Staying in power
I'm off to watch China sweep up a few more golds, but before I go...
Somewhere in the Paraguayan capital, Asuncion, the newly inaugurated president Fernando Lugo is getting into his new job (probably learning how the phones work, trying to avoid getting lost in the corridors, wondering where the bathrooms are, etc.)
The fact that there's a new president in a small, land-locked, country in South America is of great - and almost entirely unnoticed - symbolic importance to the Communist Party in China.
Mr Lugo's inauguration ends 61 years of continuous rule by the Colorado Party of Paraguay. If I've got this straight, this means that the Chinese Communist Party has now become the world's longest serving government - right in the middle of the most important event the Party has ever staged.
The Communists declared the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949. Every other political party in power at that time has either fallen, been kicked out, or overthrown. Some parties have since come back into power. But only the Communist Party of China has stayed exactly where it is.
The Party (as it's always known in China) spends huge amounts of time trying to figure out how to keep going. Here are a few of its political survival rules...
1) Be flexible
Communist systems which tried to stick to unbending rules have died away. China's Communist Party has survived partly because it's been willing to adapt and change its ideology. In its first few decades the Party preached against money and private property. But since Deng Xiaoping allowed economic reforms to begin in 1978, the Party has encouraged everyone to get as rich as they can.
2) Get an orderly leadership
In many Communist systems, power gets hogged by one man, who tends to hang on till he dies - creating political paralysis as he gets older and sicker, and then political chaos after he dies. So, the Party has learned lessons from this: avoid elderly leaders, personality cults, and damaging leadership battles. Pick a strong leader and make sure that he gives way at a fixed time to a clearly chosen successor from the next generation. This first happened successfully in 2002 when Jiang Zemin gave way to Hu Jintao. It's expected to happen again in 2012 when Hu Jintao gives way to the current vice president Xi Jinping. And so on.
3) Fracture the opposition
Can you name a Chinese opposition leader? There is no single, unifying opposition leader in China - that is one of the Communist Party's most notable achievements. There is no Chinese Aung San Suu Kyi, Sakharov, or Havel. Potential opposition leaders from traditional areas - dynastic families, insurgents, intellectuals, students, workers, farmers, religious leaders, disaffected regime members - have either been co-opted into the system or taken down before they've had the chance to get organised.
4) Get everyone in on it
Co-opt as many people into the system as possible. Allow the super-rich to keep their money. Make the middle class rich. Persuade the working class that they can move up and become middle class. Give as many people as possible a stake in keeping the Party in power.
5) Connect with the world
Don't cut yourself off behind an Iron Curtain like the Soviet Union - you'll survive if you do business with the rest of the world not if you cut yourself off from it.
Hosting the Olympic Games fits into all of this. It's the Communist Party's equivalent of a re-election campaign. It's a way to show its people that it can make their lives better - that their government can make them feel proud and confident about what their country can do. The better the Games, the better the Party's chances of staying in power.
Here's the Party's hope: why would anyone want to bring down a government that invites the entire world to gasp at what China can do?
I’m 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~54~RS~)
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Next week the party will be over. Chinese people will remember these Games for the achievements of their athletes, the pride to be at the centre of the world again and for the fun of it all.
Next week people will go back to work and to do whatever they were doing before these Olympics. They will be confronted with their daily little frustrations and will realize that life may have changed a bit - but that fundamentally eveything is still the same.
Next week people will feel grateful to the Communist Party to bringing the Olympics to China, but day-to-day stuff will quickly take over.
It would be a mistake to think that these Olympics will change anything. And Chinese people know it.
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Again, here comes the ignorant political 'evaluation'.
China will eventually move into a democratic nation but definitely will not copy the low-efficient and policy-inconsistent british or western style. Chinese people will find their own way to deliver the most suitable democratic system, which may not even be considered as 'democracy' by the western world.
Who needs a 'demoractic' government to spend 15 years for an not-so-good airport which turned out to be a total disaster? Chinese people definitely don't want that kind of democratic system which halts the development of the country.
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China is improving in every single aspect as we can observe, that is a fact.
No radical chance, either socially or politically will provide any good to the nation. Look at what the brits and yankees did in Iraq and Afghan? That's what China would be if it embraced what the West called 'freedom' and 'democracy'.
I would personally applaud to the CCP for their achievement in the recent 20 years.
