People's Congress system in China

Author: Intelligence_06

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Intelligence_06
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Darters in the west, what do you see wrong with it?

So, the foundational levels, the councils in districts, cities, and counties, will be elected by citizens themselves. Then, the candidates of the level above, such as larger cities, will be voted amongst the foundation level councils, in which the council members vote and the people with the most votes gets to participate in the higher-leveled councils. The provincial council is voted amongst the council members in all the cities(admistrative area, like the US's counties, a county in China is a part of a city-level admistrative area) within it,  and the National People's Congress is voted amongst the provinces the same way.

Pretty much all the people that are being chosen are supposed to be elected from the people themselves at one point in their life but the decision on the tippy top will be handled by the governments at every level, which they are more qualified to make decisions like this than the people all across China which they probably don't work their entire life to be a governmental official. This is different from "democratic" mass ballots from all the people that exist, in which sometimes they don't know what they want or they don't know whatever they want actually means. Swaying the public does not work because the professionals decide on it.

So, what do you think is wrong about it?
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@Intelligence_06
Yes, why not, mafia godfather in charge, Underboss and Consigliere by his side and the others? Elect a few, rig a few, blackmail a few, bribe a few and if all else fails, oopsy how unfortunate we didn't know he/she was allergic to peanuts.

That is the solution for sure, China all the way.
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@RationalMadman
That is why the court exists. Almost all bribing occurs at the city or district or county level, and if so they are expelled from job, put into prison, etc.

It is so unlikely for a corrupt official to be in the actual charge it is outside regular consideration. Xi and the Chinese leaders are just a little to authoritarian to some but in the big picture you have a far bigger chance of winning the election by sheer family wealth alone in the US than in China.

If someone has a burning take(for example, ban video games!), the people express outrage(there is no verdict yet) and the local experts pick it up and the policy does not pass.

In this society, your opinion indirectly influence experts, not directly; and you actually can call for the replacement and court trial of an expert if there is enough evidence.
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@RationalMadman
What I am saying is that this is technically possible but every representative is taught to not do this.

Every time something like corruption or bribed manipulation occurs, it makes headline, even if it is just a district-wise problem. It makes people outrage. People can voice the issue.

Then, swaying the public masses through media portrayal is much easier in a “democratic” society like the US than swaying a group of peer-reviewed experts for any issue.
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@Intelligence_06
What do the Uyghur people think of this system of friendly cooperation and integration.
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@Intelligence_06
Darters in the west, what do you see wrong with it?

So, the foundational levels, the councils in districts, cities, and counties, will be elected by citizens themselves. Then, the candidates of the level above, such as larger cities, will be voted amongst the foundation level councils, in which the council members vote and the people with the most votes gets to participate in the higher-leveled councils. The provincial council is voted amongst the council members in all the cities(admistrative area, like the US's counties, a county in China is a part of a city-level admistrative area) within it,  and the National People's Congress is voted amongst the provinces the same way.

Pretty much all the people that are being chosen are supposed to be elected from the people themselves at one point in their life but the decision on the tippy top will be handled by the governments at every level, which they are more qualified to make decisions like this than the people all across China which they probably don't work their entire life to be a governmental official. This is different from "democratic" mass ballots from all the people that exist, in which sometimes they don't know what they want or they don't know whatever they want actually means. Swaying the public does not work because the professionals decide on it.

So, what do you think is wrong about it?
The problem with this system is that it suppresses innovation, competition, dynamic change. 

While the first level of councilpeople  elevated from among the people are likely to be be representative and innovative thinkers, the only way they can "climb the ladder" (and so acquire real power to effective positive policy change) is to please the group above them who must in turn please the group above them, etc.   No such group of decision-makers is likely to promote people not of their party or who don't represent their racial or religious preferences or who represent radical change that might threaten their own power bases or who are so persuasive or talented that they might outcompete incumbents for promotion to the next rung of the ladder.  Therefore, each higher group will mostly choose like-minded people of similar political and social outlook for elevation and prefer people who are satisfied with the status quo and prefer people who are perceptibly less impressive, talented, intelligent than themselves to minimize competition for elevation.

Very quickly your form of government will suffer profound stagnation since the path to power only rewards conformists, conservatives, traditionalists.  What you are describing is really how most aristocracies and corporate hierarchies  develop and look at how quickly after the innovations of the first revolutionary generation those methods of promotion generally push stagnation to the top and threaten the stability of the whole enterprise.

What's needed is peaceful, loyal, but aggressive competition between a few different factions with very different outlooks but the same final goal.  Too many factions and consensus becomes impossible.  Less than two factions, and you're back to stagnation  The people need to retain the possibility of shaking up the power structure from bottom to top according to the level of prosperity and the urgency of crisis.  Only then can the underlying enterprise enjoy long term stability through dynamic, peaceful transfer of decision-making authority.
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@Intelligence_06
 Almost all bribing occurs at the city or district or county level, and if so they are expelled from job, put into prison, etc.

It is so unlikely for a corrupt official to be in the actual charge it is outside regular consideration. Xi and the Chinese leaders are just a little to authoritarian to some but in the big picture you have a far bigger chance of winning the election by sheer family wealth alone in the US than in China.
A NEW BOOK EXPOSES CHINA's HIDDEN CORRUPTION
Aadil Brar@The Print

"In the world of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), there are winners and losers, and the roulette of corruption is endemic within the party.

