China is a vast, complex, place.
Reducing the issues to right/left, black/white, isn't what we're here for.
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China is a vast, complex, place.
Reducing the issues to right/left, black/white, isn't what we're here for.
The Great Zaganza
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It's not an excuse, it's a psychological effect:
if the cake grows so that most people's slices stay the same in volume whilst another one's slice grows, it feels to the others who are no worse off like something has been taken away from them.
Good example.
We're not all exploiting the world's resources as much as we used to when China was seen as The Yellow Peril by the USA.
We're more intelligently creating ways to use and reuse them. It's been a slow process, and there's a long way to go, but it's scientifically proven.
Delphic Oracle
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The ever-enlightening "elephant chart"
The dirt poorest in the world are still right where they were, but up to 70th percentile all got dramatically less poor. India and China are frequent examples of the peak there (
Then it nosedives into the 80th percentile until the very end (basically the poor and middle classes of the developed world). Then, of course, a dramatic spike for the already affluent.
"Share of growth" instead of "cumulative growth" makes these swings even more volatile.
*Unless in the top 2% or so (but nevermind them, they aren't why you're poor, China is! They terk'r'jerbs!)
So yeah, a big swathe of everyday Joes and Janes got next to no growth while literally everyone but them (and people who have been living rough for over a decade already) had some of that "upward mobility" and ta-da.
Resentment!
ETA: but also, seriously myopic, privileged, and entirely self-deluded resentment.
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The Atheist
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That's a cop-out.
The size of the country and diversity of populace is irrelevant when a central committee runs the place homogenously.
Depends if the issue is black & white, and in the case of China, it is.
Xi is boss for life, and he's continually tightening the grip of the CCP over the population. They're rewriting history as we type. In another generation no Chinese person under 30 will know that Genghis Khan conquered the country, that Uighurs are muslin Chinese, or that Honkers used to be British.
This story certainly appears to be real: https://metro.co.uk/2018/06/27/drug...ed-immediately-front-school-children-7665476/
Here's the Chinese version, including video, and there are definitely schoolkids there: http://v.hinews.cn/page-1329629.html
Is that the action of a sane regime? Looks very black and white to me.
Mader Levap
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Not cop-out. Just sad attempt of apologia for totalitarian dictatorship without being laughed out of room on spot.
The Atheist
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And just to balance the scales a little - China isn't entirely bad, and nor is totalitarianism.
In some things, having a totalitarian regime works well - Covid, for instance. If China's response had been as pathetic as America's, they'd have 15 million dead about now, instead of the paltry 4000, which were all right at the start.
Another example is how China refuses to accept monopolistic practices. Alibaba getting too much power?
Smack!
Meanwhile, how are the anti-trust cases going in USA?
No system is bad of itself - the people cause the problems, and as I mentioned before, Acton's Law has a greater chance of success in a dictatorship.
In some things, having a totalitarian regime works well - Covid, for instance. If China's response had been as pathetic as America's, they'd have 15 million dead about now, instead of the paltry 4000, which were all right at the start.
Another example is how China refuses to accept monopolistic practices. Alibaba getting too much power?
Smack!
Meanwhile, how are the anti-trust cases going in USA?
No system is bad of itself - the people cause the problems, and as I mentioned before, Acton's Law has a greater chance of success in a dictatorship.
Another attempt to bully me for starting a thread when there wasn't one about China and for trying to address both sides.
I made a short reply above to a short post.
Thanks The Atheist, for going into more detail about the good and the bad.
It didn't show that the students saw the shootings. The prisoners were walked away into divvy vans.
But it's shocking that students who appear to be middle school age are taken to see the prisoners just before they die.
These days executions we see more about them because of the world of Twitter and Trump pardoning them.
"Amnesty International claims that Mainland China executes more people than all other countries combined,[9] though if China's very large population is taken into account, the number of executions per capita is comparable to Vietnam and Thailand, and much lower than several countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United States.[10] The exact numbers of executions, and death sentences, are considered a state secret by China, and not publicly available.[11] According to the Dui Hua Foundation, a U.S.-based organization, the estimated number of executions has declined steadily in the twenty-first century, from 12,000 each year to supposedly 2,400.[12]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_China
Nothing about capital punishment is sane.
Can't see anyone either immediately executed or school kids.
Looks like just a few drug dealers being the face the camera.
Maybe they got executed later, but can't tell as I don't speak cantonese.
Not that it really matters as apparently like a lot of countries it looks like drug dealers end up dead.
Bad luck and that, but who cares.
