America: A One Party State?

China is a one party communist state. America is a one party capitalist state. China has become so much more capitalist. If Bernie has his way America might make major strides towards socialism.

In China the Chinese Communist Party sits above the state, it sits atop the Chinese court system, for example. What is the Chinese Communist Party? It used to be about communism. That has changed. But what has not changed is its total commitment to Chinese nationalism. A billion people belong to the same ethnicity and speak the same language. The Chinese built a Chinese melting pot Chinese identity over thousands of years like Americans have been building a white melting pot identity over the past few hundred years. It is the exact same concept. And the two, despite the false military tension, unabashedly like each other. Look at the trade volume. White is not a language, white is not a culture, white is not a religion, white is not a country, white is no identity, white is just lack of pigments, which makes it very animal and pro gun rights. If you ask me a billion people belonging to one ethnic identity is unnatural.

It is not any commitment to classlessness but a total commitment to Chinese nationalism that sits atop the Chinese state. There it is official. In America it is unspoken. But there is something similar. There is that melting pot white identity that sits atop the American state. There is this magnetic field. If you can speak the language, that can open some doors, but not quite.

If a people speaking just one language is what is best for everybody, then why not just hope for English as the only language on the planet? Why not clear up the Amazon forest and plant paddy along that entire stretch? English is the leading language of commerce, science and technology on the planet. And that's great. But we are at the cusp of turning the top 10 most spoken languages covering over 90% of the planet all becoming equally good languages of commerce, science and technology, thanks to Artificial Intelligence.

The mirror image of the melting pot white identity is that it reduces the black identity to skin color. A cultural identity can not be about skin color. A healthy cultural identity has to be about positive and rich things like art, language, culture, festivals, rituals, mythology, music, religion. America has to become more accepting of diversity. The Amazon forest is indispensable to our very existence. It is not just something to look at. Cultural diversity is as natural and desirable as biodiversity. Say no to the Donald Trump hate speech.

People come to America with much hope. It is not just about being able to earn a living. It is also about wanting to feel cultural diversity is as natural as fingerprints. That's what makes us interesting. Hostility to diversity is downright stupid. They say the cure for cancer might be in the Amazon. In a robust knowledge economy the onus is on out of the box thinking, on thinking different. Guess what diversity is!

Padmasree Warrior: Indian Female Chinese Asian Elon Musk?

Padmasree Warrior: Indian Female Chinese Asian Elon Musk?

Padmasree Warrior New U.S. CEO of Chinese Firm Challenging Tesla

Indian American Padmasree Warrior, one of Silicon Valley's high-profile women executives, has been appointed as the U.S.-based chief executive officer of a Chinese firm which is building an electric car to compete with American electric car manufacturer Tesla....... Warrior, 55, will be the chief development officer and CEO of the U.S. start-up NextEV.......A technology industry veteran, Warrior was most recently Cisco's chief technology and strategy officer, and had stepped down from the position in June this year....... Warrior's track record as a technology visionary is “undisputed,” and her knowledge of the global markets and business acumen are “surpassed only by her ability to lead distributed teams of engineers and developers toward a common goal,” NextEV's founder and chairman William Li said in a statement...... Warrior has previously been named by Forbes among the world's 100 most powerful women. She is an alumnus of the IIT Delhi and Cornell University ...... In addition to her appointment to the NextEV board, Warrior currently serves on the boards of American clothing giant Gap and Microsoft.

I was blindsided by this when it showed up as a news story on TechCrunch. As in, I did not see it coming. I used to follow Warrior in the news a few years ago. Here was an Indian Female running the tech show at none other than Cisco. Many people think Cisco birthed the Internet. No routers no internet. But unlike Satya Nadella or Sundar Pichai, she did not rise to the very top. She had a claim before the other two did. Enter China.

And now, it looks like, just like there is no Facebook or Google or Twitter or Amazon in China, there will be no Tesla. In China they don’t let the “private sector” into space, so I don’t believe they are trying to create a rocket company. They feel like they already have one. It is amazing, the speed at which they have created a Chinese Tesla. Photocopied. Xeroxed. Innovated. Birthed. Masterminded. Downloaded from the Internet. Hustled by cyber spies. However they did it, the deed is done.

I feel for the people in Beijing. I like it that China has lifted more people out of poverty than any power in history, but I wish the air in Beijing were clear. It is a great city. It deserves clean air. Enter the Chinese Tesla. You can’t ask Indians and Chinese to not buy cars. But you can get them to buy electric cars. Perhaps solar powered electric cars. Who needs a sun roof?

China has 5,000 years of recorded, continuous history. There’s a slight blip from British/Japanese colonialism. I mean, you should read the letter the Chinese emperor sent to the British monarch. To him it felt like the President of the United States was talking to the President of Venezuela.

If the Homo Sapiens started in Africa and went to China by way of India, it can’t be that the Indus civilization is more recent than the Chinese one. But the Chinese try to downplay the Indian myths. You talk about the Mahabharata? A Chinese traveler does mention seeing stacks of bones in an open field. But that was only 500 years ago. Not 100,000 years ago like you claim.

