其实2012年18大是中国共产党第一次也是唯一一次到站下车的权力交接

经济学人最新的这篇文章挺有意思

习近平对接班人计划毫无兴趣:他在权力上坚持得越久,就越难实现有序的过渡

秦始皇因统一中国、修建长城和为自己建造巨大的陵墓并由一支兵马俑守卫而受到赞扬。鲜为人知的是他于公元前210年在中国东部巡视时去世后所发生的事情。根据历史学家司马迁的说法,为了阻止他的长子和继承人掌权,助手们在皇室随行人员到达首都之前隐瞒了他的死亡。他们把食物送到皇家马车上,像以前一样在那里处理事务。附近还放了一车鱼,以掩盖尸体的臭味。这个诡计一开始就成功了。大儿子自杀了,一个小儿子在阴谋家的支持下登上了王位。但事实证明他很弱。四年之内,他就死了,秦朝灭亡了。

在中国的历史上,到处都是被流血和诡计所玷污的继承传奇故事。共产主义中国在其最初的六十年里也没有好到哪里去。2012年,胡锦涛在任职十年后将权力移交给习近平,这是自1949年革命以来第一次完整、有序的领导层交接。然而,十年后,在10月22日共产党大会结束后,习近平先生将被授予第三个五年任期--超越胡锦涛先生帮助建立的规范。由于看不到习近平时代的结束,中国再次面临困扰其历史的问题。一个全能的领导人如何退休?如果一个人突然死亡或丧失能力,又该怎么办?

中国的继任规范公认是不牢固的,而且大多是不成文的。1978年掌权的邓小平引入了这些规范,以防止毛泽东时代的专制主义和苏联式的老龄化。这并没有阻止他挥舞着巨大的权力,几乎直到他在1997年去世,享年92岁。他的继任者江泽民在退休后也长期插手政治。有些人认为2012年是一个反常现象。然而,部分继承的制度化,加上集体领导,提供了足够的稳定性来支撑非凡的经济扩张。随着向一人统治的转变,一些学者现在预见到了其他现代专制国家--以及中国自己的皇帝所共有的继承问题。

密歇根州立大学的Erica Frantz就是这样的学者,她汇编并分析了1946年至2020年的301个专制政权的数据。她和她的同事得出的结论是,随着专制者将权力集中在自己手中,他们倾向于延长自己的任期--往往认为自己是不可或缺的,并担心如果他们退休会受到精英阶层的指责。但这往往是以他们所代表的政权为代价的。"Frantz女士说:"习近平做出的这些选择在短期内对他来说是积极的,但从更长远的角度来看,他们提高了政权不稳定的风险,也许会提前崩溃。

专制政权增强其复原力的一个方法是建立严格的任期限制。最好的例子是墨西哥的革命制度党,该党在1929年至2000年执政期间对总统职位实行了一任制。不过,这种情况很罕见。另一种方法是明确和尽早地指定继任者。但除君主外的专制者往往避免这样做,即使是在年老或生病的时候。有些人担心精英们会拒绝他们的选择,就像津巴布韦的罗伯特-穆加贝在2017年试图将权力交给他的妻子那样。其他人则担心被指定的继承人会试图过早地夺取权力,就像1971年毛泽东的第二个继承人林彪被指责的那样。

专制者的另一个担忧是,指定继承人意味着他们打算立即下台,从而限制了他们的选择,破坏了他们的权威。这对习近平先生来说是一个更有可能的理由,他在上一次大会上没有按照先前的规范要求,将潜在的继承人提升到政治局常委--最高领导机构。两个或更多的下一代中国领导人可能会进入将于10月23日揭幕的新一届常委会。但没有人被认为是继任者,现年69岁的习近平先生被广泛认为计划再执政十年,甚至更长。

虽然这可能会通过明确表明习近平先生的意图来促进稳定,但这也增加了他在任期内死亡或病重的风险。民主国家显然也会面临这样的问题。美国的现任总统是79岁。但与美国不同的是,中国没有明确的继承人,也没有填补意外领导空缺的程序。专制者的突然死亡或丧失能力很少会在短期内导致政权崩溃。精英阶层通常会聚集在接班人周围,以保护自己的利益。但这也会引起内讧。甚至在1976年毛泽东去世之前,中国就爆发了一场激烈的权力斗争。健康状况不佳,往往向公众隐瞒,也会导致克里姆林宫在其领导人尤里-安德罗波夫和康斯坦丁-契尔年科住院期间出现的那种瘫痪现象。

