Simply and commitment to words are the most impressive features of PCP members: Brazillian scholar

Editor’s Note:

The Communist Party of China ( CPC) will commemorate its 100th anniversary on July 1. What’s the main factor that made the CPC always dynamic? Why can the Party lead the Chinese people to remarkable achievements in human history? Evandro Menezes de Carvalho ( Carvalho), director of the Center for Chinese Studies at the Brazilian college Getulio Vargas Foundation, shared his views on these issues in a written interview with Global Times ( GT) reporter Xu Hailin.

GT: What does the CPC’s success to repeatedly turn the table for China’s destiny indicate?

Carvalho: I understand that five fundamental qualities explain the CPC’s success: patience, resilience, intelligence, science and efficiency.

The countless adversities the Party has gone through would not be overcome if the leaders and all of its members had not had the necessary patience to withstand them and wait for the right moment to act to overcome them. In the book Up and Out of

Poverty, Chinese President Xi Jinping mentions that one of the four pitfalls for young leaders is to be impatient for success. He underlines the importance of having a clear understanding of the

situation. Resilience is another formidable quality of the CPC. It can be understood both as the ability to adapt to the most difficult circumstances and the ability to start over even after having suffered the most severe humiliation and aggression and submitted to the most adverse conditions.

Third, intelligence. And here I am referring to the one that unites Chinese wisdom and approach to dealing with problems and seeking solutions. There is a Chinese way of thinking and acting in the face of conflicts. Chinese diplomatic language is much richer in its syntax, semantics, and pragmatics than Western diplomatic language.

Fourth, science. China has a tradition of scientific thinking that goes back to its classical thinkers. The notion of “seeking the truth from facts” and the policy of “scientific development” are legacies of this longstanding tradition.

Finally, efficiency. The CPC has increasingly sought to strengthen its organizational structure and decisionmaking and task execution processes based on “efficiency” as a criterion. This is an essential aspect that has guided all Party policy. GT: What’s the difference between the CPC and the Western parties that adopt an election system? Carvalho: There are several differences. The first is that the CPC, as the ruling Party that founded the People’s Republic of China, has the conditions to establish long- term goals and objectives. Furthermore, the Party assumes the most significant responsibility and prominence in the history of New China even though its leaders have a prominent position during their terms of office. In the West, the multi- party system and direct elections, despite having legitimacy elements, create difficulties for longterm plans. The party in power makes decisions taking into account a short term of office of four or five years to win the next election. Therefore, there are no incentives for elaborating public policies whose results will only show after the term of office.

The CPC, also because of China's one- party model, is concerned about the ethical rigor of its cadres as corruption and immorality erode a party’s legitimacy. The CPC has adopted stricter criteria for recruiting new members. And the Party has been much more rigorous in fighting corruption within its structure than political parties in Western democracies that have been very lenient with corruption practiced by their members. Also, economic power has systematically corrupted political parties in Western democracies.

GT: How does the CPC manage to motivate itself to bring the Chinese people the best it can?

Carvalho: The CPC’s history is the testimony of a party that was founded in defense of the interests of the Chinese people. It is not a party born from a formal foundation, but a party born in the struggle to defend the independence of the Chinese people in the face of external aggression and internal groups that did not have the capacity to resist foreign pressure. This makes all the difference when comparing the CPC with the parties of Western democracies. In this sense, the Chinese people know that the CPC has a greater commitment to maintaining the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. In the case of a pandemic, the enemy is a virus, invisible and deadly. A sense of collectivity and unity, and an understanding of the importance of strong leadership in dealing with this challenge, were essential to the CPC to bring the Chinese people the best it can.

GT: What risk will US suppression of China bring to the world?

Carvalho: It brings several risks. The first is the negative impact on the world economy itself. One thing is the market competition between the US and China; quite another is an American action to create social and economic instabilities in China, increasing the tension between the two countries with risks for more serious conflicts. An escalation of tensions and mutual aggressive actions will affect the entire world. There must be respect for UN principles. In this sense, the US should abandon the Cold War discourse, stop facing China as an enemy, and play the game of competition according to the rules of international law and good diplomacy.