Because the Chinese have lifted more people out of poverty than any power in history, I do try to look at them with an open mind. Maybe they are an alternate political system. To them becoming president is like becoming an astronaut. Maybe. As in, NASA. The Chinese Communist Party is like NASA. Running a country is like an astronaut going to the moon, perhaps tougher, and a much bigger responsibility. With NASA, you have to be a top grade engineer before you can get in. But any Chinese may join the Chinese Communist Party. Just like any American can try and become a top class engineer. But once you get in, there is a way to become NASA Director. Xi Jinping rose through the ranks. It is a pretty meritocratic process. You have to pay your dues, do the work, get committee approval, rise up the ranks, things like that. Although, in his particular case, I hear it helped that he was a prince, whatever that is supposed to mean in a decidedly non-feudal, formally atheistic country. In China the party stands above the state apparatus. As in, the Chinese court system is not above the Chinese Communist Party. I guess they fear that is how you make sure class prejudices don’t seep in. The CCP is like NASA, but it is also like the NAACP. As in, the Chinese feel wronged. Just like black folks do. How many NAACPs are there? Until they get their lost glory, until that is regained, they already know what do do, what is there to debate? That is how they feel. The good news is they are almost there. When I say almost, it is a Chinese perspective. 20 years is forever in America but almost in China. Time, like Einstein said, is relative.

At some point I see the Chinese political system relaxing a bit. Maybe the system needs some meditation. I am a big proponent of letting the Dalai Lama go on an all China tour. Let him go wherever he wants to go.

In China the party stands above the state apparatus. As in, the Chinese court system is not above the Chinese Communist Party. But then a lot of people don’t realize how weak the two parties in America are. The state is not weak, but the two parties are almost casual. In America the state stands above the parties, and the private sector stands above everything else. You don’t believe? The American tax code has been written for the express service of entrepreneurs. Warren Buffett pays less in taxes than his secretary. When people like Ralph Nader say the two parties are indistinguishable to the corporations, they have a point. Look at Donald Trump. He came out of nowhere to take over the Republican Party because he is a billionaire. There is no Central Committee he had to go through. He has just had to show up on TV.

How would China relax? Relaxing the India China border would be a good move. Personally I don’t see what the issue is there. It’s just rocks. China is not about to stop being a one party state. But what it could do is offer two party candidates for each major office, like president, governor, mayor, and let the people vote for and pick one. The two would get equal amounts of money to run a campaign. That could be step one. You do that enough and China could willfully become a two party state like America. A China where there are no more poor people and the per capita income is perhaps 25,000 dollars might end up a two party system not because the Chinese Communist Party got overthrown, but because it evolved. There was no upheaval. There were no street demonstrations. There was party decision. Or maybe it will stay a one party state that offers two candidates to the people for all three major positions. It could work. Like it works in America that it is just one state.

My agenda is I want a billion Buddhists in China. I want there to be more Buddhists than CCP members. I am a Madhesi Imperialist. Buddha was born a Madhesi.

@Padmasree Warrior: Indian Female Chinese Asian Elon Musk? https://t.co/24uApfRqw2

— Paramendra Bhagat (@paramendra) January 3, 2016

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Indian Farmers And The Land Bill

English: Daytime scene showing the pre-monsoon air over India. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If Modi were to ditch the land bill, that would not have any impact on an unfriendly monsoon, that would not have any impact on the unfavorable global conditions. The land bill impacts less than 1% of the land owned by Indian farmers, maybe 0.1%. But Modi's land bill is bearing the brunt of what is happening to all the land held by all Indian farmers. Farmers are 60% of India, and India is a democracy. The Chinese Communist Party never had to pass any land bill. They took what they needed, as they needed them.

The Indian farmers' concerns need to be addressed, even though they are largely independent of the land bill. They are legitimate voters with legitimate concerns. There is very little to do on the monsoon front in the immediate term, but major irrigation projects must be in the offing for the long term, there is not much that can be done to bring the global markets in favor. So what to do?

Communication is key. They have to feel the empathy. This is where leadership comes into play. Modi's megaphone comes handy here. So far the attempt has been to say the land bill is not anti-farmer. Well, what is the opposition to the land bill is only a symptom. The real issue is the farmers do have genuine concerns. Modi could do well to talk about the monsoon and the global markets.

Even on the land bill, the talk has been about infrastructure and industry. Irrigation has to be talked about in the same breath. Indian farmers understand irrigation even more than they understand rural infrastructure. Irrigation also speaks to the monsoon woes.

When Gandhi asked the Indian people to come forward, he did not offer lollipops. He asked for sacrifice. Modi can also ask people for sacrifice. If you want a better future for your children, this land bill needs to be passed. The next generation can not be as dependent on agriculture as this one. Usi mein bhalai hai. People will understand.

But talking about the next generation is not enough. Farmers are not going away any time soon. They have concerns just like the industrialists and anyone else. They are also voters. They are also consumers. The government in Delhi has to make its very best attempts to do right by them. In the immediate term. There is no skipping that part. They voted for you with expectations. Those expectations have to be met.

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Xi Jinping

Xi Jinping 习近平 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Is this guy the Chinese Gorbachev?

The succession process in China is kind of like General Electric's.

This "disapperance" by Xi I see as a good sign for someone who wishes major political reforms in China. If Xi were the same old, same old, the transition would not be dramatic. He has already unruffled feathers, it seems like. That is a good sign. But I'd not read too much into it.

China as an economy is at a point where unless it opens up politically, unless it becomes more welcoming of critical thought, it can not make its next big leap. A slowing Chinese economy necessarily asks for political reform.

New Chinese Communist Leader May Be Closet Reformist

there are signs that when he takes the helm of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) this fall he may push for political and economic reform in the country–possibly with some vigor..... The problems include failing to make adjustments to the economic structure, and not making progress in political reform and democratization. .... “The solution to all these problems ultimately lies in political reform and the depth of political reform. Therefore, the leaders should be courageous in taking the first step to push for political reform and democratization,” Deng said ...... Deng wrote that the Party should have a sense of urgency about political reform, and shouldn’t have an ostrich mentality; the goal of political reform is to establish freedom and democracy ..... “We’ve got to hold high the banner of reform, including political system reform,” a source said, paraphrasing Xi. ..... political reform will come sooner than people have expected, and economic reform will be pushed forward at an accelerated pace. ...... Xi’s special background and experience have enabled him to get in touch with controversial people. .... “He listens to different opinions from a wide variety of sources… This is Xi’s political trait.” .... “Xi’s opponents can use it as an excuse to portray him as someone who has a dangerous motive like Gorbachev, thereby urging more hardliners to oppose him.” .... “The reality in China is, politics and economics are controlled by vested interest groups. Any kind of substantial reform will run a great risk.

