Author Richard McGregor on "The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers"

thank you Steve for those very to kind words probably it's very daunting for me to be here and compromise actually I think probably group of real China experts it's also an honor for me but I might say that one thing I've learned since living the mistake this year which is the first time I've lived here that modesty in any form is a capital crime and that the honor of speaking here today maybe it's not as big an honor as I got earlier this year when Donald Trump listed his top 20 books on China and mine was at the top one I hear Henry Kissinger's and I don't email from a friend later than that he said that was simply because mr. Trump admired my kernel in talking about that the Chinese Communist Party you know there's always a lot of confusion about whether China is communist or not and that's why there's lots of jokes about the Communist Party some people describe the world to be this mixed business you can talk describing as the world biggest Chamber of Commerce the head of one of the largest US private equity groups was speaking in London recently he said that he finally understood how the Politburo work when he realized it was just like goldman sachs in other words there are about 30 people mostly men who had access to all the information and of course are on every side of every deal apologies to anybody can go over to the audience China also fits the old Russian joke about communism I don't know whether you any of you remember that and that is that communism is the longest part from capitalism to capitalism anyway so back to the initial question is China communist I think a much smarter way to look at it is the description which I think comes from the Chinese ambassador to London not to me instantly and he described he said China has a communist government that it is not a communist country and there's a duality in there I think that rings true I mean if you look at how China has done and has been done for centuries or you know thousands of years it's obviously a deep bureaucratic tradition a strong rule by the central all manner of things that go with that you know Emperor's putting spies into various units of the armies out of the provinces are like to ensure that the armies remain loyal to them you know appointing people positions according to a stated moral code so called that the party clearly didn't arrive in China like some kind of alien spaceship the Leninist systems as it was a very nice fit for the Chinese system with deep bureaucratic roots ruling behind the screen has a long tradition in China that's why you'll get many people saying well the Communist Party is is just another dynasty the latest sort of inheritors of this ancient you know hydraulic civilization which is so called because of the need for a central government to manage agriculture and irrigation from the like now I think there's probably some fruit in there but of course Edel to carry that too far because you know Chinese history is replete with you know every dynasty collapses so you know you only go so far with that Henry Kissinger sort of has it go at describing the enduring traditions of Chinese statecraft in the first his fault but he really doesn't melt that with the structure of the modern-day party in a more up-to-date fashion the modern Chinese government has lots of sort of McKinsey like add-ons you know every official above a certain level has these numerous KPIs key performance indicators which they're meant to match so in that respect you know it's kind of like McKinsey Leninism rather than market Leninism and that is a very kind of you know vibrant part of the government system as well and I'll come back to that but what was really striking for me once I kind of set upon this idea to write about the structure of the party how traditionally the party is still structured along you know Soviet hardware or if you like Leninist hardware now what is a linen system they all have to have a really a very secretive party a purely political organization which controls the government it sits on top of the government and the law and is basically a law unto itself in that respect that party is a self-governing and self-regulating elite and if you listen of course to China's top level it's not sort of scurrilous foreign journalists like me it's also quite a lot for example at these days as self enriching and lead as well what precisely does the Communist kind of control in China today well obviously much much less than it used to anybody with any experience in modern day China knows that individual economic freedom reading individual freedom for Chinese has increased exponentially in the last thirty years you know you can live the way you want you can buy a house you can have a big BMW you can travel overseas when you're mark when you when you want you can get rich send your kids out of school overseas to school a lot of private schools and alike marry where you want episode married when you want and move you want a mic even you know there's obviously still some major restrictions most notably the one-child policy I don't seek to diminish that policy but even that is being used in some areas and I think it's never really been a one-child policy for everybody to start in any case but through our what really has been a remarkable liberalisation in sections of the economy and in the individual lives of Chinese the party has made sure to keep control and what I call in my book the three piece which is personal propaganda and the PLA three parts of the system which sort