USA vs. China Comparative Geography, Economics and Politics

Remember, the USA is NOT an AP6 Comparative Country. That being said, a couple of interesting comparisons I found over the last two days might help you as we approach our exam on China and Russia next week.

(From APGov.org)

Countries by geographic area:

 



#1 Russia

#2 Antarctica

#3 Canada

#4 USA

#5 China

#6 Australia

#14 Mexico

#19 Iran

#32 Nigeria

#80 UK

 

 



_________________

 

 Former Republican presidential candidate, governor of Utah, and U.S. Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, sat down for a wide-ranging conversation on the state of politics in the United States—and the future of U.S.-China relations. From the event, I retweeted this:@JonHuntsman:"It's hard to find an analogous level of expertise about China inside the US. Their bureaucracy is better prepped."  A couple of thoughts here. It is true the only party state can and has been more efficient in major capitial projects, but China is stuggling to reform its bureaucracy. There are roughly 300 million government employees in China.In recent years the central government has vowed to shrink the bloated bureaucracy. They have laid off some people and reduced salaries yet many people continues draw substantial salaries at the taxpayers expense.

 

John Lee wrote in Newsweek, “While modern China is the most overgoverned land in Asia, it is also one of the worst governed. Even as China has decentralized and officials have multiplied, the country is not building the institutions needed for better transparency and accountability. CCP’s influence over courts, bureaucracies, media, research institutions, and state-controlled enterprises are well known. It’s difficult to make CCP’s local officials accountable when Beijing relies on them to maintain the party’s hold on power in far-flung places.

 

"Chop" pictured at below, instead of a signature, is stamped on government policies.

 

The powerful State Council is China’s highest administrative body. It makes proposals to the Standing Committee of the Politburo and takes care of the day-to-day operations of the country. It is a huge bureaucracy controlled by the Communist Party and headed by the Prime Minister.

 

The bureaucracy is led by the party elite. Participation is limited to members of the Communist Party. The Central Party School is the top training ground for Communist Party bureaucrats. All the top leaders attended it.

 

A great deal of time is taken up by sitting through lengthy meetings which accomplish little and sifting through lengthy documents and paperwork that are largely waste time. In 2007, the State Council set limits on the lengths of official meetings, speeches and documents. The bureaucracy is slowly reforming and becoming more accountable. A health minister was fired for mistakes made during the SARS crisis in 2003. This was seen as a sign that leading bureaucrats were going to be held accountable for their actions

 

The traditional Communist bureaucracy operates under a command system of specified ranks called nomenklatura in which everyone knew his place, his role, and what he was supposed to do, think and say. Bureaucrats have traditionally been resistant to changes because in many cases change would make them obsolete and unnecessary. Common terms used to describe Communist members included appartchik, a petty bureaucrat; cadre, a group or a member of a group of Communist loyalists; and commissar, a personnel officer responsible for morale and discipline.

 

Recently,  “Reform programs have brought the devolution of considerable decision-making authority to the provincial and lower levels. Nevertheless, because of the continued predominance of the fundamental principle of democratic centralism, which is at the base of China's State Constitution, these lower levels are always vulnerable to changes in direction and decisions originated at the central level of government. In this respect, all local organs are essentially extensions of central government authorities and thus are responsible to the "unified leadership" of the central organs. 

 

CHINESE BUREAUCRACY
 

 

 

 

Where buisness is linked to government in both the US and in China it is also important to understand the Chinese element of Guanxi. “Guanxi” literally means "relationships", stands for any type of relationship. In the Chinese business world, however, it is also understood as the network of relationships among various parties that cooperate together and support one another. The Chinese businessmen mentality is very much one of "You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours." In essence, this boils down to exchanging favors, which are expected to be done regularly and voluntarily. Therefore, it is an important concept to understand if one is to function effectively in Chinese society.

 

Guanxi explains one reason why for years Coca-Cola has had a big edge in the Chinese market over Pepsi. Coke used guanxi to franchise local distributors, while Pepsi perfered direct ownership hiring local managers.

________________

 

(From Teaching Comparative blog)

 

Back in 1992, supreme leader Deng Xiaoping said, "The country should allow some regions and people to get rich first and then gradually push for common prosperity." Well, the first part of that is happening.

Chinese National People’s Congress has 83 billionaires, report says

The legislature of the world’s last major communist country is almost certainly the wealthiest in the world, according to a popular rich list that names 83 dollar billionaires among the delegates to China’s parliament this year.

Meanwhile, in the United States, there is not a single billionaire in the House of Representatives or the Senate…

Given the difficulties involved in calculating the hidden wealth of many of China’s top leaders and their families, analysts say the Hurun report probably seriously understates the true number of super-wealthy participants in the political sessions…