China's Xi could rule for life, as two-term limit set to be scrapped | Hacker News Reader

China's Xi could rule for life, as two-term limit set to be scrapped

washingtonpost.com

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16457998

Once again it seems to me that Ai Wei Wei's quote about China is pertinent:

“Can China be a global power? I don’t think so. It can gain an advantage, that’s true. But it doesn’t have soul. It doesn’t have heart. It doesn’t trust its own people. So it has no self-identity in the sense that it has never accepted human rights as common values. No freedom of speech, no independent judicial system. If those don’t exist, how can you have creativity? How can you be a country? So forget about China. China is an illusion. It’s there, it’s large. But nobody can tell you what it is.”

We live so much with representational democracy - so close to it - that we take it entirely for granted. We imagine that our situation would be somehow replicable with other forms of government. That we could have a benign autocracy and everything could be the same. People talk about China as if they're just a slightly different version of us. But instead of a mirror or an aspiration they ought to be a warning.

"It doesn’t have heart. It doesn’t trust its own people. So it has no self-identity in the sense that it has never accepted human rights as common values. No freedom of speech, no independent judicial system."

All of this was true of the USSR and yet it was a global super-power for half a century.

It was a military super-power, yes, but that was about it. With the possible exception of having some great classical-style composers, it otherwise was not an inspiring country. You sided with them to have big weapons on your side, not for any other reason.

I think that's a bit unfair. Their ideals did inspire a number of other countries to revolution, including China. The USSR did it first and its example was emulated by other countries with some local variations. Many of the early Chinese leaders were educated in the USSR and inspired by Lenin and even Stalin. I think it's only in our backwards looking view, having "won" the Cold War, that the USSR doesn't look so inspiring but to a early 1900s peasant, a successful peasant revolt that toppled a great empire is nothing to sneeze at.

It also inspired half of the world and had a massive cultural, artistic and sports influence across the whole world. Space program that was well ahead of the US for a good period time.

Classical composers as you mentioned, literature (Russian realism), opera & ballet. Russian academies in those areas are still considered the best in the world.

There was a brief period from about 1957 to 1965 where they seemed to be gaining steam; but other than that, it was mostly other dictators that tried to emulate and/or side with them, not general populations.

China is and will be a super power but the point is it won’t have deep roots in culture and time unless it becomes driven by a wider base.

Man, I just now understood Ai Weiwei's statement because of your comment. China, as a civilization, has had a diminishing influence on the world, culturally speaking, since the Tang or perhaps the Song dynasty. The strictness and centralized power of the last two dynasty and current government really shackled the creative output of its people. While we can argue that the Han and Tang dynasty has an influence on the world, it's hard to say the same of the dynasties that followed.

> Can China be a global power? I don’t think so.

China arguably is a global power today. I think what Ai Weiwei means is if China can be a long-lasting empire like the Roman or the British Empire.

Also, this reminds me of the classic Upton Sinclair quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." The man being Weiwei in this case.

The British Empire is not all that long lasting compared to some of the Chinese ones that has existed in the past. China as a civilization has arguably outlived everyone. (The Roman empire, if you include the Byzantine, is arguably the longest lasting empires).

Is that really needed for creativity? Most of human history was ruled by monarchs and yet we had extremely creative people.

When England was a world power, they weren’t exactly known for human rights and yet they lead the Industrial Revolution.

Even in Jim Crow America, there was still a lot of creativity from those that were oppressed.

I don't know if WaPo changed the headline or if this was an attempt to shorten it for HN, but the article currently has "could rule for life" rather than "to rule for life."

The latter may well happen, but at least for now, it's only the former.

We really won’t know until Xi dies in office. Seeing as the NPC is just a rubber stamp congress, there are no other checks and balances on the core leader’s power except what happens between old men in smoky rooms. What will happen is entirely opaque.

>We really won’t know until Xi dies in office.

We would also know if he is replaced 5-10 years down the line while still very much alive.

Sure, I was talking about the if true happens case.

It's at least true for the foreseeable future that he'll be the leader. Just like you don't know if a current relationship will persist through the end of your lives until one of you dies. :-)

We've changed the title above to the article's HTML doc title.

Submitted title here was "With a dash of Putin and an echo of Mao, China’s Xi to rule for life".

I don't really understand why power obsessed people don't seem to recognize that at some point retirement is graceful. (Thinking of Robert Mugabe, for example.)

Fear that the new power won't overlook the misdeeds they (the old power) undertook while in power.

I've heard someone say that Putin is at the same time the ruler and prisoner of Kremlin for exactly this reason.

I've read something that Yeltsin resigned to Putin in exchange for forgiveness, whatever that entails: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin#Resignation_2

"Power obsessed" is the answer to your own question, I think.

And it's not just because they enjoy power. It's more like riding a tiger. There is no time, ever, when it is safe to get off.

Great analogy! Kudos.

If they were capable of thinking like that, they wouldn’t be in the position they were in. It must take a really incredible lust for power, and a very high opinion of oneself to be what amounts to a dictator in the first place.

Humble, sensible, rations, people don’t become the Mugabes of the world, in the same way that people who can measure rewards and risks don’t rob liquor stores.

Lee Kuan Yew might be the best recent example of things done right. The trick is becoming responsibility-obsessed (though you might have to endure mischaracterizations of power-obsessed), so the real question is whether Xi is going to be responsible with power or not? The only metric I have as an outsider is overall country success. China's done very well over the past few decades, we'll see if it continues.

Paywall someone wanna translate?

good thing - he will be able to finish all planned his reforms

That presumes that his planned reforms are in fact a "good thing". That's possible. It's possible that they aren't, too... and, if that turns out to be the case, nobody can stop him.

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