of sit there like kryptonite you know which you can't touch so that's up here a People's Liberation Army as you know that it's not the country's army it's not the nation's army it is the party's army which is which is the reason if you read Chinese military newspapers it's unlike in the states or in the UK or in Australia where I come from when it's often a debate about whether the military has been politicized if you look at the military pages in China there's a raging debate about to ensure that the military is not be politicized just the opposite if we look at propaganda the propaganda department which is a party department which is separate from the government all media comes under the propaganda department now obviously the media and China these days has become far more vital and vigorous there never has been that's for a number of reasons that's the commercialization of the media combined with the Internet combined with journalists who are more professional and effectively want to be journalists as I see people behaving in the West control these days by the propaganda department it's much smarter than it used to be it's much more macro than micro in other words they understand the need for to allow people to vent on certain issues and the benefits they gain from there it can almost get out of control for many you've followed with interest the recent train crash in window where there was something like 36 million messages posted on the sina weibo site followed a week later by the beijing party secretary I think paying the visit the Sina to warn them about fake news but there are a number of the boos with the media though that still exists and that is you do not attack top leaders or their family members by name and you do not call into question core policies on Tibet syndrome at the moment Berlin gone and of course on the you know the party rule it's up the third area which I enjoyed writing in my book is personnel which I think it's been little understood outside of China and that of course is the central organization department which manages what the Soviets used to call the nomenclature ER and at the risk of repeating something from my book I've tried to illustrate this by conjuring up an imaginary central organization department as if it existed in the u.s. if you have a similar body in the States it would oversee the appointment of the entire cabinet state governors the mayors of every major city the heads of all minority political organizations regulators for team executives of ExxonMobil Citibank Goldman Sachs Walmart in other words the 50 biggest companies the justices on the Supreme Court the editors of every major paper from the New York Times The Wall Street Journal the bosses the bosses of all the cable networks ranking from Fox to MSNBC and start to see why politician would like such a system on top of that the party oversees the choice of the heads of play in the u.s. context Harvard Yale Princeton Stanford University's and it also chooses the heads of the top think tanks the example the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences which has lots of terrific people doing a lot of good work but the head of the Cavs is chosen by the fruit not by through the organization's Department which is why I met many old-timers and yes still refer to their body known as a think-tank but as a department and not only that the vetting for all these jobs takes place behind closed doors in secret appointments are announced without any sort of accompanying explanations the qualities of the person who gets that job the small detail are really telling for me to wear the illustrated much bigger thing the organization happened in Beijing which I'm sure you've all driven past many times does not have a sign outside saying what goes up we know what happens in this fabulous building inside and it does not have a listed phone number it has one phone number the last time I checked and that is a phone number where you can leave a recorded message complaining about the quality of the particular Cutler's work that the organization Department now finally to cap out the internal system if you're a top official and you're in trouble for corruption you know the party captures and kills its own you are investigated not by the police but by the central Discipline Inspection Commission which is also a party body which is why you only realize when you know the a corruption case comes to its head comes to a head when the individual is expelled from the party the role of the courts is basically for sentencing a public sentencing if you like they don't have a role in the actual investigation and that fits with a central care that party rule which is that there should be no independent centers of power outside the party which makes it very difficult to develop a fully functioning legal system I like to remind people with the present chief justice in China it's not have a law degree and that is not an entirely fair comparison because the Supreme Court in China is not the same as the Supreme Court in the US and other countries previous occupant of that job was by Chinese standards a an activist legal reformer but still it's a telling fact nonetheless the sheer size of everything in China always stands there about 80 million party members now which i think is about 1 in 12 had all Chinese that is also very about on par with the old Soviet Union and it's satellites which have a sort of similar ratio of membership it's let fear how active all those members are of course they used to have a favourite figure about 5 years ago when there was 76 