On Sat, 10 May 2008 11:34:32 -0700 (PDT), aozotorp@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
>http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=B0878AE6-B119-4305-BD50-5E2EA2AFE642
>
>Beijing Embraces Classical Fascism
>By Michael Ledeen
>Far Eastern Economic Review (May 2008) | Friday, May 09, 2008
>In 2002, I speculated that China may be something we have never seen
>before: a mature fascist state. Recent events there, especially the
>mass rage in response to Western criticism, seem to confirm that
>theory. More significantly, over the intervening six years China's
>leaders have consolidated their hold on the organs of control--
>political, economic and cultural. Instead of gradually embracing
>pluralism as many expected, China's cor****atist elite has become even
>more entrenched.
There is a lot of nonsense written by western authors that try too
hard to shoehorn China into one of the western models of political
systems.
Here's a short WIKIPEDIA article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_strategic_thought
that best describes China's strategic objectives. China's form of
government and its actions are best judged from this (article's)
perspective.
---------------
[ Chinese strategic thought consists of concepts of statecraft in both
historical and modern China. China has had a long history of
statecraft. One of the most famous thinkers in traditional Chinese
thinking is Sun Tzu who lived during the period of the Warring States.
The Chinese language has a very rich vocabulary for describing
political and military strategies. When taken in the framework of
Western international relations theory, Chinese strategic thought may
best be described as realist rather than liberal, cognitive, etc.
Modern Chinese strategic thought consists of an amalgam of traditional
Chinese strategic thinking, Marxism, and indigenous influences, in
addition to concepts such as the revolution in military affairs.
Chinese papers written about political or military strategy generally
contain a unique mix of the modern and the traditional with
discussions of 21st century information warfare intermixed with
allusions to events in ancient Chinese history.
The goal of current strategic thinkers within the People's Republic of
China is to create a strong, powerful, and united China which is a
Great power within the world. Chinese strategists believe that in
achieving this goal, they are not pursuing any hegemonic or war-like
ambitions and are sometimes very perplexed that others may see China's
ambitions in this way. Unlike the Soviet Union and the United States,
Chinese strategists after the 1980s do not believe that they are
advancing any higher international ideological interests such as world
communism or freedom, and are generally cynical about the motives of
nations, particularly the United States, who claim that they are
motivated by higher goals such as spreading freedom and democracy.
These goals of Chinese grand strategy have not been subject to any
serious debate within the People's Republic of China, and are arguably
the same as the ones that have motivated China since the Opium Wars.
Chinese strategic thinkers tend to view current international
relations as a competition between states acting in their
self-interest similar to that of the Warring States period in Chinese
history. The chief question which Chinese strategic thinkers have
focused on involves the relation****p with the United States. The
dilemma that China perceives itself in is that on the one hand United
States may be an obstacle to China's rise to being a great power,
while at the same time, it is also believed that the United States is
also indispensable to China's rise to being a great power.
Increasingly, China can be seen to have aligned itself most closely
with Russia, and in 2001, the two countries have signed the twenty
year Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation.
Im****tant concepts which are unique in modern Chinese thought include
people's war and comprehensive national power. ]
------------
Based on the CPC rule since 1949 the current system can be said to be
Legalist. Go read up The Seven Miltary Classics of Ancient China,
Ralp D. Sawyer (Ed. 2008)
http://www.amazon.com/Military-Classics-Ancient-History-Warfare/dp/0465003044/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210447146&sr=1-1
for details.
In relation to present day China The Sovereign (The CPC) rules and
there is no nonsense about the people having the power or the desire
to chose who their sovereign should be least of all put a slate of
them for popular election every four years and risk discontinuity in
strategic objectives. The only difference from ancient times is that
instead of a single sovereign we now have a politburo that makes a
collective decision. This overcomes several fatal shortcomings of the
emperor system - the problem of succession and transition, the problem
of removing an incompetent emperor and the problem of having the fate
of a nation decided by a single man. In modern China there will no
longer be hereditary leader****p nor a royal or an aristocratic class.
The top leaders already come from ordianry people who have proven
ability for government and for leader****p.
It took two millenia over the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States
eras to arrive to the frist unification of China. If you read Chinese
history there was no good and evil. The devastating wars were a
natural development when there were contending states. Armies a
million strong on each side were fielded and the casualties
horrendous. Only one all powerful state can exist in China and had
been so ever since. In times of weakness when China did break up it
was both the common demand as well as the eventual reality that China
would be united as one again. The emperor and dynastic system worked
well for the next two millenia until 1911. We are now in beginning
of the third epoch of China's history. There will be much to do to
fine tune governance that will likely last another two millenia. Mush
of that governance will build on China's historical experience. It
will certainly not be any of the western political systems that
westerners try too hard to force China into. Mao's communism isn't
even true Marxist. Again if you go into Chinese history there was a
communist like experiment more than a thousand years ago. In Mao's
philosophical development much of his ideas for the peasant based
Revolution was drawn from the Taiping Rebellion. As many agree the
CPC may call itself communist. But it is not the communism people
come to associate with Marx or with Russian communism.
There is a lot more I can and wish to argue on that China has her own
form of governance that worked well for her set of conditions. But
SCC is not a suitable place to do so.
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