I really want to focus on Larry Diamond’s comments to Wang’s article  because I think he made some very interesting points. He started off by saying he agrees the CCP has been transitioning  for a long time, but he questions what they are transitioning to. China’s communist ideology is starting to loose its legitimacy. For example, China’s youth are starting to joke about the CCP  and  the only reason they are competing for membership is so for instrumental and careerist reasons. Although the CCP  has doe vert little to benefit  china in the last 20 years they are doing everything  they can to remain in power and so it  is essential the people in China play along.

The CCP has been acting as if political reform has been taking place and it is effective, but in reality the economy has not changed much since the 1990s. The CCP has not made too many strides closer to democracy. The Three Represent that is claimed to be this big political reform is really a brilliant adaptation for the CCP to continue Domination. I really question what was supposed to be such a big reform by  including more parties under the the Communist Party? Diamond does mention the changes that China has made, but t he reason I think they have gone unnoticed is because they have not been significant enough to make a change. A change that has been made is in the attitude and values of the Chinese people and he believes this could be what ends the CCP. I am not too sure of the affects of the downfall of the Communist Party yet, but I am rooting for  the people to rise against the CCP and government. Diamond believes that democracy should be the answer at the end of all of this. I  agree, but I do not thin that is going to be the answer  it seems very plausible  that China  might try and model it off Singapore’s government. I have no evident to support this, but it seems like China  is trying to avoid  a Democracy and modeling its government after the West even though most of the powerful countries in the world are democracies now days.

This podcast was very enlightening for me because, I  have read/listened to  so many articles and podcasts on what is happening in China with Xi Jinping as a leader, but I did not understand how it got to this point. The certainly do not have a system that is set up by separation of power like the U.S. and there is barely a thing  as checks and  balances because essentially the government  and party are the same thing. Personally it  seems that the The Republic of China’s Constitution backing the China’s Communist Party Constitution seems corrupt in itself. Four years ago when the party started to get out of hand and became malfunctioned the military started attacking citizens in different ways and the government was becoming very corrupt with money it makes sense a strong leader would arise, AKA Xi Jinping. It is during times of extreme corruption that people look for a strong leader to pull them out of the crisis and they are okay with whatever power is necessary to do so.

I think the key with strong leadership arising during a difficult time is it is suppose to be temporary. It is suppose to be temporary powered gained in order to fix a problem and then they should release a lot  of this power. Xi Jinping, however, is gaining more and more power as time goes on and is starting to oppress his people and this is a dangerous game to be playing for China.

It  is pretty impressive that we have such a important and strong relationship with China even though we have  so much tension and disagreement going on with China. It sucks that China and the United Stated clashed so harshly  in the Copenhagen summit because that set the stage fir Obama and his relationship with China. It took then from 2009-2014 to fix a relationship instead of building it.

The problem in the South China Sea is so disputed by both sides it sees as if though it is a huge misunderstanding. It seems that it would really benefit both sides to sit down and get to the root of the problem and come to a solution of how can this problem be fixed. This is not the only problem by any means. Another example is China decided that it no longer needs the same American involvement in its market/economy and started shutting the U.S. out. It is disappointing to know that the U.S. is looking  towards changing its relationship with China in order to protect America and American Businesses. I completely understand why, but knowing how much it would hurt the U.S. and China and other countries I hope we find another option.

Also, side note I completely agree with Melanie Hart that we need to start focusing more on the U.S. and out internal problems/ struggles that need to be dealt with and stop bashing China and acting as if they are responsible for our problems.

This article was really short, but discusses David Shambaugh’s ideas about China. He believes that unless Xi Jinping introduces major political reforms the economy will tank and the party will crumble in the next decade or so. He also discusses how Xi Jinping’s interpretation of the rule of law is disturbing. I have to agree with both of these. I  thought his claim that china would do well with a soft authoritarian and semi-democratic system was interesting. Even though I agree with most of his claims, becasue he stated everything with such boldness and certainty it makes me hesitant to believe  it is going to happen just as he states.

If I had to take a guess based off this article if the Communist Party was going to collapse I would say yes. I think that President Xi Jinping trying very hard not to be like the Soviet Union and Mr. Gorbachev is leading him closer to the destruction of the party. Because Xi Jinping  is being repressive I think he will deposed in a power struggle or coup d’etat. Also, I think that with  the economist elite and the regime loyalist all ready to skip town if things get to bad, the intensifying repression, and the corruption campaign Xi Jinping has lost a lot of support and he does not have major parties  and classes baking him up. It seems that he/the party are extremely vulnerable at this time and I can’t help but think someone, or some group is going to take advantage of this.

You should have “illuminating lenses through which to view the People’s Republic of China”. I did not  understand what this meant at first, but  now I understand and I love the quote. Wasserstrom is right that people have a very skewed view of  China that are based of stereotypes and others popular opinions. People don’t think that the United States is anything like that  China, but this is not completely true the 2 countries are the same  in many ways. I thought he made an interesting point that people like to compare the 2 countries in terms of human rights and everyone talks about how bad China is. But, both countries have human rights struggles amongst the lower classes and they are the only 2 big countries left that still have the death penalty. Because the death penalty is such an inhumane punishment I think it is a good start to showing how  these 2 countries are more alike then people make  it seem.

