Listen to EconTalk Podcast by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita on the Political Economy of Power(www.econtalk.org/archives/2006/08/the_political_e.html), it clearly explains how political power works in these types of dictatorships and semi-dictatorships. Unfortunately it will take about an hour, but you'll understand a lot more about how political power works. It's kind of important.

If short on time you can probably get away with just the first 40 minutes.

If you want to know why term limits aren't such a great idea, be sure to listen to the whole thing.

Damien

I don't know if anyone else has noticed or not, but that .jpg org chart of the Chinese government has been taken down (or else) renamed. Suspicious, since it only disappeared AFTER appearing in link form here....

"Um two words: Tienanmen Square." I'm sure I don't need to point out the many, many equivalents in so-called democracies? British police executed a totally innocent man on the tube and got away with it. They also recently attacked a female demonstrator and a passer-by who then died of a heart-attack. Our emails and phone calls are monitored. Our corrupt politicians and newspapers lie to us. Greedy businessmen destroy thousands of lives for a quick buck they don't need.

Yes, all that AND they are the source of General Tso's Chicken!!! China is truly the world's paradise. It's not surprising that security is so tight and information is controlled so strictly so that the rest of the world doesn't learn more about it and beat their borders down to get in.

I'm confused why you think Blago would be executed. It seems to me the people accusing him of being corrupt would be the ones in more danger.

To clarify: Not moving on in the educational system means you work the rest of your life in the corner grocery store, where the workers outnumber the customers three to one. You never get another shot. Lots of potential there for both economic stagnation as well as discontent in the population.

I went to China to teach English for a summer program. The students there were taking placement tests almost every weekend it seemed. Every test meant you moved on in the educational system or didn't. You had better believe that Chinese people advance based on merit. It's a meritocracy on crack. As long as their system holds together, it's going to outperform ours in the brains department, if for no other reason than the sheer number of people they have to choose from. The key for China though is what happens politically when they get a middle class, or if they ever get a middle class. Strange things happen when people start getting money. They start wanting political power too. Some of the kids I taught over there were already observing the large gap between the wealthy and the poor and were none too happy about it.

The whole thing about "Bush thinks God talks to him" annoys me. Just because a guy talks about being religious and bases his leadership decisions on his religious principles, people make him out to be some kind of looney who hears voices in his head.

And this is, of course, as opposed to his successor, a guy whose voters think that he IS god, and probably got him believing it too.

Scott, the problem is that you are making all these theoretical statements about what the government of China might be like, e.g. corrupt people are removed or killed, the system functions as a meritocracy, the leader gets chosen based on who is most effective, without checking to see if it matches the empirical data. The fact is that China has an incredible corruption problem. Just look at this article about the spike in sales of luxury goods whenever party members hold annual meetings, driven by delegates seeking to curry favor with superiors - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/world/asia/14gifts.html

It really shouldn't surprise you. Of course there is corruption in the US government, but to believe that the Chinese system works better is to believe that we can improve the US government by doing the following - removing one of the two political parties, giving all the power to the other party, give more power to the government unchecked by a free press, and let the government decide what we should learn in school and what we should hear in the news. Do you honestly believe that will lead to less, not more, corruption?

Corruption is a problem because the Chinese government is not obliged to actually create an effective, fair government for their people, only to give the appearance of one. When SARS first broke out in China, they didn't consult with the rest of the world on how best to fix it and stop it from spreading both domestically and internationally, but instead tried to cover it up and hope it went away. When news of milk tainted with melamine first became apparent, again the government didn't try to fix the problem but just covered it up, because this happened right before the Olympics and they didn't want to "lose face". After the recent earthquake in China, parents of schoolchildren wanted to know why schools in the area collapsed, killing their children, when buildings right next to the schools were undamaged. Again, the government just tried to cover up the problem, not wanting to admit that corruption had led to poorly constructed schools. There are people in China speaking up about it - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/world/asia/20quake.html?_r=1 - but with no freedom of press, how many other Chinese people are going to hear about it and actually try to do something about it?

