Bender 2026-02-27 15:57 UTC link

I predict Xi will go a lot deeper to catch up to Mao. If I were the next in line I would flee the country whilst I could. Totalitarians always take many casualties with them in their paranoid crash out.

bell-cot 2026-02-27 16:14 UTC link

Sounds pretty mild, compared to the obvious benchmark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge#Purge_of_the_army_...

rekabis 2026-02-27 16:28 UTC link

Beyond the loyalty angle, this is a pretty stupid play. Sure, China has about 2B people, so good strategists should be reasonably available, but it takes decades of training and experience to make an effective battlefield general. If they actually intend to go all imperialist and start doing truly stupid things like invading Taiwan, they are going to get absolutely plastered without a good cadre of experienced officers and enlisted men. And the “vanishing” of the upper echelons is only attractive to yes men and sycophants; the ones who will be the least effective in any real engagement.

Now, from that aforementioned loyalty angle… this definitely works. If you purge dissent and people with a history of lateral, non-conforming thinking, you most definitely get a system where people ask “how high?” when you scream “jump!”.

I mean, Trump has been doing much the same with the American military, albeit less dark (only relieving them of their positions). It’s the authoritarian/fascist playbook in action, and it will mean much less resistance in the ranks when ‘murica decides to invade Canada, or Greenland, or any other juicy target.

maxglute 2026-02-27 17:44 UTC link

Reminder literally every part of PRC was corrupt, everything that operates at awe-inspiring scale and efficiency... that's all despite (and arguably due to corruption - access money aligns ability to execute with graft). PRC was only country where increased corruption was correlated with increased growth, because ultimately, there's enough competent people from denominator effect that you can filter for skill and skim at same time.

The difference between PRC corruption and US corruption which westoids label as lobbying, and thus totally legal is PRC corruption at least doesn't undermine state capacity. That's why PRC shipbuilding is 100s times larger US, but only generates a single digit times more revenue. Each ton us US ship built is literally magnitude more regulatory capture / rent premium... which of course is not corruption and totally functional /s. Maybe problem is PRC purging too much, but US not purging enough. At least PRC purging going to get younger gen with more technical aptitude working with modern doctrine. Who does the US purge to get procurement back on track?

TLDR PRC corruption is steroids, US corruption (i mean lobbying) is sleeping pills. PRC trying to take less juice, but US still hammering the ambien.

__patchbit__ 2026-02-27 19:07 UTC link

Having Mao's mug on the World BRICS global reserve currency is irony maxxing.

gamblor956 2026-02-27 19:18 UTC link

There is plenty of lobbying in China as well. And there is plenty of corruption; the hundreds of ghost cities scattered across the country are a good example. Hell, the real estate bubble nearly destroyed the Chinese economy and took extreme efforts by the national government to contain.

The difference is that the PRC isn't bound by the same property rules and rights that apply in the U.S. or most of Europe. If the U.S. tried to do what China does when it wants to build something, people everywhere would be yelling their heads off about the extreme abuses of eminent domain.

saltcured 2026-02-27 20:26 UTC link

Ironically, your first paragraph sounds like it "operates at awe-inspiring scale and efficiency" because it actually has unfettered capitalism going on behind the scenes!

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