习近平先生看起来很健康。但是,作为一个身材魁梧的前烟民,在一个经常性的宴会和大量饮酒的时期担任地方官员,他能避免一些相关的疾病就很幸运了。而关于健康状况不佳的传言也时有发生,尤其是在2019年他访问欧洲时出现了走路轻微跛行的情况。10月16日他在大会上的演讲比他在2017年的三个半小时的马拉松短了约90分钟。在台上的退休领导人中(其中许多人现在放弃了他们在任时使用的黑色染发剂),头发花白的胡先生(79岁)比过去的亮相明显显得更加虚弱--这提醒我们,在未来十年里,死亡率可能会赶上习近平先生。

如果习近平先生的健康状况持续下去,他仍有时间确定一个或多个潜在的继任者,可能是在2027年的下一届大会上或之后的大会上。但无论谁接替他,都将不可避免地难以与他的权威相提并论,特别是如果提名相对较晚的话。这也是委内瑞拉总统尼古拉斯-马杜罗(Nicolás Maduro)难以填补乌戈-查韦斯的空缺的原因之一,查韦斯在2013年去世前三个月才任命他为继任者。中国的下一任领导人将面对一个由习近平的忠实拥护者主导的精英阶层,他们对现状进行了高度的投资--没有明确的规范来规定如何保持权力的长度。"华盛顿美国大学的杨章预测说:"在习近平执政后,将出现权力分裂和斗争。"没有基本的规则,继承就意味着斗争。这只是时间问题,以及谁会参与进来。"

对中国皇帝的研究得出了一些类似的结论。哈佛大学的王玉华汇编了49个朝代的282位皇帝的数据。他发现,各朝代平均持续70年,最常见的崩溃原因是精英叛乱。大约一半的皇帝是自然死亡。但是确定一个继任者使皇帝被废黜的可能性降低了64%。如果他们在掌权后五年内指定继承人,他们自然死亡和保存王朝的机会就会进一步增加--这与习近平先生正在废除的继承规范的时间尺度相似。

习近平先生可能没有以同样的方式计算数据。但他对中国的帝国历史表现出极大的兴趣,经常引用历史文献。习近平先生在许多方面模仿的毛泽东,也是中国古代历史的粉丝。他经常提到《资治通鉴》,这是一部发表于1084年的编年史,讲述了中国历代皇帝的经验教训。这并没有帮助他设计一个顺利的继承。在他的继承人中,有一位死于监狱,另一位在政变失败后死于飞机失事,最后一位在执政仅两年后被推翻。也许习近平先生会做得更好。但历史表明,他在权力上坚持得越久,就越难做到。■

________________________________________________________________

英文原文:

Xi Jinping has no interest in succession planning
The longer he clings to power, the harder it will be to engineer an orderly transition

The emperor Qin Shi Huang is celebrated for unifying China, starting its Great Wall and building himself a vast mausoleum, guarded by an army of terracotta warriors. Less widely known is what happened after he died in 210bc on a tour of eastern China. According to the historian Sima Qian, aides concealed the death until the imperial entourage reached the capital, in order to stop his eldest son and heir from taking power. They had food sent to the royal carriage and handled business from there as before. Carts of fish were placed nearby to mask the corpse’s stench. The ruse paid off at first. The eldest son committed suicide and a younger one, backed by the scheming aides, took the throne. But he proved weak. Within four years he was dead and the Qin dynasty collapsed.

Imperial Chinese history is littered with succession sagas tainted by bloodshed and skulduggery. Communist China was not much better for its first six decades. When Hu Jintao handed power to Xi Jinping in 2012 after ten years in office, it was the first complete, orderly leadership transition since the revolution in 1949. A decade later, however, Mr Xi is set to be granted a third five-year term—breaching the norms Mr Hu helped to establish—after the Communist Party’s congress ends on October 22nd. And with no end to the Xi era in sight, China is once again confronting questions that have plagued its history. How does an all-powerful leader retire? And what happens if one suddenly dies or is incapacitated?

