China vs. Capitalism
September 20, 2021 3:57 PM Subscribe
Xi Jinping Aims to Rein In Chinese Capitalism, Hew to Mao’s Socialist Vision Mr. Xi’s conviction: Chinese socialism under sole control of the party will prevail over U.S.-style capitalism.
…when the Chinese Communist party celebrated its centenary on July 1, Mr. Xi donned a Mao suit and stood behind a podium adorned with a hammer and sickle, pledging to stand for the people. After the speech, he sang along with “The Internationale” broadcast across Tiananmen Square. In China, the song, a feature of the socialist movement since the late 1800s, has long symbolized a declaration of war by the working class on capitalism.
The ghost of William Buckley is distressed
…when the Chinese Communist party celebrated its centenary on July 1, Mr. Xi donned a Mao suit and stood behind a podium adorned with a hammer and sickle, pledging to stand for the people. After the speech, he sang along with “The Internationale” broadcast across Tiananmen Square. In China, the song, a feature of the socialist movement since the late 1800s, has long symbolized a declaration of war by the working class on capitalism.
The ghost of William Buckley is distressed
That explains also the crackdown on corruption for the past few years, with the added advantage that many of Xi's rivals in politics were found corrupt and removed from power.
so weird that his rivals are all corrupt but his allies aren't!
so convenient that his allies were all perfect for those positions that his corrupt rivals were forced from!
posted by Anonymous at 5:13 PM on September 20, 2021
so weird that his rivals are all corrupt but his allies aren't!
so convenient that his allies were all perfect for those positions that his corrupt rivals were forced from!
posted by Anonymous at 5:13 PM on September 20, 2021
The CCP is above the law. The regime emphasizes rule by law and rejects rule of law as in the West.
National Review once again huffing their own farts here. We have a Justice system (new news nightly) and national security apparatus (remember the CIA hacking of the Senate investigation?) that has completely slipped the leash of civilian control.
posted by Slackermagee at 5:14 PM on September 20, 2021 [21 favorites]
National Review once again huffing their own farts here. We have a Justice system (new news nightly) and national security apparatus (remember the CIA hacking of the Senate investigation?) that has completely slipped the leash of civilian control.
posted by Slackermagee at 5:14 PM on September 20, 2021 [21 favorites]
For another complementary view see here. I am far too uninformed to have even a luke-warm take on any of this.
If you read The Economist you get the sense that China just copied western capitalism. If you read economic history, however, that's not what happened at all.posted by euphorb at 5:16 PM on September 20, 2021 [11 favorites]
China developed precisely because they didn't just copy capitalist theories wholesale. After leaping into Soviet communism, they didn't just undertake a 'Great Leap West'. Instead, they studied, they debated, and they applied markets to their own context, within their own strategic goals. They gradually experimented their way forward, one step at a time. And it worked.
As Branko Milanović said, China's economic reforms "set the stage for the fastest and longest growth in world history." Meanwhile most countries that applied shock therapy (essentially copy/paste capitalism) ended up violently shocked to death.
The Xi cult of personality is worrying. The global turn towards strongman authoritarianism has been keeping me up at night, and if China goes that way…
posted by mr_roboto at 5:17 PM on September 20, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by mr_roboto at 5:17 PM on September 20, 2021 [6 favorites]
"If China goes that way"? [my emphasis]
"The uncomfortable thing"? [my emphasis]
No amount of wishful thinking or socialist beliefs will change the fact that PRC is ruled by a totalitarian, authoritarian leader and regime right now, which has already engaged in ethnic cleansing (Tibet, the Uighurs) for years, along with a recent brutal, ideological take-over of Hong Kong. No amount of what-aboutism about the West's many, many, many flaws changes that reality.
posted by PhineasGage at 5:25 PM on September 20, 2021 [77 favorites]
"The uncomfortable thing"? [my emphasis]
No amount of wishful thinking or socialist beliefs will change the fact that PRC is ruled by a totalitarian, authoritarian leader and regime right now, which has already engaged in ethnic cleansing (Tibet, the Uighurs) for years, along with a recent brutal, ideological take-over of Hong Kong. No amount of what-aboutism about the West's many, many, many flaws changes that reality.
posted by PhineasGage at 5:25 PM on September 20, 2021 [77 favorites]
I'm getting paywalled on the WSJ article. Any other source for that?
posted by storybored at 5:36 PM on September 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by storybored at 5:36 PM on September 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
One take on it is that they are genuinely trying to limit the power of tech monopolies in just the kind of way so many American progressives wish would happen here.
I hope American progressives want a way that is based on clear, written legiltation that applies fairly to all corporate interests and is not based on the whims of those in power.
posted by asra at 5:52 PM on September 20, 2021 [13 favorites]
I hope American progressives want a way that is based on clear, written legiltation that applies fairly to all corporate interests and is not based on the whims of those in power.
posted by asra at 5:52 PM on September 20, 2021 [13 favorites]
...in just the kind of way so many American progressives wish would happen here.
That is a Great Leap of an assumption, and ignores tremendous policy differences regarding the internet in the US, compared to China..
posted by eustatic at 6:55 PM on September 20, 2021 [5 favorites]
That is a Great Leap of an assumption, and ignores tremendous policy differences regarding the internet in the US, compared to China..
posted by eustatic at 6:55 PM on September 20, 2021 [5 favorites]
I feel like China is struggling with the same problems as everywhere else. Leaders are turning to nationalist and populist ideas to hold or get political power because the neo-liberal political/economic model has hit a wall the same way that the Keynesian model hit a wall in the 1970s. The ideas they are promoting are not going to fix the economic and social problems; but they might fix the problem of staying popular enough to remain in power for the leaders.
posted by interogative mood at 7:12 PM on September 20, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 7:12 PM on September 20, 2021 [5 favorites]
I almost miss the 90's when western very serious people would write about the coming Chinese century because Chinese workers weren't lazy like westerners who demanded luxeries like living wages, workplace safety regulations, and unions. It was always obvious that China was planning on running a form of managed capitalism to catch up technologically with the rest of the world. The question is, what are you going to do about it? Keep in mind the computer your using probably has components manufactured in China. So does your car. So does your washing machine. Hell, the military hardware we buy to counter the Chinese threat (and keep defense contractors rich) might source parts from China. Maybe. Hopefully the pandemic taught us we need to keep certain supply chains within the US.
