
China is spending billions on soft power - matteuan
http://www.economist.com/news/china/21719508-can-money-buy-sort-thing-china-spending-billions-make-world-love-it
======
nacc
I spent almost equal amount of my life in China / North America now, it's
interesting to see and compare what one side think about the other.

In north America, what I get is China is controlled by dictators. Life sucks
over there because there is no freedom, a lot of corruption, no respect to
rules, and is generally a chaotic mess. While in north America, democracy and
freedom is wonderful, and everyone has the power to make changes of society,
and in the end the government has to care about people to stay in power.

In China, what I get is the US (Canada is usually less discussed) is
controlled by a corrupt and impotent government. Life sucks over there because
the majority of the people, who actually has the power, believes the
doublespeak of the government and are easily manipulated by the wealth. While
in China, people make jokes about the official media, and if the government
decides to do something people don't like, people simply ignore it and with
enough people (there is always enough people in China) doing this, the
government has to care about people's opinion to do anything.

I'm a little worried about the situation of both sides now. They seem to go
towards what the opposite believes: on one hand in China, the government
starts to get better at propaganda and manipulating public opinion; on the
other hand in the States ... there is enough happening in the past year.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
Most of the Chinese people I know in the US are well educated programmers.
They are not true believers in the Chinese Govt supremacy and wonderfulness.
But then probably most people are not that well educated, just like the us.
China is a large country and will have many diverse opinions, just like the
US. I don't meet that many people in the us who are unthinking believers in
the supremacy of our country or believe we are special and god loves us. But
if you look at a trump rally, or listen to members of congress speak, its like
they are from a different planet.

------
Blahah
Paywalled article, so hope this is relevant.

Here in Kenya, infrastructure investment by the Kenyan government is very
poor. Whatever money gets theoretically assigned to things like building and
maintenance of roads and the power and water grids usually goes missing at
various stages until the final project, if implemented at all, is shoddy.

Enter China, who have been directly funding infrastructure here. They are
managing the supply chain and personnel themselves, and it's having a huge
effect. Beautiful roads have sprung up around Nairobi in the last year
especially, built using modern techniques and quality materials.

One can't help but wonder what concessions the Chinese government will
eventually come looking for in return, because it's pretty certain that the
debt will never be repaid in money.

~~~
alphonsegaston
A friend of mine spent a few years working in a few different places in
Africa. He said that the impression of the locals was that the Chinese are the
new colonizers, full stop. The labor conditions and treatment of African
workers on Chinese run projects was really bad, and the out-and-out racism by
the Chinese was crazy.

~~~
molikto
[https://www.quora.com/Is-China-colonizing-Asia-and-
Africa/an...](https://www.quora.com/Is-China-colonizing-Asia-and-
Africa/answer/Robin-Daverman?srid=o11a)

~~~
leesalminen
Case in point... that read like propaganda to me.

~~~
mazerackham
are you serious? It's crazy to see point blank the effects of western
brainwashing on people. Open your eyes. What China is doing is nowhere close
to colonization

~~~
leesalminen
How would you characterize what's happening in Africa with regards to China?
Am genuinely curious.

~~~
CossieRay
This is highly anecdotal and based on personal (and professional) experience
here in Kenya. Though the Chinese have been present in the country for a
while, their signature project was the Thika Superhighway (2009-2012). This
captured the imagination of everyone from citizens to the government. Since
then, virtually all the major infrastructure projects have been undertaken by
Chinese contractors that have set camp in the country. Their model of
financing (through grants and ‘cheap’ loans), designing and building has
ensured Chinese firms have an upper hand compared to local contractors. This
has pushed many local contractors out of business and consequently rendered
majority of local young engineers highly unemployed. Generally, there is a
quiet uneasiness with the dominance of the Chinese in the infrastructure arena
but as it stands; they’re having a field day here in Kenya. I’m convinced this
is playing out in many other African countries.

~~~
hasenj
Were there really any local engineers? If so, why haven't they built anything
before the arrival of China?

