It does not matter whether a government is democratic or authoritarian; it is a good government as long as it governs.


The winner of a landslide victory with 48% of the vote, Lee’s approval ratings plummeted from 75% on Feb 23, 2008 to only 17% on June 2, 2008, at the end of his first 100 days in office. His entire cabinet resigned a few days thereafter.


Putin is very popular at home. 80% of Russians trust him to do the right thing regarding world affairs.


But Hu is hugely popular in China. 93% of the Chinese have confidence in him as a world leader, the highest percentage among all world leaders surveyed.


The Princelings increased, from 20 members in the 16th Central Committee to 26 in the 17th Central Committee. Noticeably, there are 7 princelings in the Politburo and 9 princeling generals in the Central Committee.


A dry evening at the site of the opening ceremony had been made possible by more than 1K rain dispersal rockets.


Xi was selected from among several candidates as a result of careful selection and deliberation. In 2007, the Central Organization Department conducted a survey of about 400 people, randomly selected from more than 2000 officials. The survey not only covered such social issues as medical care, education, public security, and housing, but also collected public opinion on candidates for the top party position in Shanghai. Obviously, Xi scored very high on the poll. He was appointed Shanghai Party Secretary 2 months later.


About 400 officials participated in the poll, and they made selections among 200 candidates who were younger than 63 years old and had a rank of a minister or a chief military region officer.

Obviously, the pool of candidates was very large. The eventual size of the Politburo would be 25 members, while the pool was about 200.


It should be noted that Xi Jinping, the heir apparent to Hu Jintao as general secretary of the CCP, was not made the first vice chairman of the CMC. This is understandable because Xi needs some time before he can be involved in military affairs.


Overall, China is ruled by these 36 top leaders, whose average age is about 62 years old. The top leadership of China currently is at its best, with both experience and energy. It is poised to deal with challenges ahead.


The most senior communist Party member in the 17th Central Committee joined the Party in 1958 and had a Party standing of almost 50 years, while the most junior member became a Party member only in 1995, 12 years prior to the opening of the 17th National Party Congress.


The National Congress of the CCP, which is held once every 5 years, is the occasion when power is distributed (or redistributed) among different political institutions. Institutional representation refers to the extent to which each institution is represented in the Central Committee of the CCP. 4 major institutions — provincial units, central institutions, military institutions, and corporations — are all represented.


Provincial leaders were the major source for new recruits for the new Politburo and its Standing Committee. Out of 9 new members, 6 came from provinces.***

Both presidents of the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate were absent from the Central Committee.


No military leaders had a seat on the Standing Committee of the Politburo, and there were 2 Politburo members from the military. In addition, the military contributed 39 full members and 23 alternate members.


General Xu was the youngest member of the CMC at the age of 57.


On the individual-unit basis, central Party institutions are much more powerful than central government institutions. Heads of the Central Organization Department and Central Propaganda Department are both members of the Politburo and the Secretariat. Only one minister (Bo Xilai) managed to get into the Politburo, and none of the current ministers are members of the Politburo and the Secretariat.


The corporate and academic leaders had the lowest representation. Over the past 3 decades, the Chinese economy has evolved from a centrally planned system to a market-oriented one and business entrepreneurs have played an increasingly important role in Chinese politics. The CCP has adapted to the new situation and attempted to incorporate this new political force to its ranks. However, business elites have mostly been absorbed into other institutions such as the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference rather than the CCP’s Central Committee.


As an institution, the military is indispensable in Chinese politics. As before, the military contributed 2 members to the 17th Politburo. However, it no longer has any representation in the Secretariat. To signify the important of military regions, all political commissars and commanders of the 7 military regions are full members of the Central Committee, regardless of their previous Central Committee experiences. In fact, out of these 14 leaders, all but 3 were new to the Central Committee.


In Chinese politics, election to the Central Committee depends more on the post that a person holds in an institution than on personal characteristics.


A native of Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, Jiang Zemin was an obscure figure in China’s elite politics until 1989 when he was plucked from Shanghai to be general secretary of the CCP. With few revolutionary credentials before 1949, Jiang climbed the ladder of success as a technocrat. He was minister of Electronic Industries between 1983 and 1985 and was appointed mayor of Shanghai in 1985. He was promoted to Party secretary of Shanghai in 1987 and was made general secretary of the Party in 1989.


In view of a larger number of passengers by train in 2008, the Ministry prepared 3 sets of plans to deal with normal, peak, and emergency situations.


