Customer Reviews

The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Through a series of anecdotes and interviews, largely drawn from his eight years in China as correspondent for 'The Financial Times', Richard McGregor illustrates 'the Party', a remarkable social organization which subordinates 1.3 billion people.

It is a journalist's treatment rather than academic, so instead of explicitly offering analysis, Richard McGregor lets his interviews and stories largely speak for themselves. This provides a range of interesting characters, quotes and anecdotes. However, a side-effect is that many remarkable insights are either buried innocuously in the text or left to the reader's inference. The story is no less fascinating for it.

The picture that emerges is of a creative, adaptable, self-aware and resilient social network. Made up of 75 million party members, one in twelve adult Chinese, this self-perpetuating elite has no legal form beyond a mention in the preamble to China's constitution. The party exists outside the regular state apparatus and operates like a controller chip grafted into China's governing structures through party cells throughout government, the military, public companies and even private firms.

Grounded in its near ubiquitous presence in the state, military, public and private spheres, the Party maintains its grip via a number of interconnected and synergistic processes. Its personnel system allows any individual to be replaced, transferred or expelled at the will of the organism. Party control of the military provides ultimate coercive sanction. The Party's discipline system places members above the law even as it strengthens Party control of the behaviour of its members. The propaganda department uses sophisticated story telling to sculpt the narrative around events to conform to the Party's best interests.

Few join the party for ideological reasons. Rather, achieving party status is to gain membership into an elite club which, provided you stay within its unwritten bounds and contribute to the goals of the organism, gives a member a form of immunity from the law and other powers and abilities not available to the average citizen. In the corruption that is endemic in the system, everyone is guilty of something serious - from taking bribes, to tax evasion to sexual impropriety to failing to get proper permits. Members that stray out of bounds need not be punished for the real fault, but instead for one of the many more routine transgressions that hang over the heads of almost all party members. Were one not able to normally get away with routine transgressions, there would be little benefit to party membership. Yet simply knowing that straying too far will result in being punished for something entirely different is enough to self-censor unwanted behaviours, in particular the unwritten ones.

Self-reflexive and analytic, the party is alert to the internal and external dangers it faces and has proven able to respond to challenge with remarkable agility, creativity and effectiveness.

Though the book is very much about the Party at present, in 2010, glimpses of party history serve to illustrate the nature of the organism and its ability to adapt and reinvent itself.

For example, Richard McGregor declares a historic milestone the Party's peaceful and administrative transfer of power in 2002 to a new top grouping of apparatchiks. For the first time in over 2000 years of Chinese history, China was no longer ruled by a single individual seen as a sort of a god. Instead, the apex of China became a committee atop an organism which permeates into the whole society, with the next shifting of interchangable personalities at the top scheduled for 2012.

In 1992, only ten years prior to the 2002 milestone, again demonstrating forward looking pragmatic realism, the party transformed itself on entrepreneurs - the most extreme enemies of communism - not just by allowing them to join the party, but by actively recruiting them. Binding China's rapidly emerging entrepreneurial elites to the party provided benefits to both sides, allowing entrepreneurs more freedom from the stultifying strictures of state apparatus while reinforcing and renewing Party control on an element of Chinese society that may have come to threaten the Party's very existence.

Prior to that, the shock of Tiananmen square and the fall of the former Soviet Bloc caused a wave of realistic threat assessment and self-reflection within the Party. This lead to further creative and pragmatic changes, though not in the ways that analysts in the west might have guessed or hoped for.

Given the importance of the Party in China and the growing importance of China in the world, it behooves us to better understand it. Richard McGregor's fascinating and informative book is recommended reading for those interested in understanding not just the Party, but the modern China within which it operates.

I spent the last four years living in China, serving as the president of a Chinese bank. That role took me to 44 cities all across China, where I met hundreds of government officials and Party members. I worked daily with the General Secretary of the bank's Party Committee. During my time in China I read every major book by any foreigner who had lived and worked in China. Richard's book, The Party, is the most insightful book I have encountered. If you wish to understand how China is run today and you only have time to read one book, then read this one.