Either way, this whole thing strikes me as people trying to force 20th century conceptual framing on 21st century problems. That's not me saying the Chinese government doesn't do horrible things. I'm not a tankie; their all on reddit. I'm just skeptical when the same people who enabled China's "rise" suddenly get second thoughts. But at least our defense contractors will get rich. If we let them have their cold war, can we have schools with heat and modern mass transit? Maybe health care? Pretty please? I even promise to cheer during Rocky 8 when his grandson learns kung fu to fight Chinese Ivan Drago.
posted by eagles123 at 7:15 PM on September 20, 2021 [7 favorites]
Either way, this whole thing strikes me as people trying to force 20th century conceptual framing on 21st century problems. That's not me saying the Chinese government doesn't do horrible things. I'm not a tankie; their all on reddit. I'm just skeptical when the same people who enabled China's "rise" suddenly get second thoughts. But at least our defense contractors will get rich. If we let them have their cold war, can we have schools with heat and modern mass transit? Maybe health care? Pretty please? I even promise to cheer during Rocky 8 when his grandson learns kung fu to fight Chinese Ivan Drago.
posted by eagles123 at 7:15 PM on September 20, 2021 [7 favorites]
This is a thread about China. Can we not make it about America?
posted by lalochezia at 7:48 PM on September 20, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by lalochezia at 7:48 PM on September 20, 2021 [11 favorites]
Mod note: A few deleted -- indeed, this is not a US politics thread, although discussing the WSJ and National Review is within bounds.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 8:00 PM on September 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 8:00 PM on September 20, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm just skeptical when the same people who enabled China's "rise" suddenly get second thoughts
I think that's an oversimplification. For me, I still think it's true that a stable and prosperous China is still better for the world. However, I admit I did not anticipate how fast and how bad the US would fumble in the last 25 years. So, if anything, I have more second thoughts about the US.
posted by FJT at 8:11 PM on September 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
I think that's an oversimplification. For me, I still think it's true that a stable and prosperous China is still better for the world. However, I admit I did not anticipate how fast and how bad the US would fumble in the last 25 years. So, if anything, I have more second thoughts about the US.
posted by FJT at 8:11 PM on September 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm not a tankie; their all on reddit. I'm just skeptical when the same people who enabled China's "rise" suddenly get second thoughts. But at least our defense contractors will get rich. If we let them have their cold war, can we have schools with heat and modern mass transit? Maybe health care? Pretty please? I even promise to cheer during Rocky 8 when his grandson learns kung fu to fight Chinese Ivan Drago.
eagles123
Tankies are everywhere, even some on this very site, though they probably don't think of themselves that way. But you don't have to be a tankie/Xi stan because these kind of vague, handwavy invocations of "defense contractors" or "Western bias" or CIA manipulation or imperialism/neocolonialism or the like achieve the same thing: deflecting or dismissing all criticism of China as somehow invalid or deceptive.
The question is, what are you going to do about it?
If you mean what is the US going to do about it, I'm not sure what options it realistically has to affect anything China does internally. It's already destroyed what seemed like the best strategy, which would be to form an international bloc against China to exert concerted global pressure and develop alternative supply chains/economic options. But the collapse of the TPP and the alienation of American allies over the last 20 years has made that strategy largely unworkable at this point, or at least much more difficult to achieve.
So, if anything, I have more second thoughts about the US.
FJT
This I think is the real problem. People upthread rightly point out problems in China, but what alternative is presented anywhere else by "free" countries? The US has completely shit the bed since 2001, not just destroying even the pretense of standing for freedom with the War on Terror but politically devolving into an almost completely dysfunctional state. The UK is a self-made wreck, the EU zone is doing better but still had its own series of crises like the Greece debt bomb. If someone is looking around and taking stock, what functional arguments are they seeing against the China model? It's pretty grim right now.
I remember reading somewhere that, similar to what euphorb's linked article says, China was actually fairly open and receptive to Western economic ideas and advice until the financial 2008 crisis. That was the real breaking point where China concluded that the West didn't actually have any clue about or superior handle on economic matters, or matters in general, and that it needed to forge its own way entirely.
posted by star gentle uterus at 8:27 PM on September 20, 2021 [19 favorites]
eagles123
Tankies are everywhere, even some on this very site, though they probably don't think of themselves that way. But you don't have to be a tankie/Xi stan because these kind of vague, handwavy invocations of "defense contractors" or "Western bias" or CIA manipulation or imperialism/neocolonialism or the like achieve the same thing: deflecting or dismissing all criticism of China as somehow invalid or deceptive.
The question is, what are you going to do about it?
If you mean what is the US going to do about it, I'm not sure what options it realistically has to affect anything China does internally. It's already destroyed what seemed like the best strategy, which would be to form an international bloc against China to exert concerted global pressure and develop alternative supply chains/economic options. But the collapse of the TPP and the alienation of American allies over the last 20 years has made that strategy largely unworkable at this point, or at least much more difficult to achieve.
So, if anything, I have more second thoughts about the US.
FJT
This I think is the real problem. People upthread rightly point out problems in China, but what alternative is presented anywhere else by "free" countries? The US has completely shit the bed since 2001, not just destroying even the pretense of standing for freedom with the War on Terror but politically devolving into an almost completely dysfunctional state. The UK is a self-made wreck, the EU zone is doing better but still had its own series of crises like the Greece debt bomb. If someone is looking around and taking stock, what functional arguments are they seeing against the China model? It's pretty grim right now.
I remember reading somewhere that, similar to what euphorb's linked article says, China was actually fairly open and receptive to Western economic ideas and advice until the financial 2008 crisis. That was the real breaking point where China concluded that the West didn't actually have any clue about or superior handle on economic matters, or matters in general, and that it needed to forge its own way entirely.
posted by star gentle uterus at 8:27 PM on September 20, 2021 [19 favorites]
what alternative is presented
I think many of us are on this hunt.
- The Americans are a pyramid scheme
- The Europeans are just more slowly unwinding the crisis of inclusion that the US faced in the 70s
- South America seems stuck shifting between the resource trap and developing a middle class
- Africa? I wish I was more familiar with successes here
- Petro states? Don't ask.
- Whatever China is doing is too large and long term to really feel what it is at this point
- Rest of SE Asia...Is there something here or are these just floating on trade benefits from US/China/both?
It's hard to look at the world and see a country who's fate is neither unsustainable nor contingent on a 'bad' superpower.
Did I miss an obvious one?
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 9:31 PM on September 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
I think many of us are on this hunt.
- The Americans are a pyramid scheme
- The Europeans are just more slowly unwinding the crisis of inclusion that the US faced in the 70s
- South America seems stuck shifting between the resource trap and developing a middle class
- Africa? I wish I was more familiar with successes here
- Petro states? Don't ask.
