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This is why for all the fear of China, the country cannot succeed on its current trajectory. Things look great until the leaders are doing well, but all it tak

This is why for all the fear of China, the country cannot succeed on its current trajectory. Things look great until the leaders are doing well, but all it takes is for 1 bad set of leadership for all to fall apart. And Xi Jinping has guaranteed failure by removing term limits. Term limits meant that other ambitious political leaders were willing to wait and try their luck next turn. But with no term limits multiple generations of leaders are locked out of even the possibility of becoming the party leader, which means they have become a threat to Jinping. And since so many people are now a threat to him, his selection criteria for people to lead different parts of the party and government has to be based entirely on loyalty rather than competence. Which almost guarantees a lot of counter productive incompetence.

manigandham 5y ago
The ease with which the term limits were removed indicates that they were never a real limitation in the first place. What prior leader was actually bounded by them?
- xbeta 5y ago
  Jiang and Hu both stepped down after 2 terms. So yes they agreed to it.
  - manigandham 5y ago
    Doesn't seem like much of a limitation if they have to agree to it. What happens if they don't? Wasn't Jiang still leading the military? Hu appears to be the only one that stepped down on time - but more from the rise of Xi rather than this rule.
baybal2 5y ago
This is not how China works. Previous leaders only exited power because they were pretty much ousted, and their power was never really institutionally checked. Mainland China never been ever close to constitutional rule. It's unbelievably naive to think that term limits would've ever been something other than a decoration, and a propaganda point with communists.
- silisili 5y ago
  That's worked remarkably well for Russia.
- addicted 5y ago
  From Wikipedia > The Communist Party of China proposed amending the Constitution, for the first time after 2004,[3] including writing Scientific Outlook on Development and Xi Jinping Thought into the Preamble,[4] and removing the provision that the President and Vice President "shall serve no more than two consecutive terms" from the Constitution.[5] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_National_People%27s_Congress https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_National_People%27s_Con...
- suifbwish 5y ago
  There were emperors in China and many other countries all through the past several thousand years and it is the expectation of the world that they suddenly give up that entire way of life and thinking in one century?
  - causi 5y ago
    Why should other countries be capable of it and the Chinese incapable?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - Archio 5y ago
    Yeah bro, there were kings and feudal lords and chieftains and emperors (like Rome) all over the rest of the world for thousands of years too. To say that the Chinese are incapable of democracy because being ruled by an autocrat steadily increasing his own power is their "way of life" is frankly insulting to the Chinese.
    - bayindirh 5y ago
      The Chinese are one of the most crowded nations for a long long time, and their dynamics, views, priorities and choices are different. Also they have a much different history on social dynamics and outcomes. Judging their systems and dynamics from our point of view misses the point in some cases. There's an eye opening video about "The Social Credit System" from CCC (Chaos Communication Conference). Take a look if you have time: https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9904-the_social_credit_system https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9904-the_social_credit_system It's an hour long talk.
supertrope 5y ago
The most powerful man in China is the Chairman of the Central Military Commission. “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” - Mao. The title President is less important so term limits on that position don’t matter. Recent ”anti-corruption” actions have weighed heavily on Jiang Zemin’s allies
- addicted 5y ago
  Yes, but that same leader is conventionally also the President. By eliminating term limits in 2018 Xi Jinping was clearly signaling that he did not intend on relinquishing power.
  - supertrope 5y ago
    Interestingly Hu Jintao only gained control of the army two years into his term.
- skhr0680 5y ago
  > The most powerful man in China is the Chairman of the Central Military Commission. It's interesting to me that they allowed that to happen, both the US, with its civilian control of the military, and the Soviets, with their convoluted division of manpower, equipment, and commands, took measures to stop that situation from occurring.
  - assbuttbuttass 5y ago
    China just doesn't try to hide it
kelnos 5y ago
> This is why for all the fear of China, the country cannot succeed on its current trajectory. I really really really want this to be true, but I don't think it's wise to discount China as a threat to worldwide autonomy just because they're behaving like typical authoritarians, and have the weaknesses that you'd expect from that kind of government. Personally I think China's demographic issues should be more of a worry for them. The aftermath of the one-child policy, as well as all the selective abortion (under one-child, parents preferred to give birth to a boy) creating a imbalance between the number of men and women, means their population will start shrinking soon. And there will be a lot of only children supporting both of their parents when they start getting older, not to mention a glut of older folks leaving the workforce without equal replacement from the younger generations.
- gscott 5y ago
  Even in the worst case scenaro China ends up having twice the population of the USA. The nee 3 child policy for ccp members might help.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    Having a contracting population and a smaller fraction of that population working age makes it hard to sustain economic growth. (Ask Japan).
    - adrianN 5y ago
      I think per capita numbers are more interesting than absolute numbers, and I'd expect that automation will improve that in the coming decades more than in the last couple of decades.
- dmix 5y ago
  Russia has been skirting along in mediocrity with its one leader pseudo parliament system for longer than China. Xi is copying Putins playbook here. The major difference is their positions in economic transitions. I think the biggest risk for China would be entering mediocrity and flatlining like Russia. Not growing seems to be their biggest fear.
sudosysgen 5y ago
According to machine translation (both Google Translate and DeepL) of the law itself, it seems that this is not actually the case, and that the article is simply wrong. Indeed, it seems that they have a legal responsibility to notify the MIIT within two days, but a legal responsibility to notify upstream immediately (according to another commenter, they do not even have any responsibility to disclose to the government, only to Apache). Perhaps this translation is incorrect, but Chinese speaking commenters below think that it is accurate, so it's probably just the article being wrong (as usual), leading to incorrect conclusions that China is not a threat and will not succeed because they will shoot themselves in the foot etc, while reality is a lot more reasonable.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- uranusjr 5y ago
  The article is correct on all factual grounds; Alibaba has been suspended of its participation as a 网络安全威胁信息共享平台合作单位 (whatever that means), and the agency sources that law as the reason. Now you can argue the law does not actually say Alibaba is obligated to report the incident to the China government, but the government is acting as it should, and Alibaba has no recourse but to accept (you have no chance to get a course ruling to overturn the decision in China anyway so what other choice do they have).
spoonjim 5y ago
> the country cannot succeed on its current trajectory What, exactly, is it doing right now? This sounds a lot like "Tom Brady cannot succeed with his current height." Um, he already has, and continues to do so.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jeswin 5y ago
> Which almost guarantees a lot of counter productive incompetence. What do dictators do when their policies start failing and popularity declines? They go to war. Nothing distracts the population as much. This is the biggest risk with China's expanding military power.
62951413 5y ago
This is why for all the fear of America, the country cannot succeed on its current trajectory. Things look great until the leaders are doing well, but all it takes is 1 Brandon for all to fall apart. And since so many Americans are now a threat to the Democrats, their selection criteria for people to lead different parts of the party and government has to be based entirely on race and gender rather than competence. Which almost guarantees a lot of counter productive incompetence.
- kybernetikos 5y ago
  That's the point of the comment you're responding to - the USA has term limits, which means that the damage a single bad leader can do is limited.
Jansen312 5y ago
You just look back at China's 5000 years Imperial history. It is no surprise of current development. Chinese history has never had Greek style democracy system. The closest in terms of political development will be Song dynasty which it has a chance to further survive, will likely turn into something like USA. Alas, ask any Chinese scholars, Song dynasty is considered the worst in China as it is "weak". Surprisingly, if you ask the same person, people living during Song dynasty were way better off than Tang or Han dynasty, both golden periods of China before Song. Even if you ask about science and literarure developments, it too was ahead of previous dynasty. Still, it is consider a failure when in terms of dynasty ranking. I know about Dr. Sun's republic, Taiwan and "voting politburo" . But these are considered modern development which hasn't really sunk into physche of Chinese race worldwide.

