March 29, 2010
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The more things change
The more things stay the same. Strangely, reading this article, I feel like I'm watching a Stephen Chow film about courts. It has long been my view that China remains intrinsically governed by an Imperial-beurocratric combine that functions similarly, no matter what name it is given. The opaque sort of governmental movements can be found in examples in Chinese history from medieval times and before, I think.
I think one thing that observers often forget is that government is a part of culture too - it exists in relationship with people's expectations for it. Most cultures have an idea of what the ruling class does; although there are many similarities across cultures, there are differences too. It's very hard to break from such examples, I think. Change Putin's name to Czar Vladimir, and I daresay that you'd have a difficult time discriminating him from a Czarist Russian monarch...
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