Chinese General news resource thread

[solarz]

More like Occam's Razor. What's more likely? The new Chinese leader is purging the party of loyalists to the previous leader, in order to consolidate his power and control? Or that the Leopard has changed his spots and the CCP is working on becoming the paradigm of transparency, honesty and the rule of law?

Obviously, you don't even understand what Occam's Razor refers to.

 

[Doombreed]

The whole 'purge' story is just another fantasy cooked up in Washington think tanks to try to undermine and belittle China.

Always picked you as a Chinese Jingoist. But I see you're veering into CCP Apologist territory. Am I allowed to say "Apologist" here? If not, I apologise in advance and will self-edit.

The theory and those behind it completely discount the possibly that Chinese officials could be motivated by anything other than base greed. So of course they cannot stomach the idea that Xi might be building a faction based on principles and virtues rather than money and benefits to inspire loyalty within his own 'faction'.

It has been discounted based on the balance of probability, when one references CCP's track record and thousands of years of Chinese governace history.

Sure, it's not purely based on money and benefits. They are merely tools. The goal is the preservation of the party and Xi's personal hold on power. If you really need me to spell it out for you.

By starting with a baseless, disparaging 'idealistically' driven premise, is it any wonder western theories about China all produce spectacularly bad BS conclusions?

I guess that makes you the other end of the pendulum. A baseless, approving 'idealistically' driven premise, that the CCP has changed it's ways and will now be a party of virtue and honesty.

 

[Doombreed]

But what he (and others such as xiaobonan) said was a good counter against those who believe that this is ONLY a score settlement/purge.

At this stage it may well be opposing factions are being removed from positions of power, we don't have evidence to claim it concretely either for or against. However what is difficult to dispute is that the campaign has severely limited govt excess at both high and (more importantly) lower levels. And given how many more lower level officials there are than higher, one has to wonder just how many of lower tier officials are being targeted because they are part of a faction (if they are even influential enough) or if it is just a party wide campaign going after almost everyone.

If the campaign had only netted a few powerful known opponents to Xi, then the people bleating about it being purely a purge might have a leg to stand on. But clearly the campaign is far wider reaching than that, including some high level but also many low level officials and overall curbing of excess. So there is far less support for one who still wants to say it is only a purge. Like I said, xi may well be using this as a convenient opportunity to sideline opponents, but saying that is the ONLY aim or achievement of this campaign is ridiculous.

I guess I need to clarify my position. I have never said it's ONLY a purge. I'm in agreement with Blitzo here. I think he gets it. There is the anti-corruption drive at the top level. Because corruption is treatening the very existance of the party. And there is also a chess game beneath the surface that involves a power struggle between the three factions I mentioned.

 

[Blitzo]

I guess I need to clarify my position. I have never said it's ONLY a purge. I'm in agreement with Blitzo here. I think he gets it. There is the anti-corruption drive at the top level. Because corruption is treatening the very existance of the party. And there is also a chess game beneath the surface that involves a power struggle between the three factions I mentioned.

I would rather say that there might be ulterior political brinksmanship lying underneath the surface of the campaign but I would emphasise the main drive and result has been to reduce party excess/corruption at lower and higher levels.

There may be elements of political manoeuvring but from the outside I don't think we have enough to definitively say it is a purge, given there are definitely some rather extreme connotations with that word which I don't think we have seen yet.

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Also, doombreed, I consider you one of the brighter fellows on the other side of the aisle, and even you have to agree that most western media reports reporting this as a purge is being misleading either deliberately or not, by mostly ignoring the stark effects on the excess spending of govt officials.
And I think it isn't a stretch to say that it is in the vested interests of western ideology if the CCP were as corrupt/alienated-from-the-public as possible to further delegitimise their rule. So I think plawolf is being realistically cynical in the possible motivations for many western media outlet's slant in reporting.
That isn't to say the campaign will lead to a political nirvana in china, but it has definitely had effects at all levels of govt officials consumption, and evidence for this campaign as a purge has been scant at best, so the question is why this campaign seems to be constantly cast with doubt at every turn. (It is a rhetorical question of course, the answer is basically that anything the CCP does which is less than doing a Gorbachev will be unacceptable for the western audience)
Obviously the aim of the campaign is to reduce public miscontent regarding lavish spending/corruption. So if reducing those helps to further public support of the party then.... What's the big problem? Shouldn't that be a good thing? A party that is less corrupt with officials that don't splurge on every meal and with more public support for the government allowing for more social stability to allow for further economic growth and reforms as time passes? Is that not a valid aim?

