Posted on 12/30/2017 11:13:19 PM PST by GoldenState_Rose
The Chinese are anxious.
The fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has spurred concern that China is heading into another decade of chaos and madness or perhaps a period leading to regime failure.
Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic, triggered “ten years of catastrophe” on May 16, 1966. The campaign started as a ploy to rid himself of political adversaries. By the time it ended with his death in September 1976, however, society had torn itself apart and about a million people had either been killed or taken their own lives.
China, despite the passage of decades, has yet to heal. As Zhang Lifan, the outspoken Beijing-based commentator, notes, “The residual impact still poisons the country.”
And as Zhang Qianfan of Peking University says, “Without fully accounting for that tragic episode, the country can never come to terms with its past and will always live in lingering uncertainty: Would the similar tragedy come back again, in some other forms?”
The Communist Party, speaking through the authoritative People’s Daily this month, affirmed the verdict it rendered in 1981 by terming the Cultural Revolution “a complete mistake in both theory and practice.” The ruling organization’s essay was an attempt to close the door to a full airing, failing, for instance, to mention Mao’s involvement. The Party knows better than to expose its inherent failings and therefore undermine its legitimacy to rule.
Yet the attempt to end discussion has not worked in a noisy—and sometimes defiant—society, so conversation in China this year turned to the issue of whether there will be another Cultural Revolution. Xi Jinping, the current ruler, has stoked the concerns by continually wrapping himself in themes from the Maoist era. “Our red nation will never change color,” he declared in the middle of 2013, just before dedicating an exhibition that praised Mao and ignored his great crimes. Xi, in words and sometimes in deeds, embraces the man who had launched a decade of hysteria and frenzy.
As much as Comrade Jinping may fancy himself as this century’s version of the Great Helmsman, he will not start “large-scale political violence manipulated and launched from the top down,” the description of the Cultural Revolution by Liang Jing, a former official who has left China for a life of exile. Yet as Liang notes, turmoil in his former homeland in the future is not out of the question.
On the contrary, China looks like it is entering another period of extreme political instability. The Cultural Revolution, marked by the killings of high-level officials, has been followed by an era of relative calm brought about by Deng Xiaoping, who grabbed power from Mao’s designated successor, the hapless Hua Guofeng. Among other things, the canny Deng lowered the cost of losing political struggles, thereby reducing the incentive for cadres to fight to the end and tear the Communist Party apart.
Xi, however, has been raising the cost with an unprecedented campaign, which he has styled an attack on corruption. China’s ruler has in fact been jailing the venal, but only those who were his political enemies. The miscreants who are family and those who are supporters remain free. In short, Xi launched a purge.
The purge continues to this day, a sure sign that Xi still has not consolidated power.
Another indication that he is on shaky ground is that critics have come out into the open, now calling his audacity to rule like Mao a symptom of “new Caesarism.”
Like the wilful Caesar, Xi has enemies. Xi’s enemies the last few months have dared to challenge him in public. For instance, the Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, his main tool in the “anticorruption” effort, in early March posted on its website an attack on his authoritarianism in the form of an essay titled “A Thousand Yes-Men Cannot Equal One Honest Advisor.” There was also a call for Xi to step down, carried on a semiofficial website, and the official Xinhua News Agency published a piece identifying him as “China’s last leader.”
Growing tension within the regime, economic turmoil and a more energetic public.
Furthermore, this month there was an extraordinary exchange between Xi and Li Keqiang, the country’s premier and No. 2 Party official, in the pages of People’s Daily and the website of the State Council. The nasty fight over the proper amount of stimulus to apply to the economy, normally an issue discussed behind-the-scenes by technocrats, betrays not only elite disagreement in Beijing but also an inability to adhere to Communist Party norms that have kept peace since Deng’s time.
China can fall apart not because Xi will organize the masses against his opponents—Mao’s sin that started the Cultural Revolution—but because the elite looks like it is fracturing on its own and will be unable to deal with, among other things, systemic economic problems.
