China Is Not a Democracy

Multiple personality disorder, aka dissociative identity disorder, is a severe form of dissociation, a mental process, which produces a lack of connection in a person’s thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity. (1)

China is communist?

“Mr. Xi has said absolute military obedience to the party is essential to ensuring the Chinese Communist Party is not wiped out like its Soviet counterpart.” (2)

No wait a minute, they are socialist!

“Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping Tuesday called on officials and members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to enhance efforts to build socialism with Chinese characteristics and improve Party building.” (3) said communist mouthpiece Xinhua.

Maybe China is democratic?

“China improves people’s democracy through legislation.”(4)

Or maybe China will never be democratic?

“China will never be a multiparty democracy,” said Wu Bangguo, former number two man to communist party leader and president Hu Jintao.

Wow! If all that confused you, then join the club. How can you figure out China from half a world away when I live here and have yet to do so? So what can we divine from all of those excerpts?

China is sort of a Franken-monster of knocked off communism/socialism/Marxism/Mao’ist thought with a little fascism thrown in for flavor; they are not, however, democratic. So why am I even writing this article?

The reason I am writing is to clear up any confusion about how China is governed from an insider’s perspective. While I do not work with the Chinese government, I have had many dealings with the communist party in a variety of settings.

Aside from this I also have decent contacts who have done so as well. The so what of all that is that I am in a pretty good place to give you an idea on how communist China rolls.

Just the Facts

China is communist and has been since 1949. Mao led the communists into Beijing when the KMT fled to Taiwan and communism has been in place ever since. This communism, however, is not like your father’s communism.

When Mao was around, the Chinese were poor as dirt and the average annual income was about as much as you can scrape from beneath the cushion of your La-Z-Boy. That meagerly sum “skyrocketed” to $300 in the mid 1980′s.

In the past, Mao had them all huddled in hutongs or single room homes (5) and working for state owned enterprises (SOEs). Although they were poor, they had jobs for life and handy Little Red Books (6) chock full of Mao’s thoughts to fill their days and nights.

Cities were equipped with loudspeakers in order to pass along the words of the Great Chairman, (7) who ran his form of communism with an iron hand. For the most part equality was reached and up until the 1970′s China had fewer cars than Smyrna Town, Tennessee had people in 2002. (8)

When his charges got uppity, Mao had them re-educated or beaten by Reg Guards or their “noble children”. (9) At that time, China truly lived up to the moniker of communism as they were, for the most part a “classless, moneyless social order”. (10)

This stands in marked contrast to the communists of today who are directly or indirectly involved in the purchase of half of all luxury goods purchased in China. So rich and numerous are today’s communists that 8,311 of them are among China’s parliament this year…wait a second… 83 members of China’s governing body are billionaires?

As astounding as it may seem, it is true that China’s communist party parliament has more than two times as many billionaires as the entire United Kingdom. What is worse is that China has 1.6 times as many billionaires in their parliament as Germany has in their entire country!

Some Additional Statistics

Paradoxically the affluent communists of today are shipping off their wives, (13) kids (14) and concubines to democracies which the party despises. Even more curious is the fact that some of those rich officials (15) are also heading for the land of milk and honey, (16) or at least democracy- curious indeed!

So what gives? Why are the communists playing word games with democracy and socialism with Chinese characteristics?

Truth be told, the communists are concerned. “Mass incidents” or riots are surging, air and water pollution threaten people’s lives and the scourge of corruption is primed to topple the party.

Faced with all of these issues, the split personality disorder of China makes sense. China has to be both forceful and benevolent at the same time.

Forceful China

China’s military does not report to nor represent the people. The military works for the communist party and its leader. (17)

In order to stave off revolution, the communists lean on the military to scare the Chinese into submission. China is so fearful of grassroots reform and violent uprisings that she spends more on defending herself from her own countrymen than foreign countries.

China has to wield the nuclear tipped sword of the military to remind those who had forgotten about the Tienanmen massacre that, yes, the communists still hold all the guns.

The problem with this strategy is that it causes dissension. After all, how many people want to live in a country whose constitution openly admits that it is a dictatorship and is one of the most oppressive in the world?

Benevolent China

The problem is that not only are the Chinese miffed at being bullied around, but are angry about the inequality as well. They are forced to pay the bribes, have their children taken and land stolen. They also know all too well where the source of around $2.34 trillion in “gray income” (18) is from–corruption, illegal activities and theft among other things.

When you are choking on gray air, see thousands of poisoned pigs floating down the river in Shanghai and cannot even have more than one child, it is kind of hard to support the current communist regime. The communists know their people all too well and offer them the carrot of reform.

Enter Chinese participatory democracy under the socialist system. Just like the hydra, the communist party has many heads.

It cannot denounce communism because then it would have to justify the killing of up to 100 million people for a lost cause. Even if Beijing wanted to renounce its governance, why would it? With so much money to be absconded, their greed would not allow such a thing.

The call for reforms thus plays a vital role in controlling China today. The communists offer up a concession here and there, just enough to convince 1.34 billion people that things are getting better.

And change does come, but in small bits and pieces, and not enough to transform China from its current communist/fascist state. The reality is that the communists are holding all the cards, and change is not in their best interest.

Red Communist Nobility Overseas

The family of China’s former Premier Wen Jiabao was able to leverage his position to the tune of $2.7 billion (19) in only a decade.

The families of both the current President Xi Jinping (20) and fallen princeling Bo Xilai (21) did almost as well. As a matter of fact, both Xi and Bo were able to send their children (22) to obtain a Harvard degree costing $70,000 per year even though their annual incomes did not reach $14,000 per anum.

With it so easy to make money by being a communist, why should they change? Isn’t it just easier to talk the talk, commit to reforms and then continue on with business as usual? From the looks of it, this is exactly what China has decided to do.

China has just held its faux selection for President and the race was close, but Xi Jinping nosed out all other candidates as he received 2,952 of 2,955 votes.

Yeah, you read that right; Xi Jinping garnered 99.89% of the votes cast. (23) Let’s hear it for Chinese democracy…