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Surely nationalism is as important as all of these points. If the regime and the nation are identified one with the other, the former is legitimated in the eyes of the people.
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It is really high to talk about something big like democracy and human rights. However it went to details, the Aung San Suu Ki you admired so much may actually be a careerist ???. And when the government at the end changes nothing changed at all, just bigger lies and worse situation, and then the so high western journalist would so glad that people cannot eat eough but have the so called rights to vote in limited choice. And what's worse, don't try to play the nice-west-want-you-good card, everyone knows just how bad US government is and the same bad British as a country, and then another puppy for the US and another puppy buddy for GBR. And then, dear James, would u still care how chinese are?
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Another excellent article. Good work!
Be flexible, get an orderly leadership, connect with the world. These all sound not that bad, especially the last one. Interacting with the world instead of isolating itself seems to be the way of going forward.
"Hosting the Olympic Games is the Communist Party's equivalent of a re-election campaign. " I think maybe you are right James. Like in any democratic contries, people think they vote to re-election for a change, but somehow everything stays the same except the name of the ruling party. We saved the money for printing new name tags. :)
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Hi,James.
You are from so-called " Great Democracy Britain ". I just dont get why you can just ignore the Chinese public will? How do you know Communist Party's hope?
Here please let me remind you the Olympic motto: Swifter, Higher, and Stronge!! What is wrong with the Chinese putting much efforts to get the games to be the best?
You think the Communist Party is flawed then just let your "Great Britain democracy parties" get your economic slump away and show what you can do apart from invasions to rape other countries from 1800 until now! Look at the Iraqi athletes! Man, have you ever felt guilty?
I cant wait to see how 2012 Olympic goes!
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James is trying hard to link China to communism again. James, James, the CCP is practicing capitalism. Do you get it?
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Hi James, I think the rules apply to Britian as well.
Blair did all right on economy, people felt having more money, and forgived his big mistake for invading Iraq.
Blair made Brown top leader before completely transfered power to him,without general selection, exactly the same way as the leadership transfer of CCP.
CCP is changing to the right direction, although not fast as even I would expect, but I am optimistic about China's future. (P.S. I am not a CCP memeber, none of my family is).
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the undeniable fact is that the communist party has done a better job for the people in the last 30 years than the late Qing, the KMT and certainly better than the Japanese or Western invaders. The people aren't stupid; they see this for themselves despite all their complaints about the current system.
As much as the racist west hates the Party and thinks of it as a monolith. The fact is that even within the Party the good guys have won -- I doubt that most people here know Wen Jiabao's credentials...he was the right hand man of Zhao Ziyang who spoke out for and was purged for supporting the students in 1989. Now Wen is No. 2.
Think about that.
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You made some points here. I can feel that to some little extent, you are understanding China better.
The communist party's past is terrible but now it has changed and is still changing. In some ways, China now is even less communist than some European countries where I pay 40% tax to raise those healthy but lazy people receiving benefit.
Hope you can understand that stability is a key thing to keep China develop and improve people's welfare. Demacracy is great but if the price we had to pay to achieve it is instability, chaos or even war, we would rather not have it.
Just look at Iraq, many demacratic african countries and even India.............
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tuairimiocht wrote:
"Surely nationalism is as important as all of these points. If the regime and the nation are identified one with the other, the former is legitimated in the eyes of the people."
Very true. Just looking at how many angry comments James get whatever he writes shows the importance of nationalism plays in this system. When you start getting poeple to justify and defend whatever good or bad you do, you are just impossible to fall.
It's also important to teach people that the regime IS the nation itself. So being patriotic in CCP's and many Chinese people's senses is practically identical to loving CCP.
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First of all:
The CCP kept China in one piece after 100 years of chaos and that's their biggest credit to most China(thou some would argu the loss of outer mogolia and some disputed land) but generally the CCP is always very tough against forgien powers and that's what most Chinese will praise, no matter the US during Korea war or the mighty Sovit Union. That's quit something if you do some research.
Secondly:
The general Chinese public don't trust the so called democracy/freedom. Ask the Iraq general public if they enjoy the 'freedom' they now have you will know what I mean. Besides 10 out of 10 people(British) I asked here is against the war but the fact is the army is still there and the fighting and bloodshed is still going on somewhere. How do you explain that?
