
How the West Got China Wrong - sampo
https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21737517-it-bet-china-would-head-towards-democracy-and-market-economy-gamble-has-failed-how
======
wz1000
"I think today the world is asking for a real alternative. Would you like to
live in a world where the only alternative is either anglo-saxon neoliberalism
or Chinese-Singaporean capitalism with Asian values?

I claim if we do nothing we will gradually approach a kind of a new type of
authoritarian society. Here I see the world historical importance of what is
happening today in China. Until now there was one good argument for
capitalism: sooner or later it brought a demand for democracy...

What I'm afraid of is with this capitalism with Asian values, we get a
capitalism much more efficient and dynamic than our western capitalism. But I
don't share the hope of my liberal friends - give them ten years, [and there
will be] another Tiananmen Square demonstration - no, the marriage between
capitalism and democracy is over." \- Slavoj Zizek

~~~
ekianjo
> one good argument for capitalism: sooner or later it brought a demand for
> democracy...

Nope, capitalism is an economic system, not to be confounded with other types
of Freedom. Capitalism is the ability of freely trade private property, among
other things. In the West we tend to think it goes hand in hand with Freedom
of Speech, Freedom of Press and other liberties, but it does not have to.
However, if Individual Freedom is the goal of your political system, then you
will have Capitalism as well (the US is a good case since the constitution is
clearly about the ultimate protection of individual liberties, even before the
State).

~~~
coldtea
> _Nope, capitalism is an economic system, not to be confounded with other
> types of Freedom. Capitalism is the ability of freely trade private
> property, among other things. In the West we tend to think it goes hand in
> hand with Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Press and other liberties, but it
> does not have to._

Exactly -- and all this obscures how those things came to be: with fierce
struggle from the lower classes (workers, women, blacks, etc.) in most cases,
handed over to the patricians of the state in others (e.g. US Declaration of
Independence and so on) and spread more widely later. Not from the system for
running the economy.

Heck, Hayek, for one, a champion of capitalism, was in bed with Pinochet.

And one of the things western countries did when they entered capitalism, was
to conquer and enslave 2/3rds of the world in their colonies. So much for
democracy.

~~~
ekianjo
> Heck, Hayek, for one, a champion of capitalism, was in bed with Pinochet.

Where? Hayek said basically that there was more freedom under Pinochet than
under Allende, which is not the same thing as being a supporter of Pinochet.

> Hayek: More recently I have not been able to find a single person even in
> much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater
> under Pinochet than it had been under Allende.

~~~
coldtea
> _Where? Hayek said basically that there was more freedom under Pinochet than
> under Allende, which is not the same thing as being a supporter of
> Pinochet._

Even if he had just said that, it would have been enough to make him a
supporter -- considering that he said that for a fascist junta leader that
overthrew a democratically elected leader, and is responsible for thousands of
executions, and tons of torture and violence. There was just no redeeming
quality.

But Hayek went much further: [http://crookedtimber.org/2013/06/25/the-hayek-
pinochet-conne...](http://crookedtimber.org/2013/06/25/the-hayek-pinochet-
connection-a-second-reply-to-my-critics/)

~~~
ekianjo
> Allende democratically elected

Note that the election was far from being "the majority of electors" and
heavily disputed at the time:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende#1970_election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende#1970_election)

Let's not pretend Allende represented the population of Chile at large,
please.

Hoover report on before and after Allende:
[https://www.hoover.org/research/what-pinochet-did-
chile](https://www.hoover.org/research/what-pinochet-did-chile)

> In 1970, Allende won 36.2 percent of the popular vote, less than the 38.6
> percent he had taken in 1964 and only 1.3 percent more than the runner-up.
> According to the constitution, the legislature could have given the
> presidency to either of the top two candidates. It chose Allende only after
> he pledged explicitly to abide by the constitution. “A few months later,”
> Whelan reports, “Allende told fellow leftist Regis Debray that he never
> actually intended to abide by those commitments but signed just to finally
> become president.” In legislative and other elections over the next three
> years, Allende and his Popular Unity (UP) coalition, dominated by the
> Communist and Socialist parties, never won a majority, much less a mandate,
> in any election. Still Allende tried to “transition” (his term) Chile into a
> Marxist-Leninist economic, social, and political system.

and

> Many on the left had long believed that capitalism and democracy were
> incompatible. In a brazen demonstration of its contempt for majority wishes,
> and for the institutions of what it called “bourgeois democracy,” the pro-
> Allende newspaper Puro Chile reported the results of the March 1973
> legislative elections with this headline: “The People, 43%. The Mummies,
> 55%.” This attitude and the actions that followed from it galvanized the
> center-left and right, whose candidates had received almost two-thirds of
> the votes in the 1970 election, against Allende. On August 22, 1973, the
> Chamber of Deputies, whose members had been elected just five months
> earlier, voted 81–47 that Allende’s regime had systematically “destroyed
> essential elements of institutionality and of the state of law.” (The
> Supreme Court had earlier condemned the Allende government’s repeated
> violations of court orders and judicial procedures.) Less than three weeks
> later, the military, led by newly appointed army commander in chief
> Pinochet, overthrew the government. The coup was supported by Allende’s
> presidential predecessor, Eduardo Frei Montalva; by Patricio Aylwin, the
> first democratically elected president after democracy was restored in 1990;
> and by an overwhelming majority of the Chilean people. Cuba and the United
> States were actively involved on opposite sides, but the main players were
> always Chilean.

