Last week the United States held a hotly contested election that demonstrated the challenges and strengths of the American political system. Both major parties talked of all that was wrong in American politics: a future of deficits, the monetization of political life, and the prospect of endless political gridlock.
Yet at the end of the day we had an uncontested outcome of these elections that demonstrated many of the bedrock strengths of American democracy. Americans voted early and late (but not often), sometimes standing hours in line for the right to choose their own leaders. They voted for continuity.
Today in Beijing the Chinese people learned, definitively for the first time, the names of the seven men who will run the country for the next five years.
We know that the Chinese selections were at times strongly contested, capping a year of political struggle and internal debate in China that exposed many systemic weaknesses of the Chinese polity: the rule of great families, the enormous influence of the military, the political manipulation of justice, and breathtaking levels of personal and institutional corruption chief among them. For much of the past year, it seemed that Chinese politics were on the edge of becoming unglued.
But the drama playing out behind closed doors in Beijing showed also some of China's political strengths. We have just witnessed what journalists too easily have called China's "once-in-a-decade" transition--this despite the minor detail that the People's Republic of China had managed exactly one routinized transition of power in its first sixty-two years. (There have been many more coups d'?tat than peaceful transitions.) Yet it has apparently now done so twice, and this is historically significant. It shows the continued resilience, even after a year of great political stress, of the instruments of Chinese Communist rule.
Those among China's leadership elites who feared chaos in this transition will be relieved; those who had hoped that the events of the last year might offer the prospect of political reform will be disappointed. Today we have seen a closing (for now) of ranks.
The seven men (sadly all men) who marched to their prescribed spots on the stage this morning in Beijing promise order and stability, not change. Americans interested or invested in China should expect no major initiatives soon: no quick rollback of state-owned enterprises or reform of the banking system, no early experimentation in political reform, and no major change in Chinese-American relations.
There is speculation, of course, about what each of the new seven might do in his role. Will Wang Qishan, the new anti-corruption czar, try to address the systemic roots of venality? Will Zhang Gaoli, as overseer of the economy, continue China's fixation on fixed-asset investment? My guess is no, and yes, but if you don't know, don't feel alone. Anyone who claims to know is simply making it up.
What we do know is this: in different ways and for different ends the China's ruling party has selected, as the American people elected, continuity.
Source: http://blogs.hbr.org/hbsfaculty/2012/11/in-beijing-and-washington-busi.html
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