m**c
发帖数: 7349 | 3 By cracking down and puffing himself up, Mr Xi is neither buying himself
security nor helping to keep China stable. He is using the party’s own
thuggish investigators to take on graft. But they have a greater interest in
settling political scores than in ensuring laws are applied fairly. That
gets in the way of good administration, if only because officials are scared
of spending money in case it attracts a probe. By cowing the media, Mr Xi
created a press reluctant to challenge officials by exposing the dodgy-
vaccine trade as soon as it was discovered at least a year ago. By the time
such scandals eventually come to light, they pose even greater threats to
the party’s, and Mr Xi’s, credibility.
Mr Xi has pledged to give market forces a “decisive role”, and put “power
in a cage” by establishing the rule of law. But he is providing neither
the country with prosperity and freedom, nor reassuring the rest of the
world with stability. Abroad, anxieties about him keep growing: his muscular
efforts to assert control in the South China Sea have been driving
countries across Asia closer to the American camp.
Earlier in Mr Xi’s rule, observers had wondered whether, after establishing
himself, he would turn to carrying out the reforms that he says he wants.
But hopes are fading that a big reformist push will ever materialise. Mr Xi
appears to have little time for the politically irksome business of making
the party follow the law, closing down loss-making state-owned firms, or
bringing about much-needed social changes, such as scrapping restrictions on
access by rural migrants to urban public services. The task of preserving
his power is a full-time job.
In the past 66 years of Communist rule in China, the most troubled times
have usually come about when tensions break out within the elite. Mr Xi’s
style of rule is only serving to stoke them. The more Mr Xi tries to fight
off enemies using scare tactics and brute force, the more enemies he is
likely to make. |
