How the Chinese Communist Party Works 

Hey all - part 2 of missile defense is still coming! This is a quick detour to another topic because China's Party Congress is currently happening in Beijing. You can be the first to watch the next missile defense video with Nebula, which at $15/year is frankly just a steal of a deal: curiositystream.com/polymatter

Chinese politics is actually really interesting even for outsiders.

Chinese politics sounds a lot like office politics. You don't get elected, you get promoted. And people don't listen to you based on title alone, you have to earn the respect and obedience of your peers and subordinates.

people havr asked me "why are you so interested in China, and largely Asia as a whole" and I tell them there has never been a single boring moment on that side of the world. it has been a string of regular show tier events since hominids arrived

12:35, fun fact his dad was actually purged before. Not the Soviet style purge but the jailed and demoted to a factory worker but still alive type. He was also the one that set up the special economic zones in China and namely was the one Shenzhen’s current success can be somewhat attributed to. It’s probably also why Xinjinping had so much influence. Shenzhen is basically if you combined NYC with silicon valley in the US. Edit: to be clear his success came AFTER the purge not that he got purged later. Here’s his wikipedia page if you are interested: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Zhongxun

Georgy Malenkov was *not* removed because he died, there were a series of back-and-forth political struggles between he and Khrushchev, which culminated in his exile to Kazakhstan, expulsion from the Party, but ultimately a peaceful death in 1988.

9:52 Deng Xioaping is a good example of how general Secretary isn’t necessarily the power. Another example was Putin 2009-2012 when he had to step down due to term limits and put a puppet in charge while Putin was *Prime Minister (corrected). In weak democracies or non democracies, the leader position isn’t always the most powerful.

This is such a high-quality video. As a Chinese who have been interested in Chinese politics for more than 10 years. I can say that I am familiar with 80% of the content and it is very accurate. I also learned from the rest 20% of the content that I wasn't quite familiar before watching. Great job!

I'm Chinese 3:37 I wanna correct you about VPN. VPN is fairly easy to get and it's working perfectly and you don't need to be a technologically savvy. Many foreign owned companies in major Chinese cities will provide its employees (not only expats, personal experience) VPN as an essential tool for work, they are doing it on a corporate level, so you can't say that the government is not aware of this. I guess using VPN is not going to get you into trouble as long as you are using it for leisure or work purposes.

Just a correction at the start of the video, Georgy Malenkov didn't rule until he died when he briefly succeeded Stalin, he was deposed and his premiership was stripped from him by the power struggle with Khrushchev

Hu Jintao never really had true power during his time as leader. Jiang Zemin, even after transferring political power, still held onto military control until Hu's second term in office. Additionally, Jiang had placed many officials around Hu, effectively turning him into a puppet who only followed Jiang's orders. In contrast, Xi Jinping was granted complete power from the outset. Hu handed over both political and military control, while most of Jiang's subordinates were too old to pose any threat to Xi. The sole reason behind Xi's anti-corruption campaign was the rampant corruption among party officials, which damaged the Party's reputation. He had to combat corruption to maintain the Party's rule, but this inevitably led to a large number of officials being investigated and made it difficult for Xi to choose a successor.

Technically Hua Guofeng the leader of China between 1976 - 1981 did peacefully hand over his power when he was forced into resignation by Deng Xiaoping. He lead a quiet life after his resignation until he died in 2008 at the age of 87.

Having power without gov title is actually the norm in most of world except for west. Example is when US disbanded Ba’ath party of Iraq after toppling Sadam expecting population to then listen to gov bureaucrats with just fancy titles. Obviously didn’t work.

Man your videos are so crisp and well produced. I am really curious to know if you write your script word to word???

Very impressive production and density of information!

1:01 I wish we had this maximum age on American presidents too. Can we please have someone running the country who actually has a stake in the future they are creating??

Malenkov was ousted, he did not die while in power

Literally was wondering the video title question just yesterday! Thanks for the video.

As a Chinese myself, I´m truly astonished at the high quality of this video! Such vast amount of Information are highly compressed into such a short video, complex concepts and structures are very vividly explained. I do admire the work the creator devoted into! Thanks for uploading!

CCP: "That's BS!"

I recommend a podcast series called “The Prince” by the economist for any interested. It isn’t perfect but it goes into pretty good detail about the rise of Xi Jinping

Generally, this is pretty similar to the way Eastern Block countries operated. The main deviation being no general secretary/the first secretary after the Stalinist period had position comparable to that of Xi Jingping (Romania and non-Eastern Block communist countries: Yugoslavia, Albania being exceptions, as Ceausescu, Tito and Hoxha respectively held the "for life" power grip, being also surrounded by the cult of personality).

