TL;DR: An observation on the People's Republic of China. Any thoughts on the infamous 'all powerful' ruling party, its history, current developments, or how it should be dealt with now and in the future? Are we entering the "Chinese Century"? Here's to the next 100 years?
Yes, "Fuck The CCP". Noted. This is actually the first of two centennials they have marked and the country has been through much: Civil War (1945-1949) to Great Leap Forward (1958-1962) to Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and finally into Contemporary Era (1978-present) -plus- COVID-19. All of those are open to discussion and opinion.
Modern Beginnings.
Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese politician who was the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China from 1978 until his retirement in 1992. After Chairman Mao Zedong's death in 1976, Deng rose to power and led China through a series of far-reaching market-economy reforms, which earned him the reputation as the "Architect of Modern China."
Deng outmaneuvered the late Chairman's chosen successor Hua Guofeng and became the new paramount leader of the People's Republic in December 1978. Inheriting a country beset with social conflict, disenchantment with the Communist Party and institutional disorder resulting from the chaotic policies of the Mao era, he started the Boluan Fanzheng program which brought the country back to order.
Deng initiated the historic Reform and Opening-up of China, launched the 863 Program for science and technology, established its nine-year compulsory education and resumed the National College Entrance Examination interrupted by the Cultural Revolution. He opened China to foreign investment and the global market, developing the country into one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and raising the standard of living of hundreds of millions. During his leadership, more people were lifted out of poverty than any other time in human history.
The present day CCP retains Dengism in terms of economic development and modernization under the governance of a one-party state, and that was never going to change. The west was foolish to believe that market economy reforms and its decision to fully bring the country into the fold of international trade would ever lead to a democratic China. The Politburo has also broken from Xiaoping policy in two major ways by scrapping presidential term limits with a strong nudge back towards cult of personality totalitarianism and the rejection of soft power foreign policy. The official line of "peaceful rise" and "regional harmony" is pure cringe predicated on submission to Sino supremacy, and that ultimately extends to the rest of the world.
One external policy goal of the regime is the exportation of its authoritarian model of governance around the globe and the state-run Xinhua news agency has been rather transparent about that. To the CCP, western political systems are associated with fractured societies, inefficient government, endless power transitions and high potential for social disarray. The possibility of political reckoning in China is extremely unlikely regardless of the government's highly repressive nature towards civil liberties from a westerner's perspective, and the population appears to be conditioned for authoritarian acquiescence with a younger generation and growing middle class apathetic to domestic politics. There's something of an unspoken pact between the ruling party and its people with a trade-off of continued prosperity and national achievement for staying out of politics.
Since a lynchpin of the party's legitimacy hinges on continued prosperity, they're rather shameless about currency manipulation, overbuilding, subsidization, product dumping, lack of reciprocity, forced technology transfers and the theft of intellectual property and industrial trade secrets. So much of China's system is based around throughput and maintaining employment, hence the wild investments all over the globe with Chinese nationals shipped in to work in foreign countries and an insane amount of domestic infrastructure projects with entire cities built in which nobody lives. This is also part of why
news reports propaganda about the CCP looking to replace the USD as global reserve currency can be laughed off. The position carries a great amount of privilege but their setup is like one big vested interest against the capital inflows, reduced exports and increased unemployment that tends to be included with it.
Xi Jinping studied chemical enginerring at Tsinghua University and keenly understands the value of STEM. Since taking control of the party in 2012, he's launched a blizzard of institutional changes that include shifting priorities (and hundreds of billions) from a previous focus on late-stage product development towards fundamental/applied research and instigating policies to encourage investment in them; reforming evaluation systems, raising the budgets for R&D overheads, cutting bureaucratic red tape to give scientists more freedom with few ethics restraints and incentivization efforts to attract foreign talent from abroad. However, China is still rife with academic fraud and misuse of research grants despite a heavy crackdown effort and researchers there also tend to be fixated with pure output quantity. The PRC can take the global lead in both R&D expenditures and total output whilst actually remaining behind the US in high-impact quality.
And for what they can't achieve or innovate internally? That's the reason for the implementation of a top-down, decades-long, state-directed strategy of intransigent policies, acts and practices which both deliberately and indirectly undercut the output, competitiveness, investment, research, development, innovation and strategic domestically spawned industries of their geopolitical rivals. Many of those industries also serve as invaluable sources of high wage employment, global exports, sustained economic growth and national security for the countries being fleeced. In this case, first and foremost: the United States of America. As found by virtually every bipartisan commission and panel assembled over the last decade, including the IP Commission.
Where global trade is concerned, the OBOR Initiative - spanning more than 60 countries - is in the realm of hyperambitious in its attempt to gain control over the means of delivery. It's at least had the immediate benefit of forging stronger geopolitical ties, opening new markets for Chinese companies and provided continued demand for production with the larger agenda geared on reshaping the global economic order around China's interests wherein they wield a most advantageous position to dictate the terms of global trade. The CCP's system of industrial planning also allows them to coordinate the activities of myriad groups toward specific goals and this is a strategy implemented across every R&D field as well.
Also: Something, Uyghurs, Something.
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