Ordered Autocracy
One of the large scale machinations at hand I find unsettling is the movement towards what some call ordered democracy. This is a rhetoric irony. Not an oxymoron but a related cleverness. Order is sufficient unto itself here. Democracy is window dressing. In a few months China will hold a major party assembly. At one point during the pre festivity jockeying President Hu Jintao, who also happens to be the chief of the communist party, places himself at a podium where he says "attempts to modernize China's political system must not jeopardize one-party rule"
China's leader vows to uphold one-party rule - International Herald Tribune the piece quotes him as later saying He embraced greater political participation but ruling out western-style democracy. By this he simply means any democracy at all. I'm occasionally tempted to try to write a post where I lay out the difference between big D democracy and little d democracy. What stops me is being able to come up with a comprehensive accounting of this , not just a shade or facet here or there. I can't even agree with others I talk to about this which gets the big D and which the little d. There is what some call western democracy or American democracy. This in all its exceptional quality is thoroughly embedded in our particular history, culture, institutions, and experience. In as much, it is in its fragile essence not transferable. This is to the considerable disappointment of those who desire to treat it as an export product. Against this there is a basic notion to human affairs where legitimacy is accorded to the governance which places decision and control over ones surroundings and happiness closest to the level of the individual. This autonomy does not proscribe our tribal nature. The individuals first and primary choice is to cede a measure of that autonomy to the collection. But this is a choice, the price of belonging, and the individual still remains the wellspring of choice. Such as it is. Hu Jintao knows only his own autonomy, and his own desire. He can not know the desires of others more clearly than he knows his own. Order is merely the coercive power of the state submerging all other will. Critically its becoming less clear what will exists at the top of this closed system. In the wake of the minor Thomas the Tank engine lead paint scandel a reporter associated with the New York Times gained entry to the factory complex involved and began asking questions and taking pictures. The management responded by putting the entire facility in lockdown followed by eight hours of haggling with the local police and party officials over who had the greater authority to hold or release an out of place reporter
A prisoner in Toyland - Print Version - International Herald Tribune. In China the game between billionaire plutocrats and party bureaucrats is too close to call. Running the same week was a news story detailing new concessions to Chinese laborers on rights and benefits
As Unrest Rises, China Broadens Workers' Rights - New York Times. And then this week in a sad incident that speaks more of insecurity, and panic than anything else
Chinese Regulator Sentenced to Death - washingtonpost.com the Chinese government executed a former head of the agency which corresponds to the Food and Drug Administration
Vietnam latest news - Thanh Nien Daily [I chose this link rather than one from a American newspaper simply to observe the highly restrained coverage here]. The US rarely executes or even jails bureaucrats. Our manner of having our officials decorously wait for the revolving door of industry to open for them, for their reward, soothes or at least obscures outrage. When a figure like Hu Jintao presiding over a successful economy makes a statement like he did, it is certain that every other autocratically minded ruler, or owner of a one party state is encouraged and emboldened. An object lesson learned. This was true of Vietnamese president Nguyen Minh Triet who a few weeks ago felt confident enough to blow off criticism from President Bush
Bush Prods Vietnamese President On Human Rights and Openness - washingtonpost.com and congressional leaders
Lawmakers criticize Vietnamese president - Yahoo! News during a state visit. While talking this over with my friend Tran, she corrected me by saying whoever he was (and she knew who he was) he was not "president" because communist countries don't have presidents. When they say they do, and present someone as president, it is only a trick. I, because I am cursed with unrelenting literalism took the time to determine that he was by office President and Vietnamese chief of state
CIA - The World Factbook -- Vietnam. In addition Vietnam has a prime minister named Nguyen Tan Dung. I take her point though, because beyond these men there is also (if I'm reading this right) Nong Duc Manh who is leader of the communist party of Vietnam. There is only the CPV. The chair of the CPV and whatever committee sits in closed room at the table with him is the only real goverment Vietnam has. Another small marker of the legitimacy of a state is how closely its formal apparatus of governance captures the actual lines of decision and force. Vladimir Putin, former KGB colonel, thanks to the monopoly and control to the vast energy resources of the Russian state has the inclination and ability to reorder the Russian federation control the borders and borderlands. He too even as he plans his retirement and replacement is a figure of ascending confidence, and energy. Whereas China's leaders have a nascent disquiet that keeps them nervous
Guardian Unlimited | China's one-party monopoly of power is coming to an end. Putin has a nemisis. It is the sort of thing that makes my friend Rob Bratton, a chess player, happy. Putin's nemisis is Gary Kasporov, Grand Master and Champion
Garry Kasparov's risky anti-Putin game plan | csmonitor.com. Kasparov has been working to make himself a thorn in Putin's side for some time now, forming movements, political partys writting editorials for the New York Times. Also getting himself very publically arrested at rallies he has organized
BBC NEWS | Europe | Kasparov arrested at Moscow rally. Recently Toronto's Globe and Mail did a profile on Kasparov's struggle
The Globe and Mail: 'The beast of Baku' takes on Putin in the most important game of his life to keep Russia's brief interlude of liberty from slipping away and becoming one more example of the superiority of the managed security-state, and orderly democracy.
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