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No one could always stand at the center of power, nor a party, no matter what tricks it uses. It's too long to see the corrupt Chinese Communist Party rule the country just like that you can't bear that the odor dead corpse of Mao Tsedong is still exhibited on the Tian Anmen Square. Who ever worshiped dead body? China has thousands of years of history during which could anyone find similar event to this?
In the south part of China, from the east to the west, people are still suffering from either flood or magnitude earthquake, but very oddly, it's very difficult to find a piece of news about them in the state controled media. If a government ignores its people, should the people abandon it?
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3) Fracture the opposition........ - have either been co-opted into the system or taken down before they've had the chance to get organised.
What exactly does "taken down" mean... communist state etc etc.... I wonder....
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PS:
I am not saying freedom, democracy is not good. A 5 years old will know freedom is wonderful and democracy is in theory always better that one party state.
But the way 'some countries' use 'freedom' and 'democracy' as propoganda slogan disappointed many people in the world.
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Good analysis. Since 1978, there has developed a kind of indirect accountability of the government to its population. It does feel under pressure to perform. Deng Xiaoping recognized the weakness of the system having a leader in power until his dying day - the USSR suffered because of this.
The CCP has been quite smart in recognizing the direction to take to avoid what for hundreds of years what has been the only way to change the government, namely through violent revolution.
To those who say democracy means China would start wars: don't be ridiculous and embarass yourselves with such a non-argument. How many other democractic countries insisted on not taking part?
And besides, I believe the Chinese are smarter than to take the path that George Bush did, and can be trusted to choose wise leaders.
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Change is good when it's done right, but change at the wrong time is not always good for the people or for the nation. So, China will change it's party when the time is right like it has been doing for thousands of years.
Besides, China has Dynasties not parties.
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When democracy ends it will not be from wars but it will end by struggles from within.
If human rights brings about anarchy and political correctness brings about an impotent gov't, these things will be the pifalls of a party.
History also shows that the masses don't pick the best leader for the time.
No way the China will allow a western style democratic party to take hold in it's country.
But more human rights will sure to be in the China laws, it's a part of the political survival rules.
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As far as I am concerned, James just proceeded from an comparatively objective perspective to give an analysis on the current political situation of China.That's more or less what CCP is doing right at the moment,which proves to be very efficient. However, I want to teach freeqind a good lesson. I'm totally furious at your ignorant and insulting remarks on the late chairman Mao!Who do you think you are!What position are you in to have thrown your vicious spell in this way!You know what, cursing Chairman Mao's body just amounts to calling a celebrity in your country a big idiot! And you said that Chinese government ignores people who constantly suffer from floods and earthquakes.Sheer nonsense!Do you know how hard it is to govern a vast country with a huge population?How can you make sure that all citizens are equally treated?This is technologically unmanagable everywhere on this planet.I bet that you would soon beat retreat if you were to be elected mayor or provincial governor in China and work for several years' tenure,because it wouldn't be long before you discovered the fact that Western rules never apply to China due to the tremendous historical and cultural gaps.So, man, watch your mouth next time and attach more attention to your country,one that cannot be flawless!
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To Comment 21,
Oh, ronnieji hits the nail on the head, that hurts you and James right?
nationalism ?! You do need a mirror to look at yourself ! What you guys like ? A puppy Iraq ? or your big brother the US ? There is a sample rule in this blog , the communist can not be good, the Great Democracy can not be bad! what you call this ?
On the one hand, people like you shout for the great freedom, on the other hand, people like you can not accept any sounds not like that!
Looking back your history, see what you have been doing ! Mao also said: People should learn lessons from history! Try to understand that then try to sell your Great Democracy again!
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Well. Nationalism can also be called patriotism. Please do not accuse others of which yourself is guilty.
Also, have you not paused to think the root cause of such nationalism? We are fed up with the oppressive and overwhelming negative comments from the West, in particular people who support George Bush and refuse to let Omar Khadr come home for a fair trial.
James, another flash of understanding, however brief, towards China.
One thing to point out:
CCP's hope is not what you think it is. CCP's hope should be:
How can the people overthrow a government who brought over half of the population to above the poverty line, ensures basic health and dental care, provide jobs for tens of millions of new population entering the work force while making sure the rest of the population is living a happy life, asserts its nation's might on the international scene, and keeps its interior safe?
