Political Liberalization in China

[LeveragedBuyout]

Yeah but the problem is we can't comprehend another country's extreme situations quite easily. Usually in an extreme situation we simply point our finger directly to that country's regime. On the hand we can handle "occasional" extremities without really pointing finger at anything fundemental. We just say oh it happens and continue our lives.

I suppose there are two schools of thought on this, and agreement isn't possible if we each belong to the two separate schools. One school holds that certain morals are absolute (e.g. suppression of the citizenry is essentially evil), and the other posits that morals are relative (e.g. in collectivist societies, suppression of the citizenry can be good, even while it may be evil in individualist societies). I belong to the former, it appears that you belong to the latter. As they say, agree to disagree.

News coverages about systems other than democracy are very prejudiced and completely shallow. We do criticize those regimes purely on theoretical grounds and we are not able to grasp the true dynamics that creates their social problems.

This is necessarily so, per my argument above. the US Declaration of Independence states:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Perhaps those words come across as shallow to you, but I daresay that most Americans truly believe this. Not that all men are created equal, but some are more equal than others, but rather all men are created equal, full stop. And that governments are only legitimate if their mandate is derived from the governed (e.g. some form of elections). As is often said, American values are universalist (or in my paradigm, absolutist) values, which means that we believe Chinese citizens should have the same rights in our country that Americans have in America. Some view this as a kind of cultural imperalism, but there is no ill intent here. We believe everyone deserves the same freedoms that we have, because we generally believe in the goodness of mankind, in the best Lockean tradition.

Our news coverage stems from that tradition, generally. Is governance just? Is it inclusive? If not, arguments centering on "differences in culture" are not convincing to Americans, because we have seen and absorbed all the cultures in the world, and have forged a unitary nation out of those different cultures.

Again, agree to disagree.

We don't understand their extremes. We don't understand their initial points, how would it be a 100$ gdp per capita economy. And we say "make elections and everything is gonna be allright". That's our problem.

Really, though, who is saying this? With all due respect, this seems like a strawman to me.

They are constantly living in a situation that the west would define as extreme. And their normalization process is taking decades. Their grandmothers were raped in their own houses in Nanking yet we side with Japan because it's a liberal democracy and we need to counter balance China.

I don't doubt that China has unique challenges that the US has never encountered and cannot understand. But if nothing else, the latest version of China's dynastic system, as embodied in the CCP, shows that history repeats itself if one pursues the same strategies, and the CCP is pursuing the same dynastic model as the emperors, except now it's a party that has a mandate of heaven instead of an individual. Does the CCP really have the flexibility to adapt to the changing world and outsmart the market, when no other totalitarian polity has been able to do so? Only time will tell.

We don't side with Japan because we need to counter China. We side with Japan because Japan accepted our offer of alliance (initially through conquest, later by free will), while China violently rejected our offer of alliance, even though we fought a World War on their behalf.

Can you even think what kind of a nationalistic wibe that a rising Japanese military would pursue in China? And we will say "Oh CCP is fueling nationalism to protect it's sovereignty. If you ask me CCP is "acting" like a nationalist on many occasions to answer the nationalistic wibe resulting from the traumas from the past that is burried deep down in Chinese civil society. Those people weren't even able to get a proper closure both from the West (because of colonization) and from Japan(because of invasion). Our ignorance about these societies blinds our sight and our prejudices makes us blame the usual suspect for their current problems : their regimes.

There's a strange parallel here between China's enduring victimhood and Japan's denial of history. Each could overcome the past by rectifying their educational systems to reflect the truth, but it serves each country's interest to propagate a distorted view of the past. I can't imagine China's trauma, true, but I also can't imagine the endless embrace of victimhood even as China emerges as the new global superpower. It's not in the American psyche to propagate such an inferiority complex, or tie our perception of ourselves to the behavior of another country. It's entirely within China's power to ignore the relatively insignificant Japan and move on, but it has not.

As discussed previously, the Japanese invasion was not the first trauma China has suffered in its history. But it does seem to be the first trauma that China will not allow itself to get over.