~~~
nindalf
If you're a civil engineer in Kenya you can't simply create an infrastructure
startup and build the country. Such a business requires many skills not
related to engineering, for starters. You need to know which wheels to grease
in government and how. You need to have appreciable investment to fund your
equipment. You need to have reliable supervisors who won't steal and will keep
the work on schedule. You can't simply start up, get funded and move fast
while breaking things.

According to the Kenyan resident in the thread , it was corruption that was
stymiying progress. That's something that Chinese contractors have bypassed.

------
Animats
There's a soft power war going on in Asia. Korea has a major effort to make
K-pop a major cultural influence. Korean drama has become an export. In
response, Japan has the Cool Japan Fund [1], funded by the Government and some
of the big banks. They now run the largest anime translation operation, and a
large anime site, "daisuki.net".

(Somebody should propose to the Cool Japan Fund that they do something to make
Japanese technology more visible in Silicon Valley. Everybody here thinks
Shentzen, not Tsukuba.)

[1] [https://www.cj-fund.co.jp/en/](https://www.cj-fund.co.jp/en/)

~~~
jansho
Yeah I remember when Japan was hot (manga/anime) then it was S Korea (Haliu
wave), at least in South East Asia. But the soft power war is not so clear cut
though. Like Viki streams mostly K-dramas but it's owned by Japanese company
Rakuten.

China on the other hand is definitely playing that game. Like only last month
they banned most imported children's picture books, especially from SK and
Japan, and they've pumped a lot of money into their content industry to match
their nationalistic agenda and S Korea's. Hollywood seems to be helping too :)

~~~
Animats
China is getting better at this, but it's not going well. Too many Chinese
movies are period pieces, fantasies, or are not set in China, because the
censorship on present-day topics is strict. China's movie censorship is
explicit; at the beginning of a movie you'll see the golden dragon logo of the
censorship authority. This limits the topics of movies.

There are feature films produced directly by the People's Liberation Army,
such as "Sky Fighters". This is the Chinese version of "Top Gun". It's not
very good, because the entertainment takes second place to the propaganda.
It's possible to do a good feature film which is also propaganda; "Strategic
Air Command" with Jimmy Stewart is one such. But China isn't there yet.

~~~
jansho
Hmm. I know that propaganda and originality don't go well together, but
strangely I've always felt that Chinese cinema got it right. I may be biased
as I come from an Asian family. For sure they're different from Western
cinema, most notably it's usually less cynical and multifaceted, and more
linear and nationalistic. But there's such an adventurous spirit (those
martial arts sequences help!) that I can look past all that. Perhaps because
I'm Asian too, those anti-colonial sentiments are also more easily related.

But I don't know, maybe their creative machine really is running out of steam.
I haven't really watch much recently (currently on a Scandi kick!) But I do
recommend you to explore the classics like Once Upon a Time in China and
Infernal Affairs.

------
ajross
It's a digression (because honestly the fact that China markets itself is not
hugely notable, nor "bad" or "good" no matter how effective or ineffective it
might be), but:

Toward the bottom of this article is a favorability chart of China in
different nations. And there is a huge crater (like 37% to 5%) in Chinese
support among the Japanese between 2011-2013. Other nationalities see a little
blip, but nothing like this.

What happened between China and Japan in 2011? I'm genuinely ignorant.

~~~
gommm
There was also the anti-Japanese riots in China in 2012. I was in Shanghai at
the time and a lot of my Japanese friends living there were very worried. Some
of them went back to Japan for a few weeks to wait for things to calm down...

And yes the LDP does not help things with their racist nationalist discourse.
They tend to use foreigners as a scapegoat responsible for all problems Japan
has... (Abe Shinzo might not be as bad as Trump but only just..)

~~~
wodenokoto
Just to add to this, the anti-Japanese riots in China were a really big deal:

The Japanese Embassy advised Japanese people in Nanjing to stay in door.

Japanese clothing store "Uniqlo" temporarily closed all stores, and covered
store windows with giant Chinese flags and removed/hid other visible branding
for fear of rioters razing the stores.

Some stores around Nanjing would even give you a discount if you yelled "I
hate Japan"

It was and unbelievable situation.

------
diego_moita
Smart move, the path is wide open for China.

The most remembered phrase of the orange demagogue inaugural address was
"America first, always". As a non-American I'd argue that "me first" are words
that a leader should never say, even when it is what he always believed.

I might start learning Mandarin, someday.