million party members and a bet safe there are also 76 million stock trading accounts in China but but many of those stock trading accounts of course were in fake names or you know doubling up or whatever so maybe that made the comparison even more acts in any case that is the control side of the equation but if China was just about the party's control then it wouldn't be where's that Betty press a button lean against something so James bond-like you do to them anyway what's already is here you've said I suddenly has no holes I but anyway so going back that is the control side of the equation the defects that's not all it is you know China you know the party is a political machine that China is not sort of one giant Tammany Hall you know one big you know smoke-filled room as it were there's a lot of smoke-filled rooms in charge we all know but itself if the party had simply been obsessed with control litical control my talked about earlier then it would have collapsed I think a long time ago and the reason it hasn't is that things that it's obsession to run equally in the opposite direction as well which is basically creating a strong economy and a tempting and limited way to adapt the sort of the governance of our party officials to the much more complex realities of the Chinese economy today and they've done head in the neck in the 90s by making a start in reforming the state sector and many people will tell you that it's kind of stopped these days but at the very least huge things with them in the 90s and the early part of this the naughties about 50 to 60 million people were laid off central level is always you know that's equivalent the workforce of Italy in France it's no small thing all political machines suffer from the atrophy that comes with cronyism and corruption I think you know is the party has attempted to stall that cancer if you like by balancing the cronyism with the sort of kpi's that I talked about earlier now your bit a lot of stories I think I've even written in my own paper about how China is really being run for the benefit of a hundred families powerful revolution I personally think that is a little overstated China is a funny mixture of meritocracy and our aristocracy and to have seemed to survive in tandem with each other without gobbling each other up but if you look at the leadership the current leadership for example who Jintao and Wen Jiabao they come from nothing that won't be the case with the next leadership but I also think it's a bit silly to just dismiss sitting for example as a postman because clearly he has is a competent official at the same time the the party has also adapted its membership along the way it's not no longer the party of farmers and workers I interviewed lots of students at places like Sigma Beta for example and the party will actually go into those classes at what are already highly elite institutions and identify you know what they would gather for top two people in the classes and invite them to join the party and they're also applicant some high schools as well so the funny thing that is this party's got 80 million members but they're still style themselves as an elite which means you have to be invited to join you can't just sort of knock on the door invite your self opinions entrepreneurs are welcome whereas there are one score you look at the rich list I think about a third maybe more of the hundred millionaires there are real been in areas China on the latest rich list were party members so basically the party is getting rich and successful people to join alongside of war with government officials on its face appear in a way pre-qualifying for position now my job these days actually is reporting US politics apart before the hot topics in but there on the Republican side is I've been looking at me at this is sound tangible at the Mormon Church only yes for example but it occurred to me when I was really about history the Mormon Church you know now used to have this philosophy of continuing Revolution which was a complete disaster for China the parties bit like them the Mormon Church in a series of continuing revelations all these sorts of things that used to be taboo in the church so in the party you know private business entrepreneurs wealth inequality foreign investment in banks and oil companies in the my stop trading you know we serve said they sort of wake up one morning and have an epiphany and apparently that's the only point of comparison I have and the Mormon Church and I can have a funny story about them which I continue right let me just let me just sort of finish up with a few general comments you know you can make the point that you know the Communist Party runs China I think a lot of people forgot about that but and I've attempted to provide a corrective to that but if the Communist Party runs China one on one level so on it's no easy thing to run a country 1.3 billion people and keep the country stable and growing this is not the 15th year of red zone for beds anymore and the Communist Party is not what it was the 15 60s and 70s in China there's a lot of talk about the so-called Beijing consensus as opposed to the Washington Consensus this sort of binary division which which is you know based on the assumption that the Chinese system is exportable I don't think it is exploitable as far as I can see a lot of the Beijing consensus it just seems to apply you know any authoritarian which country which is rule is going to stay in power get rich they think they can be like China or they can't be and let me illustrate that can you could you ever imagine for example