Amazon
Category:
Political Science
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN-10: 059513906X
Type: Fiction
Pages: 244
Copyright: Nov 1 2000
This is a political treatise that deals with the China issue from a completely new perspective. Disparaging as he may sound, from page to page, toward "the old system" and the Communist Party's various wiles, the author demonstrates his mysteriously profound understanding of the Chinese leadership and the on-going changes in the world's most populous country.
A Guide to Chinese Affairs contains 12 chapters discussing such issues as communist rhetoric and phraseology; the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre; Western influences in China; the communist state apparatus; pressures for political reform; the Chinese leadership headed by President Jiang Zemin; China's economic reforms and investment environment; factionalism in the ruling Communist Party; bureaucratic corruption; social unrest; China's intentions regarding Taiwan and Hong Kong; and comparisons of historical events in China.
Since the author was born in Shanghai, China, and lived under the communist system for many years, this political treatise reflects the views of a man who knows how a Chinese person thinks in the Chinese language and how the communist sytem works in China. So, although the book is written in English, in some sense, it may serve as a tool to help Westerners look at the China issue through an expert Chinese eye.
Excerpt
Political dissidents' criticisms of Jiang aside, I tend to see President Jiang Zemin as a political barometer that measures and registers China's overall political atmosphere. If he visits Wall Street and strikes the New York Stock Exchange gavel at the end of the afternoon session, you bet it's good news for the Chinese people since it suggests that more economic freedom, even more political relaxation, may be on the way. On the other hand, if he starts to intone Marxist incantations, you'd better watch out -- something naughty might be going on in the Politburo of the Communist Party....
In the final analysis, politics is business, big business. It is about money -- about the control of public resources. Someday, the Communist Party will find it difficult to keep doing business as a monopoly, because, dissatisfied with the poor quality of service (or even raw deal) from the monopoly, ordinary Chinese citizens -- theoretically, the customers of the Communist Monopoly Franchise -- are likely to demand that competition be allowed to induce better quality of service. Then, the Party will see the need to adopt a proactive approach by adjusting its business practices and business philosophies...., according to the changing conditions of the marketplace, so as to stay in business and profit from it....
.... To call a spade a spade, the Communist revolutionaries' "People's Democracy" is nothing but a monopoly dictatorship as pretty or ugly (depending on how you look at the picture) as the Nationalist reactionaries' "mandatory rule" of 60 years ago. This is a simple truth the major shareholders of the Communist Monopoly Franchise (i.e. the conservatives of the Communist Party) have yet to come to terms with. Until then, the Party is not free (i.e. not free from crises), because only the truth can set it free. But, here, the question is: Does history repeat itself in 60-year cycles? Or do the fortunes of the land "revolve in 60-year cycles" as the ancestors of the Chinese suspected? ....
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