- Whatever China is doing is too large and long term to really feel what it is at this point
- Rest of SE Asia...Is there something here or are these just floating on trade benefits from US/China/both?
It's hard to look at the world and see a country who's fate is neither unsustainable nor contingent on a 'bad' superpower.
Did I miss an obvious one?
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 9:31 PM on September 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
The problems with supply chains is that all supply chains are interdependent now. Even if the item you are making for the military comes from raw materials mined in-country, what about the tooling, the machines that make the things, the lubricating fluids and replacement whatsits that always wear out on those machines after a few weeks. Even a shortage of something as simple as natural rubber, a major supply of which is southeast Asia and already in China's sphere of influence, can have chaotic impact as manufacturers scramble for supplies -- as is happening now. I thought the lesson had been learned during WWII to keep a strategic reserve of rubber plantations, but the existing ones are being cooked and inundated out of existence.
China has enough of a monopoly or market share that when they hiccup, entire industry shudder to a halt. Cisco can't manufacture enough of its high-end switches because there aren't enough transistors available, stifling rollout of cell towers and high-speed backbone links. There's a plastic shortage due to a lack of available catalysts, the price of which have skyrocketed along with the costs of platinum group metals, causing problems in every industry which uses plastics. Which is all of them at this point.
posted by Blackanvil at 9:38 PM on September 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
China has enough of a monopoly or market share that when they hiccup, entire industry shudder to a halt. Cisco can't manufacture enough of its high-end switches because there aren't enough transistors available, stifling rollout of cell towers and high-speed backbone links. There's a plastic shortage due to a lack of available catalysts, the price of which have skyrocketed along with the costs of platinum group metals, causing problems in every industry which uses plastics. Which is all of them at this point.
posted by Blackanvil at 9:38 PM on September 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
these kind of vague, handwavy invocations of "defense contractors" or "Western bias" or CIA manipulation or imperialism/neocolonialism or the like achieve the same thing: deflecting or dismissing all criticism of China as somehow invalid or deceptive.
It's already destroyed what seemed like the best strategy, which would be to form an international bloc against China to exert concerted global pressure and develop alternative supply chains/economic options.
But this form of reasoning is precisely the neoliberal American center-left position. They think the West has to act on China while forgetting the West has always already been acting on China. People like Chomsky have recently pointed out that if the West just stopped breathing on China's neck that would be way more effective geopolitically. And like, morally. Meanwhile predictably there are neoliberal white people in positions of power pushing the narrative that sanctions are justifiable. And pieces in mainstream media amplify that narrative.
posted by polymodus at 9:46 PM on September 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
It's already destroyed what seemed like the best strategy, which would be to form an international bloc against China to exert concerted global pressure and develop alternative supply chains/economic options.
But this form of reasoning is precisely the neoliberal American center-left position. They think the West has to act on China while forgetting the West has always already been acting on China. People like Chomsky have recently pointed out that if the West just stopped breathing on China's neck that would be way more effective geopolitically. And like, morally. Meanwhile predictably there are neoliberal white people in positions of power pushing the narrative that sanctions are justifiable. And pieces in mainstream media amplify that narrative.
posted by polymodus at 9:46 PM on September 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
I remember reading somewhere that, similar to what euphorb's linked article says, China was actually fairly open and receptive to Western economic ideas and advice until the financial 2008 crisis. That was the real breaking point where China concluded that the West didn't actually have any clue about or superior handle on economic matters, or matters in general, and that it needed to forge its own way entirely.
The Chinese rolled tanks into student protestors in Tiananmen Square in 1989, massacring them. Whether or not China accepted "western economic ideas", they didn't start violating human rights in 2008. Tankies indeed.
That didn't stop the west from going ahead with establishing trade relations that moved large portions of its manufacturing base to China in the 90's and 00's.
So, is this about human rights, or is it about economics?
And I don't think the profits defense companies are going to make selling nuclear subs to Australia are an illusion. Neither are the profits they are going to make building a military capable of "containing China" now that the "war on terror" is finally winding down, at least for now.
posted by eagles123 at 10:13 PM on September 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
The Chinese rolled tanks into student protestors in Tiananmen Square in 1989, massacring them. Whether or not China accepted "western economic ideas", they didn't start violating human rights in 2008. Tankies indeed.
That didn't stop the west from going ahead with establishing trade relations that moved large portions of its manufacturing base to China in the 90's and 00's.
So, is this about human rights, or is it about economics?
And I don't think the profits defense companies are going to make selling nuclear subs to Australia are an illusion. Neither are the profits they are going to make building a military capable of "containing China" now that the "war on terror" is finally winding down, at least for now.
posted by eagles123 at 10:13 PM on September 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
Wait, is this not the MLM thread?
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 10:34 PM on September 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 10:34 PM on September 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
China is currently set up like a pyramid scheme, just like everywhere else. Whenever poor policy leads to something bad, they are able to say: ah, you see, we still aren't quite there yet...then try to clean it up and take credit for it, imo. This is what is going on with Evergrande, and certainly with Ant financial. So they were willing to tank the Ant IPO...but how did it get that big in the first case? Same with Evergrande...the ccp is inevitably deeply involved in the operations of these companies at every level of the country, but once things go south all of a sudden it's "ah, look, the ccp saved us from these vicious capitalists."
I do agree with the poster above, however, that the "common prosperity" is, in a way, sincere. I do not think that the Chinese government wants their citizens to suffer in some meaningless cruel way (though they are more than happy to let some citizens suffer, if they feel like they have to -- eg Tibetans and Uighurs). But I think what has become clear is that the definition of what it means to prosper is very specific...the government has a very clear for the sorts of lives people should be living, and has started really upping the intensity to try and get there. So the vision of "common prosperity" might not be what we might first think of when we hear the word prosperity...it almost certainly includes a vision of feminine Women having lots of children to continue the economic growth of the Chinese nation with their masculine Men who support a nationalistic motherland etc.
(Note, I am intentionally trying hard to tackle this on purely Chinese terms instead of turning it into the almost inevitable comparison of America-vs-China...I sincerely want China to prosper, under the ccp or otherwise, because it's a great country and there are a lot of people I personally care about here. who doesn't want 1.4 billion people do have good lives? I do, but the question is...how and at what cost?)