The economy has been, since the end of the 1970s, the motor of China’s rise. At this moment, however, it could be the reason for the nation’s fall. Stimulus has become contentious in Beijing circles because this year the government, for the first time in more than a decade, has failed to create sustained growth, something apparent from Beijing’s panicked reaction to the economy’s weak start in the first two months of this year.
To jumpstart growth, Beijing added large amounts of credit in March as it abandoned all notions of reform and created debt like there was no tomorrow. The injection of almost $1 trillion into the economy in the first calendar quarter was more than twice that of the preceding quarter and the largest quarterly increase in history. All that money, however, could not prevent a disappointing April, when indicators almost uniformly pointed down.
The tumbling economy constitutes an emergency because the Communist Party’s legitimacy, for more than three decades, has been primarily based on the continual delivery of prosperity. Now, most Chinese know nothing but a continually improving life and have, as a result, become demanding.
Some of those demands the Party has been able to meet, yet Xi Jinping, the admirer of Mao but also a disciple of Lenin, has become increasingly coercive. His regressive moves, however, are hard to sustain in a modernizing society, especially because the state has provoked so many across China, such as those who want to choose their leaders, or pray with neighbors who share faith, or have children without official permit, or move to cities and start new lives, or simply live as Tibetan or Uighur.
China may be the fastest changing place anywhere, with a people sophisticated, confident, energized and ambitious. When the one-party state stands between them and their aspirations, which is often, they usually find a way to work around obstacles, but sometimes this rambunctious people will leave the safety of homes and confront officials, even in this day of the police state.
Because of the closing of factories, the poor have started a wave of labor protests. Yet the rich also air grievances at a time of heightened sensitivity. These days, almost no complaint is too small to attract a crowd—or spread from province to province. In the middle of this month, in Nanjing and at least five other cities in Jiangsu province and in Wuhan in Hubei, parents defied riot police and took to the streets to protest the reduction in number of spots for local students in universities.
Fifty years ago, the Chinese people followed Mao onto the streets, to “learn revolution by making revolution” as he exhorted them to do. Today, Xi Jinping glorifies the Great Helmsman and demands “ideological purification,” but few are prepared to follow him into a future that looks like the past and is therefore not relevant or attractive to them. The Chinese people are not yet fearless—that could come soon—but they now think and act for themselves, often moving in directions without permission from the Communist Party.
Today, if there is any revolution in China, it is not one promoted by the new Mao, Xi Jinping. It is the one started by the Chinese people, who on their own are remaking society, outside the realm of the orthodoxy of the Communist Party and its feuding leaders.
As a businessman, Trump also knows the strategic power of time and the compounding of advantages. Most Americans do not fully appreciate the extraordinary attractiveness of the freedom and prosperity of the American way of life. I am sure though that Trump knows it and that even China's leadership envies America and tries in many ways to copy us.
An America that is now under Trump newly prosperous, confident, and on the rise in the world will be especially hard to resist. This year's stock market boom, spurt of economic growth, and the tax cut combine to give Trump and the US an enhanced credibility with friends and foes alike.
Xi Jinping the new Mao? Mao never sent his daughter to Harvard University like Xi has.
Quick. Build a ghost city.
Mao also thought the British had planes while George Washington had none, but Washington persevered. We’re building Red China by educating their next wave of bureaucrats.
One major aspect that very few talk about is the pollution in china. I have family in Taiwan which receives air from the winds from china. Taiwan life is taking a toll from the crap blowing over. The chinese people are suffering from multi facet health problems in the air, water and food.
Type in —pollution, china— in a search and read a few articles. When china runs out of people by the death of millions and severe health problems for the rest they will not be a world power anymore.
As the article said, the wealthy Chinese will not tolerate an end to growth......and that end is happening now.
China will suffer a recession to correct itself. That is normal after a long string of growth.
But all the Chinese people who have went around the world, sent their kids to universities elsewhere now see life on the outside. China cannot hide it.
