Will China have truly competitive multi-party elections by 2040? (user search)
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  Will China have truly competitive multi-party elections by 2040? (search mode)
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Question: Will China have truly competitive multi-party elections by 2040?
#1
Yes
 
#2
No
 
#3
IDK
 
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Partisan results

Total Voters: 45

Author Topic: Will China have truly competitive multi-party elections by 2040?  (Read 2605 times)
2952-0-0
exnaderite
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 7,221


« on: December 25, 2018, 01:03:01 AM »

My answer: yes, at least on the path to that. And you can thank Xi Jinping for that.

tl;dr methinks Xi Jinping is like Brezhnev who will be known for presiding over the stagnation that eventually causes the Party's demise.

By turning the Communist Party from a bureaucratic machine into a one-man show, he's setting the seeds for the Party's demise in the 2030s.

By the late 2020s, he will be in his late 70s, and whether he likes it or not there will be senior moments, which will inevitably start speculation and horsetrading about his successor. To protect his position and prevent the emergence of any clear successor, he will devote more and more of his time fending off internal challengers.

His inability or even unwillingness to introduce major economic reforms - as opposed to piecemeal changes - means the 40-year-old boom has quietly fizzled out. GDP growth averages at 4-5%, which is high by first world standards, but the loss of momentum means the state is less able to continue its infrastructure spree at home and buying largesse abroad. Overseas, China sees more and more pushback on its trade policies.

By the early 2030s, Xi Jinping is widely seen as senile and in office but not really in power. He makes a few public appearances where he's clearly no longer fit for office. He spends the remainder of his energy on fending off challengers. By the mid-2030s, even he understands his time is up, and he's forced to announce his retirement at the 2037 Party conference where he will be 84 years old. His replacement is an empty suit who was born in the 1970s, who struggles to unite the Party.

That replacement is then quickly nudged out by China's first millennial leader. That leader could either become a Gorbachev (a well-meaning reformer who quickly gets overtaken by events), or a Yeltsin (an insider who decides the Party is the problem and wants to destroy it).

Maybe there won't be democratic elections by the year 2040, but my guess is the Party will be in terminal decline by then.
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2952-0-0
exnaderite
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 7,221


« Reply #1 on: December 26, 2018, 01:15:56 AM »
« Edited: December 26, 2018, 01:19:58 AM by Make Politics Boring Again »

Maybe a Stalin type, but Xi is not presiding over the last gasps of single party rule, so comparing him to Brezhnev is ludicrous.  Unlike the USSR, the PRC has no external empire to collapse and plunge the core into chaos. Also it has the lesson of what happened so that it is unlikely for any faction within the CPC to be in favor of political liberalization. As you say, nothing lasts forever, but there's zero chance the CPC relinquishes control within the next two decades.
The USSR was seemingly strong and stable during Brezhnev's rule, and nobody believed the USSR could collapse except in a sea of fire. But in retrospect, he had promoted a personality cult that led to the disembowelment Party's bureaucracy (i.e. ability to regulate itself independently of any one person's diktat). When Xi first assumed power, he wanted to strengthen the Party bureaucracy by reminding Party members of the USSR's collapse. But based on what has happened since then, he is becoming exactly what he feared.

By eliminating term limits, Xi now has total dominance over the Party, but he has also eliminated any avenue for a successor to emerge. This means that Xi's final years will be consumed by infighting, which will only intensify following his departure (whether by resignation or death).

It's also a truism throughout history that a strongman will do all he can to prevent the emergence of a clear successor to protect his power, resulting in a period of chaos or at least uncertainty following his demise. Typically, a compromise empty suit emerges as the strongman's successor, but he's unable to unite the regime and is before long pushed out by someone younger, more charismatic, and cunning.

Mao himself was succeeded by Hua Goufeng, who is best remembered for being quickly pushed aside by Deng. Stalin was succeeded by Beria (KGB chief), then Malenkov (#2 on the Politburo), then finally a complete nobody who had the support of Marshal Zhukov (who was himself tossed aside).

By the 2030s, more time will have elapsed since the fall of the USSR (1991-2033 = 42 years) than the period since the PRC's founding (1949-1991 = 42 years). The political elite of the time will have been born in the 1960s and had their political formative years during the beginnings of China's boom. Younger, more ambitious figures in the Party would be millennials who grew up listening to Jay Chou songs about his love for his ex-girlfriend rather than songs praising Mao for the glorious harvest. Their political formative years will be defined by Xi's own consolidation of power and China's own increasing global isolation, perhaps with its boom running out of steam by the 2020s.