manigandham 5y ago

The ease with which the term limits were removed indicates that they were never a real limitation in the first place. What prior leader was actually bounded by them?

xbeta 5y ago
Jiang and Hu both stepped down after 2 terms. So yes they agreed to it.
- manigandham 5y ago
  Doesn't seem like much of a limitation if they have to agree to it. What happens if they don't? Wasn't Jiang still leading the military? Hu appears to be the only one that stepped down on time - but more from the rise of Xi rather than this rule.

baybal2 5y ago

This is not how China works. Previous leaders only exited power because they were pretty much ousted, and their power was never really institutionally checked. Mainland China never been ever close to constitutional rule. It's unbelievably naive to think that term limits would've ever been something other than a decoration, and a propaganda point with communists.

silisili 5y ago
That's worked remarkably well for Russia.
addicted 5y ago
From Wikipedia > The Communist Party of China proposed amending the Constitution, for the first time after 2004,[3] including writing Scientific Outlook on Development and Xi Jinping Thought into the Preamble,[4] and removing the provision that the President and Vice President "shall serve no more than two consecutive terms" from the Constitution.[5] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_National_People%27s_Congress https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_National_People%27s_Con...
suifbwish 5y ago
There were emperors in China and many other countries all through the past several thousand years and it is the expectation of the world that they suddenly give up that entire way of life and thinking in one century?
- causi 5y ago
  Why should other countries be capable of it and the Chinese incapable?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- Archio 5y ago
  Yeah bro, there were kings and feudal lords and chieftains and emperors (like Rome) all over the rest of the world for thousands of years too. To say that the Chinese are incapable of democracy because being ruled by an autocrat steadily increasing his own power is their "way of life" is frankly insulting to the Chinese.
  - bayindirh 5y ago
    The Chinese are one of the most crowded nations for a long long time, and their dynamics, views, priorities and choices are different. Also they have a much different history on social dynamics and outcomes. Judging their systems and dynamics from our point of view misses the point in some cases. There's an eye opening video about "The Social Credit System" from CCC (Chaos Communication Conference). Take a look if you have time: https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9904-the_social_credit_system https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9904-the_social_credit_system It's an hour long talk.

