Teaching Comparative

Democracy in action?

Buoyed by the results of a controversial nationwide referendum, Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday that his administration will cancel construction of a partially completed, $13-billion international airport and instead move forward with plans for a less expensive alternative.

Texcoco airport project

“The decision is to abide by the mandate of citizens,” the president-elect, who assumes office on Dec. 1, said at a news conference. “This is democracy.”

The revised plan, he said, would save Mexican taxpayers the equivalent of more than $5 billion.

But abandoning the new airport in the Texcoco area northeast of Mexico City also means the loss of some $5 billion that already has been spent on the project. The airport in Texcoco, which would have been the third largest commercial airport in the world, is about one-third complete…

The entire modified project — including rail connections between the various airfields — should be completed in three years, the president-elect vowed, and will resolve the gridlock at Mexico City’s over-burdened current airport…

Lopez Obrador was defiant Monday when asked about his decision's potential impact on Mexico's financial markets and business interests. In his administration, he said, no "pressures" would be tolerated from economic elites.

"What I would say to those corrupt businessmen and contractors is that they get used to it, that they take a mental exercise, an exercise in adaptation," the president-elect said, a day after voters rejected the Texcoco project. "The decision that the citizens took yesterday is rational, democratic and efficient."

The new plan puts Mexico’s new leftist president at odds with much of the country’s business and investor community, which largely backed completing the Texcoco project. Supporters said the expansive facility planned for Texcoco would draw additional visitors, investment and businesses to Mexico, while providing a vital transport hub…

But critics had assailed the Texcoco project as a corruption-plagued boondoggle and environmental calamity for the dry lake bed where the facility is being built.

The president-elect’s decision was anticipated after Mexicans voted overwhelmingly in a four-day referendum, or “consultation,” to scrap the Texcoco airport and pursue the more economical option.

Critics called the referendum a farce engineered by Lopez Obrador, who has long assailed the Texcoco project as too costly and laden with corruption…

There was no immediate reaction from the Texcoco project’s major builders, among them a construction firm owned by billionaire Carlos Slim, Mexico’s richest man. Slim’s son-in-law, Fernando Romero, is one of the architects of the futuristic new airport in Texcoco.

But a business group said in a news conference that construction at Texcoco would continue until at least Nov. 30, the last day of the administration of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto. The Texcoco airport is the outgoing president’s signature infrastructure project.

Labels: cleavages, corruption, Mexico, politics, referendum

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Integrate the civilian and military "worlds"

Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng on Monday attended a national symposium where plans were made to advance military-civilian integration.

Han, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and deputy head of the Central Commission for Integrated Military and Civilian Development, addressed the symposium…

He said the building of major strategic projects should be used to advance the coordinated technological innovation between the military and civilian sectors, coordinate resource allocation to boost efficiency, and achieve the best performance.

Han said Party committees and governments at all levels should view implementing the military-civilian integration as a major political responsibility, work hard to make new progress, enhance the building of systems and mechanisms, and press ahead with key reforms to break new ground.

Labels: China, military, political culture

posted by Ken Wedding @ 11:06 AM 0 comments

Who could resist this headline?

Amid the morning quiet, there were clear signs that someone important was about to arrive. In Futian, the city’s central business district, roads around the Museum of Contemporary Art and Planning Exhibition were blocked and residents wondered aloud about why they had to suddenly shut their windows.

All businesses within two blocks of the museum – hosting an exhibition of the province’s role in country’s reform and opening up 40 years ago – were closed and the museum itself had been shut for a month in preparation for Xi’s visit.

Pedestrians trying to go in for a closer look were shooed away by people who at first glance looked like students, grandpas and square dancing aunties but were all carrying the same kind of water bottles and mumbling, hooked up to earpieces.

The presence of these undercover personnel appeared to double by two hours later when Xi’s motorcade approached the museum. Security was just as tight across town in Qianhai where the streets were largely deserted…

The president’s motorcade was later spotted in Guangzhou’s Tianhe district outside Jinan University, the first of its kind to take in overseas students of Chinese descent after the country opened up to the West four decades ago.

Access to the campus had been limited in the lead-up to the trip, with students told to take Tuesday and Wednesday off class.

But there were still people around the grounds.

An older woman apparently doing her morning exercises gave herself away when she suddenly pulled out a walkie-talkie from a pocket.

Plain-clothes officers posing as students were also stationed every five metres and security checks were ramped up after 2pm ahead of Xi’s arrival…

At around 5.30pm, Xi finally ended his trip to the university and the security around the campus dissolved.