the Democratic Republic of Congo having an organization Department no you couldn't because there it does not have the same bureaucratic roots and traditions that China had China has the only country that vaguely remembers though resembles China I think it's Vietnam but even Vietnam struggles to do what China has done a thing for Vietnam the last time I look reminds me a little time in the early nineties in other words growing quickly but the high inflation no to Auntie figure on the horizon here to smash it on the head but you know China's pragmatism being tactical or strategic or whatever at the moment I still make the political differences between us is the world's most important and powerful democracy and China are very important and will play out in ways I think that are really unpredictable in coming years then we'd let me try and illustrate that Chinese political system for all the wish fulfillment in the West that would you know become more like us over time naturally remains vastly different and they are determined to keep that so that is why the media and China constantly denigrates the west and democracies in other words an alternative system in that respect I think the Chinese system is hostile to the West not in a military sense but hostile the idea of Western dominance and western-style democratic values however the Smerch they might become in the West in the last ten years the structure of the Chinese economies also remains for all the reform vastly different the Saints didn't you hear these these that are figures you know some people will tell you the private sector is responsible seventy point seventy percent of output in China somebody else will state 30 percent you're not going to get an exact bigger because the issue is definitional problem but even leaving that aside the state still dominates or even monopolizes the following sectors in China telco service providers not equipment I might say banking oil and energy petrochemicals heavy industry general mining aviation ports construction and about 70% of the auto market in conjunction with in JB's with foreign companies I think it's vastly underestimated the importance of the u.s. to China's rise not just access to the US market which is important but I think the Pax Americana if you like in other words the forward deployment of US troops into Asia you know China's rise has been predicated on the peaceful international environment China did not make the same mistake as the Soviet Union in attempting to take on the US militarily a very smart decision it also obviously you know had a staged reform of its economy and gave priority to economical reform over political reform I read a review of Ezra Ezra Vogel to book on thumbs up in I quite haven't picked up a book yet this is too heavy to read but there was a terrific quote in there about Dan's attitude so he performs and he simply said done things calm top isn't idiot I thought they kind of summed it up it's underappreciated the extent to which China is benefited from the US military on forever so let me illustrate that in a crude fashion if you look at North Asia the Korean Civil War is not over the Chinese Chinese Civil War is that over sino-japanese tensions continue apace in different ways every day of the week the only thing that has kept these tensions in check but the most important thing that has kept these tensions in the show and provided the stability that has allowed for the fantastic growth in wealth in north Vader and also Southeast Asia is the state of stability provided by the US military now that can't last why should China which is a great how want to rely on viewers for its apparently the north if it can do it itself it wouldn't want to do that at a sense of national pride people wouldn't want to do that at upsets of prudent security security policy it should take responsibility itself for example or in a tween its own oil through the Malacca Straits if you like how the US and China adjusts of each other's presence in the Pacific I think over the next 10 to 20 years is going to be fundamental to not just security in Asia but stability I think in the global economy it's not just about China fitting in with the u.s. it's also a word that the US can see power in China and I think the big open question certainly when I haven't come to a set view in my own hair is about how the Chinese political system would manage that remember that first peg of China of legitimacy for the Communist Party has been economic growth sooner or later that will tail off the 2020 or whatever you can't grow 10% a year forever the second leg of legitimacy is obviously nationalism and the fact that parties made China great again how does that play out once the US and China have to work out a modus vivendi in the Pacific over Taiwan over how the whole of the major is run I think that's the big question I am looking forward to following the next ten years on that note thank you thank you I didn't go over the closing with him but that obviously is a commercial for the National Committee on us-china relations and exactly the kinds of issues that we talk about on a daily basis and the programs that we run with an attempt to have China in the United States understand that each other's intentions and goals are and find a way to deal with China's peaceful development you know and that's exactly the kinds of issues we'll be talking about next Monday and with our Minister young on one Thursday so let me ask a few questions is who first Anderson neither is fun Stan Stan let me just say I'll start off with a few questions very few because