Liberal democracy is not desirable in China - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14479919
Gosh, Thirdterm, I see you never even bothered to discuss my post, but went for automatic China bashing again, even linking some unrelated article on reuters. Is there an app you are using that does that for you?

Lexington wrote:I don't know if you noticed, but democracy conquered (most of) the world.

Liberal capitalism conquered most of the world, by the sword. The second world war and cold war is won by guns and bombs, economic warfare and spy games, not ideas. Ever since, a majority of countries that has adopted the democratic system has gone for the worse.
The west is prosperous from the spoils of colonialism and international finance, and of cause, good old spoils of wars. But I never saw the connection with democracy. Outside the western bloc, new democratic countries have their elections rigged by external forces, corruption run rampant, and instability grows. Democracy might not be the reason of that, but it never seem to have solved any problem either.

Lexington wrote:If you truly want an iron boot crushing your face because "populism" and "plutocrats" you can have it there. I don't think it will last - even the history of China in recent decades includes bullshit like the Cultural Revolution that literally led to thousands of dead people.

Assuming that you are a US citizen, that iron boot on my face is on yours as much as mine. See police brutality in Occupy Wall St. See 1% prison population. You never felt the oppression until you get into trouble. Never did I.

But indeed, yes, I would also like that iron boot slightly lifted (Which China actually did to a great extent), but I don't believe democracy is the solution. Also, even in China, concepts like human rights and police conduct is only beginning to form. These things were horrible before because China was a very backward country. But now, when people face crime, they look for the police as a first response. If they are wronged by the police, they go to a court of law. Things are far from perfect, but there is some progress. People are starting to build up some faith in the rule of law.

That is beside the point though, since democracy does not equal justice. It's a matter of a working legal system, which can very well exist in China with or without elections.

You may say that "things are different now" and they are, but the only thing stopping this from happening again is the violence of an informed people in China. You can either accept this violence as a matter of fact or you can give them the vote and stop pretending about this notion of "The Communist Party elites know best."

That is it.

I agree.

Maintaining the stability is what keeps the Chinese government working hard. Once China is stable and the population well content, they might start being corrupt again. That's why they are building up a workable legal system for later generations to rely on.

I know I know, we can't trust the government to regulate themselves, but do you have a solution besides democracy? Because I never saw that "observatory mechanism" working in US. Government officials retire into CEO positions in big corporations in return to their favors. Lobby groups bribe openly by law. Friends and buddies in regulatory bodies. Your democracy never seemed to have solved that. It simply creates loopholes for powerful people to corrupt openly.

In fact, it is again a matter of "the rule of law", which doesn't really have much to do with whether there is democracy. The populace don't know much about legislation, aside from the spotlight ones like guns or gay marriage or taxes. The ones that matter, however, are in the hands on people who aren't elected anyway.

Then you will probably move on to the next point, independent media observatory. That's our next matter of "freedom of speech", again not necessarily bound to democracy.

Currently in China, you can criticize the government pretty openly. You don't like this policy or that, you want it changed to this, US has this, China is shit on that respect. Or maybe you found out that a government official is corrupt, and expose him on the internet. These are OK with the authorities. People bitch all the time, on newspapers and on the internet. You are even encouraged to provide suggestions. The government actually catches on at times.

What gets banned is when you made disrespectful statements, or purposefully inciting riots. The earlier gets censored, the later gets you into trouble. I don't completely disagree with that, because there are just way too many undesirable elements that are trying to destabilize, some within, and a lot without (ala CIA/NED/Global Media - China is surrounded by enemies, on that I think you can agree?)

So citizens monitoring government is also present in China, although via very informal channels that leaves much to desire. That's why China is working on fine tuning the anti-corruption bureau. These things, unfortunately, doesn't really happen overnight.

Now let's look at the media in US, is it doing its supposed job? Sort of. They report incidents of police brutality, domestic incidents, but they seldom do much on their systemic corruption or discuss the major failures of their system. They even push government lies faithfully, sell their next war, bash China, Russia and Iran to justify the US system, without ever discussing their merits. They never did their supposed duty.

And why should they? Commercial media has one objective tied to their survival only. Profit. Their job is to sell papers, so they simply write the most eye catching, emotionally rousing stories that aren't necessary objective nor even true. The media conglomerates are owned by the same ruling plutocrats anyway, so why would they catch on to "failures of the system" that is also benefiting themselves? There is no motivation at all. If an "independent media" is a pillar of democracy, I saw that pillar crumbling already.

I am not saying what China is doing is better than US, in government monitoring. There is still way too much to be desired, and currently the quality of this monitoring is probably still way behind the west. My question is, however, is "democracy" an improvement or an end goal? Do you believe that if China drives for "democracy" as a political end game, is it going to benefit the country?

I don't think so. I wish we can tell you that we have an answer to all these questions above, but we haven't got it. China is working hard to find these answers, but at the moment, we reject taking the "model answer" entirely. Society evolves, politics evolve, no political system is eternal truth. Humanity shouldn't stop seeking because one system is dominant.
Last edited by benpenguin on 24 Oct 2014 03:26, edited 1 time in total.
#14480635
I read that Singapore is the template/ model for mainland China. Both have achieved a lot without allowing opposition parties, elections or news media to operate freely.

It's interesting how rarely Singapore is vilified for pursuing similar policies to Beijing, such as cracking down on blogs, and USA is perfectly happy to pursue economic negotiations with Singapore under the TPP. Most criticism of China is disingenuous since the goal is containment not improvement.
#14480742
1. Population is way too big (14 Billion, more than the entire US+Europe+Russia, hello), and way too diverse (Han + 55 ethnicity, every province has a vastly different culture). You can't get everybody to even remotely agree on anything.


The size of the population itself is not necessarily a barrier. India, with comparable population size, has a liberal democratic system with all its flaws. It does mean, however, that China probably needs a decentralised, federal system to be more attentive to local interests. Whether this will fragment the country is up for debate.

2. If you want it liberalized, you will need to fracture it first. And a fractured China is a weak China. If China is fractured, the first thing to happen is that CIA and NED will get busy making everyone fight each other.


The issue of internal fragmentation is real, but the introduction of an electoral system won't necessarily cause this.

3. A centralized China also means a rich and powerful central government, who needs that for national defense and infrastructure developments. I lived my life 25 years in Hong Kong and Australia before I went inside China myself. Everything I hear outside the Chinese borders are bashing and bashing and bashing. Inside China is where I can see how much the "evil communist government" has accomplished for the country. And none of their achievements are possible without this money and power.


Yes, a strong state is very important for industrial and economic development. It has a huge amount of problems, many of which systematic and inherent in its authoritarianism. But nevertheless poll after poll suggest high level of public approval for the central government.

