the soldiers must stay in their barracks, lower levels of government must actually listen to directives, and the bosses of state owned enterprises must genuinely believe they're providing a public service. I look forward to your timeline.

First of all, I apologize for my last post; I drank quite a bit before typing it so it may not have made the most sense, and I may have well done the same here. But let's start with this quote.


Do you think I don't fantasize about a violent revolt toppling the CPC and seeing the party bosses' heads roll down in rivers of blood? Of course I do - so do plenty other Chinese. Nobody here is enamoured with the party. Nobody is pleased with the way China has paralyzed itself in the past years. I personally feel like crap when you accuse me of being an apologist for the state.

But here's a belief of mine that you'll find jarring - Sun Yat-sen was a bad administrator. He couldn't organize an uprising that wasn't crushed, and fellow revolutionaries were calling for his head. His only success was begging for money from the Chinese expats and others in America, while other people led the ground forces to victory. Did you know who had the military connections to emerge victorious after the Xinhai Revolution, and considered by Sun Yat-sen to be the best man to be president? - Yuan Shikai!

Why do I say this? It is to show that, in the one century in which Chinese constitutionalism has been a thing, the ideologues and the intellectuals have no idea who they're dealing with. They were outplayed, which may have had been a bad thing had they known anything about ruling hundreds of millions of Chinese.

I'm rehashing arguments at this point, but, I'll tell you that any Chinese with a sufficient passion wants to gun down the CPC. Yet most have more to live for - including family and a career - than to risk their livelihoods fighting against the Party. Some don't, and they fight and get gunned down. So they keep fighting. They don't need a hoary ideologue to justify their material need to rebel, and often that hurts more than it helps.


Nobody actually believes that point. The problem is and remains to be that, without the CPC, there will be no China as it is. The thought is unthinkable. A member of the Communist Party can be a politician, bureaucrat, landowner, capitalist or celebrity. What happens if the CPC collapses? Chinese capitalism, with little binding legal tradition, relies on the CPC. And, in a sense, the quid-pro-quo nature of interaction between private citizens and the CPC says more about China than the Party.

Say the central structure of the Party disappears. Either the patron-client relations survive and business goes on as usual; or they continue just without the party member, in which case the only recourse for the disadvantaged is violence. The cycle spins and spins.


And yet said peasants do believe that (not the last part, obviously). What are you going to do about it?

That may have been too snarky, but you didn't touch on my point that party infighting will continue. The choice of the Standing Committee, made up of the most uncontroversial and well-connected administrators, reflect that. The party rank-and-file are not happy. The elite can see the writing on the wall. And that is why I think economic reforms could happen - their lives depend on it. Their desire to continue having absolute power trumps any ideological concerns, and those concerns are based on what has historically worked anyway.


At this point I'm just blathering on to rid me of the ignominy of being a CPC apologist, so whatever. I just want to let you know that I never mind a mass uprising, but I find it absurd that you chose to be so outraged about the central leadership after this particular election. Everyone on this committee can administrate, and the problems they have to face stem from decades of wanton growth to centuries of Chinese political tradition. I don't envy their jobs, and I sure as hell will not defend their failures.

But we are at a point where Chinese society is becoming untethered. Radical change will bring forth suffering upon the middle classes most at this point still find to be too much. But the rich will leave in time and the patronage remains. Maybe some rights activists will return, only to realize that the Chinese working class could care less - the same way they treat all politicians. I hope you agree that a conversation needs to be held in China on the importance of Western constitutionalism for that ideology to succeed here. The irony is that those who can advance such a thing all rely on connections in the Party!

Well, Beet, I'll just say a few things briefly.

it's very easy to find incidents of setbacks, halting change, reversals of course, and all the rest of it, in CCP's China.  The CCP often handles things in profoundly regressive and repressive ways; there is no arguing with that.  I'm not justifying the way they are handling things, and I too wish China had a far more democratic government now than it does.  But, even were China to be governed by a democratic polity now, the 1.5 billion person population, the 135 million and rapidly growing numbers of migrant workers in China, the cronyism in private and public sectors, all of them would still present enormously difficult challenges that could not be solved immediately or easily, or free of pain to everyone. Just changing the leadership and overhauling the institutional structure of the Chinese government is not going to result in stories like the ones you linked immediately disappearing from those media outlets or there continuing to be terrible difficulties associated with them.

I'm not pro-CCP.  But I am anti-millions of people dying to get rid of the present crop.  If that disappoints you, I'm sorry.  But, then again, I don't get to decide that matter any more than any poster on this thread.

Beet, you respond much more quickly on a thread where someone argues with you than you do on a thread when someone's trying to defend your position.  :P  Just teasing.