~~~
icebraining
So what? Winning with just a plurality is not uncommon in democracies all
over, since when does that make him not democratically elected? Hell, even the
US - whose system is designed to only have two candidates - managed to have
two Presidents elected without an absolute majority in the the past twenty
years.

~~~
ekianjo
> On August 22, 1973, the Chamber of Deputies, whose members had been elected
> just five months earlier, voted 81–47 that Allende’s regime had
> systematically “destroyed essential elements of institutionality and of the
> state of law.”

The actual democratic representation was against him by 1973, That's what's
important.

~~~
icebraining
So was Congress against Obama (they even sued him!), does that make him not
democratically elected? Democratic bodies in conflict are common, and mean
nothing.

It's telling that the text you quoted has zero actual facts against him, only
reports of vague accusations. The name for that is "character assassination".

~~~
ekianjo
The point is that at the time of the coup d'etat most of his former allies
were against him. That's far from the picture usually painted in books and the
mass media of a popular leader loved by his people suddenly betrayed by an
evil military force.

> only reports of vague accusations.

Where vague accusations? The economic situation of Chile during his regime
went from bad to worse and his directives were directly responsible for it (as
proven countless times in countries where the same policies were adopted).
Check out the wikipedia page on the economy of Chile during his years.

~~~
icebraining
_The point is that at the time of the coup d 'etat most of his former allies
were against him._

You contested the claim that he was democratically elected. I don't see how
this is relevant to that claim.

In any case, I don't see evidence that his former allies were against him.
Congress wasn't his ally, and besides - as the text you quoted says - there
was an election in between, so they weren't all the same people. His allies
were the UP, and as far as I can tell, they still supported him.

Finally, losing support from your allies means nothing. That happen just five
years ago in my Western European country, and it might happen again soon. It's
an expected development in a country with a diverse polity.

 _Where vague accusations?_

"destroyed essential elements of institutionality" and such.

 _The economic situation of Chile_

Which might make him a bad President, but still a democratically-elected one,
which was the point being argued.

------
anvandare
The great mistake was in thinking "liberal western-style democracies" were the
natural end-state of human societies, and that all states are historically
determined to reach this point sooner or later. That the West was both
Exceptional and Normal at the same time. This was pride.

Then there were those who didn't care about the human rights issue and just
wanted to make money, who thought they could use China as a massive cheap
factory forever. Never thinking (or caring) that China could one day surpass
us and turn the tables. This was greed.

~~~
dlwdlw
The tone of article also implies (and I think is true) that the west
views/viewed China from a position of moral authority. Like a parent being
disappointed in a kid because it should know better. Culturally this leads to
to the idea of "punishment" or reinforcing the parents idea of quality.

The issue is that countries see each other as equals and the punishment trick
can't be easily used when nuclear weapons are involved.

Should we dehumanize those who dehumanize others? I don't think so. The US for
a very long time has grown in a moral authority that is overreaching and over
simplistic in it's definition of humanity. The only way to break cycles of
hate is to show that there is a better way, not through the
domination/punishment lens.

We're all products of rape and murder. To see rape and murder and not remember
our past is to bask in cultural wealth wondering why everyone else is so poor.

