Atlantis wrote:What I said previously is that, with a democratic regime...
Yep, exactly my position.
I don’t believe that Chinese administration is as efficient as you think. The basis of the country’s prosperity is quite clearly the natural industriousness of its people. As long as the will of the people to enrich themselves is not suppressed, as under Mao, it will always surface no matter what the government does. Thus, the merit of the government is that its governance does not prevent the people from enriching themselves.
Yes and no. Many trends that happened recently has been inititated and encouraged by the government traced back to the last 2 administrations, but only came to blossom recently. For example, they are encoraging inventment in higher education, research, encouraging innovation, building up special "tech zones" etc for the last decade, driven by government projects such as space exploration and HSR, in preparation of rising labour costs and the withering of low end manufacturing; diplomatically they built alliances in preparation of greater Asian integration alongside with said HSR, which was also built to ease the tension between discrepancies between city cluster vs rural development... just a few examples among the vast number of contributions made by the government. These achievements wouldn't have been possible without the industriousness of Chinese people, but it definitely didn't "just happened" naturally.
In fact, the more reading I did the more I understand that each generation of Chinese leadership played a very different, but significant roles in the development of China. Despite all the flaws, I have lots of respect with their contributions.
The western media tend to focus on bad things or non-issues in China, but chose to completely ignore the actual strategies and visions for the future (No matter good or bad) of the Chinese government itself. That in fact is doing themselves a huge disservice when China surprise the world in more and more things, and the West need to keep making up excuses of why it happened and how it wouldn't work, and then go back to more China bashing instead of actually responding to competition or catching on opportunities.
Likewise with corruption, I don’t believe there is any desire to root out corruption. Campaigns against corruption are often politically motivated. If the policy of a political faction in the CCP deviates from what the leadership wants, then they dig up the dirt on the faction leaders. And since nobody is completely free of corruption, they’ll always find something.
Usually when the government cracks down on corruption, there's an internet joke that goes like this: "The government is seriously cracking down on corruption recently...Oh, so they were just dicking around the last few times?" Except that this time, people are much, much less sceptical to the government's sincerity, because of a lot of noticable things:
1. Nightclubs, Karokes, expansive restaurants are losing lots and lots of business. Alcohol, tobacco and luxury good sales are down. Application to government jobs are halfed.
2. Top officials are being taken down (We are talking minister level), not just scapegoats. Tons of regional officials and smaller guys as well. The prosecution extends to the entire corruption circles including banksters and coal barons and there is still no sign that the effort is going to stop (Rumor has it another big guy is going down this year). This has never happened before in such a scale.
3. The media is reporting corrution cases alongside social networks, which many of them gets acted upon.
4. They are tracing corrupt officials overseas as well, arranging extradiction back to China. The government no longer accept any more officials who has any family members and personal fortunes outside china, as an enforced law. They are pushing for another law that requires all party officials to disclose their own personal fortunes to the public as a price to gain public office - which is meeting a lot of expected resistance.
5. The media are actually saying that they are facing a difficult fight, describe how serious and widespread the corruption is, and that how there has been lots of pushbacks...before they just say they have punished how many officials and then claim victory.
There is always the objective of taking out rivals which I am certainly aware - many of the top officials taken out is of the crown prince clique and shanghai clique (Which is more of an "old boys club"), and it actually isn't a bad thing. Those guys had been holding wayyy too much power and is threatening reforms in many areas. They need to go. Political correctness aside, why not two birds in one stone? The old "greed is good" economic development phase is over. China is developed and it's now time to rein things in. The leadership knows it, and this is certainly an excellent time to do it.
In the absence of an open democratic society and a free press, social problems are typically covered up until things get so bad that cover up becomes impossible. For example, SARS would not have become a problem if Chinese authorities hadn’t covered it up for months.
Sadly, yes. But I think this has changed gradually, because the government is more confident with their own ability to handle crisis - there is always a learning curve I guess.
Patents have nothing to do with democracy...
Actually, I was quoting myself from another thread and that was in response to something else...anyway, you speak my mind here.
Regarding democratic decision making versus central decision making
Actually regarding your environmental protection example, China is also putting in lots of effort now to combat pollution due to societal pressure. I think the reason that it got much worse than Germany before it got looked at is because of the lack of education and short-sightedness with the entire Chinese peoples, not just the government. I would argue it wouldn't be any better with democracy.
In fact, the "Chinese model" had been about trying to achieve the desired effect of a democracy without actually having a democratic institution with all its flaws. Afterall, remember that "voting" and "democracy" is a vehicle to reach a set of political goals, but it must not be confused with the end goal itself.
expert advice from industry and economists
That's exactly what the Chinese government is doing. Industry experts are very highly regarded in China and is fundamental in their decision making processes - in fact, many of our top officials have a very strong technical background. For example, Hu Jintao held a masters degree in engineering from Qinghua University. Discussions by academics and with open society is also very much encouraged...On a side note, I just realized that's why they suck so bad at propaganda.
They are engineers, not marketing people.
What you suggested here in fact contradicts democracy. In an actual democracy, the commoner's views must also be respected equally even in areas that they have entirely no expertise of, and it creates scenarios where politicans with charisma instead of know-how is elected. In China, politicians are elected only among elites (With all the flaws of elite rule, of cause) so politicians will be likely to really know what they are really supposed to do (including things like cronyism) - because the elite circles know each other much better than the general populace.
There is no limit to freedom of speech in this regard at all - the restiction and censorship is mostly on incitement and indecency. So long as you are not calling for a revolt, challenging government authority, or showing tits, you are very much encouraged to give your view.
Chinese government has many characteristics of a technocracy. And as with Asian societies, intellectuals and academics are highly regarded, but much less the general populace.
Society changes, politics changes, no ideology should remain stationary.