~~~
david-given
I've heard it's a pretty straightforward language --- every syllable is a word
in its own right, and multisyllable words are compound words[ * ]; and that
the grammar is supposed to be really straightforward, at least for English
speakers, with no inflection, SVO sentence order, limited tenses, and
sentences made from gluing words together.

Unfortunately every written tutorial I've found seems heavily focused around
ideograms, which I find completely impossible, so I don't know what it's like
in practice. Can any beginner learners comment?

(It's also a tonal language, which I am completely unable to pronounce
intelligibly. On a trip to Beijing a few years ago I tried to learn a few
basic phrases, like 'hello', 'please', 'thankyou', etc. Ha ha fat chance.)

[ * ] It can be interesting to use Google Translate to turn an English word
into Mandarin, then insert newlines between each ideogram and reverse
translate it to see what it is literally. 'Grammar' is 语法, which is 'language
law'...

~~~
foldr
>every syllable is a word in its own right, and multisyllable words are
compound words[

This is an artifact of the writing system. Mandarin Chinese has multisyllabic
words in exactly the same way that e.g. English does.

[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3330](http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3330)

~~~
nneonneo
Despite the article's enthusiasm for polysyllabic characters, these remain
_exceedingly_ rare in day-to-day use, whereas polysyllabic words in English
are basically unavoidable. There's no equivalence here.

The writing system remains very strongly monosyllabic, in that one character
corresponds to one syllable >99% of the time.

~~~
foldr
The point I was referring to is that the words are not all monosyllabic. The
existence or nonexistence of multisyllabic characters is irrelevant. Character
!= word.

[https://www.jstor.org/stable/595185?seq=1](https://www.jstor.org/stable/595185?seq=1)

~~~
nneonneo
Ah, I see. I was confused because you linked to a LanguageLog article
specifically about _polysyllabic characters_. Yes, indeed, "compound words" as
mentioned by the GP post are just plain words that are composed of multiple
characters.

~~~
foldr
Yes, I should have explained that I was just referring to the examples of
multisyllabic words at the beginning of the post, sorry.

~~~
david-given
I don't really follow here. One of the examples of a multisyllabic word given
is fēijī, 飛機, 'aeroplane'. But this breaks down into 'fly machine', which is a
classic example of a compound word.

Later on it talks about 'library', túshūguǎn, or 'picture book museum'
(according to the dictionary I just found). Again a compound word, and one
which raises fascinating questions about whether they had museums before they
had libraries. The article says that it can be written as a single character,
圕, or as multiple characters, 图书馆, but surely that's just an artifact of the
writing scheme?

~~~
foldr
The meaning of the compound words isn't predictable in general -- a library is
not in fact a picture book museum. And remember that many multisyllabic words
in English are composed of morphemes with a distinct meaning, with varying
levels of compositionality. E.g. we would not say that "airport" is two words
just because its meaning has something vaguely to do with the meanings of
"air" and "port", or that "return" is two words because it can be split into
"re" and "turn" (again with each component contributing some element of its
usual meaning). But of course, you can imagine a parallel universe where the
orthographic conventions of English are such that we write "air-port" and "re-
turn", and such combinations are referred to as "compound words".

As far as I can see I'm not saying anything controversial here. As the article
I liked to earlier points out, there are at most a few thousand distinct
syllables in Mandarin Chinese, and it would be absurd to suggest that Chinese
is limited to a vocabulary of a few thousand words.

~~~
david-given
Do you have any examples of multisyllable words in Mandarin which _don 't_
break down like this? I have yet to find one.

Note that just because a word is a compound word doesn't mean it's not a word.
A compound word has a meaning which is distinct from the sum of its parts;
otherwise it wouldn't be used. But the meaning of a picture book museum, or
fly machine, or language law, though, is still quite clear. But a library has
nothing to do with lies or bras, and the last syllable isn't even a valid
word.