Yeah but even with all of those mechanisms we still have a lot of corruption that are known. And so many unlawful acts that remains unknown. There are so many "unknown unknowns" for an average citizen in a democracy. Yet we still preach the rest of the world like we are perfect because we make elections.

Another strawman? I would appreciate a citation. I have never seen a claim that the US regards itself as perfect, and certainly not because we are a democracy. In fact, we even regard ourselves as better than the other democracies, which would not be possible if the only important factor were elections.

Better, but not perfect. If we regarded ourselves as perfect, we would have no need for an independent judiciary or adversarial media, and indeed, one can find the harshest critics of the US in the US itself, even without the endless anti-American propaganda coming from outside.

Governments are growing day by day and they are inventing new institutions to make us feel safe from government overreach. And here we are, those institutions don't work. We say independent judicial branch and even the mafia infiltrated that branch both in US and in Turkey and in tons of other countries. Our judicial branches doesn't even know half the government's activity. Do you think any court in US would approve MKUltra project in 1950's? Random guys were given LSD by CIA without their knowledge. Yet we learned what happened in 1990's when those files were declassified. 40 years later. How can we be sure that there aren't any inhumane projects like this currently ongoing and no one knows? This is all result of a big government.

Yes, as stated above, we are not perfect. Big government is evil, and I do what I can to combat big government. But the strength of our system is that our flaws are exposed, debated, and acted upon through the democratic process. That makes us adaptable and robust, even if it appears messy in the short-term. In non-democracies, these incidents are permanently hidden from public view, and no debate is possible. If the leadership is enlightened, it will adjust. If it is not, G-d help the citizenry. I know which system I would choose, but it appears we're reaching an impasse.

Again, agree to disagree.

When US entered WW2 it had the size of an army equal to the army of Yugoslavia. Yet within weeks it was able to mobilize it's entire population for it's military industrial complex. That was the American way of war. You have a tiny army in peace time and when you go to war God help to your adversary you mobilize everything. Today US has the biggest army on Earth that has the potential power to wipe out the entire population on Earth several times standing still. And we are in the peace time. Can you see how inefficient and corrupt is that? I'm not expert on American history but I'm sure that founding fathers did not intend that. Bit by bit our freedoms were taken from our hands (our never really given).

Actually, history taught even our founding fathers hard lessons in the form of the Barbary Wars:

1) Per Trotsky: You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.
2) si vis pacem, para bellum (if you want peace, prepare for war). Pre-WWII, we have always been caught unprepared. No more.
3) Isolationism doesn't keep us out of war (WWI, WWII).

It is only in WWII that we finally digested the lessons and acted upon them. I support a strong military-industrial complex, because the alternative is far worse.

We need smaller governments in size. Government should only provide the basic social order and protects the private ownerships. If you ask me about the today's problems in our governments, I would prefer an independent Tea Party any day against those establishment Republicans. And prefer such parties in Turkey. And a Tea Party-like single party rule in China would be great.

We are in total agreement.

Yeah that's the biggest problem. We say power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But what about a single party rule in a powerless state? Do you think that would also make our politicians egotistical maniacs?

Yes, it's entirely possible, and it has happened before. Sweden had made some horrible blunders under its long socialist single-party rule, even though they had a democratic mandate. Japan's LDP hasn't shown much competence since the 1980s despite having a lock on the electorate. I am worried about the way the AKP is using democracy to destroy Turkey's democracy.

And yet, I have yet to see a better alternative.

Thank you (and @Genesis ) for the intellectually stimulating discussion. It's a breath of fresh air on PDF.

 

[Economic superpower]

Anyone calling it the CCP should NOT be taken seriously since it cannot even get its name right.

 

[XiaoYaoZi]

Since we've discussed this before, I'll start by saying that I broadly agree that Western-style democracy isn't for everyone, and there's no reason to expect that China will implement such a system in the near future. However, unlike in the West and contrary to your point about the CCP's inclusiveness, one must be a professional cadre to have influence in China. In the West, one can have a normal job and exercise one's influence through the vote.

