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by coldtea 968 days ago
Who said it relies "on the whims of a single man"?

Knowing the history of such governments, there would be all kinds of higher level competitors, party factions, bureucracy, lower-level party and local government interests (and thus resistance to things going against it), and so on. With enough of their support, anybody at the top can be toppled, or even arrested. It's a nation of 1.4 billion people, with complicated politics and a well entrenched party rule, it's not some solitary James Bond villain running the show. We just get the simplified cartoon version of it.
2 comments
tromp 968 days ago
Xi used to face some opposition prior to the last party Congress but he managed to have much of them replaced by loyalists [1] [2]. So it's increasingly becoming a one man show.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/22/world/asia/china-xi-jinpi...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/23/xi-jinping-cho...

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renegade-otter 968 days ago
There are obviously internal dynamics - Xi is not sitting there micromanaging every province with his morning coffee, and neither does Putin. They deputize, but unfortunately for them - personal loyalty becomes more of an asset than competence, and then it becomes a problem.

Anybody at the top can be toppled - if you understand the risks to you and your family when your, uh, eccentricities become known.

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