China General Discussion

[Beet]

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.

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.

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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.

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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:

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The same patron-client relations will survive.

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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?

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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.

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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]

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?

[Beet]

[Beet]

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.

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.

So essentially this argument is:

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

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.

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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.

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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.

[Beet]

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?

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

[Beet]

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.

[Beet]

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.

[Beet]

Normally, I don't credit the Epoch Times with much of anything (as I don't take Falun Gong very seriously), however this article 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.

[Beet]

Jiang Zemin 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,' 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."