The CCP system or Western democracy can be seen a kind of tool or measure that runs the society.
Let me take a analogy:CCP as chopsticks, Democracy as fork and knife, they both can be used to eat. We can easily use fork and knife to eat most food, but for hot pot that most Chinese like eating, no one can eat using fork and knife, chopsticks that have been used thousands of years is the best way to handle it.

The crux of my previous advocacy for democracy was that democracy holds the governing entity accountable. There may be other ways of holding the governing entity accountable, but the main alternatives these days seems to be what China terms a "mass event," or even worse, terrorism. Since China has often suffered from armed insurrection in its history, one would think that a sense of investment in the system (e.g. through the vote) would be a good way of preventing such undesirable outcomes, but the CCP has almost always preferred force, which begets more mass events/terrorism/armed insurrection in response.

The mass event can only be seen demonstration that can be caused by any trivial things that almost were some temporary disputes between people and local government or people and enterprises, which however easily emerge and easily disappear accompanying the rise and the elimination of the disputes.
The factors that caused armed insurrections in Chinese history were very complicated and various, it is hard to describe using a small amount of words. In my limited level of knowledge, I can only take two reasons.
One was the shortage of natural resources caused by population explosion, that meant as the country stayed too long in peaceful time(hundreds of years), the growth of population would cause the decrease of per capita resources, then the competition for food deteriorated. However this problem can be easily solved by the progress of science and technology in modern times.
The other one was the degeneration of the core of the dominance class. In the begin time of any dynasty, the founders of the dynasty tried their best efforts to fight enemies and keep their dominance stable, and, however, their achievements had proven their competence in governing countries. In the late time, these successors who almost were born in golden houses and lived in honey. They all were far less incompetent and inexperienced than their predecessors. However CCP have overcame this problem successfully by its own institution innovation.

Regarding the "CCP is China" explanation, how can that be true when what in the West is a function of non-partisan bureaucracy is in China a political decision? For example, why should an anti-corruption drive need to be a political decision from the highest level to happen, when it should be an independent function of the state to punish, just like fighting any other crime? And yet in China, corruption can only be fought if the CCP allows it.

CCP represents the Chinese government, why cant called "CCP is China" or "CCP represents China".
China also has the permanent organizations in specially charge of anti-corruption, but as you known there never exists specific measures that can solve every things well. A political decision can be used to solve problem to a better extent, why dont we use that?

The CCP is for the CCP, and when the interests of China conflict with the interests of the CCP, the CCP prioritizes the CCP.

pure pseudo-proposition. China is a country advocating collectivism in all history. CCP is a party firstly advocating collectivism. CCP is the representative of national overall interests of China. Public interest or is greater than personal interest is the basic political principle of any CCP member.

Finally, in regards to the PLA, I don't doubt that it is comprised of professionals. But since it serves the CCP and not the Chinese state, it is more accurately a professional mercenary force, not a professional military. The CCP is simply the last warlord standing, and the PLA is its private army. Since China doesn't have the possibility of rule by another party, we'll never know if the PLA would faithfully serve another master, which would indicate that it is indeed a professional military.

Democracy can solve all of the problems above. Until the CCP is able to formulate an alternative that is able to address the above problems (and thus far it has failed), democracy seems to be the least bad option to choose.

The importance of the model of PLA (the force controlled by the party 党指挥抢) is that it can keep a superb comat effectiveness using the strict political orders of CCP. Do you know that in most wars that PLA involved the casualty ratio of the military officers of PLA was much higher than the common soldiers? And the casualty ratio of CCP members in PLA also was much higher than the average casualty ratio.
Another reason is that it successfully resolved the problem of the generation of warlords that had beset our country thousands of years.
(高深的武力需要高深的佛法化解.---扫地僧《天龙八部》---金庸)
Nowadays the most businesses of PLA were exercises and disaster relieves.