~~~
Certhas
Plus of course that the West in general and the US in particular are standing
on shaky ground when making any moral argument.

I believe that on the balance the systems as currently in place are relatively
moral. Especially compared to historic precedent (also compare Russias war in
Syria to the US wars, having to convince a domestic audience that you're the
good guy puts real constraint on the use of military power). But the level of
immoral behavior even just focusing on past WWII/Post-colonial times is still
staggering and easy to point towards for others.

"He may be a bastard, but he's our bastard."

------
cmplxconjugate
I think a common flaw in these kinds of bold statements is the use of the
phrase “The West”. There exists a multitude of different nations, each with
different political structures and vastly different social opinions but, most
importantly, different national objectives vested in China.

The idea that business from the USA, UK, and, other nations in the West all
“wanted democracy” is blatantly not true. They wanted profit and success via
the penetration of a huge potential market. Democracy? No, fair treatment.

The idea that the general public wanted a democracy in China is silly also.
Most people are exposed to a very warped viewpoint of China, and I would
argue, all people want is that their nation remains great, their jobs remain
stable and their economic future is secure. Most average people I speak to
(UK) still ask if if people eat dog meat and proclaim China is communist.

The strongest case for “wanting democracy” is most likely in the political
sphere for western nations. The strength of cooperative democratic governments
is weakened when an outside nation is playing by its own rules, gaining
advantages that members could be envious of.

Having lived in China and having Chinese as my second language, I find recent
events deeply troubling. The recent US-Taiwan travel agreement and new
campaign for a referendum vote for independence on the 6th April is just
adding to the anxiety. It’s an uncertain time, but I certainly agree that
clear and hard rulings need to be made to ensure fairness between trading
nations.

~~~
not_kurt_godel
> ask if if people eat dog meat

If southern China is anything like northern Vietnam, which I have been led to
believe it is, then dog meat consumption is widespread - I have seen it with
my own eyes. According to Wikipedia, 20 million dogs are killed in China for
consumption per year:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat#Mainland_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat#Mainland_China)
Most people, including myself, find the idea of eating dog meat abhorrent, and
yet it is a cultural norm in China.

10,000 people were killed in Tiananmen Square in 1989, and many of them were
deliberately squished into mush by tanks. The thought of that happening in the
West is beyond the scope of my imagination. Chinese people live in a world of
brutal, ruthless dictatorship that will literally grind them to mush under
tank treads by the thousands if they protest. To act as if finding that
supremely unappealing and objectionable is "warped" is delusional.

~~~
AlexandrB
> Most people, including myself, find the idea of eating dog meat abhorrent,
> and yet it is a cultural norm in China.

Have you ever asked yourself why? Pigs are roughly comprable to dogs in
intelligence[1], yet we eat them by the millions. There is little ethical
distinction here - instead purely a cultural one.

[1]
[http://animalstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...](http://animalstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1042&context=acwp_asie)

~~~
opportune
I got curious to try horse meat in the US recently, only to find that it's
essentially banned from consumption throughout the entire country, through a
combination of local laws and congress defunding horsemeat inspection (making
it impossible for horse meat to satisfy USDA requirements). I understand
banning dog meat, to an extent, considering I would never eat it - although I
agree that others should be allowed to. But horses?

To my surprise it seems that horses in the US still become food at some point.
They first have to be shipped to Mexico, where it is legal to slaughter and
butcher them for meat, but not to consume them. The meat is shipped to Asia
and Europe where the consumption is acceptable and legal.

The commonly cited reason behind horse meat being illegal is that horses are
given drugs throughout their lives that may make their meat unfit for
consumption. Yet there are no provisions for consuming horse meat that is
raised like normal livestock. Indeed, whenever horse meat becomes an issue in
the US, activists take action, which lends credence to the idea that the ban
is more moralistic than a regular safety precaution.

The idiotic part is that this doesn't prevent horses from being slaughtered
and eaten. Instead, horses are shipped thousands of miles to Mexico, where
many die due to the heat on the journey, before being slaughtered anyway. All
I wanted was to try what I've read described as "like very lean beef"

~~~
herbst
In Europe you find cheap American horse meat on the counter sometimes. It's
far cheaper than local alternatives and i honestly never tried it to compare.
Horse meat generally isn't bad. Not my favorite but a steak done by a pro is
definitly a new taste experience that's worth it.