4. Every social problem that I hear outside China or has ever known of, is actually being tackled here in a very serious and ferocious manner. Every year there are very significant improvements that you can see, clear as daylight. I never felt this kind of energy in Hong Kong nor Australia nor anywhere on the world. All I see is "democratic governments" argue all day long on all possible topics, then the next party wins the election and does the same (nothing) altogether again. In the liberal world everybody bitches all day long and does nothing, while the Chinese shut the fuck up and just do it.


It does seem incredible that without a democratic system acting as a functional system of popular input the Chinese government has been able to tackle many of the main problems thanks to the threats and actions of public protests. The problems that it has not been able to or unwilling to solve probably won't be easily solved in a liberal democratic system either.

5. No freedoms, you say? I don't see how this is more important than feeding the population and holding it together, but hey, lets talk about it since you guys care so much. There are less POLITICAL freedoms, sure (Which is already opening a lot, by the way). But you are free to make suggestions to the government, even bash it a bit. Newspapers here criticize government policies all the time, and citizens' voice reaches the government pretty quickly, which actually gets acted on. Sure, the communication channels are pretty informal and left much to desire, and the government is working on that. Improvements seen every year. Can you say the same with your own governments, on responsiveness?


On the daily basis, the public does not really encounter the coercive power of the state. The main complaints are directed at bureaucratism and corruption but not generally the lack of political freedom. The withdrawal of state control over people's daily lives since the 1980s has created a lot of space for people, though not so much for critical, political voices. As seen in the episodes of ineffective mobilisations around political, democratic demands, as opposed to mobilisations around immediate conditions e.g. labour, land and abuse of power, political freedom is not very high on people's agenda.

6. Sure, the Communists fucked up big times in the cultural revolution, but they grew out of that. The world still seemed to still equate China to "evil regime", but in fact most of the Chinese here supports the government and is optimist for the future. Comparing to the decline of the democratic west and developments of countries that has "the correct system" imposed on them, the liberal position is becoming less and less desirable to us, barring the few young university idealists.


This is only my impression but it seems patriotism has only grown over the last two decades among the young generation. Over this period, the exposure to the outside world for young people paradoxically has strengthened their affinity and identification with a strong and prosperous China.

7. Living standards haven't yet caught up to the west by far but is slowly closing. The west, has after all, plundered hundreds of countries to enrich a much smaller population. Of cause they can afford nice social benefits for everyone! US, for instance, inherited the goddamn British empire, won 2nd world war, cold war and hold the world economy hostage. And despite that we are actually catching up. Now you want us to redo our political system, "because freedom"?


Yes, the fact that China's political economic system, in spite of all its flaws visible for everyone to see, has worked means there is little appetite for radical change. My sense is that people would love more freedom and liberty but it will not be at the cost of disrupting the stability of Chinese society. So people from outside of China trying to champion a democratic system have little currency among the Chinese public.
#14481074
HoniSoit wrote:The size of the population itself is not necessarily a barrier. India, with comparable population size, has a liberal democratic system with all its flaws. It does mean, however, that China probably needs a decentralized, federal system to be more attentive to local interests. Whether this will fragment the country is up for debate.

The issue of internal fragmentation is real, but the introduction of an electoral system won't necessarily cause this.

I wouldn't be opposed to election tryouts in some 2nd or 3rd tier cities, on local government levels. In fact that had already been done before - I never heard much about the outcomes though.
I was curious about how Indian democracy worked, and fuser did gave me a few insights in this thread. I see two main differences with China so far:
1. Much less external hostility from the international society, so less need for the central government to have the tight grip (censorship for instance)
2. The castes are basically integrated with the election systems. As per fuser, you only need to count support of the castes and you will know who's going to win the election - and the same people stays in the ruling class. The issue of "everybody can't agree on anything" won't be radicalized as much. I would although be skeptical of whether this is beneficial at all, or whether something similar can happen in China.

Yes, a strong state is very important for industrial and economic development. It has a huge amount of problems, many of which systematic and inherent in its authoritarianism.

Indeed, that's the trade off. I believe currently, that's a good trade off because:
1. State wide problems > Local problems. For example, the most threatening problems like the development discrepancy between city vs village, pollution, aging etc cannot be solved on a local level. In fact, by pursuing local developments it might compromise these goals, which can't be good for anybody.
2. China is pretty much under siege by the containment efforts. We need a centralized response. So we can't even consider decentralization until the hostilities are eased one day.

It does seem incredible that without a democratic system acting as a functional system of popular input the Chinese government has been able to tackle many of the main problems thanks to the threats and actions of public protests. The problems that it has not been able to or unwilling to solve probably won't be easily solved in a liberal democratic system either.

Popular inputs from the public comes through very informal and unreliable channels, such as violent protests, social media and scholarly researches - which somehow worked okay. I guess when a government wants to listen, they will, whatever the channel is. I would of cause prefer them to formalize the process and make it more reliable.

On the daily basis, the public does not really encounter the coercive power of the state. The main complaints are directed at bureaucratism and corruption but not generally the lack of political freedom. The withdrawal of state control over people's daily lives since the 1980s has created a lot of space for people, though not so much for critical, political voices. As seen in the episodes of ineffective mobilisations around political, democratic demands, as opposed to mobilisations around immediate conditions e.g. labour, land and abuse of power, political freedom is not very high on people's agenda.

Yes, the fact that China's political economic system, in spite of all its flaws visible for everyone to see, has worked means there is little appetite for radical change. My sense is that people would love more freedom and liberty but it will not be at the cost of disrupting the stability of Chinese society. So people from outside of China trying to champion a democratic system have little currency among the Chinese public.

Pretty much. Conventional wisdom is that democracy is "unsuitable" for China, or China is "not ready". My view is closer to the former, because I am currently not convinced that democracy will improve things, only that it is there for political correctness's' sake.
#14481138
The castes are basically integrated with the election systems. As per fuser, you only need to count support of the castes and you will know who's going to win the election - and the same people stays in the ruling class. The issue of "everybody can't agree on anything" won't be radicalized as much. I would although be skeptical of whether this is beneficial at all, or whether something similar can happen in China.


I may have exaggerated the case of caste, it is indeed one of the very important factor but not the only factor anyway my point was that even though India has diversity in form of castes (and people do strongly identify with it, even non hindus) and engineering of caste vote happens, it isn't exactly fragmenting this country in a way that it might get divided, hence I don't think "diversity" argument is a strong argument against "possibility" of liberal democracy in China.

My point is you don't need everyone to agree on everything, most of the people are apathetic anyway.


Oh and once again to make myself clear, I am not arguing for liberal democracy in China, I don't think at all that its desirable just that it is possible even if not desirable.




Edited : Typo
Last edited by fuser on 27 Oct 2014 12:26, edited 1 time in total.
#14481454
benpenguin wrote:Indeed, that's the trade off.