Paging Mr. Xi Jinping

He’s about five feet ten, dark hair, dark suit, red tie, Mona Lisa smile...... Online, the Chinese rumor mills went berserk, with explanations ranging from an injury sustained while swimming or playing soccer to the suggestion (later withdrawn) that he may have been injured in a traffic accident related to a revenge attack by supporters of purged leader Bo Xilai. The Times has a blind quote from a political analyst who says he was told that Xi “had suffered a mild heart attack.” .... Another theory, the most mundane, is that he is simply buried in work in the weeks ahead of the upcoming 18th Party Congress, China’s political bar mitzvah, in which Xi will be formally designated as the supreme ruler for the next ten years. ...... 1984, when a Washington Post correspondent scooped his colleagues on the fact that Yuri Andropov had died. How did he do it? Among the constellation of clues, he noticed that the lights at the Defense Ministry were burning all night. And, the clincher: a jazz concert scheduled to be on the radio was replaced at the last minute by classical music.

For Xi Jinping, set to become China’s next leader, father’s past is sensitive

After years of persecution by a Communist Party he helped bring to power, Xi Zhongxun was hauled from solitary confinement and taken to see his family. The purged revolutionary could barely recognize his own offspring and recalled a melancholy Tang Dynasty poem: “My children do not know me. They smile and say: ‘Stranger, where do you come from?’ ” ..... More than three decades later, his son is set to become China’s next leader. .... Xi’s illustrious father, who commanded communist guerrillas in northwest China, rose to the rank of deputy prime minister after the 1949 revolution, got ousted by Mao Zedong in 1962 and, after 16 years in disgrace, reemerged to pioneer some of China’s boldest economic reforms. ..... a one-party state where history is shaped to serve the present. ..... Xi’s daughter, like the offspring of many senior Communist officials, studies in the United States, at Harvard. .... Xi nonetheless has a reputation for probity, and his close relatives are not known to be multimillionaires. .... He was raised, according to biographer Jia, on frugal values: The elder Xi, after taking a bath, made his son bathe in the same water. In an interview with Chinese television, Xi Jinping recalled having to wear flowery hand-me-down clothes from his sisters. As a teenager, after his father’s fall, he was banished to a poor village in Shaanxi. .... Xi senior is particularly popular with many liberals, who remember him as unusually open-minded and tolerant ..... There is no sign that China is about to get its own Mikhail Gorbachev, a seemingly conventional apparatchik who rose to the summit of the Soviet party and then destroyed it. Xi does not have to deal with a calamity that drove dramatic change in Moscow: China’s economy is not dying. ..... When Deng Xiaoping ordered tanks into Tiananmen Square to clear protesters in 1989, Xi said nothing publicly but is widely thought to have been appalled. ..... the vicious internal struggles that led to the elder Xi’s arrest by a rival faction in 1935, the purge of his close comrade-in-arms Gao Gang in 1953 (Gao killed himself and is still in the party’s bad books), his ouster by Mao in 1962, and the toppling of another ally, the relatively liberal party secretary Hu Yaobang, in 1987

Xi Jinping: The Mystery Man In Line To Lead China

a man "full of contradictions" .... He was born into affluence, a Communist Party "princeling" whose father, a hero of the Communist Revolution, rose to the post of vice premier before running afoul of Chairman Mao in 1962. When his father was purged, 15-year-old Xi was sent to a poor, remote village, where he lived in a cave and labored in the field for seven years. He later worked his way up in the party, attaining senior positions in several wealthy, relatively business-friendly coastal provinces. Until very recently, Xi's wife, famed folk singer Peng Liyuan, was the most famous member of his family. ..... The poor are hopeful that Xi, sensitized by his years as a laborer, will tackle China's huge income disparity. But wealthy capitalists are also optimistic, because of his leadership in Shanghai and other coastal provinces. "Xi spoke up for private businesses, saying they are a crucial component of the economy," businessman Zhou Dewen tells the BBC. "Xi Jinping created an environment for private and state businesses to compete fairly." In other words, he's a consensus candidate "who can appeal to almost everyone, but who seems to have alienated almost no one in his rise through the ranks" ..... he's not about to throw communism out the window. ..... Xi is more personable than Hu, or any recent Chinese leader, and seemed very comfortable in his meeting with Obama and other top officials, embodying his country's newfound confidence. "The world hasn't seen a leader like him in China before" ...... Many Chinese in his generation hold respect for the U.S., but no longer feel as indebted nor, perhaps, as grateful." Still, Xi feels comfortable enough about the U.S. that he's sending his daughter to Harvard. ...... Xi flies to Muscatine, Iowa, on Wednesday to reunite with the family that hosted him during his first visit to the U.S. (He came here to study advanced hog-raising techniques in 1985.) He then travels to Los Angeles to meet business leaders and, reportedly, attend a Los Angeles Lakers basketball game.