Interestingly, the dual system of the Party and the state is often regarded as a defect of the Chinese political system. This is because the Party tends to meddle with state affairs. Yet this time, the Party apparatus came in handy as a “spare engine” for the national crisis.


Second, there is no consensus on what “China” means. China is “Zhongguo” in Chinese. But “Zhongguo” has never been used as the country’s official name. The original concept for the territories under the governance of Chinese emperors was “Tianxia” (literally, all under Heaven). Each dynasty had its own name in order to differentiate it from the preceding dynasty, but the reign name of the incumbent emperor was usually used as the basis for calculating years.


China, i.e., Zhongguo, has evolved over the past 4000 years as a political entity. In the process, China has been dominated by people of different ethnic backgrounds. The Mongols are not Han, but Yuan is China and Yuan Dynasty is an important part of Chinese history. Similarly, the Manchurians are not Han but Qing is also China and Qing Dynasty is an important part of Chinese history. China has experienced periods of divisions and unifications, but China is China whether it is divided or united. The country may have a short history of unification for less than 1000 years but that does not make Chinese history any shorter.


“Dalai” is a Mongolian term for “ocean of wisdom,” and “Gyatso” a Tibetan term for “ocean of wisdom.” “Lama” is a Tibetan term corresponding to the Indian word “guru,” meaning teacher.


Beijing’s management of Tibet became more institutionalized under Emperor Qianlong. He issued an edict in 1751, authorizing the Seventh Dalai Lama to be in charge of both religious and political affairs. This was the beginning of theocracy in Tibet.


As many new dynasties in Chinese history, this new government was born out of military contestation. Inevitably, the extension of its power throughout the country would have to take the form of military conquest in most cases. This extension of military troops to a province was called “liberation” in CCP terms.


In addition to the domestic forces, the US government was also indirectly involved in the revolt. As a part of the containment strategy, the US Tibet policy was aimed at “isolating and overthrowing the Chinese Communist government.” As early as March 1951, the US government was determined to intervene in Tibetan affairs, even at the risk of sacrificing its cordial relations with India and the KMT government in Taiwan.


With the assistance of Gyalo Thondup and others, the CIA selected and trained Tibetan fighters in Colorado and Saipan and airdropped them in Tibet in the 1950s. CIA agents even infiltrated the staff of the Dalai Lama. “Almost everyone but myself was heavily armed,” the Dalai Lama recalled his escape in 1959 in his memoir. His personal cook was one of the young men trained by the CIA; another CIA operative was a radio operator “who was apparently in touch with his headquarters throughout the journey.”


There are both internal and external causes for the riots. Imperialist and separatist forces joined hands to split China, attempting to overthrow the rule of the CCP. The foundation of social stability, however, is economic development.


After 2-hour talk, Gyalo Thondup was impressed. “He is very good, very modest, and very practical,” Thondup remarked. When Deng Xiaoping asked him about his impressions of Hu, Gyalo Thondup said, “China would have fewer problems if you had a few more Hu Jintaos.”


The Dalai Lama is playing a red face by taking the pacifist’s path. But the only way we could put on pressure is to use violence and the Dalai Lama should be kept out of violence.


Ironically, 14 days before the Tangshan earthquake, a national conference on the experiences of predictions of and preparations for earthquakes was convened in Tangshan.


Our Chinese friends must understand the worldwide concern that there is about the question of Tibet. I don’t close the door to any option, but I think it’s more prudent to reserve my responses to concrete developments in the situation. I want dialogue to begin and I will graduate my response according to the response given by Chinese authorities.


China’s system of duality with the Party’s dominance, which is often considered awkward if not obsolete, turned out to be an advantage in times of crises. The redundancy became a double guarantee system.


The second possible trend is factionalization when factional groups evolve into political factions. Once a paramount leader based on a universal consensus steps down, a group of contenders tend to reorient themselves around smaller groups within the political elites. Their competition is likely to harden the political network of factional groups, transforming these corporate factional groups into political factions based on clientalist ties.


Factionalization of China’s elite politics is likely to bring back old guards. As positions have to be reinforced by informal networks, those who have more extensive political networks tend to be more dominant in politics. In this sense, the nominal leaders of these factions could be replaced by old guards as more dominant players in elite politics.

However, without formal mechanism, it is hard to translate factional strength into real political power. It is not easy to speculate the potential official lineup as a result of factionalization.


With a popular democracy as an eventual goal, China would most likely start with the CCP’s intra-party democracy.