Great video. I’m guessing the only reason it didn’t do better is because of how many people had midterms and studying when it came out, because a video this important and high quality should get all the views

Um, pretty sure Malenkov was overthrown, not ruling until he died.

Thank you @PolyMatter for yet another detailed and insightful examination!

This is a really fascinating video. Chinese politics are a world of its own and your journalism work in this video is just insane. Thank you so much!

Hey PolyMatter, you made a mistake on 0:17 Georgy Malenkov didn't rule until he died, he was forced to resign as he couldn't gain the support of the various Soviet factions competing to take power after Stalin's death, which paved the way for Nikita Khrushchev to consolidate power and gain the support of the Soviet inner circle. He died in January 14th 1988

08:30 In Mandarin (also in Vietnamese and Korean) the word for a "President" of a Communist country is already "general secretary", this is why the President of the Republic of China, the Republic of Korea, and the Republic of Vietnam all have / had different titles from their Communist counterparts.

At first glance I thought the title was “How the Chinese Communist Party got woke” and damn near spewed my drink from my nose

"Intra party democracy" Tories: Write that down, WRITE THAT DOWN

The soviets were silly to not think about the future in so many aspects but this one is so damn simple

I’ve always wondered about everything you covered in this video. VERY informative and entertaining. Thank you, well done.

Thank you for uploading a new video!

This video was very insightful. Please make more videos like this

China Actually is one of the best internet doc series available, it’s single-handedly kept me subbed to Nebula.

You see the slimiest person carry a car The weakest person build a city The saddest person make theme parks The most afraid person goes to war This is why China is so powerful The people and the government

Your videos are always so well made! I'm seriously tempted to get Nebula especially to see your series there! I'm just afraid that I'd sink even more time into watching videos then :'^/

To properly understand the Chinese political system and mindset, you have to understand or at least be able to distinguish the difference between the Chinese culture and the western culture if there’s any at all. Learning a bit of the Chinese history also helps a big time. It’s a mature civilization after all.

Can you do a video on the chain of command for their government? From military to civilians

I thought I would learn about chinese political party structure, not just the congress or Xi. A chart and explanation of how people climb, vote, participate, the actual government structure, the departments... that would follow your title.

Good video but it would have been good to discuss how networks of influence are built through guanxi

Another amazing video as always

you are the reason why I finally subbed for Nebual that and a few others like Tech Altar

0:18 Malenkov didn’t die in office, he just gave up power to Khrushchev

Love it when Polymatter new video :D

Great video! It’s the most accurate video on Chinese gov I’ve seen on RU-vid

Good study!! Thanks a lot for creating this content.

Unlike other political parties, communist party systems are very disciplined and structured.

10:34 the power struggle and saving face cliche in most webtoons are starting to make more sense now. The stereotypical do you know who my grandfather brother is!

I would highly recommend Kevin Rudd's (former Australian prime minister, current head of The Asia Society) write up "The World According to Xi Jinping" (in Foreign Affairs) or his book "The Avoidable War" for more analysis on Chinese international relations

Wow. I would have expected this to be a Nebula special.

The first thing to understand (especially for Westerners) is that a very large percentage of CCP members are ideologically loyal Marxists-Leninists. Most people can't understand this, pointing out that China is capitalist now, so please read carefully: * There was also capitalism under Mao until 1957-58, and even after that, at the height of Maoism, that there was a huge black market, especially in agricultural products. The USSR itself also had a huge black market, as does North Korea today. * The economic reforms weren't such a theoretical shock for Marxist "theology", as the USSR had used them in the 1920s under Lenin * The prime inspiration and know-how for the reforms came from Communist Yugoslavia and Hungary, as well as from Overseas Chinese and (to a lesser extent) Singapore. It wasn't as if Deng Xiaoping became fascinated with Wall Street Journal. * China today isn't really capitalist, in the sense that there are no legal property rights. Yes, you read that correctly. If the CCP wishes, it can crush every single individual, association or enterprise in five minutes. * The "shock therapy" of the 1990s in East European countries and the bloody dissolution of Yugoslavia, coupled with the financial meltdown of 2008 and the EU debt crisis have strengthened every single aspect of CCP ideology, emphasizing utter contempt for financial markets, belief in national unity through smashing ethnic separatism and an alliance with all "anti-hegemonic" powers.

I live in china, and for the last few days the vpn's stop using which is actually good but there is a thing called "secret" or something on our vpn and we have are able to contact the outside world (note i am not from china)

What a fantastic video! Excellent job!

Very nice video Polymatter team!

Amazing video! Thanks for making this!

As a chinese, there are several statements that i disagree, but overall it is an informative video. Well done

Wow, thanks PM! Interesting trends.

This is a fantastic analysis, very high quality. Liked and subscribed.