The princeling set to ascend the Chinese throne

When Xi Jinping was catapulted to the top of the Communist party hierarchy in 2007 the only thing most people in China knew about him was that he was married to a hugely popular military folk singer called Peng Liyuan...... Ms Peng, a major general in the People’s Liberation Army .... “The first time I met him my heart pounded and I felt immediately that this was my ideal husband, he was so pure and thoughtful,” she said in an interview with Chinese state media. Ms Peng also described him as humble and dedicated to his work as a party official. ..... Some say he is a strong nationalist leader who could try to confront the west, others argue he is pro-western but isolated and some hopeful liberals even quietly speculate that he could be a Chinese Gorbachev, itching to introduce democracy the first chance he gets. ....... appeared confident if somewhat colourless. .... Born the “princeling” son of a revolutionary general in 1953, he was surrounded by privilege from a young age, living in a compound for top Chinese leaders with the kind of comforts – servants, telephones and a steady food supply – that most citizens in the impoverished nation couldn’t dream of. ...... the young Xi, who for the next 15 years would be branded the son of a counter-revolutionary...... “I ate a lot of bitterness at that time,” Mr Xi later wrote. “But my experience there had a profound influence on me and formed my down-to-earth, striving character.” ..... While his father languished in prison he tried 10 times to join the same party that had brought so much suffering to his family but was refused because of his “bad class background”. He finally convinced the party to admit him in 1974 and a year later he was accepted to Beijing’s elite Tsinghua University. ..... he studied chemical engineering .... Mr Xi’s father was rehabilitated before being sent by Deng to rule Guangdong Province. In 1979 Mr Xi was given a plum job as assistant to Geng Biao, China’s defence minister and an old comrade of his father. ...... made a “calculated” decision in 1982 to head back out to the countryside in order to build his resumé as a grassroots official. He was eventually appointed governor of Fujian, the province that lies just across the strait from Taiwan, in 2000 and then party secretary of prosperous Zhejiang Province in 2003...... His elevation to vice-president and presumptive heir to Mr Hu in 2007 came just months after he was parachuted into Shanghai to replace disgraced former party secretary Chen Liangyu, the most senior official to be arrested for corruption in more than a decade...... This leap from obscurity to centre stage came partly thanks to his efforts carefully to cultivate his own image as a humble, down-to-earth public servant, after he suffered a major setback a decade earlier. ...... In 1997, amid a backlash against the “princelings”, he came last in an internal vote by Communist elites to select the party’s 344-member Central Committee. .... In an opaque system known for endemic graft and corruption, Mr Xi is regarded as “clean” ...... His and Ms Peng’s only child, a daughter, is studying as an undergraduate under an assumed name at Harvard .... “To a certain extent Xi may not know himself which way he will go.”

Xi Jinping

Xi is a princeling, the son of Xi Zhongxun, a former Politburo member and vice premier who was one of the architects of China's Special Economic Zones in the early 1980s. ..... Xi has long been know for his market-friendly approach to economic development. Yet he has also displayed strong support for "big companies," especially China's flagship state-owned enterprises, which monopolize many major industrial sectors in the country. Xi's experience in the military—serving as a personal assistant to the minister of defence early in his career—also makes him stand out among his peers. Xi's views concerning China's political reforms appear to be remarkably conservative, seemingly in ling with old-fashioned Marxist doctrines.

Little-known past of China's 'next leader'

Though his official biography extolls his virtues as a good party official with a strong work ethic who comes from a family with solid revolutionary credentials, little else is known about him.

The Guardian profile: Xi Jinping

His name is becoming more familiar but his face is still unknown to most and his opinions and intentions are an enigma. .... return to Muscatine, the tiny Iowa town he visited in 1985 as head of an animal feed delegation. .... While Hu is determinedly anonymous, Xi is "a big personality" .... confident and affable. He boasts a ready smile and a glamorous second wife – the renowned People's Liberation Army singer Peng Liyuan. He has expressed his fondness for US war movies and, perhaps more surprisingly, praised the edgy independent film-maker Jia Zhangke. .... grew up in the era of reform and opening .... Xi's daughter is studying at Harvard and a sister is thought to live in Canada ..... He grew up in the relative comfort of Zhongnanhai, the party elite's red-walled Beijing compound ..... young Xi was dispatched to the dusty, impoverished north-western province of Shaanxi to "learn from the masses". .... He spent seven years living in a cave home in Liangjiahe village. "I ate a lot more bitterness than most people," he once told a Chinese magazine. He has described struggling with the fleas, the hard physical labour and the sheer loneliness. ..... Although he has openly criticised the cultural revolution, Xi embraced the party; in a WikiLeaks cable an academic who knew Xi as a young man suggested he "chose to survive by becoming redder than red". .... "He was a very polite and kind guy. I could see someone very devoted to his work – there was no golfing on that trip, that's for sure," said Eleanor Dvorchak, who hosted Xi in her son's old room, where he slept amid football wallpaper and Star Trek figurines. "He was serious. He was a man on a mission." ...... "You could tell he was in charge … he seemed relaxed and welcoming and able to handle things," she said. "He had the words he wanted to express himself easily." ..... Xi always had his "eye on the prize" of a major party post. He transferred to southern Fujian province in 1985, climbing steadily upwards over 17 years. Most of his experience has been earned in China's relatively prosperous, entrepreneurial coastal areas, where he courted investors and built up business, proving willing to adopt new ideas. The former US treasury secretary Hank Paulson called him "the kind of guy who knows how to get things over the goal line". ...... He describes his own thinking as pragmatic and throughout his rise he has cultivated a down-to-earth image; in the provinces he ate in government canteens and often dressed down. ..... on their second date he warned her he would not have much time for family life. And in a system known for corruption, he also has a clean reputation. One friend told the LA Times the worst the paper was likely to find were overdue library books. ..... Xi is well-liked and adept at glad-handing, he appears to give little of importance away .... Becoming general secretary of the party, and thus leader of China, is "an issue of who opposes you rather than who supports you" ..... "In recent years he has taken care of large-scale events, including Olympics and anniversaries, and there haven't been any big mistakes ..... In 2007 he leapfrogged Li Keqiang – until then seen as likely to succeed Hu, but seen perhaps as too much Hu's protege – as the consensus candidate in a system built on collective decision making. ..... Xi's networks are unusually broad ..... His elevation is in the interests of the widest group of people and opposed by the smallest group." It is the same relatively small elite who will determine what he can do with the job. ..... grassroots organisations burgeoned during the vice-president's stint in Zhejiang, and there was progress in the election of independent candidates at local polls .... the province also saw "zealous persecution" of dissidents, underground Christians and activists .... shattered hopes that Hu might prove politically liberal. .... His most-quoted remark to date was made on a trip to Mexico in 2009: "There are some well-fed foreigners who have nothing better to do than point fingers at our affairs. China does not, first, export revolution; second, export poverty and hunger; third, cause troubles for you. What else is there to say?" ..... to read Xi as a man in sole control of the agenda is to fundamentally misunderstand the Chinese political system. He will be "first among equals" in the nine-member standing committee, say analysts. Hu and other former leaders will still exert influence; and 2011's five-year plan has plotted the immediate course. ..... The system "is in favour of moderation, and nothing can change quickly. Steady as it goes. The political rhythm first has to be installed … significant shifts will come later" ...... "I think he's a more instinctive and gut-driven politician and may surprise us. Others say the system and the vested interests around him are too strong" ..... "He himself probably does not know what he will do." .... "Are you trying to give me a fright?" (when asked by a reporter, in 2002, whether he would be a top leader within the decade). ..... "He's more assertive than Hu Jintao. When he enters the room, you know there is a significant presence here … [But] when they rise through their hierarchy, it serves no purpose to indicate differences or even alternative directions." (Henry Kissinger)

