One Man To Rule Them All
It's official. Xi Jinping is still "King of China," as Donald Trump famously put it. Xi's reshuffled Standing Committee, unveiled Sunday, suggests five years of unswerving adherence to his policies, both domestic and abroad.
Xi's pathbreaking third term has been a foregone conclusion for quite some time, so the 20th National Congress was really about assessing his commitment to the pursuit of what Western analysts view as an increasingly bellicose policy agenda.
I often hesitate when using wor
Mercantilism with Chinese characteristics.
Taiwan is a modern Gibraltar. Chinese Navy will always be constrained by it. Naval embarrassments are a part of Chinese history
I wonder if we will see something analogous to Mao’s 1960s-1970s period. The Covid lockdowns have had more than a whiff of the Cultural Revolution.
It is funny how perceptions evolve over time.
When I was in my 20’s, I remember how much I enjoyed reading “The Good Earth”- Pearl S. Buck and how it influenced my thinking about China; which is considerably different than how I think about China today.
As I read these discussions about China I have many conflicted emotions. My last employer was a mid-western university where I taught business and finance for 35 years. Our school (I’m still an emeritus professor there) has an MBA program, which I co-founded in 1974, that serves student populations in both Hong Kong (for more than 20 years) and Shanghai (for 15 years or so). These two offshore programs are accredited by the AACSB and have remained active through Covid. Somehow with all the back and forth between the US and China, our MBA students have continued to matriculate relatively undisturbed. The politics we have seen about tech and trade somehow haven’t disrupted the supported desire to improve business education.
I do not imagine that China would have an immediate issue with MBAs going to school here in the Midwest. The US is a free country. And it’s all the better if partnerships with programs in Hong Kong and Shanghai can be maintained. Although I cannot imagine the communist party would countenance and promote free-thought and ideals being taught in China’s universities.
Being a democracy, the US doesn’t agree with “one-man rule,” as Xi Jinping’s leadership is now characterized. Hu Jintao seems to have been shoved out of the leadership team. It’s regrettable because he was a moderating voice. Now only Xi can “moderate”. The question in my mind is the extent to which Xi will move to dissolve partnerships with western universities in the coming years.
The US has no reason to fear China’s people. But China’s government may find reason to fear its people being educated in America and learning the ways of freedom and capitalism. Our values may stand in opposition to values being exercised by the leaders in Beijing.