There's discussions in acient China that by which way is better to decide the successor, by positions in the family hierarchy or by ability. There's a saying that a stable and consistent handover is worthy more than a good emperor. Sometimes, certainty is already good enough. What's the most stable form of handover? No handover.

One of my three vpns still works!

0:00: 🌟 The video discusses the lack of peaceful leadership transitions in the Soviet Union and major Communist countries, until Jiang Zemin voluntarily resigned in China in the early 2000s. 3:33: 🇨🇳 The Chinese Communist Party's National Congress is a highly controlled and scripted event that lacks excitement but holds significant political implications. 6:58: 🇨🇳 China's political structure is a Party-State with a government and a ruling Communist Party that co-exist. 9:58: 🇨🇳 China's political power dynamics and leadership transitions are complex and often defy conventional expectations. 13:23: 📚 Xi Jinping's rise to power in Chinese politics was facilitated by the discrimination against princelings and his ability to build a strong network of connections. Recap by Tammy AI

In Vietnam the General Secretary of the VCP and the President of Vietnam are two different persons. Their national assembly also has something resembling real debates.

Chinese economics are pretty interesting. Have you considered producing a video about that?

Excellent work!

I have a subscription to Nebula and I would use it, but the streaming on Nebula is so inferior to RU-vid

Amazing video and explanation! I could watch 10h of this!

This video isn't so much as a commentary on how Chinese politics works as it is a subliminal slander of the current government and blatant favoritism towards different government systems. I expected to find a video with helpful information and insights about the mechanics of how a one-party system works, or whether China is truly a one-party system at all; how the dynamics of power work within the party, what makes it strong, what makes it weak, et cetera... Instead, all I found were trite comments referring to the National Assembly like, "creating a veneer of harmony" 3:12, and "the whole thing is a giant spectacle" 3:18. He proceeds to talk about how there's more clapping than the American State of the Union, and how boring it is-- very relevant information indeed. Then, he talks about how VPN's are shut off, and how people who are already established as being dangerous are stopped from causing trouble, but all with clever wording to spin it in a malicious way. AT 4:20, he reminds us that the Communist Party of China is reminiscent of Lenin's Party, further adding to my annoyance at his silly labeling and name-calling. He then goes on to talk about jargon, and how he doesn't understand it, and how that somehow makes it "vague." After an introduction full of spurious language, potshot critiques on less than minor issues, and ad hominems, PolyMatter finally presents us with some useful information about how elections take place, which members serve what role, and other interesting facts. But all of this is cleverly wound in with irrelevant moral propositions on how the Party is deceitful (9:04) and misleading in their use of names (9:20). The escapade advances, calling out China on what he perceives to be their use of discreet names to hide who is truly in power, the abandonment of age limits somehow being unscrupulous, little notes like "[Xi Jinping's] hUnGeR fOr PoWeR" 12:13 in a fashion typical of those who stand firmly against the political philosophy of the Chinese government. He continues his verbal abuse against Xi, condemning his "privilege and sense of entitlement" 12:39. Underneath all of this lies very subtle, uncanny music, something that you might hear in a horror film during a suspenseful scene. I actually don't mind at all if somebody wants to criticize the Chinese government. Do it all you like-- but not once in this video does PolyMatter offer a thoughtful comment or a genuine critique of the system of government. The issues that he tries to present as moral problems are petty and arbitrary, instead of attacking real moral issues, and the entire video is riddled with subtle verbal abuses and demeaning comments. The worst part of it all is that this is hidden underneath a pile of charts, graphs, and interesting photographs, further adding to the deceptive manner of the presentation. Seriously, try listening to the audio without listening to the video, you'll see what I mean-- the visuals only serve to distract from the preposterous comments that he lazily lays along the way like bread crumbs for you to follow along with. The video's title makes one think that it will be a presentation on the details of how the Chinese government is run. But no, it's anything but that. I am so tired of people who, when attempting to put together a thoughtful critique of China's government, instead just resolve to verbally abusing it. I don't care if you don't like the government, or what they do, or what they say. If the Chinese government has a problem that needs to be fixed, then explain how they're wrong and offer a solution, or if it has a REAL moral issue, then point it out. If you're going to reply to my comment, please read the whole thing carefully before you do.

Just call him by his English name: winnie the pooh 😶

great production quality

This is a great video once again from polymatter!❤️.

While Xi kept his head down, Bo was flamboyant. If the party only prompted those that’s obedient, then Bo would never become a challenger to Xi.

You skipped the "Commander in chief" part in the comparison.

Let’s also discuss Singapore’s PAP power structure next!