 

[LeveragedBuyout]

Thanks for your reply, @XiaoYaoZi , it was illuminating. I just wanted to respond to the point you made here, and perhaps you can help me understand the Chinese system better:

CCP represents the Chinese government, why cant called "CCP is China" or "CCP represents China".
China also has the permanent organizations in specially charge of anti-corruption, but as you known there never exists specific measures that can solve every things well. A political decision can be used to solve problem to a better extent, why dont we use that?

The specific issue here is that the CCP is literally above the law in China. That is why anti-corruption is a political decision, and not a technocratic one. If there were an independent body (e.g. an independent judiciary) that could investigate and prosecute corruption in the CCP, then I would have no disagreements with you.

The problem is that such an independent body cannot exist so long as the CCP rules as a single party (if I understand correctly, the departments that investigate and prosecute corruption are subordinate to the party), and because the CCP does not embrace transparency, we will never truly know how the anti-corruption drive works (what was the evidence, how was the guilty party discovered, why now, etc.). Furthermore, it's difficult to say with any certainty that the anti-corruption drive isn't primarily a cover for political purposes (i.e. purging rivals). In your estimation, what percent of the prosecutions are against CCP members from Xi's own faction? (or @cnleio if you know the answer)

In that sense, I don't understand how this kind of political decision can be used to solve the problem to a better extent than a non-political mechanism, to use your terminology. Can you help me understand? Thank you.

 

[cnleio]

Thanks for your reply, @XiaoYaoZi , it was illuminating. I just wanted to respond to the point you made here, and perhaps you can help me understand the Chinese system better:



The specific issue here is that the CCP is literally above the law in China. That is why anti-corruption is a political decision, and not a technocratic one. If there were an independent body (e.g. an independent judiciary) that could investigate and prosecute corruption in the CCP, then I would have no disagreements with you.

The problem is that such an independent body cannot exist so long as the CCP rules as a single party (if I understand correctly, the departments that investigate and prosecute corruption are subordinate to the party), and because the CCP does not embrace transparency, we will never truly know how the anti-corruption drive works (what was the evidence, how was the guilty party discovered, why now, etc.). Furthermore, it's difficult to say with any certainty that the anti-corruption drive isn't primarily a cover for political purposes (i.e. purging rivals). In your estimation, what percent of the prosecutions are against CCP members from Xi's own faction? (or @cnleio if you know the answer)

In that sense, I don't understand how this kind of political decision can be used to solve the problem to a better extent than a non-political mechanism, to use your terminology. Can you help me understand? Thank you.

Well i don't trust the anti-corruption movement, all coz political power struggle inside CCP ... from Deng to current CCP leader, the loser will be jailed and winner can get more political interests to benefit their gang members ... continue to rule China and get money from China economy development.

Power = Money, still work to CCP. The smart, they well knew the huge money come from economy rapid development not a poor China.

 

[XiaoYaoZi]

Thanks for your reply, @XiaoYaoZi , it was illuminating. I just wanted to respond to the point you made here, and perhaps you can help me understand the Chinese system better:
The specific issue here is that the CCP is literally above the law in China. That is why anti-corruption is a political decision, and not a technocratic one. If there were an independent body (e.g. an independent judiciary) that could investigate and prosecute corruption in the CCP, then I would have no disagreements with you.
The problem is that such an independent body cannot exist so long as the CCP rules as a single party (if I understand correctly, the departments that investigate and prosecute corruption are subordinate to the party), and because the CCP does not embrace transparency, we will never truly know how the anti-corruption drive works (what was the evidence, how was the guilty party discovered, why now, etc.). Furthermore, it's difficult to say with any certainty that the anti-corruption drive isn't primarily a cover for political purposes (i.e. purging rivals). In your estimation, what percent of the prosecutions are against CCP members from Xi's own faction? (or @cnleio if you know the answer)

In that sense, I don't understand how this kind of political decision can be used to solve the problem to a better extent than a non-political mechanism, to use your terminology. Can you help me understand? Thank you.