I've been doing business in China for over a decade and this book is highly valuable even to a 'China hand' - essential reading for anyone dealing with China, or China's impact. Olympics? Expo? Those are the trappings, this book gets to the core. Read this and understand...

I enjoyed reading this book. I learned a lot about China and a lot about the impact of the Communist party since it took power in 1949 (?). But I was ultimately unsatisfied for 2 reasons:

One, it felt more like a collection of interesting stories and less like a coherent book. The stories of particular episodes in China did not seem to follow any time line or any other organizational structure. I struggled to understand how the stories related to each other or whatever connections were implied. The stories seemed to jump between periods in China that didn't make any sense to me. That said, each episode was interesting and educational.

Two, I kept expecting for the author to explain to the reader why China is thriving. He provides a wealth of details about how corrupt the system is from the highest levels in Beijing to the lowest levels in each town/province/whatever. He details how "the party" influences almost every economic decision that gets made. He makes various statements about how this or that leader opened up China to market reforms and private property rights but in the same breath details how government at every level influences decisions. I walked away from this book still scratching my head as to how China has grown in the past 30-ish years. I'm still trying to figure that out.

Read this book for interesting insights into China over the past 60 years. But don't expect to have any better understanding of the big picture.

As an expat Chinese in the US, this is the best written book to understand the political and government system. Many of the headlines in the west media miss the point about china, and this book can explains why. Even for the Chinese, the book sheds deep insight and help understand the confused political/government system. It helps to explain many of the symptom hard to understand by the west.

Lastly, this is a great book as the author sticks to the norm and standard of journalist. It is written with a observant, analytic, and fact-finding way, rather than putting judgment or promoting a school of belief. From the "Afterword" section, you can tell he is not a fan of "system", but he lives in the country with his family for 9 years and had put a fair observation to the country.

If you really care about China, or want to understand it beyond the headlines, this is a must read.

Richard McGregor renders a great service to his readers by shedding light on the inner workings of the ruling Chinese Communist Party which is keen on secrecy. The transformation of China's economy and society and its impact on the rest of the world in the last three decades has too often deflected attention from formal politics in Beijing.

Highly pragmatic, cynical, and adaptive, the Party has succeeded in the last three decades in linking the power and legitimacy of a communist state with the drive and productivity of an increasingly entrepreneurial society. The party's legitimacy still depends largely on the economy and its accompanying resurgent patriotism and nationalism. For all its increasingly international presence, China and, therefore, the Party will remain focused mainly on solving the country's problems due to their scale, depth, multiplicity, and variety.

McGregor shows systematically how high secrecy, tolerance of non-embarrassing corruption in its ranks, resolute hostility to the rule of law, and vindictive pursuit of enemies are all vital for the Party if it wants to remain at the core of the modern Chinese narrative through its tight grip on 1) personnel, 2) propaganda, and 3) People's Liberation Army.

At the same time, the Party has traded in Mao Zedong's totalitarian terror for a seductive modus vivendi with Chinese citizens. As long as ordinary Chinese accept the enlightened leadership of their empowered elite and do not ask for either accountability or the rule of law, they can pretty much lead their life and career as they see fit and eventually get rich. McGregor also shows clearly that although the Party has adapted its membership make-up to ongoing changes in China, it is struggling to keep up with the rapidly evolving aspirations, demands, and cleavages of the Chinese society. However, the bargain that the Party has struck with ordinary Chinese does not exist in a vacuum. The Party's propaganda system has to constantly remind Chinese citizens that there is no serious alternative to the Party in order for it to remain at the top of Chinese society.

The Party is also keen to minimize its profile abroad. For example, the Party likes to promote the largest state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that are publicly traded in Hong Kong and outside mainland China as independent commercial entities. The Party's myriad functions, starting with its control over top management of these SOEs, have been downplayed systematically.

In summary, McGregor convincingly demonstrates that the Party is determined to pursue its own model of economic, political, and social development on its own implacable terms. The rest of the world, especially the West, has no other option but to adapt to the reemergence of China, regardless of the ultimate outcome of this metamorphosis.