 

[shen]

Indeed, that is against thousands of years of Chinese governance tradition.

That's disingenuous as well as offensive. When office buying was still a regular and accepted practice in western countries, China already had a thousand year history of civil service examine.

 

[Doombreed]

I would rather say that there might be ulterior political brinksmanship lying underneath the surface of the campaign but I would emphasise the main drive and result has been to reduce party excess/corruption at lower and higher levels.

Alright. I guess I'll cut to the chase. I guess my point of contention is that the CCP is doing this anti-corruption drive purely in the interest of self-preservation. They have taken too much from the little people recently and if they don't tune it back, there will be mobs with pitch forks. CCP at the end of the day is about Power and it's about Control.

Of cause as Blitizo pointed out, if at the end of the day the little people benefits, then who cares. And he's absolutly right.

And just as an aside. A person can be ardently pro-China, nationalistic, jingoistic about China even, without being a CCP apologist. You can still believe, that the CCP is the best stabilising force in China right now and is benefitual to the people when compared with the alternatives, without believeing that everything they do is virtuous and that everything they do is out of the goodness of their hearts.

 

[Doombreed]

That's disingenuous as well as offensive. When office buying was still a regular and accepted practice in western countries, China already had a thousand year history of civil service examine.

LOL. I guess you don't watch a lot of Chinese period dramas. Every second show is about the fight against corrupt officials. To say that being an official in ancient China is not a lucrative business would be disingenuous on your part as well. What's that Chinese saying? A 9th degree sesame sized office holder is worth X amount of silver?

 

[Blitzo]

Alright. I guess I'll cut to the chase. I guess my point of contention is that the CCP is doing this anti-corruption drive purely in the interest of self-preservation. They have taken too much from the little people recently and if they don't tune it back, there will be mobs with pitch forks. CCP at the end of the day is about Power and it's about Control.

Of cause as Blitizo pointed out, if at the end of the day the little people benefits, then who cares. And he's absolutly right.

I'd hazard to add that there are few political groups or individuals who ever do things only out of the good of their hearts. Politics by nature seeks to have groups jockey for top positions (self preservation) by trying to outdo the other groups.

Hell, we can say that is true for individual people as well.

And just as an aside. A person can be ardently pro-China, nationalistic, jingoistic about China even, without being a CCP apologist. You can still believe, that the CCP is the best stabilising force in China right now and is benefitual to the people when compared with the alternatives, without believeing that everything they do is virtuous and that everything they do is out of the goodness of their hearts.

Personally I've never understood the word apologism no matter who it is applied to. It just seems like a way of discrediting someone instead of looking at what they are saying.

And I don't think plawolf has posted in ways like how you described either, he's not blindingly accepting everything the CCP does as god send or whatever. Rather he's criticizing the western portrayal of the recent campaign. There's a noticeable difference between the two.

I would speculate that the whole "china apologist" tag arises only because of the rebuttals to western media discourse on China and CCP which is almost always overwhelmingly negative and that everything they do is wrong, corrupt, signs of totalitarianism, done in their self interest (note, as I said earlier, everything anyone does is in their own self interest), etc.
I think if someone constantly tries to fight against the overwhelming and accepted discourse coming from a particular space, then that will tend to be viewed as apologism.

You rarely hear about US apologists or US nationalism but we always hear about China apologists or Chinese nationalism, and I think it's not because equal elements do not exist in either side, but rather the overall discourse and accepted opinion and accepted "rights" make some words and actions acceptable when done by one group but not by another. But I digress.

 

[shen]

LOL. I guess you don't watch a lot of Chinese period dramas. Every second show is about the fight against corrupt officials. To say that being an official in ancient China is not a lucrative business would be disingenuous on your part as well. What's that Chinese saying? A 9th degree sesame sized office holder is worth X amount of silver?

exactly, profit from office was always viewed as immoral in Chinese history while accepted as the norm during much of western history.

 

[Brumby]

But what he (and others such as xiaobonan) said was a good counter against those who believe that this is ONLY a score settlement/purge.

That may well be the case but that wasn't my impression. Holding a position that it is due to one particular reason to the exclusion of others is logically indefensible and I was curious as to how one would defend such a world view. Typically in matters of this nature there would be a primary driver and plus the opportunist who would take advantage of the flow.