Granted, the Chinese needs some diplomatic finesse and media awareness; but its accomplishments cannot be denied. Put the US system in charge; it won't do any better than the Chinese system and, dare I say to the dismay of HR activists and Democracy activists, it may actually fare worse.
The democratic process needs an educated population who is aware of both domestic and international matters, as well as a robust economic foundation. Successful democracies (e.g. the US, the UK, Canada, etc.) have these conditions, while unsuccessful democracies (e.g. Zimbabwe, Iraq, etc.) does not have either condition.
I say, that a dictatorship is better for economic growth and development of developing nations, while democracy is better for developed nations. A dictatorship can put plans in force more rapidly than democracy, be it good or bad. This is better for developing countries in that they may implement plans and policies almost instantaneously. After economic development, however, a transition from dictatorship to democracy is inevitable because when people need not fear starvation or disease, they may concentrate their attention elsewhere - politics, for example.
Democracy isn't the solve-all tool. Each country should "come to the conclusion on its own terms", not to succumb to outside pressure.
Stand strong, CCP; your role in Chinese history has not yet been fulfilled.
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Very good article with deep insights about the Party. James, I think you actually comment on China politics better or more in depth than on China daily news.
China has been a country which policies were greatly affected by its PEOPLE instead of faith or scientific facts. The situation fluctuates according to PEOPLE's education, morality and beliefs.
Tony Blair's moto, or maybe others', 'Education, educatio, education' will definitely affect China...if her people know.
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Why would anyone want to bring down a government that invites the entire world to gasp at what China can do?
There are lots of people particularly people in the west wanting to do that or to see that happen.
Ironically, in Communist China's history, there were periods in Mao's last years when either of the two opposition parties or sections or idiologies took over the other. This was called 'fan-shao-bin' - turning over the pan-cakes. People did not like it. They got confused. They wanted stability. What had happened to the former USSR might also have helped the majority of the Chnese see why on one else but the communist party can hold China as one piece.
Mind you, the younger communists still look for more democracy within the party.
It seems that to the ordinary Chinese people whichever party is not important as long as consistancy is there and their life and human rights are improving.
Why should we living in the west bother to bring it down?
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Chinese-style communism? Sounds pretty good to me.
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There is American sponsored Chinese opposition leader and terrororist sympathisers like Dalai Lama, the Uighar seperatists, Falon Gong cult leader all happen to be funded by CIA. It just that these parasites touting themselves as upholders of human rights dont have the credibilities and moral obligation to pose any real challenge to what must be right now the best government in the world.
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To Fairreport:
"Blair did all right on economy, people felt having more money, and forgived his big mistake for invading Iraq."
People forgave Blair for Iraq? Now who is speaking for an entire nation? Maybe you could write James' equivalent blog for CCTV?
"Blair made Brown top leader before completely transfered power to him,without general selection, exactly the same way as the leadership transfer of CCP."
An additional but vital point here being that Hu Jintao will eventually transfer power to the next CCP leader, whereas Brown (if still in post) must win a vote by the people he governs if his party wants to remain in power.
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A few comments :
2) Get an orderly leadership
There’s one thing you need to know about Chinese culture. Deng was one of the founding fathers of Communist China. He chose and decreed both of the 2 consecutive successors--- Jiang and Hu. Patriarchy is deep-seeded in Chinese culture. No one dares to challenge the will of the founding fathers. The next top leader is or will be chosen by Hu and a handful of leaders, none of whom are the founding fathers. In other words, there may well be in-fights within the leadership in future.
3) Fracture the Opposition
You are right. Independent organizations are not allowed in Chinese. Not just religious organizations, even the Chinese Red Cross is managed and controlled by the state.
4) Get Everyone in on It
Yes. Give as many people as possible a stake in keeping the Party in power. But this can be a double-edged sword. Party officials are corrupt and they support the Party so that they can continue to be corrupt. And some citizens are fed up with the Party’s corruption.
5) Connect with the world
Yes. China’s economic development owe solely to globalization. And much of its development came from trades with the US.
And to put things in perspective, the popularization of the personal computer, the internet, and the mobile phone in the past 20 plus years brought about China’s speed of development. These inventions were never available before in human history.
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Such a good party, I cannot find the second one in this world that is able to make such a great achievement in just 60 years.
What China looks like before 1949? What China looks like now?
Anyway, one party system is not perfect, but I works to the current chinese society. China will find a much better system, but it will take at least 100 years. Comparing with its thousands years history, 100 years is not long enough.
