In a land with no Party, bad things would happen

It’s quite fashionable(and makes a lot of sense) to bemoan the authoritarian, heavy handed management style of the CCP.   I find a lot, if not most of what it does reprehensible.  We just consider it as understood and thusly do not dwell on it.   And I’m at the point now in my life where I just dread talking politics.   My mind is more on dinner(chicken or salmon?), than on anything going on in Beijing. 

However, we have forgotten that without the firm management style of the CCP, China would from a macro level, be worse off.  Possibly much worse off.   And if China goes Kaput than it effects everybody.  I’m not trying to justify the existence of the CCP, and I’m sure has hell not trying to glorify this very non august body.  Rather, I’m just stating the obvious that anyone that has lived here for any proper length of time already knows.

Here are some examples:

Nobody, and I mean nobody here follows the rules.

Everyone is trying to get an edge.  It’s that simple.  They even poison children’s formula.  But that’s not enough.  Now they have to hoard baby formula as well, for a profit.  I saw a guy last week with over 30 cans of the stuff not 100 feet from Lohu customs.  

Openly rearranging his future profit.   In a society where everyone is trying to get an edge on everyone else,  trust and civility go out the window.  “Doing what’s right” doesn’t apply.   And when that societal condition is in play, a strong hand needs to be visible. 

Just as the more one fellow brags at his skill in something,  the less likely he’s actually good at it, the same applies here;  the more rules a society has is in direct relationship to it’s inability to administer it’s own laws.   So it has to create more.

My chief assistant is 25.  He was born well after the one child rule took effect.  He has 4 siblings.  His best friend has nine!     When I go to a temple, everytime I see a sign posted that says “no pictures”, you are guaranteed to see several doing just that!

There is a nature park in Hangzhou(not a very good one, I might add…skip it).   What does it say?  Don’t pick the flowers.   What do people do?  Of course the opposite.   

Shenzhen banned those quiet motor scooters last year.   Didn’t make a dent.   Had zero impact.

It’s like a cat and mouse game.  

“You make news laws, and we’ll pretend to listen.  You just pretend to enforce them”. 

Some people may come to the opposite conclusion.  How’s that?  Maybe a less rule prone society will have more adherence.  Nah….I think it’s the opposite.    The society is now so desensitized to rules, that it adversely needs a stronger hand to keep the populace in place.

 How is a society that doesn’t always bend in fear to the current way of doing things going to respect a more civil democratic process?  It’s not!   It would resemble  more of the Wild West, though.   It would more  resemble Pakistan or Afghanistan than it would a civil, law abiding country.   Pakistan and Afghanistan are just democratic versions of China.  You’ll notice they are more violent places though.  Which brings us to…..

Guns

Give China a lot of credit for not having guns.  If China had guns, half the population would be dead tomorrow.    It’s ability to maintain gun control should be commended.   But once the CCP is gone(ie, it’s heavy handed mgt style), gun runners from everywhere will get very rich.   The Chinese border will suddenly become very porous.  Don’t forget it’s a hell of a large border.

Easy access to guns in chaotic nations leads to….more guns.  An unending spiral of self destruction.  Almost like “nation-state suicide”.   Africa comes to mind(as do the above two paradises).   The world simply could not cope with a nation as already unwieldy as China with a free flow of guns.    Taiwan factories would flee.  If China became as crazy as Pakistan, the world order would be upended.   Foreign kidnappings would ensue.   I’d like to think the CCP prevents that……

Organized Crime

Kidnappings would become a big business.   KTV’s would be forced to pay protection money(if not already).    Local politicans(you know, the small town type that likes to go to Macau and spend the villages money) would be quickly intimidated and controlled.   Gambling would even possibly be legalized in mainland China.  

The mob in China is bad news, because we already know how easy it is to pay off crime fighting officials.  We’ve see it all over the world.  It was easy to do in the USA.  We already know how powerful money is in China.   But money utilized with the aim of achieving a strategic goal would be more pervasive.

Elections would be bought.   If a democratic country such as the USA could have these problems, why couldn’t China?  It is well known that JFK bought his way to the Democratic nomination in 1960.  (thx Dad).   How can China not be immune?

Overall violence and crime

1930’s China revisited.  With the advent of guns, and organized crime(hell, just one of the two), China suddenly has an exponential increase in settling of scores(some go back to the Cultural Revolution.   One professor on a campus told me he see his 60’s era tormentors everyday.  Their “only” coworkers now).  That’s the problem when a country has such an emphasis on FACE.  It requires revenge in order to retain it.    China has an incredible intelligence apparatus.   For better or for worse, it keeps the people in check(I know, I know).

Rich people suddenly become targeted.   Chinese people  are so addicted to “appearances”, that it’s easy to see who has money and who doesn’t.   Let’s just say a violent redistribution of wealth would take place.   Demonstrations would also be harder to put down.  It’s harder you see, when the other side also has guns.

Disparity of Wealth will increase because a vacuum of lawlessness would ensue should the CCP not run China.   Rules and regulations will be harder to enforce, and bribery and such more brazen.    Again look at Russia.  All those uber wealthy folks made their money between the fall of the USSR and the rise of Putin. 

Rise of provincialism, decline of national unity.

The Chinese are remarkably provincial.   The USA is as well, to a degree.   We all give favor to folks from our hometown.  But China takes it to a whole new level.   If civil disruption were to occur, national unity would wane.   This is related to the lack of trust in China, of each other.   Chinese only tend to trust people from their own regions, who speak their own local dialect.   A nation without a strong central  government to bond all the different elements together would become more tribal(again, like Africa.)

Post CCP government’s would be more nationalistic and foolhardy.    That’s because elections would be based more on popularity contests(to attract the different regions of China), rather than common sense.    And again, because of China’s deeply ingrained inferiority complex, politicians would start trouble with other nations in order to harness that emotion.   Inflation would skyrocket. 

Just less stable overall

The CCP will never win any popularity contests.   But China is stable, and that’s because of the CCP.  Is China less stable now than before?  Yes.  Would China be less stable though, should the CCP just resign from power?   Read my post and reach your own conclusions.