Chinese Politics & Authoritarian Regimes | Professor Rory Truex | Talks at Google

[rollinmc]

term limit also constraints government long term thinking, here in the USA the country goes through political turmoil every 2-4years which effectively forces politicians to focus only on short term goal: votes

[marcellali]

To understand and appreciate the political system of China, you need to learn more about the ancient history of China. What westerners see about China is very superficial.

[walliswang]

Obviously Rory is quite knowledgeable about the Chinese political system and some of the observations (for someone that is a bit ambivalent / critical about the Party) are correct. However there're a few things to note as well:
1) the change within the Chinese political system cannot be viewed on a standalone basis. You need to think about what's going on globally (especially in the US and US's stance towards US/China relationship). My gut feeling is that the Party is of the view that it needs to consolidate to brace for a more bumpy road ahead.
2) when you assume a government is malevolent it is easy to describe the decisions made as malevolent as well. Take the surveillance system for example, many of the western countries also have massive surveillance system (yes I'm talking about London/UK) but people seems to be less concerned about it. It is worth noting that growing up in different narratives / personal experience people can have different views about the importance of various values (safety, prosperity, freedom of speech etc). So people in China may very well choose a political system that's different from the western model (but more based on the values of the Chinese people).

[zy]

Feel sad if this is a typical interpretation of how China works from people in the US. As someone who grew up in China and lived in several overseas countries, I must say there are loads of benefits that the current system brings, that seems to be purposefully ignored by the Prof. The system is continuously improving as well.

[XiaozhenLiu]

This is interesting. I appreciate that this professor hesitated to draw conclusions but simply raised some concerns. I guess the young generation in China actually like Xi a lot because they were brought up during this rapid growth era. They (including myself) never experienced the cultural revolution period and they don't see problems with authorities as long as they live a good life. But my experience with the elder generation tells me that the nightmares of the cultural revolution still haunt them. The Tiananmen Square event affected their family and friends, etc. Therefore they are aware of the danger of absolute power and so on. These are, indeed, something we keep to ourselves within the family and close friends. So it is difficult to really know.

So Xi is definitely not respected as it appears to be in the media. I don't know if Xi himself is aware of this. Having said that, Chinese people do see those issues as domestic problems, like, what happens at home and we can manage. We don't really appreciate westerners telling us how things should have been done. Trump is definitely one evidence of how democracy becomes dysfunctional. We laughed at the Brexit and you cannot really blame us for that.

I am also surprised that an important part of Xi's thought is missing from this conversation: building "a Community of Shared Future for Mankind". You really need to understand the Chinese culture to understand this idea that deeply rooted in our traditional values. We will have to wait and see how it unfolds, but the way westerners see it, the "seeking influence" mindset is not helpful in this situation.

[clarissachevalier]

i love how he always makes assumptions saying "it is believed", "it can be argued", "it has been said" multiple times without source (probably a very american source like the wall street journal or the economist) and than gives the opinion that he agrees, or "there`s some truth to that". obviously he studies hard and but I believe that he clearly has a western bias (definitely an american one) and that makes me question a lot of what he is saying, no disrespect

[josephdewuhan]

It's easy to concentrate on other countries' negative aspects, especially a country like China. In many ways, China is still a developing country although it has already developed into a powerful nation as it is right now. Although authoritarian, China's leadership group is composed of of much more capable people who care more about the future of the nation than most average group of leaders in western democratic countries. We will see that clearer and better as time goes.

[moonresidentno.]

And I also appreciate his effort to minimize corruption. I think he is a gift for Chinese people.

[grimreaper]

I find kind of sad that an accomplished professor would resort to political motivated rumour mongering in regards to Xinjiang. UN rights team headed by the US have consistently rejected Chinese invitations to visit the province citing not to legitimate Chinese actions (in case they don't find evidence of the accusations), UN counter-terrorism director and the World Bank which is essentially an American institution have both investigated Xinjing with boots on the ground and both have officially rubbished the claims of mass detention camps.

[predragnikitz]

Wo, Im watching all of this now, during the protests in over 20 cities around China, and I lived in Beijing, Guangzhou and Foshan for around 8 and a half year, professor Truex was absolutelly, 100% right back in 2018!!!

[jasonleekuanyong]

China is doing just fine without the "helps" from Westerners. In fact, the Westerners should prepared themselves for what they had asked for so many years ago.

[PadraicLey]

Professor Rory Truex views Chinese politics from a Western point of view which is understandable. That color the understanding of 4000 years of Chinese civilization. The Chinese people want the government to create the infrastructure that works for them as a collective; otherwise, there is no need to have a big government. Surveillance is always part of Chinese lives. Privacy is not a thing in China as in the US. Confucius mandated Chinese people to be good, and all members of society had a role. Under that assumption, there is no or little privacy concern. For thousands of years, the Chinese ruling class has had to have the "Mandate from Haven." There was an agreement between the people and the ruler to stay in power to contribute to the Chinese civilization (Collective). With one party, there is no other party to blame, the bus stop at the ruling class. The party congress and Xi's job is to resolve the issue for the masses, that is, the mandate and the meaning of socialism. The recent aggressive behavior of the US indirectly forces the Chinese people to have a strong national leader to stand up to the West after growing the economy. China tried democracy from 1912 to 1949. With over a billion people. That didn't work, and KMT (ROC) lost that mandate and overflowed by the peasant, and gave the power to the CCP. That has been a natural course of China since the beginning.

[maymac]

It is a general introduction of China's current political situation. I don't think it is superficial rather general. I feel the speaker's view is rather objective and accurate. Not bad at all.

[victorzhang]

As a Chinese citizen, I think Professor Rory's speech is very convincing and agreeable.

[yanlongfu]

Quite impressed, I actually don't expect to see such a clear view on China and Xi. As a citizen, I will say that I support his anti-corruption campaign, which is outrageous; but meanwhile, I am disappointed by the fact that the liberals are suppressed and the media can't question the change in political area. I hope the country could be more liberal, more rational, more people's welfare oriented, rather than the gov.

[Jsttobe]

As a Chinese from mainland, coming back to China after living several years in a western country, I have to say this guy does know something about China (basic facts one can easily learn from some exposure to China or even from mainstream western media), but some key points and underlying logic of his narration about Chinese politics are just off the target he meant to hit.

[kwongwong]

Professor Martin Jacques of Cambridge University knows more about China in her history, culture and government.

[petersu]

Very impressive. The most accurate and comprehensive talk about China in English on youtube I've seen in years. It's sad to see all these 50 cents army try to twist the reality in the comment.

[twenlil]

His level of knowledge of China and the Chinese political system is on par with Gordon Guthrie Chang. And that is not saying much.

[yongliangqin]

Prof Truex stated very clearly that the problem with China studies is that they can't study it better than what the Chinese media offers. His work is more like summarizing recent Chinese politics in the most abbreviated manner.