One other example of how all is not what it seems in China - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/09/world/asia/09jails.html Supposedly a petition system exists for people to file grievances with the local government. An actual filed grievance, however, appears as a black mark for the local government, so naturally, in a government more concerned with the outward appearance of social harmony rather than actual equality, a system of secret jails has come into existence with the purpose of heading off people before they can file a petition, holding them for a few days and roughing them up, and repeat until the person finally just gives up.

Imagine your views tend to align with the Democratic Party. After 8 years of rule by President Bush you are looking forward to the opportunity to elect someone new. You arrive at the polls and are given a ballot. On the ballot are two choices: a. Dick Cheney, b. Go to Jail.

Is the party open to all?

Are there ever more than one candidate on the party slate? I think the citizens generally just endorse a party slate.

Is advanvement within the party (at the lower ranks) based on acheivement or, like a company, largely based on toadying up to your boss?

Is there a clear line between the government and the judiciary? Can a party member make life hell for people who disagree with them?

I think China is run as a bad, ruthless, corrupt, corporation... or like a church.... Scientology?

(Totally offtopic)

Scott, is there a way to find specific comics on the site? I'm trying to find the one with the Dogbert lines: stuffed of cremated, whatever is cheapest (dilbert died and dogbert has to decide what to do with the corpse).

Man, you are a sly fox. Anything to get the dogs barking.
Selectively taking isolated points to make China's government look more efficient or agreeable than U.S. model, upsetting the dog pound.
Reminds me of a Kurt Vonnegut , Jr essay from Palm Sunday, describing how the USA and Soviet Union wanted to tinker with the other fellows system to improve the lives of respective citizens (the US wanted the Soviets to allow its citizens free speech without fear of government reprisal, the Soviets wanted the US government to guarantee no unemployment and a decent living and benefits for workers).
China and India are both in a unique position to abandon wasteful energy gobblin' ways of the west and introduce efficient low energy vehicles, alternative energy resources and delivery, etc. But corruption always sets in, so stupid unimaginative wasteful ways of the west will win again.

Membership of the CP is by recommendation of existing members and after checks an exams, so it isn't open to all citizens: cf. literacy tests in the southern US pre-desegregation.

It would be interesting to see what proportion of ethnic minority peoples in the PRC are members of the CP and compare that to the proportion of ethnic Chinese membership. I suspect that Tibetans and Muslim minorities don't fare very well. I also suspect that they take a different view of the rights/law and order balance from the dominant population.

For davidr1143, your 'statistics' are a bit lacking, what if the other 5734 people are executed .... or deported and who reported that low number to begin with, the Chinese goverment?

Anyway, so Scott when are you moving? You can no doubt afford a personal translator or two so the language barrier should be no problem. And when (not if) you make it to the execution room because you can't keep you mouth shut, at least you can see it coming and understand why (from their point of view). You don't get that here where an irate and/or lunatic can storm in from the streets any time and start shooting anything that moves in sight. Advantage China.

"Obviously you have to include in this discussion the issues of human rights. China comes up short on that measure compared to western democracies. But what is less clear is whether the majority of Chinese would prefer it otherwise."

It is odd that the world thinks China has a bad human rights situation. The incarceration rate in China is 100-150 per 100,000 population. In America we incarcerate more than 700 per 100,000 population. We have 5 to 7 times as many people in prison per capita than China does. China is more a "home of the Free" than the United States by several magnitudes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration

"Obviously you have to include in this discussion the issues of human rights. China comes up short on that measure compared to western democracies. But what is less clear is whether the majority of Chinese would prefer it otherwise."

There is something very dangerous about this way of thinking ... consider this (extreme) example :

"1938: Nazi Germany comes up short on that measure compared to other countries. But what is less clear is whether the majority of Germans would prefer it otherwise."

Um two words: Tienanmen Square.