The more accurate statement should be that disciplines of CCP are stricter than the law in China, which means all the members and the organizations of CCP need carry on their lives and works under more sticker rules including the Chinese law rather than have the power over the law.
What you said here is that CCP can not do somethings opposed to itself? right?
CCP can not be seen as a monolithic, it has different grades and every grades having different parts which carry on different functions, such as propaganda, discipline inspection, personnel management, etc. The discipline inspection commission is permanently responsible for the anti-corruption works of peer parts and subordinate parts. Every one can report the corrupted official to the discipline inspection commission of its peer or upper party committee. However as you know, there are no permanent measures that can always solve every problem well. For corrupted officials they always can manage to do some corruption things. So the anti-corruption movement can be seen a necessary supplement to solve the corruption issue, that is why I said "to a better extent".
However, non-political mechanism also exist and solve the corruption problems in China, such as the media, some revelations about corruption on some Internet forums even your White House petitions website, which definitely works.
The current anti-corruption movement in China can not only be simply seen as a movement for digging more corrupted official, but a great improvement of the system construction of CCP for anti-corruption, because many new institutions, disciplines, laws, customs, etc working for anti-corruption are created in this movement, meanwhile the better atmosphere of official circles are refreshing. That is the best effect of this anti-corruption movement I think.
The corruption issue in China absolutely can be seen the bad effect of the rapid growth of economy in some extent. Because the speed of the construction of institution and law always is unable to keep pace with the speed of economy development. However, accompanying the constant improvement of the institution and law system, the corruption issue can be improved gradually.

 

[Beidou2020]

If CCP relinquishes power to chinese people, it's mass fudging of data might come out.

If the Hindus relinquish its power on India and allow the British to run the country they created, your fellow Indians would not have to worry about racist caste systems, sanitation problems, Indian women won't have to worry about rape problems, corruption problems, Indian children won't have malnutrition problems, infrastructure problems, mass starvation and your fake country might actually develop without needing Modi-jis data fudging and you might even realise the great Hindu pipe dream of having white servants by 2030.

 

[Jlaw]

You might as well talk to a wall instead of talking to foreigners regarding anything about China.

 

[Genesis]

Since we've discussed this before, I'll start by saying that I broadly agree that Western-style democracy isn't for everyone, and there's no reason to expect that China will implement such a system in the near future. However, unlike in the West and contrary to your point about the CCP's inclusiveness, one must be a professional cadre to have influence in China. In the West, one can have a normal job and exercise one's influence through the vote.

We can debate years on what effect the vote has, but can we agree, joining a party that allows anyone to join and rising through the ranks, one can have a bigger effect than simply voting.

The crux of my previous advocacy for democracy was that democracy holds the governing entity accountable. There may be other ways of holding the governing entity accountable, but the main alternatives these days seems to be what China euphemistically terms a "mass event," or even worse, terrorism. Since China has often suffered from armed insurrection in its history, one would think that fostering a sense of investment in the system (e.g. through the vote) would be a good way of preventing such undesirable outcomes, but the CCP has almost always preferred force, which begets more mass events/terrorism/armed insurrection in response.

Accountable is interesting, you need something on paper to hold someone accountable, I don't. That is something I noticed, while not all the time, Chinese people are more comfortable with implied rules, while Americans are more in tune with written rules. You can say one is better than the other, but in reality, they both rely on the same enforcement.

For both it is the power behind the written or unwritten rules that makes them rules in the first place, without it, neither will work, written or not.

The American politicians don't fear a piece of paper, they fear their voters, while Chinese politicians don't fear a paper, they too fear the people. The CCP is not united, if someone does something outrageous then they are finished. After 1989, a lot of the generals and politicians careers are done, had Deng not been Deng, he would have been done too, he was inches from being done. No men holds that power, he has legitimacy that no one not in the revolution can have, so no one can ever have again.

Regarding the "CCP is China" explanation, how can that be true when what in the West is a function of non-partisan bureaucracy is in China a political decision? For example, why should an anti-corruption drive need to be a political decision from the highest level to happen, when it should be an independent function of the state to punish, just like fighting any other crime? And yet in China, corruption can only be fought if the CCP allows it. The CCP is for the CCP, and when the interests of China conflict with the interests of the CCP, the CCP prioritizes the CCP.

