What do you think?
Rate this book
The Party and the People: Chinese Politics in the 21st Century
How the Chinese Communist Party maintains its power by both repressing and responding to its people
Since 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has maintained unrivaled control over the country, persisting even in the face of economic calamity, widespread social upheaval, and violence against its own people. Yet the party does not sustain dominance through repressive tactics alone--it pairs this with surprising responsiveness to the public. The Party and the People explores how this paradox has helped the CCP endure for decades, and how this balance has shifted increasingly toward repression under the rule of President Xi Jinping.
Delving into the tenuous binary of repression and responsivity, Bruce Dickson illuminates numerous questions surrounding the CCP's rule: How does it choose leaders and create policies? When does it allow protests? Will China become democratic? Dickson shows that the party's dual approach lies at the core of its practices--repression when dealing with existential, political threats or challenges to its authority, and responsiveness when confronting localized economic or social unrest. The state answers favorably to the demands of protesters on certain issues, such as local environmental hazards and healthcare, but deals harshly with others, such as protests in Tibet, Xinjiang, or Hong Kong. With the CCP's greater reliance on suppression since Xi Jinping's rise to power in 2012, Dickson considers the ways that this tipping of the scales will influence China's future.
Bringing together a vast body of sources, The Party and the People sheds new light on how the relationship between the Chinese state and its citizens shapes governance.
Since 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has maintained unrivaled control over the country, persisting even in the face of economic calamity, widespread social upheaval, and violence against its own people. Yet the party does not sustain dominance through repressive tactics alone--it pairs this with surprising responsiveness to the public. The Party and the People explores how this paradox has helped the CCP endure for decades, and how this balance has shifted increasingly toward repression under the rule of President Xi Jinping.
Delving into the tenuous binary of repression and responsivity, Bruce Dickson illuminates numerous questions surrounding the CCP's rule: How does it choose leaders and create policies? When does it allow protests? Will China become democratic? Dickson shows that the party's dual approach lies at the core of its practices--repression when dealing with existential, political threats or challenges to its authority, and responsiveness when confronting localized economic or social unrest. The state answers favorably to the demands of protesters on certain issues, such as local environmental hazards and healthcare, but deals harshly with others, such as protests in Tibet, Xinjiang, or Hong Kong. With the CCP's greater reliance on suppression since Xi Jinping's rise to power in 2012, Dickson considers the ways that this tipping of the scales will influence China's future.
Bringing together a vast body of sources, The Party and the People sheds new light on how the relationship between the Chinese state and its citizens shapes governance.
328 pages, Hardcover
Published May 25, 2021
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
Want to read
June 9, 2022INTRODUCTION
In September 2011, the people of Wukan—a village in
southeastern China—rose up in protest. Their elected
leaders, they alleged, had sold land to developers
without adequate payment to those who had made their
livelihoods farming it. They marched on the government
headquarters in nearby Lufeng city, demanding both
compensation and the right to new elections.
The leaders of Lufeng did not accede to their
demands. Instead they sent riot police to Wukan to shut
down the protests and occupy the village. Over the
course of several months, the village endured a standoff
with police, and a handful of protesters were arrested
and charged with attacking officers. One of the
protesters, Xue Jinbo, died in custody. According to
Xue’s family, the body showed signs of torture, but the
official cause of death was cardiac arrest. Tensions
between police and the villagers escalated.
Situations like this are all too common in China:
leaders ignore the legitimate demands of the people, and
punish those who dare to push back against the
unpopular and often illegal actions of leaders at all levels
of the political system.
And then something extraordinary happened: the
provincial leaders stepped in and agreed to the
protesters’ demands. They offered to investigate the
compensation the Wukan farmers had received, and
they fired the Wukan leaders who sold the land,
arranging for new elections to replace them. One of the
leaders of the protest, Lu Zuluan, was elected the new
village chief.
The protests and their resolution were hailed as a
potentially new model of grassroots democracy in China.
Provincial party chief Wang Yang, soon to be elevated to
the Politburo in Beijing, said he intended to use his
peaceful “Wukan approach” to reform local politics across
the province.
But, as is so often the case in Chinese politics, there
was more to the story than this. Like the deposed
village chief, the newly elected leader was a party
member. He had been approved by the provincial party
committee, which had intervened to prevent the protests
from escalating. The Wukan protests did not spread to
other communities, in part because of a blackout on
media coverage of the protests, and in part because of
fear of arrest. What looked to be a prodemocratic
triumph was actually the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
reimposing its authority.
Lu, the new village chief, was himself charged with
corruption several years later. Was this delayed
retaliation for leading the original protest? Or a reminder
that even protest leaders may fall prey to the same bad
behaviors as those they once protested against? It’s
hard to say, because the domestic media blackout
continued, and the people of Wukan were warned
against speaking to foreign media. What originally
seemed like the start of something big turned out to be
just one more small-scale event that—while it did break
out into global news—went unnoticed by most people in
China. In the end, the “Wukan approach” did not
spread.
