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Comment by elteto | Hacker News Reader

Nope, China is run by the Chinese Communist Party, which itself is run by Xi. That's it. Just look at Jack Ma for a clear example that China is not run by engineers or tech people.

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As far as I know, this isn't true. Many members of the CCP have engineering degrees. A relevant podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1TeeIG6Uaw

What exactly isn't true? That Xi doesn't control the CCP?

And presumably they also have doctors and even lawyers in the CCP! Come to think of it, I wonder if China is not actually run by lawyers as well...

Xi is a chemical engineer.

My understanding is that Xi’s control actually slipping and it isn’t complete control like a standard dictator

I thought he had purged his opposition under the cover of anti-corruption drives?

He did yes but more recently seems like there’s been a coup behind the scenes and Xi is more of a figurehead.

See: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/all-eyes-beijings-ann...

Interesting. I hope that is good news for Taiwan.

Alibaba being told to drop their fintech ventures and instead focus on deeptech (semiconductors and ai) is one of the clearest examples of China’s leadership of engineers setting priorities.

That is purely driven by national security priorities, I mean, _clearly_. The engineering is just how you work towards meeting those priorities. If it had been making candy or melting ice then you can bet that's what they were going to focus on.

So, you are saying China is run by a chemical engineer? Xi studied that at Tsinghua University.

Yeah I think the better metaphor is China is run by one person, and America is run by a set of rich people and rich companies pursuing various profit and pet interests.

That is a very naive way of looking at things. There’s Politburo of 7, and even if we ignore other high rankings, provinces have huge amount of control over the way they’re ran. There are like 1.4B people in the country, it’s kinda funny to imagine that everyone just works and acts the same way.

I think that is a good starting point.

A good starting point would be to read about the organization of the ccp, but yeah let's say your very simplistic take that fits in a single sentence surely encompass everything we need to know. I'd even go further and simplify it even more: "China bad"

Well, definitely not "China bad" but absolutely "CCP bad". That's not even up for discussion.

Nailed it on the head. China is a dictatorship.

look into the nitty gritty of the cultural revolution, and it's very specific focus on technology

jack ma got a modern day "re-education" tailored to his specific circumstsnces, but as always in these situations the offer is "lead? or gold? your choice!"

Could you please update your references? China has been run by Mao's enemies for a very long time (likely longer than you've been alive), and the Cultural Revolution was a desperate ploy to consolidate power when the current way of Chinese thinking was growing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticize_Lin%2C_Criticize_Con...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_roader

>look into the nitty gritty of the cultural revolution, and it's very specific focus on technology

As I understand it, the cultural revolution was mainly about young people running amok and victimizing teachers and authority figures. All orchestrated by Mao so he could cling to power. What did it have to do with technology?

Perhaps you meant the 'great leap forward'?

But the CCP does promote based on merit and accomplishment for the most part.

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