I have been doing business in China since 1983, and have lived here permanently for the last eleven years.
I cannot understand why most Western journalists continue to mention China as a 'communist' country when it is nothing of the sort.
Modern China is a country ruled by an elite oligarchy consisting of wealthy, influential, entrenched politicians; and a discreet cadre of powerful military leaders, who were only too happy to see the old guard communists like Peng and Zhou die off to allow their unbridled pursuit of wealth and power and dynastic staying-power (all of those pleasures true Communism would deny them). This game has been played here for over 5000 years.
To believe that there are communist 'party members' who work for 'the people' is laughably naive -- such people (some of whom I consider as friends) are merely representatives TO the people of the government's policies -- not vice versa -- and most of these people are busy posturing for 'guan xi', meaning personal influence and it's consequent power and wealth (read long-term survivability).
Where in any part of this society does one see any sort of Marxist/Maoist communism? There are no social services, no health care, no government-sponsored consumer protections from harmful and falsely-advertised products (of which plethora abound), etc. State-run conglomerates are no longer safe employment havens as they strive to smash locally privatized and foreign competitions. The central government is ruled by a brutally simple, ruthless, top-down oligarchy from the lowliest police chief to the most far-flung mayor to the most unethical desperate businesspersons strives, they all want to finagle their way into it.
Even as recently noted in this paper, those farmers and workers from remote villages that come to the big city to work as maids, construction laborers and factory fodder are being systematically herded into police-guarded, wall-blocked 'camps' with limited freedom to move about other than to and from their places of employment -- enduring strict curfew before both sundown and sunrise.
Your 'average' white-collar family is busy doing its best to pay for their children¡¯s educations, striving to get them over-seas passports/visas hopefully to obtain education and professional careers beyond the Great Wall (read long-term survivability).
Perhaps then, we are just being 'polite' when we refer to China as communist. We should not -- we should refer to such regimes as China's and North Korea's using the proper, most accurate terms -- despotic oligarchic police states where any resemblance to actual 'communism' is merely in the mind of the fancifully entertained.
Taking their example a little further, modern China may very well be -- and I'm not joking -- the living, breathing example of what the GOP and the neo-cons want for the USA -- virtually no public services, social or otherwise, within which a desperate population struggles to survive a dog-eat-dog Darwinian existence -- all ruled by a small, powerful, incredibly wealthy elite surrounded by a powerful, loyal, well-armed 'military'. (Edited for clarity)
P L E A S E G E T R E A L.
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After reading Mr. Ferrel¡¯s response to the debate on "China's Unwanted Nobel Prize - How will Liu Xiaobo's winning the peace prize affect the Chinese government's attitude toward political dissent?" I share his rage but not his desperations. The Chinese police state he articulated correctly is actually nothing short of a social-fascist state, namely a police state with socialism in name and fascism in reality, sui generis.
Intra-capitalist struggles are not going to settle easily. Instead, they will intensify. Fierce global competitions have raised the level of overproduction that pesters capitalists for further struggles among themselves. Prominent among them are fighting for currency manipulations and tariff protections. Of course, more of grappling with each other¡¯s survival props will come.
When seething fights will escalate out of control, wars, especially proxy wars can no longer be ineluctable. A war among capitalists means working peoples¡¯ grand festivals of class struggle. Chinese people have already gained craggy but precious sagacity through more than 30 years of arduous resistance since Deng Xiao Ping and cohorts¡¯ restoration of bureaucratic-comprador capitalism in 1976.
He said and I quote, "Taking their example a little further, modern China may very well be -- and I'm not joking -- the living, breathing example of what the GOP and the neo-cons. want for the USA -- virtually no public services, social or otherwise, within which a desperate population struggles to survive a dog-eat-dog Darwinian existence -- all ruled by a small, powerful, incredibly wealthy elite surrounded by a powerful, loyal, well-armed 'military'."
I agree with him on the forthcoming "dog-eat-dog Darwinian existence." I might add that his prediction would not only be the case for the U.S. but also for the entire capitalist world as well. Global austerity policy has already been ginning up the onslaught. In addition, one must not jeer at him for his implied coups d¡¯¨¦tat by powerful military, whenever politicians would lose control of their shop-states.
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