This is because China is not a democracy. In a democracy, someone who speaks well is likely to win - and lawyers by definition must be able to speak very well. In China there is a merit-based system which as every merit-based system, has a lot of flaws - so someone able to work through the top of it must be a real hacker. Engineers win hands down over lawyers.
What? Communist party power dynamics are similar to ones in a gang - i.e. you have someone from the party who managed to seize power and lots of other top party members silently forming cliques and waiting for you to slip, so that they can deliver the blow. The country's people are only chips in the game, if that (often, rulers are toppled not over their policy but over some bullshit doctrinal dispute).
More or less; but I think the point is, that by denying the power-struggle dynamic and punishing people who talk about it, communist structures in fact amplify it.
So in a democracy, there's all that behind the scenes tussel, but there's also an important aspect of public advocacy and decision testing. None of that in China; the politburo says what it's going to say, and then does what it's going to do.
> None of that in China; the politburo says what it's going to say, and then does what it's going to do.
Thats not what happened in China. In China government invest heavily in propaganda and mind manipulation, they do not automatically push anything and everyone just follow blindly.
Yes, but at the end of the day it's the voters that decide whether you get actual power or not. Imagine if it was the Republican National Committee that appointed the President of the United States. Not just now, but always.
> Electoral system and people's representatives are about the same level.
Actually everyone got to vote for people's representatives. Of cuz, no one cars that much, like many people were not bother to vote, so DNC thought their presidency is already in bag, then many decided to actually vote.
Couldn't it just reflect the base rates? I wonder if the explanation could be found from making a comparison of the statistics from when the respective presidents entered university on how many people in upwardly mobile families studied to become engineers / lawyers in China vs Western countries. I suspect in China 20 to 30 years ago engineering was seen as the route to success because of booming manufacturing industry whereas in the US service industry has been taking over for decades. I don't know the statistics for China 20 or 30 years ago but I hire from top graduate schools in India today which is like China around year 2000 in many respects. Most of the students I see studied engineering at undergraduate level.
