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The Chinese Communist Party has just conferred on its leader, Xi Jinping, the status of Mao Zedong. He is the most powerful boss in China since Mao. His status is virtually god-like.
Having Xi’s number, and the CCP’s number, is Stein Ringen, a professor emeritus at Oxford University. Ringen is the author of The Perfect Dictatorship: China in the 21st Century. For the Washington Post recently, he wrote an article summing up China today, here.
Jay talks with Professor Ringen about Xi, Trump, Norway, John Kelly, Confucius Institutes, the Soviet Union, Taiwan, and other subjects. One question is this: Is it really true that political liberalization follows economic liberalization, as night follows day? Is it a law? China seems in defiance of that “law.”
At the end of the podcast, Jay remarks that he knows no one – no one who is not Chinese – who is more clear-eyed and forthright about China than Stein Ringen.
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Does he have the US’s number as well? (Link)
Great interview. My wife is from China and she refers to Xi as “the Boss” as well. I think most Chinese recognize him as a strongman, but a lot of people are better off now than before so they are only willing to complain quietly.
Though that doesn’t include the thousands of protests that occur annually and the dissidents in western China which we never hear about because of the CCP’s tight control of media.
If the economy goes down the gutter, I think more people will speak up. That’s why Xi is trying to take more and more control of the economy via SOE’s.