Competition wins from cooperation in China's politics

Looking for easy to sell cliches
via WikipediaI was just rethinking a bit what would have to change in my previous book, subtitled "15 misunderstandings about China and the Chinese" to make it up to date, when I stumbled on this great article in The Guardian that sets the tone right away:

If institutional infighting were an Olympic sport, China would sweep the medals at August's Games.

The article mainly focuses on China's financial industry:

But the cost of inadequate regulatory teamwork is rising as the economy becomes more complex, said Stephen Green, head of China research at Standard Chartered Bank in Shanghai.

"We are moving to the stage where we do need more coordination, but we get more competition instead. You can see that across the environment sector and energy policy as well. It's at the stage where it's holding back reforms," he said.

But the same goes rightfully for the environmental policies, energy policies. In that way my argument that China is not a top-down organized government, but a battlefield of infighting bureaucracies, each trying to keep or expand their own turf, is still very valid. It proved to be a misunderstanding that was hard to sell to the outside world, who often prefers to stick to outdated cliches on China. But taking off the lit and look what the engine is doing, is still the only way to get a bit of an understanding from China.