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Thanks for your analysis. Just to clarify some of your points to readers who may not be that familiar with Chinese politics. * Zhu Rongji is the more reformist

Thanks for your analysis. Just to clarify some of your points to readers who may not be that familiar with Chinese politics. * Zhu Rongji is the more reformist leader in the late 1990s, and seen as one of the few leaders (maybe along with Zhao Ziyang in the 80s and Wen Jiabao in the 2000s) who may have been favorable for a move towards democracy in China. * Bo and Co = Bo Xilai and ... Zhou Yongkang? They were arrested in 2012-2013 for plotting a coup against Xi and human rights abuses such as organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience, after a high-ranking security official (Wang Lijun) defected and sought refuge in the US consulate, providing inside dirt on these two party chiefs. * Xi = Xi Jinping, current Chinese leader.

justicezyx 8y ago
Not sure how zhu was viewed as more possible for democracy. Note that what he did was the most brutal form of autocratic policy making, by forcing unemployment of millions of workers who are not trained to live in a different system; was possible because of autocratic government; and his policy pretty much made the rich out of the ranks of former government officials just like what happened to the Russian oligarchs. I am guessing the rich do know how to court the expectations from inside and outside. And I often hear praises from Chinese people to zhu, while at the same time none of them suffer during zhu's policies...