Taiwan offers a great model for how China could have developed as a country if the communists had not taken over: it would hardly have been a perfect (or even guaranteed) transition from poor authoritarian developing country to a modern developed liberal democracy, but at least it would be a whole lot better than anything that the communists would do.
Just like with Lenin and the Soviet Union, Mao and his successors set China back a many decades by in effect entrenching the worst regressive authoritarian and illiberal tendencies of the regimes that they replaced. There's no need to balance the "good" they did with the "bad" simply because they don't depend on each-other.
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Minoosh
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Here's where I think is at the root of Western fear of China. In Europe, the US, Australia etc. people grow up believing that their prosperity is directly tied to Western values such as respect for individual rights. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion etc. China doesn't have any of that but it has industrialized rapidly and raised living standards. So what does that tell the West about its origin myths?
When the CCP wants to build a hydroelectric dam they don't need to worry about the consent of the governed, or do environmental studies or buy property. They just do it. Displaced people will be told where to live next and what sort of job they'll be doing. Historically and at present the emphasis has always been on doing what's said to be good for the collective. Of course China is a huge diverse place and you will find all kinds of interesting people there and some are wise to the ways of the government. But policy is to throttle any democratic reform in the cradle. No, you can't be that religion. No, you can't say that. No, you can't read about that. Mostly people just accept it.
If it's possible to have a high standard of living without having any of the freedoms we've had in the West, you begin to wonder whether freedom has any intrinsic value. If people's needs are met just as well without all the Bill of Rights rigamarole, perhaps honoring individual rights is foolish. Perhaps we should put our faith in a small group of elites who will decide what's best for everybody. That appears to be where the planet is headed these days with the rise of authoritarian governments. Western minds will balk - we respect individual rights because it's the right thing to do and we believe it makes our countries stronger. What if it makes us weaker? We'll be easy pickings for those who wield power more ruthlessly.
When the CCP wants to build a hydroelectric dam they don't need to worry about the consent of the governed, or do environmental studies or buy property. They just do it. Displaced people will be told where to live next and what sort of job they'll be doing. Historically and at present the emphasis has always been on doing what's said to be good for the collective. Of course China is a huge diverse place and you will find all kinds of interesting people there and some are wise to the ways of the government. But policy is to throttle any democratic reform in the cradle. No, you can't be that religion. No, you can't say that. No, you can't read about that. Mostly people just accept it.
If it's possible to have a high standard of living without having any of the freedoms we've had in the West, you begin to wonder whether freedom has any intrinsic value. If people's needs are met just as well without all the Bill of Rights rigamarole, perhaps honoring individual rights is foolish. Perhaps we should put our faith in a small group of elites who will decide what's best for everybody. That appears to be where the planet is headed these days with the rise of authoritarian governments. Western minds will balk - we respect individual rights because it's the right thing to do and we believe it makes our countries stronger. What if it makes us weaker? We'll be easy pickings for those who wield power more ruthlessly.
Meanwhile they at least in appearance seem to give a **** more about global warming in comparison to the US.
Minoosh
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China is a very old country that has managed to sustain itself for centuries with most arable land under constant cultivation. Nothing was wasted. People just didn't have enough stuff to waste. Night soil provided fertilizer, old clothes were made into shoes, etc. I'm sure that has changed with consumer culture.
China has as big stake in lowering greenhouse gases; they live on the same planet as everyone else. And their top-down government can issue more directives limiting emissions. They still burn a lot of dirty coal though.
They also want to sell the rest of the world their solar panels etc.
MRC_Hans
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Right. I get so tired when people insist on seeing even semi-complex systems in black and white (and of course implying that they own the definition of what is black and white). It gets even worse when they claim that everyone who doesn't buy into their interpretation is actively endorsing the opposite color.
And China is not just complex. China is arguably the most complex nation on the planet.
Hans
Doesn't really moot my point.
The Atheist
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Could not agree more.
It doesn't show our species in great light.
The story was in English as well. It appears to be true.
Minoosh
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I wasn't trying to moot it. I mean what I say about China and sustainability. But it's a simple fact that it's easier to modify behavior there than it is in the West. If you're raised to believe the government knows best, you are more willing to accept top-down directives. If you believe free human beings generate superior solutions, you're less inclined to accept that the government knows best.
dudalb
Penultimate Amazing
And you can say the same about any country...certainly applies to Nazi Germany.
The real joke is that China is not a Socialist Country despite the Government's rhetoric...The CCP had been sescribed as a CINO party..Communist in Name Only.
And that that mass murderer Mao is still held up as some kind of God should tell you something.