This episode illustrates well many of the themes familiar
to students of Chinese politics. The imperative from the
CCP to create economic growth—by, for instance,
converting farmland for industrial and commercial
purposes—creates tensions between state and society, as
local leaders take actions that align with the party but
infuriate local citizens. With stability as another policy
imperative, higher level officials are often tacit allies of
local citizens when tensions boil over, willing to remove
local leaders to defuse conflict. In these instances, the
CCP is responsive to public opinion—but will not tolerate
demands that would challenge its monopoly on power.
To understand China in the twenty-first century, we
must begin with one basic fact: all political activity
centers on the CCP. How the party has approached
economic, political, and social reforms over the past few
decades—and the reversal of many of these reforms
under the current leadership—shaped not only the
political system but also the party’s relationship with the
people.
In the decades after Mao’s rule ended, major reforms
transformed economic and social life in China. The
private sector greatly expanded and the country opened
up to connect to the global economy; as it did, incomes
rose, mobility increased, and Chinese people began to
move from the countryside to the cities. All of this
change created expectations among foreign observers
that China’s political system would have to change as
well.
These expectations of political change were influenced
by modernization theory, which is based on one of the
most well-established relationships in the social sciences:
the more prosperous a country is, the more likely it is
to be a democracy. According to this theory, an
increasingly modernized economy is ultimately
incompatible with an authoritarian regime, as economic
modernization triggers social changes—urbanization, higher
levels of education, the decline of agriculture in favor of
industry and commerce, the emergence of a middle
class—that change political values, and these new values
in turn produce demands for a more open political
system. This is what happened in the Western world in
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and in East Asia
and Latin America in the late twentieth century.
However, China’s leaders had a different expectation.
Going back to Deng Xiaoping and continuing under Xi
Jinping, the CCP expected that economic modernization, if
handled properly, would produce popular support and
solidify its hold on power. Greater prosperity was
intended to enhance the CCP’s legitimacy, not threaten
its survival. They wanted to preserve the essential
elements of the one-party regime they established in
1949, with the CCP firmly in command of the policy
goals, of who would be allowed to participate in the
political system, and of the ideas and interests that
would be allowed or—alternatively—suppressed. Unlike
democratic regimes, the legitimacy of the regime would
be based not on the consent of the governed but on
its ability to modernize the country.
To a large degree China’s leaders have achieved their
goals. There are certainly democracy advocates in China,
but they find little support among their fellow citizens,
who place a higher value on economic growth, social
stability, and national unity—the same priorities as the
party’s—than on the political rights and freedoms that
democracy promises. China’s leaders have been
determined to avoid political liberalization that would
weaken party rule, even if it yielded better economic
results. They were willing to settle for poorer economic
results, if necessary, to maintain the party’s supremacy,
and have resisted and repressed all efforts to promote
political reform leading to democratization.
But with the international financial crisis in 2008, after
fifteen years of double-digit growth, China entered a new
phase. Slower economic growth—6.1 percent in
2019—has become the new normal. (The economy even
shrank by 6.8 percent in the first quarter of 2020, but
that was an aberration due to the COVID-19 epidemic.)
Under President Xi Jinping, China is turning away from
the “reform and opening” policies championed by his
predecessor Deng Xiaoping and toward a still ill-defined
“socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era.”
China’s contemporary political system is best described
as “responsiveness without accountability.” Just as it was
in Wukan, the party is often responsive to public opinion
on strictly material issues. When new initiatives spark
public opposition, the party has agreed to cancel the
building of hydroelectric dams, petrochemical plants, and
high-speed rail lines. After public outrage about the
worsening air quality in major cities, it adopted stricter
air pollution standards. Faced with a surge of protests
and petitions about inadequate compensation for land
seized for redevelopment, it adopted new policies on
paying compensation to farmers and homeowners.
But the CCP is not responsive on political issues. And
in China, almost anything can have political overtones:
academic freedom; internet use; and the rights of
women, migrant workers, the handicapped, ethnic
minorities, and other disadvantaged groups all easily
become politicized if the party deems them so.
And, while the party and government are responsive in
some specific situations, they refuse to be accountable to
the public at large. Officials are not elected by the
people but appointed by those at higher levels of the
party and government. With the exception of village
leaders and local people’s congresses (the CCP’s name
for legislatures), officials do not have to worry about
garnering votes. Their public appearances are limited and
usually scripted. While there are opportunities for
individuals and groups to comment on pending laws and
regulations, the government does not make these
comments public (as occurs in the United States); it is
impossible to know whether the comments led to
changes in the final versions. A free media and a
vigorous civil society can be important watchdogs on the
government’s performance, but the media is controlled
by the state in China, investigative journalists are
censored and occasionally imprisoned, and civil society
groups that criticize the party’s policies and its leaders
are routinely suppressed. Protests against local officials
often lead to concessions, but in order to prevent these
cases from emboldening other potential protesters, some
protest leaders are typically charged with endangering
social order and are imprisoned—as happened in Wukan.
