How each model solves the same problems
Instead of “democracy versus anarchism”, compare the concrete ways collective problems get solved.
| Question | + Model | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| How are decisions made? | General secretary and Politburo until 1989–90, then a partly elected Congress of People's Deputies, an executive presidency (1990) and increasingly assertive republican governments. | Power concentrated in the party centre and in Xi Jinping as 'core'; central commissions chaired by Xi; presidential term limits removed in 2018; party bodies absorbed government functions. | |
| How are conflicts resolved? | Negotiation of a new union treaty, televised parliamentary debate, and in several republics the use of troops against protesters. | Party discipline commissions and supervisory commissions with extrajudicial detention (liuzhi); courts under party leadership; online petition and complaint platforms. | |
| How are public goods funded? | The planned welfare state continued, but shortages, inflationary finance and falling output eroded provision from 1989. | State-led industrial policy, poverty-alleviation campaigns, infrastructure; local governments squeezed by debt and reduced land revenue. | |
| How is AI used? | None. | AI-enabled surveillance (facial recognition, big-data policing, IJOP in Xinjiang); algorithmic routing of citizen complaints. | |
| What are the main risks? | Economic collapse from half-finished reform, ethnic conflict, a hard-line coup, and the disintegration of the union.CLM-1116 | Unchecked personal power and succession uncertainty, mass repression in Xinjiang and Tibet, surveillance, reduced local initiative, and policy errors without public correction.CLM-1095 |
This illustrates differences in design; it is not a universal claim about outcomes. Each cell links to mechanisms and the claims behind them.