It isn’t easy, running China, with its 1.3 billion people and 56 officially recognized ethnic nationalities. It’s a vast mix of languages, living standards, beliefs and customs. Run it successfully, and you have a prosperous, innovative, powerful empire to rival any the world has seen. Make mistakes, and the chaos will be vast and terrible.
China is run by the Communist Party, which bases its legitimacy on delivering both stability and the conditions for prosperity. But stability is under threat as economic boom strands millions at the margin. Meanwhile rampant corruption is sapping people’s trust in the Party. Officials are increasingly seen not as public servants but as profiteers.
This episode films patrols along China’s border with Kazakhstan, Party meetings, officials in Tibet trying to impose authority at the grass-roots, a village election, and a corrupt embezzler in prison, reprieved from a death sentence. Chinese people throughout, from farmer to Minister, speak frankly about the problems the country faces and the ways forward.
The Party attracts eager young recruits and is trying to re-invigorate its older members. They visit sites of communist achievement, like the Red Flag Canal, hoping to be inspired by the revolutionary zeal of the past. “If all Communist officials today were like those who built this,” one Party member exclaims, “the Communist Party would rule forever.”
Thanks for the review and such a great post, I’m impressed. Keep giving us things like this quordle
Since a long time ago, the United States of America has perfected this form of deception. Become familiar with your past. When it comes to country building, the NATION STATE OF THE USA is the biggest falsehood in the history of the planet basket random. A region that had been inhabited for many years before Europeans discovered it.
And that revolutionary zeal just sounds soo ominous!! Do you know the revolutionary zeal of the cultural revolution?? It was called struggle sessions where over 100 million people were publicly humiliated, insulted and even physically beaten!!! That revolutionary zeal???
Economic boom that strands millions?? So economic boom is bad?? Mao’s belief in the great leap forward was based on the idiotic mystical western notion that its humongous population could wake up and shake the world lol…and that great leap forward was just a total failure lol……that resulted in the greatest famine the world has ever seen!!! Authored by a chinese author who is a member of the communist party!!! Lol, communists who built this statue?? Do you mention that those communists also killed over 70 million people in a peacetime?? But, I suppose being a profiteer is far worse than being a mass murderer lol……
@jackmeoff
You sound like a very angry person; but your comments are always interesting!
What a laugh when a world power accuses separatists to the
state as terrorists, it is pure hypocrisy. State sponsored terrorism is justified as pre-emptive state security acts of war, and then called by another name (terrorism) by those who fight back. But separatists who try to make political change, then fail in doing so by legal means, ultimately find their only answer is to do as the “masters” do to them…….fight back by whatever means available. That is NOT terrorism….it is called freedom fighting. The USA has mastered this deception for a long time. Know your history. The NATION STATE OF THE USA is the biggest lie known to the world of nation building. A land inhabited for centuries before the Europeans got there. Once the Euros came, their solution was genocide, then the industrial wealth was built for free by African/Chinese slaves, to name just a few of ethnic victims. Opportunistic, godless, and sadly…..very sadly…..the model of future generations. As Leonard Cohen has said in his famous song, “The Future”….”I’ve seen the future, brother. It is murder.” Be prepared!