we're already at the halfway mark and then open it to the floor because I know a bunch of people have four questions I might say that I haven't it's two years I've been back to China quite a lot but I haven't lived there for two years and I felt out of touch with China even when I lived in China so not really up-to-date on the economy captured books sell in Hong Kong and Taiwan I assume that was translated into Chinese and I assume it's banned in China how did how did it sell in Taiwan and Hong Kong and what have you heard from your Chinese friends about them and sources about the response to what it's a book that that I think takes the cover of certain things that the party would prefer not having the counteroffer well I think it was just being I think there was a Chinese language Edition out in Taiwan right now one thing I've learned as an author you very you find out very little about how yourselves because published has never tell you unless you're Dan Brown or something like that a best-selling author so I don't know how it's gone in Hong Kong and Taiwan I might say that the shop that has sold single most copies is the bookworm in Beijing which I'm sure many of you have been to it's not banned in China technically because nobody ever presented it for publication I thought the english-language copy is sold in China well in the book one you know sub rosa under the counter type thing that's just a little Enclave this is it like this is on the record and goes out over the Internet yeah I think it's like bigger fish to problem but they were a couple of people did tell me that the central liaison office you know we've still to it the section of the party that deals with mafia foreign barbarians didn't do a a report on the book for internal purposes and they concluded that book was a superficial journalistic contained errors so maybe so far so good at making but most importantly from their perspective this did not disclose internal decision-making procedures in other words I didn't crack you know what was what's happening at the top of the Politburo and in fact I never attempted to pretend I did it's you know all of us have been through Hong Kong Airport where you know you've got those look lots of strange language book with lurid pictures of Chinese leaders and multiple mistresses on the cover and all that sort of stuff and you don't know which how much is fact or fiction and I didn't really attempt to do that sort of thing because you know I don't know what is happening at the top and I frankly think very few people do perhaps even in the US government do it's a black black box the Politburo and so in that respect by my lack of ability to penetrate the top echelons of the Chinese leadership my might explain how I can still get visas back to China you mean rewarded for theta yeah the you mean reference to come to throughout the book you talk about corruption I mean it's it's a recurrent theme and you also talk about something which which we see a lot in dealing with the senior levels of the Chinese government which is Chinese officials that really know their portfolios that I cannot think of a Chinese official at the vice-minister or above level or the vice governor above level or a mayor of a major city who really just does not know his portfolio very well and what I'm often trying to square that with is what your book in part talks about which is some positions are for sale or there is such corruption that is endemic to the position so how do you kind of square the two how'd it is corruption just to pay to play but you got to be qualified anyhow how does it how does it really work in practice well the crude paid the players you call them here I think it is mostly at lower levels of government there was a case I think about two or three years ago where there was a suggestion never officially confirmed that the Shenzhen mayor had brought his job he was removed for corruption but there was a suggestion he had actually brought the position and that is a really senior and important job this you know our people who are vice ministers in various ministries buying their positions I've never seen any evidence of that it's this balancing I guess of you know trying to it the system understands that you know if they if adult the system is only about cronyism of corruption and they get a week observed alive which is why I think one of the successes of the poll China is that there is a performance culture in there combined with the bureaucratic DNA if you like you know you don't get too many non-performance in top jobs having said that everybody is across their portfolio but remember a lot of that is you know they can the fabulous memories which I guess trained from rote learning at school to the fact that any official who doesn't want to lose their job has to know by heart what the official policy isn't be able to recite it which is also part of the performance measurement as well not putting a foot wrong but you know I think it's you know it's true that we shouldn't even you know I mean you could be corrupt and common at the same time as well there's a great description in the book you know long description exactly what you referred to in the talk that there's not enough understanding of this organization Department in the West that we really don't get it and you talk a lot in fact about publicly listed companies where the organization Department is appointing the chairman is inconsistent with Delaware law on that you owe your duty to a the shareholders not to some unknown unknown party which is the organization department but the recently and