Xi’s sister Qi Qiaoqiao and her husband Deng Jiagui are the owners of Beijing Central People’s Trust Real Estate Development Corporation Ltd. The couple’s real estate business has grown by leaps and bounds as they have been given best land by local government officials to seek favour from Xi Jinping. Deng Jiagui, Xi’s brother-in-law, was mentioned in International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)’s 2014 report on offshore accounts of Chinese elites.

According to real estate registration, Xi’s family owns a million-dollar property at the Braemar Hill Garden in Hong Kong, registered under sister Qi’s name.
In 2012, Bloomberg revealed that Xi’s extended family had total assets worth $376 million, which included 18% stake in the provincial state-owned Jiangxi Rare Earth and Rare Metals Tungsten Group. But none of these assets were traced directly to Xi Jinping or his wife, Peng Liyuan.

In 2014, The New York Times reported, citing Chinese records, that Xi Jinping had forced his extended family into selling their assets. Xi’s sister and brother-in-law moved their assets into Qinchuan Dadi Investment Company but didn’t sell most of their valuable assets.

The party is also waging a campaign against celebrities with foreign citizenship, but Xi’s own family is said to have multiple foreign permanent residency and passport holders.

Qi and Deng are said to hold Canadian permanent residencies. Xi Jinping’s daughter Xi Mingzhe, who is reportedly pursuing a graduate degree at Harvard University, is said to hold a US green card.

Xi’s own murky business dealings are shrouded in mystery, even as other members of the Politburo Standing Committee have their fair share of a questionable past.

Han Zheng was promoted as party secretary of Shanghai, after a scandal brought down Chen Liangyu. A few months into the office, the party discovered that Han Zheng had stashed $20 million in an Australian bank, according to Desmond Shum’s book, Red Roulette: An Insider’s Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today’s China.

The book reveals the intertwined relationship between corruption and high politics in China. Shum and his wife Whitney Duan championed the guanxi model of using personal relations to seek access and business contracts.

The party tried to avoid another scandal by replacing Han with Xi Jinping. Han managed to evade any action and rose to the rank of Politburo’s Standing Committee member – a post he still holds. Han grew close to Xi Jinping after serving as his deputy in Shanghai.

In 2012, New York Times correspondent David Barboza broke an exclusive story on former Chinese premier Wen Jiabao’s family wealth totaling $2.7 billion, allegedly concealed under the name of Wen’s mother, Yang Zhiyun.

Shum disputes Barboza’s claims about him and his wife making a fortune from relations with Wen Jiabao’s family, especially from the purchase of state-owned company Ping An’s shares in Hong Kong listing. Shum claims Jiabao Wen wasn’t aware of his family’s business dealings and had expressed outrage when the scandal broke in 2012.

Another party leader who came into focus for his family’s business dealing is Li Zhanshu.

Li Zhanshu and his business dealings are said to have played a crucial role in pushing the Hong Kong National Security Law across the line. He “oversaw the swift passage of the new national security law for Hong Kong that handed the party a powerful new weapon to quash dissent,” reported The New York Times.

“In China, officials never reveal their ambitions in public. Biding one’s time is a key tenant of Sun Tzu’s Art of War,” Shum writes in his book about the strategy adopted by ambitious leaders like Xi Jinping.

Maintaining a level of secrecy around one’s business dealings and ambitions is considered virtuous among Chinese leaders.

That’s the code Bo Xilai broke when he staked his name to the title of next General Secretary of CCP from 2007 onwards. Both Bo and Xi are sons of the two “immortals” of Communist Party, a term used for veteran leaders who fought alongside Mao Zedong against the nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-Shek.

Bo marshalled the Chongqing model to battle growing corruption when he served as the municipality’s party secretary.

But Bo’s fortune turned for the worse following a scandal involving the death of British citizen Neil Heywood. Bo was sentenced to life in prison. Wen Jiabao supported Xi Jinping and made way for his rise to power.

Bo’s flamboyant mingling with the media was starkly different from Xi’s careful behind-the-scenes political jockeying that made the latter the current top leader of China.

Anti-corruption campaign was Xi’s preferred tool – with help from Zhao Leji – to dismantle any opposition.

“As Xi’s corruption campaign played out, I finally concluded that it was more about burying potential rivals than about stamping out malfeasance. Xi had already played a role in locking up his fellow princeling, Bo Xilai. He followed that by jailing Bo’s ally on the Standing Committee of the Politburo, Zhou Yongkang,” Shum writes in Red Roulette.

The tight control over media and dwindling access of foreign journalists to Chinese leaders has made it difficult to report on corruption at the highest levels of the party.


Ehyeh
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@oromagi
Oromami came in with his massive cranium, as expected of one of the smartest people on the planet. Beautifully put, sir. Megamind would feel intimidated if he was your opposition in a debate.
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The estimated net worth of Xi Jinping is $1.2 billion dollars. He is the highest-ranking official in China.
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@FLRW
The estimated net worth of Xi Jinping is $1.2 billion dollars.
All on a salary of $20,000 per year?  That is one penny-pinching mofo right there.

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Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. J.E.E.D. Acton.