China’s succession norms were admittedly flimsy and mostly unwritten. Deng Xiaoping, who took power in 1978, introduced them to protect against Mao-era despotism and Soviet-style gerontocracy. That did not stop him from wielding huge power almost until his death in 1997, aged 92. His successor, Jiang Zemin, also meddled in politics long after retiring. Some see 2012 as an anomaly. Yet the partial institutionalisation of succession, combined with collective leadership, provided enough stability to underpin an extraordinary economic expansion. With the shift back to one-man rule, some scholars now foresee succession problems common to other modern-day autocracies—as well as China’s own emperors.

Among such scholars is Erica Frantz at Michigan State University, who has compiled and analysed data on 301 authoritarian regimes from 1946 to 2020. She and her colleagues conclude that as autocrats concentrate power in their own hands, they tend to extend their own tenure—often considering themselves indispensable and fearing elite recriminations if they retire. But that often comes at the expense of the regime they represent. “These choices that Xi Jinping is making are positive for him in the short term, but in terms of the longer time horizon, they are elevating the risk that the regime will see instability and perhaps an earlier collapse,” says Ms Frantz.

One way for authoritarian regimes to enhance their resilience is to establish rigid term limits. The best example is Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party, which enforced a one-term cap on the presidency while in power from 1929 to 2000. That is rare, though. Another way is to designate a successor, clearly and early. But autocrats other than monarchs often avoid that, even when old or sick. Some fear the elite will reject their choice, as when Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe tried to hand power to his wife in 2017. Others worry that the anointed heir will try to seize power prematurely, as Mao’s second one, Lin Biao, was accused of doing in 1971.

Another concern for autocrats is that designating a successor implies an intention to step down imminently, limiting their options and undermining their authority. That is a more likely rationale for Mr Xi, who did not elevate a potential heir to the Politburo Standing Committee—the top leadership body—at the previous congress, as earlier norms required. Two or more next-generation Chinese leaders might be on the new Standing Committee to be unveiled on October 23rd. But none is considered a successor and Mr Xi, now 69, is widely thought to be planning another ten years in power, if not longer.

Although that may foster stability by clearly signalling Mr Xi’s intent, it also increases the risk that he dies or becomes seriously ill while in office. Democracies can obviously face such problems too: America’s current president is 79. Unlike America, though, China has no clear line of succession or procedures for filling unplanned leadership vacancies. An autocrat’s sudden death or incapacitation seldom leads to regime collapse in the short term. The elite usually coalesces around a replacement to protect its own interests. But it can cause infighting. A bitter power struggle erupted in China even before Mao’s death in 1976. Ill health, often concealed from the public, can also cause the kind of paralysis that plagued the Kremlin under its hospital-bound leaders Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko.

Mr Xi appears in fine enough fettle. But as a portly former smoker who was a local official in a period when regular banqueting and heavy drinking were de rigueur, he would be lucky to have avoided some associated ailments. And there have been occasional rumours of ill health, especially after he appeared to walk with a slight limp on a visit to Europe in 2019. The speech he gave at the congress on October 16th was about 90 minutes shorter than his three-and-a-half-hour marathon in 2017. Among the retired leaders on stage (many of whom now forgo the black hair dye they used in office), a white-haired Mr Hu (79) appeared markedly more frail than at past appearances—a reminder of how mortality could catch up with Mr Xi over the next decade.

If Mr Xi’s health endures, there is still time for him to identify one or more potential successors, possibly at the next congress in 2027 or the one after. But whoever replaces him will inevitably struggle to match his authority, especially if nominated relatively late. That is one reason why Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president, has had trouble filling the shoes of Hugo Chávez, who named him as successor just three months before dying in 2013. China’s next leader will face an elite dominated by Xi loyalists and highly invested in the status quo—with no clear norms for how long to stay in power. “There will be power fragmentation and struggle after Xi’s rule,” predicts Yang Zhang of American University in Washington. “Without basic rules, succession means struggle. It’s just about when, and who will be involved.”