From a rational perspective, Sun Yat Sen should be remembered as naive and out of touch instead of being elevated to almost George Washington levels of adoration. Even from his perspective he should have foreseen that handing the Presidency to Yuan Shikai, who had already proven to be manipulative and scheming under Cixi, would kill the nascent Chinese democracy in its crib. The Warlord Era, after all, began when Yuan had gutted the Constitution, suspended the National Assembly, and declared himself Emperor, which finally provoked the entire army under his command to splinter and rebel.

Foucaulf, Anvi, and Ex-Naderite:

Do you see China gradually (too slowly perhaps for Beet's liking) liberalizing and democratizing to the point it becomes a multiparty parliamentary democracy -perhaps by mid-century?  

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.  

Well of course. :) When someone's trying to defend my position I feel no need to respond, for I am in agreement. I had a job once where my boss wanted me to send him weekly status updates, and I would send them week after week and he would never comment on them. Finally after several months, I asked him what he thought of them, and he looked up and said, "What do you expect me to say, good job?" And I walked away feeling foolish. That is generally how I am now, although it may make me seem more belligerent and aggressive than I really am in real life. :)

One of the lines of argument I take issue with which is used against all arguments for change goes like this- "If we get the change you want, then do you think rainbows and unicorns will start raining form the sky? Will the brown and yellow and white children of the world join hands and start singing kumbaya? Har-har-har!" Of course not, but I am talking about a big change here. I am not talking about something trivial. Just because a democratic China would still have corruption, abuse of power, and bad policies, it does not mean it is not worth it! Just look at India... they have corruption, bad policies, and abuse of power, and my Indian friends never stop complaining about it. But they would never trade their current political system for better infrastructure. In 50 years, barring some sort of catastrophe with Pakistan, I think you will see India pulling ahead of China, not only a more dynamic economy but a more creative, diverse society with much more soft power and influence around the world.

The corollary that I also take issue with is the notion that a revolution would cause the deaths of "millions" of people and would be comparable to the upheavals of the early 20th century. This is exactly what I mean when I say the party rules by fear. Of course, there is no such thing as a revolution that caused its "intended" results, except in the broadest possible sense. However, the evidence from recent revolutions and other upheavals suggest that recent ones are not nearly as bad as the ones of the early 20th century. When the Moscow Spring started in December 2011, no one was predicting that it would be like the 1917 revolution all over again. Recent populist uprisings, whether successful or not, have tended to end with little or no loss of life.

You're flailing. Actually, we have no way of knowing what would the result of an election in China. Even let's say there's a heavily controlled election in which the only opposition parties are really also controlled by the CCP and only opposes in name, as in Russia. We would still have a much better indication of the popularity of the regime from such an election. The politics of China would be undoubtedly transformed. Sure, somebody calling themselves a communist would probably win, simply because there doesn't exist any other organization or infrastructure capable of winning. But what that would mean in terms of practical politics would be a much bigger difference from the status quo than the differences between any of the standing committee contenders or factions currently. The entire structure of politics would be transformed, and the responsiveness of the center to the people would be greater.


So you bring up the multitude of mass riots to support the party's popularity?


Precisely! But that is what I have been arguing all along. If there was a peaceable transition to democracy initiated by the elite of the CCP, they would still remain elite after said transition. Although the structure of politics would change, the faces in politics would not have to change at all. All the reason why the CCP has little to fear from political reform.


There you go again, with the wailing and gnashing of teeth. We aren't going back to the '30s or Mao. The CCP has you soiling your pants and they're the only ones standing between China and the '30s. See what I'm talking about? This is exactly what I'm talking about.

What's lacking here is confidence. You guys don't think China can effectively survive without the CCP. I think not only can it survive, but it will thrive better without the CCP than with it.

The CCP has two scenarios. Scenario 1- initiate a peaceful political reform process. Under this scenario, after political reform is completed, everything you wrote is true. The same faces are in power, they have to learn to play a new game but it's one that's eminently playable, they lose nothing.

Scenario 2- a violent, bottom-up initiated revolution, like the Arab Spring. In this case they face the choice of becoming either Mubarak or Assad. Either way, everything they've gained in the past 30 years is flushed down the toilet. Once a political revolution that they can't control begins, they're up sh_t creek.

Hence my argument that it's best for the CCP to initiate political reform itself.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_transition_to_democracy

Of course, I am aware of history. The difference between you and I is I don't subscribe to the notion that because the winner has won, that that means they are the best. There are some times in history that those who have the most immediate political power are not the ones best suited to run the country. Yuan Shikai is a perfect example. The only reason he had power is that he happened to be in command of the biggest regiment of troops. He knew nothing about running the country, which is why his regime fell apart almost immediately. And then the warlord era began. His only function in history was to derail China's first parliamentary democracy. Hence, his life is one of the greatest tragedies in China's history.

