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The Party : the secret world of China's communist rulers
McGregor, Richard
Adult Nonfiction 324.25107 M 2010
From Publishers' Weekly:
McGregor, a journalist at the Financial Times, begins his revelatory and scrupulously reported book with a provocative comparison between China's Communist Party and the Vatican for their shared cultures of secrecy, pervasive influence, and impenetrability. The author pulls back the curtain on the Party to consider its influence over the industrial economy, military, and local governments. McGregor describes a system operating on a Leninist blueprint and deeply at odds with Western standards of management and transparency. Corruption and the tension between decentralization and national control are recurring themes-and are highlighted in the Party's handling of the disturbing Sanlu case, in which thousands of babies were poisoned by contaminated milk powder. McGregor makes a clear and convincing case that the 1989 backlash against the Party, inexorable globalization, and technological innovations in communication have made it incumbent on the Party to evolve, and this smart, authoritative book provides valuable insight into how it has-and has not-met the challenge. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
From Library Journal:
McGregor (China bureau chief, Financial Times) reveals the inner workings of China's political structure and the mechanisms that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) needs to manipulate the country's business, government, courts, media, and military. Not only, as McGregor shows, is the CCP pervasive in almost every aspect of citizens' lives, but it also carefully conceals corruption and human rights abuses by sheltering its own members from any hint of criticism. Although a superpower second only to the United States in global influence and modernization, China continues to be ruled by men in an anachronistic bubble reminiscent of the country's imperial past, reticent and mysterious to its people and the rest of the world. In tracing the bureaucracy and its leadership, from Mao Zedong to current president Hu Jintao, McGregor documents how such an extraordinary political machine-it has over 73 million members-with complete control of all areas from the largest cities to the tiniest hamlets, is run like a modern-day corporation, from selecting its own senior managers for all government offices to rewarding its card-holding members through a patronage system. VERDICT McGregor's portrait unravels the ambiguities surrounding this secretive state's party apparatus. Recommended for all seeking to keep current on Chinese political history.-Allan Cho, Univ. of British Columbia Lib., Vancouver (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
McGregor, Richard
Adult Nonfiction 324.25107 M 2010
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From Publishers' Weekly:
McGregor, a journalist at the Financial Times, begins his revelatory and scrupulously reported book with a provocative comparison between China's Communist Party and the Vatican for their shared cultures of secrecy, pervasive influence, and impenetrability. The author pulls back the curtain on the Party to consider its influence over the industrial economy, military, and local governments. McGregor describes a system operating on a Leninist blueprint and deeply at odds with Western standards of management and transparency. Corruption and the tension between decentralization and national control are recurring themes-and are highlighted in the Party's handling of the disturbing Sanlu case, in which thousands of babies were poisoned by contaminated milk powder. McGregor makes a clear and convincing case that the 1989 backlash against the Party, inexorable globalization, and technological innovations in communication have made it incumbent on the Party to evolve, and this smart, authoritative book provides valuable insight into how it has-and has not-met the challenge. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
From Library Journal:
McGregor (China bureau chief, Financial Times) reveals the inner workings of China's political structure and the mechanisms that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) needs to manipulate the country's business, government, courts, media, and military. Not only, as McGregor shows, is the CCP pervasive in almost every aspect of citizens' lives, but it also carefully conceals corruption and human rights abuses by sheltering its own members from any hint of criticism. Although a superpower second only to the United States in global influence and modernization, China continues to be ruled by men in an anachronistic bubble reminiscent of the country's imperial past, reticent and mysterious to its people and the rest of the world. In tracing the bureaucracy and its leadership, from Mao Zedong to current president Hu Jintao, McGregor documents how such an extraordinary political machine-it has over 73 million members-with complete control of all areas from the largest cities to the tiniest hamlets, is run like a modern-day corporation, from selecting its own senior managers for all government offices to rewarding its card-holding members through a patronage system. VERDICT McGregor's portrait unravels the ambiguities surrounding this secretive state's party apparatus. Recommended for all seeking to keep current on Chinese political history.-Allan Cho, Univ. of British Columbia Lib., Vancouver (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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