There are two different ideas here. The fact that the CCP can act decisively and has an iron grip on China does not contradict the idea that it is still a granular organization with its own internal logic. Xi is not the CCP and the CCP is not Xi. And the iron grip and the decisiveness are not as total as you imagine them to be.
This is in fact where the orientalism comes in: the rejection of granularity. If you think about it for a few seconds, it really makes no sense that a single person would be able to entirely control a structure of 96 million adherents, or that this latter structure would have no internal dissension and tumult. The only reason we might come to these conclusions is if we are deeply unfamiliar with the history, culture, ideology, way of doing things that apply and thus reject the individuality and complexity that are part of these systems. Few Westerners would qualify Western institutions in this way. I don't mean in terms of agreeing or disagreeing with what they do, but analyzing them as just a unified blob and thinking nothing of it.
This is in fact where the orientalism comes in: the rejection of granularity. If you think about it for a few seconds, it really makes no sense that a single person would be able to entirely control a structure of 96 million adherents, or that this latter structure would have no internal dissension and tumult. The only reason we might come to these conclusions is if we are deeply unfamiliar with the history, culture, ideology, way of doing things that apply and thus reject the individuality and complexity that are part of these systems. Few Westerners would qualify Western institutions in this way. I don't mean in terms of agreeing or disagreeing with what they do, but analyzing them as just a unified blob and thinking nothing of it.