('Airport's not a good example in English because it actually _is_ a compound
word. Contrast with 'sea port'.)

~~~
foldr
>A compound word has a meaning which is distinct from the sum of its parts

Right. That's the point. This clearly shows that Chinese has multisyllabic
words.

And yes, there are plenty of examples of compounds with meanings that have
nothing to do with their components, e.g.:

[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%8A%B1%E7%94%9F](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%8A%B1%E7%94%9F)

But of course, if you already have the preconception that the parts of a
compound word are independently meaningful, it's easy to tell yourself some
kind of story about how they actually do contribute something to the meaning
of the whole. Similarly, there are cranks who insist that particular non-
morphemic sound sequences in English carry an independent meaning.

It really is amazing how confused people can get by orthography. Chinese has
words composed of multiple syllables whose parts are not independently
meaningful. Period. Again, this is information that's available all over the
place, e.g.:

[http://www.101languages.net/chinese/morphology.html](http://www.101languages.net/chinese/morphology.html)

Or from Wikipedia:

>The number of sounds in the different spoken dialects varies, but in general
there has been a tendency to a reduction in sounds from Middle Chinese. The
Mandarin dialects in particular have experienced a dramatic decrease in sounds
and so have far more multisyllabic words than most other spoken varieties. The
total number of syllables in some varieties is therefore only about a
thousand, including tonal variation, which is only about an eighth as many as
English.[b]

Or here:

[http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/message-
details1.cfm?asklin...](http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/message-
details1.cfm?asklingid=200365409)

~~~
david-given
> Right. That's the point. This clearly shows that Chinese has multisyllabic
> words.

...but I never said it didn't.

I think you're trying to respond to a different argument than the one I'm
making. I'm not trying to say that Chinese only has single-syllable words. I'm
saying that it has multisyllable words made up out of single syllable words
--- that's what compound words _are_. All the examples you've given are
clearly compound words, including 'flower born' (which I'll admit is not
_very_ like a peanut).

The article you just linked to uses jī as an example of a word which is only
used to make up compound words. But they're still compound words. jī has a
meaning of its own (well --- several meanings, depending on context). You glue
it together with another word to produce a compound word with additional
meaning. That's pretty much the definition of a compound word.

I don't know where you're going here --- sorry.

~~~
foldr
>But they're still compound words.

Only in an orthographic sense. For example, the linguist list post that I
linked to talks about the bound morpheme -zi. This is written using the
character which in classical Chinese was the word for 'child'. But clearly
there's no sense in which 'zhuozi' (table) is a "compound word" containing the
word for child. It's just that since the final syllable of the word happens to
be pronounced the same way as the classical Chinese word for child, it's
written using that character. This is a purely orthographic fact. And in fact
'zi' cannot be used by itself as a noun in modern Chinese (except in a few
fixed idioms).

It's as if English (a) was written like (b):

(a) I realize that.

(b) I real eyes that.

And we then said that 'realize' is a compound word made up of the monosyllabic
words 'real' and 'eyes' (which of course "have a different meaning depending
on the context").

------
hasenj
I wonder how much Japan spends on that front, or if it's even official state
policy to make the world love it.

~~~
tvanantwerp
Where I live in DC, there are plenty of Japanese cultural events that I'm
confident are funded in part by their government. My wife studies Chado, an
intricate Japanese tea ceremony, and the cost-per-lesson is ridiculously low.
No way they could charge so little if they weren't being subsidized from
somewhere.

------
chillacy
> Since 2004 China has established some 500 government-funded “Confucius
> Institutes” in 140 countries. These offer language classes, host dance
> troupes and teach Chinese cooking.

