During the July 1 commemoration of the 102nd anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the party magazine “Qiushi” published leader Xi Jinping’s speech in which he expressed concern the CCP may suffer the same fate as the “Eastern European upheaval and collapse of the Soviet Union.”
Mr. Xi has been worried that one day the dissolution of the CCP will happen in China.
CCP Strengthens Its Control Over Society and Economy
In May of this year, Mr. Xi emphasized at a high-level meeting that the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs should “continue to play a role in formulating major economic policies.” Mr. Xi aims to enhance and refine the “centralized and unified leadership” of the Party over economic matters. It is noteworthy that the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs is a Party institution rather than a governmental institution.In March of this year, the CCP announced the establishment of the Central Financial Commission, aiming to bolster the Party’s oversight of the vast $60 trillion financial industry. Furthermore, plans are underway to create the Central Science and Technology Commission to strengthen the Party’s supervision over national scientific and technological advancements.
In a speech delivered in 2016 regarding the “Chinese-style modern state-owned enterprise system,” Mr. Xi interpreted “Chinese-style” as integrating the Party’s leadership into all aspects of corporate governance and clarifying its legal status within these structures. Subsequently, in 2018, regulatory authorities of the CCP mandated that the establishment of Party branches become a requirement for any company listed on domestic stock exchanges.
The Soviet Union’s Authoritarianism and Command-Style Economy Led to its Collapse
Scholars have pointed out that the CCP’s orientation toward authoritarianism and a command-style economy is reminiscent of the factors that contributed to the Soviet collapse.From the 1920s through the 1970s, the Soviet Union experienced rapid economic growth under its command-style economy. The estimated average annual growth rate of the Soviet Union’s Gross National Product (GNP) stood at 5.8 percent from 1928 to 1940, 5.7 percent from 1950 to 1960, and 5.2 percent from 1960 to 1970. However, beginning in the 1970s, the Soviet Union’s economic growth underwent a significant downturn. The average annual growth rate of the GNP decelerated to 3.7 percent from 1970 to 1975 and further plummeted to 2.6 percent from 1975 to 1980.
Mr. Robinson emphasized that the Soviet Union’s economic model was unsustainable. He analyzed the intricacies of the situation, highlighting that without freedom and political power, individuals cannot fully harness their economic potential. Consequently, states that restrict citizen freedoms, especially those reliant on forced labor, are destined to fail.
Mr. Robinson claimed: “What makes a society prosperous is whether or not it’s organized to harness the talents of its people, the energies, the ideas, the creativity of its people.” The Soviet Union failed in this regard.
On July 8, Lucia Dunn, an economics professor at the Ohio State University, told The Epoch Times: “When a government tries to get control of its economy in a wide-ranging way, it usually interferes with the working of markets at many levels. Except in cases where there are clear ‘externalities’—like pollution cases—free markets are more efficient in allocating goods and services than government decrees.”
Mr. Robinson believes that people harbor similar illusions about China as they did about the Soviet Union back then. He believes that China’s economic growth will slow down and will not become the superpower as predicted.
The CCP Turns Today’s China into Yesterday’s Soviet Union
Mr. Robinson points out that the impressive economic growth in China over the past few decades is not thanks to CCP; on the contrary, it “has been caused by CCP’s withdraw from controlling every aspect of economic life.”In 1978, two years after Mao Zedong’s death, rural China began implementing the “household responsibility system,” which granted farmers ownership rights over their products for the first time. In 1980, Deng Xiaoping “drew a circle” in southern China, transforming the small fishing village of Shenzhen into a “Special Economic Zone” and experimenting with a free-market economy, which quickly developed into a manufacturing and shipping hub. According to Mr. Robinson, “This is not a triumph of the Communist Party, this is the Communist Party pulling itself out of society a little bit.”
However, with Mr. Xi reaffirming Party control over the economy and society, the CCP may be repeating the mistakes made by the Soviet Union.
Also interviewed on July 8 by The Epoch Times was Anders Corr, the founder of Corr Analytics and Epoch Times contributor. He said: “The CCP’s further consolidation of power over China’s economy will only lead to further impoverishment of the country. Communism has proven to be a failure in terms of economic management, as evidenced by China, the former Soviet Union, Cuba, and North Korea. When comparing these countries to Japan, Western Europe, and South Korea, the countries that have chosen market democracy almost always fare better than those under the control of communist dictators.”
Ms. Dunn argues that adopting a fascist model of economic control that allows private property is unlikely to lead to greater economic prosperity in China. Such arrangements can introduce inefficiencies, market imbalances, shortages, illegal markets, and wide price fluctuations that destabilize the economy.
Meanwhile, the excessive extraction of wealth through monopolies has resulted in household income consistently growing at a slower pace than GDP for decades, leading to long-term suppressed domestic demand. China’s proportion of private consumption to GDP remains one of the lowest among countries worldwide, standing at only 38.5 percent in 2021, compared to 70 percent in the United States and 56 percent in Japan.
A sizable portion of China’s population still lives in absolute poverty. In a speech delivered in 2020, Former Premier Li Keqiang acknowledged that approximately six hundred million Chinese individuals have a monthly income of less than 1,000 yuan ($140).
Mr. Corr emphasized that the authoritarian nature of the CCP poses a threat not only to Chinese citizens but also to neighboring countries. Consequently, the world will eventually unite in opposition to the CCP, accelerating its downfall.
The article states: “In the 1950s, one of the Chinese Communist Party’s most well-known slogans was ‘Today’s Soviet Union is our tomorrow.’ That tomorrow may well have arrived, with the CPC on its way to transforming today’s China into yesterday’s Soviet Union.”