This means that Xi is setting the stage for a generational conflict between boomers and millennials by the 2030s.
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2952-0-0
exnaderite
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 7,221


« Reply #2 on: December 26, 2018, 03:19:02 AM »

Since China has the world's largest population, of course its politics will be primarily guided by what happens within its borders. And, since the Communist Party has unquestioned dominance over Chinese politics, of course China's internal politics will be almost entirely determined by the Party's internal politics.

We should of course also remember that the Soviet collapse occurred not because of Afghan rebels, Polish miners, or Reagan's hot air. It was primarily because "we pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us". In other words, its internal politics had become rotten. Gorbachev tried to reform the Party, but either because of his naivety or because it was beyond saving, it crashed.

Of course, growth rates of 8-10% cannot last forever. But, with reforms that promote a safer investment atmosphere, it could enjoy another generation of 6-7% growth to propel it to first-world status by 2040-ish. Without these reforms, it could easily become another Brazil where per capita GDP straggles at $10,000 with growth of 2-3%. Moreover, its bloated state-run banks are already now pretending to loan money and pretending to collect payments. The aging population is another strengthening headwind which will decrease the savings rate and hence pool of capital for investment.

A decade of a Brazil-style stagnation will cause discontent with Xi within the Party just as he ages. He will respond the way he has governed so far: lay out grand visions in speeches but introduce piecemeal measures that protect his own power within the Party. If Xi had preserved the more collegial collective leadership model of his predecessors, his rivals would have gradually gained seats on the Politburo before one of their own took power in 2022/3. But since the Party has become his personal machine, that channel for internal competition is closed. Some younger members of the Party hierarchy might even privately conclude that the Party itself will crumble without his iron grip. Then, once these doubts spread to generals in the military, the game is up.
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2952-0-0
exnaderite
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 7,221


« Reply #3 on: December 26, 2018, 02:06:23 PM »

Having learned from history, I can't see any major actors in the CPC or PLA seeking to liberalize politics in China for at least the next half century.

No, I agree with that. Some actors seeking to take bigger piece of the cake is more likely, especially if the cake doesn't grow as much as it did in the past.

China cannot learn from Russian history, this is the mistake the CPC made in the 1920s, and the CPC has been making since the 1990s. From the perspective of PRC history, repression has always had negative effects, but liberalization has been a great success.

Those who in their political formative years witnessed the Soviet collapse are now in their 50s/60s, precisely at the top of the Party hierarchy. But that experience will be less and less relevant as younger people gradually replace them in the coming decades. By the 2030s, there will be a new generation whose political beliefs are entirely shaped by what happened under Xi Jinping. They may not want to consciously dismantle the party, but may realize the Party is so rotten it can't be saved.

The external situation definitely won't improve for China. "Get tough on China" has become a new bipartisan consensus in Washington, which is remarkable given the mindless hyperpartisanship. One Belt One Road has had no major accomplishments and has been explicitly rejected in elections. Chinese high-tech products are now effectively shut out of western markets, and they know that China's large tech companies can be killed with a pen and paper in Washington. Finally, since China is now the #1 customer of oil from the Middle East, it now has a direct stake in the region's arcane politics and will be drawn in during the next dumpster fire.
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2952-0-0
exnaderite
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 7,221


« Reply #4 on: December 26, 2018, 02:49:32 PM »

they know that China's large tech companies can be killed with a pen and paper in Washington.

That seems hyperbolic.
ZTE was killed precisely by that. Only after the Chinese government did some arm-twisting which included a $500 million bribe to a Trump project in Indonesia did they get a reprieve. The next POTUS won't be so easy to buy off.

Well, I'm glad someone sees it my way! The Chinese nationalists on other sites are always like CHINAR1! whenever you try to suggest Xi Jinping isn't the second coming
I have the feeling that just as Russians joked about Brezhnev becoming senile in his final years, Chinese will joke about Xi's senility by the late 2020s.
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2952-0-0
exnaderite
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 7,221


« Reply #5 on: December 27, 2018, 08:28:47 PM »

Is there even a concrete, influential faction in favour of liberalisation?
There was one. It was led by this man. He was skillfully co-opted into the Standing Committee.
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