the book kind of ends just as Leon Chao is taking who's becoming the minister in charge of the organization department the he is an unusual Chinese official I mean you talked about and actually in the context of the pollution issue entitled lake I believe but he also is somebody who spent time at the Kennedy School who talks about a transparent government and we have begun to see some changes in the organization Department that you're looking do you see this as kind of it becoming a more transparent organization becoming an organization that actually publishes its criteria for promotion and makes this more transparent is this one person who I assume is going to be named to the Standing Committee of the Politburo in 2012 able to change this process well I think there's a you know I think the party is known for some years that it has to be a little bit more open and transparent but it really struggles to do that because it doesn't know how you're right about Minister Lee he is you know I've met him a few times he's very chatty he's not a stiff personality he does engage with you on various issues and I think they know that he certainly will doubt to meet a lot of foreign visitors of all come you know all kinds that the organization Department I guess it's some it's they you know recently in the last few months that all bunch of foreign a Tibet ambassadors in have given them all these documents about the history of the organization department and how it works and the like they have published some of the criteria which kind of Phyllis war which really makes you wonder whether they're really used in practice or are effective yeah I mean I when they when they when they put a sign up outside their office and get a phone number and and start to explain the nature of their decisions and I think that's real transparency not simply publish stick publishing sort of bunch up sort of you know they're sort of rather stiff rigid formula for appointment so they're trying to be more open that I think the whole ethos is heavily resistant to that and it's a struggle point let me open the Florida depressions there are their microphones or people just need to speak loudly anybody microphones yeah but you tell that kids speak real loud like Frank yeah Frank kill us yes I spoke good not too long ago with a medical anthropologist who's all been invited to China to talk to heads of medical schools on medical it affects tissues start I'm thinking what's that about and I asked you know where are they coming from are they looking for the ethics of Confucius and they're looking for the ethics of now or are they looking for international best practices unquestionably he said international best practices so this this idea of the right way to manage X behind politics the condition system seems to be being internalized and they seem to want to know what color metaphorically the McKinsey way is that the future for this party so that it can not cheat my genius well I hope frankly that's the future for in this case in the medical profession in other words it might be said of professional ethics rather than something which impinges directly on politics I'm not an expert on the I've been through the Chinese Health System both my kids are born but I'm not an expert on the medical profession that in the general sense you've seen amongst judges amongst lawyers amongst journalists amongst doctors and frankly in some ways amongst the military as well which are all developing their own professional ethos their own professional pride and the you know the belief in the self-regulating you know standards like as you have with professional associations in the web so I would see that more in that there phenomena rather than a development I mean it obviously has political implications because that means they want around themselves but it's a bit of a different nature to political reform in the way that we think about corner important law school they're sort of sometimes two competing depictions of how change might take place with no party that are out there for trouble the mountain seemed to agree with language one idea that there's sort of certain endogenous changes they're going to change the party over time so one thing you'll hear that well that prior generation of leaders they were all engineers but the new rising generation they're all trained in law and that tenant changes or similarly the new generation war experience abroad we're training abroad that's mister hoelter the way they both the institution behaves in mind then competing or the other pole would be that sort of the institution sort of who managed the party organizations of our party and the like managed to sort of they can self-replicate themselves on for which one of those do tend to think that do even with the one or the other a link to the letter if there is a sort of binary division I mean you know it's it's definitely true that the makeup of the Politburo on the Standing Committee the educational background is going to change quite radically this time around I think we had our first lawyers or legally trained people on the Politburo in 2002 but I think the way that the party organization the weight of the the what party bureaucracy power of the general office so-called in which in all party bodies you know the day-to-day management is a far more powerful force than the fact that somebody went to the Kennedy School for three months which is not to say that the party won't change but I think we should expect it to change slowly and a self-interested conservative fashion Albert Olsen Department of Homeland Security