CCP ‘Outwardly Strong, but Inwardly Weak’: China Expert
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Noted China expert Roger Garside stated on Monday that the Communist regime of China is “outwardly strong, but inwardly weak” during a discussion on the potential for regime change and democracy in China hosted by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Garside, a British former diplomat who was stationed in China, as well as the author of “China Coup: The Great Leap to Freedom” and “Coming Alive: China After Mao,” called the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “fearful,” and stated, “The regime which rules China today is totalitarian, not authoritarian.”
He said that while the CCP works to project a strong image, it has a number of foundational weaknesses that are endemic to a totalitarian regime.
Lisa Kiefer speaks with
Orville Schell, former professor and dean of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, about his debut novel, My Old Home. After decades of writing books and articles on China policy, his first novel follows exiles caught between American and Chinese politics from Mao s Revolution in 1949 to the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, examining the divide that arose under the Chinese Communist Party between the imperatives of the individual and the state, especially as experienced by artists and musicians. Currently the Arthur Ross director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society in New York, Schell is working on a project centering around the U.S. and China and the critical role they play in resolving the climate change issue.
To read the interview transcript, visit the Asia Society Blog.
Just hours after the United States voted for its next president, China, too, is preparing for a leadership change although much less is known about that process, which begins Thursday with the start of the 18
th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. In an attempt to shed light on this opaque political exercise, the Asia Society together with the editors of ChinaFile have conducted a series of studio interviews.
Orville Schell, Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society, begins the series.