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The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers Kindle Edition
“A masterful depiction of the party today. . . . McGregor illuminates the most important of the contradictions and paradoxes. . . . An entertaining and insightful portrait of China’s secretive rulers.” —The Economist
“Few outsiders have any realistic sense of the innards, motives, rivalries, and fears of the Chinese Communist leadership. But we all know much more than before, thanks to Richard McGregor’s illuminating and richly-textured look at the people in charge of China’s political machinery. . . . Invaluable.” — James Fallows, National Correspondent for The Atlantic
In this provocative and illuminating account, Financial Times reporter Richard McGregor offers a captivating portrait of China’s Communist Party, its grip on power and control over China, and its future.
China’s political and economic growth in the past three decades has been one of astonishing, epochal dimensions. The most remarkable part of this transformation, however, has been left largely untold—the central role of the Chinese Communist Party. McGregor delves deeply into China’s inner sanctum for the first time, showing how the Communist Party controls the government, courts, media, and military and keeps all corruption accusations against its members in-house. The Party’s decisions have a global impact, yet the CCP remains a deeply secretive body, hostile to the law and unaccountable to anyone or anything other than its own internal tribunals. It is the world’s only geopolitical rival of the United States, and is primed to think the worst of the West.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarperCollins e-books
- Publication dateJune 2, 2010
- File size1132 KB
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In this provocative and illuminating account, Richard McGregor offers a captivating portrait of China’s Communist Party, its grip on power and control over China, and its future.
China’s political and economic growth in the past three decades has been one of astonishing, epochal dimensions. The most remarkable part of this transformation, however, has been left largely untold—the central role of the Chinese Communist Party. In The Party, Richard McGregor delves deeply into China’s inner sanctum for the first time, showing how the Communist Party controls the government, courts, media, and military and keeps all corruption accusations against its members in-house. The Party’s decisions have a global impact, yet the CCP remains a deeply secretive body, hostile to the law and unaccountable to anyone or anything other than its own internal tribunals. It is the world’s only geopolitical rival of the United States, and is primed to think the worst of the West.
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Product details
- ASIN : B003L77ZTS
- Publisher : HarperCollins e-books; Illustrated edition (June 2, 2010)
- Publication date : June 2, 2010
- Language : English
- File size : 1132 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 332 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #602,415 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #102 in Non-US Legal Systems (Kindle Store)
- #276 in Non-US Legal Systems (Books)
- #300 in Communism & Socialism (Kindle Store)
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The Party uses both example and commentary to show by example how the Party is behind some of the major business decisions of recent history. It gives examples of how the Party directly influences some of the biggest corporates on the planet. In particular the rotation of the CEOs of the 3 biggest chinese telco operators was done behind closed doors without consultation with the public. It discusses Chalco's impact on disrupting one of the biggest potential mergers in modern business history (Rio and BHP), as such a merger would shift bargaining power of mineral prices away from consumer (china) and towards producer. Its actions need to be assessed through the lense of an entity who is both asserting and preserving its power as well as protecting its sovereign interests.
The Party also discusses the internal stresses faced by the communist party. With the phenomenal success of the chinese economy and the wealth that has been created with growth comes greater competition between the lure of the party, and the desire for commercial wealth. This stress has been a source of corruption and rent seeking. With economies directed from the bottom up with preferential state lending, the position of power of local authorities can and is used for personal benefit. The party it is argued acknowledges and accepts this. It must deal with both punishing examples to show vigilance but realizing that removing the rents that are recieved with political power would remove the incentive to join and thus would promote instability.
Overall this is a fascinating overview of how the Chinese Communist Party operates and what it has to deal with. It has had to adapt quickly, and the stresses it is dealing with will likely intensify over time. The way in which the party maintains its power is on a tightrope in which differences in opinion within the party are abundant. Nonetheless they have so far been able to form consensus and progress despite their differences. It is the ability to unify and come to consensus that has taken them this far, despite some near break points. Whether that will continue to be the case, time will tell, but as an overview on what is happening today and some of the solutions the party has crafted, this book is excellent. It is a must read to gain perspective into how the communist party operates and how it sees things.
Even though the central leadership, standing committee memberships and politburo has changed (as of 2012), this is still highly relevant to many of the themes that the Party continues to struggle with and confront. This includes the growing middle class and income disparity, State-Owned versus Private Corporation governance, environmental issues, the major anti-corruption campaign underway. And this books helps understand why these dominate the party, and why the party behaves the way it does. And the author does this in a very effective manner - well organized, well researched, and well sourced. The chapters on the Shanghai Gang are also very informative as it allows the reader to understand the massive struggle Xi Jinping must of had (continues to have) in installing his key officials into key posts that will help him with his policy agenda.
Highly recommend this for anyone doing business in China (or with Chinese companies), travelling or planning to live in China as this book provides a very well-rounded view of the key decision making body that is present throughout all aspects of life in this interesting country.
Highly pragmatic, cynical, and adaptive, the Party has succeeded in the last three decades in linking the power and legitimacy of a communist state with the drive and productivity of an increasingly entrepreneurial society. The party's legitimacy still depends largely on the economy and its accompanying resurgent patriotism and nationalism. For all its increasingly international presence, China and, therefore, the Party will remain focused mainly on solving the country's problems due to their scale, depth, multiplicity, and variety.
McGregor shows systematically how high secrecy, tolerance of non-embarrassing corruption in its ranks, resolute hostility to the rule of law, and vindictive pursuit of enemies are all vital for the Party if it wants to remain at the core of the modern Chinese narrative through its tight grip on 1) personnel, 2) propaganda, and 3) People's Liberation Army.
At the same time, the Party has traded in Mao Zedong's totalitarian terror for a seductive modus vivendi with Chinese citizens. As long as ordinary Chinese accept the enlightened leadership of their empowered elite and do not ask for either accountability or the rule of law, they can pretty much lead their life and career as they see fit and eventually get rich. McGregor also shows clearly that although the Party has adapted its membership make-up to ongoing changes in China, it is struggling to keep up with the rapidly evolving aspirations, demands, and cleavages of the Chinese society. However, the bargain that the Party has struck with ordinary Chinese does not exist in a vacuum. The Party's propaganda system has to constantly remind Chinese citizens that there is no serious alternative to the Party in order for it to remain at the top of Chinese society.
The Party is also keen to minimize its profile abroad. For example, the Party likes to promote the largest state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that are publicly traded in Hong Kong and outside mainland China as independent commercial entities. The Party's myriad functions, starting with its control over top management of these SOEs, have been downplayed systematically.
In summary, McGregor convincingly demonstrates that the Party is determined to pursue its own model of economic, political, and social development on its own implacable terms. The rest of the world, especially the West, has no other option but to adapt to the reemergence of China, regardless of the ultimate outcome of this metamorphosis.
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The author does an extremely detailed job on the topic, presenting the various parts of the CCP - in relation to topics such as businesses, army, history etc. The book is rich with anecdotes, real events that shot to national limelight etc to make us get a ring side feel of what transpired in the 15-20 years upto 2010.
Would love to read a sequel that includes the Xi Jinping era.
I would recommend to everyone