This too is interesting, this is perceptions, China is always anti corrupt, during all 365 days of the year and every year since ever. You don't hear about it, because Xi went after the big dogs.

Take Al Capone for example, is American pro-Capone and the Mafia before the major investigations? No, there were investigations, but the heat was only turned up later.

We choose to see what we want to see.

Finally, in regards to the PLA, I don't doubt that it is comprised of professionals. But since it serves the CCP and not the Chinese state, it is more accurately a professional mercenary force, not a professional military. The CCP is simply the last warlord standing, and the PLA is its private army. Since China doesn't have the possibility of rule by another party, we'll never know if the PLA would faithfully serve another master, which would indicate that it is indeed a professional military.

Democracy can solve all of the problems above. Until the CCP is able to formulate an alternative that is able to address the above problems (and thus far it has failed), democracy seems to be the least bad option to choose.

当兵吃粮, that is the Chinese phrase for becoming a soldier and having a meal. Terrible translation I know. Former Chinese soldiers only became a soldier to not die of hunger, they have no goals, or education, or anything really.

Soldiers today have an education, there are career officers and NCOs, they have options, tons of it.

Even in 1989, there were armies that made excuses and didn't go to Beijing, in 89 when China was still dirt poor and uneducated.

In terms of what democracy can do, as I said I believe in the power of office and not the vote, if the vote is really that important, we should all buy nuclear shelters because Trump will probably kill us all, if he must keep his promises because the voters voted on his promises.

Holding government accountable happens all the time, its effectiveness is debatable and different between administrations. The Wall Street debacle is blamed on Bankers, in China it is the government. We choose to magnify what we want, and it can be true on both, but neither is the full truth.

Due to the vote, American public is less willing to hold the governance system in contempt, rather than the ruling party and other players. In China, 成也萧何败也萧何. It comes with the territory. But it's a distinction without a difference.

( the last Chinese phrase, refers to the Han dynasty funding Prime Minister who gave the introduction to the great general HanXin, but he also paved the way to his destruction because of HanXin;s extraordinary talents and power. The translation is Success is because of XiaoHe, and failure is also because of Xiaohe.

Here what I meant is the CCP has no competitors, and the American government does, so naturally the system needs to be questioned, because their is no alternative, while Americans can just point to an individual party.

成也萧何败也萧何)

 

[Lure]

I suppose there are two schools of thought on this, and agreement isn't possible if we each belong to the two separate schools. One school holds that certain morals are absolute (e.g. suppression of the citizenry is essentially evil), and the other posits that morals are relative (e.g. in collectivist societies, suppression of the citizenry can be good, even while it may be evil in individualist societies). I belong to the former, it appears that you belong to the latter. As they say, agree to disagree.

Actually I wasn't prefering moral relativism in my analysis. I was taking a firm stance against moral absolutism. Every country has it's own unique situations and their moral standarts should be considered based on that situation. What's moral is not relative for me. Man should be free. But the path that goes to freedom is not absolute. If CCP is walking in that path, I won't just ruin this unique path based on some prejudice about popular elections. Because elections does not make man free. We've agreed on that.

This is necessarily so, per my argument above. the US Declaration of Independence states:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Perhaps those words come across as shallow to you, but I daresay that most Americans truly believe this. Not that all men are created equal, but some are more equal than others, but rather all men are created equal, full stop. And that governments are only legitimate if their mandate is derived from the governed (e.g. some form of elections). As is often said, American values are universalist (or in my paradigm, absolutist) values, which means that we believe Chinese citizens should have the same rights in our country that Americans have in America. Some view this as a kind of cultural imperalism, but there is no ill intent here. We believe everyone deserves the same freedoms that we have, because we generally believe in the goodness of mankind, in the best Lockean tradition.

Our news coverage stems from that tradition, generally. Is governance just? Is it inclusive? If not, arguments centering on "differences in culture" are not convincing to Americans, because we have seen and absorbed all the cultures in the world, and have forged a unitary nation out of those different cultures.