A readable book explaining how the Communist Party rules China in the 21st century is long overdue. Richard McGregor delivers on the promise of the subtitle to unveil the secret world of the party. Many people dismiss the idea that communism still has traction, assuming that "a Starbucks on every corner is a sign of political progress." It's not so: "The Party is like God. He is everywhere. You just can't see him,"a Beijing university professor tells McGregor. My favorite part so far is about the the red telephones on the desks of ministers, editors of party newspapers, CEOs of state-run companies through which the party issues its instructions. There are few enough of these red machines that the phone numbers have only four digits and when the phone rings, you'd better answer.

The claim that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is misunderstood by outsiders has become something of a cliche recently, conferring upon the almost 80-year-old political organization an aura of impenetrability. This dearth of knowledge has slowly been remedied, however, with the publication in recent years of solid studies on the party's philosophy, modus operandi and ability to defy the odds by remaining in power.

Two new books, The Party, by former Financial Times Beijing bureau chief Richard McGregor, and The Chinese Communist Party as Organizational Emperor, by National University of Singapore professor Zheng Yongnian, make important new contributions to our understanding of this most enigmatic of political parties.

Though targeting very different audiences (McGregor's style is journalistic, whereas Zheng's is overly academic), the two works reach similar conclusions as to the CCP's strategies, conclusions that had already been proposed in David Shambaugh's China's Communist Party: Atrophy and Adaptation (reviewed in the Taipei Times on May 11, 2008). The party brooks no organized opposition (what Zheng refers to as a counter-hegemony), does not tolerate the formation of political parties capable of challenging its hold on power, opposes the complete divorcing of party from state, and does not encourage the evolution of democracy as it is understood elsewhere.

This said, the CCP is no monolith, as the two books clearly demonstrate, nor has it failed to comprehend the tremendous challenges that have emerged as the country modernizes and embraces capitalism. The party's decision to allow capitalists to become CCP members, which Zheng describes as an epochal development in the politics of the past century, is a case in point.

This adaptability, McGregor and Zheng argue, has also had effects on the state's willingness to use force to repress dissent. Though, in the extreme, the security apparatus will not hesitate to violently quell dissent, the preferred means of oppression have become more refined and subtle, relying instead on intimidation and, with increasing success, co-optation.

Intra-party democracy, or the "accommodation of democratic elements," which Zheng looks at in more detail than McGregor, is also a product of the CCP's adaptability and, along with economic growth, probably the key to its survival.

Both authors point to corruption, particularly among the upper ranks of the CCP, as well as unequal distribution of wealth, as posing the greatest risks to state stability and by extension to the party. McGregor and Zheng cite the demise of the Shanghai clique in the mid-1990s and the use of allegations of corruption to bring top officials to heel as examples of how the war on corruption has become intrinsic to factional politics. McGregor's description of the party apparatus in charge of investigating corruption (and the system that enables officials at the very top to avoid scrutiny) makes for particularly entertaining reading.

While there isn't anything fundamentally new about the subjects addressed by the two authors, their exploration of the various CCP departments, and how they intersect and interact with the state apparatus, is very helpful, though Zheng's, which can become so detailed as to name the professors teaching specific classes in the Central Party School, will likely appeal to a very confined group of experts on China.

An interesting point where the two works depart, and what makes them complementary, in a way, is in Zheng's attempt to portray the CCP not so much as an oddity, but as the product of the society in which it emerged -- hence the "reproduction" in the title. Throughout his book, Zheng makes the case that the CCP's approach to power is contingent on historical continuity and draws from practices implemented back when the country was ruled by emperors. Though this argument could be exploited to make a case against democratization, it nevertheless makes a valid contribution to our understanding of the party's resistance to Western-style democracy and the ostensible lack of widespread calls for such democracy among ordinary Chinese. Interestingly, we learn that Sun Yat-sen ('''), the father of the Republic of China, was also opposed to the creation of public associations outside his party and proposed the idea of "partifying the masses" as an alternative to independent social organizations.