The fact is that regardless of one's political preference, with rare exception most industrialised societies today industrialised under political systems that can hardly be classified as democratic according to contemporary standard despite the existence of formal democratic structure in some cases but with the majority de-franchised. And this makes sense, as industrial development means displacement and subjugation of peasants and artisans to a repressive labour regime. No serious democratic system would have allowed that to happen. In this respect, China is hardly exceptional.
#14481500
benpenguin wrote:I would imagine then, when China reaches 1st world status and ease off the developments, and when the hostilities surrounding it ceases, it could be a possibility.


It is up to people living in China.

But I don't see any social or political force inside China capable and willing to challenge the regime with the aim of replacing it.
#14483502
@benpenguin
I think you lack perspective. Of course things evolve well in China, you're a developing country: the techs already exist, the solutions to problems are already known, the foreign corporations already know the processes and techniques, the capital already exist and is striving to invest in this booming market, investment all have a very high profitability, credit is flowing, etc.

So of course things change quickly, of course the population is optimistic. The West experienced the very same thing decades ago after the WW2. But after that lies the decreasing growth, the rising unemployment, the growing discontentment, the aging population, the concentration of capital and power in fewer and fewer hands, the higher and higher diminishing returns, the stagnation, the sclerosis, the deunification, etc. This cycle is as old as capitalism, and to some extent as old as human societies, and it can only be restarted by destructive episodes (wars, severe crises, etc).

It's cyclic. China will face this gloomy future that the West is currently facing. And China is currently poorly prepared for this with its very high debt, its old population, its resistance to political changes (something that evolves very slowly in China), its capital concentration and oligarchy.


benpenguin wrote:1. Population is way too big (14 Billion, more than the entire US+Europe+Russia, hello), and way too diverse (Han + 55 ethnicity, every province has a vastly different culture). You can't get everybody to even remotely agree on anything.

Indeed, USA are already too big to be a real democracy and China won't even manage to pretend to be one. But you will still face a growing number of complaints from the growing middle class.And at some point you will have to make a choice: more repression, wastage and torrents of blood, or implosion or a very very loose federal government with most of the power delegated to the provinces.

3. A centralized China also means a rich and powerful central government, who needs that for national defense and infrastructure developments.

I fail to see why China needs to be 5 times bigger than the current super-power for military purposes, unless it plans to literally conquer the world.

Inside China is where I can see how much the "evil communist government" has accomplished for the country. And none of their achievements are possible without this money and power.

The Chinese government is no longer communist since decades. Besides it faced a relatively easy task so far: the world was striving to invest in China and modernize this underdeveloped giant market with a great potential, the govt only had to not disturb this spontaneous mechanic nor submit to the West and its absurd conditions.

It's not that your government is good, it's that your government is not as bad as most of developing countries' governments, not bad enough to be unable to leverage this easy situation. It's decent: there are probably skillful and good-willing figures, the fact that your leaders still enjoy a quasi-nobility means that some of them will still try to defend the common good, but it's far too corrupted and oligarchic. At this rate it will soon become impossible to differentiate your corporate leadership from your political leadership.

but in fact most of the Chinese here supports the government

Of course, this is called propaganda and it does wonders. It is common in authoritarian regimes, even the very inefficient ones, for the power to enjoy a great support. Sure, the fact that things go well help a lot and there are many people who actually enjoy order and domination over freedom and tend to dislike democracy.

But this would never be enough to maintain a high support level after so long without the propaganda and information control.

But you are free to make suggestions to the government, even bash it a bit.

A bit, yes.

But you cannot criticize it strongly, you cannot express your most sincere opinion or your anger, you should better pray that your business does not clash with one of the party figure's interests, you should better not create a trade union or a party or an activist association, corruption robs you of your taxes, your vote does not count the least, and when a cop or an official faces you you feel the need to adopt a submissive attitude.

So, sure, it's not as bad as some other countries. But it's still enough for many people to want a lot more.

The west, has after all, plundered hundreds of countries to enrich a much smaller population.

Where does your oil come from?
Why do we "plunder" it while you "buy" it, when we both pay the same price from the same countries?
Aren't you only looking at the small timeframe where you were weak and the West was strong? Afaik, China's history is not a model of peaceful relationships.
#14483548
@Harmattan
You are absolutely correct that China is currently on a peak of its development cycle which isn't going to last forever, but you are dismissing the government's contribution way too much. One simply needs to compare the rate of which China is developing from a backwater shit hole to an industrial powerhouse, with the relative time frames of any other developed nations to see what I mean.
Harmattan wrote:It's cyclic. China will face this gloomy future that the West is currently facing. And China is currently poorly prepared for this with its very high debt, its old population, its resistance to political changes (something that evolves very slowly in China), its capital concentration and oligarchy.

Our rapid development has led to lots of problems which the government is at least trying hard to control, to different level of successes. No denying that. I would however argue that it is actually very adaptive in their political doctrines, see for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation ... leadership
It is resistant towards "liberal democracy" because as stated in this thread, we don't find it feasible. Of cause, this is the only political change that the west is interested in seeing, but that doesn't mean China never change. (Capital concentration is not a policy but a side effect to the rapid developments in the 80s, the opening up of markets, and ineffective laws set up by early inexperienced bureaucrats, while oligarchy has enough support to be stable.)
Harmattan wrote:more repression, wastage and torrents of blood, or implosion or a very very loose federal government with most of the power delegated to the provinces.

That is indeed true in a distant future when economy slows and social problems surface. We know this, and are trying to deal with those problems while delaying the implosion. However, at the moment, many of these social problems has to be dealt with at the federal level. For example, you can't have strict anti-corruption policies on one province, and then GDP development focus on another. You will simply see the escape of dirty money. Same with other issues like pollution or health care. Responses to these state wide problems has to be consistent across the board to be efficient, and thus you need a strong central government - a discussion worthy of another thread.
And the other issue is the consolidation of political power to defend against encroachment from the US encirclement policy (Yep, the great devil again ) I will probably need another thread to talk about it, but let's stick to "We need a strong centralized response to the destabilizing and encirclement effort " talk point for now.
Harmattan wrote:I fail to see why China needs to be 5 times bigger than the current super-power for military purposes, unless it plans to literally conquer the world.

That is simply a feature of central planning governments. Whether it is efficient is up to debate. You don't need that big a government for military purposes. You simply need a big defense budget and a powerful army. Apples and oranges mate.
Harmattan wrote:At this rate it will soon become impossible to differentiate your corporate leadership from your political leadership.

It wasn't meant to be differentiated. In the west, government officials and corporate collaborate under the table. In China, government and corporate (state owned enterprises) are the same thing. It is intentional. Both systems harbors corruption just fine, and which one is better for the nation is up for debate. For me, private corporations are much more efficient in competitiveness and generating profit, but the directions they take do not necessarily benefit the country (e.g. oil companies and military contractors lobbying for more wars), while state corps are inefficient at times but they work strictly under the unified command of the government (Which is, for the time being, working towards the betterment of the nation).
Harmattan wrote:But this would never be enough to maintain a high support level after so long without the propaganda and information control.

