India has always been a democratic and china has always been the authoritarian. Long back during Mao, the ideologies of the fledging communist state and the stomachs of its people clashed, and the stomachs lost. Decades after Mao and YI ZI ER SHI and the TIANANMEN MASSACRE, a lot has changed. China has grown and so have its leaders and the rampant corruption. But at least corruption is efficient in china. It can amount to 20-30 % of the project’s cost; but a onetime payment can fast track local government approvals that pave the way for profits to come in future.
As America saw a powerful and nail biting election, the gaze of the world’s media was focused squarely on Washington. But on the other side of the world, a leadership change of potentially greater significance was also getting under way. For the first time in a decade – and only the second time in history – the men at the top of the Chinese Communist Party will step down, voluntarily, and hand over power to a new generation.
But while American voters had a pretty good idea by now of who their candidates are and what they represent, the Chinese public remains utterly cut off from the political process. Not only do politicians here all sport identical dyed-black haircuts, but they all make identical, impenetrable and interminable speeches. The communist party is assiduous in removing all information about the leaders making it inaccessible for the common public. In modern Beijing, the Soviet art of Kremlinology, which involved scholars searching for hidden messages in reams of official jargon, or counting the use of certain phrases in the party newspaper, remains alive and well.
Indeed, while we knew that the leadership change will happen at the 18th Party Congress, which opened on Thursday, we did not know exactly when the new leaders will be unveiled or when the congress will end. Those in China cannot even search for the phrase “18th party congress” on the internet: it has been removed by the censors.
All we can be sure of is that, at some point in the near future, a group of men – and they are all likely to be men – will walk on to a dais in the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square. These will be the seven members of the politburo standing committee, the Chinese equivalent of the Cabinet, selected (by an essentially mysterious process) from among the 25 politburo members originally elected by the party’s 300-strong central committee. Those who think the U.S. electoral college is a complicated system for choosing a leader should take a look at China right now.
The 18th National Congress will have 2270 delegates selected from 40 constituencies. This represents an increase of 57 delegates and two constituencies from the 17th Congress. 31 of these constituencies represent China's province-level Provinces, Autonomous Regions, and Municipalities. Six other delegations represent: Taiwan, the People's Liberation Army, The Central Party Organization, The Central Government Ministries and Commissions, Central State Owned Enterprises, and Central Banks and Financial Institutions. The remaining three delegations are the subject of conflicting accounts. Hong Kong and Macau may represent two delegations or one delegation or they may be treated as part of the Guangdong delegation. Other delegations that have been identified by various sources include the Peoples Armed Police, units involved in “social management”, the public service sector, workers in private enterprises, and workers in foreign and joint enterprises. No more than 68% of the delegates may hold leadership positions within the party. The remaining 32% will be "grassroots" party members who hold jobs outside of the party apparatus. The number of female delegates will be required to increase. Each delegation will be selected (by the province level congresses) in an election in which there are at least 15% more candidates than there are delegates to be selected. The candidates in these elections are heavily vetted by multiple party organs. In addition to these 2270 delegates, an uncertain number of additional delegates, primarily retired veteran Communist leaders, will be selected. It is designed to assess the country's progress, and set new directions. Every 10 years it selects the new leadership.
The delegates will pick the roughly 200 members of the party's Central Committee, about three-quarters of whom are expected to be replaced, mostly because of their age.
The Central Committee chooses the members of the Politburo, from which the powerful Politburo Standing Committee is selected. The handful of leaders who make up the Standing Committee are China's top decision makers.
There will be no frenzy of exit polls and ballot counting. The major outcomes of the ruling Communist Party's 18th National Congress, as the event is known, have been determined in advance after months of secretive maneuvering and deal-making among senior party figures.
But the result matters for China's 1.3 billion citizens and for countries around the globe like the United States that are trying to decipher what the Asian giant's growing international clout means for them.
The only problem is, nobody's sure exactly what China's new top brass will do once they have assumed power.
During the race for the White House in the United States, President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney eagerly brandished their credentials for getting tough on China, with Obama citing trade suits he'd filed and Romney promising to label Beijing a currency manipulator.China is now the world's second-biggest economy and closing fast on the United States.
There have been disappointments and discontent along the way, and Hu's much vaunted "harmonious society" is showing signs of cracking.Chinese leaders have endured a tumultuous year. The veil of secrecy around the party has been lifted, with reports of rifts and infighting. And the fall of Bo brought about China's biggest political scandal in decades.
Bo, once party chief of the massive metropolis of Chongqing, is now in disgrace awaiting trial. His wife, Gu Kailai, is in prison, convicted of murdering a British business associate.
Senior party leaders and their leaders have had to deal with unusual scrutiny of their affairs, with Western news organizations publishing investigations into the wealth accumulated by the families of Xi and Wen.
Chinese authorities responded to the reports by blocking the websites of the news organizations involved: Bloomberg News and The New York Times.
But China's army of censors is having to grapple with the rapid rise of social media platforms on which information moves and mutates at a dizzying pace.
China is treading many fault lines: a widening gap between rich and poor, rising unrest about issues like pollution and land seizures, and a slowing economy that some say is in need of serious reform.
Hu mentioned some of those tensions Thursday along with several other contentious issues like food safety, health care and the criminal justice system -- acknowledging that "there are a lot of difficulties and problems on our road ahead." Another issue Hu's government has struggled to tackle during its decade in power is the discontent and unrest among Tibetans living under Chinese rule.
Authorities were given a grim reminder on Wednesday of the disillusionment and desperation of many Tibetans in western areas of China after four people set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule.
One teenage Tibetan monk died and two were injured after self-immolating in a majority Tibetan region of Sichuan Province, said Penpa Tsering, a spokesman for the Tibetan parliament in exile in Dharamsala, India. And a 23-year-old Tibetan woman died a separate incident in Qinghai Province, Tsering said, citing unidentified people in Tibetan areas.
Dozens of Tibetans are reported to have set themselves ablaze in the past 18 months to express their unhappiness with Chinese rule. And the central government in Beijing is also dealing with other restive ethnic groups, like the Uyghurs in the western province of Xinjiang.
As the whole world waits eagerly for one of the biggest economy to announce its set of leaders, we expect more liberal leaders to come to the forefront. This would decide the relations of china with others.