As an aside (this is independent of the arguments about democracy I am making here), you may disagree with me, but IMO, the three greatest tragedies of modern Chinese history are
1) The crushing of the Taiping Rebellion by the British. The Taiping may have had nutty religious ideas, but they were basically the Meiji of China. They believed in copying the west, building railroads, modernizing education and institutions, and so on. They were 50 years ahead of the Qing.
2) Yuan Shikai's overthrow of the KMT Nanjing regime. It killed Chinese democracy in the crib and ushered in the era of warlordism.
3) The CCP's victory in the Chinese civil war. Led to tens of millions of needless deaths through Mao's mistakes and set China back by over 30 years.



Well, almost everyone who dies in every revolution has more to live for. If only those who were so downtrodden that risking their livelihoods in an attempt to overthrow the government passed a rational cost-benefit analysis, no revolution would have ever happened.


Me: One of the biggest propaganda points of the CCP is that "without the CCP, there would be no new China."

You: Nobody actually believes that point. The problem is and remains to be that, without the CCP, there would be no new China.

Me: ()


The same patron-client relations will survive.


And yet said peasants do believe that (not the last part, obviously). What are you going to do about it?[/quote]

I'm going to get up tomorrow, eat my breakfast, go to work, get some things done (hopefully), waste some time on Atlas, then return home. :)

Peasants are idiots, however. How do you think Mao came to power in the first place?


Well I certainly hope you are right that economic reforms will continue, and that the party rank-and-file are not happy. However the problem with "party infighting" is that we don't know anything about it. I mean, it's politics, so there will always be fighting, but we don't know much about the content, nature or outcomes. It's too inscrutable. That's the problem with these closed political systems. You can't say anything about the struggles inside them. So you can't really draw any conclusions from them. It's not much exaggeration to say that all we know is that every five years, seven or nine faceless suits walk out from behind the curtain.


Well sure, a conversation needs to be had. That can be agreed on. The present election is not so much the reason why I think radical change needs to occur as the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm sure you'll agree that even before the present Party Congress, there was scant evidence for hope of change. I've already outlined the reasons behind my thinking-- I maintained hope in the party so long as I could find some evidence that it was willing to change. But there is none. In fact, things are getting worse, and have been for some time. So I have no hope for the Party, and no hope for China without continued reform either. Hence, I have adopted a position that is radical in the Chinese context. But it is really based on a balanced and considered thinking through of things. Unless you think that one of these two things are true a) the Party will continue reforms, including political reforms, or b) China doesn't need the aforementioned reforms, then the only possible conclusion is that China needs the Party GONE. If one rejects A and B then one must accept my conclusion. It's the immutable rule of logical reasoning.

Beet,

What we are talking about is that a transition of China to a democracy would, as far as anyone can tell now, require an overthrow of the CCP.  There are, for me, several things that follow from that fact.

First of all, while the value of democracy for mainland Chinese people might indeed be great, so great that after 50 years, they would be as unwilling to part with it as Indians, they have to get there.  And the manner of China's getting there is nothing like India's.  India was colonized for a century and during the period had quasi-democratic governmental structures established.  When the British left, the Indian politicians collaborated on setting up their own representative system; it didn't require a revolution as a total political transformation of China would.

In the case of an attempted revolution, who do you think the PLA is going to line up with?  To whom are their fortunes and prospects staked?  Sure, some of them might break away or refuse to defend the government, just as the first PLA units sent to break up the Tiananmen protests refused to attack the protestors in order to disperse them, but units were eventually found who did it quite swiftly and repulsively.  The PLA has an active force of about 2.5 million, with more in the form of reserves and paramilitary groups.  The possibility that a revolution in that country could "end with little or no loss of life" is nil.  Really.  Absolutely nil.  It's not just fear-mongering, it's numbers.

There is a dimension of this problem that is very personal to me too.  I have many close friends in China, my girlfriend's mother and family live there, my former stepdaughter lives there.  Many of these people live in Beijing and environs.  They have in some cases labored hard their entire lives and are trying to maintain their health in their retirement, in others they are getting educations, trying to build livelihoods and improve their circumstances.  I am not particularly anxious to watch them have their lives put at grave risk in the middle of a national bloodbath and at the mercy of a revolutionary attempt that has every possibility of failing tragically in the attempt, and in any event suffer incredible hardship, if the circumstances are not dire enough to warrant it.  And a lackluster and somewhat regressive standing committee are not, to my mind, dire enough circumstances.  When you talk like you are talking in this thread, you give me the impression that, in the tendrils of your "rule of logical reasoning," the fates of people, real individuals on the ground, are not as important to you as your political ideals, and that bothers me.  