Sounds like a state-run version of Alliance Française (which is a nonprofit).
I think that'll be really cool: China has a really old history and culture
(the latter part wrecked with the rise of communism). The only thing though is
that China should be prepared for increased immigration (it tends to happen
when you go out and teach your language and culture, and your home country is
a nicer place to live).

~~~
ralfd
In the city Guangzhou there is a "Little Africa" of African immigrant workers.
Though CNN has an article from last year, that they leave China again, as
China has "hostile immigration policies, widespread racism, and at-once
slowing and maturing economy":

[http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/26/asia/africans-leaving-
guan...](http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/26/asia/africans-leaving-guangzhou-
china/)

> Over the past 18 months, although concrete numbers are hard to come by,
> hundreds -- perhaps even thousands -- of Africans are believed by locals and
> researchers to have exited Guangzhou.

------
obstinate
This is going to sound flippant, but I mean it very seriously. This is a
_much_ better way to spend money than spending billions to make the world hate
you.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
You have your numbers wrong.

The US does spend... Well, hundreds of billions on making the world love US.

The actual problem is two-fold:

1\. We spend _trillions_ on making them hate the US.

2\. We aren't actually very efficient with the hundreds of billions we spend
on making them love the US. It's spent on short-sighted projects that often
transparently benefit the US at the cost of the locals. To some degree, this
is getting better with leadership from eg, The Gates Foundation, but we could
wield our economic power much more efficiently.

These problems stem from a fundamental lack of leadership in the US: the US
population are emotional-high junkies who are led by a bunch of spineless,
selfish people. This is crippling the US, at home and abroad, because we are
unable to do anything but lurch between emotional highs, are unable to have an
actual vision for the future (and make reasonable plans to see it through),
and are unable to wield our power effectively.

The US is trapped in short-term optimization thinking because of the junky
behavior of its population.

~~~
herbst
What kind of efforts are you talking a out? From my perspective the hate
against the US. is only growing with barely anything holding against that.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
The US spends huge amounts on food, medicine, and development aid -- 32
billion a year in economic investments (as opposed to military, which is
another 10 billion a year).

Since 9/11, the US has probably spent around 500 billion on helping countries
develop, fighting famines, curing diseases, etc. We've just also spent
something like 3 or 4 trillion on ineffective and damaging wars, spy programs,
etc.

My point is that we're spending the money on goodwill already, we'rr just
undermining it with other actions and not spending it effectively.

~~~
herbst
I guess that is why this happens totally unnoticed to many other western
countries, if you cut it down to percentage on national income this is nothing
compared to anyone else. On that scale United Arab Emirates did 6 times as
much as the U.S.

[https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-
professionals...](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-
professionals-network/2015/sep/09/foreign-aid-which-countries-are-the-most-
generous)

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
I'm sorry, I don't understand your point.

Could you explain?

~~~
herbst
I was wondering which affords the U.S. makes to be more loved in world. Your
example is something that obviously nobody speaks about in other western
countries as it is way less they contribute on a %/countries income factor
than anyone else.

Nearly every country does a lot of foreign aid, the U.S. just happens to be
one of those who do less than others so that surely does not help their global
image.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
Everyone I've ever spoken to who was serious about foreign aid and development
spending was aware of the US, because they spend much more thab those nations
by dollars.

I think you're just making a tangential nationalist dig, because this tangent
has nothing to do with the US a) getting recognized for their work in poor
countries (they do) or b) being able to use their money more effectively
(which is what I was talking about).

------
neves
The difference between a communist and a capitalist society. With Hollywood,
the USA _profits_ billions to make the world love it. :-)

~~~
prodmerc
I mean, China does have an active movie industry, as well. Along with Hong
Kong, which many just collate with China heh

India has Bollywood.

Both have garnered quite a following in the West thanks to that.

~~~
gragas
I almost burst out laughing. China and India are nowhere close to the US movie
industry's influence around the world.

------
KaoruAoiShiho
It's not nearly enough, it needs to be trillions for it to catch up to
America.

------
shimon_e
Dear China,

No need to spend billions. Just don't cancel my flight one week before I
depart and everything will be fine!!! :[

------
kitschshrine
so China is

\- lead by a billionnaire dictator and son of veteran communist party member,
who has shown to purge his enemies, jail innocents/reporters without trial,
disappear others. He oppresses the will of hong kongers to self govern, and
acts like a crybaby whenever Taiwan, a self-governing democracy, does anything
political

\- controlled by a "congress" of billionnaires, who work together to exploit
workers for pennies on the dollar, turn a blind eye to deadly air
pollution/water pollution/poisonous food in favor of money, and when in
danger, flees to Australia/Canada/US with billions

\- member in WTO, but never abides by any of the rules. Foreign companies are
forced to give up tech, partner with locals, suffer 30% import tax, and
eventually, leave due to unfairness. And other countries loses
factories/jobs/communities. Internet companies are sometimes banned outright.