I totally think that this 'eat animal' 'pet animal' thinking is beyond stupid
and only shows how limited we humans think.

------
mark_l_watson
Great article, makes me glad I now subscribe to the economist. It is
interesting how elites in China use a different method of population control
than the elites in the USA. Here, a well run propaganda machine comprised of
MSNBC and Fox News effectively split the US population into two factions that
disrespect each other and thus can’t cooperate while our freedoms, economic
and political, are reduced. In China, they use a dictatorship that is
effective enough in providing a good lifestyle so mostly young people there
don’t complain too much.

Sorry if I am oversimplifying, but at a TLDR, that is how I view things.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>In China, they use a dictatorship that is effective enough in providing a
good lifestyle so mostly young people there don’t complain too much.

This is not correct. There are plenty of people complaining. It’s just that
they are censored and silenced.

------
chiefalchemist
Got it wrong? That's over-stating it quite a bit. Sure, that was the spin to
get a toe hold, but ultimately the West's Capitalists saw massive opportunity,
and nothing else.

Long to short, 30 - 40 years ago the media ALWAYS referred to China as
Communist China. I can't remember the last time I heard that phrase. That's no
accident.

Perhaps the politicians got it wrong. That's no surprise. They're (pardon the
editorial) just stupid hand puppets anyway. But the elite capitalist? They
were spot on. Just look at how the income inequality gap has widened. Again,
no accident.

p.s. If anything, China suckered the West, believing it could influence the
West's structure, more than the other way around.

~~~
barrkel
China didn't abandon communism (as in command and control economy, vs market
economy) until 1978, so it's hardly a surprise that 40 years ago it was always
Communist China -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform)

~~~
chiefalchemist
I understand that. My point is, after years of shoving must-fear-the-Commies
down the minds of the American (/West) people, the prefixed was dropped
because it didn't fit the narrative; because now there was money to be made.
Which goes back to my original point. The only ppl who got it wrong were the
politicians, and they're idiots anyway. No surprise.

Yeah, they're still communist. But you'd never know it.

------
antirez
The article sounds like if the opening of the China-Western worlds
relationship was something thought in these terms. But I have the feeling it
was more the result of economical reciprocal interests among many actors.

------
neves
It looks like the "Western" does not like any other sovereignty country. Any
of the phrases below from the article can be applied to the USA:

Though people’s personal lives remain relatively free, he is creating a
surveillance state to monitor discontent and deviance.

Meanwhile, foreign businesses are profitable but miserable, because commerce
always seems to be on ___’s terms.

The initiative asks countries to accept ____-based dispute-resolution. Should
today’s ___ norms frustrate ___ ambition, this mechanism could become an
alternative.

Putting up with misbehaviour today in the hope that engagement will make ____
better tomorrow does not make sense.

______ societies should seek to shed light on links between independent
foundations, even student groups, and the ____ state.

~~~
jonathanstrange
As somebody else said in this thread, equating the USA with 'Western
countries' in general is distorting reality. Most 'Western' countries are very
different from the US. But I see how the equation 'Western world=USA' serves
people well rhetorically if they want to make a case against democracy without
clearly saying so.

The point is that there are many different democracies and the USA is not and
never was a poster example of it. Some have argued that the US is more of an
oligarchic republic based on the example of ancient Rome rather than a modern
democracy. However, the fact that people like Noam Chomsky who make this
critique can freely live and talk in the US readily tells you how misleading
it is to ride on popular anti-American sentiment when it is done on behalf of
a country where critics are simply imprisoned.

~~~
saas_co_de
> equating the USA with 'Western countries'

This is an article in a British magazine. Why blame the US?

> people like Noam Chomsky who make this critique can freely live and talk in
> the US readily tells you how misleading it is

In the US freedom of speech is part of the system of control. It is a safety
valve that releases social pressure to prevent explosive revolutionary
outbursts.

