http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/world/asia/china-expands-crackdown-on-anticorruption-activists.html?_r=0 "You hypocrite!!!!How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?"
 Well they aren't willing to look at themselves.  The party/PRC officials themselves are the ones that get to choose who gets prosecuted for corruption...and it's definitely not themselves.  As for those
What do they think this regime is? A democracy? 

Sometimes, even in an authoritarian system, externalities become important. Deadly air pollution, undrinkable water, dead pigs in rivers, and contaminated food can take legitimacy away from a non-democratic regime whose leaders promise to make things better for people. 

And, in China, it's necessary to pay attention to the state owned enterprises (SOEs) that dominate the economy. The people in charge of them would be called oligarchs if they were in Russia. As Party bigwigs as well as industrial magnates they wield a lot of power. And they have vested interests in promoting growth above all else. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/world/asia/li-keqiang-chinas-premier-faces-economic-test.html
Read about the new guy in town and what changes and challenges there might be in China, especially economically.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/world/asia/chinas-non-communist-parties-lend-an-air-of-pluralism.html

These other non-communist parties make China be able to pretend that there is pluralism without having to deal with the messy reality of politicl

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-02/07/c_132157447.htm


Check out these figures on China's military spending...and these are published by the government news agency, so we can assume this is what they are fine with the world knowing.  

PRAGMATIC REFORMS IN AN IDEOLOGICAL STATE

The Chinese do make pragmatic changes in the name of giving "Chinese characteristics" to things like socialism. Can the powers that be do something similar with the one child policy?

Thanks to Ken Wedding for this post!

Posted: 29 Mar 2013 03:30 AM PDT

Zhang Jun is a professor of economics at Fudan University in Shanghai and Gary H. Jefferson is a professor of economics at Brandeis University in Boston. They seem to be optimistic about democratization in China. This is an explication of how economic change and prosperity will promote democratization. 

How do these changes compare with changes in Mexico and Russia? Are the arguments sound?

http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-inevitable-reform-of-chinese-political-institutions-by-jun-zhang-and-gary-h--jefferson

Xi Jinping tells the Chinese elite the good times must come to an end and imposes austerity measures...it makes for popular politics, but will they really end their privilege and frivol

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/chinas-xi-jinping-charts-a-new-pr-course/2013/03/12/84ca53c2-8743-11e2-9d71-f0feafdd1394_story.html  Check out this interesting article about Xi Jinping's new PR offensive, new claims for legitimacy, new freedoms and new methods of party control...