You overestimate the effects of propaganda in China, and underestimate those of the West. In the west, media giants control every channel and sell government perspectives to the entire world. They can tolerate opposition voices because they can simply flood it (e.g. who will believe in "crack-pot conspiracy" news, when CNN/AJ/BBC and every news channel, owned by the same few oligarchs, are reporting the same story? Which by the way, they always do somehow). There are way too many instances that outright lies and fabrications are pushed in these respectable media channels, but the people still chooses to accept whatever it says. They do expose some scandals occasionally and criticize this policy and that, but they largely support the "system" or the ruling class.
Chinese media are not saints themselves, but they are very weak. People give it lots of doubt, and whenever they need to know about stuff, there are way too many channels to find it. On many occasions, the state media is actually the one telling the truth while the "respectable channels" are telling the lies, but the public actually chooses the later.
The Chinese public supports the government because despite all its flaws, their lives are improving and they agree with government policies. They know they don't get to choose their leaders and they can't incite actions against the ruling class, and they know they are being censored, but they accept it - imagine that. If the government is really doing a such shitty job, no amount of propaganda would be able to suppress the dissent by now.
Harmattan wrote:So, sure, it's not as bad as some other countries. But it's still enough for many people to want a lot more.

At the moment constructive criticisms are very much encouraged, as long as you give feasible solutions. Unfortunately, too many outside forces are trying to destabilize China (We are surrounded by enemies and a hostile global media, even you can agree to that). This is the greatest level of freedom o' speech that China can afford without letting NED and CIA have their way. More freedoms are always nice, but it is very low on the people's priority list right now.
Harmattan wrote:Where does your oil come from?

The history of China is full of civil wars, but we seldom invade countries that we do not consider within the sinosphere, because Confucius doctrine dictates that we win over barbarian countries by culture and the tributary system, not war. We were commonly called "The kingdom of heavens" for a reason - of cause, also because we are self-sufficient. Whether you call that "peaceful" is up for debate. In the future, perhaps we will just continue to trade infrastructures for oil, or we might build overseas bases and bomb countries like US once did, I don't know. This depends on geopolitics.
However, you completely missed my point. I wasn't arguing from a moral perspective. I was saying, the western bloc was prosperous from the spoils of colonialism, their victory of the 2nd world war and cold war, and the dominance of global capital via petrodollars, and much,much earlier industrial revolution, and domination of global media...so on and so forth, and we have none of that. At the the time when US and its minions are king of the universe, we are a feudal shit hole having just finished 100 years of : Opium wars, followed by Japanese invasion, followed by Chinese civil war. With way too much mouths to feed thanks to Mr.Mao. My point is, just within 50 years, we caught up. You can't pull that out of a magic hat as your media tries to portray.

I am from Hong Kong and studied in Australia and is a recipient to very heavy propaganda against China my whole life. I changed my views upon living here for 2 years. Your expressed views here are not alien to me and I don't find them necessarily false, but I believe there are much more to it. China is a very different and complex country, and I don't think the west, its political system, foreign policy and development history, is a realistic comparison or an ideal role model.
#14483627
benpenguin wrote:you are dismissing the government's contribution way too much.

Maybe but I do not think that comparing yourself to the worse developing countries that are sometimes led by illiterate people is a good argument. Besides size matters: the Chinese market was bigger than any and this helped you defend yourself against western corporations and governments, and made sure that your interests prevailed. No African country could have dismissed the western intellectual property as you did or harmed western corporations' interests in justice courts. The retorsion would have been disastrous. Really, developing China from where it stood looks like an easy feat.

I would however argue that it is actually very adaptive in their political doctrines, see for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation ... leadership

When I talked about stagnation I didn't mean the ideas but the people: the power remain in the same instances and, to a large extent, the same hands. And while I am aware of the generations of Chinese leaders, I also know that former leaders and their families actually remain very powerful. Besides I wonder how long "minor" figures remain in the parliament or how many representatives are descendants of former representatives. Unfortunately I could not find numbers.

Capital concentration is not a policy but a side effect to the rapid developments in the 80s, the opening up of markets, and ineffective laws set up by early inexperienced bureaucrats, while oligarchy has enough support to be stable.

Actually in the West the capital concentration decreased during our golden age and increased after that during the crises. Besides I do not think that the explosion of wealth among your party leaders is a side effect, I think it is a deliberate part of their policies. Many of your representatives are billionaires, and I am not talking about those people who started as entrepreneurs and were later recruited by the party.

As a comparison, the 70 wealthiest members of the CCP own 90 billions dollars. On the other hand the 660 top officials in the US govt own 7.5 billions dollars. China is an oligarchy, there is no doubt, and this is not a side effect in any way: this is deliberate, this is one of the very goals of the CCP.

We know this, and are trying to deal with those problems while delaying the implosion.

I am quite at loss. Weren't you earlier advocating that China should remain united? By implosion I mean that it could fragment.

For example, you can't have strict anti-corruption policies on one province, and then GDP development focus on another. You will simply see the escape of dirty money.

This is the first time I hear someone arguing that corruption is good for the economy. If you were fighting corruption everywhere, the dirty money would escape nowhere. I could understand if you were arguing about attracting dirty money from the whole China to some niches. Is it what you are doing?

It wasn't meant to be differentiated.

Basically, you're advocating for aristocracy? Putting all powers (executive, financial, etc) in a few hands and submitting to them? And since money is inherited and you're advocating for unifying money and power, then political power would be (is?) also inherited. In my opinion this will harm your country because it will become impossible for an enterpreneur to do business as he will systematically clash against one of your lords, and because your lords will always want more and will turn into ogres for China.

As for the west, the way private and public powers intertwin vary from one country to another and the under-the-table collaboration is not something we are advocating for, it is rather treated as a problem to fix. And while things became worse and worse in the recent decades, it may very well backlash against them in a near future and I expect to see great changes during my lifetime.

You overestimate the effects of propaganda in China, and underestimate those of the West. In the west, media giants control every channel and sell government perspectives to the entire world. They can tolerate opposition voices because they can simply flood it (e.g. who will believe in "crack-pot conspiracy" news, when CNN/AJ/BBC and every news channel, owned by the same few oligarchs, are reporting the same story? Which by the way, they always do somehow). There are way too many instances that outright lies and fabrications are pushed in these respectable media channels, but the people still chooses to accept whatever it says. They do expose some scandals occasionally and criticize this policy and that, but they largely support the "system" or the ruling class.

The fact that all of our leaders end up with mediocre opinion figures after a few years of government proves that no real propaganda exist to support those leaders. Quite the contrary if you look at western medias.

Propaganda and media control in the West do exist, of course, but they're focused on the ideas, not the people, and it is very subtle and hard to understand even for westerners (Chomsky is the most popular writer on this topic despite being American-centric). No it is not a matter of a few hands controlling everything through money, this would not work. You can use money to buy audience and weight on the debates, sure, but this is too visible and it creates strong counter-reactions thanks to the democratic immunity defenses. Those counter-reactions are self-defense mechanisms acquired by democracies but they are uneven: for example they are stronger when one tries to promote the government but weaker when one tries to promote ideas, and even weaker if this idea is a foreign policy revolving around a suggested threat.