The rulers of the US are no less dictatorial, they are just more sophisticated
in their understanding of social control.

~~~
jonathanstrange
I'm not replying to the article but to neves's post.

 _> The rulers of the US are no less dictatorial, they are just more
sophisticated in their understanding of social control._

Though I'm not very fond of the US's political system, I don't think so.

------
dalbasal
I think we’ve been late to re-examine some of the ideological memes from eh
80s-90s, which formed as the Soviet Union failed.

In a nutshell, it was triumphalist. The Soviet Union, was oppressive, had a
failed economy, it’s people wanted out.. wanted democracy, rights, capitalism.

All the aspects of soviet failure (and the West’s success) were pinned in the
“ideology” or system of government. Free markets, liberal democracy,
independent courts, late night talk shows… These were all taken as a single
system, which beat out a rival system.

Looking back… Do we think that if the US had a Leninist revolution 100 years
ago and Russia had had Tatcher & Churchill, that everything would be reversed.
We see countries succeeding and failing regardless of clear ideological links.

Implementation is usually more important than ideas. Stalinism was a very bad
implementation. China’s last generation was a good one. The ideological
underpinnings… less important.

Anyway… the major & minor powers run almost identical economic systems these
days. China, US, Russia, Japan, EU, UK…

“Large Corporations”, almost sums up the system. At the scales modern
corporations live on, the concept of free markets is fairly watered down.
Banking, real estate (housing), transport, education… there are no free
markets here.

Elsewhere in the economy (e.g. consumer tech), oligopolies run the show.

China has inched its way over to an almost identical economic system. I think
the west has taken a few steps towards china’s. They’ll “intervene” more (like
using the great firewall to keep out foreign competition), but … meh .. China
runs a local monopoly rather than adopting the international one. It’s not
really a big deal, economically.

Basically, the economic system of china is the same as the west’s. Neither are
very similar to the ideological systems they pay lip services to.

Also, free markets don’t exist _within_ companies. Companies are “islands of
planning.” Well, the corporations are continents these days. Inside a company,
totalitarianism is perfectly acceptable in Ohio, just like it is in Xiamen.

When it comes to linking western rule-of-law, rights-centric constitutions and
such to economic success… I’m not sure that link is really there. I think this
was triumphalism and wishful thinking.

Anyway, Russia accepted a lot of western systems. They have a free-ish market,
a democratic constitutions.

Yet, Putin is running yet again. The betting odds are currently @ 1/500 of him
winning.

My TLDR point is that the ideological lens is very, very foggy. It distorts
our view of the world with easy-to-digest narratives and categories, but it
really doesn’t describe the world.

We need to drop this cold war mentality. I was 7 years old when the Berlin
wall came down, why am _I_ still thinking in these terms!!

~~~
saas_co_de
> the ideological lens is very, very foggy. It distorts our view of the world
> with easy-to-digest narratives and categories

Right. All of this talk about capitalism, communism, etc is intellectually
nonsense.

The whole world is actually moving towards the Chinese model with highly
interventionist monetary policy, the majority of GDP allocated by the
government, etc. That is the case in every major country now.

No serious policy makers believe in free markets any more. They believe in
democracy to the extent that they see it as a mechanism for social control,
but that is it.

