The World Should Worry More About China’s Politics Than the Economy

choi

China’s leaders | Party on the Beach; The world should worry more about China’s politics than the economy. Economist, Aug 8, 2015.
www.economist.com/news/leaders/2 ... economy-party-beach

Quote:

“A dozen other generals, more than 50 ministerial-level officials and hundreds of thousands of lesser functionaries have met similar fates. That suggests Mr Xi is strong, but also that he has many enemies or is busy creating them. His [Xi’s] rounding up of more than 200 civil-rights lawyers and other activists since early last month—the biggest such clampdown in years—hints at his insecurity.

“China’s recent economic data may not be entirely comforting—nor always reliable—but at least they suggest that growth is holding up. By contrast, the murkiness of Mr Xi’s rule is of no comfort at all to a world trying to make sense of China’s rise. Those who worry about China’s development should focus less on its febrile stockmarket (the least accurate guide to the state of the economy), and more on the dangers that lurk in its politics.

Note:
(a) Somehow this essay has drawn 91 comments (the third, after Polish politics/ Germany and US patent law, in that order), as of 11 am Saturday (Aug 8)--after two days. I do not know why, because I do not read comments.
(b) The title "Party on the Beach" is a pun, hinting that the ship of the CCP has grounded.
(c) "Mao Zedong established the Beidaihe-going tradition. He is the only Chinese leader who is known to have felt sufficiently inspired by the place to write a poem about it. It was an anxiety-tinged one, finishing with the words: 'The bleak autumn wind whispers and sighs; Nothing has changed, except in the world of man.' * * * There will be no announcement of what Mr Xi and his colleagues discuss at the beach; no hints from officials of their differences. The forces wrenching at the party will remain as dimly perceived by outsiders as the fishing boats off Beidaihe in Mao’s poem: ‘Screened by the vast expanse of ocean from view; Who can tell where they are?’ “

浪淘沙·北戴河（1954年夏）. In 毛泽东诞辰110周年纪念. People's Daily, 2012.
http://www.people.com.cn/GB/shiz ... /30453/2220774.html

(d) “President Xi Jinping and his colleagues are now thought to be in Beidaihe, where they have continued Mao’s practice of combining a little relaxation with weighty affairs of state—thrashing out strategy for the year ahead at seaside meetings held in utmost secrecy (see article).”
(i) thrash (vt):
“4a :  to go over again and again <thrash the matter over inconclusively>
b :  to hammer out : FORGE <thrash out a plan>"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thrash
(ii) There is need to read the “article,” which says not much.

(e) “During meetings in Beidaihe in 1988, China’s then leader, Deng Xiaoping, vacillated in the face of a backlash against his economic reforms. By pandering to conservatives, he fuelled political divisions that erupted the following year into nationwide pro-democracy protests. * * * China’s leadership does not appear anything like as divided as it did in the build-up to the Tiananmen upheaval. But appearances may be more deceptive now. Mr Xi is a leader of a very different hue from his predecessors.”
(i) build-up (n): "UK the period of preparation before something happens <There was a lot of excitement in the build-up to the Olympics>"
dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/british/build-up
(A) I select Cambridge Dictionaries Online because it clearly marks this use of build-up is British. Collins and Oxford (both based in London) have this definition--but do not mark it as British use--whereas Merriam-Webster.com does not have this definition at all.
(B) And I have not seen this usage -- of “build-up” -- in American publications, which instead uses “lead-up [to something]” (noun use of verb phrase lead up (to); Britons haev “lead-up” also).
(ii) hue (n): “appearance; aspect <a man of somber hue>" American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. 5th ed. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.
www.thefreedictionary.com/Hue