Statist Wistful Admiration Of China’s Communist Party

China’s ascendance in our consciousness has been growing steadily for a generation, and we wonder what more impact it will have than has already been felt by our economy and our society. We cannot accurately predict China’s future or its actions going forward, but as it flexes its newfound powers to reshape global conventions, we should remain vigilant that our own perceptions not be warped by ideologically, or otherwise tainted assertions.

Our enthusiastic media collectively extol the moral legitimacy of China’s communist model of political rule which controls 1.3 billion people, and predicts that China’s surpass of the U.S. economy is just over the horizon – scarcely visible as that may be through the toxic haze. Should untarnished freedom be a fundamental human right nurtured within a true democracy, then such adoration of China by our leaders, scholars, pundits and so many others, challenges the core tenets at the heart of the Constitution. 

Defenders of the ethos imposed through coercion within China, rationalize that stomping all over individual rights is a necessity which protects the needs of the collective. Somehow when such justification is vaunted by our own self-anointed intelligentsia, with the always present caveat that, “after all, how else can you rule over 1.3 billion people?” . . . . we capitulate. All the while, our internal turbulence leaves us in visceral disarray. The virtuosos of the PR machines make it all right that we send (through spending), trillions of our dollars to enrich a regime which recent history (1950s and 1960s) has evidenced as the most ruthless in human history. 

As China today shuffles its leadership, we are provoked into accepting that the shifting of nameplates is founded on meritocracy, and not on handpicked automatons perpetuating dictatorship. The reality that much of the current Chinese leadership is formed by the natural laws of heredity and that the sons of well-known revolutionaries today take up the mantel, does not appear to trouble our cognoscenti in the West. Xi Jinping, who will be shortly confirmed as China’s leader is one such “princeling.” We should remember that in China, the Communist Party controls the army, and one only touches the levers of power after having held very senior military posts (read: demonstrated ruthlessness). 

Should we accept the propaganda (East and West) that virtue rises to the top, and that China’s leadership is genetically virtuous and molecularly superior? How affected are we when our media refers to China’s “Communist era,” as if it was some unfortunate ephemeral occurrence of the past, or simply a fading authoritarian dragon which lost its repressive teeth? Just because the Communist Party has carefully allowed some private sector to coexist with state controlled enterprises, it has not relinquished any authority over business, over media, over education, and it is on guard against any de-politicization of the country’s vast military machine. The secretive Organization Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee controls ‘assignments’ in government and industry. 
The boot is firmly on the neck. 

Recent leaks which the Central Propaganda Department missed, suggest that the high level of corruption within the Communist Party is pervasive. The submissive population cannot react since it knows the potential of the beast camouflaged behind smiles. It knows the despotic force which controls its nation. This is the virtuosity that is so confident that it siphons its billions off-shore, acquiring hard assets like real estate in safe havens like San Francisco, Sidney and Vancouver. The pretence of stability provided by the virtuous Communist Party may not be so well founded given that it cannot explain why so many of its wealthiest have ensured themselves foreign ‘pieds-a-terre?’ It is incapable of explaining why so many of the wealthy have moved their families offshore while they continue to amass personal wealth within China. One acquaintance close to such events reminded me that it is very expensive to move money offshore from China because there are so many hands which have to be taken care of on the way out. Is this virtuosity so prevalent that millions of people, both rich and not as rich, leave the country for foreign shores as soon as they possibly can? 

Before we look at what some of our statist virtuosos of the ‘beau monde’ are selling us about China’s version of communism, we should remind ourselves that any government’s legitimate function is to protect the individual’s rights. 

In 2009 Thomas Friedman, the writer for the oracle of all that is socialistically holy, wrote, ”One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages.” This self-asserted sophistication upholding the concept of the benevolent dictator surely must know something which lesser minds cannot comprehend. Or is it more likely an uninformed observation from a philosopher-king wannabe, lost in ideological nonsense attempting political correctness? Whatever its motivation, this claim evidences a complete lack of insight into human nature’s tendencies and desires for self-actualization. Such ignorant percepts miss the fact that stifling people and frustrating their desire for fulfillment of their potentialities deprives them immeasurably. The result is emotional disturbance and psychological pathology. Long term, the consequence is broad based despondency. This socio-economic transport of a Nation into the elitist controlled utopia is the ultimate pinnacle of arrogance. Is this the ‘down river’ that our media is attempting to sell us? 

Confucius once informed, “What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.” 

Let’s take a look at a rather ideal example of someone who would do well to read Confucius – President Obama’s Chairman of Jobs and Competitiveness, Jeffrey Immelt, who moralized on the Charlie Rose Show this past week, . . . . 

Immelt: “State-run Communism may not be your cup of tea, but their government works.” 
Charlie Rose: “They get things done.” 

Well, three cheers for state-run communism. Right? When you instill fear in people to perform your will, you “get things done.” Right Charlie? Charlie may be a herring mindlessly drawn by the statist current which enriches him, but Immelt is not. He is head of a global corporation doing $146 billion and employing a little under a third of a million employees. 

Immelt is self-serving and rationalizing his shift of some General Electric manufacturing facilities to China, knowing full well that the Communist Party makes the decisions on who ‘gets in.’ For now we won’t argue with him whether he could have managed increases in productivity in America instead of moving, but does he really believe what he is saying? Any of it? Does he understand what he is selling? 

The mind behind the visage of Obama’s Job Council seems not to grasp the seriousness of his message, nor its impact. Or perhaps he doesn’t care – there’s a personal empire to build, who cares about the country? Notice that in this interview, as in others, he has no idea what to do about jobs? None. He is evidently only interested in his own. Where is the wisdom? He certainly seems to know how to get taxpayer dollars, warming the Oval Office into the purchase of unproductive and unprofitable windmill farms. He can buy influence and taxpayer cash, with taxpayer cash. 

We cannot forget the enforcement of the population’s conversion to Immelt’s green-technology-made-in-China CFL light bulbs. Don’t ask him what you should do with the toxic mercury in those bulbs once they burn out well before their due date, just take them to the dump. We do not need to question why Immelt’s statist views are supported by GE’s tentacles in NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC Sports, Universal Film Studios. We know why. We also will not bother inquiring into GE’s relationship with the U.S. tax system, since we already know it manages to sidestep that annoying tax thingie. Immelt knows how to ride the East-West fence, and statists applaud him as he promotes the socialist message. 

The Immelts and Friedmans advocate that we too could find success if only we had top down power of overreaching government following the Chinese model as the symbol of perfection. It is unfortunate there are some already in power here who dream of holding reigns of omnipotent influence over the masses. It is doubly unfortunate that these same individuals influence our media. Do they really long for a Chinese version of governance? They and their mouthpieces are certainly selling us hard on it, lying about the realities that lie hidden under the propaganda. 

Individuals like Immelt should be promoting America, encouraging its freedom, and the beauty of its Constitution. They should be praising and protecting the country which provided them their opportunities and their wealth. Sadly they represent a broad element across the Nation, too ready to do away with protection of fundamental individual rights. After all, it works over there, doesn’t it?