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China’s Communist Party and it’s future
From www.thetrader.se
July 1st marked the 90 years anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC). China has undergone huge changes and will be the next super power. If we all end up working for the Chinese or not is to be seen, meanwhile we present some history on the Red Capitalist, that will drive China into the next World Super Power.
Below from Stratfor;
The CPC was founded in July 1921 by 13 Chinese intellectuals who were anxiously seeking a way out for China in the chaotic post-Qing dynasty period. The 13 founders represented a total of 50 Party members, one tiny political group among many in China at the time. Calling for a class-based revolution by urban workers and rural peasants, the Party was assisted by the Communist International (known as the Comintern), though it cooperated with the ruling Chinese nationalist party, the Kuomintang (KMT), in resisting the Japanese during World War II.
Eventually the Party was able to unify the country’s urban workers and create a series of movements to undermine the KMT’s power. Later realizing its weaker appeal in China’s urban areas, compared to the KMT, the CPC shifted its strategic focus to the countryside, establishing a rural base to unify China’s vastly larger peasant population.
Nine decades later, the Party’s status rests primarily on these rural revolutionary roots and its role in creating the People’s Republic of China in 1949. This legacy has helped sustain and reinforce the Party’s absolute control over the state during a series of political movements and internal power struggles from 1949 until the late 1970s, such as the Hundred Flowers Campaign, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, all of which had a disastrous impact on Chinese society.
During the revolutionary period and after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the CPC’s ruling strategy was ideological. It sought to draw a clear line between the so-called “capitalist class,” which had caused so much torment in China, and the proletariat, which the Party claimed to represent. After coming to power in 1949, the CPC implemented land reform, cracked down on the private sector and targeted the capitalist class as an “enemy” of the state. This not only strengthened the party’s political, social and economic control, it also created the perception among the people that they would derive great benefit from all this. Naturally, this perception made the Party very popular and powerful, further reinforcing its authority despite the extremely weak economic performance and social strife that characterized China for the next three decades.
Beginning with Party leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979, a degree of ideological liberation combined with an economic “opening up” gave the society a temporary reprieve. Discussions emerged about alternative approaches to the evolution of both Party and state. But rapid economic growth and new socio-political demands led to Tiananmen Square, and the discussions were abruptly shut down. The changing political atmosphere in 1989 and the need to restore the country’s economy also prompted the Party to rethink its legitimacy. The market liberation reasserted by Deng in 1992, which involved legalizing the country’s private sector, was a significant turning point for the CPC, which went from a focus on the past and the proletarian revolution to a more forward-looking focus on rapid economic growth. On the ideological front, this move effectively bridged the chasm between capitalism and socialism that the Party had espoused since 1921.
Paralleling this economic liberalization was a shift in the underlying values of the Party. In 2000, Jiang Zemin proposed the concept of “Three Represents,” which formally stipulated that the CPC should “always represent the requirements of the development of China’s advanced productive forces, the orientation of the development of China’s advanced culture, and the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the people in China.”
The most important message in this, essentially, was an invitation to members of the business class to become members of the CPC. Years of privatization in China had created a large number of entrepreneurs outside of the party, and the state increasingly saw the potential for this wealthy and powerful class to undermine its authority. The answer was to assimilate this group into the Party, which would absorb the capitalists and enhance the CPC’s legitimacy in a modernizing China.
For many Chinese entrepreneurs, the simplest way to affect policy and maximize its economic benefit was to join the CPC and participate in politics. These politicians became known as “red capitalists,” and they developed strong ties between businessmen and politicians. This collaboration of political power and big business was not unique in Chinese history — examples of it date back to the Ming dynasty — but marked a new beginning since the early CPC had nearly succeeded in eradicating China’s capitalist class. Now, with China’s rapid economic development, this nexus has been renewed, and it may be more powerful than ever.
In the most recent National People’s Congress, the 70 richest members out of a total legislative body of 2,987 had a combined wealth of 493.1 billion yuan (about $75.1 billion). The collaboration between politics and business has formed various connections in pursuing the two groups’ needs — protecting their political power and economic benefits. It has shaped an extensive chain of interest and intrigue, drawing in other groups and extending to their children and grandchildren — the so-called “rich second generation” or “power second generation.” This chain of interest also created a powerful barrier limiting the rest of society’s access to wealth and public services. Furthermore, the elitist structure suppressed the entrepreneurial spirit, instead focusing only on preserving elite benefits through the politics-business nexus, hindering creativity among new entrepreneurs as well as productivity among many established entrepreneurs. This suppression of innovation and productivity raises a worrying sign for the country’s economic development.
