Politics

中国的恐惧统治

Feb 8, 2016 Minxin Pei

克莱蒙特—中国再次面临毛泽东时代后便不见踪影的恐惧。从中共内部的宫廷秘室到大学讲堂和企业高管办公室，严厉指控和更严厉的惩罚正在让中国政治、知识和商业精英不寒而栗。

无处不在的恐惧迹象随处可见。自习近平从2012年12月启动冷酷无情的高压反腐运动以来，政府官员被捕已成家常便饭，让他们的同僚和朋友惶惶不可终日。

即使是老资格也无法提供保护，146名落马“老虎”（省部级干部）常常在没有任何警告的情况下被抓。中国出现了一个新词汇来描述这种突如其来的官员落马：秒杀。

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 5 Comments on this article

Thorsten Pattberg Mar 3, 2016

Mr. Pei has “predicted” the Party’s downfall no less than three times! In 1994, in 2006, and in 2016! Ok, his 1994 take doesn’t really register, because he could not possibly have predicted the rise of the internet, email, September 11, and Starbuck frappuccinos. But by 2006 Mr. Pei could clearly tell, deduced from the wiggle of his toes, that the 60-million-members strong Communist Party of China would call it quits after his powerful book was published. Well, they didn’t. http://www.east-west-dichotomy.com/pei-minxin-nytimes-propaganda/
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S Kaleberg Feb 14, 2016

None of this is surprising. China has worked like this for centuries if not millennia. Corruption is a serious problem, as is political instability. China's leadership uses the same mechanism against corruption as against political problems. The mechanism is not particularly transparent. There are no public trials for obvious reasons, so the lesson is fear.

The Soviet Union had a similar problem and took a similar approach.
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Marius Van Andel Feb 12, 2016

Florian Pantazi has no clue about what is going on in China or he is fronting some hack at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences or another propaganda bureau masquarading as a "thinktank" .

The highly selective anti-corruption campaign is nothing more than a political tool used to reverse the progress China has made as a modern nation of well-educated relatively free people with as the ultimate purpose to postpone the inevitable demise of the CPC.

Academic freedom is indeed much restricted in comparison to earlier years. As a former teacher of law in China I can attest to that.

The comparison between Putin and Xi is apt. If as oligarch you support Putin you stay free . . . . . . same in China. If as oligarch you show some independence of thinking you get jailed if you are lucky or killed. Xi himself is as corrupt as Putin but perhaps, not yet, as wealthy. Former premier Wen is a billioinaire! Clever feat for a geologist!!

I am looking forward to the new book "The New Emporer".
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j. von Hettlingen Feb 9, 2016

Minxin Pei is watching warily how China's repression of academics, human-rights lawyers and activists, bloggers and independent journalists, writers, artists, business leaders etc. has intensified since Xi Jinping took office in November 2012. While promoting his "China Dream" Xi has also transformed his country into a "nightmare" for anyone who dares to oppose the Communist party and potentially challenge its monopoly of power.
Xi earned praise for showing his resolve in tackling rampant corruption. Both he and Putin have always lamented the demise of the Soviet Union, saying it was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century. Indeed, the Soviet collapse still haunts China's ruling party, and its leadership put the blame in part on corruption in Russia.
However Xi's anti-corruption crusade is reminiscent of Mao’s purge of intellectual and counterrevolutionaries during the Cultural Revolution. More than 100,000 party members have been disciplined since the crackdown began, through a process that is entirely overseen by the party. The public is not invited to take part, with anti-corruption activists being prosecuted and put behind bars. The leadership avoids mass denunciations of corrupt and arrogant officials in public, knowing too well where this path would lead - to the old days of the Cultural Revoulution.
For Xi Jinping China's survival revolves around the Communist party. The persecution of dissidents and anti-government activists aims to defend the party's “ideological security.” It has already been criticised for its ongoing failure to uphold the country’s constitution and laws, so Xi seeks to restore the heart and soul of the party, as well as to boost its image, in order to legitimise its grip on power. Chinese leaders are seen as the embodiment of the party's core. Xi has gone one step further by revamping the military, making him China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.
Both Putin and Xi loathe the "infiltration" of Western democratic values, saying Gorbachev was too carried away by his "Glasnost and Perestroika," which had weakened the Soviet Union, and ultimately led to its collapse, plunging the country into economic and political stagnation and international isolation. Both leaders see any spread of pro-Western thinking as "scornful" of their countries' unique cultural identities.
No doubt Xi is in a dilemma too, torn between “reform and opening” on the one hand and excluding Western influence on the other. This paradox has created an uneasy tension in his presidency. With a booming economy China will have to meet the growing expectations of its citizens, who question a political system, that has "retained its core totalitarian features: a state exempt from the rule of law, a domestic security apparatus with agents and informants virtually everywhere, widespread censorship, and weak protection of individual rights." If the country wants to move forward, it has to abandon the "institutional relics of Maoism" that enhance a fear-based governance.
It is unclear how "Western leaders should be developing strategies for compelling China to rethink its approach." They have adopted China's foreign policy - no meddling in another country's domestic affairs. Indeed, with "China’s international influence growing by the day, the revival of totalitarian scare tactics there has far-reaching – and deeply unsettling – implications for Asia and the world."
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Florian Pantazi Feb 9, 2016

Your op-ed is highly biased, as it denies China the right to punish corporate or individual criminals. Western corporations and banks have been fined billions of dollars by the US and/or various EU governments for tax avoidance, illegal transactions, corruption, etc, yet no one has accused Western governments of "ruling by fear".

In my view, the anti-corruption campaign currently underway in China is no different from any other anti-corruption drive in countries like Romania, the US and so on. It also seems to me that the campaign was necessary because of the epidemic proportion of corruption at all levels of the state administration.
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中国的恐惧统治

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