Ironically, as Zheng points out, historical continuity, i.e., the reproduction of the organizational emperorship, is also the main driver behind the CCP's need to adapt and embrace Marxism's nemeses, such as capitalism and democratic elements, as Chinese history is rife with examples of rigid systems being overthrown by a counter-hegemonic force. As such, to avoid a similar fate, the CCP has no choice but to open up, which in turn empowers other social classes that must be kept in check lest they overturn the system. "As long as the CCP is able to reproduce itself as an organizational emperor," Zheng concludes, "it is unlikely that China will develop into a Western style of democracy."

These two works come highly recommended. McGregor's is easily devoured in a few sessions, while Zheng's prose, heavy in political jargon and at times repetitive, undermines the book's readability, and as a result its contribution to our understanding of the CCP is unlikely to reach a mass audience.

For all his nuanced perspective on the Chinese political system, Zheng also makes an incomprehensible slip toward the end, claiming, after indirectly laudatory passages about the emergence of democracy in Taiwan, that democratization characterized by the emergence of a multiparty system in Taiwan has not enabled the country to improve living standards as effectively as China, and led to corruption, "social decay" and "economic chaos." Coming as it does in the conclusion of his book, this hyperbolic remark hints at a bias against democracy that raises all kinds of unanswered questions about the book's premise.

(Originally published in the Taipei Times, Nov. 7, 2010, p. 14.)

This book will change your understanding of China. McGregor's main theme is that China is coming to look more and more like Western societies on the surface, with similar market and other institutions--but as he shows repeatedly, under the surface the country still runs on Soviet hardware. He tells his story with panache.

Most fascinating and original is how he describes the continuing control the party still has over the commanding heights of the economy, particularly over publicly traded companies. The book is brimming with fascinating anecdotes to back up its claims. I particularly enjoyed the story of how the Party decided to simply switch the management teams of two publicly traded companies that were competing against each other in the same industry, practically overnight; it's as if you awoke one morning to find that the top management of Ford and GM had simply switched places with each other. Dorothy, this isn't Kansas.

The highest praise for a book on current affairs is that it will change the way you think, and what you understand when you read the newspaper. This book accomplishes both.

I'm baffled as to how anyone could give it fewer than five stars. Yes, it doesn't tell a seemless story, but that's not the nature of the material. A fun and penetrating read.

Read my whole critic here: [...]

The book has been praised and well received by critics and audiences, who have placed it almost at the height of "the definitive book about how the Party runs the country". Maybe my expectations were too high, but the truth is that the book does not achieve such an ambitious goal. Richard McGregor certainly makes an interesting account of general aspects of the party organization and its power, but you always have the feeling that he could have dug further, that the real protagonists, the decision makers, are still in the shade. The author himself playes a lot with the idea of the Party as an invisible force, which ultimately can leave the reader the impression that "yes, is very difficult to know how the party works, and you weren't able to find out neither after all".

I don't know if the title (The Party, The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers) was chosen by McGregor or by the publishing house, but the truth is that it seems much more a marketing technique than a description of its content. Actually, there are no big leaders talking in the book, it doesn't explain how the laws are passed in the country, it doesn't speak about the Communist Youth (an important Party organization that seems to be growing in influence) and there is a lack of many other key issues (it would have been interesting to talk about the politicians in the government that are not party members, like Chen Zhu).

The book, however, is a very interesting description of the relationship between the Party and business. Here you can see some of the most important CEO of the country, the books examines who pulls the strings within each company and the symbiosis that's going on between the Party and entrepreneurs. The description of the corruption case of Chen Liangyu, the former party secretary of Shanghai, is a fascinating glimpse of the abuses of power in contemporary China and the internal disputes within the government. Special mention also for the case of milk contaminated with melamine after the Beijing Olympics, explained from the point of view of the company, the media and the government in a way that makes you see how the system failures can be lethal for its citizens.

As a former Financial Times reporter, McGregor has used all his contacts he has developed over last years in China, and the result is an interesting book where the economy is the protagonist. Two of the eight chapters are clearly about this ("China Inc.: The Party and Business" and "Deng Perfects Socialism: the Party and Capitalism"), but others chapters like the one about corruption, the personnel selection or "the Party and the Regions") tend to end up inevitably into the economic field. In this sense, the book can be fascinating for those (and there are many) who see China as an economic opportunity, are doing business in the country or are interested in the business world