Research on China’s emperors reaches some similar conclusions. Yuhua Wang of Harvard University has compiled data on 282 emperors across 49 dynasties. He found that dynasties lasted for 70 years on average and the most common cause of collapse was elite rebellion. About half of all emperors died naturally. But identifying a successor made an emperor 64% less likely to be deposed. And their chances of dying naturally and preserving their dynasty increased further if they appointed an heir within five years of taking power—a similar timescale to the succession norms that Mr Xi is dismantling.

Mr Xi may not have crunched the data in the same way. But he displays an avid interest in China’s imperial past, frequently quoting from historical texts. Mao, whom Mr Xi emulates in so many ways, was also a fan of China’s ancient history. He often referred to the “Zizhi Tongjian”, a chronicle published in 1084 that recounts the lessons learned from previous Chinese emperors. That did not help him engineer a smooth succession. Of his heirs, one died in prison, another was killed in a plane crash after a failed coup attempt, and the last was toppled after just two years in power. Perhaps Mr Xi will fare better. But the longer he clings to power, history suggests, the harder that becomes. ■
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分享 2022-10-21

15 个评论

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>>学习了。我想胡锦涛当时应该是真诚地想把最高领导任期制固定下来规范下来,才会在权力顶峰时期选择裸退,而...


这就叫好心办坏事。老人干政其实也是一种制衡,彼此在拉扯,就没有一个绝对性的皇帝,也许会影响效率,但两相其害取其轻
>>学习了。我想胡锦涛当时应该是真诚地想把最高领导任期制固定下来规范下来,才会在权力顶峰时期选择裸退,而...

他没有把总书记任期写进党章,这是他的责任。
>>他没有把总书记任期写进党章,这是他的责任。


也未必有用,包子照样能给改了
_ _ 這篇文章是不精通奴役邏輯的人寫的, 參考價值有限. 僅指出任期的事實, 不解釋魔頭毛澤東沒有任何職位情形下怎麽做到鏟除劉少奇的? 他和屠夫鄧小平及蛤蟆江澤民一樣是獨裁近極. 黨政軍三權一個也不需要持有卻實際掌握過度權力, 是典型獨裁者.

_ _ 任期什麽的在專制獨裁地區毫無參考意義, 就像是百分之九十以上支持率那樣荒唐. 毛鄧江們也是國賊習近平想達成的目標, 雖然他因才智所限會失敗, 但途中的危害卻會由我們來承擔.

_ _ 除了這一處別的都是事實描述, 本來文章是有自限的, 但在理工科人看來, 討論大陸問題忽略奴役, 就和討論熱機卻忽略燃燒那樣是抽象有誤. 請自由國度公民不要簡單的劃分成[不自由], 奴役也是有許多層級綿延的, 萬一你們自由墮落了, 清楚奴役程度有助於尋回自由. 這種悲劇發生的概率極小, 但不少公民關心大陸人亦是下意識察覺到了這點, 能檢討自身是否真正自由和它有多穩固的人, 正是高素質公民才能做到.

_ _ 惡人們無時無刻不在想著如何把你們也變成奴隸, 正如瘋子普婷(京)賭上一切也要對烏克蘭人下手那樣, 僅僅一國公民也不可能滿足他, 我如果墮落成獨裁者被邪惡邏輯控制, 那就成了奴役的提綫木偶, 亦會覺得若世界不能掌握, 那就毀掉它吧...倘若有那麽一天請把我立刻送上法庭.
目测,几小时后,会有成群结队的“分析师”说的你放弃原有观点和想法。 没办法,人家人多。
没有盼明君的情结,但从一个政治家的角度来说,胡裸退确实是高风亮节,特别是在中共这个大染缸里更是难能可贵
自己找的人,真是活該,把薄搞下去,以為就萬事大吉,只能說,這些老人都是活該
>>胡锦涛be like:我淋过雨,所以想为你撑把伞。习近平一把夺过伞扔地上踩了两脚,然后抢走胡锦涛的伞...


胡把整个师门的弟子喊过来,在雨中和这个孽子打了一架,最终降伏。——一代宗师
主要原因不是胡本人的高风亮节 而是胡从来都不掌握最高权力
>>没有盼明君的情结,但从一个政治家的角度来说,胡裸退确实是高风亮节,特别是在中共这个大染缸里更是难能可...

所以说狗畜生就是个人渣
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