This is the fringe of my knowledge on China so please factcheck.
When Mao Zedong died in '76 he left behind a mixed bag of good and bad, he managed to keep China together in spite of serious internal pressures between ethnic groups, but in the process killed millions (some estimates run as high as 80 million people) and left behind a country that was on the brink of economic collapse.
After Deng Xiaoping took over the focus became the economy, less the ideology, which I think was more seen as a way to remain in power, rather than as a real guide to how to run the country. The 'party' became a device rather than a place for true believers.
Over the last 30 years then, slowly but surely Chinese officials have tried to both hold on to their power while staving off a revolution of a dissatisfied populace by giving them access to elements of the 'free market' in a piece-meal fashion.
The real benefit of this gradual release has been that a Soviet style implosion was avoided, the downside is that many of the old power structures remain, and that corruption is, in spite of a serious effort to combat it still a huge problem.
The ruling class in China is limited to a relatively small group of people (as compared to the size of the Chinese population), not unlike the Bush and Kennedy families in the United States, only without the nicety of a public election.
One of the reasons why I think Chinese people in power are so scared of all this communications power their underlings have is that it would allow them to effectively organize a protest that could not be struck down so easily.
Every so many years the 'old guard' dies off and has to be replaced by new people, and - surprise, surprise - these tend to be family members of the previous old guard, who apparently are the only Chinese people that are able to govern this country. It's a dynasty in anything but name.
The nepotism you allude to is alive and well at the highest levels, but below there is slowly a real change of the guard happening, and these people are not satisfied with being relegated to just being 'implementors', they want real power.
And they'll sooner or later get it, but I don't know if that's on a timescale of 20 years or 100's of years.
All that's needed for that to happen is a connection between the potential mob and the higher cadre of the government below they dynasty figures, and the thing that holds it off is gradual economic reform. If they manage to turn China around to the point where the economy is strong enough that a large majority of the Chinese populace is satisfied with their lot it will remain a peaceful transition and those that brokered it will probably remain in power for a long time.
If they mess up, if China gets hit by a severe economic crisis or if they overplay their hand then all bets are off.
When Mao Zedong died in '76 he left behind a mixed bag of good and bad, he managed to keep China together in spite of serious internal pressures between ethnic groups, but in the process killed millions (some estimates run as high as 80 million people) and left behind a country that was on the brink of economic collapse.
After Deng Xiaoping took over the focus became the economy, less the ideology, which I think was more seen as a way to remain in power, rather than as a real guide to how to run the country. The 'party' became a device rather than a place for true believers.
Over the last 30 years then, slowly but surely Chinese officials have tried to both hold on to their power while staving off a revolution of a dissatisfied populace by giving them access to elements of the 'free market' in a piece-meal fashion.
The real benefit of this gradual release has been that a Soviet style implosion was avoided, the downside is that many of the old power structures remain, and that corruption is, in spite of a serious effort to combat it still a huge problem.
The ruling class in China is limited to a relatively small group of people (as compared to the size of the Chinese population), not unlike the Bush and Kennedy families in the United States, only without the nicety of a public election.
One of the reasons why I think Chinese people in power are so scared of all this communications power their underlings have is that it would allow them to effectively organize a protest that could not be struck down so easily.
Every so many years the 'old guard' dies off and has to be replaced by new people, and - surprise, surprise - these tend to be family members of the previous old guard, who apparently are the only Chinese people that are able to govern this country. It's a dynasty in anything but name.
The nepotism you allude to is alive and well at the highest levels, but below there is slowly a real change of the guard happening, and these people are not satisfied with being relegated to just being 'implementors', they want real power.
And they'll sooner or later get it, but I don't know if that's on a timescale of 20 years or 100's of years.
All that's needed for that to happen is a connection between the potential mob and the higher cadre of the government below they dynasty figures, and the thing that holds it off is gradual economic reform. If they manage to turn China around to the point where the economy is strong enough that a large majority of the Chinese populace is satisfied with their lot it will remain a peaceful transition and those that brokered it will probably remain in power for a long time.
If they mess up, if China gets hit by a severe economic crisis or if they overplay their hand then all bets are off.