Are we really doing this? Are you really serious? Besides the fact that most of the country is firewalled off from foreign media, and besides the fact that only one political party is allowed, and besides the fact that political prisoners are routinely jailed for nothing more than denying a government narrative, holding mock polls, publishing or assembling (and I don't mean held for a day or two like in the West, but jailed for years)
Can a US citizen go on media, or organize a public protest, in which they call Joe Biden or Donald Trump, bad people, with bad policies? Yes, US citizens can publicly call for the highest level politicians in the land to lose their jobs, and with no real repercussions.
People on social media can scream "Let's Go Brandon" or meme like crazy about Biden. But Weibo, Wechat, Bilibili, Douyin, frequently censor even the most milquetoast sarcastic remarks about the CCP or Xi, including the infamous Baozi and Panda blocks.
Can a famous Chinese public individual/celebrity/intellectual, in China, tell a huge crowd and media, that I think the CCP are horrible and that Xi Jinping needs to be booted from power?
Stop trying to draw false equivalencies.
> I mean, some people believe there are no public elections in China, so…
Sure, where the CCP select and approve the candidates, control the election progress, and there is no free media coverage or transparency free of state control. Practically no real international election monitors. And no direct nationwide elections. Rather, a many levels of indirection process, effectively controlled by a President for life. Let's see what happens at Beidaihe and the 20th national congress in November. Think anything will change? I don't.
There's practical no competing, transparent system in these so called 'democratic elections' making them in effort, a Potemkin village with the veneer of popular will, but in fact, nothing of the sort. There are about 50 individuals in the US congress worth more than $10 million, and not a single one who is a billionaire. Trump was the only billionaire to have office. Meanwhile, there are 100+ CCP members in the Congress who are billionaires.
Does this look like a system chosen by public debate, awareness, and discussion?
For all of the flaws in the Western systems, and there are a vast number, it is really tiring seeing tankies try to say "everything's the same" with zero nuance, as if none of it matters.
>Are we really doing this? Are you really serious?
See, there's your problem: when you realise facts don't match your beliefs, you start "are we really" instead of reconsidering those beliefs.
>Besides the fact that most of the country is firewalled off from foreign media
Foreign media is easily accessible in China using VPN. Meanwhile, Chinese (or non-western in general) media is pretty much entirely unknown in US. It's largely because of language barrier, but not only that.
>and besides the fact that only one political party is allowed
Only until you realise that party is something entirely different from what we in the West call parties. But even if it was similar, it wouldn't be much worse than the American system, where you have two parties that are very closely related and sponsored by the same corporations.
>and besides the fact that political prisoners are routinely jailed for nothing more than denying a government narrative
In US people are routinely killed on the street for nothing more than being black. Seriously though, do you really believe there's no political discourse in China?
>and I don't mean held for a day or two like in the West, but jailed for years
In US you can get jailed for years for literally nothing, simply because it's less risky to give up and go to jail for a shorter sentence than prove your innocence, and prosecutors abuse this all the time. Or for any minor infraction because the three strikes law, which was literally created to get as many people into jails as possible. And let's not forget the forced labor.
>Yes, US citizens can publicly call for the highest level politicians in the land to lose their jobs, and with no real repercussions.
... to those politicians. That's the point: in US you are allowed to say whatever you want, because it doesn't matter; the election system is already rigged, everyone knows that it's not the majority choice that wins elections, and nobody cares - because nobody can do anything about it. Compare this to China, where government officials can actually get convicted and jailed. Chinese prime minister responsible for Tienanmen spent the rest of his life in house arrest. American officials responsible for Kent State shootings, or for the bombing a city block, killing a number of random kids and shooting at survivors, which name escapes me - nobody got prosecuted.
>But Weibo, Wechat, Bilibili, Douyin, frequently censor even the most milquetoast sarcastic remarks about the CCP or Xi
[citation needed]
>Can a famous Chinese public individual/celebrity/intellectual, in China, tell a huge crowd and media, that I think the CCP are horrible and that Xi Jinping needs to be booted from power?
Can a famous US public individual, in US, tell a huge crowd and media that they believe US supreme court and Senate need to be booted from power?
>Sure, where the CCP select and approve the candidates, control the election progress
Exactly like in US; the party nominates various public officials who oversee the elections, not to mention gerrymandering.