supertrope 5y ago

The most powerful man in China is the Chairman of the Central Military Commission. “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” - Mao. The title President is less important so term limits on that position don’t matter. Recent ”anti-corruption” actions have weighed heavily on Jiang Zemin’s allies

addicted 5y ago
Yes, but that same leader is conventionally also the President. By eliminating term limits in 2018 Xi Jinping was clearly signaling that he did not intend on relinquishing power.
- supertrope 5y ago
  Interestingly Hu Jintao only gained control of the army two years into his term.
skhr0680 5y ago
> The most powerful man in China is the Chairman of the Central Military Commission. It's interesting to me that they allowed that to happen, both the US, with its civilian control of the military, and the Soviets, with their convoluted division of manpower, equipment, and commands, took measures to stop that situation from occurring.
- assbuttbuttass 5y ago
  China just doesn't try to hide it

kelnos 5y ago

> This is why for all the fear of China, the country cannot succeed on its current trajectory. I really really really want this to be true, but I don't think it's wise to discount China as a threat to worldwide autonomy just because they're behaving like typical authoritarians, and have the weaknesses that you'd expect from that kind of government. Personally I think China's demographic issues should be more of a worry for them. The aftermath of the one-child policy, as well as all the selective abortion (under one-child, parents preferred to give birth to a boy) creating a imbalance between the number of men and women, means their population will start shrinking soon. And there will be a lot of only children supporting both of their parents when they start getting older, not to mention a glut of older folks leaving the workforce without equal replacement from the younger generations.

gscott 5y ago
Even in the worst case scenaro China ends up having twice the population of the USA. The nee 3 child policy for ccp members might help.
- mlyle 5y ago
  Having a contracting population and a smaller fraction of that population working age makes it hard to sustain economic growth. (Ask Japan).
  - adrianN 5y ago
    I think per capita numbers are more interesting than absolute numbers, and I'd expect that automation will improve that in the coming decades more than in the last couple of decades.
dmix 5y ago
Russia has been skirting along in mediocrity with its one leader pseudo parliament system for longer than China. Xi is copying Putins playbook here. The major difference is their positions in economic transitions. I think the biggest risk for China would be entering mediocrity and flatlining like Russia. Not growing seems to be their biggest fear.

sudosysgen 5y ago

According to machine translation (both Google Translate and DeepL) of the law itself, it seems that this is not actually the case, and that the article is simply wrong. Indeed, it seems that they have a legal responsibility to notify the MIIT within two days, but a legal responsibility to notify upstream immediately (according to another commenter, they do not even have any responsibility to disclose to the government, only to Apache). Perhaps this translation is incorrect, but Chinese speaking commenters below think that it is accurate, so it's probably just the article being wrong (as usual), leading to incorrect conclusions that China is not a threat and will not succeed because they will shoot themselves in the foot etc, while reality is a lot more reasonable.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
uranusjr 5y ago
The article is correct on all factual grounds; Alibaba has been suspended of its participation as a 网络安全威胁信息共享平台合作单位 (whatever that means), and the agency sources that law as the reason. Now you can argue the law does not actually say Alibaba is obligated to report the incident to the China government, but the government is acting as it should, and Alibaba has no recourse but to accept (you have no chance to get a course ruling to overturn the decision in China anyway so what other choice do they have).

spoonjim 5y ago

> the country cannot succeed on its current trajectory What, exactly, is it doing right now? This sounds a lot like "Tom Brady cannot succeed with his current height." Um, he already has, and continues to do so.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jeswin 5y ago

> Which almost guarantees a lot of counter productive incompetence. What do dictators do when their policies start failing and popularity declines? They go to war. Nothing distracts the population as much. This is the biggest risk with China's expanding military power.

62951413 5y ago

This is why for all the fear of America, the country cannot succeed on its current trajectory. Things look great until the leaders are doing well, but all it takes is 1 Brandon for all to fall apart. And since so many Americans are now a threat to the Democrats, their selection criteria for people to lead different parts of the party and government has to be based entirely on race and gender rather than competence. Which almost guarantees a lot of counter productive incompetence.

kybernetikos 5y ago
That's the point of the comment you're responding to - the USA has term limits, which means that the damage a single bad leader can do is limited.

Jansen312 5y ago

You just look back at China's 5000 years Imperial history. It is no surprise of current development. Chinese history has never had Greek style democracy system. The closest in terms of political development will be Song dynasty which it has a chance to further survive, will likely turn into something like USA. Alas, ask any Chinese scholars, Song dynasty is considered the worst in China as it is "weak". Surprisingly, if you ask the same person, people living during Song dynasty were way better off than Tang or Han dynasty, both golden periods of China before Song. Even if you ask about science and literarure developments, it too was ahead of previous dynasty. Still, it is consider a failure when in terms of dynasty ranking. I know about Dr. Sun's republic, Taiwan and "voting politburo" . But these are considered modern development which hasn't really sunk into physche of Chinese race worldwide.