While still serving as the President of the Republic of China, Dr. Lee Teng-hui met an old friend who urged him to value the importance of mainland China to Taiwan. He said, "Take it easy. Communist China will collapse soon. Believe me, I have intelligence on it." A score of years later, they met again, and the old friend asked if the Communist China had collapsed. Lee waved his hand, "Hmm, let us not talk about this today.”
 

Because China’s system of government has always been authoritarian and opaque in nature, it is entirely possible for some to insist continually for years and years that “China is collapsing.” Indeed, during its first 30 years of rule, Communist China had suffered tremendously from political struggles, turbulence, and poverty. But over the following 40 years, not only did it not collapse, but quickly grew into the world’s second-largest economy, and the people’s livelihood improved significantly as well. This system featuring "development without democracy" is officially called "socialism with Chinese characteristics” by Beijing. In the West it is generally referred to as "state capitalism." I’d like to dissect it into three parts: "Of the State", "By the Party," and "For the People.”
 

“Of the State” means that the land, natural resources and key means of production in the Mainland are all state-owned. Their use and operation may partly be relegated to the private sector. This is the essential difference between "state capitalism" and Western capitalism. Over the past 40 years, China has always taken utmost care in balancing "state ownership" and "private ownership," tightening up or relaxing rules at times seen appropriate.
 

“By the Party" is another distinguishing feature. As China’s economy grew rapidly, many party and government officials abused power for private gains, stoking huge public resentment. Meanwhile the party discipline was so lax that important officials dared to escape into a U.S. consulate to seek asylum. After Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, he gave the Communist Party greater power to govern the country, tightened the party discipline, strengthened the ideological education of party members, and comprehensively fought corruption. Altogether 1.5 million officials, including the so-called “tigers” and “flies,” have been penalized. Without this heavy-handed approach, local unrest is not impossible.
 

Its downside is also fairly significant. The partly free and open atmosphere has since been more constrained. More importantly, the party’s international image has further deteriorated, deepening Western suspicions over China’s rise.
 

"For the People" refers to the satisfaction of the population in material and spiritual aspects. Harvard University, Pew Center, and other large pollsters have found that China ranks among the best in the comparison of people’s satisfaction with their leaders’ performance.
 

The system of “Of the State,” “By the Party,” and “For the People” is so unique that it is literally the one and only in the world today and perhaps not to be duplicated easily elsewhere. That is because the system was born and nurtured in a land immensely unique itself.
 

According to a Western study, for more than a millennium and half until the late 18th century, China’s national production had been equal to the combined total of all the other advanced nations of the time. However, three periods of nationwide chaos, i.e., the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864), Japanese invasion (1937-1945), and Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), each costing tens of millions deaths, left this land tattered and dilapidated, and its people in utter destitution. This massive tragic memory of more than a century led to strong collective yearnings among the people today for social stability, economic growth and national dignity.
 

Geographically, in the words of former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, half of the Chinese population (approximately the entire population of Europe) is squeezed onto land the size of Texas with extremely diverse ethnic, religious, linguistic, and parochial regional complexities. Managing such a large, crowded, diverse country beset with numerous contradictions is a huge challenge, to begin with. By contrast to the United States who live alongside "friends and fish,” China shares either land or maritime borders with 19 countries, 5 of which have fought with China over the past century and 10 continue to haggle over unfinished territorial disputes.
 

At the risk of over-simplifying such a complex political picture, one could use the "bicycle" as an analogy. There are three elements to a bike. The most important is the cyclist, that is, the central leadership, which must remain stable and refrain from infighting. Otherwise the bike will lose its balance. The second and third are the two wheels of the bike, one for economic development and the other for nationalism. If both wheels are full and sturdy, the bike will run fast and stable. If the tires somehow deflate, the ride will be in jeopardy. This is why, during the past 40 years, Beijing has placed such a high premium on economic development and never showed weakness to the outside world.
 

With Xi on the driver’s seat, China’s wheels are at full strength, and the bike runs with speed and vigor, causing the jealousy and envy of other countries. Nevertheless, the bicycle has an inherent problem. It has only two wheels, hence less stable than three- or four-wheeled vehicles. China has been fortunate in the last 40 years, because it was blessed with the solidarity of riders, who happened to have all lived through the trials and tribulations of the Cultural Revolution. A large part of its fortune may be attributed to the fact that the 1.4 billion people still have a vivid memory of the country’s painful past and are reluctant to repeat the same mistakes. They are also grateful that their desire for the “For the People” and their longing for national dignity are being met. So, they can endure domestic deficiencies, restrictions and even disasters, and are not fearful of foreign challenges. In the future, once people’s self-consciousness awakes and self-expectation rises, this system of government will likely be subject to the pressure for qualitative change.
 

At present, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is testing the crisis management capabilities of the two distinct systems in both the U.S. and China. It is also impacting their economies and societies. In the context of the continued struggle between the two great powers, how systemic differences may affect the trajectory of their respective national strength should be worthy of our attention.