<story><title>How the CCP Does Job Promotions</title><url>https://chinatalk.substack.com/p/how-the-ccp-does-job-promotions</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>anonymousiam</author><text>This story makes me want to tell one of my own.  I have visited the PRC a few times.  On one of those times, my wife and I visited a cousin of hers in Beijing.  This cousin had a factory and was well connected.  He wanted us to do something for him, so he invited us to drinks and dinner at a fine restaurant (in a private banquet room).  Turns out that one of his buddies was the Chief of Police and he was there too.  We had fun trying to drink each other under the table, and as the evening came to a close I slipped downstairs so that I could pay for everything.  (I didn&amp;#x27;t want to be obligated to any of these people.)  When I approached the restaurant staff and expressed my intention to pay, they were horror stricken.  Apparently the Police Chief was sponsoring the meal, which means the restaurant was giving it to him and everyone else for &amp;quot;free&amp;quot;.  I had not truly realized the extent of corruption in China until that moment.</text></comment>
<story><title>How the CCP Does Job Promotions</title><url>https://chinatalk.substack.com/p/how-the-ccp-does-job-promotions</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>yorwba</author><text>The introduction frames the following translation as focusing on&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; various “failures of democracy” that, if left unchecked, could lead to the weakening of the Chinese political system. Not only does his analysis argue the importance of having more senior officials rather than the rank-and-file party cadres select competent officials, but also serves as an implicit suggestion of the superiority of the Chinese system in contrast to western democratic systems.&lt;p&gt;I believe that is a misinterpretation caused by misunderstanding &amp;quot;failures of democracy&amp;quot; as referring to &amp;quot;failures of &lt;i&gt;Western&lt;/i&gt; democracy&amp;quot;. However, as an academic affiliated with the Central Party School, Wang Dongjing can safely be assumed to be using official terminology, in which China is &lt;i&gt;defined&lt;/i&gt; as a democratic country. So all references to &amp;quot;democracy&amp;quot; in the article should be understood to refer to the system of leadership selection implemented in China. In particular, the &amp;quot;failures of democracy&amp;quot; he talks about are specifically &amp;quot;failures of leadership selection in China&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;That is also very noticeable when he talks about the difference between &amp;quot;majority of the minority and the majority of the majority&amp;quot;. In his example of minority selection, &lt;i&gt;all 20 superior officials are corrupt&lt;/i&gt;, blocking the young official&amp;#x27;s promotion for not doing them a favor. Then later he says that &amp;quot;in our society, the good guys are in the majority and the bad guys are in the minority&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;if under the guidance of democratic centralism, we elect those who have the support of the majority of the people and entrust them with important tasks, then the bureaucratic culture will change greatly. In this way, there will be no market for those who are political ‘social climbers’, who only seek to curry favors with others but don’t seek to accomplish anything.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I.e. he is arguing explicitly against having senior officials decide on promotions and wants rank-and-file cadres to get a vote instead.&lt;p&gt;Just because he is affiliated with the Central Party School, it should not be assumed that he wants to paint a rosy picture of the government. On the contrary, it is kind of their &lt;i&gt;raison d&amp;#x27;être&lt;/i&gt; to be aware of the government&amp;#x27;s shortcomings, so that they can educate future cadres to improve the system. (Though I don&amp;#x27;t think posting such criticism publicly was part of the job description.)</text></comment>