As China and most Western countries have completely different political systems, we can pinpoint three unique characteristics of the Chinese system: Capital isn't directly involved in the decision-making process, the one party rule, and official style scholars.

Starting off, those people who own large amounts of capital do not directly join in the political decision-making process, even if some of them become deputies to the National People's Congress or members of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

The "capital owners" mainly gain interests from two aspects: For one, they gain benefits through bribing powerful groups which entail cheaper land prices, lower taxes and more subsidy policies. Another aspect is that these capital owners obtain benefits by affecting business policies. Take the real estate sector for example, Chinese real estate developers will slip part of their profits to experts in the sector in order to have them exert influence on policy making – as China generally holds expert hearings before making a decision. Experts' ideas often influence decision makers and eventually may even lead to the distortion of policies.

In terms of political factions, although China has a one party rule system, it does include different factions within the Party itself. As history has shown, due to the overwhelming power of the Chinese Communist Party's leadership, it proved relatively easy to lead the party in the wrong direction. This is how the "ultra-left" and "ultra-right" groups came into being. Although these types of events didn't occur frequently, they did make some people lose power. The end of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), for example, led to the creation of the "ultra-left" group. Moreover, after the bourgeois liberalization was defined as "wrong" in the 1980s, some people split from the Party and formed an "ultra-right" group. These two groups still have a great influence today.

For both China and Western countries, the political groups who have lost power and want it back, will take on the authorities by critiquing them in the hope they will eventually make a mistake and lose power.

Nonetheless, as Western countries often feature a rotational presidency, they can gain power back relatively quickly. Under this political system, they won't be too big of a political threat to the authorities. In China, however, once a group's actions are condemned "wrong," that group will lose its power once and for all. Their aversion, or even hatred, towards the ruling party might therefore be slightly stronger than that experienced by political groups in Western countries.

In the end, no matter whether in China or in Western countries, authorities love to interact with scholars and are in a way affected by their ideas. They do still have some differences between them though. In Western countries, academic authorities are people who have factual skills and knowledge. In China, on the other hand, it refers to those who have strong connections with officials or serve as assistants to officials. Although they may not have many academic achievements, they are popular in the media as they share a strong connection to politics. In China, the title of academic authority is granted to one by the media, not the academic circles.

Nevertheless, the real assistants to senior leaders are not willing to deal with the media – such as the staff in the Central Finance and Economy Leading Team Office. Most of the media darlings are actually people who were dropped from those political groups. Even out of power, they remain very popular as they have great practical experience in governing. In other words, these people dominate the public opinion in China.

The author is a researcher at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

This article was first published in Chinese and translated by Lu Na.

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.

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