Atlas / Comparisons / UK Conservative Party vs Xi-era CCP

UK Conservative Party and Xi-era CCP

Measured distance across six axes

14.5 / 49.0 possible

Different families with real common ground. They agree within three points on CU, CH. They diverge by eight points or more on EC, AU.

Axis by axis

AxisToriesXi-era CCPGapReading
EC · Economic organisation+06−028DivergesCarries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
CU · Social and cultural order+05+083AgreesEffectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about.
AU · Organisation of power+02+108DivergesCarries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this.
SC · Scale of decision+03+107DiffersReal difference, but not the dividing line.
ID · Rule of membership+03+074DiffersReal difference, but not the dividing line.
CH · Method and tempo−05−023AgreesEffectively the same position. Not what an argument between them is about.

Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →

The evidence behind the widest gaps

A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.

Tories · EC +06

Coded +6 today. The same party in 1975 supported nationalised rail, coal, steel and utilities and would have been coded near −2.

  • Documented act or statutePrivatisation of telecoms, gas, water, electricity and rail between 1984 and 1996.
  • Programme textThe 1970 and February 1974 manifestos accepted the nationalised industries as settled.

Xi-era CCP · EC −02

Most output and employment are private, but party committees sit inside firms and strategic sectors are state-held. Coded just left of centre.

  • Comparative datasetPrivate firms account for the large majority of urban employment and of new job creation.
  • Documented act or statuteThe 2018 company law revision required party organisations inside firms above a size threshold.

1 more artefact on the full entry →

Tories · AU +02

Coded +2: parliamentary in method, with several recent confrontations with legal constraint.

  • Documented act or statuteThe 2019 prorogation of parliament was ruled unlawful by the supreme court.
  • Documented act or statuteJudicial review was narrowed and legislation was introduced to disapply parts of human rights law in specific policy areas.

Xi-era CCP · AU +10

At the ceiling. Term limits removed, no independent judiciary, no lawful opposition, comprehensive surveillance.

  • Documented act or statuteThe presidential two-term limit was removed from the constitution in 2018.
  • Documented act or statuteNo political party other than the CCP and its eight sanctioned satellites may contest power.

What this comparison does not establish

Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.

UK Conservative Party

1834– · Britain

Fiscal restraint, national sovereignty, property ownership, controlled migration, gradualism.

Xi-era CCP

2012– · China

Party leadership over everything, national rejuvenation, common prosperity, and discipline of private capital.

Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.

Open in the atlas