The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers: 1.3 Billion People, 1 Secret Regime [Paperback]

I have read a great many books about China over the last 2-3 years and this is one of the best. It provides some excellent insights into the relationship between the state and commerce in the world's fastest growing econonmy (although India isn't far behind), as well as the centrality of the state in other aspects of Chinese life. I particularly enjoyed the blend of anecdote and analysis, something which lesser writers often fail to get right, thus undermining the quality and rigour of the central thesis. Anyone who believes that countries such as China will morph into a clone of a typical western democracy, because they believe this is the only way free-market capitalism will work, should read this book. Richard McGregor's analysis of China's poltical system is revalatory. He is excellent at highlighting the tensions within the political system and the extent to which the future of the country's political system is inextricably linked to how it develops (or is allowed to develop) its economy. This is a must if you want a much better understanding of how China has been able to transform its economy.

Every now and again, a truly definitive book on China emerges. One such was "Hungry Ghosts", Jasper Becker's account of Mao's disastrous "Great Leap Forward". Another is "The Dragon's Gift," Deborah Brautigam's definitive account of China's involvement in Africa. "The Party", Richard McGregor's investigation of the Chinese Communist Party(CCP), its structure, influence and power, is a truly authoritative work.

McGregor's strength as an author is that "The Party" is not only informative, but also immensely readable. It is enlivened with anecdotes of particular case studies, cadres who have risen and fallen from grace, entrepreneurs who have carved out business empires only to fall foul of the authorities, and Party officials who have made fortunes from bribes, only to be executed as scape-goats for the Party's overall corruption. He reveals the sheer extent and pervasiveness of the Party's grip on China as no other book has yet done. And suddenly, so much of what emerges from China as distinctly alien politics makes perfect sense. The Party has the same hierarchical structure and power as the medieval Church of Rome. Indeed, the sale of Party official posts and favours resembles nothing so much as the sale of indulgences in pre-Reformation Europe. Simony, the buying or selling of ecclesiastical pardons, offices, or emoluments, is exactly paralleled by the sale of similar, secular perks in China by the CCP.

A few quotations will give the spirit of the book, and a quick insight into the flavour of 21st. century Communism, Chinese-style.

"The Party is like God. He is everywhere. You just can't see him." [a professor at People's University in Beijing].

"Listen, we are the Communist Party and we will define what communism is." Chen Yuan, Governor of China Development Bank, in response to being hectored by a US political scientist about contradictions between Marxism and China's free market reforms.

"...the only way to put the latest communist principles into practice was to maximise returns for shareholders." Guo Shuqing, CEO of the China Construction Bank.

McGregor draws on twenty years of reporting from China, and has done more than any other writer really to penetrate the veils of secrecy and paranoia surrounding China's ruling elite. He shows how a non-elected Standing Committee of just nine men ultimately control every aspect of Chinese political life.

McGregor points out that one organisation alone, the Central Organization Department, the party's vast and opaque human resources agency, has extraordinary power by any standards. "It has no public phone number, and there is no sign on the huge building it occupies near Tiananmen Square. Guardian of the party's personnel files, the department handles key personnel decisions not only in the government bureaucracy but also in business, media, the judiciary and even academia. Its deliberations are all secret.

"If such a body existed in the United States, McGregor writes, it `would oversee the appointment of the entire US cabinet, state governors and their deputies, the mayors of major cities, the heads of all federal regulatory agencies, the chief executives of GE, Exxon-Mobil, Wal-Mart and about fifty of the remaining largest US companies, the justices of the Supreme Court, the editors of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, the bosses of the TV networks and cable stations, the presidents of Yale and Harvard and other big universities, and the heads of think-tanks like the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation.'"

Chairman Mao said that the State stands on three legs, the Military, the Economy, and the Media. The CCP has complete control of all three.

Richard McGregor has written a stunning, engrossing, fascinating book. Don't miss it. China controls an ever-expanding slice of the world. This book shows whose hands are on the levers.

This is a really fascinating account of the current state of China and the Chinese Communist Party. Too often, accounts of China in the West take a surface view of this burgeoning economy and assume that development must, in many ways, rely on the economic, if not social, models of the West, particularly after the demise of Russian communism. This relatively short book paints a far more subtle, nuanced and inclusive picture of a country and it's ruling party as both 'decaying and evolving' in the face of internal and external challenges.

In eight clearly defined chapters, McGregor considers 'The Party and the State', 'The Party and Business', 'The Party and Personnel', 'The Party and the Gun', 'The Party and Corruption', 'The Party and the Regions', 'The Party and Capitalism' and 'The Party and History'. What comes across is a picture of a ruling central organisation that is ubiquitous, fragile, subtle and, at the same time, hugely adaptable. The Party is not synonymous with the government, nor the state. 'The Party', as the quote at the beginning of Chapter 1 says 'is like God. He is everywhere. You just can't see him'. It has survived horrendous famines, the Cultural Revolution, Tienanmen Square and, so far, many of the vicissitudes assailing Western economies. How it has managed this, and how it may continue to do so for some time to come, is laid out in each chapter as Mr McGregor takes a core element of Chinese society and investigates it's relationship to the Party, using an illuminating mixture of history, example and anecdote.

Many western investors in Chinese businesses assume that China is, in some sense, becoming a capitalist society, but this is to completely miss the intimate relationship between the Party and all levels of the economy. It is assumed that China's state-run sector will suffer the same fate as such enterprises in Russia, but this is to miss both the flexibility of the organisation and the readiness to learn from the mistakes of others. It is far from perfect, of course, but it is more open to change, as long as this change is supervised and sanctioned by the Party, than many Western commentators realise.

Overall, what comes across is both, in some ways, rather admirable and Orwellian. But the point is continually made that anyone who thinks that China is simply adopting a Western 'free market' strategy is seriously mistaken - the role and actions of the Party remain central. Again, the Party can both 'decay and evolve'.