This is how downvoting ruin any nuanced discussion on China.
China is very complex. By sheer number it should be 4X more complex than US. Not mentioning many other internal issues.
For example, Chinese people are very diverse in their understanding of the world. And intellectual level in China is very low compared to modernized countries. That makes the management and ruling a lot trickier than US. One often cannot argue reasonably with some random peasant if he/she happen to not educated. My father used to fight with me, when I told him that his was investing in some ponzi scheme. And he ended up losing ~40% of his lifetime saving. He just cannot believe in such thing as blatantly bad, as he has some faith in the society in a way that is rooted in 50-60s idealized period when he was growing up.
People here often do not allow nuanced discussions. Any comparison in favor of China to US or other western nations is implicitly labeled "whataboutism".
The sad thing is that, HN is already the best I could find...
To me, authoritarian regimes look much more plain, simple, and strightforward in their motivation, unlike civil societies with their tricky political maneuvering. Xi's mind is an open book in comparison to deciphering a fuzzy collective thought ethos of any democratically appointed cabinet.
When I told my classmates in 2012 that China is going back to revert back into "redness," unless the remnants of pre-reform China would be decisively proactively stomped out, people laughed me out.
Now, almost 8 years later, those people call me out on facebook how in the world I saw it.
I did not change the explanation: the most ruthless, militant, and headstrong faction in the party cannot be expected just to give up, no matter how much political castration they suffer.
People to whom killing tens of millions is an acceptable price to stay in power, will not be scared of breaking some toothless legal regulations.
Getting more power is a raison d'etre for such people, they will never give up on seizing power peacefully for as long as they live.
>Xi's mind is an open book in comparison to deciphering a fuzzy collective thought ethos of any democratically appointed cabinet.
You can't possibly think that xi is ruling by himself like a God.
Dictatorships have just as much of a fickle, constantly changing hivemind as any other form of government. you might just have one ever running party, but look inside and you'll see a complex network of factions.
There are 91 million people in the party, and more who want in. Getting party membership is a big part of getting ahead. (Edit: It's not a hivemind is what I'm saying here.)
> Edit: It's not a hivemind is what I'm saying here.
Perhaps I didn't use the best term, but it seems you're saying the same thing I did? My point was precisely that the actions of the party as a whole aren't collective actions directed by a single person's mind (xi's) but rather the sum of all the party members ideas and political movements, so it's just as complex as a democracy.
No one needs party membership to do anything in private sectors...
Why the hell people still think about Chinese live like party farmed animals. For God's sake, get on YouTube search some Chinese speaking videos by normal people.
You are so echchambered that I start pitying you...
I think you misunderstood me here, I was trying to emphasize how big and varied the party's interests are. People often frame it like a singleminded machine.
I don't live there but I've heard a lot of people say that party membership is useful, not necessary mind you, for lots of business endeavors.
There's a whole other conversation about the differences in representation between the two countries, and I think China's system has some points in it's favor as far as "does this government act on behalf of it's people", but I was just trying to phrase things in a way that would get through to the typical HN reader.
So how do you describe a hundred thousand people in a stadium saluting a flag? Or a squad of US soldiers tearing down a statue or posing with a corpse?
China is very complex. By sheer number it should be 4X more complex than US. Not mentioning many other internal issues.
For example, Chinese people are very diverse in their understanding of the world. And intellectual level in China is very low compared to modernized countries. That makes the management and ruling a lot trickier than US. One often cannot argue reasonably with some random peasant if he/she happen to not educated. My father used to fight with me, when I told him that his was investing in some ponzi scheme. And he ended up losing ~40% of his lifetime saving. He just cannot believe in such thing as blatantly bad, as he has some faith in the society in a way that is rooted in 50-60s idealized period when he was growing up.
People here often do not allow nuanced discussions. Any comparison in favor of China to US or other western nations is implicitly labeled "whataboutism".
The sad thing is that, HN is already the best I could find...