That might be shocking to some people but the other thing to take into account
is that all of these smart people have come to this conclusion so maybe they
are right and free markets and real democracy are just dumb ideas.

~~~
dalbasal
Well... The Chinese are "moving to the Chinese model" too, so idk if it's
right to call it chinese. I think the model is the same, and all major
economies are going that way. The cultural & legal differences make for
different ways of describing and justifying things but.., they don't seem to
amount to a huge difference.

Baidu was essentially picked by the CCP, as the Chinese Google. Google was
produced by the "free market." The end result is the same. Similar
privacy/surveillance implications, similar business models. Similar market
share (monopoly). I bet the offices look pretty similar too.

Generally speaking, I am very skeptical of free market ideas applied at the
>$1bn level. Corporations that size have political power, inevitably. They
also tend to operate in less dynamic & competitive environments. The power
differential between them and the employees they are "freely transacting" with
are huge. Mostly though, it's the political thing. A mayor of a city is not
going to ignore a $5bn going under, or moving away. They have influence on the
rules that get made.

------
igravious
Thomas Hobbes would have approved. Famously in the Leviathan he argued for a
sovereign commonwealth, a sort of autocratic monarchical rule with no
separation of powers. In order that the system be stable freedom of expression
is subordinated to the sovereign as is the system of law an the free press.

Hobbes's Leviathan is China. Because Hobbes lived through a very tumultuous
period of strife and conflict what he optimised for is stability and peace and
prosperity at the expense of individual freedoms like the ability to choose
one's destiny through either representative democracy or direct democracy.

If the lives of the vast majority of Chinese are improving, who is to say
their system is morally wrong?

In fairness, the West only has itself to blame. Nobody with an honest heart
can look at the post-colonial period and say that the West has not meddled in
the affairs of other sovereign states. Also, many of the West's so-called
republics and democracies are very hollow and corrupt often veering towards
plutocracy, the system of law and political legislation is controlled by money
and so corporate lobbying and eventually even political capture by
corporations is rife. Workers rights are trampled at home and abroad though
international agreements. Corporations evade paying taxes, they pollute the
environment, collective bargaining is seen as a communist horror rather a
democratic good.

The West is in _no_ position to point fingers. That's what gets my goat up.
Who the fuck do we think we are that we can tell others how to run their
lives. What fucking gall. After all we've done? And we wonder why others
respond indignantly and with contempt. I don't blame them. Get your own house
in order first as Peterson says.

No, the correct response the Xi's power grab is not a suicidal arms race or
political pressure. The correct response is to make the West an example others
want to follow. We could start by taking back democracy by making citizen rule
more direct so that people feel empowered. Let's move to the Swiss model.
Let's reform the courts so that everybody has a fair chance, not the just the
wealthy–it does not matter a whit if everybody is equal before the eyes of the
law in theory if in practice they are not. We need to counter the evil of
nationalism. We need to be sympathetic towards migrants. We need better
separation of powers and we need to reject all forms of fundamentalism.
Identity politics is a side-show, the arc of history is clear. Most
importantly I think is that we need to place real limits on social media
companies and we have to dismantle global surveillance, this is an evil so
large it boggles the mind. We have to figure out how to combat rising economic
inequality! We really do.

They built Leviathan, we built the Panopticon.

I recognise the freedoms we do have, such as my ability to criticise the
system without repercussion, though if you agitate too much various agencies
may open up a file on you.

~~~
dageshi
You could argue the Chinese system hasn't been properly tested in modern
times. In other words, there's been no recession, no meaningful economic
downturn which really forces leaders to make very hard decisions and causes
the population to become restive.

The West on the otherhand had that in 2008, it survived although the
repurcussions are still being felt (Trump).

Can the Chinese avoid a serious recession forever? You would have to assume
not, that will ultimately be the test of how well their system holds up.

~~~
hardlianotion
I am very interested in what happens when the effect of the 1-child policy
makes itself felt as the population ages. That will be a big test I think.

~~~
beisner
I suspect that since this policy has been deliberately relaxed (now a 2-child
policy) the government likely has some model for a changing demographic

------
room271
I have a feeling people are being a bit short-termist here. We can judge
whether all roads lead to democracy/liberalism in 30-50 years but not yet.