0:19 That's just wrong, Georgy Malenkov didn't die in 1953, he died in 1988. He did, in fact, relinquish power to Khrushchev peacefully although his position was always supposed to be temporary,

I’ve been watching since you argued about Fahrenheit and Celsius and i love your style of content

8:44 Awesome Guangdong number plates!

13:48 Is that one of those insane Chinese typewriters?

Great explanation, but this type of video would benefit from a summary/conclusion. The transition from your final point to your sponsorship is smooth yet somehow jarring and abrupt, and could use an intermediary summary. Otherwise awesome video, appreciate your content.

I think we are being a little dramatic here. Roosevelt was on his 4th term when he died. 3 terms for Xi ain't dictator. Lets be fair. 'Merca

Great work bro!

Could someone please tell me where can I find the full footage of 13:46 and many more?

This might be my favorite video on the People's Republic of China that PolyMatter has released on RU-vid.

a none chinese person does more homework on Chinese system than a Chinese person, as a Chinese, I am impressed.

7:10 The high contrast between cyan and red make this part really hard to read and watch.

0:16 Malenkov actually was voted out by the Central Committee and that that makes two Soviet Leaders thrown out actually.

老好人 is quite literally a “good ol boys” type of person

One comment I have to make, especially about your more recent content is the theses that you drop with no follow up EXCEPT AN AD FOR BRILLIANT OR NEBULA. Don't get me wrong segways are great for getting to ads, but don't just drop a major and interesting thesis and have no follow up. Use something that has less of an impact. Or perhaps lead it into another video of yours that talks about it. Having too much impact on a transition can have the opposite effect. Make the transitions smoother so we hardly notice it, not questioning where the rest of the video is.

What title do the Hoch brothers have? Or Jamie Dimon? Because they are in charge of policy.

“Spectacle “ is a good description of China and its politics.

as a chinese myself, I personally divide PRC as three periods. 1. 1949-1976, the Mao Dynasty, in which Mao Zedong clear out his opponents inside and outside the party. 2. 1976-2013, the First Republic, in which Deng, Jiang, and Hu allowed limited democracy within the party. Also, the liberty of press and speech was also partially achieved. 3. 2013-today, the Xi Dynasty, in which Xi Jinping again clear out lol his opponents in the party and change the constitution completely.

Malenkov actually died in 1988.

I think it's the central committee that elects the politburo and the politburo standing committee, and not the politburo that elects the politburo standing committee. The central committe also elects the general secretary.

You should do a video on Malaysia's upcoming election. It has got to be the most interesting political story in the world now

In the immortal words of Godd Howard: “It just works.”

next topic: CIA: How Color Revolution Works

Point seconded. Very spot-on information.

Communist China is already lived 4 years longer than USSR, but had 2 rulers less (8 of USSR against 6 of communist China). Probably because of health issues: one died after 15 months in power, the next in power lived just 13 months longer.

1990. The Economist. China's economy has come to a halt. 1996. The Economist. China's economy will face a hard landing 1998. The Economist: China's economy entering a dangerous period of sluggish growth. 1999. Bank of Canada: Likelihood of a hard landing for the Chinese economy. 2000. Chicago Tribune: China currency move nails hard landing risk coffin. 2001. Wilbanks, Smith & Thomas: A hard landing in China. 2002. Westchester University: China Anxiously Seeks a Soft Economic Landing 2003. KWR International: How to find a soft landing if China.. 2004. The Economist: The great fall of China? 2005. Nouriel Roubini: The Risk of a Hard Landing in China 2006. International Economy: Can China Achieve a Soft Landing? 2007. TIME: Is China's Economy Overheating? Can China avoid a hard landing? 2008. Forbes: Hard Landing In China? 2009. Fortune: China's hard landing. China must find a way to recover. 2010. Nouriel Roubini: Hard landing coming in China. 2011. Business Insider: A Chinese 2012. American Interest: Dismal Economic News from China: A Hard Landing 2013. Zero Hedge: A Hard Landing In China 2014. CNBC: A hard landing in China. 2015. Forbes: Congratulations, You Got Yourself A Chinese Hard Landing.. 2016. The Economist: Hard landing looms for China 2017. National Interest: Is China's Economy Going To Crash? 2020. Economics Explained: The Scary Solution to the Chinese Debt Crisis 2021. Global Economics: Has China's Downfall Started? 2022. Cathie Wood: China's COLLAPSE Is FAR Worse Than You Think 2022. Business Basics: China's Economic Crisis, GDP is Crashing, Protests Everywhere. China's financial crisis is Here….

I think xijinping continued to be president because of the aggressive USA-China relationship. At such a critical time choosing a new leader is suicidal. Unlike what everyone thinks, the leader of a country need to face many difficult problems, and it takes experience to not wreak your own country beyond repair.