Posted on 10/15/2005 7:37:03 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
China's Coming People Power
By Arthur Waldron
Tuesday, October 11, 2005; A17
As the Communist Party's congress begins in Beijing, the media are full of speculation -- not about potential reforms but about power. The question: Who will succeed Hu Jintao as nominal leader of China if he steps down on turning 70 in 2010?
A scholar-official from the Ming or Qing dynasties would understand the situation exactly. Classical historiography calls succession the guoben , or root of the state: the designation of the prince who will succeed as emperor upon his father's death.
The scholar-officials knew that the passing of power from one emperor to another was the most perilous moment for a dynasty. The eventual abdication-at-gunpoint of the Qing in 1912 can be traced to the Empress Dowager's coup d'etat against the reforming Guangxu emperor in 1898, which gravely harmed dynastic legitimacy. (He was then confined in the Beijing palace complex, to die mysteriously in 1908, one day before the Empress Dowager).
Hu has nominally held undivided power in China for barely a year (only since September 2004, when Jiang Zemin gave up his chairmanship of the Central Military Commission, and with that his hopes of ruling from offstage, like the Empress Dowager or Deng Xiaoping). Yet already the issue of succession is on the front pages. So has nothing changed since the Qing? Are the rulers of the People's Republic of China no more than "new emperors" embroiled in palace politics?
The answer is a resounding "no" in spite of the illuminating historical parallels. The reason? The imperial families of old ruled by the Tianming, or "mandate of Heaven," but that concept disappeared, replaced early in the 20th century by the concepts of "the people" as the source of legitimate rule and of "democracy" ......
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
If some foreigners believe that China can have nice smooth transition to more transparent and representative government, and their Chinese business operations weather this period without much complication, they are dreaming.
Ping!
....If some foreigners believe that China can have nice smooth transition to more transparent and representative government, and their Chinese business operations weather this period without much complication, they are dreaming.....
The extremes are an angry bloody revolution and a kumbaya love fest. Neither will happen. The communists will be gradually made meaningless as the transformation takes place. The people will exert pressure but will not make big waves.
There can be great argument and disagreement about the size and number of the bumps in the road but there can be no argument about the journey. It is underway. it will take a long time.
Well, there is a lot of dreaming going on. Our government and corporate policies are a clear indication of that.
Perhaps. Perhaps not. Contrary to the Western image of China as a monolithic, homogeneous behemoth there are many critical cultural, ethnic, geographic social and economic subsets within the PRC construct that will come unglued rapidly at any opportunity. Remember the USSR - It was viewed the same way and, when the opportunity for it's similarly composed amalgamation to break free presented itself the end was fairly rapid.
Seems pretty optimistic to me. The primary thrust of the unrest in China is that the peasants don't like the capitalistic changes that are being implemented by Beijing.
Seems to be a busy day for Chinese news.
ping
Yes, as you pointed out, there is a possibility that peasants may perceive the whole industrialization as a bad idea. At least there could be sizable minority who see things that way.
Waldron is giving the second best scenario, next to Chinese leaders acting like Singapore leadership, which is the best case scenario, but has no chance of happening.
(Denny Crane: "I like nature. Don't talk to me about the environment".)
(Denny Crane: "I like nature. Don't talk to me about the environment".)
Foreign investors in China may well find, to their dismay, that the first act of a democratic government is to seize their investments, perhaps on the ground that they were helping the present regime.
Based on the title, though, I don't know. Communists are butchers and we support them too much.
We have been what has propped them up politically since Kissinger was SoS and we have not changed policy at all.
What I try to convey was that, if Chinese communist regime is as efficient and free of corruption as Singapore leadership, they could put up with authoritarianism for quite a while. However, as it stands, the regime is corrupt to the core and quite inefficient. So it cannot entertain any chance of staying around.
The communists are all ready incredibly bloody, now today, in 2005 as they have been through their entire regime.
They will shed a lot more blood before it happens.
Obviously you instinctively know this and present the idea that they will peacefully retain power ("The communists will be gradually made meaningless as the transformation takes place.") and rule forever.
Your scenario is the commie Kumbaya one.
Strange that you would make fun of the Kumbaya one.
This is utter pabulum.
That's nonsense.
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