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Look guys. The people have spoken, why don’t you just accept the people of China’s choice to have a government they chose themselves from the long list of over 0 opposition politicians that are allowed to run in the country? It could not be clearer with the censored media, disappeared persons who criticized the government and curated internet that the people of China have been given a fair chance to decide for themselves what government they want. Also, if anyone is dissatisfied with the government they are free to leave China with the strict exit visas and targeting of the families still in China of overseas Chinese immigrants, should they speak out against the CCP.
We had general elections here yesterday. It was an embarrassing popularity contest type of election campaign, infested with left vs right rhetoric. Really, morons from a zillion parties on TV, each trying to steal voices from the others. It was a disgrace.
Seems the Socialist party won by a landslide, in all states except for the island of Madeira. It obtained an absolute majority by a few delegates and can now rule as it pleases, because even if all other parties coordinated their voting in parliament (which they certainly won't), they could not overrule the Socialist party. So, about 45% of the population will in effect not be present in politics for the next four years.
Having said that, a system without an opposition can work, if it is based on compromises reached by everyone in a single large representative pool of people coming from all walks of life, ethnic groups etc.
The whole idea that there must be an opposition and politics must be some sort of ideological war is absurd.
I suppose you could characterize the Chinese economic system as state sponsored capitalism with an iron fist. Entrepreneurs can create huge international business enterprises as long as they don’t criticize or overshadow the party elite or become blatantly corrupt.
The Soviet style Communism is a failure. All have become dictator countries. The economies become marginal. Cuba being one example.
The China economy is slowly imploding. The China national debt is massive. Foreign companies are leaving China. Xi Jinping has made himself Dictator for Life. All of the media in China is controlled by the CCP government. Information from China itself is dubious at best. China has massive unemployment yet there is not a word in Chinese for unemployment. So unemployment in China is never mentioned in China itself.
Throw in Covid. Throw in the Olympics. Study the Uyghur culture. And a financial disaster in the making. And possibly not just China. But possibly the whole world.
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Cuba is doing ok, and it would be doing even better if the US stopped trying to destroy it.
China's national debt in 2021 was 55% of its GDP. Sure, that's more than Russia's 14%, but much less than the US' 106%, not to mention Japan with over 200%. Some real estate companies are in trouble, but those are not too big to fail.
Xi is not anything for life. Afaik, only the limit of terms was removed, but he still has to be reelected again and again. Merkel lead Germany for 4 consecutive terms and could even have continued if she had wanted to.
Some companies are leaving China, while others are going there. It is a constant come and go. Not to mention that there are lots of Chinese companies being added every year.
Unemployment is Shīyè in Mandarin, according to translation robots and Wiki.
What about Covid? What about the Olympics? What about Uyghur culture?
I suppose you could characterize the Chinese economic system as state sponsored capitalism with an iron fist. Entrepreneurs can create huge international business enterprises as long as they don’t criticize or overshadow the party elite or become blatantly corrupt.
They can criticize the government, but not the way Ma did. That is not just considered unacceptable in China, but also in other Asian countries.
If someone wants to improve things (after all, there is no point in criticizing when improvement is not the goal; the whole notion of just wanting to tell someone they suck in your view is not Asian), they need to do it from within the system.
In the USA anyway.
Truman was a shoe salesman.
Eisenhower was a army general.
Kennedy came from a wealty family.
Johnson was a school teacher.
Nixon was a flunky.
Ford was, well Ford.
Carter was a peanut farmer.
Reagan was a movie star.
Bush 1 was the CIA director.
Clinton was, well Clinton.
Bush 2 was a basebal owner.
Obama was a social worker.
Trump was a bankrupt landlord.
Only fair to point out the CCP didn't come into power until 1949. Prior to that China was ruled by a monarchy, war lords, foreign countries, and corrupt dictators. It's quite an impressive achievement, considering the only other countries to experience similar levels of growth, were U.S. interest subservient or dependent nations.
Also, to be fair, every country is ruled by elites to some degree. When is the last time the U.S. had a president that wasn't either wealthy or came from a top prestigious school? Most of the time it's both. I understand we get more influence over our system; we get to pick between elites. Appears to be human nature that any society will eventually end up ruled by an elite class. Now who constitutes the ruling elites varies by government type. If it is a theocracy's, it will be the clergy for example. In unchecked capitalism it's businessmen.
Half of the world is US "subservient" and the rest tend to be dirt poor or subservient to some dictatorship, so it doesn't make sense to exclude countries dependent on the USA.
Taking that into account, China's growth since 1949 is nothing spectacular compared to other countries like Japan, Korea and Taiwan. And the Western world was so far ahead after WW2 that they couldn't see the same percentage rise, but in dollars, they have increased significantly more than even the richest provinces. China does look considerably better if we look at growth after 1980, but then you have to admit that the CCP held China back during the first 30 years.
The USAs democracy is flawed, it only has two parties who are heavily bought out by special interest. It is not without reason that the USA is ranked at 25 as a flawed democracy in the democracy index. Among countries that rank higher like Norway, New Zealand and Switzerland it is not like that. The people in power might be elites, but they have to serve the people. If they ignore the will of their voters, their party will lose voters. In China they can choose to be benevolent, but they don't have to.
In the USA anyway.
Truman was a shoe salesman.
Eisenhower was a army general.
Kennedy came from a wealty family.
Johnson was a school teacher.
Nixon was a flunky.
Ford was, well Ford.
Carter was a peanut farmer.
Reagan was a movie star.
Bush 1 was the CIA director.
Clinton was, well Clinton.
Bush 2 was a basebal owner.
Obama was a social worker.
Trump was a bankrupt landlord.
So all the guys listed were at one point businessmen, lawyers, Generals, or celebrity. They may have pivoted to something else before their run in politics but their money and connections were established beforehand. Wasn't Donald Trump the richest president ever. I'll give you Truman, but then again he became president by accident. I'm not saying the U.S. can't or hasn't produced common folk presidents, but is just a rare occurrence, especially in recent years. The fact remains, that without the blessing of the elites (their money and connections), they don't stand a chance of taking office.
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