One professor later said how excited he was to get to shake hands with the president, while student representatives who also shook hands with Xi vowed to “never wash their hands again”.

Labels: China, leadership, political culture

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Message confused

The Nigerian government on Wednesday has denied it has plans of placing a two-children per family limit on its citizens.

Nigeria’s finance minister, Zainab Ahmed, at the 2018 Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja, noted that the Federal government was planning a birth control policy to check the prevalent poverty and unemployment in the country.

She said the government was consulting religious and traditional leaders nationwide on the issue after which a policy would be formulated.

Barely twenty-four hours after the statement was made, the finance minister said she was misinterpreted.

“The federal government has been engaging critical stakeholders like traditional and religious leaders to advise their members on child spacing,” Ahmed, Nigeria’s finance minister tweeted.

“We never said we are placing a cap on childbirth.” …

The minister insisted that she only said the government was seeking religious and traditional leaders support to enlighten the public on child spacing.

“Exponential growth was identified as a challenge in the ERDP. We never said the Federal Government will place a cap on the number of childbirths, the government has been engaging traditional and religious leaders to educate their members on child spacing so they have the numbers we can adequately manage,” Ahmed said.

Labels: Nigeria, political culture, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:42 AM 0 comments

Meanwhile in China

China will not set a population target in the future and will give people more freedom around childbirth, a health official said, in the next step of a gradual loosening of decades of tight population-control policies…

Wei Yunpeng, deputy director of the Population Monitoring and Family Development Division of the National Health Commission, was speaking at a conference hosted by his administration and the United Nations Population Fund.

Wei’s comments are the latest sign that the government is moving to end decades of restrictive birth-control policies, fuelling speculation that China might announce removing birth limits at an upcoming meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee. Parliament removed “family planning” policies from the latest draft of a revised civil code scheduled for adoption in 2020, another signal that the policy is being eliminated.

“It’s not strange that an official would say this because fully liberalising fertility is the direction of birth policy reform,” said He Yafu, an independent demographer based in Guangdong and long-time advocate for policy changes. “In the future, China will not only remove birth limits, but will encourage childbirth.”

The government abandoned the decades-old one-child policy in 2016 and moved to a two-child policy. Bloomberg reported in May that the country was planning to scrap birth limits altogether as soon as this year. It would be a landmark end to a much criticised policy – one of history’s biggest social experiments – that slowed China’s rapid population growth but left the country with a worker shortage and an ageing population with 30 million fewer women than men.

Labels: China, demographics, policy, population control

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

State birth control in Nigeria

The Federal Government on Tuesday declared that it was working hard to come out with a policy that would limit the number of children that a mother could have in Nigeria.

It stated that traditional rulers and other leaders across the country were being engaged as regards this, adding that the move was aimed at addressing one of the “great challenges” in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan of the Federal Government.

The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, who disclosed this while responding to questions during a session at the 24th Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja, noted that the country’s population had been identified as one of the great challenges confronting the successful implementation of the ERGP.

Ahmed said, “We have been engaging traditional rulers and other leaders. Specifically, we have found out that to be able to address one of the great challenges that we identified in the ERGP, which is the growth in our population, we need to engage these institutions.

“And we hope that with their support, we will get to a point where we can come out with the policy that limits the number of children that a mother can have because that is important for sustaining our growth.”…

Labels: Nigeria, policy, political culture

posted by Ken Wedding @ 11:07 AM 0 comments

Visual guide to ideology

When Xi Jinping outlined his political blueprint for the next 30 years at the Communist Party congress last year, it took him three and a half hours to articulate his vision for the country.

Now, to mark the first anniversary of his speech, the party’s official mouthpiece has made a no less ambitious attempt to visualise the Chinese president’s doctrines.

The result, published on the WeChat account of People’s Daily on Thursday, is a complex colour-coded “mind map” consisting of 30 separate elements, each broken down into multiple subsections that resemble the branches of a tree.

Officially called “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”, the doctrine is now enshrined in both state and party constitutions…

In general, the study of Xi’s guiding political principles is no laughing matter for cadres and officials amid the ongoing tightening of the party and the bureaucracy’s political discipline and demands for loyalty.

Dozens of institutes dedicated to the research and study of “Xi Jinping Thought” have been established in universities across the country, while school curriculums have also been revised to incorporate the new ideology into textbooks.

