teohjitkhiam’s Reviews > CEO, China: The Rise of Xi Jinping > Status Update

"Chinese leaders believe in scientific progress..since 1949 have set out dynamic visions for the future..based on this faith. For Western leaders, it is..more about maintaining..the status quo..preferable to..future radical rupture..seeking to preserve but not to transform..Chinese leaders still talk of the ‘perfecting’ of the socialist system..‘Perfection’ is almost a taboo word for..democratic political systems."

"The idea that there was a political truth that the Party was pursuing and that would practically unleash the potential of the country was something that did not change even after Mao’s death..One day, the truth would be found. But until then, there was the continuing struggle, the pursuit, the aspiration to get better and better..and to continue seeking the ‘perfecting’ of modernity, with Chinese characteristics."

"At the heart of this was the question of..the role of the Party was. At the time of Mao’s death, the Party was a personal fiefdom..Under Deng..it transformed into a sort of ‘bureaucratic machine’..The Party’s search for..legitimacy resulted in its depending almost entirely on economic growth. Wang’s critique..What was the authentic voice of Chinese modernity that..escape the taunt of being..derivative of the West?"

"One of the challenges..in China since 1976 has been to take a position on Mao Zedong..like an immense felled tree placed in the middle of a yard that people can choose to go over or around but which they cannot ignore..Xi has addressed this..is by stressing..absolute unity between..pre- and post-1978..The Party needed to have unified thinking..to avoid..accusation of..self-contradictory and intellectually divided.."

"If there is one source of power for the CCP that it cannot jettison..it is this control of the historical narrative: the justificatory story of its rise to power, the inevitability..and the moral reasons behind it..China’s interests and the Party’s interests are neatly married to each other so they appear as one..This aspect gives it an eerie similarity to the Roman Catholic Church, with its own autonomy.."