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The Scholar's Stage

scholars-stage.blogspot.com · 1,191 words · saved by 1 readers

A blog about history, strategy, geopolitics, and the intersections of governance, ecology, demographics, and culture.

THE CHINESE socio-political system differs from our own. From the perspective of the topic of this conference, here is the most salient distinction: the Chinese system has a telos. The Chinese party-state is fundamentally a set of goal-oriented institutions. This is not unique to China—it is in fact a distinguishing feature of all Leninist systems. I sometimes think of Leninist systems as a little bit like that bus in the movie Speed. Who here has seen it? For those who haven’t, here is basic gist of that film: an extortionist attaches a bomb to the speedometer of a bus. If the bus ever…

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