>And no direct nationwide elections.
Just like US presidential elections. Although I'm not sure if in China it's legal to corrupt electors; in US it is and it has already happened in the past.
>Think anything will change? I don't.
So, here's the thing: things do change, all the time. If you actually read anything about Chinese political system, you'd noticed that the "old" communist party, the one which stood for Cultural Revolution, has been delegalised. China wouldn't be able to develop order of magnitude faster than US without changes to law. Meanwhile in US you can still land in prison for life just because you're out of luck.
>There's practical no competing, transparent system in these so called 'democratic elections' making them in effort
And here we go again, Americans believing there is no political discourse in other countries, and at the same pretending with straight face that the US is a functional democracy.
>Meanwhile, there are 100+ CCP members in the Congress who are billionaires.
Thank you, that's interesting. Source?
>For all of the flaws in the Western systems, and there are a vast number, it is really tiring seeing tankies try to say "everything's the same" with zero nuance, as if none of it matters.
See, here's the thing: I do understand your point; it was my point of view for the past two decades. Until I realised it just doesn't match observable reality. What you are describing is just prejudice; a colonial mindset based on a combination of racism and ignorance, which is what American exceptionalism boils down to.
Also, we're not talking about "Western systems"; there are many western countries that are proper democracies. But US is not one of them. It's a pseudo-democracy, like China, except it serves corporations, not people. That's why the quality of life in US is dropping, while in China it's skyrocketing. Ever wondered why Americans get so surprised whenever some Chinese oligarch gets into trouble? Or how comes an American court can let a convicted pedophile free because "he wouldn't feel good in a jail", assuming of course he's wealthy enough?
Have you ever wondered why things that doesn't match your state propaganda appear to be a trolling? I'd love to understand why are you doing this: are you bored, uneducated, or just US shill?
I mean, the fact that you're not making sense should be obvious even to you, as you can't provide even a single argument to support your "point of view".
No, what I wonder is why you make a lot of statement like "state propaganda" without knowing which state I live in and without quoting any source. Please prove a/ my state (Germany) is doing propaganda and b/ I am only listening to this propaganda.
Also, you're sentences do not make sense. "Why you are doing this" => what is "this", you forgot to define it.
Meanwhile, China is a country where people live in fear of publicly expressing their opinion, this is well documented. 10s on the web finds this:
Okay, so you’re shilling for somebody else’s country. A bit sad, but it’s not for me to judge.
> Also, you're sentences do not make sense. "Why you are doing this"
That’s your sentence, I just quoted it.
>China is a country where people live in fear of publicly expressing their opinion
Just like the US - you don’t have any protections against an employer firing you for something you said in your free time, because it “goes against company values”.
You’re also mistaking freedom of press with freedom of speech, but again, that’s a minor mistake in this context.
But most of all: you still hadn’t shown any actual data to back your ideas.
In democratic countries they are not, because the society can control the state. In US they pretty much are, because the companies control the state. In particular, in US the company can fire you on the spot, strip you of healthcare, and make sure you won’t be able to find another job simply because you said something - anything - it doesn’t like. And it’s all legal.
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.
Thank you! Indeed that would be a (rather rough) first approximation. It's more complex than that though.
First, I'm not convinced that US is less autocratic than China. European countries of course are, but US is not a functioning democracy anymore; it's corporations who decides how the Congress will vote, not citizens.
Second - I think we might be using a different definition of "corruption". In US many mechanisms that would normally be considered corruption are legal, and thus aren't technically a corruption.
And yeah, would be great to have more reliable numbers for China. I don't think that's due to the "grip"; rather, it's a cultural thing: Chinese don't seem to value openness same way we do. At the same time, China is absurdly huge; I'm not sure we can have reliable numbers for all of the geographical Europe, and China is twice that.
illiac786 already did most of the work, but I just wanted to respond to a few things.
>Foreign media is easily accessible in China using VPN
VPNs not sanctioned by the government (most of them) are officially against the law. It might be easy, but piracy is also easy. That doesn't mean there's no issue with expensive media.
> do you really believe there's no political discourse in China
There is no public political discourse. There is private dinner table discourse. And Chinese people know very well not to criticize the CCP on WeChat or Weibo.
> the election system is already rigged,
No it isn't, that's conspiratorial nonsense.