Labels: China, ideology, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

United Kingdom (not language)

Britain’s Parliament was divided by a common language on Thursday, as one politician was forced to repeat a question twice when his colleague couldn’t understand him, before eventually submitting the question in writing after his attempts at verbal communication failed.

Both politicians, of course, were speaking English.

The incident took place during a meeting about House of Commons Commissions, a body that oversees the administration of Parliament and its grounds, as David Linden of the Scottish National Party asked Conservative member of Parliament Paul Beresford about planned renovation works.

“I know from speaking to a number of parliamentary colleagues that there are still certain aspects of the estate, including the northern estate, that are not great for disabilities,” Linden said, referring to the facilities used by Parliament.

“Can I ask the honorable gentleman what work is being done to make sure this place is more accessible, particularly for some of our colleagues who have a disability?” he asked.

The remark sparked nervous laughter from other politicians in Parliament.

“Oh well,” said Linden. “I’m very popular today.”

He tried again: “I’m saying that a number of parliamentary colleagues who have disabilities do find it quite difficult getting around certain parts of the estate. Given that we’re doing this refurbishment work, what can be done to make sure that those with disabilities are able to move around more freely and that the place is accessible?”

But the confusion remained. “I’m really sorry,” Beresford said. “Please could you do it very slowly and in antipodean English?”

The two politicians represent constituencies in Britain that are roughly 350 miles apart — only a little further apart than Los Angeles and San Francisco and closer together than D.C. and Boston. But Beresford, who represents Mole Valley in Surrey, England, could not understand the accent of Linden, who represents Glasgow East in Scotland.

Despite being a relatively small country, Britain has a vast array of different regional accents. The Glaswegian accent is particularly distinctive, known for features such as the “glottal stop” (where a “t” sound gets dropped) and often considered hard to understand by those from other parts of Britain: In 2010, to the amusement of the Scottish press, a London-based firm even hired a Glaswegian interpreter...

Labels: political culture, political parties, UK

posted by Ken Wedding @ 9:41 AM 0 comments

Renewal of an old theme

China’s far north-western region of Xinjiang has retroactively legitimised the use of internment camps where up to one million Muslims are being held…

Chinese authorities deny that the internment camps exist but say petty criminals are sent to vocational “training centres”. Former detainees say they were forced to denounce Islam and profess loyalty to the Communist party in what they describe as political indoctrination camps…

“It’s a retrospective justification for the mass detainment of Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang,” said James Leibold, a scholar of Chinese ethnic policies at Melbourne’s La Trobe University…

The revisions, published on Tuesday, say government agencies at the county level and above “may establish occupational skills education and training centres, education transformation organisations and management departments to transform people influenced by extremism through education”.

A new clause directs the centres to teach the Mandarin language and provide occupational and legal education, as well as “ideological education, psychological rehabilitation and behaviour correction”. Another new clause bars “refusing public goods like radio and television.”…

“Overall, this clearly strengthens the legal basis for the type of re-education that has essentially been admitted by the state … indicating that the state is determined to proceed with the current campaign,” said Adrian Zenz, a researcher who focuses on Xinjiang…

Beijing has spent decades trying to suppress pro-independence sentiment in Xinjiang fuelled in part by frustration about an influx of migrants from China’s Han majority. Authorities say extremists there have ties to foreign terror groups but have given little evidence to support the claim…

Labels: China, cleavages, political culture, political socialization

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Inequality not related to GDP

From "Daily Trust"

For the second time, Nigeria has been ranked the country with the highest inequality among its citizens by OXFAM.

OXFAM, a global civil society body that fights against injustice, and its partners indicate that Nigeria's social spending (on health, education and social protection) is shamefully low, which is reflected in very poor social outcomes for its citizens.

"One in 10 children in Nigeria does not reach their fifth birthday, and more than 10 million children do not go to school. Sixty percent of these are girls," the report said.

The index, released yesterday at the Annual International Monetary Fund and World Bank Meetings in Bali, Indonesia… showed that in the past year, Nigeria recorded increase in the number of labour rights violations. Its minimum wage has not increased since 2011 and social spending has stagnated.

The index ranked 157 countries on their policies on social spending, tax, and labour rights - three areas that the group believes are critical to reducing inequality.

Other countries with high inequality ranking include; Uzbekistan… Haiti… Chad… and Sierra Leone…

Labels: cleavages, economics, inequality, Nigeria, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

A 40-year plan

The Leading Party Members' Group of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee held a study session on China's reform and opening up over the past 40 years.