The nexus between political power and big business in China has contributed to the CPC’s sustainability. Party members are now the least likely to favor radical political reform, since it would hurt them the most. But as the power brokers become wealthier, the economic gap between Chinese leaders and the majority of Chinese people grows wider, fueling popular resentment. And this could lead to Beijing’s biggest fear — widespread social unrest that unites to demand sweeping political change.
The CPC has proved to be creative and tenacious in adapting to changing times, but as the expected slowdown in economic growth rates sets in, new challenges to the Party will emerge. A rethinking of the CPC’s strategy may be necessary if it wants to prevent the kind of class conflict that created the Party in the first place.
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A country with a ~5,000 year history is neither to be lightly described nor trifled with. Remember, to them, NASA stands for Need Another Seven Aircraftcarriers...
JR wrote "superpower talk only began after the 1972 visit of oligarch representative, Dr.Henry Kissinger, carrying in his personal papers an oligarch-serving clandestine deal for a turnover of the American economic miracle to whoever was in charge: the rigid dictatorship of the Communist Party."
Mao Zedong (Communist) greeted Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger (Communist) in 1972 and now Stratfor's George Friedman (Communist) lauds the Communist Party of China.
Stratfor/Friedman never lament the millions of U.S. jobs lost to his communist buddies.
I guess that means short the Chinese, too.
:D
China can't even provide clean drinking water to its citizens let alone becoming "the next super power."
China is a human caldera, a massive volcano of people that will collapse inward upon itself.
There are 4 times more Chinese than Americans.
Adjust the graph accordingly and it will take about another 90 years to break even.
And by than, you'll only be able to live in China with oxygen masks.
“...meanwhile we present some history on the Red Capitalist, that will drive China into the next World Super Power.” – the trader
The premise of this article, of China’s potential capitalist superpower status, is nothing but a pipe dream. The China “miracle” is the massive transferring of America’s economic miracle through the duplicity of America’s leadership in sending crippling levels of manufacturing jobs, manufacturing plants and the highest level of technology available to a Communist cheap labor source.
The concept of “Red Capitalist” is like replacing Henry Ford’s middle name with Mao; they are concepts that have never mixed and never will.
Modern China is a history of U.S. commercial interests (oligarchs) working in tandem with Mao and the abandonment of Chiang Kai-Shek. But the superpower talk only began after the 1972 visit of oligarch representative, Dr.Henry Kissinger, carrying in his personal papers an oligarch-serving clandestine deal for a turnover of the American economic miracle to whoever was in charge: the rigid dictatorship of the Communist Party.
IOW, the more the transfer of American producing wealth to China the more powerful the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party became.
The so-called Chinese economic miracle began in 2001 when China joined the WTO. Since that time, 46,000 U.S. manufacturing factories have been transferred permanently to Asia and the United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs per month.
According to the U.S. Commerce Department, U.S. multinational corporations added 2.4 million new jobs overseas during the first decade of this century. But during that same time frame U.S. multinational corporations cut a total of 2.9 million jobs inside the United States…
In a sense, China is only renting the American miracle because without freedom, which the Communist Party will never allow, there can be no permanent Chinese capitalistic miracle.
In short, freedom, not hydrocarbons, created this new, high-standard-of-living world. But every citizen of a twentieth-century communist country is a literal slave, unless he is part of the power structure, says Robert Ringer. And “in reality no one, except dictators, owns anything.”
America’s gift to the world, the gift that lifted the standards of living for all people, was the fruit produced from individual freedom: the opportunity to own property and to develop the means of production. America, as steward of her resources, advanced man’s progress that for more than 60 known centuries had advanced no farther than wagon wheels and open fire cooking, where men were no more than beasts of burden, carrying their possessions upon their backs.
It was freedom, gifted by America’s Founders, not slave labor, that created this new world superpower, that lifted men from poverty and fed peoples around the globe. And it is that freedom that China lacks.