I had a number of friends who were active participants in the Tiananmen protests of '89.  They were there in the square for several months, they were committed young people at the time, they were there when the bullets, grenades and tanks came and fled into the night as their friends got mowed down and thrown into shackles for months on end.  They have since told me tons of stories about two of the leaders of the reform movement, Wang Dan and Chai Ling, and their feelings about how things unfolded and what has happened since.  Wang at the time, despite his devotion to the protests, when it became clear that a crackdown was immanent, urged his fellow protest leaders to disperse the crowd; people had been there for months, sanitary conditions were deteriorating rapidly, people were getting sick, and he thought that, by focusing national attention on the need for reform for months, the movement had done all it could for now and should live to continue the struggle.  Chai Ling, on the contrary, cowed her followers in the square to stay, even if the crackdown happened, and even predicted in interviews that the crackdown would happen, that much blood would be shed, and that it had to take place.  Chai got her way.  But, just before the onset of the attack on the students, Chai Ling fled, leaving those that had voted at her urging to face down the coming horror behind to fend for themselves, and came to the U.S. to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Wang, who had tried to persuade his fellow protestors to disperse before anyone was hurt, stayed in the square despite his cals not being heeded, was injured, watched his friends die, and spent months in prison before being released to study in the U.S., even though he dreaded leaving his parents behind.  My own friends, who were there in the square, still burn with rage about Chai's betrayal, and speak fondly of Wang's loyalty.  They wonder now if any young people in China could demonstrate Wang's fortitude and leadership.  But, to a person, they all conclude now that remaining in the square only to be slaughtered by the armed forces was not worth it.  Some acknowledge that at least some of the reforms they had been calling for were carried through in the following ten years, though you can bet that all of them hate the CCP with a bitter resentment for what they did.  But they also, again to a person, testify to me that it was naive of them to ever believe that this iron-fisted regime would ever back down in the face of only a few thousand protestors, even when literally the whole nation had overtly, vocally and financially supported their cause.  They say pursuing reforms through other avenues is much more likely to work out in the long run, even though the intermediate period will be persistently difficult, and even if they don't, conditions, even in the worst of circumstances, are better for people if they can work hard and carve out hope for themselves in their daily lives.  

Beet, these friends of mine are from China, they suffer modern China's difficulties far more than you and me.  In thinking about my own position on this issue, I'm compelled to take their word over yours.

And what makes you think that I would agree with Chai Ling in that case? Of course it made sense for the students to leave the square voluntarily. As practically all of them did. Most of the massacre occurred in the streets leading up the square, no the square itself. Hardly anyone was killed in actual square.

Do I support a Syria-style insurgency for China, one that goes on for months even as entire towns and cities are levelled? No. In the Syrian case, perhaps the uprising was a mistake to begin with. The people should never have protested again Assad, or if they did, they should have given up as soon as it became apparent he was not going to yield, and they certainly should give up now. I am sure most Syrians, disgusted with both sides, want the war to simply be over.

What I am saying is just, poke the beast and see what happens. Then, decide what you want from there. The Egyptian protests in January 2011 didn't know what was going to happen. They went out on January 25 to the ministry of security-- they could have been massacred. But they went. Most likely they knew they were not going to be massacred for protesting for one day, and neither would the same thing happen in China. Tian'anmen only happened after months of humiliation. It doesn't mean you have to fight to the death. Just do something. You speak as if Tian'anmen is the end-all and be-all of Chinese democracy and that any attempt at regime change would simply be a replay of the past. But China has changed since 1989. There is a new generation that has grown up since then, and each new generation has its own unique task to fulfill. It might not be political revolution, but it's not necessarily a repeat of the past either. Sure, if you poke the beast it'll lash back, but it might also collapse like a heap of salt. All of these regimes look immutable at first, but not all of them are.

You ask, are circumstances dire enough to warrant poking the beast? The obvious answer is that yes, for some Chinese, they are; and for others, they are not. Of course, it is not the direness of circumstances that makes revolution a good idea. Egypt in 2011, Russia in 1991, or France in 1789 were not the direst that those countries had experienced up to that time. In most cases they were the best. But it was precisely because times were relatively good that revolution was possible.

You ask, is it just about the makeup of the standing committee? Am I calling for blood over seven faceless men in suits? Not quite. As I said, the standing committee's just the last straw for me. Things have been getting worse for years. But don't underestimate the standing committee either- the makeup may seem trivial to us, but it isn't. This is the rulership of 1.3 billion people for five years- quite a long time. And the only say that people outside the top echelons of the CCP have over what happens is the choice either to revolt or not revolt, because these mens' power is kept by force.

Yes, there's a person dimension for you. There's a personal dimension for me, too. If you ask people in China whether they agree with me or you, I'm sure you can get a lot of people who say they agree with you, but there'll be people who say they agree with me, as well-- that they'd risk their lives if a mass movement started. That they'd join it. There aren't any immutable, eternal or objective truths here. People in China also have differing opinions and their willingness to act or not act is also variable. Like any human behavior it is also a function of circumstances that can come about arbitrarily.