I'm just wondered about the issue between the relations currently between China and India there seem to be a battle of possible resources in that area there's a new book that came out this month I haven't read it yet I believe it's entitled water ages through the battleground considering China and India combined have about 30 percent of the world's population and only about 10% of the world's fresh water in that area what sort of dialogue is India and China engaged in with respect to you know sharing resources or discussing those sort of nations in that in that region you know I can't give you an up-to-date readout about this like Jesse Lee has been there in fact there was a New York Times story to this effect the other day out of India is that the Indians are obsessed with China but the Chinese are not obsessed with India but also as a chinese professor told me that china didn't really respect India - India got the bomb and said but the I would be very pessimistic about a full fully really full solution to the territorial dispute I think the area around the question is the size of France or something both countries have highly sensitive energy large nationalistic impulses within the political system particularly in some respects in India which seems to be found you know rhetorical bombs of China all the time I mean the business relationship between the two countries is obviously improved with a better I also saw a review of their book about water West time to read books these days but and you know if we global warming is true then there will be a part of that because frankly China and stopped that's where it's water comes from but I'm not up to date on so anyway man Jagger's former executive editor of Newsweek International and China poverty was half Chiron Danvers from Newsweek doing some consulting to China these days who was it was an astonishing set of humility that you that you produce this evening when you said that he didn't really penetrate the proper hierarchy of the party no one has no journalists had no academic had of course a big club really but I'm just curious and if you would go so far as to surmise respectively I'm curious about the people who revolve around the top of the tippy top sure is particularly in an example what when John Paul for example grant power man shows up makes a lovely quotation the whole country applauds him and then it's pulled from the China Daily a couple of days later and he can't find it anywhere it's also similar to what's going on strangely in Russia right now with mr. Putin and mr. Matthew them think about who is really in charge at this point maybe this is this problem of communism as it goes into later stages I'm not sure but would you surmise a little bit or give me some of your insight because I know you've spent a lot of time to China how in this mechanics works at the very top you would just speculate a little bit maybe if you haven't penetrated well something the PR sense the Chinese have been got much better is at the top and this relates to grandpa when I think in 2006 or 7 when there were large snow storms around Chinese New Year literally a hundreds of thousands of people were caught down in Guangdong couldn't get home to see their families and it was a sort of mini crisis which they managed to get through the next time there was a crisis for natural disaster being one was the search one earthquake and I seem to remember that when was on a plane in 3-4 hours so they clearly had a system set up to respond quickly in a very public way with a top leader to show people that the government care but unquote on the issue of when more broadly and I have been out of the country for two years the sort of stuff he's talking about he's been talking about with democracy he's been saying since about 2005 2006 you can interpret it you know what does it mean you know it's an all spin operation does he really mean it and he's speaking more for a more broader constituency what does he just care about his legacy the faculties kept at it and being slapped down on a number of occasions would suggest the latter in many respects that he really cares about the issue he cares about its legacy you know that his the the more he seemed to have spoken about this you know it's you know it sort of been paralleled by his declining health and who's always considered a pretty weak economic manager but maybe unfairly so comparison with Zhu Rongji greater than star yeah that's sort of how it all works at the top you know I would love to know but I think there's this vast machine there that we really have very little idea how it really works I mean I think I think in my book frankly I really just scratched the surface I think I probably scratch the right surface I'm convinced of that but we got a long way to go before we really get inside how the system works but what does it mean that that third person in the party in the hierarchy gives a speech and it's not reported it's kind of it - what do you think of him he's number three and if he were just actually the premier one could understand because the party has control over the media but he's also number three in the party and what does it mean about kind of dissent within the party well I thought only stuff had been reported it may be taken off later on so I think that's obviously if stuff gets pulled off then there's obviously disagreement about that's it's simple I think but who exactly is responsible for point on whether it's it has to go through the head of the propaganda system on the Standing Committee who signs off on that sort of thing everyone dunno