Propaganda in the West is, for the most part, not the result of control. It is the result of people very skillful at playing to the media tunes. Medias do not create informations, they only report them. Actually informations are introduced to the medias by those who act, especially the government. Manipulating information is done by knowing what, when and how to introduce events to the medias. What kind of words will you use? What kind of materials and references will you provide them? What kind of story will you tell them? The goal is to make them want to broadcast your story as much as possible and impregnate them with an intellectual bias through the first exposure to the facts.

On a side note you're more familiar with the anglosphere but they do not represent the West altogether. Corporations are a lot more powerful in the anglosphere, and the anglosphere has some of the worse democracies in the west. It's not that things go well in Europe, not at all, but the anglosphere is generally worse.

The Chinese public supports the government because despite all its flaws, their lives are improving and they agree with government policies.

Yes. And because they suffer a submissive mindset (Confucianism) and because they have a good impression of their leaders thanks to the propaganda.

You're right to insist on the results but you cannot neglect the other factors. You say that propaganda alone could not work but it usually does in the worse dictatorships: the power just needs to blame failures on someone else: the foreigners, the Jews, the West, etc. Or you can develop a self-flagellation rhetoric by promoting sacrifice and introspection, like sects do, developing hostage mentalities. Also you can cheat with numbers, make them look better than they are to let your people believe in a brighter future. Or hide the debt used to finance those investments. Finally all dictatorships consolidate a strong support base, usually in the army, and as a result most of people in the army and their families are satisfied by the government's actions since they earned privileges.

Unfortunately, too many outside forces are trying to destabilize China (We are surrounded by enemies and a hostile global media, even you can agree to that).

The medias are certainly hostile. But I do not think that for the most part it is the result of a strategy, although I would not be surprised if some forces were pushing in that direction. Westerners are simply spontaneously wary of non-democratic governments, it is completely rational for us to not be appreciative of the rise of a 1.6 billion people force, especially with such a different culture, and you can add to this the usual xenophobia. There is no need for a conspiracy to explain our medias' attitude towards China.

The history of China is full of civil wars, but we seldom invade countries that we do not consider within the sinosphere, because Confucius doctrine dictates that we win over barbarian countries by culture and the tributary system, not war.

But how did it become a sinosphere in the first place? One could say that you simply successed at your colonial enterprise and didn't need/couldn't chew more.
Maybe you did not colonize the world simply because you were so busy keeping China united. And maybe this is what lost you?
#14483673
Harmattan wrote:developing China from where it stood looks like an easy feat.

Well, I guess you need to educate yourself on some chinese history then. China is massive country that suffered 2 invasions, 1 civil war and cultural revolution,with a huge improvised, uneducated population and enemies everywhere inside and out - a easy place to develop, really?
I am not comparing to some backwater African country, I am comparing to the west. Your industrial revolution took 100 years. The dominance of British empire went for some 200 years, which was taken over by the americans. Who reigned supreme for some 100 years and remain unchallenged for 20 years since the collapse of the Soviets. China is not on par with the West yet, but we took only 50 years to come this close. You call that easy?
For closer comparison with large developing countries harbouring relatively backward population, see India, Brazil, Saudi, Iran. And none of them went through nearly as many wars as we did and none of them developed as much as we do. Need I say more?

When I talked about stagnation I didn't mean the ideas but the people: the power remain in the same instances and, to a large extent, the same hands. And while I am aware of the generations of Chinese leaders, I also know that former leaders and their families actually remain very powerful. Besides I wonder how long "minor" figures remain in the parliament or how many representatives are descendants of former representatives. Unfortunately I could not find numbers.

But you are talking about ideas You want to see replacements of the ruling class. It already happened. The Tuanpai clique is gradually and peacefully replacing the Shanghai/Crown prince Clique. But I am sure this isn't what you wanted, because it should be legitamately done via elections, yes? That's the very foundation of liberalism. You just refuse to acknowledge it.
The ruling class/families stays in power in US too. Do you think it is a coincidence that there are two Bushes and probably very soon two Clintons in the White House? Do you think it is a coincidence that their financial backers and campaign funders are more or less the same group of corporates? And "The people" typically has no choice aside from the Red team or the Blue team, who has the same financial backers anyway? Again, I am not saying the Chinese government is superior, but the West is hardly a role model themselves.

This is deliberate, this is one of the very goals of the CCP.

Oh yes there is no doubt. Deng said so himself, "Let a small group get rich first." And hell they did. What else can you do? When such a chaotic, backward country needs to develop, who cares about rules and regulations and petty ethics? That's the world we are living in, my friend. We get rich first, so we have the resources to deal with the consequencies and act gentleman later. We didn't have the luxury nor the know how to care about intellectual properties, human rights, distribution of wealth, environmental protection and sustainability and anything like that. We have a war-torn land with a bunch of uneducated starving peasants. A bunch of people enriching themselves is unavoidable - you just need that primitive greed to push things forward in the first place, then try to rein it in later.
The concentration of wealth happens in US as well - even more so than us. See the 1% in wall street, who is also the same financial backers of your political parties, who control hollywood, the media and resource companies and military contractors? Look around you, the west is also ruled by oligarchs. They just don't carry membership cards.

I am quite at loss. Weren't you earlier advocating that China should remain united? By implosion I mean that it could fragment.

Might have misunderstood "implosion". I was saying that China must stand united to deal with their problems until it is safe to gradually open up. At the moment we are containing our problems and fending off foreign enroachment. Thus we are delaying the shit-hit-fan time.

This is the first time I hear someone arguing that corruption is good for the economy. If you were fighting corruption everywhere, the dirty money would escape nowhere. I could understand if you were arguing about attracting dirty money from the whole China to some niches. Is it what you are doing?

No, you misunderstood. I was saying, if you need to have an anti-corruption focus, you can't have a GDP focus. I am advocating the former , but we need a state wide response. e.g. If we impliment tight credit checks and anti-corruption legislations in province A, and allow tons of GDP heavy projects in province B, the dirty money will just rush to province B. Thats why we need an "across the board" policy for both province A and B - in turn why we need a strong central government.

Basically, you're advocating for aristocracy? Putting all powers (executive, financial, etc) in a few hands and submitting to them? And since money is inherited and you're advocating for unifying money and power, then political power would be (is?) also inherited. In my opinion this will harm your country because it will become impossible for an enterpreneur to do business as he will systematically clash against one of your lords, and because your lords will always want more and will turn into ogres for China.

As for the west, the way private and public powers intertwin vary from one country to another and the under-the-table collaboration is not something we are advocating for, it is rather treated as a problem to fix. And while things became worse and worse in the recent decades, it may very well backlash against them in a near future and I expect to see great changes during my lifetime.

