Corruptions and unsustainability of economic model two very different issues in China

Comments on Dong Dong Zhang "Beneath the surface of China’s relentless rise", 2/04/2017

While obviously there were many serious problems in China, it is not obvious that the rampant corruption and the unsustainable economic development model that the author describes in the post were equally important contributing factors to the centralisation of power in the recent years.

They appear to be very different problems and issues in their nature, with the former directly endangering the very existence of the CCP as it has stood for and the latter likely a result of development stages. Yes income inequality in China has increased, but the main picture is that the living standards of almost all people have probably risen universally.

The standard measure of income inequality is the Gini coefficient and China's was 42.2 at November 2015 according to the World Bank sourced from wikipedia (click it for more information). I have heard and read that some people have argued that inequality in China has reached alarming status. However, while that measure of inequality for China has probably increased over time, that does not necessarily single China out as an particular outlier. For example, that same source also listed the Gini for the USA were 41.1 and 45.0 produced by the World Bank and the CIA respectively in the same table.

Further, the rampant corruptions were extremely unlikely a positive contributing factor to "the relentless rise of China". And corruption was unlikely to be an unavoidable part in the China development model, even though it may have seemingly appeared to be a side product of China's economic reforms and opening up to the outside world as people shifted focus towards money in that process.