Again, agree to disagree.

First of all let's start with US Decleration of Independence. Do you know that your second paragraph and the US Decleration of Independence actually contradict right? In your second paragraph you suggest : "Not that all men are created equal, but some are more equal than others, but rather all men are created equal, full stop". But the US Decleration of Independence was for white men. All "White Men" are equal. What about blacks? In the era of the founding fathers, a considerable amount of liberal philosophers were not even sure that Black Men had a soul. This decleration was meant for White Men. I mean slavery was pretty legal when this text was written. And if I look at from today's perspective, this is actually one of the most corrupt systems in the world. But it has evolved in time isn't it? First of all slavery is abolished. Blacks were paid for their labour. Nobody "owned" them. But still there was huge discrimination against them. They were still not equal until 1950's; approx. two centuries later from that text was written. So it took two centuries for White Men to accept it's equality with the Black Men. It didn't become overnight.

Yet we see that only 70 years of CCP rule in China and I can see a better rate of improvement then that. I mean CCP also evolved from some political apparatus than can order atrocities like Great Leap Forward or Culture revolution into it's current form which is trying to find out methods to audit itself via rule of law.

So if I compare 70 years of humanitarian development in Chinese model over 200 years of humanitarian development in US model, I say they are doing a good job. The only problem for me is the direction of their development. If they are going to a free direction it's ok for me, I won't be pointing my finger to the system and be sceptical about it. I'll just wait and see where this evolves.

Really, though, who is saying this? With all due respect, this seems like a strawman to me.

Another strawman? I would appreciate a citation. I have never seen a claim that the US regards itself as perfect, and certainly not because we are a democracy. In fact, we even regard ourselves as better than the other democracies, which would not be possible if the only important factor were elections.

Better, but not perfect. If we regarded ourselves as perfect, we would have no need for an independent judiciary or adversarial media, and indeed, one can find the harshest critics of the US in the US itself, even without the endless anti-American propaganda coming from outside.

On those two messages I wasn't directly adressing your analysis. I was simply criticizing a portion of Western intelligentsia. My critique on this topic was way less to you. I was making a broader analysis on the intellectual climate in the West.

I don't doubt that China has unique challenges that the US has never encountered and cannot understand. But if nothing else, the latest version of China's dynastic system, as embodied in the CCP, shows that history repeats itself if one pursues the same strategies, and the CCP is pursuing the same dynastic model as the emperors, except now it's a party that has a mandate of heaven instead of an individual. Does the CCP really have the flexibility to adapt to the changing world and outsmart the market, when no other totalitarian polity has been able to do so? Only time will tell.

We don't side with Japan because we need to counter China. We side with Japan because Japan accepted our offer of alliance (initially through conquest, later by free will), while China violently rejected our offer of alliance, even though we fought a World War on their behalf.

Yeah that's the thing I most certainly agree. China has a unique situation so unlike their system's western examples we should watch it in a unique frame without much prejudice.

I may challenge your thesis about CCP repeating the dynastic model though. In Dynastic models people don't protest, people does not have any nationalistic feelings, population is not urban concentrated. Even if they want to form a dynastic model, it's almost impossible to maintain such model in a modern state context. And since it has an industrial market economy, an urbanizing population, definite boundries, and citizens with an awareness of national identity it's a modern state.

There's a strange parallel here between China's enduring victimhood and Japan's denial of history. Each could overcome the past by rectifying their educational systems to reflect the truth, but it serves each country's interest to propagate a distorted view of the past. I can't imagine China's trauma, true, but I also can't imagine the endless embrace of victimhood even as China emerges as the new global superpower. It's not in the American psyche to propagate such an inferiority complex, or tie our perception of ourselves to the behavior of another country. It's entirely within China's power to ignore the relatively insignificant Japan and move on, but it has not.

As discussed previously, the Japanese invasion was not the first trauma China has suffered in its history. But it does seem to be the first trauma that China will not allow itself to get over.