To me, and I said this in the last thread on Chinese stuff, the issue is that they remain unwilling to deal with the root issues. This is understandable, because what powerful group of people want to actually change the core structures that them and their milieu benefit from? The country is a massive, brutal pyramid scheme, and the rich and powerful are very well situated to benefit from it. Every single one of these financial issues are intimately related to policy decisions the ccp has made. Of course, one can say that this is a big departure, that they're trying to correct things, etc...but in my opinion, this is certainly grand action but ultimately just have a chilling effect, because the real issues go unaddressed...to me, there is one fundamental issue driving everything: an overeducated population with not enough work, especially at a level that will sustain the lifestyles and level of consumption people have grown accustomed to.
Redistributive policies are good. Taking action against big companies are good. But like...nobody is asking the real question, and nobody is willing to attack the real problem: how did those companies get so big and so integrated into the economy and financial system? How did those people get so rich? (btw, the top politicians in China are extremely, extremely wealthy) I do hope that, even if it is superficial, that this all leads to a better situation for the poor...that more attention is paid to the cost of healthcare and childcare, that the poor get more social support (although, heh, I thought they eliminated poverty?). But still, in all of the policy movements I've seen, the theme is clear: the state is not responsible for any of the bad stuff, we are just responsible for Fixing It. We want you to be prosperous, as long as you accept our vision of what it means to be prosperous, about the sort of life we want you to lead in order to be deserving of prosperity (note: not lgbt; not childless; not uppity about the environment or labor, and on and on).
Rambling a little bit. I have seen arguments on both sides as to how "socialist" the government really is. Some people think they indeed "believe in socialism," some don't. The way I tend to see it is that the Chinese government has built a theoretical, legal, and political framework for doing what they want to do, and they call this socialism. As such, I personally find arguments like "ah, they are doing X thing because they truly believe in ML communism and this is what ML communists would do" not terribly compelling. But I do think that their theroetical, legal, and political framework for political action does have a very different basis than a lot of western countries, and that it includes a lot from ML thought.
I really hope that, before I die, we will get a data dump from the conversations internal to the party. So much is hard to know. I know that within the party there are debates raging, people discussing all of this stuff, but thus far leaks are very rare. I really hope one day we can get a clearer image of what it actually looks like.
posted by wooh at 11:16 PM on September 20, 2021 [27 favorites]
I do agree with the poster above, however, that the "common prosperity" is, in a way, sincere. I do not think that the Chinese government wants their citizens to suffer in some meaningless cruel way (though they are more than happy to let some citizens suffer, if they feel like they have to -- eg Tibetans and Uighurs). But I think what has become clear is that the definition of what it means to prosper is very specific...the government has a very clear for the sorts of lives people should be living, and has started really upping the intensity to try and get there. So the vision of "common prosperity" might not be what we might first think of when we hear the word prosperity...it almost certainly includes a vision of feminine Women having lots of children to continue the economic growth of the Chinese nation with their masculine Men who support a nationalistic motherland etc.
(Note, I am intentionally trying hard to tackle this on purely Chinese terms instead of turning it into the almost inevitable comparison of America-vs-China...I sincerely want China to prosper, under the ccp or otherwise, because it's a great country and there are a lot of people I personally care about here. who doesn't want 1.4 billion people do have good lives? I do, but the question is...how and at what cost?)
To me, and I said this in the last thread on Chinese stuff, the issue is that they remain unwilling to deal with the root issues. This is understandable, because what powerful group of people want to actually change the core structures that them and their milieu benefit from? The country is a massive, brutal pyramid scheme, and the rich and powerful are very well situated to benefit from it. Every single one of these financial issues are intimately related to policy decisions the ccp has made. Of course, one can say that this is a big departure, that they're trying to correct things, etc...but in my opinion, this is certainly grand action but ultimately just have a chilling effect, because the real issues go unaddressed...to me, there is one fundamental issue driving everything: an overeducated population with not enough work, especially at a level that will sustain the lifestyles and level of consumption people have grown accustomed to.
Redistributive policies are good. Taking action against big companies are good. But like...nobody is asking the real question, and nobody is willing to attack the real problem: how did those companies get so big and so integrated into the economy and financial system? How did those people get so rich? (btw, the top politicians in China are extremely, extremely wealthy) I do hope that, even if it is superficial, that this all leads to a better situation for the poor...that more attention is paid to the cost of healthcare and childcare, that the poor get more social support (although, heh, I thought they eliminated poverty?). But still, in all of the policy movements I've seen, the theme is clear: the state is not responsible for any of the bad stuff, we are just responsible for Fixing It. We want you to be prosperous, as long as you accept our vision of what it means to be prosperous, about the sort of life we want you to lead in order to be deserving of prosperity (note: not lgbt; not childless; not uppity about the environment or labor, and on and on).
Rambling a little bit. I have seen arguments on both sides as to how "socialist" the government really is. Some people think they indeed "believe in socialism," some don't. The way I tend to see it is that the Chinese government has built a theoretical, legal, and political framework for doing what they want to do, and they call this socialism. As such, I personally find arguments like "ah, they are doing X thing because they truly believe in ML communism and this is what ML communists would do" not terribly compelling. But I do think that their theroetical, legal, and political framework for political action does have a very different basis than a lot of western countries, and that it includes a lot from ML thought.
I really hope that, before I die, we will get a data dump from the conversations internal to the party. So much is hard to know. I know that within the party there are debates raging, people discussing all of this stuff, but thus far leaks are very rare. I really hope one day we can get a clearer image of what it actually looks like.
posted by wooh at 11:16 PM on September 20, 2021 [27 favorites]
It's the Wall Street Journal, but I read the article anyway to confirm: Their problem with China's communist dictatorship is the "communist" part and not the "dictatorship" part.
posted by AlSweigart at 11:20 PM on September 20, 2021 [12 favorites]
posted by AlSweigart at 11:20 PM on September 20, 2021 [12 favorites]
to me, there is one fundamental issue driving everything: an overeducated population with not enough work, especially at a level that will sustain the lifestyles and level of consumption people have grown accustomed to.
I'm not sure I follow -- education should increase people's productivity, and support more income and consumption. One would think the pandemic, and supply chain hassles highlights the need for more researchers, policy analysts and engineers. To the extent that the problem you described is real, it seems the more likely root is that the party doesn't have sufficient imagination at the top to put them all to gainful use, but is wary of anyone outside the party doing so.
posted by pwnguin at 11:45 PM on September 20, 2021
I'm not sure I follow -- education should increase people's productivity, and support more income and consumption. One would think the pandemic, and supply chain hassles highlights the need for more researchers, policy analysts and engineers. To the extent that the problem you described is real, it seems the more likely root is that the party doesn't have sufficient imagination at the top to put them all to gainful use, but is wary of anyone outside the party doing so.
posted by pwnguin at 11:45 PM on September 20, 2021
pwnguin: obviously china is a big place, etc etc. But from knowing people here at various stages of the system, there are funnels for EVERYTHING. People talk a lot about the national high school exam (gaokao), but that's really just the beginning. That defines where you get to go to college, but after that, there are lots of other exams. Civil service, for example, has gotten extremely competitive, even in relatively out of the way places, the reason being that things are perceived as so competitive and difficult that a lot of people just want what is at least a more chill, more secure job.
