Xi Jinping's historic power grab in China

[Double Edge]

Did you read it?

Yeah i did. Wondered if you had.

Particularly liked the way he phrased the comparison with Talleyrand, Metternich & Kissinger. We now know how important this guy Huning actually is.

Way you put it across like he's some academic among many. Nah, he's much more than that.

Saying he's the one percent ? So is Jack Ma and look how he's doing.

What he writes or thinks about has a chance of making its way into policy.

a more assertive foreign policy,

^THAT

and I'm struggling to decide if you have suddenly become Marxist in your approach to analyzing society, economies, and politics; or just didn't know the difference between the sensationalist write-for-profit nonsense Gordon Chang puts out, and serious analysis from a Marxist perspective.

Very simple. Whoever can better explain what is happening wins. In the free world its a matter of match the media to the govt in office. They are supportive of the govt, have better access and can give you a better idea of what's going on. Ignore the opposition. Why haven't more people figured this out ?

What you say is sensationalist, write for profit nonsense is how the left typically views right media. But its a working model whether you like or not. And i set the bar lower with this group when their guys are in office. They can get 5 out ten things wrong because i know the 5 they get right no other media is talking about. The ideas that the 'intelligentsia' deem not important or fake when its the exact opposite. That's battle of the narratives for you. Whose side you on ?

With China this isn't so clear cut because the CCP controls the media. More than half the time the govt approved media makes no sense whatsoever. How else to explain why 98% of Chinese think the Americans are behind Covid !!!

So you go with people that know China.

This article was tweeted by a former foreign secretary as well as ambassador to China. Legit ?

Other times outspoken voices. Those that cannot speak freely for whatever reason unless they are out of the country.



What exactly was Marxist about it ?


I thought it was an interesting read as to the movers and shakers in the CCP.

If Marxists known that better than others then i'll use them. They should know especially in a time when XJP is turning full on commie. Yes ?

In the end who paints a clearer picture wins. Needs to be defendable though. What can you challenge in this article ?

This is a competitive space with many voices vying to explain better than others what is and isn't happening with the CCP or even XJP.

Oh yeah XJP, the writeups about him only going to increase into the next year when we get to find out whether he gets his next term.

Will XJP even make it into next year in one piece ? he's making a lot of enemies. Powerful ones.

He he travelled much this year. One commentator was saying he's been confined to Beijing for a long time.

Security ? Suspected attempts on his life. Rumours abound.

Who knows

[DOR]

[SIZE=14px][FONT=Times New Roman]I only just heard of the guy


I'm referring to this work of his that predates Gordon by a decade.

It is America collapse theory. Hence the Gordon connection.

Did you read it?

I did, and I'm struggling to decide if you have suddenly become Marxist in your approach to analyzing society, economies, and politics; or just didn't know the difference between the sensationalist write-for-profit nonsense Gordon Chang puts out, and serious analysis from a Marxist perspective.


For the record,

• I don't agree with the Marxist perspective, but I don't deny it exists.
• I have studied Marxism, and understand the intellectual structures that it uses.

[Double Edge]

“Enter Wang Huning. China's Gordon Chang.”
Enter? Wang has been among the top 1% for 25 years.
https://www.chinavitae.com/biography/Wang_Huning/career

I only just heard of the guy

China's Gordon Chang? WTF? Wang Huning is not a writer of bad historical fiction and worse social/political/economic forecasts.

I'm referring to this work of his that predates Gordon by a decade.

It is America collapse theory. Hence the Gordon connection.

Wang Huning's “an éminence grise” ? WTF? He's an ideological theoritician. The last such person to hold real power in China was Mao Zedong … The CCP does not elevate ideological theoritician to the top job. Wang has peaked.

He's certainly being credited with a lot of things.

[Double Edge]

Not sure about the other points, but intention of shuttering private education appears to be reducing burdens on students.

And increasing the burden on parents

https://www.scmp.com/news/people-cul...over-daughters

Too many students learn things they will never use, because university admission relies heavily on exam scores and the questions get harder and harder to separate the wheat from the chaff. Most resort to private tutoring to have a shot at university.

This may not be a bad thing. Who knows.

This has been the state of affairs in China with civil service exams for a very very long time.

It's the norm in many countries as well.

In short its a dumb move. XJP has made many of those of late.

Here is another one that is being compared with the war on the sparrows.

[DOR]

“Enter Wang Huning. China's Gordon Chang.”
Enter? Wang has been among the top 1% for 25 years.
https://www.chinavitae.com/biography/Wang_Huning/career

China's Gordon Chang? WTF? Wang Huning is not a writer of bad historical fiction and worse social/political/economic forecasts.