Xi Jinping Millionaire Relations Reveal Fortunes of Elite

Xi Jinping, the man in line to be China’s next president, warned officials on a 2004 anti-graft conference call: “Rein in your spouses, children, relatives, friends and staff, and vow not to use power for personal gain.” ..... As Xi climbed the Communist Party ranks, his extended family expanded their business interests to include minerals, real estate and mobile-phone equipment .... Those interests include investments in companies with total assets of $376 million; an 18 percent indirect stake in a rare- earths company with $1.73 billion in assets; and a $20.2 million holding in a publicly traded technology company ..... No assets were traced to Xi, who turns 59 this month; his wife Peng Liyuan, 49, a famous People’s Liberation Army singer; or their daughter ..... There is no indication Xi intervened to advance his relatives’ business transactions, or of any wrongdoing by Xi or his extended family. ...... In Shanghai, he was brought in as party chief after a 3.7 billion- yuan ($582 million) scandal. ...... Increasing resentment over China’s most powerful families carving up the spoils of economic growth poses a challenge for the Communist Party. The income gap in urban China has widened more than in any other country in Asia over the past 20 years ..... Most of the extended Xi family’s assets .. were owned by Xi’s older sister,Qi Qiaoqiao, 63; her husband Deng Jiagui, 61; and Qi’s daughter Zhang Yannan, 33 ..... Another brother-in-law of Xi Jinping, Wu Long, ran a telecommunications company named New Postcom Equipment Co ..... New Postcom won hundreds of millions of yuan in contracts from state-owned China Mobile Communications Corp., the world’s biggest phone company by number of users ..... In October 2000, Xi Zhongxun’s family gathered on his 87th birthday for a photograph at a state guest house in Shenzhen, two years before the patriarch’s death. The southern metropolis bordering Hong Kong is now one of China’s richest, thanks in part to the elder Xi. He persuaded former leader Deng Xiaoping to pioneer China’s experiment with open markets in what was a fishing village. ...... Premier Wen Jiabao’s son co-founded a private-equity company. The son of Wen’s predecessor, Zhu Rongji, heads a Chinese investment bank. ..... “What I’m really concerned about is the alliance between the rich and powerful,” said Wan Guanghua, principal economist at the Asian Development Bank. “It makes corruption and inequality self-reinforcing and persistent.” ..... While officials in China must report their income and assets to authorities, as well as personal information about their immediate family, the disclosures aren’t public. ...... as a Chinese proverb puts it: When a man gets power, even his chickens and dogs rise to heaven. ..... Lyndon B. Johnson was so poor starting out in life that he borrowed $75 to enroll in Southwest Texas State Teachers College in 1927 ..... After almost three decades of elective office, he and his family had media and real-estate holdings worth $14 million in 1964 ...... It was after her father’s death in 2002 that Qi said she decided to go into business, according to the Tsinghua interview. She graduated from Tsinghua’s executive master’s degree in business administration program in 2006 ..... Complex ownership structures are common in China .... Princelings engage people they trust, often members of their extended families, to open companies on their behalf that bid for contracts from state-owned enterprises

Profile: Xi Jinping - China's next leader?

the son of revolutionary veteran Xi Zhongxun, one of the Communist Party's founding fathers..... He was named party chief of Shanghai in 2007 when its former chief, Chen Liangyu, was sacked over corruption charges. Shortly after, he was promoted to the party's Standing Committee and, in 2008, became vice-president. .... In 2005, when he was the Communist Party secretary in Zhejiang, he told media that "government should be a limited government". .... Seen as having a zero-tolerance attitude to corrupt officials .... When, in June 2012, a Bloomberg investigative report examined the finances of his relatives, the company's website was blocked in China - even though the report said there was no indication of wrongdoing by him or his family. ..... Xi Jinping is also known as a straight talker .... vowing to "smash" any attempts to destabilise Tibet ..... Peng Liyuan has described her husband as frugal, hardworking and down-to-earth. "In my eyes, he's just my husband" ..... And he called Sino-US relations an "unstoppable river that keeps surging ahead", emphasising that a prosperous China was a positive force for global peace.