Getting into a graduate program? Another extremely competitive examination. And the sad thing here is, similar to the situation in many industries in the west, a lot of jobs do not need a graduate education--but people do it because companies are of course happy to take the "most qualified" people they can.
My friend was in the process to get a job (as a teller!) at a bank, and that also involved a bunch of tests. Not quite as competitive, thankfully, but still quite competitive. And now the people at the bank are more than happy to use people's precarity to push them into a huge amount of overtime and give them unreasonable KPIs (this is just one person's experience, but I know other people at other banks and they've all had the same complaints).
Heck, I mean, just sort of discussing employment in China...it's extremely ironic in a "communist" country what is allowed here. In order to get a job as a civil servant or even just a job at a bank (I'm trying to avoid going into a bunch of detail about the different sorts of employment that exist in china), you have to get a physical, and you absolutely can be rejected based on this. I know a guy who got rejected after making it through the civil service gauntlet (though he had some connections helping him out, heh) who ended up getting rejected because of a pretty minor medical issue (that in no way would affect his ability to get the job). I find this really horrifying! Heck, my friend at the bank got red flagged in her physical...a level of a particular hormone was higher than it should be. It ends up that the reason was simply that...she had exercised that morning. The advice was to not exercise for a week, drink a lot of water, and do the physical again...she passed, but like, how deeply horrifying! What are people who have health issues supposed to do? Simply not work? I asked this to all my friends her (admittedly a small group, not in any way representative or conclusive) and nobody had a good answer.
Another friend is a lawyer who is doing well but currently being held back from getting a critical professional certification because the provincial proctors, all middle aged men, think she doesn't smile enough, doesn't have a good enough mastery of communist thought, and are intimidated by the fact that she knows more about financial law than they do (they mostly come from non-financial law backgrounds).
> I'm not sure I follow -- education should increase people's productivity, and support more income and consumption. One would think the pandemic, and supply chain hassles highlights the need for more researchers, policy analysts and engineers. To the extent that the problem you described is real, it seems the more likely root is that the party doesn't have sufficient imagination at the top to put them all to gainful use, but is wary of anyone outside the party doing so.
I mean, yes, to some degree. This is what some commentators are saying about the crackdowns on tech...yes, China advanced very quickly, but it was able to do so because it was largely implementing technological advances imported from other countries. Of course, there is still a lot they had to do right to do so, but like, investing heavily in infrastructure is much more straightfoward than boostrapping a knowledge worker economy. So some commentators say that their crackdowns are on the exact sort of people China needs to create the next level of innovation and employment to continue China's development--they've basically reached the end of the "manufacturing and infrastructure" line. But they don't want to allow the level of freedom and experimentation you need to make that happen...it's funny, a huge buzzword here, at least around 5 years ago, was innovation and creativity. Tech leaders talked about how they needed more innovative and creative hires etc etc. But of course this is directly at odds with the conformity demanded in order to get ahead in the heavily test-driven and memorization-heavy education system. But I digress.
As to how this feeds into the broader economic issues, though, is that getting ahead is really hard, very competitive, involves constantly being weeded out, and even if you "get there," you are often in a pretty precarious position. This leads to people "opting out" of traditional things...there is a phenomenon called 躺平 meaning "lying flat," which is basically just people choosing to lead low key easy lives because they are tired of the stress of the rat race. I mean, none of this is new to people in the west, but the competition is indeed brutal, the worker exploitation is severe, and people are predictably tired of it. But these people are also choosing not to have kids, for example. Who has time to have a kid? Even if you have a kid, you're throwing them back into the meat grinder, which a lot of people don't really want to do...even if you can afford it (which many people feel they cannot), being a kid here is very stressful and a lot of people aren't like, rushing to subject their kids to that (though I know some parents who are trying very hard to reduce the stress their children face, which is super admirable, though one wonders how they will fare in the future here).
I wasn't tying this to real estate specifically as much (though there are ties) as much as the way in which the government tends to go about regulating things, and why they are attacking these particular problems now, and the way in which they are tackling them (the thread is titled China vs Capitalism, after all, and has a bigger scope than just real estate, though I realize I went on some various tangents). Of course there are a lot of issues in China right now, but I think anxiety about the declining population and the number of people opting out of "normal" lives is what's driving the current river of regulation. Of course any country faces a diverse number of challenges...real estate is a big one (which is always the one more hawkish commentators say will "bring down the ccp any time now"), but I do think that it is domestic concerns driving all of this...redistribution, for example, I think ties into the fact that a lot of people simply feel too poor to have a "normal life" eg have kids. And so on.
posted by wooh at 12:18 AM on September 21, 2021 [35 favorites]
Getting into a graduate program? Another extremely competitive examination. And the sad thing here is, similar to the situation in many industries in the west, a lot of jobs do not need a graduate education--but people do it because companies are of course happy to take the "most qualified" people they can.
My friend was in the process to get a job (as a teller!) at a bank, and that also involved a bunch of tests. Not quite as competitive, thankfully, but still quite competitive. And now the people at the bank are more than happy to use people's precarity to push them into a huge amount of overtime and give them unreasonable KPIs (this is just one person's experience, but I know other people at other banks and they've all had the same complaints).
Heck, I mean, just sort of discussing employment in China...it's extremely ironic in a "communist" country what is allowed here. In order to get a job as a civil servant or even just a job at a bank (I'm trying to avoid going into a bunch of detail about the different sorts of employment that exist in china), you have to get a physical, and you absolutely can be rejected based on this. I know a guy who got rejected after making it through the civil service gauntlet (though he had some connections helping him out, heh) who ended up getting rejected because of a pretty minor medical issue (that in no way would affect his ability to get the job). I find this really horrifying! Heck, my friend at the bank got red flagged in her physical...a level of a particular hormone was higher than it should be. It ends up that the reason was simply that...she had exercised that morning. The advice was to not exercise for a week, drink a lot of water, and do the physical again...she passed, but like, how deeply horrifying! What are people who have health issues supposed to do? Simply not work? I asked this to all my friends her (admittedly a small group, not in any way representative or conclusive) and nobody had a good answer.