> Compare this to China, where government officials can actually get convicted and jailed.
> Can a famous US public individual, in US, tell a huge crowd and media that they believe US supreme court and Senate need to be booted from power?
Yes. It's been done many many times.
> Exactly like in US; the party nominates various public officials who oversee the elections, not to mention gerrymandering.
No, not like in the US. In the US, opposing parties appoint opposing monitors. So when people are monitoring the count, you have Democrats and Republicans inspecting ballots together. It is not a single party, it is a competitive adversarial system.
>See, here's the thing: I do understand your point; it was my point of view for the past two decades. Until I realised it just doesn't match observable reality. What you are describing is just prejudice; a colonial mindset based on a combination of racism and ignorance, which is what American exceptionalism boils down to.
Are you Chinese or have you lived in China for an extended period of time? I've been married to a Chinese citizen for 20 years, my extended family is all Chinese, my two children are half Chinese, I speak Mandarin (HSK4-5) and read Hanzi, and I have lived in China, traveled to almost every province, including weeks in Xinjiang. I regularly read Chinese media (Weibo, Xinhua, Bilibili, etc).
I take issue with you attempting to call me a racist, especially since if anything, I have a deep admiration for Chinese culture (which Mao actively tried to destroy BTW)
The problem I see with your viewpoint is that there is no nuance. Anything corrupt is equal, it's all a wash. So whatever specific problems the Chinese system has, you can't criticize them, because your system's problems (which are different in scope and kind) are just as bad. Ergo, if you criticize China you're just ignorant and a racist.
But what if you're capable of criticizing both? I grew up in the ghetto in Baltimore. I lived sandwiched between two crackhouses. My sister died of heroin addiction. My brother in jail. I escaped, became a successful entrepreneur, engineer, and traveled the world.
I have been a life long critic of the US system, of the neo-liberal corpocracy. But I have strong ethics and values around coercion, corruption, and censorship, and I'm not going to just sit by and give the Chinese government a free pass on what I view as a bad autocratic regime. And I can hold that position unironically, while being opposed to US foreign policy adventures, and US corporate lobbying influence that sandbags social democratic problems.
They are two different problems, not the same. And I can tell you from living behind the great firewall, and having grown up in the US ghetto, which problem I'd rather deal with.
What I find ironic, is from your other posts, you apparently support Ukraine in the Ukraine<->Russia conflict, but China actually supports Russia, and Chinese state media parrots endlessly the 'denazification' model in Mainland China, and you see Chinese citizens on Tiktok, Weibo, parroting these claims, that Ukraine is full of nazis.
But nah, having a government in complete control of the national media and what's allowed to be said on tech platforms isn't a problem, right?
To me, if you want to be morally consistent, you have to strongly criticize both systems. You're attempting to deflect and distort criticism of China by making it into a competition/comparison with the US system.
I've only now noticed your response, sorry. Lots of good points, some maybe less good, but I'd like to answer those two:
>I have been a life long critic of the US system, of the neo-liberal corpocracy.
Okay, we're similar in that regard then. However, I don't think we can pretend that US isn't trying to manufacture consent for another war. I also don't think we should ignore the fact that western media present a very single-sided view.
>> Can a famous US public individual, in US, tell a huge crowd and media that they believe US supreme court and Senate need to be booted from power?
>Yes. It's been done many many times.
And for some of those people it ended badly - from being shunned to finding themselves killed in interesting circumstances. (Okay, perhaps not claiming literally those specific two things.)
>What I find ironic, is from your other posts, you apparently support Ukraine in the Ukraine<->Russia conflict, but China actually supports Russia
China and Russia have a common enemy, but the war made them split ways. China has pulled out from all the strategic investments, and is quite religiously following the sanctions. Even Huawei exited the Russian market.
>Chinese state media parrots endlessly the 'denazification' model in Mainland China, and you see Chinese citizens on Tiktok, Weibo, parroting these claims, that Ukraine is full of nazis.
A colleague of mine who is Chinese walked by a protest in China and inadvertently checked his phone. He was interrogated by state police for almost a day during the following weekend.
And a guy in US was harassed by NSA for a YouTube video of his. Look, it’s not that this stuff doesn’t happen in China - rather, it’s also happening in US, you’ve just learned to ignore it.
I mean, some people believe there are no public elections in China, so…