The Chinese press has gone super soft on Trump in the last few months, and they rarely talk about his discontentment at home. But that isn't much evidence, of course.
My comment on robustness is a bit tongue and cheek. Democracy provides pressure valves via elections (vs. brittle revolutions), so is a bit more stable than an autocracy, while American government provides further stability via separation of powers and checks and balances. I honestly think we will be ok with Trump, he can't do too much damage on his own, well, except for that whole nuclear football thing.
I hate to say it but the Chinese Regime actually looks more fit to govern than Trumps administration...now some might take that as a blow against democracy, but I'd rather think of it as "With great freedom comes great responsibility"
Democracy didn't fail, America did...
Efficiency is the opposite of robustness. Autocracies always appear stable until suddenly they don't anymore and break apart or fail in some other way. While democracies seem inefficient and at times quite volatile, they are significantly more robust and can adapt better to changes down the road.
Modern China, so far, has only really experienced a fairly homogeneous historical phase, which is one primarily driven by economic growth. They haven't been forced to deal with major societal issues, in my opinion it's simply too early to judge just how robust that government and state is going to be in the long-run.
We have a competent Chinese Trump today in the form of xi jinping - the difference being instead of being limited to merely separating children the children of Other from their Parents and throwing them in jail, Jinping is directing the wholesale imprisonment and "reeducation" of entire religions, and occasionally just taking their organs from them.
I'll take a democratically elected trump that is gone in at most 8 years over the now irremovable xi jinping.
So yes, democracy is unilaterally the better option for China.
As a Chinese person, I totally understand that Chinese culture is not ok with tyranny. China's rise to riches can only be done with the efficiencies of a dictatorship. In order to understand China, you must understand China's poverty and shame from foreign rule.
With China's new digital surveillance system, it will be pretty hard to overthrow any dictator. China's control on news and media will ensure loyalty from a large percentage of the population. People who were critical of China's initial Covid response were silenced. Some disappeared. I guarantee you many people of Wuhan did not think that there was prosperity and justice.
Western democracy is being tested but I think the United States constitution is holding up pretty well. Today's Supreme Court ruling was 7-2 against Trump, with both justices nominated by Trump voting against Trump. The Supreme Court is focused on being impartial, so the navigated a ruling that will only release Trump's tax returns after the election.
"We reaffirm that principle today and hold that the President is neither absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas seeking his private papers nor entitled to a heightened standard of need." - Justice Roberts
The Supreme Court, 9-0 affirmed that the President is not above the law. This ruling will be executed on up and down the government chain. Trump wants to build a wall but he can't. Trump wants to deport DACA immigrants and he can't. While Trump did accomplish a lot for Republicans, the most egregious actions were prevented. Ultimately, Trump's damage can be limited and contained.
I agree that the US does not know how to handle foreign interference through social media. Trump seems like he's allowing it to happen. I'm reserving judgement till the next president gets involved. I also agree that Iran sanctions from Trump is criminal.
Ultimately, no system is perfect. United states and Western democracies are designed to limit the damage, which in turn can limit upsides. Dictatorships are efficient but can easily run afoul. The hope is that we can all choose the system we prefer.
Yep, as long as a "strong, smart" dictator is in power things can move along fine, but the second he shows cracks in his armor plate all the people he has fucked over, berated, imprisoned are waiting in the wings to take him down, and then you get instability. That's one reason China was able to survive. Although it's an authoritarian one-party country, the CCP was smart enough to eject the leader every so many years, they threw away that advantage with Xi and declared him dictator for life. Democracies are messy, but they can also be self-correcting by not letting power aggregate for too long around one cult of personality.
It'll take too much time to talk in details. Democracy in general in better than totalitarian in general, i don't disagree with that. However, establishing American democracy in China at this moment, most likely won't bring anything good or solve any problems China is facing now. And it's dangerous: If a presidential candidate say "Elect me and we'll take Taiwan back by force", the most likely outcome is that he'll get a shit ton of votes for that stance.
So I think I'm getting your point slowly. It's not that China is great but rather you think the US are deeply corrupt.
It's a valid point to think autocracy is better than corruption.
I disagree on the level of corruption in the US I think, as far as I understood you. I do not deny there is corruption though.
I would be interested in knowing the level of corruption in China but I think the autocratic grip on the press is too strong to have any valuable data.
I agree that China will eventually become a democratic country, but that will even make it stronger, not weaker. China is just getting started, so they're far from collapsing.
And they're very proactive in handling their issues. I do agree with you that history moves into cycles - some of the most most powerful entities that were at least in part democracies (athens, poland, etc..) were bested by absolutist regimes , which afterwards were overcome by democracies themselves.
Top-down approach doesn't always work, but did wonders for them for the past 30 years. Meanwhile members of the British working class have voted for Brexit to protect their interests (good for them), and US might follow soon with Trump. How confident were they in things getting better compared with the Chinese?
Two things give me some hope.