Li Zhanshu, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee and secretary of its leading Party members' group, chaired and addressed the meeting held Monday and Tuesday.

The meeting stressed studying and implementing Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and a profound understanding of the major political judgement by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, that reform and opening up is the key that has determined contemporary China's future…

Summarizing the evolution of the system of people's congresses in the past 40 years of reform and opening up, the meeting noted it was fundamental that the CPC Central Committee has remained sober-minded and maintained its political orientation, and pushed forward reform steadily in line with national conditions and social and economic development realities, thus ensuring the right direction of upholding and improving the system of people's congresses.

Stressing that China's rapid development in the past 40 years has relied on reform and opening up, the statement said that reform and opening up must be unswervingly upheld to secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and to fully build a modern socialist country.

The NPC and its standing committee should thoroughly study Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, fully implement Xi's thought on upholding and improving the system of people's congresses, and develop and improve the system of people's congresses with the times, the statement said.

40 Years and Counting
(From The Diplomat)

This year marks the 40th anniversary of China’s Reform and Opening (gaige kaifang), initiated by Deng Xiaoping at the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee in 1978. These economic changes were so far-reaching that Deng described them as part of China’s “second revolution.” Since then, China has become an economic juggernaut with the world’s largest foreign reserves ($3.12 trillion), second-largest GDP ($11 trillion), and third-highest levels of foreign direct investment ($170 billion). Its share of the world economy grew from a mere 1.8 percent in 1978 to a staggering 18.2 percent in 2017.  China is not just an emerging economy but has surely returned to its status as a major world economic power, which accounted for nearly 30 percent of the world economy in the 15th and 16th centuries…

The forces that account for the economic success of the Chinese model have also created tensions between a political system characterized by Leninist single party-led authoritarianism and an economy and society characterized by vibrant market forces. How much of China’s super-charged economic growth can be attributed to state-led planning and how much comes from entrepreneurship and market forces? With Xi holding all the levers of political power, how much is the Chinese leadership willing to let go of economic control?

Labels: China, ideology, leadership, political culture, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Is public opinion as volatile as the polls?

Trust in Vladimir Putin and Russia’s ruling party have declined steeply over the past year with analysts pointing to the government’s controversial pension changes as the main reason.

In a poll by the independent Levada Centre, 39% of Russians listed Putin as a politican they trust. That is a 20% decrease from November 2017, when Putin was named by 59% of Russians, according to the same polling agency.

The Levada polls are the latest to show a strong backlash as the Kremlin pushes unpopular social reforms to relieve pressure on the budget. This month, 45% of Russians told FOM (Public Opinion Foundation), a polling agency close to the Kremlin, they would vote for Putin if elections were held this Sunday. That rating was down from 67% at the beginning of the year.

It is among the lowest support Putin has held in the last decade, according to FOM data, tied only with his support in late 2013 just before the annexation of Crimea and a wave of patriotic fervour.

The ruling United Russia party, seen as more vulnerable than Putin, has also been hit hard. FOM showed the party had 31% support, also a drop of close to 20% since the beginning of the year, with its docile rivals rising in the polls…

That growing anger has been reflected in elections in Russian regions, which have been just as much of a headache for the Kremlin recently as foreign allegations of spying and election meddling…

Voters in the far east and Siberia rejected governors from United Russia, the party closely allied with Putin. In their place, they supported candidates from communist and nationalist parties, forcing the Kremlin to reshuffle governors to problem regions and deploy political advisers to manage the backlash. Putin has also fired a number of regional governors…

Russia’s pension changes, which were signed into law by Putin last week, will delay retirement age for all Russians by five years. Men must work until 65, and women must work until 60…

Labels: leadership, politics, public opinon, Russia

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Challenging the "big men" in Nigeria

Nigeria's presidential election was shaping up to be a contest between two veteran male politicians, but the candidacy of Oby Ezekwesili could change that.

Ezekwesili

Women have run for the presidency before but she is the most prominent Nigerian woman to challenge for the top job…

Ms Ezekwesili is well known for leading the #BringBackOurGirls campaign to help free the 276 girls kidnapped from Chibok, northern Nigeria, in 2014. She has also served as the country's education minister and vice-president of the World Bank.

But come February's vote it will be a tough challenge to unseat incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari, 75, or beat the main opposition candidate, Atiku Abubakar, 72, who both have formidable party machines behind them…

At the weekend, President Buhari was nominated by his All Progressives Congress (APC) and Mr Abubakar beat a field of 11 others to become the flag bearer for the People's Democratic Party (PDP).

