I expect two major components are demographics and a lack of partisanship. What I mean by demographics is that the Chinese political system is a very tall hierarchy. Representatives from each level vote for the one above it going all the way down to villagers voting for their village representative, and all the way up to the elected elite at the top of the hierarchy electing their representative - the president of China. And so because of this you end up with a generally more informed demographic at each level going up. This system means those at the top are not directly accountable to those at the bottom, but that lack of accountability also frees them up to pursue big picture goals.

Longterm goals and progress are quite separate from the everyday life of most people. China recently completed the largest radio telescope in the world. Next year they begin work on what will be the largest particle collider in the world. And then there are their rapid advances in space. In appealing to the lowest common denominator of demographics, these achievements are easy to tear apart. "Spending billions to grow potatoes on the moon while people are starving back here on Earth!? WTF!?" That's an illogical but common argument. It implies you should not achieve greater things until you solve the fundamental ails of society. Problem being it's likely impossible to solve those ails in complete -- certainly without any technological advancement. The argument is tantamount to suggesting a freeze on progress for the sake of progress.

And the partisanship issue goes practically without saying. Our founding fathers wrote extensively on the dangers of parties, but were unable to solve the issue. China solved the issue, but at great cost - there is only one party. But for now at least they seem to be avoiding the issues we're facing. As for how this applies to longterm progress, in 1972 Nixon remarked “This may be the last time in this century that men will walk on the Moon.” [1] A significant part of the reason he decided to strip NASA down was because of a feud he had with JFK. He lost to Kennedy in an extremely close and contentious election in 1960. Apparently even Kennedy's assassination was insufficient to put that feud to rest. One president wanting to destroy things associated with another's legacy, because of a political feud? As always, what's new is old. Hard to achieve much when in a few years the next guy's going to try to destroy everything associated with you because of a feud driven by our partisan nonsense. And then the voting masses just get dragged along between the feuds. And as our political leaders become ever more effective at this game, it seems to be causing a greater and greater fragmentation within society which means things like big picture progress are going to be ever less likely.

[1] - http://www.planetary.org/blogs/guest-blogs/jason-callahan/20...