Building a system needs time, copying british or usa system is quick, but they are fatal poison to China!!!
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Such systems remind me of what Orwell written in his book(before the people's republic or the people's democratic republic) and what happened in reality later.
Now, it's the same systems want you to believe that people just want to get better off.
So, systems have evolved, but still no opposition though.
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To whinejunkie No.31
"You are right. Independent organizations are not allowed in Chinese. Not just religious organizations, even the Chinese Red Cross is managed and controlled by the state."
Excuse me! Have you ever heard of 'China National Democratic Construction Association','China Dem League','The Jiu San Cociety' etc? CCP is the ruling party, but there are many other parties there as well. I can see that you don't know much about China.
Religous organizations are not 'controlled', they are registered. Have you ever been to holy masses in China? If you think those are controlled, it will be very interesting to everyone for you to explain why CCP organize people to pray Christian God.
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To kyonko.
SOOOOOO true. I agree with you. China is not ready for demcracy yet. China needs to have an educated majority, a vast middle class, and well established law and order before she can progress into democracy. And she can progress into democracy peacefully without social chaos.
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it's not reasonable to ask china to follow the western-style multi-party system. it's an imperfect system which has some very good ideas at its core, but the reality of western politics is pretty far removed from the ideals it was built upon - just look at all the misinformation and dirty tactics taking place in the current US presidential race. globally, the idea of democracy has lost quite a bit of its sheen in recent years, and not without justification.
i don't think the chinese people are hostile to the idea of political reform - xinhua's constantly reporting various CCP initiatives on corruption, economic policy, environmental management and so on. and if they are suspicious of change, it's with good reason, given what history has shown them about rapid political upheaval.
i agree with many posters here that adopting a western system would be a disaster for china. i think government accountability and transparency would not be impossible to introduce into a one-party system in other ways, and i hope that's what the CCP aspires to do in the long term.
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To freeqind in post 16.
Chairman Mao can not be removed yet. You know that older Tibetans still have Chairman Mao's photoes on their walls because it was Chairman Mao abolished slavery and serfdom in Tibet. For that reason alone, not yet.
The Chinese government puts in tremendous efforts into earthquake and flood relief. Much much more efficient than your dear democratic USA government can ever do for its people.
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James, I do not know whether you studied Karl Marx's ideology back in Cambridge.
However, it is quite shallow when you said that the CCP changed its ideology. They never changed it, actually.
Deng Xiaopeng was the China's Marx, not Mao. What I mean is, he understood 'historical dialectics' about building a society.
Karl Marx said that a society would evolve from feudal, to capitalist, socialist, and in the end becoming the utopian communist.
Mao Zedong simply made China becoming a fake communist society.
In 1912, Dr Sun Yat-sen ended the Imperial China, and transformed it into the Rep of China. Interestingly, was China capitalist during the republican era? Wasn't it full of warlords controlling ex-Qing Empire provinces?
Even the capitalist society then was a fake. It was a 'hidden feudalism' at best. Especially in the times when Chiang Kai-sek headed the Kuomintang (Nationalists), he proclaimed ROC as single-party state with setting up provision to eliminate the Communist Party led by Mao Zedong.
In 1949, it might be the case that Mao thought of China as a capitalist society ready for socialist reforms, and failed miserably.
Deng Xiaoping's era started with a 'backward step'. It seemed pretty clear that China of 1978 was not capitalist society ready for socialist reforms.
That is why he talked about socialism with Chinese characteristics. This is of course a cliche. What it meant was, China had to restart the process into becoming communist society. And that means starting over in building a capitalist society.
30 years on, I think China is still at capitalist-socialist border. It's long way to go to achieve the communist society, as Deng believed in.
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Sounds like a damn well thoughtful approach by the Chinese government. Maybe some in the west could learn a few tricks from China. Ultimatly, the party has ensured stability and growth for it's people whilst slowly but surely improving the lives and liberties of it's people over time. I think given the choice lots of people from the west would prefer a style of governorship similar to that of the Chinese. Who wouldn't want political stability that leads to economic growth and better lives for all? Oh please don't answer that, we already know the answer to that question.