Xi Jinping: Cave dweller or princeling?

His wife, Peng Liyuan, a singer, has, for most of his career, been far more famous than he has. ...... When he was first announced as China's next leader-in-waiting, he was already vice-president, but people still joked: "Who is Xi Jinping? He is Peng Liyuan's husband." ..... He appears confident and open while giving away little. ..... Villagers turned us away when we asked to see the cave dwelling Xi lived in: digging too deep into the past of the man who might be president is not welcomed. ....... for most of his career Xi Jinping has been notable for the way he has avoided making enemies while being promoted by Party leaders. ..... "The party elders like him because he is steady and solid. But he is prepared to innovate too." .... Xi Jinping's strength is his broad CV

Tracing the Myth of a Chinese Leader to Its Roots

“He liked reading books,” said Lü Nengzhong, 80, a farmer who housed the boy, Xi Jinping, for three years. “They were thick books, but I don’t know what they were about. He read until he fell asleep.” ..... In an essay for a 2003 book Mr. Xi said his seven years here led to a life transformation. Using standard Marxist-Leninist-Maoist language, he wrote about learning to serve the people. ..... We “mustn’t stand high above the masses nor consider the masses as our fish and meat,” he said. He went on: “The hard life of the grass roots can cultivate one’s will. With that kind of experience, whatever difficulties I would encounter in the future, I am fully charged with courage to take on any challenge, to believe in the impossible and to conquer obstacles without panic.” ..... The village is in a narrow valley about 70 miles from Yan’an, the city in the northern province of Shaanxi that served as the Communist Party’s revolutionary base for 12 years during the Chinese civil war. Mr. Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun, a native of Shaanxi, helped build the base and became a venerated party leader. ..... The village comprises 100 households, twice as big as in Mr. Xi’s day. The people’s homes are caves built into the dry hillsides. The elders farm fields of corn, pumpkins and potatoes; younger people have left for cities seeking work. A fine yellow silt covers the landscape, the signature feature of the Loess Plateau. Mr. Xi once wrote that he was “a son of the yellow earth.” Donkey carts plod down the road. Women shuffle home with bundles of wood lashed to their backs. ....... Farming was not in Mr. Xi’s blood. Even after one year here, he struggled to balance two buckets of water on a bamboo pole across his shoulders, Mr. Lü said. “He slid down hills on his butt instead of walking down them,” he added. ...... “But after I got used to the local life, especially after I lost myself in the local people, I felt happiness in life.” ..... Like many other youths sent to the countryside, Mr. Xi had been allocated corn flour rations. The villagers ate corn husks. Mr. Xi cooked in his cave and ate alone. ...... “More and more people started to visit my cave house, which gradually became the center of our village,” Mr. Xi wrote. “Every night, people of all ages knocked on my door. We talked about nearly everything. Even the local party secretary came to me for advice. He said that young people had seen the bigger world and knew more than he did.” ...... “When Xi Zhongxun’s son was sent here, he was well received even though his father had fallen from power,” said Tan Huwa, a historian at Yan’an University. “The people here welcomed Xi Jinping with open arms because of his father’s time here.” .... “He didn’t talk a lot, but when he did speak, other people couldn’t interrupt him,” Mr. Lü said. “He was a strong speaker, very convincing.” ..... Xi came back once, decades later, when he was party secretary of the coastal province of Zhejiang, which was booming. He brought watches to hand out. “He was shocked by how poor the village was” ..... Xi had intended to stay for three days, Mr. Lü said. He left after an hour.

Xi Jinping 'under huge pressure' from inside the Communist party

Xi Jinping, 59, came under attack from party elders, who described him as "unreliable" and questioned whether he should be elevated to the pinnacle of Chinese power. .... The attacks came at the beginning of August at a short and bad-tempered meeting in Beidaihe, a Chinese seaside resort, when senior party members gathered to negotiate and plan their once-in-a-decade leadership change. ..... As China begins to count down the weeks to the 18th party congress, factions are again vying for power in process is still clad in Soviet-era secrecy. ..... "At the Beidaihe meeting, no decisions were made but the old gang criticised Xi harshly, especially Qiao Shi and Song Ping" ...... The elders allegedly accused Mr Xi of not sticking to the rules by meeting twice with members of the Central Military Commission, which controls the People's Liberation Army, while Mr Hu was visiting Hong Kong in early July. ..... "They called him unreliable and even brought up the idea of significantly delaying the party congress," said the source. "The fight was so harsh that Jiang Zemin [the former president] had to mediate." ...... With Hu Jintao preparing to step down from power, and hand over to Mr Xi, he faces the uncertainty of whether his successor will continue his legacy, or turn against him, a perennial fear for a Chinese politician. ........ A new rift appears to have emerged between the two main factions in the Communist Party: the "red" princelings, the up-and-coming children of Communist Party heroes, and the technocrats. ...... "Song Ping and the other elders are suspicious of Mr Xi and the other princelings because they are not obedient. ..... Xi has been occupied with trying to consolidate his position as he prepares for power. ..... he still expected him to take control. "No one would risk ruining the stability of the party at such a late point," he said. He added that physical illness was also no barrier to Mr Xi's ascendancy. "Who on the Politburo is not nursing some sort of chronic illness?"

