Read Online The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers by Richard McGregor - Free Book Online
Book: The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers by Richard McGregor
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Authors: Richard McGregor
Tags: nonfiction, History, Business & Economics, china, Asian Culture, Politics & Government, Communism, Military & Fighting
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stands between the country and the kind of murderous, impoverishing instability that has engulfed China at numerous times in its history. Recalibrated along these lines, the compact also reads–get rich, or else!
Even with this qualification, the space for individual Chinese to grow and prosper has expanded enormously since the late seventies. The rank and file of Chinese citizenry these days lead vastly different lives from their parents a generation ago. One by one, all sorts of things that once needed the Party’s permission–where you lived, worked and studied; how much you were paid; where you went to the doctor; who you married, on what date and when you started a family; where you shopped and what you could buy; and when and where you travelled and with whom–have become the subject of personal choice for urban Chinese citizens. All you need is the cash to pay for it. The rules that long restricted the movement of rural residents are also, slowly, being unwound.
When the Party directly ruled over, and often threatened, ordinary Chinese, during Mao’s murderous campaigns in the fifties, sixties and seventies, people learned to pay close attention to its pronouncements. Many Chinese remain attuned to the stiff recitations of official newspeak on sensitive political occasions, such as the 2007 congress. Government and scholarly circles, and even stock market investors, who understand that policy changes dictated by the Party have the power to move share prices, still watch these pronouncements closely. Otherwise, party declarations exist in a kind of parallel universe, like a radio left on in the background, a constant presence, but for the most part easily tuned out and forgotten altogether.
The Party’s removal of itself from the many areas of life and work of its citizens into which it once crudely and cruelly intruded has been as strategic as it has been enlightened. As intoxicating as these changes have been for the Chinese people, the retreat has also paradoxically empowered the authorities. The Party has been able to maintain its own secret political life, directing the state from behind the scenes, while capturing the benefits and the kudos delivered by a liberalized economy and a richer society at the same time.
The fruits of reform in China since 1978 are palpable. China crammed into thirty years the kind of brutish, uplifting makeover that took as long as a century in the industrial revolutions in the UK and the US. The economy has doubled in size every eight years. In a comparatively short space of time, the Party has presided over an epic migration of farmers from the countryside to the cities; an explosion in private ownership–of houses, cars, businesses and shares; the creation of a middle class twice the size of the population of the United Kingdom; and the lifting out of poverty of hundreds of millions of people. In the last decade, China has managed to gallop or drag itself through multiple calamities: the Asian financial crises in 1997 and 1998; the downturns in the US in the wake of the bursting of the internet bubble and the September 11 terrorist attack; and the homegrown SARS emergency in 2003, which threatened to bring businesses inside the country to a halt. When the credit crunch hit the global economy in 2008, China was better equipped than just about anywhere in the world to handle the sudden downturn.
While the Party’s political conclaves operate opaquely, the economy has been nourished by a relatively open debate. All the issues on the table in most developed countries, about the value of open markets, the cost of state ownership, the perils of protectionism and the impact of floating currencies, are up for discussion in China as well. Liberal economists are still subject to occasional waves of intimidation, because of the sense that their ideas ultimately threaten the dominance of the state. But the Party’s restless search for a formula that matches its dual objectives–to
Even with this qualification, the space for individual Chinese to grow and prosper has expanded enormously since the late seventies. The rank and file of Chinese citizenry these days lead vastly different lives from their parents a generation ago. One by one, all sorts of things that once needed the Party’s permission–where you lived, worked and studied; how much you were paid; where you went to the doctor; who you married, on what date and when you started a family; where you shopped and what you could buy; and when and where you travelled and with whom–have become the subject of personal choice for urban Chinese citizens. All you need is the cash to pay for it. The rules that long restricted the movement of rural residents are also, slowly, being unwound.
When the Party directly ruled over, and often threatened, ordinary Chinese, during Mao’s murderous campaigns in the fifties, sixties and seventies, people learned to pay close attention to its pronouncements. Many Chinese remain attuned to the stiff recitations of official newspeak on sensitive political occasions, such as the 2007 congress. Government and scholarly circles, and even stock market investors, who understand that policy changes dictated by the Party have the power to move share prices, still watch these pronouncements closely. Otherwise, party declarations exist in a kind of parallel universe, like a radio left on in the background, a constant presence, but for the most part easily tuned out and forgotten altogether.
The Party’s removal of itself from the many areas of life and work of its citizens into which it once crudely and cruelly intruded has been as strategic as it has been enlightened. As intoxicating as these changes have been for the Chinese people, the retreat has also paradoxically empowered the authorities. The Party has been able to maintain its own secret political life, directing the state from behind the scenes, while capturing the benefits and the kudos delivered by a liberalized economy and a richer society at the same time.
The fruits of reform in China since 1978 are palpable. China crammed into thirty years the kind of brutish, uplifting makeover that took as long as a century in the industrial revolutions in the UK and the US. The economy has doubled in size every eight years. In a comparatively short space of time, the Party has presided over an epic migration of farmers from the countryside to the cities; an explosion in private ownership–of houses, cars, businesses and shares; the creation of a middle class twice the size of the population of the United Kingdom; and the lifting out of poverty of hundreds of millions of people. In the last decade, China has managed to gallop or drag itself through multiple calamities: the Asian financial crises in 1997 and 1998; the downturns in the US in the wake of the bursting of the internet bubble and the September 11 terrorist attack; and the homegrown SARS emergency in 2003, which threatened to bring businesses inside the country to a halt. When the credit crunch hit the global economy in 2008, China was better equipped than just about anywhere in the world to handle the sudden downturn.
While the Party’s political conclaves operate opaquely, the economy has been nourished by a relatively open debate. All the issues on the table in most developed countries, about the value of open markets, the cost of state ownership, the perils of protectionism and the impact of floating currencies, are up for discussion in China as well. Liberal economists are still subject to occasional waves of intimidation, because of the sense that their ideas ultimately threaten the dominance of the state. But the Party’s restless search for a formula that matches its dual objectives–to
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