Protests can be an effective means of challenging officials
who do not implement policies properly, but harsh
punishment serves as a warning to others not to try
the same thing.
In short, the party may be responsive to the public,
but selectively and on its own terms. It is not
accountable to the people, which would require its
officials or its laws to be endorsed by the public. There
is no formal equivalent of initiative, referendum, and
recall as in democracies around the world. The party
does not even allow public opinion surveys to include
approval ratings for its leaders, instead asking only if
people support or trust party and government officials in
general. To challenge officials they deem to be corrupt,
malfeasant, or incompetent, Chinese citizens instead use
online and public protests. These officials can be
removed from office, but only by their superiors—making
them accountable to their superiors, not directly to the
people.
This responsive aspect of the Chinese political system is
well known to specialists, but less familiar to others.
Much of the research on contemporary Chinese politics
is published in scholarly outlets that are not easily
accessible to more general readers, and—like the study
of political science more generally—it is increasingly
quantitative and largely impenetrable to readers without
advanced training in statistics. Therefore, few readers
outside the academy understand what has now become
the conventional wisdom on Chinese politics.
Much of the media—including excellent reporting by
journalists—focuses on the repressive aspects of the
political system, which are quite real, without similar
coverage of the other tools used by China’s leaders to
govern the country, the informal understandings of both
the party and the people that influence political activities,
and the everyday practice of politics in
twenty-first-century China.
In September 2011, the people of Wukan—a village in
southeastern China—rose up in protest. Their elected
leaders, they alleged, had sold land to developers
without adequate payment to those who had made their
livelihoods farming it. They marched on the government
headquarters in nearby Lufeng city, demanding both
compensation and the right to new elections.
The leaders of Lufeng did not accede to their
demands. Instead they sent riot police to Wukan to shut
down the protests and occupy the village. Over the
course of several months, the village endured a standoff
with police, and a handful of protesters were arrested
and charged with attacking officers. One of the
protesters, Xue Jinbo, died in custody. According to
Xue’s family, the body showed signs of torture, but the
official cause of death was cardiac arrest. Tensions
between police and the villagers escalated.
Situations like this are all too common in China:
leaders ignore the legitimate demands of the people, and
punish those who dare to push back against the
unpopular and often illegal actions of leaders at all levels
of the political system.
And then something extraordinary happened: the
provincial leaders stepped in and agreed to the
protesters’ demands. They offered to investigate the
compensation the Wukan farmers had received, and
they fired the Wukan leaders who sold the land,
arranging for new elections to replace them. One of the
leaders of the protest, Lu Zuluan, was elected the new
village chief.
The protests and their resolution were hailed as a
potentially new model of grassroots democracy in China.
Provincial party chief Wang Yang, soon to be elevated to
the Politburo in Beijing, said he intended to use his
peaceful “Wukan approach” to reform local politics across
the province.
But, as is so often the case in Chinese politics, there
was more to the story than this. Like the deposed
village chief, the newly elected leader was a party
member. He had been approved by the provincial party
committee, which had intervened to prevent the protests
from escalating. The Wukan protests did not spread to
other communities, in part because of a blackout on
media coverage of the protests, and in part because of
fear of arrest. What looked to be a prodemocratic
triumph was actually the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
reimposing its authority.
Lu, the new village chief, was himself charged with
corruption several years later. Was this delayed
retaliation for leading the original protest? Or a reminder
that even protest leaders may fall prey to the same bad
behaviors as those they once protested against? It’s
hard to say, because the domestic media blackout
continued, and the people of Wukan were warned
against speaking to foreign media. What originally
seemed like the start of something big turned out to be
just one more small-scale event that—while it did break
out into global news—went unnoticed by most people in
China. In the end, the “Wukan approach” did not
spread.
This episode illustrates well many of the themes familiar
to students of Chinese politics. The imperative from the
CCP to create economic growth—by, for instance,
converting farmland for industrial and commercial
purposes—creates tensions between state and society, as
local leaders take actions that align with the party but
infuriate local citizens. With stability as another policy
imperative, higher level officials are often tacit allies of
local citizens when tensions boil over, willing to remove
local leaders to defuse conflict. In these instances, the
CCP is responsive to public opinion—but will not tolerate
demands that would challenge its monopoly on power.
To understand China in the twenty-first century, we
must begin with one basic fact: all political activity
centers on the CCP. How the party has approached
economic, political, and social reforms over the past few
decades—and the reversal of many of these reforms
under the current leadership—shaped not only the
political system but also the party’s relationship with the
people.
In the decades after Mao’s rule ended, major reforms
transformed economic and social life in China. The
private sector greatly expanded and the country opened
up to connect to the global economy; as it did, incomes
rose, mobility increased, and Chinese people began to
move from the countryside to the cities. All of this
change created expectations among foreign observers
that China’s political system would have to change as
well.