In any case, there's no dispute by me that the people on the ground are the ones who are going to have to decide themselves. I may have an opinion that I post on here, but it's not like I'm going to put a gun to someone's head and force them to revolt. Functionally, what I'm doing here is making argument, stirring up trouble, prodding the beast in my own way, even if it's in the wrong language. More than anything, though (since no-one in China will likely read this) I'm debating three of you at once, and I find it quite disappointing the amount of heated self-righteousness about "my friends in China" and "revolutionary mobs" and "Stalin" in defense of this dictatorship that my half-serious, half-joking one-liner has created. You would think, from the reaction here, that Xi Jinping and his fellow thugs are holding up the whole sky. All I am saying is that the entire Politburo could taken out back and unceremoniously shot, and China would probably be better off. What's so controversial about that?

()
()

You think I'm invoking the experiences of my friends from China to show off "heated self-righteousness" and defend the CCP?  Ok.  I'm invoking them because they've actually had experience with this that they think they learned some important lessons from, things I myself, at least, wouldn't have learned by sitting in a chair and reading books, which is mostly all I do.  I'm also invoking them because I happen to care about the welfare of people I know and love there.  If you consider such concerns illegitimate and irrelevant varia of this kind of discussion that are just an indulgence in self-righteousness, then fine.

What it's decidedly not is an excuse to "defend" the CCP.  I'm hardly arguing that China would not be better off if the Standing Committee or the entire CCP were gone right now.  I agree entirely that it would be.  Probably most Chinese people would agree too.  I just think you're really underestimating the great costs, and incredibly great risks of failure, of a revolution there, and a more careful estimation of these ought to be part of the equation.  JMO

I think you're being naive about who Putin really is. Having a KGB agent who used a Reichstag fire-like incident to stage a coup and then rule as a Tsar is much scarier than seven empty suits who preside over a vast selfish bureaucracy. In the former, Putin wants power for power's sake. In the latter, they want power to line their pockets. It's possible for the latter to compromise if push comes to shove, but not the former.

And in any case, I've never, ever, heard of any Chinese people, even those who really are tired of CPC rule, talk of Gorbachev and Yeltsin in positive terms.

When was the last time Putin compromised with *any* protesters, other than say some nice words on TV?

So essentially this argument is:

"The CPC is rotten and has to go, but it will still exist in practice anyways".

What does that mean?

Anyways, in case you're still not convinced, here's a poll of 12000 Chinese adults which risked the careers of several brave journalists. And please, don't say it's propaganda to portray a rosy picture of the Party: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9660715/Eight-in-10-Chinese-want-political-reform.html

So while the headline is the vast majority want political reform, an almost equally vast majority are satisfied with the way China is going, and that the want gradual political reforms. And when asked what should be the most important goal for China, 32% cited raising living standards and social equality. Democratic reforms were second at 20%.

Still not convinced? Take a look for yourself: http://www.pewglobal.org/database/

You'll notice you are free to compare the difference between public opinion in China today and that in, say, Egypt in 2010. If the Chinese public become as dissatisfied as Egyptians in the late 2000s, then I'm sure Politburo members will start arranging for retirement in, say, Cuba.

And is that really a good comparison?

Seriously, who is this intended to kid?

Anyone is free to spout ideals about freedom and democracy, and by all means please do so. But it pays to be aware of what actually occurs and what happens between the lines. Especially when there are actual people rather than figures in books involved.

Thinking about this topic for a while (actually for months), I figure that if China somehow pulls off a smooth transition to even a Singapore-like regime with the renamed CPC as the dominant party, the people with most to fear won't be in China (since they're still in control). They'll be within the Washington Beltway. Because by then, China will be capable of deploying exponentially more soft power and put a respectable face on challenges to US hegemony, something which has never existed since World War Two.

A lot of policymakers in Washington will be genuinely flummoxed that this new China is unwilling and, worse, unable to merely toe its line. Armed with new soft power it will influence South Korea and Japan to "realign" (the former as part of a tacit deal over Kim-land). Whatever happens to Taiwan, it will see no purpose in continuing its relationship with the US.

This will endanger not just US alliances in the Asia Pacific region but also the Middle East. What plausible justification is there for US troops in Japan? And given recent developments in the energy market, what purpose is there for a US presence the Middle East, other than the political football that can't be named without being called anti-Semitic? And with the US gone from these two regions, what purpose does NATO serve?

Finally, as current account balances in China, OPEC, and Japan (the latter having horrendous finance problems) shrink, this new Chinese government will find it tempting to reduce buying US Treasury Bonds. I personally have spoken to many ordinary people who resent the CPC for lending money to the country which is "arming to kill us". Take a guess what knock-on implications will result.

It's obvious this would be the most dramatic global realignment since the Berlin Wall's fall.

