Good analysis -- but. Xi Jinping's disassembly of the committee succession mechanism and attempt to entrench his personal power IS, by this definition, corruption, and the state of China has failed to contain it. The state can be hollowed out from the top just as well as it can be hollowed out from elsewhere.
At a certain point, power running out of control, if centralized in one man, becomes so personalized that it becomes corruption running out of control.
" The question it is trying to answer is this: does the state actually have the capacity to clear corruption, repair governance, and bring the bureaucracy back into alignment with public objectives? "
Apparently not.
They've fallen into the oldest corruption problem of all: the problem of the leader, who is supposed to be the servant of the people, aggrandizing power to himself, at the expense of the public objectives. This is well known to be how the Roman Republic collapsed. It's not as if China doesn't have experience with this problem; it has thousands of years of this problem.
On top of that, there is currently ample evidence that provinces are not complying with central government diktats, and that central government... just changes its diktats after the fact to make it look like they complied. While this might be thought of as a very cooperative way of functioning, so perhaps desirable, it is not substantive state power.
The central government has also started to do certain objectively stupid, scientifically unsound campaigns which are doomed to ineffectiveness and encourage mass noncompliance. This is not conducive to substantive state power. It feels like the personal biases of a few old men.
The history of deliberate tolerance of business corruption for purposes of the agenda of one or another part of the government is also... interesting in this regard.
So for a contrast I think it might be worth looking at another country.
Like... Singapore. Singapore's priorities appear to be similar to what you describe as China's, except Singapore is actually successful at suppressing corruption, and China... has a certain layer of pretense going on.
I think you’re identifying a real risk, but you’re collapsing three different issues into one: personal power concentration, corruption in the narrower sense, and state capacity. They are related, but they are not analytically identical.
A weakening of succession norms and a stronger concentration of authority at the top can absolutely increase the risk of policy distortion, weaker feedback loops, and poorer elite circulation. But that is not the same thing as corruption in the usual sense of bribery, patronage, rent extraction, or the privatization of public office. If every form of top-level centralization is simply defined as “corruption,” the concept becomes too stretched to explain much.
I also would not compare China to Singapore too directly. Singapore is a highly capable city-state with a tiny population, a much simpler administrative chain, a far more compact society, and a far lower level of regional heterogeneity. China is a continental-scale political system with deep provincial layers, uneven development, huge local variation, and a long chain between central intent and local execution. The relevant question is not why China is not as frictionless as Singapore. The relevant question is whether, at that scale and complexity, the state still retains the capacity to discipline officials, reassert priorities, and prevent the bureaucracy from drifting into autonomous local fiefdoms.
On that point, China’s problem is real, but it is also different from the one you describe. The existence of local adaptation, partial compliance, policy adjustment, or even policy retreat does not by itself prove the absence of substantive state power. In a system of China’s size, some degree of bargaining, reinterpretation, and recalibration is inevitable. The real test is whether the center can still reset incentives, recentralize discipline, and impose direction over time in key areas. That is a much harder benchmark than comparing China to Singapore’s administrative neatness.
So I would put it this way: yes, top-level concentration of power can become a source of distortion and can weaken some forms of accountability. But that is not the same as saying China’s anti-corruption system is merely pretense, nor that Singapore is the right baseline. A city-state and a civilizational-scale state are solving very different governance problems.
Efficiency of the state apparatus
When on mission
Versus checks on the state apparatus
When off mission
Neither by itself encompasses
The responsibilities of the state apparatus to the people it serves
The state is neither
Simply a potential menace
or indespensible savior
To and for the people
Good analysis -- but. Xi Jinping's disassembly of the committee succession mechanism and attempt to entrench his personal power IS, by this definition, corruption, and the state of China has failed to contain it. The state can be hollowed out from the top just as well as it can be hollowed out from elsewhere.
At a certain point, power running out of control, if centralized in one man, becomes so personalized that it becomes corruption running out of control.
" The question it is trying to answer is this: does the state actually have the capacity to clear corruption, repair governance, and bring the bureaucracy back into alignment with public objectives? "
Apparently not.
They've fallen into the oldest corruption problem of all: the problem of the leader, who is supposed to be the servant of the people, aggrandizing power to himself, at the expense of the public objectives. This is well known to be how the Roman Republic collapsed. It's not as if China doesn't have experience with this problem; it has thousands of years of this problem.
On top of that, there is currently ample evidence that provinces are not complying with central government diktats, and that central government... just changes its diktats after the fact to make it look like they complied. While this might be thought of as a very cooperative way of functioning, so perhaps desirable, it is not substantive state power.
The central government has also started to do certain objectively stupid, scientifically unsound campaigns which are doomed to ineffectiveness and encourage mass noncompliance. This is not conducive to substantive state power. It feels like the personal biases of a few old men.
The history of deliberate tolerance of business corruption for purposes of the agenda of one or another part of the government is also... interesting in this regard.
So for a contrast I think it might be worth looking at another country.
Like... Singapore. Singapore's priorities appear to be similar to what you describe as China's, except Singapore is actually successful at suppressing corruption, and China... has a certain layer of pretense going on.
I think you’re identifying a real risk, but you’re collapsing three different issues into one: personal power concentration, corruption in the narrower sense, and state capacity. They are related, but they are not analytically identical.
A weakening of succession norms and a stronger concentration of authority at the top can absolutely increase the risk of policy distortion, weaker feedback loops, and poorer elite circulation. But that is not the same thing as corruption in the usual sense of bribery, patronage, rent extraction, or the privatization of public office. If every form of top-level centralization is simply defined as “corruption,” the concept becomes too stretched to explain much.
I also would not compare China to Singapore too directly. Singapore is a highly capable city-state with a tiny population, a much simpler administrative chain, a far more compact society, and a far lower level of regional heterogeneity. China is a continental-scale political system with deep provincial layers, uneven development, huge local variation, and a long chain between central intent and local execution. The relevant question is not why China is not as frictionless as Singapore. The relevant question is whether, at that scale and complexity, the state still retains the capacity to discipline officials, reassert priorities, and prevent the bureaucracy from drifting into autonomous local fiefdoms.
On that point, China’s problem is real, but it is also different from the one you describe. The existence of local adaptation, partial compliance, policy adjustment, or even policy retreat does not by itself prove the absence of substantive state power. In a system of China’s size, some degree of bargaining, reinterpretation, and recalibration is inevitable. The real test is whether the center can still reset incentives, recentralize discipline, and impose direction over time in key areas. That is a much harder benchmark than comparing China to Singapore’s administrative neatness.
So I would put it this way: yes, top-level concentration of power can become a source of distortion and can weaken some forms of accountability. But that is not the same as saying China’s anti-corruption system is merely pretense, nor that Singapore is the right baseline. A city-state and a civilizational-scale state are solving very different governance problems.
The first question mght be
Why not the prior system
Facing present challenges
This is not an ideological question if task preceeds
Remedy
Right now prc has millions of
Capitalists
Perhaps only a unified cadre apparatus can execute the prime party and state task of serving the people
These are not easy waters to navigate and mistakes are rarely escaped without serious damage
Look at the debt pile up
We at MEI
Have very distinct views on that climatic