These expectations of political change were influenced
by modernization theory, which is based on one of the
most well-established relationships in the social sciences:
the more prosperous a country is, the more likely it is
to be a democracy. According to this theory, an
increasingly modernized economy is ultimately
incompatible with an authoritarian regime, as economic
modernization triggers social changes—urbanization, higher
levels of education, the decline of agriculture in favor of
industry and commerce, the emergence of a middle
class—that change political values, and these new values
in turn produce demands for a more open political
system. This is what happened in the Western world in
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and in East Asia
and Latin America in the late twentieth century.
However, China’s leaders had a different expectation.
Going back to Deng Xiaoping and continuing under Xi
Jinping, the CCP expected that economic modernization, if
handled properly, would produce popular support and
solidify its hold on power. Greater prosperity was
intended to enhance the CCP’s legitimacy, not threaten
its survival. They wanted to preserve the essential
elements of the one-party regime they established in
1949, with the CCP firmly in command of the policy
goals, of who would be allowed to participate in the
political system, and of the ideas and interests that
would be allowed or—alternatively—suppressed. Unlike
democratic regimes, the legitimacy of the regime would
be based not on the consent of the governed but on
its ability to modernize the country.
To a large degree China’s leaders have achieved their
goals. There are certainly democracy advocates in China,
but they find little support among their fellow citizens,
who place a higher value on economic growth, social
stability, and national unity—the same priorities as the
party’s—than on the political rights and freedoms that
democracy promises. China’s leaders have been
determined to avoid political liberalization that would
weaken party rule, even if it yielded better economic
results. They were willing to settle for poorer economic
results, if necessary, to maintain the party’s supremacy,
and have resisted and repressed all efforts to promote
political reform leading to democratization.
But with the international financial crisis in 2008, after
fifteen years of double-digit growth, China entered a new
phase. Slower economic growth—6.1 percent in
2019—has become the new normal. (The economy even
shrank by 6.8 percent in the first quarter of 2020, but
that was an aberration due to the COVID-19 epidemic.)
Under President Xi Jinping, China is turning away from
the “reform and opening” policies championed by his
predecessor Deng Xiaoping and toward a still ill-defined
“socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era.”
China’s contemporary political system is best described
as “responsiveness without accountability.” Just as it was
in Wukan, the party is often responsive to public opinion
on strictly material issues. When new initiatives spark
public opposition, the party has agreed to cancel the
building of hydroelectric dams, petrochemical plants, and
high-speed rail lines. After public outrage about the
worsening air quality in major cities, it adopted stricter
air pollution standards. Faced with a surge of protests
and petitions about inadequate compensation for land
seized for redevelopment, it adopted new policies on
paying compensation to farmers and homeowners.
But the CCP is not responsive on political issues. And
in China, almost anything can have political overtones:
academic freedom; internet use; and the rights of
women, migrant workers, the handicapped, ethnic
minorities, and other disadvantaged groups all easily
become politicized if the party deems them so.
And, while the party and government are responsive in
some specific situations, they refuse to be accountable to
the public at large. Officials are not elected by the
people but appointed by those at higher levels of the
party and government. With the exception of village
leaders and local people’s congresses (the CCP’s name
for legislatures), officials do not have to worry about
garnering votes. Their public appearances are limited and
usually scripted. While there are opportunities for
individuals and groups to comment on pending laws and
regulations, the government does not make these
comments public (as occurs in the United States); it is
impossible to know whether the comments led to
changes in the final versions. A free media and a
vigorous civil society can be important watchdogs on the
government’s performance, but the media is controlled
by the state in China, investigative journalists are
censored and occasionally imprisoned, and civil society
groups that criticize the party’s policies and its leaders
are routinely suppressed. Protests against local officials
often lead to concessions, but in order to prevent these
cases from emboldening other potential protesters, some
protest leaders are typically charged with endangering
social order and are imprisoned—as happened in Wukan.
Protests can be an effective means of challenging officials
who do not implement policies properly, but harsh
punishment serves as a warning to others not to try
the same thing.
In short, the party may be responsive to the public,
but selectively and on its own terms. It is not
accountable to the people, which would require its
officials or its laws to be endorsed by the public. There
is no formal equivalent of initiative, referendum, and
recall as in democracies around the world. The party
does not even allow public opinion surveys to include
approval ratings for its leaders, instead asking only if
people support or trust party and government officials in
general. To challenge officials they deem to be corrupt,
malfeasant, or incompetent, Chinese citizens instead use
online and public protests. These officials can be
removed from office, but only by their superiors—making
them accountable to their superiors, not directly to the
people.
This responsive aspect of the Chinese political system is
well known to specialists, but less familiar to others.
Much of the research on contemporary Chinese politics
is published in scholarly outlets that are not easily
accessible to more general readers, and—like the study
of political science more generally—it is increasingly
quantitative and largely impenetrable to readers without
advanced training in statistics. Therefore, few readers
outside the academy understand what has now become
the conventional wisdom on Chinese politics.