1. I don't think totalitarianism lends itself to economic prosperity, long term. Sure, the right authoritarian can move much faster and implement beneficial changes much more quickly than a democratic government can. But that knife cuts both ways.
2. The entire government system in China, and it's culture, heavily values stability and collective unity (hence it's desire to squash and eliminate anything that may lead to extreme reaction or departure from consensus).
But this will lead to calcification, or, if the dictator changes too much or is too heavy handed, instability is inevitable, which leads me to think that the dictator will be changed out.
Ultimately, I think that the power of any society is in the hands of the citizens, and that Chinese culture is extremely pragmatic. They may be able to be kept peaceful for a bit, but if progress starts stagnating or even reversing, changes will happen.
I don't know about that. What makes China's political situation difficult is that the control and censorship they impose on their people is easier to justify when the economic fortunes of the average Chinese person has risen for decades. "Why complain? Life is getting better!"
Authoritarianism is a lot less appealing when the ruling party doesn't deliver.
In the US there is a sense that the political system is certainly influenced by corporations, lobbying groups, HNI, foreign actors, etc. but generally we are to blame for electing idiots as president. We did this to ourselves.
I was in Shanghai last year and can confirm that China is far more authoritarian than even the US under Trump. Cameras every 400 Meters on the street, digital ads showing photos of debtors,etc. Great food, architecture, and ancient culture though. Overall made me appreciate the 'freedom' of the US a lot more, since I've been pretty bearish since 2016
There are advantages to the efficiency of authoritarian power, but how do they handle peaceful transition of power? How do they handle abuse?
A lot of democratic stability comes from it being hard to change things quickly, separation of power, and the existence of a lot free speech so it's hard to cover things up. Ultimately, with a dependence on the people.
I could be persuaded that there are better ways to structure things within that, if a lot of thought was put into how to handle a tyrant's rise and how to handle a transition of power. I probably could not be persuaded that limits on speech and government censorship are good long-term for the health of a society that I'd want to actually live in. I think it's a good thing for governments to ultimately be accountable to their people.
I generally agree with the sentiment that elected leaders fear getting voted out, while dictators fear getting dragged out. The ability to vote seems important for long term stability.
In China's case, it seems they've done away with terms entirely for Xi. Speech and dissent is tightly (and violently) controlled, and even when there's just potential for future dissent, entire groups are put into camps to destroy their culture to supposedly reduce that risk.
The west has problems too, but there's a reason people emmigrate out to countries that are more free when they're allowed to.
Enormous economic growth and strategic planning have allowed their people to accept this abuse for now, though the party should be worried if that ever changes.
I think it’s very important to point out here that historically speaking, no autocracy has ever outperformed the democratic West on any economic or military measure over the long term. There have been periods where it seemed like managed economies were on the rise (see even the USSR during the 1950s and 60s) but this growth tailed off due to, in many cases, serious unforced errors that the autocratic political system couldn’t address. There are a lot of possible explanations for this, but the obvious one is that democracies can course-correct. We get plenty of bad leaders as well, but in the long term we replace them. Autocratic nations can have great leadership sometimes, but they can also get stuck with Mao for decades. All evidence seems to indicate that China is reverting away from a period of dynamic leadership and moving back to a period where party officials are chosen based on loyalty to one aging man, rather than their competence. Speaks to bad things ahead for China, maybe for all of us too.
Any given political systems works well in some cases, and poorly in others. American representative democracy works when the country is relatively unified on issues, but falls apart when the population is polarized (hence the lack of meaningful legislation since the Clean Air Act under Nixon). Authoritarianism works well when the ruling cohort is benevolent and technocratic, but falls apart when corruption, incompetence, or political instability take hold (various Chinese and Russian leaders fit the bill here).
All this is to say, things are complicated. The standard of living for hundreds of millions of people in China has increased unimaginably since Deng’s time: the middle class is still exploding, infrastructure is immaculate, pollution is improving, and global opportunities for middle class Chinese are opening dramatically. But at the same time, Xi’s tightening of power, the burgeoning surveillance state, the brutality being perpetrated in Xinjiang and Tibet, and the ongoing censorship are extremely troubling. Maybe things will change, and the population will grow extremely discontent. Maybe quality of life will continue to increase rapidly, China will become the dominant global superpower, and people will laud Xi as a visionary for decades to come. It’s just tough to say.
Its good when the government is democratically elected. When its more autocratic like the direction Xi is taking the CCP is just means one power has less challengers which opens the door to catastrophic failure and thoughtless cruelty when the autocratic ruler errs (see the Donbas region today).
The challenge the west has is keeping its democratic institutions strong enough to stand up to wall street, the challenge China has is having anything to oppose the tight grip of the CCP.
My comment on robustness is a bit tongue and cheek. Democracy provides pressure valves via elections (vs. brittle revolutions), so is a bit more stable than an autocracy, while American government provides further stability via separation of powers and checks and balances. I honestly think we will be ok with Trump, he can't do too much damage on his own, well, except for that whole nuclear football thing.
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