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| China-Japan-Koreas | |
| China: Big Brother Uses Big Data To Make A Big List | |
| 2018-03-13 | |
| [StrategyPage.com] This switch from limits on Chinese leaders back to the more traditional dynastic “ruler for life” model was something of a surprise. Supreme leader Xi Jinping got another five year term in late 2017, allowing him ten years in office. This has been the custom since 1982 when it was decided that a “collective leadership” was a good idea and supreme leaders should be serve for only two five year terms (or just one if there were problems.) Since 1982 this has worked but Xi Jinping wants more and is getting it. This time he put ineligible (too old and more loyal to Xi than able to take his place) men in the Politburo Standing Committee from which the next leader is selected. Xi did not designate a preferred successor. And as “ruler for life” he no longer has any legitimate opposition to his power to do whatever he wants. Another pattern noticed by foreigners (working from public records) is that “tigers” accused of corruption tend to be disproportionately people who had not supported current leader Xi Jinping in the past. Those who did and do support Xi Jinping for a long time and are caught up in a corruption investigation still tend to get punished, but in the form of quietly retiring and often allowed to keep much, if not all, of the wealth they stole. One area where this “friends of Xi Jinping” angle does not work so well is the military. The senior officers accused of corruption had fewer opportunities to support (or not) Xi Jinping, who came up through the civilian and CCP (Chinese Communist Party) bureaucracy. Corruption in the military has been an ancient tradition and there’s a lot more opportunities to steal now. Xi Jinping has made it his personal goal to break that tradition, or at least greatly erode the extent of corruption in the military and that means a lot of the accused “tigers” tend to be generals and admirals. Xi Jinping has a solution that does not involve democracy but will succeed or fail on how effectively it imposed accountability and honesty on a CCP bureaucracy that is more concerned about getting rich any way they can. Xi Jinping, like Deng Xiaoping, is willing to tolerate some bad behavior if it produces a net benefit for China and its rulers. So far that has led to the prosecution of the more inept corrupt officials and at least encouraged local officials to do something about practices that lead to pollution, waste and abuse of power. Despite enormous efforts to censor the Internet bad news (of CCP misbehavior) still gets out and causes unrest. Xi Jinping gained followers in the bureaucracy by demonstrating his appreciation of how important the loyalty (and effectiveness) of the military and national police was. Xi Jinping also pushed for greater emphasis on seeking new ways to use the Internet rather than just fear and seek to control it. Many Chinese admire the way the government has used Cyber Warfare and Internet based espionage to gain information (commercial, military and so on) that would otherwise be unavailable. To many Chinese, especially CCP members, this is admirable not criminal behavior. Internet based crime is one thing, managing the economy is another matter. Many Chinese are aware that Japan was poised, in the popular imagination, to become a great power in the 1980s because its economic growth seemed unstoppable, until suddenly in the early 1990s it wasn’t. China is showing some of the same symptoms (falling birthrate, corruption and poor economic management) that ended the Japanese threat. The Japanese are still affluent but they have still not found a cure for their demographic problems. South Korea is suffering from a similar affliction as is Western Europe. The Chinese situation is worse because the CCP caused a lot of ecological and economic damage that would get fixed a lot sooner in a democracy. Xi Jinping is ignoring all that for the moment, but those problems, in the long run, will not ignore him.
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| Posted by:3dc |