Much of the media—including excellent reporting by
journalists—focuses on the repressive aspects of the
political system, which are quite real, without similar
coverage of the other tools used by China’s leaders to
govern the country, the informal understandings of both
the party and the people that influence political activities,
and the everyday practice of politics in
twenty-first-century China.
July 9, 2022
Designed for a general audience, The Party and the People focuses on "big questions in Chinese politics", and that is still deeply valuable. Dickson describes the Chinese political system as having "responsiveness without accountability" - that is, responsive to concerns of the general population on material issues while still retaining one-party control.
Subsequent chapters discuss how the CCP retains power, how leadership is chosen, how policy decisions are made, if China has a civil society at all, if political protests threaten regime stability, the relationship between the CCP and organized religion, and the expressions of Han nationalism. The concluding chapters include some speculation on the process of democratization and the arguments for if democratization will happen or not; Dickson is ambivalent on this. He also provides some points of further tensions in administraiton, but notes that Leninist vanguard parties can be tenacious in holding on to power.
A solid look at the party-state; suitable for the general reader or maybe some undergraduate courses.
Subsequent chapters discuss how the CCP retains power, how leadership is chosen, how policy decisions are made, if China has a civil society at all, if political protests threaten regime stability, the relationship between the CCP and organized religion, and the expressions of Han nationalism. The concluding chapters include some speculation on the process of democratization and the arguments for if democratization will happen or not; Dickson is ambivalent on this. He also provides some points of further tensions in administraiton, but notes that Leninist vanguard parties can be tenacious in holding on to power.
A solid look at the party-state; suitable for the general reader or maybe some undergraduate courses.
April 23, 2024
I found this to be an excellent primer on contemporary Chinese politics and society. Each chapter introduces and then attempts to analyze and answer (without too much speculation) a pressing question: how nationalistic is China? does China have a civil society? what is the attitude toward religion? how are party leaders chosen, and how do they stay in power? The style can be a bit dry and academic at times, but I appreciated how uncluttered, sober, and even-handed this book was. Recommended for anyone who wants to cut through all the strident and histrionic headlines these days about China's rise.
September 18, 2022
Interesting enough book but a bit dry. Reads a bit like a Phd thesis…chronological, with each chapter starting by telling you what is in the chapter and end telling you what the chapter has covered….so far too much stuff repeated.
I was primarily interested in how economic development changed the political sphere. Alas little on it, other than to say that classical political theory always has democracy evolving with rising living standards, a line that is trotted out a few times in the book. But this hasn’t happened in China, as the author points out.
However the Chinese Communist Party has changed since its inception in 1949, and each new President has wrought their own changes. As to the Party being monolithic, apparently this is not so as there is scope further down the political chain for both input and variable political appointments, nearly all however are top down appointees.
My thoughts on reading this is how Starmer’s Labour Party has taken a leaf from the CCP’s book with a committee appointed by the Labour Party hierarchy deciding on the shortlist candidates for Labour at General and By-Elections, where only the “loyal” and obsequious can join the list. The result of this is that local Branches are no longer selecting their own candidates, and are cancelling their membership in droves.
Also, in the USA potential candidates, mostly Democrats, have massive campaigns against them from the Superpacs, to ensure for example, only quiescent non-environmentalist or Palestine supporters / critics of Israel make it onto the ballot paper. So it is the corporation lobbyists who often determine the candidates: as was said many moons back, the US is the best democracy money can buy.
Not much difference between China’s political appointee and one moulded to suit the interests of one group or a corporation.
The book is totally silent on the soft diplomatic Belt and Roads projects, operating throughout much of Africa, Central and South Asia. This operation creates lots of new trade agreements, which create the wealth which buys off much dissent in China…not a single mention of it.
The author points out the different perspectives of democracy as seen in China and in The West. The hoped for democratisation of China is partially to do with the fact that “Democracies don’t fight each other”, another well-established finding in political science according to the author. Perhaps not: but if you look at how “democracies” …America especially, bully the rest of the world into coming under their sphere of influence. Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Venezuela and nearly all of Central and South America, Cuba, Yeman and currently Ukraine. Not wars as such, but total slaughter, often by proxies. And if not bombs and bullets, economic sanctions, as against Iran. And there is also the case of Israel, funded by the USA to murder and repress a nation. The proxy wars are effectively outsourced wars, which puts a halt the American troops coming back in body bags, which does not go down too well in the USA.
As to why those in power are reluctant to let it go, examples are given of regimes where this has happened…Ceaușescu in Romania being the most public and egregregious public, but also previous leaders in South Korea and Taiwan imprisoned their leaders when they lost power.
Mention is made of Chinese’s debt burden. I am not aware of this – I think they have the largest Sovereign Fund in the World – in 2021 it had US$1.2 trillion in assets under management, at least 10% of this is invested in the USA.