Wang Huning's “an éminence grise” ? WTF? He's an ideological theoritician. The last such person to hold real power in China was Mao Zedong … The CCP does not elevate ideological theoritician to the top job. Wang has peaked.

[Double Edge]

Where is XJP taking us ?

According to a leaked account by one of his old friends, Xi has found himself, like Wang, “repulsed by the all-encompassing commercialization of Chinese society, with its attendant nouveaux riches, official corruption, loss of values, dignity, and self-respect, and such ‘moral evils’ as drugs and prostitution.”

Wang has now seemingly convinced Xi that they have no choice but to take drastic action to head off existential threats to social order being generated by Western-style economic and cultural liberal-capitalism—threats nearly identical to those that scourge the U.S.

This intervention has taken the form of the Common Prosperity campaign, with Xi declaring in January that “We absolutely must not allow the gap between rich and poor to get wider,” and warning that “achieving common prosperity is not only an economic issue, but also a major political issue related to the party’s governing foundations.”

In the end, the campaign represents Wang Huning’s triumph and his terror. It’s thirty years of his thought on culture made manifest in policy.

On one hand, it is worth viewing honestly the level of economic, technological, cultural, and political upheaval the West is currently experiencing and considering whether he may have accurately diagnosed a common undercurrent spreading through our globalized world. On the other, the odds that his gambit to engineer new societal values can succeed seems doubtful, considering the many failures of history’s other would-be “engineers of the soul.”

Either way, our world is witnessing a grand experiment that’s now underway: China and the West, facing very similar societal problems, have now, thanks to Wang Huning, embarked on radically different approaches to addressing them. And with China increasingly challenging the United States for a position of global geopolitical and ideological leadership, the conclusion of this experiment could very well shape the global future of governance for the century ahead.

Enter Wang Huning. China's Gordon Chang.

Except Wang is in the inner circle..

The Triumph and Terror of Wang Huning | Palladium | Oct 11 2021

He's the CCP's ideas man. an éminence grise

A member of the CCP’s seven-man Politburo Standing Committee, he is China’s top ideological theorist, quietly credited as being the “ideas man” behind each of Xi’s signature political concepts, including

- the “China Dream,”
- the anti-corruption campaign,
- the Belt and Road Initiative,
- a more assertive foreign policy, and even
- “Xi Jinping Thought.”

Scrutinize any photograph of Xi on an important trip or at a key meeting and one is likely to spot Wang there in the background, never far from the leader’s side.

Wang has thus earned comparisons to famous figures of Chinese history like Zhuge Liang and Han Fei (historians dub the latter “China’s Machiavelli”) who similarly served behind the throne as powerful strategic advisers and consiglieres—a position referred to in Chinese literature as dishi: “Emperor’s Teacher.”

Such a figure is just as readily recognizable in the West as an éminence grise (“grey eminence”), in the tradition of Tremblay, Talleyrand, Metternich, Kissinger, or Vladimir Putin adviser Vladislav Surkov.

But what is singularly remarkable about Wang is that he’s managed to serve in this role of court philosopher to not just one, but all three of China’s previous top leaders, including as the pen behind Jiang Zemin’s signature “Three Represents” policy and Hu Jintao’s “Harmonious Society.”

[Double Edge]

How happy are the rich under XJP ? have they been making the kind of money they used to make.
=> The rich are stepping into line, to stay out of prison. Why bring happiness into it?

If not they will want XJP replaced. Can the Chinese deep state collude with the Americans to do it
=>Is there some reason to think that CCP political culture changed last night? Did I miss the part where the CCP suddenly gave a flying fig about what the rich want?

XJP is countering by starting a cultural revolution 2.0. Why is he going after private education. They don't teach XJP thought.
=> GPCR II … by a guy whose father was purged from 1962 to 1978 … no.

I don't expect you to agree with that. Since you as well as the other China scholars do not think XJP is facing power struggles.

This is obvious to the layperson but not to the China experts.

GPCR was what ? Mao's way to get back into power among other things.

That's the basis for XJP to do one himself. Not quite the same as the last but the objective is the same.

XJP didn't get much of an education. The last cultural revolution interrupted it. So he learnt on the street.
=> So did everyone else his age.

Bo was the preferred choice but his wife committed murder so they had to go with some one else.
=> Bo’s gone, get over it.

XJP was supposed to be temporary but now he does not want to go.]
=> Says who?

Elmer Yuen

XJP was the compromise candidate. Where have we heard that before ? Shelley said the same thing about Jiang

Elmer says the Chinese deep state comprises of Jiang and his cronies.

Clearly, there's a section of Chinese commentators you do not agree with

Elmer's resume

I don't agree with Elmer when it comes to some things he's said about geopolitics in the region but his CCP commentary has been interesting and enlightening to say the least.

