Comment by piker
3 months ago
> The problems described in OPs post are exactly the kind of thing China is good at tackling because their democratic system is actually built for this.
China does a lot of stuff right, and your points may be entirely valid, but calling that system “democratic” nullifies everything else said. It’s a one party state.
> It’s a one party state.
By this logic US is two-halves-party state. You are no less dictatorial than China, just better at hiding it at the cost of how performant it is. Democracy is an European thing that rarely ever got successfully exported.
The US is a one-party state because of elite capture.
The interests of the mainstream political parties in the US are disconnected from the material conditions of the people. And what passes for debate is the narcissism of small differences that leaves the super-structure untouched.
China found a system that works for them after a century of trying every system.
> The US is a one-party state because of elite capture.
This is demonstrably false given the election result in 2016. Donald Trump was absolutely the anti-elite candidate with all of the establishment politicians on both sides of the aisle denouncing him as a candidate and calling his supporters fascists. His election was a national shock.
> China found a system that works for them after a century of trying every system.
Fine, and we'll see how that system works over the next century. This thread isn't about the efficacy of the Chinese system. It's about protecting the concept of democracy from propaganda.
> This is demonstrably false given the election result in 2016. Donald Trump was absolutely the anti-elite candidate with all of the establishment politicians on both sides of the aisle denouncing him as a candidate and calling his supporters fascists. His election was a national shock.
And then he governed in a reactionary way that favored the elites with whom he transacted. One man cannot change the superstructure through electoral means, as Lenin pointed out. All the undemocratic, unilateral powers that Trump has taken advantage of didn't start with him; they began with his predecessors and the larger national security state, who expanded executive power without oversight.
>Fine, and we'll see how that system works over the next century. This thread isn't about the efficacy of the Chinese system. It's about protecting the concept of democracy from propaganda.
Propaganda is how you control public opinion and sentiment in a democracy. See the work of Edward Bernays and Chomsky. Propaganda is an integral part of modern liberal democracies to arrive at a consensus that is largely disconnected from the needs or will of the electorate.
China doesn't need us to tell them how to run their country or their provinces.
This is incorrect. There are 9 parties. You are likely saying "well it's functionally a singe party system" yet you can't even read Chinese to understand what the policy positions of the different factions within the committees are.
Here's a good primer if you're interested in learning more: https://progressive.international/blueprint/cb7dbaf4-b106-41...
I'm not sure why you think I can't read Chinese, but Xi has been in power for 12 years and as far as I am aware cannot be removed by anyone other than the CCP. Please correct me if I'm wrong. If the people whom he governs can remove him by some kind of democratic process, then perhaps your points are valid. My understanding is that they cannot.
> Socialist democracy must, therefore, be seen as a historic, multi-generational and dialectical process by which conditions that enable increasing parts of society to play an active role in governance are created, nurtured, and defended. China has advanced on this path further than most societies in modern history. From early experiments in village-level organization to building a nationwide process for 1.4 billion people from 56 ethnic groups across a country spanning over nine million square kilometers, this process has come to be contained in a concept called “whole-process people’s democracy” — a practice of democratic governance built on over a century of organizational experience.
This (and the rest of this article) is nonsense propaganda if the above is correct.
There are 100 million members of the party, and these people vote directly for their local representatives, who then go onto vote for the village, town, city, province, etc representatives, all the way up to the Standing Committee which includes Xi. There are 3000 members of the National People's Congress that directly selects the Standing Committee. In rural areas or special administrative provinces, often anyone can vote, including union members who aren't officially party members. Comparatively, in the 2024 US election, 150 million people voted. So there's roughly the same amount of votes happening.
Maybe you don't agree that not being able to pick the head of state is not a valid definition of democracy. In that case I'd argue that having a twice-indicted convicted felon is not valid democracy either. In any case, feel free to keep your version.
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