Another friend is a lawyer who is doing well but currently being held back from getting a critical professional certification because the provincial proctors, all middle aged men, think she doesn't smile enough, doesn't have a good enough mastery of communist thought, and are intimidated by the fact that she knows more about financial law than they do (they mostly come from non-financial law backgrounds).
> I'm not sure I follow -- education should increase people's productivity, and support more income and consumption. One would think the pandemic, and supply chain hassles highlights the need for more researchers, policy analysts and engineers. To the extent that the problem you described is real, it seems the more likely root is that the party doesn't have sufficient imagination at the top to put them all to gainful use, but is wary of anyone outside the party doing so.
I mean, yes, to some degree. This is what some commentators are saying about the crackdowns on tech...yes, China advanced very quickly, but it was able to do so because it was largely implementing technological advances imported from other countries. Of course, there is still a lot they had to do right to do so, but like, investing heavily in infrastructure is much more straightfoward than boostrapping a knowledge worker economy. So some commentators say that their crackdowns are on the exact sort of people China needs to create the next level of innovation and employment to continue China's development--they've basically reached the end of the "manufacturing and infrastructure" line. But they don't want to allow the level of freedom and experimentation you need to make that happen...it's funny, a huge buzzword here, at least around 5 years ago, was innovation and creativity. Tech leaders talked about how they needed more innovative and creative hires etc etc. But of course this is directly at odds with the conformity demanded in order to get ahead in the heavily test-driven and memorization-heavy education system. But I digress.
As to how this feeds into the broader economic issues, though, is that getting ahead is really hard, very competitive, involves constantly being weeded out, and even if you "get there," you are often in a pretty precarious position. This leads to people "opting out" of traditional things...there is a phenomenon called 躺平 meaning "lying flat," which is basically just people choosing to lead low key easy lives because they are tired of the stress of the rat race. I mean, none of this is new to people in the west, but the competition is indeed brutal, the worker exploitation is severe, and people are predictably tired of it. But these people are also choosing not to have kids, for example. Who has time to have a kid? Even if you have a kid, you're throwing them back into the meat grinder, which a lot of people don't really want to do...even if you can afford it (which many people feel they cannot), being a kid here is very stressful and a lot of people aren't like, rushing to subject their kids to that (though I know some parents who are trying very hard to reduce the stress their children face, which is super admirable, though one wonders how they will fare in the future here).
I wasn't tying this to real estate specifically as much (though there are ties) as much as the way in which the government tends to go about regulating things, and why they are attacking these particular problems now, and the way in which they are tackling them (the thread is titled China vs Capitalism, after all, and has a bigger scope than just real estate, though I realize I went on some various tangents). Of course there are a lot of issues in China right now, but I think anxiety about the declining population and the number of people opting out of "normal" lives is what's driving the current river of regulation. Of course any country faces a diverse number of challenges...real estate is a big one (which is always the one more hawkish commentators say will "bring down the ccp any time now"), but I do think that it is domestic concerns driving all of this...redistribution, for example, I think ties into the fact that a lot of people simply feel too poor to have a "normal life" eg have kids. And so on.
posted by wooh at 12:18 AM on September 21, 2021 [35 favorites]
The fundamental difference is that the Chinese systems permits the state to attempt to solve problems in a manner that Western systems simply don’t. Liberal democracy is premised on the existence of a loyal opposition and a civil society that operates inside a consensus reality with shared values. Without those things liberal democracy is an inherently dysfunctional system, and one that has world civilisation set on a trajectory toward environmental oblivion.
posted by moorooka at 4:59 PM on September 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by moorooka at 4:59 PM on September 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
The Chinese totalitarian system is not known for its environmentalism nor its support for individual freedom and human rights. "Inherently dysfunctional" indeed.
posted by PhineasGage at 5:27 PM on September 21, 2021
posted by PhineasGage at 5:27 PM on September 21, 2021
Agreed on human rights, but the bit about environmentalism is not entirely fair. China is doing a lot about global warming, significantly more and with more unity than the US. It's exactly the kind of thing moorooka is talking about. American "liberal" Democracy is mostly failing the challenge of global warming. One benefit of a totalitarian government is if you decide something is a priority, you can get the entire country to get behind you.
Chinese-style capitalism is also contributing to the fight against global warming, most notably by manufacturing all those renewable energy sources that we're counting on to help us transition away from fossil fuels. At some terrible costs. Chinese mining causes a lot of pollution, including in other countries where they buy their raw materials from. Chinese industrialization also causes global warming. And of course the reason Chinese solar panels are so cheap is that the labor force there is significantly cheaper. I don't know how to weigh the moral balance of all that. But we are all sharing in the result.
The environmental picture is complex, that link is worth reading.
posted by Nelson at 6:35 PM on September 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
Chinese-style capitalism is also contributing to the fight against global warming, most notably by manufacturing all those renewable energy sources that we're counting on to help us transition away from fossil fuels. At some terrible costs. Chinese mining causes a lot of pollution, including in other countries where they buy their raw materials from. Chinese industrialization also causes global warming. And of course the reason Chinese solar panels are so cheap is that the labor force there is significantly cheaper. I don't know how to weigh the moral balance of all that. But we are all sharing in the result.
The environmental picture is complex, that link is worth reading.
posted by Nelson at 6:35 PM on September 21, 2021 [2 favorites]
If the Western world had the same approach to environmental policy as China does then there would be at least some modest hope for averting utter catastrophe. The Chinese “totalitarian” system does not have half of its political establishment denying that global warming exists and doing everything that it can to accelerate the greenhouse effect, with many of them believing that they will live to experience the literal Rapture. It doesn’t have half of its political establishment promoting the human right to die in regular school shootings, let alone the right to die of a contagious virus in the hundreds of thousands while its head of state recommends the injection of bleach. Yes there are fewer “individual freedoms” in China than in the USA. Maybe there’s a reason for that.
posted by moorooka at 6:54 PM on September 21, 2021
posted by moorooka at 6:54 PM on September 21, 2021
moorooka, I think that is painting things in far too rosy of a picture. I agree that the chinese approach has it's advantages, but I think they tend to be oversold becasue online a lot of these discussions become a discussion of "America vs China," so people feel a need to say "America is worse than you think and China is not as bad as you think" (which is largely true).
But like...LGBT people in China are scared right now. Uighyr's have had their culture under attack. Tibetans as well. Human rights lawyers are in jail. Even innocuous people, say farmers who try to fight against various local environmental issues, have been jailed. Plus, with the current movement in regulation, it's very clear (in my opinion) that the chinese state is going to much more proactive in proscribing how people live their lives...not just "don't talk about politically sensitive topics," but saying how women and men should act, and using the power of the state to do so (we are already seeing the early salvos in this).