President Xi Jinping has warned of the possibility of black swan events – events which come as a surprise, are not previously legislated for, and break with the expected. The author mentions two such examples, of democracy evolving with rising living standards, and the fact that democracies don’t go to war against each other. Perhaps if the author widened his horizons and came to view his subject through the lens of classical political theory of the East, rather than the classical political theory of the West, he would realise that what he perceives as Black Swans are in fact standard happenings / events in the part of the world he is writing about…which is Russia and all points east.
Having previously been neutral, and fairly ignorant on the issue, having read the book I’ve decided that the CCP is a far better model of running society that our democracies. The CCP governs for all its people, which is China is 1,451,583,949 as of Sunday, September 18, 2022, but excluding the Uyghurs and Tibetan Buddhists… approx. 12m & 6m approx. Because it has improved the living standards of just about all its people in the last 20 /25 years, multipying their wages by 4 or 5 times and created a large comfortable middle class, the Chinese people by and large are supportive, both of its method of ruling and its results. Whereas we in the UK and USA have squirrelled our wealth to the 1%, with the other 99% having lower wages now than 20 years ago, as we head into a cataclysmic economic front
I was primarily interested in how economic development changed the political sphere. Alas little on it, other than to say that classical political theory always has democracy evolving with rising living standards, a line that is trotted out a few times in the book. But this hasn’t happened in China, as the author points out.
However the Chinese Communist Party has changed since its inception in 1949, and each new President has wrought their own changes. As to the Party being monolithic, apparently this is not so as there is scope further down the political chain for both input and variable political appointments, nearly all however are top down appointees.
My thoughts on reading this is how Starmer’s Labour Party has taken a leaf from the CCP’s book with a committee appointed by the Labour Party hierarchy deciding on the shortlist candidates for Labour at General and By-Elections, where only the “loyal” and obsequious can join the list. The result of this is that local Branches are no longer selecting their own candidates, and are cancelling their membership in droves.
Also, in the USA potential candidates, mostly Democrats, have massive campaigns against them from the Superpacs, to ensure for example, only quiescent non-environmentalist or Palestine supporters / critics of Israel make it onto the ballot paper. So it is the corporation lobbyists who often determine the candidates: as was said many moons back, the US is the best democracy money can buy.
Not much difference between China’s political appointee and one moulded to suit the interests of one group or a corporation.
The book is totally silent on the soft diplomatic Belt and Roads projects, operating throughout much of Africa, Central and South Asia. This operation creates lots of new trade agreements, which create the wealth which buys off much dissent in China…not a single mention of it.
The author points out the different perspectives of democracy as seen in China and in The West. The hoped for democratisation of China is partially to do with the fact that “Democracies don’t fight each other”, another well-established finding in political science according to the author. Perhaps not: but if you look at how “democracies” …America especially, bully the rest of the world into coming under their sphere of influence. Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Venezuela and nearly all of Central and South America, Cuba, Yeman and currently Ukraine. Not wars as such, but total slaughter, often by proxies. And if not bombs and bullets, economic sanctions, as against Iran. And there is also the case of Israel, funded by the USA to murder and repress a nation. The proxy wars are effectively outsourced wars, which puts a halt the American troops coming back in body bags, which does not go down too well in the USA.
As to why those in power are reluctant to let it go, examples are given of regimes where this has happened…Ceaușescu in Romania being the most public and egregregious public, but also previous leaders in South Korea and Taiwan imprisoned their leaders when they lost power.
Mention is made of Chinese’s debt burden. I am not aware of this – I think they have the largest Sovereign Fund in the World – in 2021 it had US$1.2 trillion in assets under management, at least 10% of this is invested in the USA.
President Xi Jinping has warned of the possibility of black swan events – events which come as a surprise, are not previously legislated for, and break with the expected. The author mentions two such examples, of democracy evolving with rising living standards, and the fact that democracies don’t go to war against each other. Perhaps if the author widened his horizons and came to view his subject through the lens of classical political theory of the East, rather than the classical political theory of the West, he would realise that what he perceives as Black Swans are in fact standard happenings / events in the part of the world he is writing about…which is Russia and all points east.
Having previously been neutral, and fairly ignorant on the issue, having read the book I’ve decided that the CCP is a far better model of running society that our democracies. The CCP governs for all its people, which is China is 1,451,583,949 as of Sunday, September 18, 2022, but excluding the Uyghurs and Tibetan Buddhists… approx. 12m & 6m approx. Because it has improved the living standards of just about all its people in the last 20 /25 years, multipying their wages by 4 or 5 times and created a large comfortable middle class, the Chinese people by and large are supportive, both of its method of ruling and its results. Whereas we in the UK and USA have squirrelled our wealth to the 1%, with the other 99% having lower wages now than 20 years ago, as we head into a cataclysmic economic front
Read
February 16, 2024Great, easy-to-read primer on the CCP. Don’t know enough about China to judge how accurate it is, but I felt like I learned a lot :D
March 3, 2024
A very good read – suitable for general public also provides some useful academic references. The key takeaway from this book is that Chinese communist party is not always top down but powers are quite fragmented. Local powers also are important players. Very interesting aspects in examining too – election process, NGO, religion, etc. highly recommended if interested in post Mao Chinese politics.