Off-Script Scramble for Power in a Chinese Leader’s Absence

analysts say the Chinese political ship is adrift, with factions jockeying to shape an impending Communist Party conclave. ..... After an initial burst of chatter, blog posts alluding to Mr. Xi have been effectively smothered on China’s social media platforms ..... he will be re-entering an unexpectedly contentious political arena. ..... Planned years in advance, the 18th Party Congress is slated to be the most sweeping government reorganization in a decade, with scores of leaders scheduled to retire ..... The Communist Party has numerous factions, but the overall framework of the transfer was thought to have been mostly ironed out over the past year. ..... But recent developments, including Mr. Xi’s mysterious cancellation of several public appearances, suggest that may not be the case. ...... The most obvious sign of discord is that the dates for the congress have not been set ...... various factions: the military, big state enterprises, descendants of revolutionary families, leaders of critical Communist Party organizations and others. The details of the congress were to be finalized at Beidaihe and the dates announced later in August. ..... “The atmosphere was very bad, and the struggles were very intense” ...... Mr. Hu, who has been criticized as having been an overly cautious and ineffective leader during his decade in power, was also seen as defensive and gloomy. ..... the relative told him he did not know Mr. Xi to be sick. The scholar maintained that Mr. Xi’s absence was more likely because of the unsettled political situation. ....... “There is still a struggle; it is not finished” ...... emerged in 2007 as a compromise candidate to lead the party. ...... “It would require a complete rebalancing of all the competing interests.” ..... the powerful Standing Committee of the Politburo will be reduced to seven from nine members in an effort to streamline decision-making, resolve factional fighting over seats and rein in the power of China’s well-financed law enforcement apparatus

China's Next Leader Is Secretly Hinting At Reforms

hints at political and economic reform .... paraphrase some of Xi's comments: .... "The problems that China has accumulated are unprecedented.".."We must seek progress and change while remaining steady."..China needs to deal with "corruption and ill-discipline in the party" as a top priority..."We've got to hold high the banner of reform, including political system reform."......... Crucially, Xi apparently hinted that private businesses may get a tax break and other incentives.

Absence of Chinese vice president fuels intrigue before power transition

For ten days, Vice President Xi Jinping has dropped off the radar of state-run domestic news media, which usually meticulously record official activities of senior leaders. ..... Party chiefs jockey for power ahead of leadership jamboree .... Monday has come and gone -- and Xi remains nowhere to be seen, adding fuel to an Internet firestorm running on rumors and gossip. .... Rather than deflate the speculation with an official explanation, the Chinese authorities have so far remained silent.

China’s Heir Apparent Xi Jinping Reappears in Public After A Two-Week Absence

The mysterious and sudden invisibility of the man who would rule China set countless tongues wagging. Only the markets seemed unperturbed by the rumors and speculation...... China’s official news service, Xinhua, ran a one-sentence story recording Xi’s participation, an article presumably aimed at quelling intense speculation about the Vice President’s whereabouts after he cancelled several scheduled meetings with top foreign dignitaries, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The story was accompanied by a photo that showed a smiling Xi standing amid a clutch of dark-jacketed men on what was presumably the college campus. A rare blue sky shone overhead, unusual for a capital often swathed in smog. The caption for the photo was longer than the story itself. ..... Other sources whispered of a last-minute political putsch, perhaps organized by forces loyal to Bo Xilai, a once powerful politician whose downfall (along with his wife’s sentencing this summer for the murder of a British business consultant) had already thrown China’s leadership handover off-script earlier this year...... Perhaps he really had taken to bed with a bad back. Or he has since triumphed in some political battle. One thing is clear: the ruling Communist Party, even if it was compelled to eventually trot out Xi, was content to leave the world guessing for a fortnight...... Even as the Xi rumors reached their most frenzied—including one wild story that he had been injured in a deliberate car crash orchestrated by a political enemy—the Chinese stock markets hummed along. The thinking among some foreign investors went like this: the Chinese bureaucracy is so entrenched and extensive that it hardly matters who’s at the top...... we know almost nothing about what is happening in the cloistered confines of Zhongnanhai, China’s leadership compound. Our ignorance is deeply concerning.

Xi Jinping, China's next leader, ends 14 day-long vanishing act with visit to farm school

The consensus was that he had suffered a mild heart attack or a stroke, but some other sources said he had been working hard on the agenda ahead of the 18th Party Congress, the big event which will see him take centre-stage. ..... On the streets of Beijing, few were aware that one of the country's top leaders had disappeared, or now reappeared. ..... " ...and I stopped having an interest in politics a long time ago. The government does its job, I do mine." ...... The less the general public knows about its leaders, the less attention they pay to the various contradictions at the heart of Chinese politics; not least that a party that purports to represent the workers and the peasants is stacked with officials who have grasped enormous wealth

Xi Jinping Health Rumors Fly During China Vice President's Disappearance

Beijing's silence - though in keeping with a Chinese tradition of not discussing the health of senior leaders - could indicate some discord behind the scenes. ..... Europe's debt crisis and China's own economic slowdown ..... China's Internet users have fanned rumours about Xi as Beijing prepares for the 18th Communist Party Congress, likely to take place in October, to usher in a once-in-a-decade transition to a new top leadership team headed by Xi. ...... Beijing has yet to come to terms with its position as the world's second-largest economy and an emerging superpower ...... the secrecy was a function of one-party rule

Wikipedia: Xi Jinping

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Biggest anti-Japanese protests in 40 years sweep China as Xi Jinping reappears

Anti-Japanese protests flared in more than a dozen cities across China on Saturday, with some demonstrators trying to storm police barricades outside Japan’s embassy in Beijing as thousands pelted the building with rocks and eggs..... protests in at least 28 cities ... the scale of protests was the largest since the two nations normalized ties in 1972...... Online video and photographs from several cities showed shops and restaurants with damage ranging from broken windows to ransacking. Some buildings were reportedly left in flames..... While the anger toward the Japanese might temporarily deflect attention from China’s internal issues – authorities appeared to have done little to discourage the gatherings, which probably would have had difficulty happening without at least tacit consent – Beijing may well worry about further protests tapping into broader rage and getting out of hand...... It’s been an especially tumultuous period for a Chinese Communist Party that prefers buttoned-down stability. Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, the man slated to become the next president of China, resurfaced only on Saturday morning after a two-week disappearance and rampant rumors about health problems and factional infighting

The Long March Of Democracy

During the recent Blogger outage, a whole bunch of my blog posts got lost. And then all of them came back except this one at my Barackface blog. Since it had already been cross published at Technorati, I still had a copy.