India is being looked at for the next big manufacturing boom with good engineering, technical skills and cheap labor. If the Indian gov’t can make it easier for travel/investment, then that is where a lot of cheap manufacturing will flow.
China will be fine. Their people are now consumers and they will use their manufacturing for internal needs, not export.
The only reason they are an economic power now is becomes they can kill their people with pollution unimpeded; one of the benefits of an absolute dictatorship. Any “environmentalist movement” would be quickly eliminated.
Besides Taiwan, that stuff ends up in the food chain all around the Pacific.
This is a very interesting article. I was under the impression that Xi had consolidated more power than this over the past year. It appears that he may have overplayed his hand.
From this article it seems that the economy is playing a large part in the push-back and that they are in much greater straits then most know. Almost a sense of panic behind the scenes.
India has definitely been growing. One of the biggest drawbacks there is the limited Aluminum.
“China owns a lot of our debt.”
Really? What percentage do they own?
“Chinese already dumped one third of their U.S. treasury holdings,...”
Dumped? Or allowed to mature in cash and spent?
You’d think there’d be tons of video, like there in in Iran, if they were revolting. No way a censor could prevent it all from airing at some point.
The point is that, even if they sell a good portion of their holdings, it won't have much impact on U.S.. If they want to sell them, it has to be done gradually over the long period of time or they will trigger the price collapse of U.S. government bonds, essentially selling their holdings at a huge loss.
Almost all of their holdings are short term < 10 years. As they mature they are spending same. Their cash flow in dollars is now negative. They are (forgive the phrase) a “paper tiger” today. At least in monetary terms.
Almost all of their holdings are short term < 10 years. As they mature they are spending same. Their cash flow in dollars is now negative. They are (forgive the phrase) a “paper tiger” today. At least in monetary terms.
China spent the last months of 2016 selling debt and calling in loans, decreasing its total to less than $1.10 trillion. Japan then took the top spot among foreign creditors at $1.11 trillion, though only by default, as the country decreased its holdings of U.S. debt by about $23 billion.
Japan and China each own about 5.5% of the national debt. Japanese-owned debt doesn’t receive nearly as much negative attention as Chinese-owned debt, ostensibly because Japan is seen as a friendlier nation and the Japanese economy hasn’t been growing at an 7% clip year after year.
Read more: China Owns US Debt, but How Much? | Investopedia https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080615/china-owns-us-debt-how-much.asp#ixzz52vWMojag
“China spent the last months of 2016 selling debt and calling in loans, decreasing its total to less than $1.10 trillion.”
So tell me how much damage a creditor can do owning about one in twenty dollars of our debt? Sell it in a rush, depress the price and hurt themselves?
Exactly right!
Thanks GoldenState_Rose.
Shock waves from Lin Biao plane crash still echo in lead-up to Chinese Communist Party leadership reshuffle
Death of Mao Zedong’s handpicked successor in Mongolia during defection attempt led to Deng Xiaoping’s introduction of a more consultative system
PUBLISHED : Monday, 12 September, 2016, 10:27am
UPDATED : Friday, 21 October, 2016, 1:46pm
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/2017634/shock-waves-lin-biao-plane-crash-still-echo-lead-chinese-communist-party
[snip] Following Lin’s death, he was officially condemned as a traitor by the Communist Party. Since the late 1970s Lin, and Mao’s wife Jiang Qing (with her Gang of Four) have been labeled the two major “counter-revolutionary forces” of the Cultural Revolution, receiving official blame from the Chinese government. [/snip] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_Biao
of course, in 1972, the New York Slimes printed the official version:
I would not expect China to execute such an act in a vacuum. They would sell off the debt in concert with dumping their holding of reserve dollars and other acts against the US economy as a retaliatory act for some US action.
In other words, an economic war.
By the way China and Russia have been working to change the US dollar as the accepted currency for Oil Purchase. If that happens the dollar will fall.
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