I am not arguing for that, and indeed, overconcentration of power will be a problem that we again need to deal with later. However, I don't see democracy as an answer to this problem, and I don't have a solution yet. I actually gave a very lengthy response to Lexington in this very same post, you can refer to it on the third thread from top ^ there.

Propaganda and media control in the West do exist, of course, but they're focused on the ideas, not the people, and it is very subtle and hard to understand even for westerners (Chomsky is the most popular writer on this topic despite being American-centric). No it is not a matter of a few hands controlling everything through money, this would not work. You can use money to buy audience and weight on the debates, sure, but this is too visible and it creates strong counter-reactions thanks to the democratic immunity defenses. Those counter-reactions are self-defense mechanisms acquired by democracies but they are uneven: for example they are stronger when one tries to promote the government but weaker when one tries to promote ideas, and even weaker if this idea is a foreign policy revolving around a suggested threat.

The fact remains that Western media sells wars and manipulates opinions very efficiently, and is very much in line with state foreign policies' tunes. For example, they get the entire story of Syrian war from a guy in an apartment, fabricated an entire massacre event in Iraq told by a little girl who is in fact the Iraqi Ambassador's daughter, make up new comedies about North Korea based on random Twitter accounts. News regarding China are downright hostile. Everything the "regime" says is "state propaganda", when Uighur seperatists conduct mass terrorism they are "knife weilding attackers" seeking retribution to a "repressive state". List goes on.
In local news, everything is viewed through a narrow partisian prism - everything they don't like is either "communist" or "facist". Movies continue to sing praises to gallient CIA agents and brave US soldiers fighting everything from North Koreans to terrorists to Aliens.
Fact is, the corporate media is not even remotely interested in telling the truth, they are just interested in giving populist news in the most inciting tone possible to sell as many papers as they can. In my view, they are just state and party propaganda dressed up pretty.

You're right to insist on the results but you cannot neglect the other factors.

Well, I am not denying that propaganda helps, but destabilization efforts are pretty strong as well, for example the Falun Gong is a thoroughly funded CIA front and is still active in China. Fact is, at the end of the day, "its the economy, stupid".

The medias are certainly hostile. But I do not think that for the most part it is the result of a strategy, although I would not be surprised if some forces were pushing in that direction. Westerners are simply spontaneously wary of non-democratic governments, it is completely rational for us to not be appreciative of the rise of a 1.6 billion people force, especially with such a different culture, and you can add to this the usual xenophobia. There is no need for a conspiracy to explain our medias' attitude towards China.

Conspiracy or not, they are a threat that must be fended against. And you can be sure that if CIA isn't doing everything they can, they aren't doing their job. They have even reached the point of constantly calling for Chinese citizens to revote against the state. This is simply unacceptable.

But how did it become a sinosphere in the first place? One could say that you simply successed at your colonial enterprise and didn't need/couldn't chew more.

Well, on that you need to study some Chinese history. Believe it or not, most of the sinosphere assimilated willingly, because they see "Chinese culture" as superior, and decided to learn from it. Wars do happen quite often among sino states, but they are mostly for the throne / leadership of "sinodom", but very seldomly fought on cultural divisions (When we do, we are mostly fending off barbarian invasions)
We aren't always saints, but "peaceful assimilation" is a very dominant confusian doctrine.
Last edited by benpenguin on 04 Nov 2014 01:29, edited 2 times in total.
#14483748
Totally agreed: Liberal Democracy is not desirable for China: What China needs is Socialism and Soviet Democracy.

As China's economy and society develop the condtradictions of chinese state capitalism will deepen... And there will either be a second Cultural Revolution to get China back on the road towards socialism, soviet democracy and so on or the chinese workers' state will degenerate and collapse into bourgeois democracy like the USSR did.
#14483859
KlassWar wrote:Totally agreed: Liberal Democracy is not desirable for China: What China needs is Socialism and Soviet Democracy.

As China's economy and society develop the condtradictions of chinese state capitalism will deepen... And there will either be a second Cultural Revolution to get China back on the road towards socialism, soviet democracy and so on or the chinese workers' state will degenerate and collapse into bourgeois democracy like the USSR did.

Well, China will continue to have central planning, but I can't see how it can return to textbook socialism, or how it can benefit from it. Most of us suffered the cultural revolution and won't be eager to see its return.
Anyway, what do you think about Mao's legacy?
#14483935
What I find interesting about Chinese society is that everyone seems out to make a quick buck. If there's profit to be made - however tiny - then someone, somewhere, will be doing it. What I did find surprising, considering China's political ideological system, is the lack of a socialised healthcare system comparable to what we have in Western Europe. If you want decent healthcare here then you have to pay for private westernised care, which obviously 90% of Chinese can't afford.
#14483940
benpenguin wrote:Well, I guess you need to educate yourself on some chinese history then. China is massive country that suffered 2 invasions, 1 civil war and cultural revolution,with a huge improvised, uneducated population and enemies everywhere inside and out - a easy place to develop, really?

Yes, precisely because of this, just like a golden age happened in the West after every war: when an economy is at the bottom the growth can easily be explosive because the path is clear, there are no diminishing returns whatsoever, and everyone is eager to fix the situation and happy to see those changes. Politically it can be difficult to avoid troubles because of the existing problems, but economically it is a piece of cake.

I am not comparing to some backwater African country, I am comparing to the west. Your industrial revolution took 100 years. The dominance of British empire went for some 200 years, which was taken over by the americans. Who reigned supreme for some 100 years and remain unchallenged for 20 years since the collapse of the Soviets. China is not on par with the West yet, but we took only 50 years to come this close. You call that easy?

You cannot compare both: we had to invent all the technologies, all the solutions, we had to gradually refine the technological level of our industry, to gradually amass capital, etc. You, on the other hand, quickly benefited from all of our knowledge, our products, our machines, our technologies, our capital, our solutions, our experiences, etc.

For closer comparison with large developing countries harbouring relatively backward population, see India, Brazil, Saudi, Iran. And none of them went through nearly as many wars as we did and none of them developed as much as we do. Need I say more?

India is a fair comparison and they're poorly administered and suffer from their caste system. Saudi or Iran had too much oil and were too small to ever hope to not be pawns and they're led by backwards regimes, as most of the Muslim world. Brazil was a pawn in the cold war as a neighbor to the USA, as most of South America.

Now what about South Korea or Japan? They managed far better and far earlier transitions than yours despite the division for the former and the military defeat for the other. I could as well mention the four tigers.

But you are talking about ideas You want to see replacements of the ruling class. It already happened. The Tuanpai clique is gradually and peacefully replacing the Shanghai/Crown prince Clique. But I am sure this isn't what you wanted, because it should be legitamately done via elections, yes?

Criticizing something and expressing values is not like telling other people what they should do. Do what you do, I am only interested in the discussion.