louder Patricia how do we sort of the current group are all engineers by training and the next generations similarly people are screwed and also given the success of this generation younger people or the new the new leadership generation so what I would imagine gonna be less than new leadership generation is always someone all that what young people do that in successful often average people who have also been more active in Harry we happen constitutes a university I guess it's less the leadership as a game for parties you know in some ways it's a very cynical exercise to recruit these people on both sides and at both sides are getting with the strength as it were most of these people you know entrepreneurs are not going to be active party members in any respect apart from you know making gestures here or there I guess on a local level City level building ties closer ties with the city leadership which is not necessarily healthy if if there was any idealism left in the party I think that also tends to squeeze it out a little bit more if it was meant to be a party and the people at if you stop at the billionaires then it's less so so from the partners perspective I think it's good because or it can be good because you you know they want to colonize every part of the economy and civil society and the private sector writ large is the most powerful force in China potentially will change and have the most powerful threat so it's very important in their perspective to you know colonize the private sector but I don't see how it radically changes the party except to give it you know potentially you know not oligarch with tendencies but you know mix it away you know channeling funds if you like yeah so I don't think it's a great force for a change radical change I'm Richard radius from Russell one company after over at Enriquez news conference I thought that one of those unspoken assumptions was the Communist Party has made securable I looked in the footnotes there was no reference to any of the writings 5 respect in China experts like Mazen for Susan shirk to embrace questions about the security of then we have the Jasmine spring the Middle East and all of a sudden Jasmine disappears from China if you want to try and send email Jeff and we have super beautiful in part because somebody thinks it before he watches were voting for not super girl might be persuaded to go tada leadership the party is a bigger the sense that the run is part of like much more concerted security and a lot of power well in some respects they maintain power and I remain secure in power because their parents you know so they they they can spot a trend play an example of Supergirl people voted not a good idea for that to spread the Jasmine spring was the particular interesting example I mean I haven't been in China but there's obviously a very difficult time for a lot of Chinese dissidents but has have that has it is therefore all that discontent in China because of that as the economy being thrown off track because of that no maybe not the same reason uses Henry Kissinger but I mean I'm also Andrew Nathan cause the resilient authoritarianism school you know I think the part of the last as well because basically they've got their hands on every lever of power and at the FDA another piece sector is we abstain okay site the nominations and the quickness of chairman CEO our leadership there is leading to subsidy reform second have smaller companies privately all taken care in our markets or wage data that can see and that continuous isn't that ultimately the power that comes from the politics well that's the case yes I would say so it does it does depend I mean that some what sectors are you talking about you yeah yeah I mean it's the state sector is no in China I'm so sure about private banking the part from sort of the long-standing underground base which are real things and places like the gentleman I found the insurance I guess that companies like ping on which sort of private or semi-private China life which is the state company that's to behave like a private company but they're very aggressive in how they conduct their business so it's not always completely useful forever dichotomy pure dichotomy between publicly final because one of the ways they've set the system up is that the safe does compete against the state in many areas Sinopec of PetroChina for example have competed vigorously against each other same goes for tiny community home telecom mobile they compete against each other so there's a little envelope competition into the state system over time of course yet if these companies reading the way then yes I think you know you're right it diminishes the power of the party because the value of the appointment is this I'm afraid we've reached 7 o'clock even though I see there lots and lots of hands left so let me just say number one we have books for sale outside so you may purchase them and Richard will stay around for a few minutes to autograph it but the presentation is as great as the book I highly recommend the book and get to get it at our slightly discounted price you can then get the kids autograph but thank you so much

Channel: National Committee on U.S.-China Relations

Views: 7,720

Rating: 4.6999998 out of 5

Keywords: china, foreign policy, international relations, cross-strait, Richard McGregor, Chinese Communist Party

Id: ym1d0ZScElk

Length: 57min 36sec (3456 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 26 2011

Reddit Comments

[u/YouShouldLoseWeight]

awesome find!! ;)

[u/InfamousLegato]

Background noise is really ruining this..