The two parties have supplied all of Nigeria's presidents since the end of military rule in 1999.

For Ms Ezekwesili the men she is facing represent a "mediocre political class that bumbles from one crisis to another", as she told the meeting of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), where her candidacy was declared.

She is setting herself up as the anti-establishment candidate, calling the politicians in charge of the country part of "an evil ruling class". And, in an Obama-like move, the ACPN is labelling her as the "hope" candidate.

Ms Ezekwesili, who is 55 years old, is also trying to appeal to the youth of the country, saying that the people in charge do not understand the technological changes that are happening.

More than 50% of Nigerians are under the age of 30.

Can she disrupt the election? -Chris Ewokor, BBC Africa, Abuja

Along with reaching out to Nigeria's youth, Ms Ezekwesili has an obvious appeal to women, and her high profile in the country and international respectability could also boost her candidacy.

She is also from the south of the country, while the two leading men are from the north, so this could help her pick up votes among southerners who want one of their own to lead the country.

Ms Ezekwesili is likely to elicit some support and could make the APC and PDP nervous, but the power of the established parties may be hard to overcome.

Many in the country are hungry and live under extreme economic pressure and could be tempted to back parties with deeper pockets if they are promised money to vote a particular way.

The APC and PDP have countrywide structures and a war chest that could clearly outspend Ms Ezekwesili.

In response, her party has launched a funding campaign to try and build up its financial resources, but it is not clear if that will be enough...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_man_(political_science) Big Man (Political Science) from Wikipedia

Labels: cleavages, elections, leadership, Nigeria, political parties, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

As the price of dollars in Tehran goes up, the economy goes down.

In an open letter, over 50 Iranian economists warned of a collapse in the Iranian economy, stating that the severe inflation of the rial has hit a high it had never reached in the past 75 years, since World War II.

They also considered the continuation of what they called “wrong economic policies” that would lead to the suffering of Iranian families as the reason for this high rate of inflation in the country, according to the Iranian news agency ILNA.

The experts also called on the heads of the parliament and judiciary to intervene...

The experts pointed out that the current “incorrect policy” of managing the collapse in currency caused the currency to lose about 70 percent of its value since April under the threat of revived US sanctions, with heavy demand for dollars among ordinary Iranians trying to protect their savings. They added that mismanagement in commodity markets and random pricing being placed by traders in the country further increases economic concerns over the next months…

In the Iranian capital, money exchange shops offered 135,000 rials for one US dollar at one point, drawing crowds of onlookers and those wanting to trade. Only the day before, the rial was selling at 170,000 to the dollar, with prices recently going as high as 190,000 to the dollar.

Although the Iranian government has taken measures to reduce inflation by injecting hard currency into the market, and preventing traders and currency exchanges from selling dollars while banks would buy dollars from citizens, the inflation rate did not decrease much…

This warning about the high rate of inflation and the collapse of the Iranian economy comes amid fundamentalist movement in parliament threatening to overthrow the government of Rouhani through questioning most ministers and withdrawing confidence from them, against the backdrop of economic crises and the deterioration of currency and the cessation of many industries in the country.

Labels: economics, Iran, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

How things work in China

A total of 98 tasks in advancing law-based governance in China have been assigned to respective units, according to a statement made public recently.

The statement came after a meeting on facilitating the tasks set by the Commission for Law-based Governance of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.

In legislative affairs, tasks include promoting legislation with a holistic approach to national security, protection of intellectual property rights and key reform areas.

In law enforcement, improvements are expected in key sectors including food and drug, work safety, environment protection and public security.

The tasks also include reforming civil litigation systems and building a public legal service system.

Each task has been allocated to a responsible unit and given specific requirements on its monthly work plan and time table, according to the statement.

The tasks were also assigned to the office of the commission and four coordination teams, which will be responsible for follow-up inspections and supervision of respective areas.

Labels: China, democratic centralism, policy

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

Be careful what you wish for

They were exactly what China’s best universities were supposed to produce: young men and women steeped in the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party.

They read Marx, Lenin and Mao and formed student groups to discuss the progress of socialism. They investigated the treatment of the campus proletariat, including janitors, cooks and construction workers. They volunteered to help struggling rural families and dutifully recited the slogans of President Xi Jinping.

Then, after graduation, they attempted to put the party’s stated ideals into action, converging from across China last month on Huizhou, a city in the south, to organize labor unions at nearby factories and stage protests demanding greater protections for workers.

