Xi Jinping follows in Putin's footsteps

The general secretary of the Communist Party, and president, of China Xi Jinping was initially chosen as a compromise by the Central Committee and Party delegates in 2012. It was a compromise between the desire to stay close to the Communist ideals and the desire to capitalize on the modern era reality that China has become a global economic power to be reckoned with.

But this son of an elite founding member of China's Communist Party, who has taken many twists and turns along his way to the top, is anything but a compromising figure. Throughout his first term as the general secretary, he has shown his willingness to dispose of the government of years past, instill a unified economic identity, continue to censor outside world, as well as cement his place in China's history books.

Soon after his father was imprisoned for being vocal and confrontational within China's Communist Party, the teenager Xi Jinping found himself target of the scorn of many of his peers and authorities that now viewed his family in a negative light. He learned his first lesson from his father - that being vocal in opposition to authority is an approach that doesn't achieve the desired result in China. So he immersed himself in his studies, went to the farm lands to perform manual labor with the country's peasant population. This was the call of Mao Zedong to all of China's population living in large cities.

This experience toughened up the young Xi and he soon found himself accepted as a member of the Communist Party, despite his father's tainted legacy. He began to establish a network of influential party members that would turn out to be his main support base in his pursuit for the top of the party hierarchy. He finally achieved that goal in 2012, when he was selected as the new general secretary of the Communist Party.

His actions after he took power in China, mimic those of the actions taken by Vladimir Putin, when he was elected to the reigns in Russia in 2000. A house cleaning of all the corrupt officials and a crackdown on unwritten, but previously accepted, bribe to conduct business policy. Just like Putin, Xi Jinping dismissed and imprisoned former long standing security and economic officials, that may have presented obstacles to his policies and vision. And just like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping did it all under the guise of performing a service to the country and upholding the moral high ground for which every man, woman, and child should strive.

Xi Jinping, in a remarkably similar fashion to Putin, was able to consolidate power by antagonizing elements within the ruling party, and within China, which would have stood in his way of making unilateral decision on their behalf. This was something Vladimir Putin coined the "verticals of power" a decade earlier.

Unlike Russia, China does not have democratically elected leaders. Xi Jinping does not need the same trick that Putin used from 2008 through 2012, when Putin served as Russia's Prime Minister, to side step consecutive term limit law. Xi Jinping's continuity in power solely depends on the Communist Party election every five years. So this year, he brought down the hammer.

Having already brushed aside many of his potential opponents early on in his reign, he has now enshrined his name and ideology into the Chinese constitution. The "Xi Jinping Thought for the Modern Era with Chinese Characteristics" is an ideology that has been unanimously adopted by the Party Congress and has now been written into the constitution. With no apparent understudy declared to take over for him in the future, this new Mao-degree status paces the way for Xi Jinping to rule for decades without any significant opposition.

While Xi Jinping certainly started by following Vladimir Putin's blueprint for the consolidation of power, he has since then surpassed it. Xi Jinping doesn't have any real opposition within the country at this point in time, while Vladimir Putin's opposition keeps growing. But that is largely due in part to Russia's remaining free press coverage and recent economic woes. Neither of theses factors are present in China.

Will Xi Jinping rule China until his death? Does the economic trouble that has forced the Russian people to re-evaluate its leadership have a chance to do the same in China? Leave me your thoughts and questions in the comments below.

The Fall (Part I) - Free Country vs. Police State

Free Country vs. Police State. The clash between these two philosophies was all over the headlines during the Cold War era of the past century. It was a war of ideology - the idea of a society that harnesses the creativity and freedom of thought versus a society that marginalizes and stifles it. Contrary to popular belief, the ideology battle, which defined the Cold War, was finally settled by economic means. Through oil price speculation, aggressive military spending and the space race the Soviet Union was pushed to the brink of a collapse. The consequences of internal corruption pushed it over the edge. That is how the Western World won the battle.

Nevertheless, it appears no lessons were learned by our people and now the same plagues which doomed the Soviet Union are manifesting themselves right here in the United States. First of which is an overbearing central government, which usurps the freedoms and rights of the people - the very same rights which our forefathers deemed inalienable. Second, the gigantic ever-growing military spending, most of which is obsolete, that devastates government budget and consistently runs our country's debt further into the red. Lastly, the widespread corruption within the government that allows the elite minority to raid the coffers of the taxpayers - money which pays to facilitate further corruption through lobbies.

A large portion of the public has no idea what a police state really means, except for the sensationalist remnants of the national propaganda machine that was designed to vilify the Soviet Union and everything it was associated with. Short of the History Channel documentaries about countries behind the "Iron Curtain" during the Cold War, the public at large regards a police state as something that was tied closely to Communism - something that couldn't possibly occur here in the United States. Well I have a surprise for you - it is happening right now as I write this post.

It all started with the Patriot Act, shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. The Patriot Act is the first step toward taking personal privacy out of the equation. This legislation was masked as the means to combat terrorism by opening up all data available on the internet to be used by Intelligence and Law Enforcement authorities. However, the end result is that this act allowed the government to spy on any person in the United States without a valid court order. The Patriot Act is unconstitutional, as it infringes upon the Fourth Amendment, which protects the public from unreasonable search and seizure.

Fast forward to 2011, and we now are faced with SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). This legislation practically allows the government to silence internet content that is deemed inappropriate. What can our government deem inappropriate - criticism, dissent, exposure of corrupt practices and anything it wishes to file under such description. Therefore, SOPA is unconstitutional, because it infringes upon the First Amendment to our Constitution, which guarantees the Freedom of Speech.

Also in 2011, moving into 2012, we have the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act), The verbiage of this legislation reads like the charter of a dictatorial state. If enacted, it will essentially allow our government to imprison any individual it deems to be harmful to the United States for an indefinite amount of time, without affording them the luxury of due process. Furthermore, the act is not limited to foreign nationals - it covers United States citizens as well. As such, it is in the direct violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments that guarantee no citizen shall be denied liberty without due process.

So if you put all three of these pieces of legislation together, you will come up with a horrifying realization - we have a government that can spy on us, silence us, and throw us into prison without affording us due process. The people who represent us in Congress and in the White House have pushed for this... This is exactly what KGB was designed to do in the Soviet Union - to spy, silence and incarcerate indefinitely. Remember that the abbreviation of KGB stood for (Committee for Government Safety). This, my fellow readers, is the true definition of a Police State.

To be continued... (In my next post, I will cover the aspect of Military Spending)