Friggin aye
October 28, 2007 2:38 PM   Subscribe

State of the Party-state The ever-excellent Jonathan Ansfield gives his take on the recently concluded Seventeenth Congress of the Communist Party of China.
posted by Abiezer (12 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
That is a fascinating article. Thanks!
posted by Falconetti at 5:09 PM on October 28, 2007


I feel bad that no one commented, so: I read it, read some other articles, it was cool. Thanks.
posted by blacklite at 6:35 PM on October 28, 2007


Good stuff, Abiezer...but I could use more links...collected any other recent material on the Party?
posted by StrikeTheViol at 6:38 PM on October 28, 2007


The article could have used some editing, but was a nice antidote to the shrill foreboding I'm increasingly seeing on BBC and CNN. Seems like they've increased the size of their Chinese correspondant teams, and therefore feel the need to report something from China every day or so. What results is often fearmongering.

This article puts a much more human face on things.
posted by grubby at 8:10 PM on October 28, 2007


stv - there's plenty of linkage at the two main articles to more mainstream views, which made me think there'd be follow-up if it was wanted, and you can find more in depth policy wonkery at Jamestown, the China media project at HKU and the Hoover Institute inter alia - they all have their particular stances of course.
grubby - I think Spot-on is a place where journos with day jobs like Ansfield get to publish rawer copy, hence the slightly unedited feel. That sense appeals to me.
posted by Abiezer at 1:00 AM on October 29, 2007


Interesting read, thanks. But he could have given it one more read before posting it; I'm not really sure what he's trying to say here:

"The media paired their performance as if to suggest they might end up vying power."

Good stuff, Abiezer...but I could use more links.

Please do not encourage the more-is-better posting mentality. This is as many links as are needed; in fact, one too many, since the second one is superfluous.

posted by languagehat at 6:28 AM on October 29, 2007


Listen to "Dr." Kissinger on the Charlie Rose Show As always, Henry has the big picture.
posted by moviediver at 8:20 AM on October 29, 2007


Sorry, here is the
posted by moviediver at 8:23 AM on October 29, 2007


I'm glad you agree with me that a decent article should stand alone, lh. it's not as if all the usual suspects haven't got their pieces on the Congress - one of Ansfield's points is of course the vastly increased media interest and access. I will defend the Danwei link as entirely not superfluous because a) I posted it, God dammit! :D and b) the amateur Kremlinologist in me loves that kind of totting up of phrases. I am of course in not much of a position to say whether or not much political inference really can be drawn from such an exercise, but suspect strongly it can.
Two bits of Ansfield's piece endeared it to me enough to prompt the post - his calling the Chinese bourgeoisie "always a colluder class," was chucklesome and pretty well bang on the money; and I love his translation of the copper's "Wo kao!" which I have used as the title "friggin aye." Again, neat stuff - as wo kao is the prissy version of the ubiquitous Beijing "Wo cao!" or "Fuck me!" "Fuck it" etc. It's these little details that give you confidence that Master Ansfield knows of what he writes.
posted by Abiezer at 10:44 AM on October 29, 2007


I will defend the Danwei link as entirely not superfluous

Wasn't talking about the Danwei link. I said "the second one," and I think if you look close you'll see that's the Jonathan Ansfield, which leads to... exactly the same essay as the first one! (Maybe you were just trying to give his site some extra credit, but I tend to think the fewer links the better, unless of course you have a truly awesome collecton of links.)
posted by languagehat at 12:15 PM on October 29, 2007


Ah, right. That was supposed to lead to the top-level archive of his stuff - and on a re-check it does, if you scroll on down a long old ways. There is method in my madness, I promise.
posted by Abiezer at 1:10 PM on October 29, 2007


What happened to political reform?
posted by Abiezer at 2:17 AM on October 30, 2007


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