> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18527344
> With all Jiang Zemin's flaws, his best move was to "politically castrate" the party, and distance intra-party affairs from state governance. This is what made the two decades of progress possible: civil servants without little red books instead of brains.
In early nineties, CPC was a buzzing hornet's nest. It was the wisest decision to not to touch it, and let the party "simmer in its own juice," while creating parallel state institutes with complete outsiders.
> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17337985
> It was in Jiang's times when things turned "position in the party !== automatic position in the government." Jiang was waaay to afraid of party members. He saw the party as a dual structure:
> 1. An assembly of oafs, and loosers
> 2. Along with a hornet's nest of Maoists, Hua-ists, Deng-ists, and 20 other "ists," all of whom were a threat to his rule.
Jiang was also way more educated than Xi, the former being a product of rushed post cultural revolution education (Xi is less educated than Hu, being the first Chinese President in a while who can’t speak English).