RE: Who cares about China?
November 15, 2012 at 4:41 pm
(This post was last modified: November 15, 2012 at 5:01 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(November 15, 2012 at 4:13 pm)The_Germans_are_coming Wrote: eaven in totalitarian states such as the PRC,
China is currently far from being a totalitarian state. It offers a good deal more economic freedom than many "democracies", and more political freedom than many right wing merely "authoritarian" states. It might be said to be a moderately and unevenly authoritarian state.
(November 15, 2012 at 4:13 pm)The_Germans_are_coming Wrote: simply because "who will rule" is known from the start of the transition of power?
It has nothing to do with "who will rule" being known from start. It has to do with the fact that knowing who will rule in today's China doesn't tell you a great deal about its future policies. It is pointless to read the tea leafs if all tea leafs take great care to look the same to the observer.
(November 15, 2012 at 4:13 pm)The_Germans_are_coming Wrote: transitions of power ..... have always ment that a amount of change would occure in this country.
Deng Xiaoping??
There has been a profound change in how the country is ruled. Before, the personality of who succeeds to the throne tells you a great deal about its future policy. Now, it doesn't.
Before Deng, China was effectively ruled by the personality of Mao, who used his own personality cult to further his own rule. Deng was also a personality, but he used the power of his personality to end the rule by personality. He instituted a system of rule of consensus driven technocratic committees, with clear structure of succession by mentoring and patronage of young and coming technocrates by the current committee members. This system has worked reasonably well with 2 generation of technocratic committees, and the members of the current third generation rose to power through mentoring by the previous two generations.
When a country is ruled by personality, who is in power and what his personality is offers great insight into its future policies. When a country is ruled by consensus bodies of technocrates, each generation of whom rose to power through the patronage of the previous generation, there is little insight to be gained by watching them perform on stage during the power transition.
Currently the highest echelon of CCP has a morbid horror of rule by personality, thanks to the horror of the Mao experience. Mr. Bo Xilei is purged precisely because his style reminded the central government to much of an aspiration to personality cult. So the rule of consensus driven technocratic committee is not likely to change any time soon.
