Runs Like a Camel; Group Think: China is a nation governed by committee. That approach may work for fine-tuning the world's hottest economy. But it has also muddled Beijing's strategic vision.

Byline: Melinda Liu (With Jonathan Ansfield in Beijing and Jonathan Adams in Taipei)

If a camel is a horse built by committee, why is China a thoroughbred? The world's fastest-growing economy is also the only one governed by a committee, specifically the Communist Party's nine-member Politburo standing committee. Of course the party's constant talk of "collective leadership" may sound like lip service to a lost communal ideal. But the current evidence suggests that--precisely because current party boss and President Hu Jintao is less decisively "paramount" than many of his predecessors--he is now as or more deeply beholden to committee thinking than any Chinese leader in recent memory. So why doesn't China look like a camel, slow-footed and a bit confused?

The answer is to look again. Collective leadership "works" in the sense that China's bosses have steered the economic boom, kept a lid on domestic unrest and pursued a much more high-profile diplomacy, all with little overt sign of factional warfare. Consensus is indeed necessary and, barring that, then the appearance of consensus is equally important. In a rare leak from inside the Politburo, reports on the July meeting tell of an argument over a, so far, successful campaign of cutbacks by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao to slow the overheating economy. Confronted by the Shanghai party secretary with a litany of ways the cutbacks were hurting his region, Wen fought back, but eventually agreed to take "personal" blame in the event of an economic crash. In the end, Hu reminded everyone present that the curbs were a "collective decision" that all were obliged to follow.

In other words, today's Politburo doesn't work all that differently from a Western cabinet: ministers collide behind closed doors, the leader makes the final call and tries to present a united front. Ministers associated with failed policies lose their jobs. The difference in China is that there is more talk, fewer leaks--and, if recent history is any gauge, losers could land under house arrest. The days when no lesser Politburo member dared challenge any position taken by a strongman like Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping are over. "Nobody can do it ...