China General Discussion

[Foucaulf]

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.

After housing prices in major cities slightly increased, the Ministry of Land and Resources maintains price controls and warns of further tightening.

Officials in Southern China have a very Chinese way of dealing with the homeless.

Hardliner Zhou Yongkang approves of Guangdong's handling of the Wukan incident, strangely enough. Nobody knows how much power he still holds.

[Foucaulf]

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?

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.

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

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

[Foucaulf]

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.

[Foucaulf]

The big news in China remains the torrential downpour 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. 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 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.

[Foucaulf]

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 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" 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 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.

[Foucaulf]

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?

[Foucaulf]

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.

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.

[Foucaulf]

In the past few days the protests have turned violent. 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.

[Foucaulf]

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).

[Foucaulf]

What I can't understand in these speculations, now widely spread, is that who will be in charge of Security matters.

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.

[Foucaulf]

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.

[Foucaulf]

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.

[Foucaulf]

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.

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.

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.

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...

And, as I have said, there is a pretty substantial market liberal wing in this Standing Committee. And the most prominent one was denied an economic portfolio.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

[Foucaulf]

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.

Screw the CCP. Those 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

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.

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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.

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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.

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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!