Actually, no. China is not "renting" its fake-growth by reducing freedom (which does not make it "okay" - it just isn't relevant here). It "rents" it the same way as germany and other export-biased economies...: Crippling buying power locally, and bailing out the importers.
In that kind of relationship, everyone ultimately loses, but via a lot of can-kicking and useless stats like GDP, you certainly can create a big-ass fake impression of collective growth and wealth.... when actually, all you're creating is a giant bubble, which will crush everyone involved, except of a handful few who found a way to escape the consequences they deserve.
If that sounds familiar, then it is because this stuff is all the same wherever it happens - just the paintjobs are different.
nonsense; you can't fill your gas tank with freedom
Actually, trav, you can. Your comment reminds me of the little kid who said milk comes from the grocery store.
Ruth Wilder Lane in The Discovery of Freedon: Man’s Struggle Against Authority (1943) explains the situation:
“Why did men die of hunger, for six thousand years?
"Why did they walk, and carry goods and other men on their backs, for six thousand years, and suddenly, in one century, only on a sixth of this earth’s surface, they make steamships, railroads, motors, airplanes, and now are flying around the earth in its utmost height of air?
“Why did families live six thousand years in floorless hovels, without windows or chimneys, then, in eighty years and only in these United States, they are taking floors, chimneys, glass windows for granted, and regarding electric lights, porcelain toilets, and window screens as minimum necessities?
“Why did workers walk barefoot, in rags, with lousy hair and unwashed teeth, and workingmen wear no pants, for six thousand years, and here, in less than a century –silk stockings, lip sticks, permanent waves, sweaters, overcoats, shaving cream, safety razors. It’s incredible.
“For thousands of years, human beings used their energies in unsuccessful efforts to get wretched shelter and meager food. Then on one small part of the earth, a few men used their energies so effectively that three generations created a completely new world.”
What explains this?
"Freedom."
BTW, when will Zero Hedge contributors learn that George Friedman (Stratfor) is a front for the pro-war, pro-US-Empire Jewish oligarchs? The Jewish oligarchs have played a central role in American finance and politics since the 1960s, according to “The Politics of Anti-Semitism” published by CounterPunch, and were among the chief beneficiaries from the 1980s onward of corporate mergers and acquisitions and reorganizations, hostile and otherwise, until today they are “in positions of unprecedented influence and have assumed or been given decision-making positions over virtually every segment of our culture and body politic.”* Friedman’s every pronouncement carries the underpinnings of this dangerous globalist cabal.
If was George Friedman in 2010 who called for Obama to bomb Iran before the 2012 election, as a winning re-election strategy.
Here are the startling paragraphs in Friedman’s analysis:
“If Obama were to use foreign policy to enhance his political standing through decisive action, and achieve some positive results in relations with foreign governments, the one place he could do it would be Iran… Obama has avoided overt military action against Iran, so a confrontation with Iran would require a deliberate shift in the U.S. stance, which would require a justification.
“The most obvious justification would be to claim that Iran is about to construct a nuclear device. Whether or not this is true would be immaterial…. Nor would the claim be a lie. Defining what it means to almost possess nuclear weapons is nearly a metaphysical discussion. It requires merely a shift in definitions and assumptions…” (The War Recovery, by David Broder, The Washington Post 2010)
*Jeffrey Blankfort, The Israel Lobby and the Left, p 100
"when will Zero Hedge contributors learn that George Friedman (Stratfor) is a front for the pro-war, pro-US-Empire Jewish oligarchs?"
I noticed this last week when they were pounding the table about an imminent collapse of Austrian banks due to their exposure to Swiss Franc-denominated, Eastern European mortgages.
I pointed out then that this was an old story, that the Austrians had nationalised the bulk of the problems rather early and guessed that "thetrader" was a banker shill.
I guess I was right.
I hope ZeroHedge keeps printing articles by these guys so I can see plain as day what they're up to. Get short Swiss Francs everyone!
I don't see a suppression of innovation and productivity in China. Small start-ups can become giants. And the Chinese middle class is getting richer and richer. Tension? What tension? The article is misinformative. I say visit China.
Go to China if you want to have the worst vacation ever and take the time
to actually find and talk to locals IF you can find any who speak english.