Read
December 27, 2021Good primer that hammers home the point that the CCP's governing recipe is "responsiveness without accountability". Some chapters are a bit too elementary (like the one explaining the Hong Kong protests) but my sense is this book is aimed at an audience new to China.
November 20, 2022
A comprehensive overview of Chinese politics and up-to-date to the developments after Xi. I learned useful facts, but I won't say it provides many new insights.
The one exception might be Bruce Dickson's sound bite: "responsiveness without accountability." CCP responds to the public's demands and even compromises with protesters. But this responsiveness is strictly limited on material matters and does not extend to appeal to rights. The public has internalized this unspoken rule and framed their activism accordingly. When people protest, they mainly seek to have national laws, regulations, policies properly implemented locally. The author also notes that CCP has been deviating away from this model since Xi took power.
The author also argues against the general impression that Chinese people, especially the young generation, are getting more nationalistic. The Beijing Area Survey between 1998 and 2013 shows that nationalist sentiments peaked in 2008 and declined afterward. The surveys also show that young respondents are less nationalistic than older respondents—a result also found in the author's nationwide survey of urban China in 2014. The national survey also shows that young people are less likely to agree with CCP's victimization statements.
Why do we get the impression that young people have more nationalistic fervor? The author claims the perception might originate from biased observation: we observe nationalistic sentiments via actions such as anti-Japan protests, and young people are more likely to act on their beliefs.
Side notes:
• Local leaders tend to be frequently rotated and have a short tenure. As a result, ambitious officials focus more on targets that are easier to achieve in the short term, such as economic growth. They focus less on improvements in education and healthcare, which are harder to measure and take a longer time to achieve.
• Local governments need NGOs to help them work. Examples include services to immigrant workers and poverty alleviation.
• NIMBY campaigns were quite successful. Anti-PX protests blocked the construction in Xiamen (2007), Dalian (2011), Maoming (2014), and Shanghai (2015). People in Shanghai also stopped the planned extension of the magnetic levitation train.
• I still have doubt with the author's claim that the education campaign that depicts China as the victim of international forces only started in 1990s. Isn't it always there in Mao's writings?
The one exception might be Bruce Dickson's sound bite: "responsiveness without accountability." CCP responds to the public's demands and even compromises with protesters. But this responsiveness is strictly limited on material matters and does not extend to appeal to rights. The public has internalized this unspoken rule and framed their activism accordingly. When people protest, they mainly seek to have national laws, regulations, policies properly implemented locally. The author also notes that CCP has been deviating away from this model since Xi took power.
The author also argues against the general impression that Chinese people, especially the young generation, are getting more nationalistic. The Beijing Area Survey between 1998 and 2013 shows that nationalist sentiments peaked in 2008 and declined afterward. The surveys also show that young respondents are less nationalistic than older respondents—a result also found in the author's nationwide survey of urban China in 2014. The national survey also shows that young people are less likely to agree with CCP's victimization statements.
Why do we get the impression that young people have more nationalistic fervor? The author claims the perception might originate from biased observation: we observe nationalistic sentiments via actions such as anti-Japan protests, and young people are more likely to act on their beliefs.
Side notes:
• Local leaders tend to be frequently rotated and have a short tenure. As a result, ambitious officials focus more on targets that are easier to achieve in the short term, such as economic growth. They focus less on improvements in education and healthcare, which are harder to measure and take a longer time to achieve.
• Local governments need NGOs to help them work. Examples include services to immigrant workers and poverty alleviation.
• NIMBY campaigns were quite successful. Anti-PX protests blocked the construction in Xiamen (2007), Dalian (2011), Maoming (2014), and Shanghai (2015). People in Shanghai also stopped the planned extension of the magnetic levitation train.
• I still have doubt with the author's claim that the education campaign that depicts China as the victim of international forces only started in 1990s. Isn't it always there in Mao's writings?
January 9, 2023
I really liked this! Interesting look at the functioning of the CCP without at all favouring a Western point of view, a criterion surprisingly hard to satisfy these days. It's insightful because it has a thesis that goes against the grain in many areas, for example in examining which groups are the most nationalist, how nationalism links to policy, how repression and responsiveness are balanced etc, but it is very convincing in its handling of data and analysis. Very carefully considered as well, for instance in the chapters breaking down China's response to different types of religions and surmising why, or showing us how China is responsive only in issues that don't threaten politically. Really fascinating for anyone who is actually interested in how and why decisions are made in China's present-day system.
July 20, 2021
A good primer on Chinese politics and how the CCP maintains and exerts its power as well as examining its relationship with the people. The book explores eight major questions about the CCP, devoting a chapter to each:
1. What keeps the party in power?
2. How are leaders chosen?
3. How are policies made?
4. Does China have a civil society?
5. Do political protests threaten political stability?
6. Why does the party fear religion?
7. How nationalistic is China?
8. Will China become democratic?
Reads very much like an academic book but isn’t necessarily dry. Recommended if, like me, you didn’t know a hell of a lot about the CCP to begin with.