Well half of what happened in Nanking would have happened in New York or Los Angeles, in the first opportunity US would blow the hell out of this entire Japanese island, that's what I'm sure about that. It's not easy to leave behind such pain without proper closure. Germany provided every form of closure for Israel and Jews in general in order to maintain today's relation. Japan did pretty much nothing except for denying everything.

Yes, as stated above, we are not perfect. Big government is evil, and I do what I can to combat big government. But the strength of our system is that our flaws are exposed, debated, and acted upon through the democratic process. That makes us adaptable and robust, even if it appears messy in the short-term. In non-democracies, these incidents are permanently hidden from public view, and no debate is possible. If the leadership is enlightened, it will adjust. If it is not, G-d help the citizenry. I know which system I would choose, but it appears we're reaching an impasse.

Again, agree to disagree.

I will go for what Bertrand Russell said about British society. He said in his late years that Britain was more democratic compared to the times he grew up, but it's definitely less free. Everyday our governments are getting stronger and stronger and that actually has the potential to destroy out individual liberties. I mean US would not be able to trace and stroe every American Citizen's phone in 1950's. It simply didn't even have the technology. But it has the technology now. That's why as the technology develops more and more, it's sad but we -as citizens- become more and more exposed to our governments and less and less free.

I know you'd like to live in US without any hesitation, if you were asked you wanna live in China or US. Because let's make it clear on this topic in order prevent any misunderstandings. I don't say China is more developed then US in terms of personal freedoms and humanitarian issues or even comparable. US is of course much more superior. But US did not become what it is now by immitating UK (Of course UK was a great influence I won't deny that, but still US reinvented it's political system). It certainly did not get to it's current poing overnight either. US took a unique way -it's own way, that's why there is something called American Exceptionalism, altough some guys really puts a lot of emphasis on this which sounds more Chauvenistic propaganda then a Sociological fact, yet still there is an American Exceptionalism- and evolved it's system over centuries China is also making the same thing. Maybe 50 years later we will invent something like Chinese Exceptionalism. Who knows?

Actually, history taught even our founding fathers hard lessons in the form of the Barbary Wars:

1) Per Trotsky: You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.
2) si vis pacem, para bellum (if you want peace, prepare for war). Pre-WWII, we have always been caught unprepared. No more.
3) Isolationism doesn't keep us out of war (WWI, WWII).

It is only in WWII that we finally digested the lessons and acted upon them. I support a strong military-industrial complex, because the alternative is far worse.

Yeah actually we just think in the same way. A large standing army in peace time was definitely not a good idea for the founding fathers. But it seems now, which means the system is evolving and taking new shapes. And I see a similar evolution in CCP and China case. It's system is evolving, political drive and opposition that pushes the government is definitely not opressed like it used to. You can have CCP haters now like Ai WeiWei that can manage to live in China. There are also many NGO's pushing for better standarts in human rigthts. There are organized protests. Those were simply a dream 50 years ago. But now it's real. We should give credit and expect more.

Yes, it's entirely possible, and it has happened before. Sweden had made some horrible blunders under its long socialist single-party rule, even though they had a democratic mandate. Japan's LDP hasn't shown much competence since the 1980s despite having a lock on the electorate. I am worried about the way the AKP is using democracy to destroy Turkey's democracy.

And yet, I have yet to see a better alternative.

Thank you (and @Genesis ) for the intellectually stimulating discussion. It's a breath of fresh air on PDF.

In case of Swedish Socialist Party, I would disagree with you. Because it was -and still is- a huge government. For Japan's case, it's the same. LDP got into economics too much, stopped the competition and struggle among companies, fostered national champions, tried to get the role of a regulatory body on economy and failed miserably. If CCP will do the same, it will also fail. It's up to them.

In AKP's case Turkey is a unique example of a country that is a non-free democracy. And I agree with you that if this trend continues we will lose more things regarding democracy. I don't want to derail the discussion too much. We can get into that on another thread.

That was a very good discussion. Thanks a lot for that one.