That’s when the party realized it had a problem.

The authorities moved quickly to crush the efforts of the young activists, detaining several dozen of them and scrubbing the internet of their calls for justice — but not before their example became a rallying cry for young people across the country unhappy with growing inequality, corruption and materialism in Chinese society.

“You are the backbone of the working class!” the protesters chanted at one rally, addressing workers at an equipment factory. “We share your honor and your disgrace!”

Protests are common in China, especially by workers who have nowhere else to turn in a nation without independent unions, courts or news media. But the demonstrations in Huizhou were unusual because they were organized by students and recent graduates from some of the country’s top universities, who have generally stayed off the streets since the 1989 pro-democracy movement that ended in bloodshed outside Tiananmen Square.

In the decades since that massacre, university students have generally helped advance the party’s economic and political agenda, focusing on jobs, homes and other aspects of material well-being while supporting authoritarian rule, or at least eschewing politics. As economic growth has slowed, party officials have grown more nervous about Western influences on the nation’s youth, who are more worldly and digitally connected than ever before.

But the Huizhou activists represent a threat the authorities did not expect.

Carrying portraits of Mao and singing socialist anthems, they espoused the very ideals that the government fed them for years in mandatory ideological classes, voicing grievances about issues like poverty, worker rights and gender equality — some of communism’s core concerns…

Zhang Shengye, union organizer

Since President Xi took power in 2012, the party has sought to restrict the use of Western textbooks and stop the spread of “Western values” on campus, referring to ideas about rule of law and democracy that could undermine its hold on power.

At the same time, Mr. Xi has demanded that universities expand their teachings on Mao and Marx…

But some in the party seem uneasy about the proliferation of these groups, apparently worried that their calls for greater economic equality and worker rights could undermine China’s modern-day embrace of capitalist markets.

While only a small minority of students are involved, they represent a leftist critique of Chinese society that seems to be gaining traction on college campuses, partly because the authorities have been more hesitant to suppress it than other political discussion…

Younger Chinese are often described as apathetic, selfish and obsessed with money. But Eric Fish, a writer who has studied Chinese millennials, said that the generation born after the Tiananmen Square massacre lacks the instinctive fear of authority of older generations…

Labels: China, cleavage, communism, ideology, participation, political culture, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments

National Day in China

A ceremony for raising the National Flag was held early Monday morning at the Tian'anmen Square in downtown Beijing to celebrate the 69th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC).

The Guard of Honor of the Chinese People's Liberation Army escorted the national flag to the square, while the military band played the national anthem.

Color guard in Tian'anmen Square

Around 145,000 people from across China gathered at the square to watch the ceremony.

Tian'anmen Square witnessed the raising of the first PRC national flag on Oct. 1, 1949, marking a great new start for the Chinese people.

Labels: China, political culture

posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:49 AM 0 comments

Campaigning in China

He held up stalks of wheat and made small talk with farmers. He stood side by side with workers at an oil plant and spoke of building an “invincible” China. He called for China to become more “self-reliant” in the face of a trade dispute with the United States…

It was a chance for Mr. Xi to put himself on a pedestal with Mao Zedong, to rekindle a populist image and to fire back at President Trump and “protectionist” policies.

Xi in Heilongjiang

Mr. Xi, who has been criticized for inspiring a personality cult with parallels to the Mao era, has taken note. In one image from his tour of a farm in Heilongjiang Province, Mr. Xi is shown under an idyllic blue sky, confidently stepping forward while an adoring crowd of farmers looks on.

Famous 1950's poster of Mao and peasants

The image is familiar. Its arrangement mimics the look and feel of painted propaganda posters from the 1950s, which often featured Mao mingling in bucolic settings.

“This is a visual sign not just of Xi’s current predominance, but of his claim to historic greatness,” said David Bandurski, co-director of the China Media Project, a research program affiliated with the University of Hong Kong…

Mr. Xi used his visit to reiterate calls for China to move more quickly to build its own technologies, so that it is less dependent on the United States. With trade tensions growing between the two countries and threatening supply chains, Mr. Xi has spoken frequently about the need for China to develop its own microchips, software and other technologies, part of its strategy to become a leading superpower of the 21st century…

“The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation depends on our economic competitiveness,” he said, using a favorite phrase to describe China’s rise, as a crowd of workers applauded feverishly. “Only then can China be forever invincible.”…

Labels: campaigning, China, leadership

posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM 0 comments