1. What keeps the party in power?
2. How are leaders chosen?
3. How are policies made?
4. Does China have a civil society?
5. Do political protests threaten political stability?
6. Why does the party fear religion?
7. How nationalistic is China?
8. Will China become democratic?
Reads very much like an academic book but isn’t necessarily dry. Recommended if, like me, you didn’t know a hell of a lot about the CCP to begin with.
December 7, 2021
if you’re reading this book don’t waste your time only chapter 5 has real material.
i thought there would be more insightful analysis on this book but the chapters that could have had the most Material (e.g chapter 7—youre literally writing about tibet, xinjiang, hong kong and taiwan…) were quite bland in the sense that i wouldn’t be able to tell them apart from those (very helpful) “xxx in less than 500 words” briefs on BBC.
bonus points though for having the sheer balls to put pictures of winnie the pooh and xjp side by side with the caption “pooh and his real-life counterpart: general secretary xi jinping of the chinese communist party”.
i thought there would be more insightful analysis on this book but the chapters that could have had the most Material (e.g chapter 7—youre literally writing about tibet, xinjiang, hong kong and taiwan…) were quite bland in the sense that i wouldn’t be able to tell them apart from those (very helpful) “xxx in less than 500 words” briefs on BBC.
bonus points though for having the sheer balls to put pictures of winnie the pooh and xjp side by side with the caption “pooh and his real-life counterpart: general secretary xi jinping of the chinese communist party”.
July 26, 2023
Dickson provides excellent insight into how the CCP engages with the public to stay in power, offering detailed, nuanced, and credible explanations for how China engages with the public, religion, and nationalism. The Party and the People challenges conventional wisdom where appropriate and details how the CCP engages society in a manner designed to bolster the party's ability to stay in power while still appeasing popular sentiments. This book is an excellent foundation for anybody seeking to understand why the CCP interacts with the public in the manner it does while vigorously defending its policies to domestic and international audiences.
October 13, 2021
This makes a good text book on the realities of the Chinese Communist Party system. A little dry at times, but still a good reference to understand the actual structures and practices of the CCP. This also helped relegate some of the myths and misperceptions. Very up to date with chapters devoted to Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong issues. My biggest takeaway was “responsive but not accountable” that theme was repeated in many forms of example.
August 13, 2022
Great book that largely avoids cliches, admits the limits of information on the inner workings of the CCP, and steers clear of simplistic narratives.
Negatives:
* it was a bit too charitable to the CCP at times. Some would argue it might be an important corrective, but still detracts from the book IMO.
* Book was too short. Wished it would explore some subjects in more detail.
Negatives:
* it was a bit too charitable to the CCP at times. Some would argue it might be an important corrective, but still detracts from the book IMO.
* Book was too short. Wished it would explore some subjects in more detail.
July 18, 2021
Richard McGregor's "The Party" is still the authoritative work on the CCP. The new developments covered in this book, largely pertaining to Xi Jinping, are available in news publications. The analysis didn't deepen my understanding of the CCP beyond what I'd learned from McGregor's work.
December 27, 2021
A 3.5 to me.
This is overall a good book. Professor Dickson obviously has done extensive research and has deep knowledge about Chinese politics.
I love the contents, but the writing is a little repetitive. It could have been an essay, instead of a book IMO.
This is overall a good book. Professor Dickson obviously has done extensive research and has deep knowledge about Chinese politics.
I love the contents, but the writing is a little repetitive. It could have been an essay, instead of a book IMO.
November 7, 2023
I wouldn’t call this a page turner by any means, but it is a great study in how the CCP develops and achieves its goals and policies. It’s also a critique of Chairman Xi and his policies that, while serving himself, have destabilized both his party and his nation.
May 3, 2024
A must read for anyone who wants to understand the political system in China : how it evolved over time and how it works. The historical information are accurate and it’s not too difficult to read even for someone that doesn’t know much about China. Absolutely recommended!
August 31, 2021
without
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 25, 2021
A sobering look at PRC tenacity to power. The writer avoids both reductively ideological judgement and cheerleading. An engrossing read.
October 29, 2021
Good introduction to the Chinese system and the CCP but I was expecting a lot more depth, considering it was recommended by The Economist.
July 10, 2022
More of a 3.5
March 23, 2023
A must read book to know the internal working mechanisms of CCP. In sum, within CCP there is a strict democracy.
May 4, 2023
i have issues with the nationalism chapter but i digress
Read
October 2, 2023super interesting and accessible language
January 20, 2024
It's ok. A bit light on some topics, and had quite a few typos in the middle chapters.
May 10, 2024
moderately interesting synopsis of the current state of Chinese politics. Surprisingly stresses that the party's responsiveness is a key factor in its survival.
October 2, 2021
A highly readable introduction on ways the party-state makes policies, interacts with the civil society, and maintains its right to govern.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews