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What the Political Scene in China Says about the Coronavirus
American Thinker ^ | March 26, 2020 | Gary Gindler

Posted on 03/26/2020 3:32:13 PM PDT by WWII_Historian

In order to understand the logic of the Chinese authorities, you need to know what China is. In modern China, there is not a traditional nation-state, but a party-state. They have no separation of powers as in Western countries. Nevertheless, there is still a particular division of power in China.

Power in China is divided among several opposing communist groups.

The most famous are the Communist Youth League (CYL) faction and the Shanghai faction. The CYL faction was significantly weakened in 2016 by the secretary-general of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Xi Jinping. Former CCP secretary-general Hu Jintao and current prime minister Li Keqiang belong to the CYL faction. Another former secretary-general of the CCP, Jiang Zemin, belongs to the Shanghai faction.

Hubei Province, with its capital in Wuhan, has always been "problematic" for the Chinese communists. The relationship between Beijing and Wuhan is somewhat reminiscent of the relationship between Washington and New York, Moscow and St. Petersburg, Madrid and Barcelona. The parallels here are unambiguous – this is not just a conflict between the current and previous capital of the country (Wuhan was the capital under Chiang Kai-shek). Wuhan has always been a rebellious city that triggered the events that led to the tragedy in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

When the epidemic of the new coronavirus started, Beijing faced the challenge — to ensure that the party authorities of the rebellious and freethinking Wuhan made mistakes, and to deal with them under this pretext.

The crisis inflated by the Beijing elite was the result of an ideological confrontation among the Chinese factions, which clashed over some of the nuances of Marxist dogma.

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: china; communism; coronavirus; covid19; italy; kag; maga; pandemic; sarscov2; spain; trump

1 posted on 03/26/2020 3:32:13 PM PDT by WWII_Historian
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To: WWII_Historian

Great article, long but worth the read. I passed it on to my email chain. Thanks.


2 posted on 03/26/2020 3:42:34 PM PDT by JayGalt (You can't teach a donkey how to tap dance. Nemo me impune lacessit!)
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To: WWII_Historian

Wow. Just wow.

I don’t know if this is true or not and I concur with others that China was a day late and a dollar short on containing this, but the mere suggestion that our economy just took a 10T dollar hit for “party politics” is shocking.

We certainly have our idiots in politics (and media but they are one and the same) who use any crisis for advantage, but this is not a trivial event.


3 posted on 03/26/2020 3:46:47 PM PDT by volunbeer (Find the truth and accept it - anything else is delusional)
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To: WWII_Historian

Party State = Democrat Party plan for USA


4 posted on 03/26/2020 3:48:35 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: WWII_Historian

I recall 2013 and later where the ChComs are concerned chiefly because it marked, IIRC, a point at which there was a purge of people who thought they could be both Christian and members of the Communist Party.

At the time I interpreted this as the Chinese having moved ever closer to the hegemony they’ve long lusted after and been eagerly helped by the American Left (for those 30 Pieces of Silver) and as a result they were purging themselves of less pure communists, domestic useful idiots that had helped to put forth a better face for the party internationally and even domestically.


5 posted on 03/26/2020 3:49:05 PM PDT by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
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To: BenLurkin

Though with one difference: the Democrats help other States for those proverbial 30 Pieces of Silver. They aren’t just for being purest in power over this country.


6 posted on 03/26/2020 3:50:31 PM PDT by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
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To: BenLurkin

California has pretty much attained that, right?
Dem gov, Dem supermajority in state house & senate.
Jungle primary system producing two Dems in Nov elections.


7 posted on 03/26/2020 3:52:26 PM PDT by nascarnation
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To: volunbeer

Why?

The Democrats have been trying to talk down the economy since ‘17 in hopes of defeating Trump. They’d be happy to tank us if they got that.


8 posted on 03/26/2020 3:53:00 PM PDT by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
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To: WWII_Historian

9 posted on 03/26/2020 4:03:25 PM PDT by MuttTheHoople
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To: WWII_Historian

Bolsters my opinion that CCP released a bioweapon on their own people, and then let it(helped it) spread to the US.


10 posted on 03/26/2020 4:22:52 PM PDT by Cold Heart (.)
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To: WWII_Historian

The author’s contention was my first hypothesis. The Cultural Revolution wasn’t kicked off by Mao because Chinese culture needed to be reformed. He did it to to avoid being sidelined - he was gradually, in a passive aggressive way, being stripped of his powers. The Cultural Revolution resulted in Mao getting all of his powers back, while sending all potential rivals either into the grave or internal exile.

This kind of maneuver, claiming to do something for a reason, while accomplishing a hidden agenda, isn’t something particularly new. Edward Longshanks (the villain in the Mel Gibson vehicle Braveheart) expelled the Jews, ostensibly because of their practice of murdering children to bake bread and of usury. His actual motive? To rid himself and the English aristocracy of the debts they owed to Jewish bankers. Similarly, Philip IV of France persecuted the Knights Templar, allegedly for heresy. In reality, the disbandment and slaughter of the Templars occurred over Philip’s wish to renege on his massive debts to the holy order, as well as his desire to become the equivalent of the pagan-era Roman pontifex maximus, the chief high priest of France.

Bottom line is that the power struggles going on under the surface in China really complicate any interpretation of what what went on over there re covid-19. It may be decades before the official archives are cracked open, and we get a play-by-play accounting of what actually occurred.


11 posted on 03/26/2020 4:46:58 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
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To: Zhang Fei

Thanks for that insight.


12 posted on 03/26/2020 5:38:35 PM PDT by Cold Heart (.)
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To: WWII_Historian

Thank you for posting- spot on!


13 posted on 03/26/2020 5:56:37 PM PDT by datura
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To: nascarnation

California has pretty much attained that, right?
Dem gov, Dem supermajority in state house & senate.
Jungle primary system producing two Dems in Nov elections.


YES. Mainly due to the illegal flooding of the demographic, lawless Democrats, and a STUPID electorate.


14 posted on 03/26/2020 9:50:10 PM PDT by EagleUSA
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