Discussing Biden's Potential China Policy

  • Thread starter Deleted member 15887
  • Start date
T

texx1

Junior Member
FairAndUnbiased said:
I understand getting personnel changes wrong. Expected, it is a soft prediction with lots of personal twists and turns.

How do you explain getting specific, numerical economic predictions like exchange rate wrong in both direction and order of magnitude?
Click to expand...
I would put my money on incompetence and possibly malice but mostly incompetence as I usually follow the words "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence". Let's face it , anyone who could make semi consistent accurate predictions about economy or finance would have been noticed and snapped up by investment banking/consulting firms long ago. They wouldn't be writing articles for a small website.

I left a small chance for malice because oversea websites that focus on Chinese politics usually have some anti-ccp funding or ties as mentioned earlier. They would make whatever economic predictions/spin that fits their backers' narratives.
 
Z

zxy_bc

Junior Member
Registered Member
texx1 said:
When it comes to public oversea sources for meaningful Chinese political watching, the unfortunate reality is that almost all of media (whether west or HK based) could be connected to some anti-CCP organizations if you were willing to dig deep enough.

From my personal experience, outside Chinese political watchers are mainly consisted of two types, those that got their start from the aftermath of June 4 incident (most of them eventually became associated with FLG media wing), and those that were allies or patrons of CCP officials who lost their own political struggles. Purely western analysts tend use them as sources anyway due to their own lack of nuanced understanding of Chinese language, culture and history.

I am of course excluding those china watchers that parrot standard CCP talking points because I could read them myself from domestic Chinese media. In other words, it is fairly difficult to find a politically "pure" but useful China watcher, someone that is not against CCP or its leaderships in anyway but offers something interesting. Since political discussions especially about senior inner party politics are more or less forbidden in mainland, those who still have personal/business interests would keep their disclosure to a minimum. You are very unlikely to get scoops from existing insiders anyway. As a result, I am willing to lower my personal reliability threshold for stories about CCP inner politics and use my own judgment.

As for track records, I think it's a tall order for any organization engaging in CCP political watching to possess a high accuracy rate. The party is very secretive when it comes to its inner workings. Also, CCP party politics are full of surprising developments that are not telegraphed. Before Bo's downfall, many predicted he was shoe-in for the premier position just as many predicted Cheng Liangyu (Shanghai party chief) would be protected by Jiang's clique. Two months ago, there was the surprising arrest of Fu Zhenghua who was the ex minster of justice and rumored to have played a significant role in taking down Zhou. Many thought Fu would be safe as he went into a second line posting last year.

As for the article itself, it did offer a few interesting takes on why Wang's tibet visit might be insignificant. I was not convinced but I appreciate the effort.
Click to expand...
When you and others who has not experienced directly within Chinese system begin to talk about Cheng Liangyu’s case, of course you guys are surprised he was “taken down” due to your predetermined belief of “the clique system”. (There is indeed some factions, but they are certainly more fragile and temporary than any outsiders think) Cheng’s case was very serious because he was at the time the first political figure involved in embezzling Shanghai’s Social Security Fund. The amount he was involved might seem insignificant, but the nature of the fund was the real red light. Basically meaning he was the first. Hence the severe consequence.(Also the fact the other business figure that he involved with embezzled a shit ton more of funds as well, but since the businessman was not CPC member, CCDI could not get involve and he was just sentenced instead)

side note: when the business figure served his time and was released 6 month ago, he was greeted a surprise birthday party hosted by several leading SMG news anchors. This was exposed on social media and these anchors were summarily punished internally due to them associating themselves with such a despicable criminal, despised by most in Shanghai.
 
Z

zxy_bc

Junior Member
Registered Member
Another side note: Cheng Liangyu served his time and was released I think in 2018. He was photographed by someone in Hangzhou walking the park. Many Shanghainese do feel a little unfair about him being treated so severely while the amount he was accused of was not as significant as many corrupted officials after him. But since he was the first serious case involved in Social Security embezzlement, he was made an example of.
 
Z

zxy_bc

Junior Member
Registered Member
If one were to genuinely trying to make sense of CPC policies, one should stop looking at CPC politics. (a major departure from western style political thinkings)

Who gets nominated to do what is often second-consideration since when they were nominated to do things, their objectives were simultaneously translated to them from the higher governing bodies. (They are in charge of implementing policies or solving existing problems mostly, rather than coming up new ones)

The policies CPC agreed upon are instead the real meat, the ones researched by esteemed academics from Central Policy Research Office or other corresponding committees and even political consultative organs. (Yes, the various PCOs many westerners claimed to be "rubber stamps" have far more important roles in CPC policy formulation, as these PCOs incorporated economists, academics, technicians, business owners, cultural figures from all corners of the country. One famous example was the Three Gorges Dam policy, it was the special technical committee, incorporating numerous renowned scientists in the field, formed by CCPCC, that has the final evaluation on the viability of the project.)
 