In the meantime, my personal opinion is that China is heading for disaster
somewhere along the road if they don't liberalise increasingly over time.

~~~
SZJX
Xi is actively giving more power to the market. In fact he's been compared to
Ronald Reagan. It's just that he indeed implements quite a lot of surveillance
measures as well. China is becoming like the US in a lot of aspects. Is the US
society a shambles? Of course. But even with the rise of Trump people can
hardly see a "disaster" or a major upheaval coming. The established interest
is just way too strong.

The Chinese leadership is much smarter and pragmatic than many western media
and elites would imagine them to be. Doom-sayers have been there for a few
decades, but China is still booming.

------
lfischer
I feel this article undermines a stand for ‘democratic freedoms, rights and
the rule of law’ as it conflates the former with abiding by ‘Western’ rules in
international trade and politics and even respecting US military superiority
(!).

------
SZJX
This is just such a nonsensical ideological piece without any regard to facts,
which are always much more intricate and delicate than what simple lofty words
such as "capitalism", "democracy", "dictatorship" etc. can cover.

First, Xi is known precisely for his pro-market reforms and has been compared
to Ronald Reagan for this. Under Xi's reign, the benefits for public servants
have been drastically cut and many formerly commonplace practices will now be
considered as corruption and land you in deep troubles. Therefore, many have
been simply abandoning posts in the public sector and have gone into the
private sector. If anything, China is accelerating on its path to become
another US. Basically everything is modeled after the US society, and Xi wants
to put everything into "the hands of the market". Depending on who you ask
it's either fantastic (for the conservatives) or disastrous (for the leftists
who much favor the European model of governments). But in no way will there be
more restrictions on capitalism and stronger "government rule" out there. Xi
wanting to stay on to continue his reforms doesn't automatically mean he wants
to curb the market and expand the government. Exactly the contrary is
happening. Drawing conclusions automatically from ideological grounds is just
ridiculous.

Second, many mature so-called western "democracies" perfectly allow one person
in power for many years. Merkel is desperately trying to start her fourth term
right now, and German economy has been always booming under her reign. Another
obvious example (though not really a "western democracy" of course) is
Singapore. China is even "more democratic" than Singapore in that the
leadership is never passed on to a family member. Yet where are the criticisms
against Singapore in the mainstream media during all these years? Zero, simply
because Singapore is considered a strategic partner of the US while China a
rising competitor, enemy. Could the media and western governments be even more
hypocritical than that? Such double standards is quite some feat. Again, Xi's
wanting to stay on doesn't automatically mean that China is going to be
plunged into a reign of terror and chaos. Nobody can predict how his measures
turn out to be, but to say that it's destined for failure and using
"dictatorship" which implies something similar to North Korea or some Central
American country (its brutal regime supported by the CIA and US politicians
all the time, of course), is just laughable.

Xi is indeed coming up with some measures that one may call authoritarian such
as video surveillance coupled with facial recognition systems everywhere. But
so is the US, especially after 911, with the massive overreach of government
into civil lives. I sincerely don't think the US is much more a "democracy"
than China is. There are some truer democracies among the European countries,
which should indeed be protected. I am quite horrified witnessing the
transformation of China into another US right now, but I'm afraid that cannot
be stopped and the western political establishments would be better off
thinking how to cope under a new world order instead of trying their best to
deny or distort such a fact with such double standards thinly coated with
ideological nonsense, as always.

------
nukeop
The Chinese don't care about "dictatorship". Their lives are largely
unaffected. Sure, sometimes a political rant gets deleted from the Internet,
but it has little bearing on actual daily life.

They openly mock western liberal values, they have their own slang for it. It
seems so natural for the westerners that all countries will naturally drift
towards democratic governments and more freedom, but it seems that some
regions of the world just don't work that way. Just like Middle Eastern
countries work best (as in, remain relatively stable) under military
dictatorships, China seems to prefer authoritarian rule that at the same time
doesn't really get in the way of them living their lives the way they're used
to. It's a tough pill to swallow, but some nations just don't like democracy
and don't want to implement it in any form.

~~~
matthewmacleod
Count me among those who consider that to be a stepping stone on the way to
liberal democracy.

Authoritarianism is easy to support when the economy is booming and living
standards are increasing. When this falters, which it inevitably will, then
discontent will spread from a relatively small group of political discontents
to the population at large, who will start to demand change. And that demand
can be the pressure that tips the balance in favour of democratic rule.

~~~
coldtea
> _Authoritarianism is easy to support when the economy is booming and living
> standards are increasing. When this falters, which it inevitably will, then
> discontent will spread from a relatively small group of political
> discontents to the population at large, who will start to demand change. And
> that demand can be the pressure that tips the balance in favour of
> democratic rule._

If anything, history has taught us the reverse. Nazi Germany became that way
exactly because "living standards" were decreasing in the Weimar republic. And
all those Latin American countries with low living standards had (and some
have) mostly dictatorships and compromised "democracies".

~~~
matthewmacleod
That's definitely true too, so always a risk. At least we could conclude that
economic pressure can be a driver for change.

