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February 12, 2026
Posts in a Series
Whither Xi? Whither CCP? Whither China?
Xi, CCP, DJT, GOP – Part 1 – Government and Party
What Chinese are talking about (1) – Shaolin Temple raises the red flag
Change Management 2/3
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Change Management 1/3
Change Management 2/3
Change Management 3/3China has changed dramatically in the last forty years. Business writer and thought leader Bob Yovovich tells us that China urbanized in half the time it took the US and with ten times the number of relocations. Such rapid change must have induced complex interlocking social shifts and costs – customs broken, institutions abandoned, social ties destroyed. Now, wither China? Wither CCP?Three questions in three posts. This is post #2.Thesis #2 Can a communist regime support innovation in the long term? Will innovation in China fade with lack of political and moral freedoms? And #2a – a follow-on – if innovation slows, what of it?To follow –Antithesis #2 – China need not fail at innovation Education CCP members are the bourgeoisie Culture Culture below the radar Patents and innovation experts Move Along- Nothing to See Here … la la la A bit of history
Refuting #2a – If innovation slows, so what? pearl clutching Catching up
Sea turtles and finance Free to speak, associate, write, form groups as you wish – notThe operating assumption is that communist ideology is totalizing. It must exercise control over all elements of society, including science and technology. To move away from total control is to invite dissension, which leads to disruption, and eventual disintegration …
Change Management 1/3
Change Management 2/3
Change Management 3/3China has changed dramatically in the last forty years. Business writer and thought leader Bob Yovovich tells us that China urbanized in half the time it took the US and with ten times the number of relocations. Such rapid change must have induced complex interlocking social shifts and costs – customs broken, institutions abandoned, social ties destroyed. Now, wither China? Wither CCP?Three questions in three posts. This is post #2.Thesis #2 Can a communist regime support innovation in the long term? Will innovation in China fade with lack of political and moral freedoms? And #2a – a follow-on – if innovation slows, what of it?To follow –Antithesis #2 – China need not fail at innovation Education CCP members are the bourgeoisie Culture Culture below the radar Patents and innovation experts Move Along- Nothing to See Here … la la la A bit of history
Refuting #2a – If innovation slows, so what? pearl clutching Catching up
Sea turtles and finance Free to speak, associate, write, form groups as you wish – notThe operating assumption is that communist ideology is totalizing. It must exercise control over all elements of society, including science and technology. To move away from total control is to invite dissension, which leads to disruption, and eventual disintegration …
Change Management 1/3
Links to Related Articles
Change Management 1/3
Change Management 2/3
Change Management 3/3China has changed dramatically in the last forty years. Business writer and thought leader Bob Yovovich tells us that China urbanized in half the time it took the US and with ten times the number of relocations. Such rapid change must have induced complex interlocking social shifts and costs – customs broken, institutions abandoned, social ties destroyed. Now, wither China? Wither CCP?Three questions in three posts –Thesis #1 The Central Committee is composed mostly of technocrats, mostly engineers and finance people at the top. Will CCP have problems mitigating social change problems that arise as China modernizes?Thesis #2 Can a communist regime support innovation in the long term? CCP is doomed because ability to innovate will fade with lack of political and moral freedoms. And #2a – a follow-on – if innovation slows, what of it?Thesis #3 Will Mr. Democracy eventually overpower Mr. Science in Chinese culture? A democratic future must come with modernization.Post #1 – The Central Committee is composed mostly of technocrats, mostly engineers and finance people at the top. Will CCP have problems mitigating social change problems that arise as China modernizes?To follow – Evidence? Antithesis #1 – not American-style politicians, but politicians neverthelessThere are many millions of Chinese who remember the 1950s …
Change Management 1/3
Change Management 2/3
Change Management 3/3China has changed dramatically in the last forty years. Business writer and thought leader Bob Yovovich tells us that China urbanized in half the time it took the US and with ten times the number of relocations. Such rapid change must have induced complex interlocking social shifts and costs – customs broken, institutions abandoned, social ties destroyed. Now, wither China? Wither CCP?Three questions in three posts –Thesis #1 The Central Committee is composed mostly of technocrats, mostly engineers and finance people at the top. Will CCP have problems mitigating social change problems that arise as China modernizes?Thesis #2 Can a communist regime support innovation in the long term? CCP is doomed because ability to innovate will fade with lack of political and moral freedoms. And #2a – a follow-on – if innovation slows, what of it?Thesis #3 Will Mr. Democracy eventually overpower Mr. Science in Chinese culture? A democratic future must come with modernization.Post #1 – The Central Committee is composed mostly of technocrats, mostly engineers and finance people at the top. Will CCP have problems mitigating social change problems that arise as China modernizes?To follow – Evidence? Antithesis #1 – not American-style politicians, but politicians neverthelessThere are many millions of Chinese who remember the 1950s …
Prolegomenon for all of foreign affairs for the next decade or two
I get accused of writing excessively long posts. Mea culpa. This one is long, but not my writing. I include in full four articles, all coming to me within the last couple of days. Together, they lay out a Chinese plan for the decades, a Sino-Russian plan for the decades, point to the shallowness of American hegemony, and lessons to be learned for America and allies going forward. Yeah, I know, long and a little boring. Altogether, an interesting take on the future most of us will not see. You don’t have to read them all at one sitting. Enjoy.One –The Secret Speech of China Defense Minister General Chi Haotian from 2002 or 2003.From Epoch Times, posted in 2005 and posted in 2019 at Jeff Nyquist’s blog at https://jrnyquist.blog/2019/09/11/the-secret-speech-of-general-chi-haotian/. Nyquist is the author of Origins of the Fourth World War, The New Tactics of Global War and The Fool and His Enemy.This speech lays out a perspective for defeating America to become world hegemon. Old, over the top, but fundamentally still the preferred direction, I think. Edited for length, still a little long.Pertinent quote – The fact is, our “development” refers to the great revitalization of the Chinese nation, which, of course, is not limited to the land we have …
You’d do it if you loved CCP ….