Time is a funny thing, because time is relative. Sixty years in terms of a human life is a long time, it is over half of our life. But when you are thinking about history sixty years is nothing. Although Sixty years seems like a long time from the beginning of the Culture Revolution with Mao to the end of the reform period with Deng, it is not in the grand scheme of things.  China in that 60 year period changed from a revolutionary party to a ruling party. Within this time period there are six major changes that took place: revolution to reform , struggle to harmony, dictatorship to democracy, rule of man to rule of law and decentralized, and state to society. You cannot point any of these topics as extremely more important then the other topics, because they almost all inter link in someway.

I think the element  that is craziest to investigate is the revolution to reform aspect. The fact that Mao tried to carry out a forever lasting revolution is interesting  in itself because here you are with a leader that wants armed struggle and violence permanently. It puzzles me that he could think that China could be stable and last while constantly in a state of revolution. Yes, the revolution had a lot of short term positive effects like : increased standard of living, boosted economy, literacy rates improved and the international status was enhanced. But during a revolution rule of man takes over and defies all rule of law. I don’t understand how people could live under those violent conditions. I would think that the “natural disaster” of millions of Chinese starving to death would have made it evident that things need to change, but that was not the case. China in those 60 years was just complete chaos and its hard to believe the country came out of that chaos in any way.

This introductory chapter shed light to how complex the politics, economy, and government are in China. It starts off by shedding light on the conflict that occurred in Tian’anmen Square and that movement. Then discusses how China can no longer be labeled socialist or capitalist because it has aspects of both. China is a cauldron of a socialist government, market economy, globalization, modernization and traditional culture. People do not see China for all that it is because they have a prejudices or a believed false insight. This book evaluates China in a China-centric approach, so it should be as close to accurate that you can encounter. This book aims to describe the changing politics in China, society, economy and nation globalization through the prism of the neo-socialist experiment and experience, asking questions which start from Chinese realities.

This  chapter did not clear anything up, but just made me more confused. It shed light on the complexity and how biased we Americans feel towards China. I will be  interested to read more about the different topics in detail. Hopefully, I will become a lot less confused at the end of the book.

This article does not point fingers, but looks at who is responsible for this event. Depending on who you ask will change the response. The official records are different then the unofficial record or people’s own personal records of the event. It also is not written in many  Chinese history books. It is the rulers responsibility to nourish his people so he does take responsibility for the event publicly, but not in actuality. He used his local cadre as scapegoats for the event, most of  the blame was placed  on them and they were the ones punished and sent to jail. Many of them faced charges such as violating party policy and crime against the masses. I think that one could argue that although the cadre were the forceful hand they are also the victims in this case. Local cadre had steel quotas and orders they had to meet so they were not concerned with the conditions of the villages. If they did not meet their quotas they would face consequences as well. Intellectuals who were able to escape the villages understand their ignorance in just blindly  following Mao and the Communist party. Peasants were essentially powerless they just executed the orders of the party. They were tortured and beaten and a hunger would be  used as a means to control them.

The famine that was caused by the Great Leap is believed to be 70% man made and 30% due to nature. I think a good way of proving this to be true is that the death rates were significantly different in different parts of the country and not all leadership and villages were run the same. the quality  of the cadre might have greatly affected the village after all. In Bo many villagers die from starvation, but  in the neighboring village where there was a drought that village was able to support themselves. Then you have Villages  like Henan and Xinyang where over 2 million peasants died in each village and the death rate was higher then the national death rate. It is  in villages like these that I question could this really be a “mistake”. No one has taken responsibility for what occurred in Henan, but many local cadre were punished for Xinyang.

In the cases of many famines, cannibalism took place. Villagers would steal grain and food. There was a black market for food essentially. Villagers would be tortured, punished, and maybe killed for committing this crimes, but  they did whatever they had to do to survive  and so they all see  themselves as active victims. Problem one  of the things that makes me question the governments “mistake” in all of this is they then built mass graves to try and cover up the extent of the  famine. Why try and hide something that is evident and if it is if no fault of yours then it doesn’t seem like it should  be a secret. My last comment  on this subject is why was is so dangerous to speak of the famine during that time. With all of  the people already dying killing those that acknowledge the fact people are dying seems unnecessary.

I do not understand the point of  not acknowledging history. I understand when terrible things happen people just want to forget about it, but it seems so obvious that people need to talk about it to spread awareness. It is also crazy to me that Xi Jinping is leading China towards another Cultural Revolution and it does not appear that China is very aware of this change taking place. Xi Jinping fits all the ingredients you need to have a  cultural revolution and although  the motive of Mao is different then the motive of Xi it appears that it will have the same outcome, which is millions of people’s lives that are affected. I wonder whether the Chinese people will realize and do something if it turns into something that mocks Mao’s Cultural Revolution.