[WikiEN-l] Classification of China?

Fri Apr 25 15:25:19 UTC 2003

The trouble with this argument is that some people in it spent their time 
discussing the political system of China. That wasn't the issue. What was 
being discussed was the governmental classification, which is something 
totally different entirely. The term 'Communist state' is a political 
science term used to describe a system of government in a one-party left 
wing state (in which the one party describes itself as communist) in which 
the state and party become embedded in each other and operate as one.

Whether China is communist, socialist, post-communist or whatever is not the 
point. That is relevant in a discussion of a political system in the section 
on political system. But in terms of governmental structure, 'Communist 
state' is the formal designation normally used by sourcebooks and 
encyclopædias. (It is one of those terms like 'constitutional monarchy', 
'federal state' etc that is used in encyclopædias to categorising a state's 
governmental system) To try to clear up the confusion, a link was put from 
that term to an article that explained EXACTLY what that term means and what 
it does not mean. (Though Fred Bauder keeps POVing the link with stuff that 
is so right wing that even Donald Rumsfeld would blush. And in doing so he 
removes work from a number of other people that is intended to and largely 
succeeds in, making it NPOV. His POVing of the piece constantly has to be 
reverted.)

What type of political system China has can and should be debated. But no 
other formal categorisation of the 'system of government' comes close to 
describing a governmental system where in a one party state with a 
self-proclaimed communist party, party offices in practice can be more 
powerful than the formal state constitutional offices. (The General 
Secretary of the USSR Communist Party was a classic example. Many GSs 
weren't initially a holder of state office like president, but still such 
was the party-state link that they were more central and more in control 
than the supposed president or prime minister, a situation that does not 
exist in modern liberal democracies.) THAT is what the debate was about, not 
whether 'politically' the party was communist, post-communist, 
neo-communist, socialist, neo-socialist, neo capitalist, etc which is a 
'different' argument that belongs in a different section of the article.

JT

>From: Jimmy Wales <jwales at bomis.com>
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>Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Classification of China?
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>Regarding the policy issue, I wonder if our "standard techniques" for
>dealing with a controversy are perfectly adequate to deal with the
>issue.  Ironically, the effort to clarify the issue for the mailing
>list may point the way to resolving the question on the page.
>
>How about this:
> >China has been traditionally considered a communist state, although
> >the Chinese Constitution states that China is a socialist state.
> >Western scholars are moving away from the label "communist" and
> >calling China "socialist", "[[late socialist]]", or "[[post socialist]]".
>
>I'm not saying that this is a really *good* formulation; I'm sure it
>could be refined quite easily.  But it eliminates a controversy by
>stating the controversy.  All parties can agree to it.
>
>--Jimbo
>
>p.s.  Regarding the content issue, it is my understanding that China
>is nowadays a confused and somewhat internally contradictory place.
>Shanghai in particular is often cited as being relatively capitalist,
>even!  I don't really know anything about that other than what I read
>in the newspapers and magazines, though.
>
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