What you will realize after enough talk is that all the China hype is BS. Even
the little guy has NO concept of right and wrong. They are terrified to even
say anything that could be interpreted as "political" because of the paranoia
that someone could be listening. But look around and you will see that
everyone IS listening!
it's awesome if you're into fake Breitlings and counterfeit luxury goods
@automato: You are full of it.
Are you fucking high? Have you ever been to China? Are you actually human?
As someone who'se spent considerable time in China, and knowing several people in the party and outside, I can say categorically: All that you have said is absolute rubbish.
Grass mud horse.
are we allowed to be grammar nazis in Fight Club?
...just saying: a grammar mistake in the title doesn't leave the best impression. (it's = it is, it has)
Agreed. Sloppy writing means sloppy thinking.
This author and the other seem to unconsciously believe China, it is (the) future.
Are you sure you didn't mean for this to go to Articlesbase?
China should not adopt the Western-style mul1ti-party democracy whose political process is almost always hijacked by the special interest groups at the expense of the collective welfare of a country. Just take a look at America and India which are in a mess.
The Chinese (people) should not adopt any replacement monopoly system of governance: They should choose complete freedom from all authority structures/systems to avert another such tyranny (of parasites) such as the murderous bunch of thieves that is the Chinese Communist Party. Let's hope the next revolution does not go to waste (which all have to date worldwide)
Regards "collective welfare of a country" I also hope the nonsense of nationhood also goes in the bin with the change coming. The first job of all parasites (Royalty, politicians) is to fabricate a State, fabricate its borders (when none should exist in true freedom) so that it can piss on all the people trapped in such 'territory' (for tax/robbery and tagging, passport and control purposes)
There's alot of parasite hed-fuk ideology baggage to rid ourselves these past few Centuries and Govt and the nation State are 2 of the biggest piles of crap tagged 'To Go' to the scrapheap
@Zero Govt: You sound like a very destructive anarchist whose unrealistic ideas should be swept into the dust bin of history.
Dumb Honkie - i can't anything more that your name already describes so perfectly
@Zero Gvt: My screen name accurately describes the likes of you.
Not to fear my good friend. This collection of wires we use to communicate with each other has done wonders to destroy those old boundaries and force us to evolve. As more and more of us wake up, things will change.
This is as light weight and superficial as it can possibly get.
agree..."it's" totally dumbass, as is the writer for fucking up "its" in the headline.
Intelligent people will not take you seriously if you exhibit poor grammar and spelling
Add the period after "spelling", trav...
;-)
I figured you had it covered
I was thinking the same. Where's the meat?
Indeed, a lot of stuff from Stratfor not super-illuminating.
In terms of sources in English on China and Asia, it would be much better to start with something like the often excellent Asia Times Online, based in Hong Kong and Thailand ... whose superbly brave and wonderful journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, the best writer in the world on Pakistan and Afghanistan, was recently murdered:
http://atimes.com/
The truth is the whole thing is just too complicated to try to explain in five paragraphs.
I am sure everyone would be astounded to learn that many of the high level "communists" running the country are educated in North American and European Universities. They are not party hacks spewing ideological nonsense.
They concept of build and they will come is something I used to laugh at. I don't laugh at it anymore. It is not infallible obviously, but there is a method to much more of their madness than the armchair pundits give them credit for.
Yeah, and then you get a lot o' bitchin' about the articles being too long. Ask CD how that turns out. Ain't no pleasing you folks.
What most readers don't really grasp is that you cannot get a grasp on China through its goverments economic dealings. Financial and economic analysts are only seeing a piece of the puzzle. They are more worried about political and moral control than economic in China. A more geopolitical view is needed here, ZH might not be a great place with all things concerning China.
Just sayin'
The truth is the whole thing is just too complicated to try to explain in five paragraphs.
Exactly right. The real story is many, many stories, going much further back in history than Mao and the CCP.
What I'd like to see is a deep look into subjects such as Little Emperor syndrome and how it will affect the party as well as the demographics of the country. Since the one child rule has come about, and considering the ethnic exceptions, a deep look into family life and the values instilled in children seems to be a much more qualified indication of the future of the country than any summarization of the party's evolution.
Class conflict in China is inevitable. The people are resilient. The Party's days are numbered. The richest Chinese are smoking hopium, imported from the west.