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| Image from FT |
While the Trump administration has a simplistic world view on most things, it was right to challenge our thinking on China. But, to know something, it pays to go deeper than our twitter feeds. A couple of very insightful articles on China in Foreign Affairs
An in depth look from the inside at the Chinese Communist Party, "The Party That Failed: An Insider Breaks With Beijing" by Cai Xia, a professor who educated the top leaders in the Chinese Communist Party. It's fascinating to read the experience of a true believer in the ideals of marxist communism, realizing over time that the regime is not.
"Over the course of his tenure, the regime has degenerated further into a political oligarchy bent on holding on to power through brutality and ruthlessness. It has grown even more repressive and dictatorial. A personality cult now surrounds Xi, who has tightened the party’s grip on ideology and eliminated what little space there was for political speech and civil society. People who haven’t lived in mainland China for the past eight years can hardly understand how brutal the regime has become, how many quiet tragedies it has authored. After speaking out against the system, I learned it was no longer safe for me to live in China."
In "The World China Wants: How Power Will—and Won’t—Reshape Chinese Ambitions", Rana Mitter presents a more nuanced view of China's ambitions
"Chinese power today is a protean, dynamic force formed by the nexus of authoritarianism, consumerism, global ambitions, and technology. Call it the ACGT model: with the same initials as the nucleotides in DNA, these strands of Chinese power combine and recombine to form China’s modern political identity and approach to the rest of the world. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) wants to firm up its grip on Chinese society, encourage consumerism at home and abroad, expand its global influence, and develop and export China’s own advanced technology. China’s current standing and future prospects cannot be understood without seeing all four of those goals together."
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