I'm sure these lettered agencies are aware of this, but will all these yahoos on Capitol Hill and the White House understand?

A difference without a distinction. Unless you think it means the CCP will quickly compromise with protesters because they would still be able to line their pockets in a post-revolutionary regime, provided that they compromise with the forces of change. In that case, it's an argument for initiating change.

In any case, you can say what you want, I would be overjoyed if China had Russia's political system. Even Russia's political freedom score is objectively above China's, so the people who have analyzed this have judged Russia's system freer. Heck, even saying nice words about political protesters would be the equivalent of repudiating the April 26 editorial, which was the holy grail of the Tian'anmen types. Fact is, thousands of Russians attempted precisely what I'm advocating here. And under Putin, it didn't lead to millions of people dying or him sending the entire Russian army out. It resulted in little or no loss of life. Putin did not declare  martial law in the winter of 2011/2012. He didn't send tanks to Moscow. Nobody died. So he's a better man than you guys think Xi Jinping is. You can argue all you want but that will not change this.


What? I never said that. All I said is that it's possible for pre-revolutionary elites to still be elites after a revolution under certain circumstances. That should not be controversial in the least.


Ok, so let's break down this poll.
80% of people want political reform, agree with me. Point 1.
85% of people think China will face greater challenges in the future; I agree. Point 2.
70% say reform should occur gradually; I agree that's the best outcome. Point 3.
70% say the government should face greater scrutiny against corruption; I agree. Point 4.
70% think the government should expand access to health care, pensions, and social security; I agree. Point 5.
67% say economic growth in the past decade has been at least somewhat satisfactory; I agree. Point 6.

It's remarkable that despite living in the heavily censored political environment they do, 80% of Chinese will still say they'll support political reform to a journalist. It's probably more like 90% at least. I don't think the Propaganda department is doing a very good job. Perhaps they need to upgrade their methods.


Basically what this poll is telling me is that the party is hanging on by bribing the people with economic growth. Essentially the same thing you see in Saudi Arabia last year during the Arab Spring, when the Monarchy suddenly announced an increase in subsidies and welfare. The oil states except for Libya (which suffered outside intervention) bypassed the Arab Spring because the governments were able to spread the wealth, so to speak.

I understand the hope of the CCP is that the Chinese nation will become forever a nation of those who care only for money and material status, and are driven forever by greed, satisfied only with bread and a full stomach. The level of materialism and soullessness has reached levels that Donald Trump could only dream of. No political freedom, no artistic freedom, no equal rights, no rule of law, no religion, no culture, no civil society. Just Gucci bags and Audis... well, it's understandable. But the economy will not boom forever. It's already slowing. Bad debts are much higher than is reported and are building up quickly. One day economic growth will stall. When that happens what I hope is the Chinese people will one day wake up and see that just materialism is not enough. As it was said, "one does not eat by bread alone." And when that day happens, the *actual people* and not just figures in books, will revolt, and destroy the actual CCP, not just the one in books. And people will die. Maybe I will even go over there and die. Perhaps I may be the only one. But it will be worth it.

If this is an attempt to say Washington will not welcome a democratic transition, you are mistaken.

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.

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.

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.

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.

That may be the case among rightwingers and economists in the Anglophone world, but generally the belief that most of the worlds current problems stems from the Earth being overpopulated is quite widespread in the West. Its dominant in continental Europe.
Eastern China is a terribly crowded place and the Han Chinese colonization of the West is quite problematic and is no viable solution to the problem. Internal conflicts could easily undermine Chinas stability and hence its development and ability to influence other countries, so I think the Chinese got their priorities right.

The UN is very worried that the worlds population will not stabilize until 2100 (unlike 2050 which they previously estimated) and probably will stabilize at a higher level than he 10-10,5 billion which used to be their estimate.

I don't know that that's inconsistent with what Beet is suggesting.  One can say that a given country will benefit as a world power from keeping its own population growth up, even while the planet as a whole will suffer if world population keeps growing.

Fair point, but he seemed to mix the relative power argument and the idea of general benefits of a large population.

But I dont think the relative power argument is right either. In Chinas case the country already has an extremely large population and a huge strain on resources and infrastrcture so their entire society would function better if their population was smaller. If they dont stop population growth social conflicts over resources will ruin their internal stability and therefore also theirpolitical and economic potential on the world stage.
The US has managed to be dominant in most fields with "only" 300+ million inhabitants. Once you get above a certain share of the worlds population its quality not quantity that matters.


Just what this thread needs...

I am actually interested in learning more about the development of modern Chinese pedagogical approaches to education.  I've done seminars and partial classes on traditional and modern educational systems in China and have taught in Japan for a stretch of about a year and a half, but have not really looked into the origins of the model of "teacher lectures, student just memorizes" very much, a model that has taken root in much of East Asia.   

The establishment of Western-style universities, with modern curricula, dates back to the late nineteenth century, and the Confucian civil service exams were abolished nationwide in 1905.  Of course, scientific and technical learning (li ke) have since that time been of foremost in mainland education in different contexts, while the humanities (wen ke) have fallen somewhat into the background.  But I wonder if the active-teacher, passive student roles map onto that change in some significant way.

Even though, in classical Chinese education, the content of study was largely humanistic and focused on the texts of antiquity which did have to be committed to memory, from everything I can tell, the pedagogical roles of students were very active ones in much of Chinese history.  The Confucian texts that students had to master were themselves significantly in the form of shoter or longer conversations between teachers and students, where students are represented as questioning, challenging, doubting, and sometimes even being better than their teachers.  The medieval ("Neo") Confucian records of the most prominent Song and Ming dynasty teachers are also in the literary form of conversations.  Moreover, the process of writing the Confucian civil service exams often required lots of student creativity, at least at certain periods of the exams' histories.  The students not only had to write at least semi-original commentarial essays, but also compose their own poems in the requisite styles and write practical essays on how to implement certain political principles in solving administrative problems of various kinds.  So, in many periods of classical China, students were required to be both active and creative in interaction with teachers and examinations, despite the fact that they were studying and reading, and surely were still expected to memorize and master, "the classics" as their content.  This kind of pedagogical pattern can be seen prolifically in Tang and Song Buddhist literature as well.

My point, I guess, is that modern individualism is not the only context in which the expectations that students should be active and creative can thrive.  Based on my studies of classical Chinese education, the relatively passive postures of students strike me as a departure from, and not consistent with, classical Chinese pedagogical practice.  So I wonder, and intend to find out somehow, whether or to what degree the roles of teacher and student we see in Chinese and East Asian classrooms now actually comes out of the movements here that led to the adoption of modern and, in origin, largely foreign content like the sciences, technical training and so on.  I'm hardly sure that such is the case, but based on my much greater familiarity with classical Chinese education, I do suspect that something like this is what happened.   

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.

link (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_CHINA_TIBET_CRACKDOWN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-01-18-03-58-35)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-china-xi-20130608,0,2308743.story?page=2

See? I told you guys this guy was rotten. Xi Jinping has been a conservative hardliner all along, as he is from the "princeling" faction, aligned with Jiang Zemin and the Shanghai Clique, which cut its teeth mowing down students at Tian'anmen Square. The next year, Deng Xiaoping pardoned Shanghai for its role in the Cultural Revolution and initiated the Pudong development zone.

The only reformist on the Standing Committee right now is Li Keqiang. When he was younger he made some comments about how China should adopt the U.S. political system. That probably cost him the General Secretaryship. Now he's been relegated to liberalizing the economy, but he's in a tough spot.

The Hu-Wen axis was also relatively reformist, as they are associated with the Communist Youth League faction; of the two Wen is the only one who actually cares about reform. In 2010 he realized his time was nearly up and he started making some speeches calling for reform. However, before he could get any momentum the Arab spring happened and scared the CCP sh**tless. No matter, the next year, he tried again, aided by the fall of well known hardliner Bo Xilai. But at the last minute his legs were cut out under him by none other than the New York Times. I don't think the U.S. has ever influenced internal Chinese politics to such as extent, as when the NYT published a lengthy exposition of Wen's family's properties just prior to the Party Conference. It completely destroyed the reformists.

The 2012 party conference was the worst and most disappointing since 1976. All hope for reform is now dead. As sad as it is, violent revolution is the only hope now for pluralism in China.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/06/26/china-riots/2458683/

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.   

As the keeper of the world peace, the United States of America should put every effect to stop the violence in China.

50 people were killed in Xinjiang the other day- as per state news!

Normally, I don't credit the Epoch Times with much of anything (as I don't take Falun Gong very seriously), however this article (http://m.theepochtimes.com/n3/960940-china-uncensored-whats-happening-in-hong-kong-is-not-what-you-think/) seems to be somewhat interesting. The last bit about China's foreign policy seems like wishful thinking, however there is more danger to this Hong Kong situation than is just in Hong Kong.

The students protesters in Hong Kong are right to protest, as it is good to show that Hong Kongers do care about more than just economics. However, it is important that they do not back the CPC into a corner, and perhaps be aware of the larger issues at stake. I am not sure if Zhang Dejiang (No. 3 in the Standing Committee of the Politburo) is really looking for another 1989; I am not sure he needs it. The incident that comes to mind is actually 1986. At that time, Fang Lizhi returned from the U.S. intoxicated with Western values and started touring universities opening his big mouth. Student protests put Hu Yaobang into a corner, and that is how Li Peng's ascent to the top happened to start with. There are certainly people (most likely Jiang faction) who would benefit if enough trouble got stirred up in Hong Kong that it caused the anti-corruption drive to grind to a halt.