Just One More Missing Blog Post
Miracle: The Lost Blog Posts Are Back
Lost A Whole Bunch Of Blog Posts
And Blogger Is Back

The Long March Of Democracy

The military action in Libya has absolutely been the right move. And a limited military action in Syria might be called for soon enough, something that is a week max. But military action is not an option when the tide of democracy finally hits Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, and China.

But military action is very much an option in the African countries. If a dictator anywhere in Africa uses full force against peaceful protesters, you give an ultimatum, you get UN authorization, and you take out the command and control structure, and that includes the top guy. But if they don't unleash animal brutality, instead they enter into peaceful negotiations, if they seek out political outlets, then military action can be avoided. But even in those instances the full non military might has to be put to the goal of getting the dictator out. That is the only acceptable outcome to any democracy movement. People do not get off the streets unless the dictator bows out.

Doing right in Libya and Syria is important. Unless democracy wins in those two countries, the democracy flames will not rise in Saudi Arabia and Iran.



Since there are no military options on the table for Saudi Arabi and Iran, we can hope and pray there will be massive street action. An agitated people willing to pour into every street in the capital city, a people willing to march onto the presidential palace can bring absolutely any dictator down. You have to be willing to sacrifice a few hundred lives.

Unless there is a total sweep of democracy across the Arab world and Africa, Russia is not going to wake up. And in this first phase Saudi Arabi and Iran are the only hard countries. Because there are no military options. Otherwise everywhere else aerial surgical strikes to take the top guy out if he crosses the line just might be the best option. When a killer goes on a shooting rampage at some mall, the police gun him down. Same thing.

The US Military Budget Needs To Come Down To 100 Billion From 600

This could all be done and over with in 2011, or it could spill over into 2012, and that would be just fine. The US military does not worry about Europe, because Europe is a bunch of democracies. Democracies don't go to war with each other. A total sweep of democracy across the world will allow America to do something it desperately needs get done to get rid of its budget deficit. America will then be able to vastly reduce its military budget and that is going to be a good thing.

China is tricky. Because China is not like Libya, not like Saddam's Iraq, China is not Iran, China is not even Russia. Physicists say if there is another universe, it might have different laws of physics. At some level China is politically like that. The Chinese president gets a meager salary. The Chinese president does not stay in power for life. The change of guard is pretty well done. Withing certain parameters, the Chinese Communist Party does have what might be called internal democracy. And, most important, China has lifted more people out of poverty than any power in history. They have been doing something right.

The democracy movement in China might start and conclude by asking for and getting fundamental political reform. There are amendments to the constitution so that other political parties are allowed, federalism is put into place, and human rights are guaranteed to the point Google gets to go back to China absolutely uncensored.

Sergey Brin's Is The Right Stand

But if America truly wants to see democracy in China, it has to be willing to enact total campaign finance reform in one swoop. Democracy is one person, one vote. And America does not have that democracy.

The way this democracy wave will conclude is China will become more like America and America will become more like China. America will also have to make way for a global currency. It can not be the dollar forever more.

This global wave of democracy is going to hit America's shores as well. Done right it is going to bring total campaign finance reform to the American political system.

When all is said and done, Putin is out, but the Chinese Communist Party is still in power, one among many political parties in China.

The Atlantic: Hillary Clinton: Chinese System Is Doomed, Leaders on a 'Fool's Errand': she was, as usual, fluent, comprehensive, and in total control of the details. ....... China, and its frightened reaction to the Arab Spring, came up, that she took an almost-Reaganesque turn, calling into question not just Beijing's dismal human rights record, but the future of the Chinese regime itself. ....... questioning the long-term viability of the one-party system ....... she sees the Arab Spring as the harbinger of a worldwide move toward democracy. ...... They just had a riot in Bangladesh because the government wants women to inherit equally. That's a red line, and that infringes on the rights of women, and therefore, I am against it ...... we are losing the war of ideas because we are not in the arena the way we were in the Cold War. ..... China is starting an English-speaking television network around the world, Russia is, Al Jazeera. And the BBC is cutting back on its many language services around the world. We're not competing. I just feel like we're missing an opportunity. And I'm well aware of our budget constraints and all of the difficulties we face, but now is the time — not in an arrogant way, but in a matter-of-fact experiential way. ....... power is diffuse. It is no longer the province of just governments. There's too much going on in the world today. People know too much. So we have to start dealing with people on a more direct basis. ....... the dispersal of power through information that was unimagined a decade ago, let alone 50 years ago. ....... But we don't walk away from dealing with China because we think they have a deplorable human rights record. We don't walk away from dealing with Saudi Arabia — ....... We don't have to blow. The winds are blowing. There's no stopping them. And what we have tried to do with him is to give him an alternative vision of himself and Syria's future. ....... with the Revolutionary Guard basically in charge ....... following the fall of the Berlin Wall, how Germany responded and Poland responded, you couldn't say that there was one template that fit all. ....... you can look at transitions to democracy in Latin America and in Europe — look at Spain and Portugal. There's no two that are exactly alike.

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Image via Wikipedia

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