China committee of the day

Today's Financial Times writes about the Central Organization Department of China:

To glean a sense of the dimensions of the organization department's job, conjure up a parallel body in Washington.  The imaginary department would oversee the appointments of US state governors and their deputies; the mayors of big cities; heads of federal regulatory agencies; the chief executives of General Electric, Exxon-Mobil, Walmart and 50-odd of the remaining largest companies; justices on the Supreme Court; the editors of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post; the bosses of the television networks and cable stations; the presidents of Yale and Harvard and other big universities and the heads of think-tanks such as the Brookings Institution and the Heritage Foundation.

All equivalent positions in China are filled by people appointed by the party through the organization department.

I would not want to be on the bad side of the Central Organization Department.  The full article, which is interesting throughout, is here.  It's also related to why I don't see China just evolving into a normal democracy.