I am stating that you are led by an aristocracy and that it is going to worsen and is harming your economy and will harm it further because those people will first defend their interests. You're the one to interpret this as a push towards democracy.

As for the princes being dismissed, isn't Xi Jinping one of them? Aren't they far richer and powerful than they were five years ago?

The ruling class/families stays in power in US too. Do you think it is a coincidence that there are two Bushes and probably very soon two Clintons in the White House? Do you think it is a coincidence that their financial backers and campaign funders are more or less the same group of corporates? And "The people" typically has no choice aside from the Red team or the Blue team, who has the same financial backers anyway?

I already stated that I do not consider the USA to be a democracy. Again the West as a whole is not like that: in many European countries parties are backed by public funds and heirs are quickly dismissed. If you want to look at good democracies, look at Sweden or Norway for example.

The concentration of wealth happens in US as well - even more so than us. See the 1% in wall street, who is also the same financial backers of your political parties, who control hollywood, the media and resource companies and military contractors? Look around you, the west is also ruled by oligarchs. They just don't carry membership cards.

The Gini coefficient is worse in China and rising quickly: it was at the US level in 2000 and raised by 10-20 points since then to become on of the worst in the world. And as I stated earlier, the concentration of wealth within the political power is also incomparable, in a 1:100 ratio despite the fact that China has a far lower GDP per capita.

And this will worsen: China will soon enter the capitalist phase where the distribution always worsen because you already achieved most of individual productivity improvements (studies, transport, urbanization, health, etc) and because growth will slow down which will create a slight unemployment and will encourage capitalists to impoverish their workers to earn more.

Oh yes there is no doubt. Deng said so himself, "Let a small group get rich first." And hell they did. What else can you do?

Deng pleaded for the end of egalitarianism, he did not call for a bunch of people to become aristocratic billionaires that become the country lords thanks to public subsides and laws. 100 people already own 15% of the country and the become richer at thrice the rate of the rest of the country.

I was saying that China must stand united to deal with their problems until it is safe to gradually open up.

But do you think Chinese people will not ask for more individual power and freedom, for elections, for regional autonomy (because the central power is too central and corrupted and does not respect their specificities, and is seen as a bunch of foreign bureaucrats)?

You only talk at the national level, about a choice of societal model. But individuals do not care about this, they consider things at their individual level. And many of them will ask for the right to personally choose their leader and such. And time will only make this matter worse. How will you answer? So far you use violence: as soon as someone call to action to change things, since talks are useless, you send them the police to constrain them through physical force (fees, prison, etc).

Rather than asking what is the best societal model for China, you should ask under which conditions a model should be allowed to use violence. For democracies the answer is: only when the majority of people agree to it.

Fact is, the corporate media is not even remotely interested in telling the truth, they are just interested in giving populist news in the most inciting tone possible to sell as many papers as they can. In my view, they are just state and party propaganda dressed up pretty.

The first statement contradicts the latter and you're again attributing to propaganda what is actually spontaneous. Sure propaganda was used decades ago in the US to increase patriotism, just like in China, but after that the Hollywood writers spontaneously decide that the US army will fight the aliens. They don't have a general or a CEO looking at their scripts from above their shoulders. This is a self-fueling movement: the more patriotic the US society is, the more its movies encourage patriotism, the more stupidly patriotic it becomes. There is no need for the CIA to influence newspapers to give bad news about China.

And, yes, this makes a big difference because the end result is not the same as with a straight propaganda. It makes wonders on foreign policy matters because people are clueless about this and because the "enemy rhetoric" work so well (as you illustrate yourself). But it does not work that well to promote people for example.
#14484999
Harmattan wrote:For democracies the answer is: only when the majority of people agree to it.

That's only half of it.
For it to be "democratic" it has to be "only when the majority of people agree to it and it doesn't violate the rights of minorities or individuals".
#14485007
Sorry for late reply, was a little tired these 2 days.

Yes, precisely because of this, just like a golden age happened in the West after every war: when an economy is at the bottom the growth can easily be explosive because the path is clear, there are no diminishing returns whatsoever, and everyone is eager to fix the situation and happy to see those changes. Politically it can be difficult to avoid troubles because of the existing problems, but economically it is a piece of cake.

Mate, golden ages happen after wars - when you win it quickly without having to fight it on your home. You guys have all your industrial capabilities and specialist populations intact while winning resources colonies overseas to supply yourselves.
As a metaphor, lets say the West has a power level of >9000, while China had 1. You are right that it is absolutely easy to develop China from 1 to 100 just learning bits and pieces from the West, but a totally different thing to go from 100 to 9000. If this is really that easy, every country on earth would have done this by now.

You cannot compare both: we had to invent all the technologies, all the solutions, we had to gradually refine the technological level of our industry, to gradually amass capital, etc. You, on the other hand, quickly benefited from all of our knowledge, our products, our machines, our technologies, our capital, our solutions, our experiences, etc.

You are talking those things like that's all we need to compete against. Firstly, we are a hundred years behind your technology to begin with, and yes, we did learned a lot from the west on that respect. Now how about military encirclement, media attacks, covert operations? How about the military, industrial and economical alliances you built around the world that you are incharge of, where we are being locked out? What about the domination of petrodollars, where you only need to turn on the mint and everybody will need to pay for it?

Fact is, I can go rewind 200 years since the West found the East, the entire Asian peoples are fighting an uphill battle. We have trouble feeding the population and making things stable. Even copying your stuff successfully is a challenge. You know China was backward, you just have no idea how much.

At the root of it, you believe "the West" is the ideal role model which every country in the world should follow, and if they do it well and reasonable enough they will be prosperous. But that cannot be further from the truth. I see that most countries that imitate the West fails miserably. If you follow democracy your elections will be rigged, or discredited if "the west" doesn't like the results. If you allow free media, you will have your public opinion controlled by outside forces richer and more powerful than you. If you follow patent protections, you will never even begin to acquire the capibility of developing your own tech.

In fact, even your history, your policies and your law is perfect for you, it should only be one source of reference for others. Because the laws of the world is set by the top dog, you will never be able to even compete at their level if you abide by those rules. A lot of people never understood that, even in China. I am glad our government has that clear head.

Now what about South Korea or Japan? They managed far better and far earlier transitions than yours despite the division for the former and the military defeat for the other. I could as well mention the four tigers.
Congratulations, you have found 4 countries that has done well, out of the hundreds that failed following "democracy". Did I ever say China was the best run country ever?
Also to be fair, Korea, Japan and "the 4 tigers" have a much smaller and homogenious population, with a lot less wars, and a friendly/neutral relationship with the West (So no need to defend against hostilities so much as China.) I am not discrediting them, and I respect what they have done, but I am just showing you we are not comparing on the same level.
I will give you a country that I believe has elicipsed China in their past achievements, starting on the same absymal state. Russia. Like us, they have all the elements - massive country, heterogenious population, 3 destructive wars fought on homeland and a lot of hostilities to defend against. Against all odds, they caught up with the West in some 20 years, with completely new political system and policies. Although they did collapsed in the end because of flaws in their new, homegrown system which grew their nation from a backwater shithole to a superpower, that was an honest run. Like with the west, we are not going copy, but the soviet model is a much more comparable point of reference.

