Reading this long assessment (pdf) from the China Leadership Monitor of the CPC’s current up and comers, I was struck by the social mobility involved:
Several provincial chiefs hail from farming families. Tianjin Mayor Huang Xingguo, for instance, was born in 1954 in the rural area Xiangshan, Zhejiang Province,and began to advance politically in a local People’s Commune. Similarly, Inner Mongolia Governor Bater began his career as a herdsman on an Inner Mongolian farm at age 17.
Many of the provincial chiefs who were not sent-down youth also had other sorts of humble work experiences early in their careers. Shanxi Party Secretary Zhang Baoshun (b. 1950) was a dock worker; Shanxi Governor Wang Jun (b. 1952) was a coal miner; Guangxi Governor Ma Biao was a worker in an iron and steel factory; Chongqing Mayor Huang Qifan was a worker in a chemical plant; Xinjiang Party Secretary Zhang Qingli (b. 1951) was a laborer in a fertilizer plant; and Guangdong Party Secretary WangYang was a worker in a food-processing factory. Several provincial chiefs—including Qinghai Party Secretary Qiang Wei (b. 1953), Shandong Party Secretary Jiang Yikang, Jiangsu Governor Luo Zhijun (b. 1951), Ningxia Party Secretary Chen Jianguo, and Tibet Governor Padma Choling—began their careers as soldiers.
Communist regimes have always been good at upward mobility; the complete overthrowingf of existing ruling classes, crash modernization programmes and constant purges tending to create plenty of room at the top. It’s interesting that the Chinese party has managed to maintain this momentum now that it’s in its fat and happy phase, despite all the international attention that gets paid to the princelings.
Another way of looking at it is to question whether upward mobility is the absolute good that it’s often presented as. Context matters as well. It’s the same with meritocracy, which never seems to get discussed in terms of what it actually is that the people concerned are so good at. Still, it’s difficult to imagine anyone who started out in those jobs ever getting to a point where they had any real power in British society, maybe apart from Postman Alan, the Home Secretary.
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