Regardless, what I don't like about what you said isn't that China is some hellscape or that America is perfect blah blah, it's setting the idea that in order to face global warming you somehow have to "give up" those "individual freedoms." I really dislike the framing that "individual freedom" is some sort of western decadence, and that "collectivist Chinese people" (you didn't say this, but it's implied) are somehow "different." Yes, the west needs to have hard conversations about dealing with the paradox of tolerance and whatnot, but individual freedoms are always abstract until it's your family that's dead and you can't talk about it without getting thrown in jail (which happened in Wuhan, where a lot of things during the early pandemic went very underreported). Individual freedoms are always abstract until its your college that sends out a spreadsheet to all of the faculty asking them to record every LGBT student and their activities (right now most faculty simply feign ignorance and its unclear the state is doing anything with this info, but still). I just think it's a weird framing. As if the Chinese model is so fragile that if people could play video games when they want, watch boy love dramas, marry someone of the same sex, choose not to have children if they don't want, etc that it would somehow all fall apart. I think people tend to try to link these two together because it's pretty obvious that those thigns are all quite totalitarian and quite indefensible. It's easy to say "look! Chinese totalitarianism works for global warming, at least!" But then you get all of the bad stuff that comes with totalitarianism. And again, the state is definitely ramping up how invasive it is willing to be. We are only in the only stages and it is anyone's guess how far they will go, but this time...I think they're going to go pretty far. People always forget that this is the same country that built a massive bureaucracy around controlling how many women could have and enforced it for many decades. It's not a theoretical concern.
posted by wooh at 10:46 PM on September 21, 2021 [15 favorites]
But like...LGBT people in China are scared right now. Uighyr's have had their culture under attack. Tibetans as well. Human rights lawyers are in jail. Even innocuous people, say farmers who try to fight against various local environmental issues, have been jailed. Plus, with the current movement in regulation, it's very clear (in my opinion) that the chinese state is going to much more proactive in proscribing how people live their lives...not just "don't talk about politically sensitive topics," but saying how women and men should act, and using the power of the state to do so (we are already seeing the early salvos in this).
Regardless, what I don't like about what you said isn't that China is some hellscape or that America is perfect blah blah, it's setting the idea that in order to face global warming you somehow have to "give up" those "individual freedoms." I really dislike the framing that "individual freedom" is some sort of western decadence, and that "collectivist Chinese people" (you didn't say this, but it's implied) are somehow "different." Yes, the west needs to have hard conversations about dealing with the paradox of tolerance and whatnot, but individual freedoms are always abstract until it's your family that's dead and you can't talk about it without getting thrown in jail (which happened in Wuhan, where a lot of things during the early pandemic went very underreported). Individual freedoms are always abstract until its your college that sends out a spreadsheet to all of the faculty asking them to record every LGBT student and their activities (right now most faculty simply feign ignorance and its unclear the state is doing anything with this info, but still). I just think it's a weird framing. As if the Chinese model is so fragile that if people could play video games when they want, watch boy love dramas, marry someone of the same sex, choose not to have children if they don't want, etc that it would somehow all fall apart. I think people tend to try to link these two together because it's pretty obvious that those thigns are all quite totalitarian and quite indefensible. It's easy to say "look! Chinese totalitarianism works for global warming, at least!" But then you get all of the bad stuff that comes with totalitarianism. And again, the state is definitely ramping up how invasive it is willing to be. We are only in the only stages and it is anyone's guess how far they will go, but this time...I think they're going to go pretty far. People always forget that this is the same country that built a massive bureaucracy around controlling how many women could have and enforced it for many decades. It's not a theoretical concern.
posted by wooh at 10:46 PM on September 21, 2021 [15 favorites]
Thank you, wooh. The other thing about totalitarianism is that it doesn't have feedbacks. If China is making mistakes about how to deal with global warming, it will still be able to comprehensively enforce them.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 3:57 AM on September 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 3:57 AM on September 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
The fundamental difference is that the Chinese systems permits the state to attempt to solve problems in a manner that Western systems simply don’t.
Similarly, the fundamental difference is that the Chinese systems permit the state to ignore problems and cause problems in a way that Western systems simply don't. (I mean, they don't really; it's not obvious to me that the Chinese state's capacity to do policy stuff is really any sharper than you'd find in a Westminster system. But for purposes of argument...)
It's not some sort of wisdom that the the PRC currently has at least some early environmental leanings. It's just dumb fucking luck that the thugs currently running the place happen to feel that way. Maybe the people after Xi and the rest of the current crew will feel that way too; let's hope so. But there's always some chance that the next pack of thugs that run China will be hardcore industrialists that don't give a fuck about global warming, and then they'll make that happen instead.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:20 AM on September 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
Similarly, the fundamental difference is that the Chinese systems permit the state to ignore problems and cause problems in a way that Western systems simply don't. (I mean, they don't really; it's not obvious to me that the Chinese state's capacity to do policy stuff is really any sharper than you'd find in a Westminster system. But for purposes of argument...)
It's not some sort of wisdom that the the PRC currently has at least some early environmental leanings. It's just dumb fucking luck that the thugs currently running the place happen to feel that way. Maybe the people after Xi and the rest of the current crew will feel that way too; let's hope so. But there's always some chance that the next pack of thugs that run China will be hardcore industrialists that don't give a fuck about global warming, and then they'll make that happen instead.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:20 AM on September 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
Something else I will say, at least from personal experience, is that the top down commands are executed in very, very lumpy ways. At more or less every level of the system, everyone is doing their best to appear like they are in line with the directive, but all that matters is the appearance. This isn't just my judgement: the party itself has a whole campaign against "formalism" (形式主义) -- the difference is just the cause and the cure (the party's cure is, heh, having everyone read more Xi JinPing thought).
Regardless, I have two Chinese friends who studied environmental science (via chemistry) because they were excited to be a part of a cleaner, safer China. After going through the course and seeing the actual situation on the ground, both were so disgusted that they decided to go into other industries.
Again, this is not an America-vs-China thing...it is a priority for China, and I think China has and will continue to make strides in this. But a huge issue is the lack of transparency and accountability. It's one thing for the party to say that the environment is a concern...but it's hard to put that into practice without accountability and transparency (again, farmers have definitely been put into jail for trying to fight local environmental disasters etc) from the bottom up. And again, the party themselves understand this is a huge problem but are incapable of really dealing with it, because it's sort of integral to the political system...but there have been many official reports basically castigating cadres for risk aversion, for formalism, for not trying new things, for going through the motions, for always waiting for their superiors to make their demands crystal clear until they act. Of course, the reason is obvious to anyone who isn't a CCP member: cadres are terrified!
