The Failure of Political Institutionalization in China

By Professor Susan Shirk

[mingshi]

I admire Professor Shirks sharp sense to figure out what is now failing in China. I do this not so much because I wish Beijing would fail. Simply because the regime there is doing everything possible to conceal its failures, particularly those causing enormous consequences. Right now when addressing Mao Zedong and his Culture Revolution, we see a phenomenon of mass frenzy. At Mao's time it was a mass frenzy of so called revolutionary "clean-up". Now it is a mass frenzy of money-making. Both mass frenzies have been and are still initiated and somehow mobilized by the very top. And both mass frenzies got and get out of control of the very top. My question is: Is this at least partially also due to the failure of institutionalization in China?

[mingshi]

Another question:

Mao was deadset against any, as he put it, "bureaucratizing". He was the one who even abolished military ranks to destroy the most unquestionable "bureaucratization" or "institutionalization" within Chinese apparatus. In such context Mao made it easier for himself to handle anyone in the hierarchy. Comet-like carriers or surprising downfalls were the order of those decades, especially during the Culture Revolution.

Until now we haven't yet heard something similiar from Xi Jinping who also is trying to fight his own bureaucracy by founding many "leading groups". We also saw whole arrays of comet-like carriers as well as rapid, sometimes shocking downfalls. However, those "leading groups" seem to lose their decisive influence.

One of the major evidences is that at least formally many recent decisions were made by Politbureau again, not by what "leading groups" ever. The six other members of Executive Committee of Politbureau who almost were driven out of any public scene for quite a while (at least three years!) now appear regularily and host their own agenda. Time and times again questionable figures like Liu Yunshan seems even to steel Xi Jinpings show - like he as respoinsible "only" for propaganda and ideology appeared as host for Germany' President Joachim Gauck, a clear brushed "state act", surely to be hosted by Xi Jinping as Chinas State President.

Is CPC now, certainly still very cautiously and slowly, returning back to some "collective leading style" which, if true, would ultimately mean Xi Jinping's personal defeat?