T

texx1

Junior Member
zxy_bc said:
When you and others who has not experienced directly within Chinese system begin to talk about Cheng Liangyu’s case, of course you guys are surprised he was “taken down” due to your predetermined belief of “the clique system”. (There is indeed some factions, but they are certainly more fragile and temporary than any outsiders think) Cheng’s case was very serious because he was at the time the first political figure involved in embezzling Shanghai’s Social Security Fund. The amount he was involved might seem insignificant, but the nature of the fund was the real red light. Basically meaning he was the first. Hence the severe consequence.(Also the fact the other business figure that he involved with embezzled a shit ton more of funds as well, but since the businessman was not CPC member, CCDI could not get involve and he was just sentenced instead)
Click to expand...

Some of my relatives still live in Shanghai so I am well aware of the particulars of Cheng's case. Yes, It was widely rumored that he took funds from Shanghai social security, invested them and made a profit for the fund as well. But it was said Cheng only took about 500,000 yuan which's a small amount compared to the figures associated with other corrupted officials.

He's remembered as a capable mayor and effective party chief. He had a presence among the local people, laid a great foundation for Shanghai's continuing development and was seen as a doer, not just some nameless official treating his posting as a stepping stone. Basically, local shanghaiese has a fond memory of him. Considering he was a prominent member of Shanghai clique, many did think he would be protected.

zxy_bc said:
side note: when the business figure served his time and was released 6 month ago, he was greeted a surprise birthday party hosted by several leading SMG news anchors. This was exposed on social media and these anchors were summarily punished internally due to them associating themselves with such a despicable criminal, despised by most in Shanghai.
Click to expand...

The rumor I heard was not just about the high profile nature of the birthday party, it was also about the corruption of a famous Xi's slogan.
 
Z

zxy_bc

Junior Member
Registered Member
texx1 said:
Some of my relatives still live in Shanghai so I am well aware of the particulars of Cheng's case. Yes, It was widely rumored that he took funds from Shanghai social security, invested them and made a profit for the fund as well. But it was said Cheng only took about 500,000 yuan which's a small amount compared to the figures associated with other corrupted officials.

He's remembered as a capable mayor and effective party chief. He had a presence among the local people, laid a great foundation for Shanghai's continuing development and was seen as a doer, not just some nameless official treating his posting as a stepping stone. Basically, local shanghaiese has a fond memory of him. Considering he was a prominent member of Shanghai clique, many did think he would be protected.



The rumor I heard was not just about the high profile nature of the birthday party, it was also about the corruption of a famous Xi's slogan.
Click to expand...
There was no corruption of any slogans. (I've seen the whole video, the problem was these anchors' patronizing attitude towards a known infamous corrupted businessman who ruined the lives of countless workers, and also they called him "senior brother" 大哥, also a big no no)

I already elaborated about why Cheng was handled in such way in my second post, watch that. As long as you still have the clique mentality when looking at Chinese politics, you are guaranteed to be surprised even more in the future.
 
Z

zxy_bc

Junior Member
Registered Member
Any officials in China touch anything that remotely resembled "unauthorized usage of Social Security Fund", they are going to be in a world of pain regardless where they are. (equated to a direct insult and spit on CPC's standing among the populace)
 
T

texx1

Junior Member
zxy_bc said:
There was no corruption of any slogans. (I've seen the whole video, the problem was these anchors' patronizing attitude towards a known infamous corrupted businessman who ruined the lives of countless workers, and also they called him "senior brother" 大哥, also a big no no)
Click to expand...

If possible, could you provide a link to the video?

zxy_bc said:
I already elaborated about why Cheng was handled in such way in my second post, watch that. As long as you still have the clique mentality when looking at Chinese politics, you are guaranteed to be surprised even more in the future.
Click to expand...

Are you saying that there are no political factions in CCP politics anymore? Youth league faction, Xi's Zhejiang faction, Jiang faction, all of those are no longer relevant.
 
Z

zxy_bc

Junior Member
Registered Member
texx1 said:
If possible, could you provide a link to the video?



Are you saying that there are no political factions in CCP politics anymore? Youth league faction, Xi's Zhejiang faction, Jiang faction, all of those are no longer relevant.
Click to expand...
Depends on how you label factions, if you mean a political entity or alliance that people identify themselves with, then no they aren't. (Such factionalism in CPC's eyes is just another 朋党乱政）If you mean a group of officials who were personally acquainted due to their previous common work experience or similar ancestry, then yes. (But politically they mean almost nothing and guaranteed nothing, thus why I suggest to basically ignore them.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top