He's the only commentator i've come across that refers to the CCP as crime syndicate or a bunch of thugs. Seems so obvious now when you see their behaviour.

[Double Edge]

World Bank and the China Development Research Center got together and authored a report back in 2012 titled, "China 2030, Building a Modern, Harmonious and Creative Society"

It emphasised six points

1) Rethinking the role of the state and the private sector to encourage increased competition in the economy.

2) Encouraging innovation and adopting an open innovation system with links to global research and development networks.

3) Looking to green development as a significant new growth opportunity.

4) Promoting equality of opportunity and social protection for all.

5) Strengthening the fiscal system and improving fiscal sustainability.

6) Ensuring that China, as an international stakeholder, continues its integration with global markets.

With XJP, 1&2 have gone for a toss. The exact opposite was done.

3 works if we count solar panels and batteries

4 is the common prosperity scheme that goes after the rich

5 is up in the air

6 is a non starter

What does XJP have in mind ? Clearly this report about what China agreed to do to develop further has been mostly ignored.

[tantalus]

Well here's tangentially related question. With advanced AI, will a planned economy be more efficient than a market economy?

With any luck the ccp are abandoning their version of a market economy too soon to get the advanced AI 1st (although not sure if it is too early). Ultimately I reckon super AI and planned economy are a match made in tian.

Lasy few months China is showing chinks in the armor, may be jeopardising the trend towards domination by attacking their private sector (Alibaba, education, gaming - a great deal of future innovation will come out of gaming) and their attack on the crypto sector. Especially bullish on their attack on crypto, hopefully the US don't fuck up regulation on that one.

[DOR]

GIGO loves AI

[hboGYT]

Well here's tangentially related question. With advanced AI, will a planned economy be more efficient than a market economy?

[DOR]

The WSJ seems to be confusing Mao with Marx. Marx saw capitalism as a trasitory phase on the road to socialism; Mao thought he could leap-frog from feudalism to socialism and then – the communes – to communism.

Imagine a tightly clenched fist. That's the state/party's grip on the economy, pre-Deng.
Now, imagine that fist slowly, over 40 years, unclenching. It starts very slowly, but increases speed under Jiang and Hu.
Today, the fist is more of a cupped hand.

To think of Xi Jinping as reclosing that hand is such a long stretch as to be well beyond consideration. Teddy Roosevelt's trust-busting is far, far more of an effort to exert centralized control over the economy than Xi is attempting today.

= = = = =

Liu He is the main economic voice under Xi, but in economics keep an eye on Ren Hongbin, Wu Jianli, Tian Huiyu, and Tian Guoli. Rapidly rising helicopters, one and all.

[Parihaka]

Well, I hope he has at least validated his model of the economy in theory. Does he have economists and sociologists advising him, or is he just winging it?

Very autocratic with a clear vision. Actually making it work is a task for underlings.

[hboGYT]

The Wall Street Journal excerpt

Well, I hope he has at least validated his model of the economy in theory. Does he have economists and sociologists advising him, or is he just winging it?

[Parihaka]

The Wall Street Journal excerpt

For most of the 40 years after Deng Xiaoping first unleashed economic reforms in China, Communist Party leaders gave market forces wider room to flourish. That opening helped lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and created trillions of dollars in wealth, but also led to rampant corruption and eroded the ideological basis for continued Communist rule.

In Mr. Xi’s opinion, private capital now has been allowed to run amok, menacing the party’s legitimacy, officials familiar with his priorities say. The Wall Street Journal examination shows he is trying forcefully to get China back to the vision of Mao Zedong, who saw capitalism as a transitory phase on the road to socialism.

Mr. Xi isn’t planning to eradicate market forces, the Journal examination indicates. But he appears to want a state in which the party does more to steer flows of money, sets tighter parameters for entrepreneurs and investors and their ability to make profits, and exercises even more control over the economy than now. In essence, this suggests that he aims to rewrite the rules of business in what could someday be the world’s biggest economy.

“China has entered a new stage of development,” Mr. Xi declared in a speech in January. The goal, he said, is to build China into a “modern socialist power.”

Mr. Xi’s overhaul has generated more than 100 regulatory actions, government directives and policy changes since late last year, according to a Journal tally, including steps aimed at breaking the market dominance of companies such as e-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., conglomerate Tencent Holdings Ltd. and ride-sharing leader Didi Global Inc.

The government’s recent measures to tame housing prices are worsening a cash crunch at China Evergrande Group , a heavily indebted real-estate developer, sending chills across global markets. Beijing is unlikely to bail out Evergrande the way it has rescued many state firms, analysts say, and could further tighten the regulatory screws on other private developers.