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Insightful and great analysis! What this party has yet to do is improve its efficiency of governance, and develop an effect supervision mechnism to hold its unruly local government officials in check, so as to stem corruption. Without being able to curb abuse of power and curruption, its legitimacy will be short-lived, especially as a middle-class is emerging thanks to the economic prosperity that China has enjoyed over the last 2-3 decades.
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Royalfulhambroadway, your analysis is rather comical.
It reminds me of the satire about the bien-pensant bourgeois couple who claimed to be Marxists. They lived an ostentatious and luxurious lifestyle, very obviously at the expense of others. Nevertheless, they claimed that it was ideologically correct to do this because in furthering the iniquities of capitalism, they were bringing its end ever closer.
Only someone caught up in Marxist theology could think like this.
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The CCP does not co-opt everyone into the the party, it is far more selective in its membership than say the Tory or Labour parties in the UK. The USSR opened up to the West before China but with insufficient safeguard for its own economy against economic colonialists dressed up as investment bankers and it led to the biggest geopolitical disaster for the Russians. The difference is that China opens up to the West on its own term. China will never forget, I hope, that the UK Parliament voted demoncatically to invade China to sell opium. Do forgive the Chinese for being wary of the demoncratic model so keenly promoted by the West. Incidentally, the average Chinese in China probably are more capitalist than their counterparts in the West.
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Communism : Poors gets Richer
Riches gets Not too rich
Capitalism : Poor gets poorer
Riches get richer forever
Democracy : Let the Capitalists keep
lying to the poors
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to wonderfulchinese #37
I always believe that everyone in the whole world is equal in value at the time of birth. The difference comes from the environment, especially the society where we live. An American could never be proud of being a citizen of the USA because firstly, pride itself is one of the Seven Deadly Sins in Christian education, secondly, the Americans include all kinds of races of people, so it does make sense to say wonderful human rather than wonderful Americans as well as wonderful Chinese.
What Mao and his party have done in Tibet fortunately have been recorded by the 10th Panchen Lama who was the Vice Chairman of the National People’s Congress. His famous petition was a 70,000 character document that dealt with the brutal suppression of the Tibetan people during and after the Chinese invasion of Tibet. For putting forward the petition, the lama had a personal cost of 13 years service in prison. Please check it, we will find Mao really deserves the same end as Stalin.
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Back in the 50s, people think TV, phones are of capitalism, now these kind of ideas are deemed as ridiculous, and there are people feel can't live without cell phones, internet, etc.
The fact that chinese communist party outlives most of its past companions surprise the western sphere who is still enjoying the happiness over the fall of former russian communism.
Maxism, so far, lives in the books, but not soceity. kicking maxism out of shool curriculum is a matter of time.
China is admitting it can't swallow the whole of what Maxixm was advertising by naming its socialism after chinese flavored. -- quite chinese way, i admit.
some may find quite suprise that Mao Zedong once said ( i will paraphrase it as) the communist party will one day die/vanish, and by that time its historical role is finished.
The growing waves of criticism and bias, which is widely proliferated in the internet, though provoke strong nationlism in china, is a good thing for chinses communist government and chinese people.
its a good chance for them to think, understand, compare, improve their behaviour in the handling of international and domestic matters.
ps: freedom is what people find and fight for, not a government grant.
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What about the Saudi royal family? Wouldn't that count as a government that's been in power longer than the CCP?
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I don't know where you are driving at, James, but the post seems to be a fair one.
I believe that you have got the fact right, that CCP is really the longest surviving regime. You are looking for reasons. Good. I just wish that people are reading your post with friendly intentions. The CCP is still here (and very likely will be in power for a long time to come) for a reason, and not because its oppressive, but because it has legitimacy.
Now I really wish that people can give it credit and hoping for the better, instead of whining "Why does the CCP refuse to fall?"
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China will move forward in her OWN ways she perceives as the best fitting her country and people's interests!
The world busy body--the u.s.a and the west may ever try their lucks to impose their influences to hijack the course of direction...but they'll fail eventually!
Democracy is simply one of the proposition in managing a state, but it itself is definitely not the (ultimate) objective; only the welfare and prosperity of the people do count!
Recalling the Deng Xiaoping's famous say: "No matter if it is a white cat or a black cat; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat."
allbluedream, you said it superbly what's in the minds of many folks:
'Now I really wish that people can give it credit and hoping for the better, instead of whining "Why does the CCP refuse to fall?"'
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That was a good analysis!
From a theoretical point of view, what form of government has the PRC today?
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