The Question of Power

One thing that always irritate me when I read those China experts analyzing China is they have assumptions they assume to be true and have a closed mind never to be questioned. The fact that Xi is going to be elected third term in the coming party congress is condemned as power grab; yet they never bother to ask why? To what purpose do Xi want to serve a third term? They assume he wants to be president for life, and never analyze his speeches which they assume to be propaganda and dismissed. Xi told everybody he wanted goals for the 100 year anniversary of both the founding of Communist Party and The People’s Republic of China. The elimination of extreme poverty and entry to a moderately prosperous society.
We know here in capitalist west people want to be rich and powerful. We admire those self make billionaires. Yet they also want something beyond just power and money. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk want to go to space; moon and Mars. Bill Gates want to eliminate malaria and AIDS. They do want to do something beyond themselves for humanity or just be a part of positive forces in human history. Yet the liberals sees in Xi as a caricature of power mad emperor. Kishore Mahbubani of Singapore has better insight than those liberal critics when he answered them Xi needs the power to achieve his goals; to fight corruption and renaissance for China.
Neither Mao nor Xi has absolute power attributed by West to mold China in the caricature of them. Mao wanted to change human nature and used Cultural Revolution and youthful idealism when he saw the bureaucracy ossified in corruption. yet his opponents frustrated him by forming rival Red Guards and resulting arm clashes and caused many tragedies. Consider the case of mansions built in a national park south of Xian. Xi has asked them to be demolished annually since 2013 and sent inspection work groups to no avail. Not until 2018 when both party secretaries of Xian and Shaanxi province were toppled because of corruption was Xi able to enforce his wishes.
Contrast to what’s happening in U.S.. Liberals are not able to push their agenda despite the $1.5 trillion bill just passed. With coming election of 2022 and 2024 things looking rather bleak. Trump seems to know the levers of power much better than Biden. I would worry about the world of “1984” more in the U.S. than in China.