Communist Party rule over China, somewhat improbably, makes it to 70 years
Today is the eve of the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China, which since its founding has been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. It’s as good time as any to ask the following question, which comes from one of Kaiser’s answers originally posted to Quora on April 15, 2013:
Will the Chinese Communist party fall?
Of course the Chinese Communist Party will fail, given time. What political party doesn’t?
Look at all the times it already has nearly collapsed:
Kuora: All the times the Chinese Communist Party nearly died
As to whether it will fail in the very near future, I doubt it will face dissolution or ouster from power — probably not in the next decade — unless it utterly fails to address the problem of corruption.
Corruption is easily the issue that holds the most potential danger to the Party. But as of this writing, the CCP leadership under Xi Jinping is taking the problem seriously. It seems fully to understand its importance, and appreciates that the problem has deepened and become more intractable.
The resilience and adaptive abilities of the Party are impressive. It needs to be understood not as an ideologically dogmatic party (I think its pragmatism is pretty well-established) but rather as a Leninist party with a strongly technocratic, assertively nationalistic nature.
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Kuora is a weekly column. Photo: EPA-EFE
