Some readers see me as an unalloyed apologist for China. I don't think I am. I've lived, studied and worked in China, have many mates there, have family there. I know all about the darker sides of their society, the horrid excesses of their government -- the corruption, the expropriation of land, the supression of free speech (you can't get Blogger, Twitter, YouTube there...), and so on.
It's just that it's not all as bad as they're perceived and presented in the western media and especially by politicians in a US election cycle.
This article “How China’s Next Leader Will Guide” by Robert Lawrence Kuhn is a good one, and lazy that I am, I'll let Kuhn make the case for me; a few extracts:
It's just that it's not all as bad as they're perceived and presented in the western media and especially by politicians in a US election cycle.
This article “How China’s Next Leader Will Guide” by Robert Lawrence Kuhn is a good one, and lazy that I am, I'll let Kuhn make the case for me; a few extracts:
China is an oligarchy, not a dictatorship, and ultimate authority will not be vested individually with Xi, but collectively with the Politburo’s Standing Committee, which has nine members. Everything in China reports to one of these nine. Xi will be first among equals, but equals the nine are, and together they have the final say on policy....
Of the committee’s nine members, all will have run large geographic regions and/or ministries, and six or seven will have led at least two provinces or major municipalities. All will have worked with Western business chiefs and other important foreign leaders....
Xi’s motto is: “Be proud, not complacent. Motivated, not pompous. Pragmatic, not erratic.”There are worse ways to choose leaders than choosing from a group that have had wide executive experience, who have shown themselves basically uncorrupt and who have experience of the outside world. And have a motto of pragmatism.
ADDED: The article on the Internet Archive