The demographic decline is way old news. Some of us were writing about it ten years ago. But the implications are still fuzzy to me. Spoiler – key to the future is consumer spending. Consumer spending depends on there being (1) enough people with (2) enough disposable income. Therein lies the complex Chinese tale.Michael Pettis has written for years about the implications of excessive debt in China. Good examples are China’s Overextended Real Estate Sector is a Systemic Problem and How China Trapped Itself. But now the demographic changes will start to affect the micro and macro economy. Pettis is one of the few who can write reasonably about this topic, but to my knowledge he hasn’t addressed it. Daniel Rosen has an excellent beginning in his Foreign Affairs article The Age of Slow Growth in China.Yi Fuxian, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has written on some of these topics. An example is https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-population-decline-will-mean-economic-geopolitical-decline-by-yi-fuxian-2023-02 and https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-population-aging-lowering-economic-growth-by-yi-fuxian-2023-04 A hat tip to the ChinaCharts guys for the citation.I’ve long been waiting for some serious analysis of demographic change, requirements for pension and health care spending as people retire, and contributions to the social welfare funds. Smaller population means fewer babies (starting about ten years ago) so in ten …
More on Monkey See, Monkey Do
Two years ago I wrote a bit about the governor of Florida enlisting students to record and spy on college teachers to ascertain whether instructors were deviating from the permitted DeSantis script on American history and morals. DeSantis (and his GOP ilk) were clearly borrowing policy from CCP, which encourages students to report teachers to CCP discipline inspection organizations for punishment if they mentioned support for … well, anything of which CCP does not approve. Of course the boundaries of such limits are left vague, in accord with CCP practice – no way to tell when a red line is crossed, so self-censorship becomes the norm. See Monkey See, Monkey Do. I warned DeSantis against his choice of Chinese imports, but apparently my entreaty fell on deaf ears.Now from William Spivey at The Polis comes news of the free expression crisis at East Florida State College – Eastern Florida State College Shuts Down Class Over Civil Rights Discussion. From the Spivey post –It should come as no surprise that a US government class was canceled on March 9th before it started in Ron DeSantis’s Florida because a single student filled out a complaint form saying they were “uncomfortable with the subject.” Josh Humphries, a …
Could CCP Ban Hank Williams?
There is no civil society in mainland China, only the elite between the current emperor and the people. Now civil society – not to mention playful music – is quickly being banished from Hong Kong.But first – the Hong Kong government has issued a “welcome back to Hong Kong” video aimed at foreigner tourists and business people. A Bloomberg story is here.The launch video is a bit bizarre – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYIS9DQkAkE.The welcome back has a sour undertone. CCP is still unhappy. CCP always claims to speak for all 1.4 billion Chinese when their feelings are hurt. And since Hong Kong has been aggressively taken, CCP deigns to speak for those Chinese who don’t see themselves as Hong Kongers and whose feelings are hurt by insensitive foreigners.A good example of the fragility of the feelings of the Chinese people is in the 2023 CCP banishment of the song It Might Break Your Pinky Heart by Namewee and Kimberley Chen. From the Radio Free Asia article – They sing repeated apologies to a dancing panda, who lives in a hobbit-style house and waves a flag bearing the online insult “NMSL,” frequently used by Little Pinks to wish death on the mothers of those they believe have insulted China or hurt …
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