Myth of CCP's "meritocracy"

I write this on the CCP's "meritocracy" for 2 reasons:

1. Even some fierce CCP critics still imply certain CCP's meritocracy by thinking the CCP has some capable officials in its top echelon but they are marginalized by the middle school dropout (a.k.a. General Secretary Xi). One example is the current premier Li. Li is surely significantly better educated than the MSD and likely has a higher IQ, but I can't think of any significant achievement in his entire career. His tenure as the head of the Henan province was marred by the horrific Aids epidemic.  

2. The Moscow KGB thug's regime shows similar kakistocracy.

First, let's use CCP's own words to show its kakistocracy. This is a screenshot of an article from THE main CCP mouthpiece titled "Reverse selection in bureaucracy endangers national security".

"Reverse selection" here means the opposite of the natural selection of the fittest to survive. Their own words: "The bad eliminates the good, the poor quality eliminates the superior quality, the petty eliminates the noble, the mediocre eliminates the outstanding..."

Another example: the CCP made a documentary about the disgraced former Minister of Justice Fu. It essentially says he has never been loyal to the party and people. It traced his bad behavior to his teenage time (a 16-year PLA soldier), so he has always been bad.

The CCP's "meritocratic" personnel system is actually fairly rigid. Every promotion has to go through certain vetting steps. A party secretary can have a lot of say in promoting someone but he does not have the authority to promote anyone by simply declaring it. Let's be lenient and allow their "meritocratic" personnel system to give a very bad person a 40% chance of passing the promotion vetting. Fu must have had at least 10 of them since his teenage, the probability would be 0.4^10 = 0.01%. If the chance were 70%, the probability would be 0.7^10 =  3%. There are lots of corrupt officials like Fu per the CCP's own account. If very bad people have such a high chance to pass a system's checking, how can it be meritocratic?

I know some may say Fu was purged because of his disloyalty to the MSD. That is true. The CCP system works like this: every CCP official is corrupt, but only those on the wrong side of a political fight are investigated. The charges against them usually are not fabricated because the CCP does not have to. I am inclined to believe all the stories in the documentary. The theme of the documentary is that Fu always worked hard on establishing the right connections for his promotion. Anyone familiar with the system can tell you that is exactly how most PRC officials do to get promotions - connection, bribery, and ass-kissing for the sole purpose of promotion.

The CCP had periods of meritocracy when it was struggling to survive. 

Before they took over China, they had to rely on competent military commanders. Otherwise, the party would have been wiped out. That is one of the reasons they fooled a lot of people before 1949.

They faced another survival crisis after the cultural revolution and started the golden era under its rule: 1977 - 1989. As a kid living among bureaucrats and later as a college student, I witnessed meritocracy - many talented and educated were rapidly promoted.

Good examples are former premier Zhao and former NPC chairman Wan. Both were rapidly promoted and both were highly regarded by the people under their governance. There was the saying "Ask Wan if you need rice and ask Zhao if you need grain(要吃米，找萬里；要吃糧，找紫陽)". That happened when many in China were still suffering from hunger. Actually, what they did was very simple: a little bit more freedom and capitalism and a little bit less socialism. Some of Zhao's lieutenants' kids were my high school classmates.

I want to emphasize the meritocracy of that golden era was relative. Corruption and nepotism were still widespread. The 80s laid a foundation for rapid economic growth assisted by greedy corporatists and delusional Westerners dreaming to push the PRC to democracy.

The relative meritocracy deteriorated after the 1989 massacre and was gone soon after the MSD took over the CCP.

If you have close friends or relatives in any PRC gov agency to tell you stories honestly about their agencies, you will hear pretty much the same as what the mouthpiece's article says: "The bad eliminates the good...the mediocre eliminates the outstanding"

The PLA is less transparent than the already opaque civilian agencies, so its kakistocracy is even worse. You have seen the kakistocracy of the Russian army exposed in its invasion of Ukraine. The PLA cannot be better than them though they may be better equipped and supplied.

If you really want something to help you visualize the corrupt system, you can see graphically how a lower rank female PRC official uses her body to please her superior for the obvious reason. This is common.