Of course China needs to spend billions spreading its false/hateful messages
via its 50cents army on reddit, facebook, etc. It has a cruel and evil
authoritarian dictatorship, that if unchecked, will swallow the world

~~~
yomly
Let's take a look at America:

They spy on you, regardless of if you live in the country or not, committing
global espionage[0][1]

They do not observe human rights when imprisoning you [2][3]

They are happy to bomb civilians using automated robots in the name of freedom
and enlisting you to their brand of freedom[4]

They are happy to arm terrorists then assassinate them when they are no longer
relevant to their cause[5]

They will wage illegal wars when it is convenient for them[6]

They were happy to obliterate people's homes to conduct nuclear tests in the
name of freedom[7]

They institutionally protect the interests of the people with the most access
to wealth[8]

They have elected a narcissistic nepotistic sexist bigot for their president,
and do not have free healthcare [no citations necessary]

I'm not here to spark a tally of which country has committed more atrocities
or which country is better - the world is simply a dirty place, and to this
day, humans are still as capable of committing human on human sin.

China is no doubt guilty of many crimes too but I find China bashing by other
countries reeking of hypocrisy and evidence that our own nations' propaganda
machines are well oiled and in full-throttle.

The victor writes history.

[0]
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/08/wikile...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/08/wikileaks-
revelations-intelligence-services-using-home-devices-to-watch-citizens)

[1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/08/wikile...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/08/wikileaks-
revelations-intelligence-services-using-home-devices-to-watch-citizens)

[2]
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/10/23/marion_prison_lo...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/10/23/marion_prison_lockdown_thomas_silverstein_how_a_1983_murder_created_america.html)

[3]
[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/guantanamo-...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/guantanamo-
bay-why-was-it-set-up-what-are-the-controversies-and-why-is-obama-looking-to-
close-the-a6891516.html)

[4] [https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-
oba...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-obama-
administrations-drone-strike-dissembling/473541/)

[5][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_assistance_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_assistance_to_Osama_bin_Laden)

[6][http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chilcot-
report...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chilcot-report-john-
prescott-says-tony-blair-led-uk-into-illegal-war-in-iraq-a7129106.html)

[7][https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/06/marshall-
islan...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/06/marshall-islands-
nuclear-arms-lawsuit-thrown-out-by-uns-top-court)

[8][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13925858](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13925858)

EDIT: added an additional point

~~~
jldugger
We can (and should) complain about this, but the sins of another do not
dismiss your own.

~~~
yomly
Yeah - as I said, I'm not saying China is without sin. I just find China
bashing to really be nothing more than an exercise of "pulling the ladder up".
Europe was perfectly happy colonising the world in its heyday, as was America
in the past. Now that they've entrenched their position in the world, suddenly
it's not ok when other people are trying to climb the ladder.

~~~
jahnu
You are implying that China _must_ behave this way in order to become a
developed country and then they can adjust to modern standards. Seems silly to
me.

------
tehabe
It would be cheaper to open up the country, introduce a democratic system and
actual human rights, and abolish the death penality. Make peace with Tibet,
agree with Taiwan on a good neighborhood. Support a democratic change also in
North Korea.

These would actually make China a country I could support, but currently: no,
thank you.

~~~
mazerackham
this is such a prototypical example of utter western bullshit. Likely near
zero understanding of politics, just grew up with the words "democracy" being
shoved into your ears repeatedly.

Do you really believe that China's 1.3 billion people would be better off if
the country just switched itself to American styled "democracy"? Look at who
our democracy just elected.

~~~
tehabe
I prefer a western democracy over an easter dictatorship any day.

And only because the US democracy is going the way of Poland and Hungary and
it is close to fail in Turkey doesn't mean it will fail everywhere.

Taiwan has a democracy, South Korea just ousted their president because of
allegation that she is corrupt.

