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That's just plainly not true. Deng Xiaopeng set the country up for orderly succession, and it did work up through Xi Jinping. Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin both cyc

That's just plainly not true. Deng Xiaopeng set the country up for orderly succession, and it did work up through Xi Jinping. Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin both cycled through office without any of the things we associate with authoritarian rulers. There was no execution of your political opponents, after you beat them to office, or afterwards. The argument has been that China needed a reset badly. Free-for-all capitalism hasn't been so great for most folks in the U.S. either, has it? That has been the justification for the heavy hand of the government during Xi's rule. There's also the argument that Western-style term limits prevent long-term strategic planning. All of those are really tempting and solid arguments, especially given how corrupt China had become with capitalism-ruling-all, but one really does wonder. As far as Alibaba goes, it's to my understanding that there are no real alternatives to Alibaba Cloud in China (unless you want to go for a foreign solution like AWS or Azure). It would seem that the current government thinks they can get away with making an example of the company as they see fit. There may be some geopolitical logic to that, because Xi's government seeks to make China more independent after Trump's trade wars, and if you have a big, wealthy internet company drawing in the country's top talent, then that's fewer that's e.g. going towards the semiconductor companies they now seek to bolster. Now there may have been a "correct" policy solution to this, a la antitrust, but it seems Xi's government prefers to be heavy-handed. For me, that's setting some scary precedents, because as other commenters have said, it isn't clear how succession will be handled going forward, and it may well be brutal.

rlt 5y ago
> Deng Xiaopeng set the country up for orderly succession, and it did work up through Xi Jinping. Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin both cycled through office without any of the things we associate with authoritarian rulers. There was no execution of your political opponents, after you beat them to office, or afterwards. Two orderly successions with no political executions isn’t a particularly high bar…
- roenxi 5y ago
  For somewhere like China, under authoritarian rule, that is a pretty high bar. The stakes are very high and there are a lot of talented, ambitious individuals. There is no theoretical framework for why one person shouldn't put their family in charge once you accept the idea that one party should be in charge. Deng, Jiang & Hu are all basically heros of the modern era for resisting any temptation.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    [flagged]
    - krainboltgreene 5y ago
      Just bold faced racism, huh?
      - baybal2 5y ago
        Mr. Greene, can you explain where do you see bold faced racism in what I wrote. I point to: 1. In the communist power structure, there is no place for "ambitious," or "talented." The only point of communists hiring few Stanford graduates is to serve as an amicable facade to the West of otherwise ugly regime, and to serve them absolutely unquestionably, hence the justified moniker. As people seen in 201x the few of them who dared to raise the voice were punished with extreme brutality to instill terror among the remaining powerless bureaucrats, ensure their continued submission, and eliminate any remote possibility of their revolt. Any threat to power, and "talented, and ambitious" in particular == instant kill. The communist party of China pretty much made having brains a crime for its members. 2. The hereditary elite of the communist army from 1949 been the unchanging power holder in the country for 70 years. Since then they installed, and purged multiple sub-regimes, including the latest, Westerner friendly one. Their extreme decadence, and lack of any moral inhibition when it comes to fighting for privilege, and power as their only reason to live fully deserved this adjective.
        krainboltgreene 5y ago
- MangoCoffee 5y ago
  >Two orderly successions with no political executions isn’t a particularly high bar… disagree. Mao started the culture revolution because he was ousted and succeed in taking back the powers. its a high bar that all leaders after Mao didn't try another culture revolution.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
Feint1 5y ago
> There's also the argument that Western-style term limits prevent long-term strategic planning. It seems to me that term limits are mostly the reserve of countries that have a genuine fear of authoritarian takeovers from recent experience, e.g. the nonaligned countries in South America and Africa. Countries with executive power vested in a member of Parliament don’t have such limits, hence how you get people like Merkel, Thatcher and Mark Rutte serving as Prime Minister for so long. You also have long-term planning with the maintenance of a professional civil service rather than political appointees and the use of cabinet level decision making rather than allowing the Head of Government to unilaterally make decisions. America and France are really the only significant “western” (politically rather than geographically) countries you can say have term limits on executive power. In both cases the introduction of term limits are post-ww2 changes. To use either example as a criticism of “the west” as a whole requires a rather narrow view of the world I think.
baybal2 5y ago
> Xiaopeng set the country up for orderly succession No, he did not. He built a cabinet of marionettes, and set himself to be a gray cardinal to run the state from behind the curtain. Jiang Zemin then ousted him out of power. You know nothing about China past the popular propaganda image they wanted Westerners to see.

rlt 5y ago

> Deng Xiaopeng set the country up for orderly succession, and it did work up through Xi Jinping. Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin both cycled through office without any of the things we associate with authoritarian rulers. There was no execution of your political opponents, after you beat them to office, or afterwards. Two orderly successions with no political executions isn’t a particularly high bar…

roenxi 5y ago
For somewhere like China, under authoritarian rule, that is a pretty high bar. The stakes are very high and there are a lot of talented, ambitious individuals. There is no theoretical framework for why one person shouldn't put their family in charge once you accept the idea that one party should be in charge. Deng, Jiang & Hu are all basically heros of the modern era for resisting any temptation.
- baybal2 5y ago
  [flagged]
  - krainboltgreene 5y ago
    Just bold faced racism, huh?
    - baybal2 5y ago
      Mr. Greene, can you explain where do you see bold faced racism in what I wrote. I point to: 1. In the communist power structure, there is no place for "ambitious," or "talented." The only point of communists hiring few Stanford graduates is to serve as an amicable facade to the West of otherwise ugly regime, and to serve them absolutely unquestionably, hence the justified moniker. As people seen in 201x the few of them who dared to raise the voice were punished with extreme brutality to instill terror among the remaining powerless bureaucrats, ensure their continued submission, and eliminate any remote possibility of their revolt. Any threat to power, and "talented, and ambitious" in particular == instant kill. The communist party of China pretty much made having brains a crime for its members. 2. The hereditary elite of the communist army from 1949 been the unchanging power holder in the country for 70 years. Since then they installed, and purged multiple sub-regimes, including the latest, Westerner friendly one. Their extreme decadence, and lack of any moral inhibition when it comes to fighting for privilege, and power as their only reason to live fully deserved this adjective.
      - krainboltgreene 5y ago
MangoCoffee 5y ago
>Two orderly successions with no political executions isn’t a particularly high bar… disagree. Mao started the culture revolution because he was ousted and succeed in taking back the powers. its a high bar that all leaders after Mao didn't try another culture revolution.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

Feint1 5y ago

> There's also the argument that Western-style term limits prevent long-term strategic planning. It seems to me that term limits are mostly the reserve of countries that have a genuine fear of authoritarian takeovers from recent experience, e.g. the nonaligned countries in South America and Africa. Countries with executive power vested in a member of Parliament don’t have such limits, hence how you get people like Merkel, Thatcher and Mark Rutte serving as Prime Minister for so long. You also have long-term planning with the maintenance of a professional civil service rather than political appointees and the use of cabinet level decision making rather than allowing the Head of Government to unilaterally make decisions. America and France are really the only significant “western” (politically rather than geographically) countries you can say have term limits on executive power. In both cases the introduction of term limits are post-ww2 changes. To use either example as a criticism of “the west” as a whole requires a rather narrow view of the world I think.

baybal2 5y ago

> Xiaopeng set the country up for orderly succession No, he did not. He built a cabinet of marionettes, and set himself to be a gray cardinal to run the state from behind the curtain. Jiang Zemin then ousted him out of power. You know nothing about China past the popular propaganda image they wanted Westerners to see.