So...it's complicated.
posted by wooh at 7:22 AM on September 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
Regardless, I have two Chinese friends who studied environmental science (via chemistry) because they were excited to be a part of a cleaner, safer China. After going through the course and seeing the actual situation on the ground, both were so disgusted that they decided to go into other industries.
Again, this is not an America-vs-China thing...it is a priority for China, and I think China has and will continue to make strides in this. But a huge issue is the lack of transparency and accountability. It's one thing for the party to say that the environment is a concern...but it's hard to put that into practice without accountability and transparency (again, farmers have definitely been put into jail for trying to fight local environmental disasters etc) from the bottom up. And again, the party themselves understand this is a huge problem but are incapable of really dealing with it, because it's sort of integral to the political system...but there have been many official reports basically castigating cadres for risk aversion, for formalism, for not trying new things, for going through the motions, for always waiting for their superiors to make their demands crystal clear until they act. Of course, the reason is obvious to anyone who isn't a CCP member: cadres are terrified!
So...it's complicated.
posted by wooh at 7:22 AM on September 22, 2021 [4 favorites]
Evergrande, the giant Chinese real estate / junk bond company that looked like it might go broke today, managed to come to a last minute agreement that avoids default. At least temporarily, there's still more debt coming due soon and the long term health of the company is very much in question. More context: what are the systemic risks of an Evergrande collapse?.
It'd widely believed that the Chinese government will not bail out Evergrande entirely, like it has done for other too-big-to-fail companies in the past. It's remarkable how Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is reproducing so much Capitalism with American Characteristics.
posted by Nelson at 12:21 PM on September 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
It'd widely believed that the Chinese government will not bail out Evergrande entirely, like it has done for other too-big-to-fail companies in the past. It's remarkable how Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is reproducing so much Capitalism with American Characteristics.
posted by Nelson at 12:21 PM on September 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
But there's always some chance that the next pack of thugs that run China will be hardcore industrialists that don't give a fuck about global warming, and then they'll make that happen instead.
I guess my point is that in the USA there isn’t just the chance of that happening, there is the guarantee.
posted by moorooka at 3:01 PM on September 23, 2021
I guess my point is that in the USA there isn’t just the chance of that happening, there is the guarantee.
posted by moorooka at 3:01 PM on September 23, 2021
I would also make the case that the Chinese system, although it puts an emphasis on social stability that does make it an oppressive place in many regards, at least recognises the existence of an objective reality when it comes to the physical world, and I would attribute this in large part to the ideology of the communist party (i.e. it’s not just “dumb fucking luck”). This is why you do not have its political establishment populated with climate deniers and anti-maskers. There are over 600,000 people dead of covid in the United States, and Western Europe hasn’t done that much better (to say nothing of India which may be the more apt comparison). It is not to say that China has stumbled on the perfect system, but it by no means obvious that it this is a system with any lesser regard for human life. On the contrary.
posted by moorooka at 3:12 PM on September 23, 2021
posted by moorooka at 3:12 PM on September 23, 2021
It has been interesting reading this threat .(Thank you wooh for the more personal insights that nevertheless illuminate the larger situation in China.)
I am by no means a "China expert" and I have my own biases of course, but I want to contribute something that goes beyond the differences of capitalism/communism and democracy/totalitarianism:
What is the purpose of a government? To bring stability to societey.
What is one of the strength of (a working) democracy? Peacful transition of power.
How does this apply to China? China is not much of a democracy but the communist party is big and the 10 year term limit for Xi's postion served as a mechanism to allow for the peaceful transition of power within the chinese system. Power could shift between factions and every faction had to be aware of the fact that they would not stay in power indefinetively.
This is gone now and that worries me in the long term.
posted by mmkhd at 8:03 AM on September 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
I am by no means a "China expert" and I have my own biases of course, but I want to contribute something that goes beyond the differences of capitalism/communism and democracy/totalitarianism:
What is the purpose of a government? To bring stability to societey.
What is one of the strength of (a working) democracy? Peacful transition of power.
How does this apply to China? China is not much of a democracy but the communist party is big and the 10 year term limit for Xi's postion served as a mechanism to allow for the peaceful transition of power within the chinese system. Power could shift between factions and every faction had to be aware of the fact that they would not stay in power indefinetively.
This is gone now and that worries me in the long term.
posted by mmkhd at 8:03 AM on September 24, 2021 [1 favorite]
at least recognises the existence of an objective reality when it comes to the physical world
If that were true, they wouldn't have mismanaged their country into one of the worst famines in human history and reacted to that famine with yet more mismanagement that killed millions more of its citizens.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:46 AM on September 24, 2021
If that were true, they wouldn't have mismanaged their country into one of the worst famines in human history and reacted to that famine with yet more mismanagement that killed millions more of its citizens.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:46 AM on September 24, 2021
Why there is no solution to our age of crisis without China, By Adam Tooze (The New Statesman)
posted by FJT at 1:53 PM on September 24, 2021
posted by FJT at 1:53 PM on September 24, 2021
NYT: "How Record Rain and Officials’ Mistakes Led to Drownings on a Subway. The deluge in the city of Zhengzhou revealed how China’s years of go-go construction had left its cities vulnerable to climate change."
posted by PhineasGage at 10:24 PM on September 25, 2021
posted by PhineasGage at 10:24 PM on September 25, 2021
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The cancellation of Ant Group / Alipay's IPO and the recent move against Didi are both pretty bold table flipping moves. It's still hard to quite understand what all is happening there; China is running a risk in weakening its tech leaders. One take on it is that they are genuinely trying to limit the power of tech monopolies in just the kind of way so many American progressives wish would happen here.
My views are limited though and mostly informed by reading The Economist in the past ten years. They have their biases and blind spots but I think the China coverage in general is pretty good for an outsider perspective. A recent piece A provocative blog post stirs up a firestorm in China: No one knows how far Xi Jinping’s campaign against inequality will go covers some similar territory to this WSJ article.
The uncomfortable thing is that China is still a repressive totalitarian state. They still killed many of their own citizens and imprison many more as part of a cultural genocide campaign. Xi is also moving to cement his power beyond the customary ten year limit, something which is making outside observers nervous. That seldom ends well.
posted by Nelson at 4:36 PM on September 20, 2021 [18 favorites]