Jiang Zemin (http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/jiang-zemin-former-president-makes-rare-appearance/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0) has made an appearance seated next to Xi Jinping at a concert. It is extremely rare for him to come out. He is supposed to be retired since 2004, but he still clearly not. Sitting to the other side of him was Zhang Dejiang, head of the National People's Congress with jurisdiction over the Hong Kong issue. Other members of the hardline Jiang faction were around, including Li Peng (who declared martial law as Premier in 1989) and Zeng Qinghong, a close Jiang ally and Politburo Standing Committee member during the Hu administration. Who was absent? Hu Jintao himself, as well as Wen Jiabao, plus reformist-leaning former Premier Zhu Rongji.

Meanwhile, the People's Daily published an opinion piece stating that, "In today's China, engaging in an election system of one-man-one-vote is bound to quickly lead to turmoil, unrest and even a situation of civil war." Which normally would not be much, except its author is the head of the Internal Affairs committee of the NPC, Li Shenming. And who is this Li Shenming? He 2011 he argued "for the continued relevance of the 'Stalinist model,' (http://cmp.hku.hk/2011/03/31/11281/) and sa[id] that the critical reason for the collapse of both the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet Union was not the failure of Marxism or socialism, but the betrayal of these values and systems by Khrushchev and Gorbachev."

Interesting that Jiang has made an appearance with XI, considering a bunch of Jiang allies have been purged.

Xi Jinping sees himself as a 21st century emperor, it seems like:

Leader Taps Into Chinese Classics in Seeking to Cement Powe (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/world/leader-taps-into-chinese-classics-in-seeking-to-cement-power.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSumSmallMediaHigh&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0)r

By CHRIS BUCKLEY
OCT. 11, 2014

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That story about Xi Jinping quoting the classics in support of his policies is a good demonstration of how ideologically strange and contorted modern China's political leadership is with the culture's heritage.  Of course, it's not uncommon for leaders to superficially quote classics in support of their own agenda; that's done in every country.  Plus, the state subsidization of Confucian revivalism has been going on since the 80's.  But Xi's invocation of Legalists like Hanfeizi is a little chilling--Hanfei declared that in a "legalist" (fa jia) state, everyone should be subject to the law but the ruler himself.  It's also odd to laud both Legalist and Confucian principles given that they have virtually opposite attitudes towards resorting to law as a first solution to social problems.  The traditional political synthesis known as "inner Legalism and outer Confucianism" represented an inclination for rulers to socialize the common people with Confucian teachings but use harsh punishments inside the court to control mischievous ministers.  Of course, Xi may in a way be signaling to the more conservative Maoist actors in the leadership that he will be strict with Hong Kong by citing Legalists like Hanfei, since Mao himself was an overt admirer of Hanfei's political thought.  It's just that modern political and financial interests in China play fast and loose with their tradition, and that often results in lots of incoherent associations of tradition and modernity.

How surreal that play can get is very visible sometimes.  In the summer of 2010, I was invited to present a paper at a national and international conference of Daoism scholars in Zhengzhou.  The conference was not organized by an academic institution, but by a private entrepreneur who thought the promulgation of Daoist principles could be productive for business practices (???).  The conference was held on the top level of a shopping mall complex the guy owned, and adjacent to the conference site on that level was a practice shooting range for commercial hunters.  When we went inside the facility where the conference was held, the walls were pasted from one end to the other with CCP political slogans about the virtues of communism (???).  And up we went, one by one, to give our academic papers on various traditional Daoist texts, while our televised images were broadcast on big screens on the street in front of the building, so that everyone could see that this was where all the foreigners hung out in Zhengzhou.

I actually love to go to mainland China, but sometimes the place is just flippin' weird.  Xi Jinping walking around quoting Hanfeizi and Confucius in support of a supposedly coherent political agenda is just another example of that.

China’s Aircraft Carrier Trouble—Spewing Steam and Losing Power (https://medium.com/war-is-boring/chinas-aircraft-carrier-trouble-spewing-steam-and-losing-power-29dae6cd9fdf)

Well, you can't blame Soviet-era engines for the problem.  Possibly Soviet-era engineering, but not Soviet engines.  The Chinese bought her as a hulk without any engines aboard and finally installed engines in 2009.

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 (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. 

Now the citizens of Hong Kong get to elect their district council representatives the same way ordinary Chinese elect theirs on the mainland -you can vote for any member of any political party, so long as they belong to (or are aligned with) the Chinese Communist Party:

Hong Kong holds first council elections under new rules that shut out pro-democracy candidates (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/hong-kong-holds-first-council-elections-under-new-rules-that-shut-out-pro-democracy-candidates/ar-AA1lgLig?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=4c8b38d26d1e460c949040c47b17d4af&ei=13)