Miklos K. Radvanyi, vice president of the Frontiers of Freedom Institute provided an analysis for Gulyáságyú Média. / Radványi Miklós, az egyesült államokbeli republikánus think-tank, a Frontiers of Freedom Institute alelnöke angol nyelvű elemzése a Gulyáságyú Média számára.
You can find all of Miklos K. Radvanyi”s opinion pieces on this link. Radványi Miklós összes írását ezen a linken találja.
Nyitóképünkön: From Mao to Xi. Forrás: Facebook.
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From Mao to Xi: The Logic of Power
The historically most stubbornly lasting paradoxes of Chinese politics had been its emperors’ and civilian leaders’ obsession with building mighty armed forces, while simultaneously fearing such weaponized monsters’ oppositional capabilities. Especially, from the early 20th century, evolving from a peasant-based “Marxist” insurgency into the nationwide absorption of the Chinese state in 1949, Mao Zedong focused on his unrelentingly radical warfare against China’s past, aiming to ruthlessly annihilate the so-called “feudal cum capitalist” elements of society. The “Great Leap Forward” as well as the “Cultural Revolution” were implemented by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Yet, his repeated purges of this military attested to his fundamental doctrine that “the gun must never command the (Chinese Communist) Party.” Accordingly, total political control of the military has become the exclusively anti-Bonaparte strategy of his successors too.
From Mao’s death in 1976 onward, competence – including military professionalism – without an absolutely devout ideological obedience, has literally been a death sentence. Clearly, President Xi Jinping’s objective has also been the unquestionable subjection of the military to him as the “Paramount (also Core and Life) Leader,” holding the three core positions of General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, the Chairman of the Central Military Commission, and the President of the People’s Republic of China. In this laughably grotesque conundrum, for President Xi’s and his regime’s survival an all-powerful military is indispensable. Counterintuitively, a military based on meritocracy and institutional autonomy signifies a lethal force capable of overthrowing both.
The Army Under Political Control
The dynamic of this latent rivalry first was palpable in 1989, when the Chinese Communist Party survived only because parts of the military – and not its entirety – obeyed orders to suppress what became known as the Tiananmen Square massacre. This “survival” came at a debilitating cost for the military: the overpoliticization of the existential relationship between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the military. Again, from this historic event onward, meritocracy has been buried deep into the swamp of ideological loyalty. Even more importantly, unconditional political reliability eclipsed strategic excellence.
This unparalleled political aggression has reached its most potent form under President Xi Jinping. Since 2013, he has launched the most substantial military reorganization in China’s post-1949 history, publicly framing his anti-military campaign as “anti-corruption” and „pro-modernization.” In practice, it has functioned as a continual decapitation of the PLA’s senior leadership. Generals have disappeared, entire command structures have been dissolved, and personal networks painstakingly built over decades have been brutally annihilated. President Xi’s most current purge carries an unmistakable message: no military rank confers independent authority.
Hidden Weaknesses of China’s Military
Yet, this perpetual war on the military entails a destructive contradiction at the heart of the CCP’s tyrannical power. An existentially vital instrument of the regime that is constantly purged, politicized, and even terrorized from above may be loyal, but loyalty is not identical with effectiveness. Commanders learn that passivity beats initiative, withholding even constructive criticism beats open candor, and always shifting ideological correctness beats professional realism. In this manner, mistakes are concealed, not corrected. As a result, bad news is hidden and not communicated upward at all.
The misery is severe and even laden with blind hostility. While China strives to build a world-class military, capable of the most complex joint operations supported by state-of-the-art technologies, and rapid adaptations, its leadership structure is stuck in the malaise of its feudal imperial culture. The result is uncompromising opposition to everything that modern warfare requires: independent initiative and judgment, professional confidence, and institutional stability.
Xi’s System as a Strategic Trap
Consequently, the PRC’s unsolvable duplicity makes its head, President Xi the irredeemable international bastard of global political ambitions. The traditional trap of all tyrannies had always been from time immemorial, their paralyzing fear of everyone who wields force threatening their exclusive powers. What renders the PRC’s misery is the main enemy of its own progress is the enormous scale, hopeless permanence, and hateful intensity of this aggression. The PRC is hopeless in its present form because there is no light at the end of the CCP’s self-constructed tunnel – no moment at which it believes that its tyrannical power is secure enough to stop fighting its state as well as its military.
And that may be the most bitter truth about President Xi’s latest „Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” purge of the highest echelons of the PLA. A legitimate government does not have to permanently remind its people – including its soldiers – who is in charge. Yet, President Xi does this because he knows well that his “Socialist” tyranny does not have the approval of the Chinese people through free elections. Therefore, he also knows that the greatest threat to his illegitimate powers will not come primarily from the outside, but from within the country because of the rotten system that he is presides over.
Az idei év különösen nehéz lesz a maradék magyar független sajtónak, hiszen Orbán Viktor már az év elején kiadta az ukázt a sajtó megsemmisítésére. Így arra kérjük Önöket, hogy mindenki, akinek számít még a sajtószabadság, az támogasson legalább egy független sajtóterméket. Amennyiben tehetik, legyen ez lapunk, hiszen mi még a független sajtón belül is nehéz helyzetben vagyunk. A támogatási lehetőségek: http://gulyasagyu.media/tamogatas
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