Criticizing something and expressing values is not like telling other people what they should do. Do what you do, I am only interested in the discussion.

Yes, you are critizing the situation out of your beliefs in democracy and the Western system, understandable. I am simply pointing out the ideas behind. No offense.

I am stating that you are led by an aristocracy and that it is going to worsen and is harming your economy and will harm it further because those people will first defend their interests.
As for the princes being dismissed, isn't Xi Jinping one of them? Aren't they far richer and powerful than they were five years ago?

As I said, we currently want Xi to have power because what he is doing is what China desperately needs. But when he is gone or when China is prosperous and stable enough, the overconcentration of power might become a problem. I don't have a solution yet, but I don't think democracy is the answer because it is far too easily manipulated and unproductive, not to mention unsuitable for current China's situation by points I mentioned numerous times in this thread.

I already stated that I do not consider the USA to be a democracy. Again the West as a whole is not like that: in many European countries parties are backed by public funds and heirs are quickly dismissed. If you want to look at good democracies, look at Sweden or Norway for example.

Well, every good liberal (Not in the US sense), points to Sweden / Norway as a last resort. I would again point out, with a tiny educated population (9.6M Sweden, 5M Norway - half of Chongqing City in total), natural resources, and no wars? You can literally run any system and be happy as a clam. In fact, liberals love to cherry pick the small numbers of "successful democracies", but fail to acknowledge that a lot of failed states run honest, unrigged democracies too. You can't pull a "no true scotsman" everytime democracy is critized.

The Gini coefficient is worse in China and rising quickly: it was at the US level in 2000 and raised by 10-20 points since then to become on of the worst in the world. And as I stated earlier, the concentration of wealth within the political power is also incomparable, in a 1:100 ratio despite the fact that China has a far lower GDP per capita.

Indeed a problem. As I said, during the "development from nothing state", we have to let loose the "unbounded capitalism devil" and try to rein it in later. At the past 50 years, we have little / ineffective measures in place to monitor the capitalists, partly because the party itself is corrupt, but also because nobody knows what regulations and how to put them in place. Truth is, after the cultural revolution, a lot of able (though corrupt) beaucrats from the past dynasites have been killed and displaced, the new communist party class were basically clueless to what they are doing, except amassing money and being a general ass. The reforms and laws that come in the recent decade decade are making much more sense and being a lot more effective, so as of now we are still hopeful. We know our problems, and we are not stopping here being content, and we believe the important thing is that the current administration is taking a lot of meaningful steps.

And again, I know it's getting boring...but installing democracy doesn't seem to solve the problem of unequal distribution in all large economies either .

But do you think Chinese people will not ask for more individual power and freedom, for election

Yes we are, but it is not very high on the priority list, and in fact, we are getting a lot more comparing to the past. The fact that I can discuss this with you on this very forum is proof. Some of the posts here are even being translated and posted on very nationalistic forums too.

for regional autonomy (because the central power is too central and corrupted and does not respect their specificities, and is seen as a bunch of foreign bureaucrats)?

That's a completely different can of worms. I have discussed that thoroughly in a few other posts regarding Tibet and Uighur, but lets leave it there for now.

You only talk at the national level, about a choice of societal model. But individuals do not care about this, they consider things at their individual level. And many of them will ask for the right to personally choose their leader and such.

No, people call for a change of leader when their current one is absolutely intolerable. They call for a change of local policies usually, which is allowed.

And time will only make this matter worse. How will you answer? So far you use violence: as soon as someone call to action to change things, since talks are useless, you send them the police to constrain them through physical force (fees, prison, etc).


That's overgeneralizing, let me break it down.

A. When you are trying to voice an opinion about a particular policy, exposing corruption you could get arrested by local authorities. That is actually considered a judical injustice even in China, and can be blamed on corrupt and inept local law enforcements instead of a systematic policy, and is getting taken very seriously now. There are local bodies that is independent from the local government and reports to the central government to deal with these cases (They accept reports from public), but at the moment the amount of cases is too big and a lot of policies still not in place. It is a societal problem that has to be dealt with, but I agree this can be improved by more transparency. I think the central government is not opposed to using some democratic measures on the local level in the future, and even had a few unsucessful trials in villages and second tier cities. These problems, however, run very deep and unfortunately, they cannot be solved overnight.

B. When what you do is considered a destablizing effort, such as conspiring to overthrow the government, to inspire revolts, or to spread unfavourable rumors, then it is a state policy (rightfully) to shut you down by censorship or even actual arrest depending on severity. The execution is a bit ambiguous, and is annoying at times, but it is gradually loosening up as the government becomes more and more confident of themselves. You would be surprised how some loud mouth public figures are still writing articles against China without getting into trouble, so to speak. Again, there is plenty of room for improvements, but I consider it necessiary to protect the stability that is very important for China right now.

I am not saying it is perfect, but its not a black and white case as protrayed by the West.

Rather than asking what is the best societal model for China, you should ask under which conditions a model should be allowed to use violence. For democracies the answer is: only when the majority of people agree to it.

Uh...Occupy wall street crackdown? Furguson police department? Riot in Greece? Don't pull a "no true scotsman on me"

"Fact is, the corporate media is not even remotely interested in telling the truth, they are just interested in giving populist news in the most inciting tone possible to sell as many papers as they can. In my view, they are just state and party propaganda dressed up pretty."
The first statement contradicts the latter and you're again attributing to propaganda what is actually spontaneous.

1. The fact that they are only interested in giving populist news means that they are not opposed to broadcasting government viewpoints and getting controlled.
2. Sometimes, its not that difficult to tell what's propaganda or what's simply rhetoric. When the media deliberatly makes plenty of outright false facts, and report it across the board in all channels. That's clearly propaganda. For example, I suggest you look up the reporting on the earlier Tibet (called the anti-cnn incident). Also on my earlier reply regarding false massacre by Iraqi ambassador's daughter, and "Syrian observatory of human rights" etc... There are way too many such stuff to call these isolated incidents.
When you are looking at the same event and give it a hostile tint, yes, that's just rhetoric from an opposing position, I dislike it, but I can tolerate that. But when you are making up facts, and deliberating using false pictures, false witnesses, and even film it on your own, that's dishonest and unacceptable propaganda.
I cannot tell you exactly how propaganda made it into your media so successfully and systematically, but it did. For example, there are military media liasons working straight out of civilian media office, and there are way too many incidents that reporters are dismissed by their political standing, or selective and even false reporting completely in compliance of Washington's stance. That's not even close to the whole picture, but it's ugly enough.

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Israel-Palestinian War 2023

Every accusation is a confession Why sexual v[…]