The Path to Democracy

[yusheng]

Don’t be a missionary to spread western democracy, take care of your own business;

In fact, we, China and the western came from different civilization, so did the Islam civilization

We have our democratic way of living which the western marrow mind can not understand, but the western still want the others to follow his way, ridiculous.

Stop absurdity now go to work make some money before bankrupting.

 

[LeveragedBuyout]

To me, privatization of industry should not be done prematurely. A nation has much more resources than a private company and is much less intimidated by risks, which appears far smaller to a nation than to you and me.

What I mean is the Chinese semi conductor industry, the Operating systems industry, and many other industries including aerospace industry. These industries if left by itself will be nothing, compared to Western ones, because they lack the resources, be it people, money, or our cyber army used for stealing secrets (though how successful is debatable).

To better illustrate, the Electronics game, the Automobile game, and the Real Estate game use to be national companies, but since they all gone private, but only as they became more ready, auto industry less so.

Without the country's effort to get factories full of people who knows how to assemble a TV, the capital to build more factories, the know how on how to operating them, and more, China would not be the manufacturing giant it is today.

You said you been in China during the early days, then you should know how limited our industry was then, and if we are to look at other developing countries' industry relative to us, we can also see how far we have advanced.

So to me these two serves different purpose rather than the efficiency part. A car without an engine will not run, no matter how well made it is, on the other hand, a car that only has the engine will break down, every 10 meters, if that's the only good thing about it.

It seems like a dedicated balance.



If we are to look at the oil industry as a whole, are they not the side arm of any colonizing force or invasion force? Be it Shell, Exxon Mobil or even SinoPec. Can a private company make as much an impact if it didn't have politics behind it?

Since we are talking democracy's merit and problems, how can China privatize these companies, without having large interests groups forming that may have too much hold a industry should on a government? To some degree, SinoPec has way too much interests overseas, that if China were to some day look to expand its influence, it almost cannot do without it.

If we break it up, would it not be too divisive, we just merged a few state owned companies, as it turns out, competition can some times be damaging to both's interests and the nation's.


Is there a way to balance these things, are are we just doomed to repeat mistakes again and again, because the first mistake wasn't stupidity, but a necessity.


great wall wasn't built in a day, but it was built with the blood and bones of its workers. While I am optimistic about the future, I sometimes do doubt if when push come to shove, CCP will really relinquish its absolute control or will there be chaos, and even if they do, how damaging the transitional period will be.

People often forget during the huge military cuts of our earlier days from 6 million to current 1.6, our military was more or less just for show, and it was not a good show, it's the kind of show, you would kick the director in the balls for.

@Nihonjin1051 has already done a better job than I could have in presenting tactics to be applied for a successful privatization program. But as to the question of why, it's simply a question of cost.

Government-owned corporations are funded by the taxpayer, so they have no pressure to be efficient. They also have no pressure to deliver a good product or service to their customer, because they are (usually) a monopoly. So the public gets hit three times: it pays for a government corporation with tax money that might be spent elsewhere; it pays for a company whose products/services it may not even use (e.g. a government-owned software company that makes an operating system other than the one used by much of the public); and if it does use the product/service, as I said, it won't necessarily be a good product/service.

Moreover, if a cheap import is available to fill the need, why pay for the R&D to duplicate it, then higher prices (because the local version serves a smaller client base than the global version), and with potentially lower quality?

I can see only justifiable case where the state should step in to develop the product/service, and that is in the case of embargo, when an import substitute is not available. In China's case, the defense industry was developed this way. But I doubt the development of a parallel semiconductor and operating system industry will help China in the long run, because as large as China is, it is a small fraction of the global economy. Global users will tend to choose the more freely-available solution, and when China ultimately embargoes Western semiconductors/operating systems (as we know it will, under some national security justification), why would clients outside of China prefer the Chinese solution? I'm comfortable in predicting that they will not prefer the Chinese solution, which will further raise costs for the Chinese client base.

There's a reason why the US doesn't do everything, and instead outsources or offshores various industries. Does anyone doubt we have the technical competence? Of course we do. It's a matter of cost, and American multi-nationals dominate because they are ruthless about cost and returns. A state champion that depends on subsidies or trade barriers to succeed will fail in the export market, and I doubt China will be an exception.

Therefore, China should privatize non-strategic companies (i.e. the vast majority of them), not because it must, but because it will confer great advantages on the Chinese economy, the Chinese citizenry, and the Chinese government.

 

[gambit]

The reasons for Russia's failure is because Glassnost and Perestroika were implemented too quickly.

I disagree.

The problem here is that despite all these yrs of democracy in play, there is no consensus on how long should a country take in transitioning from a dictatorship to a democracy.

http://www.amazon.com/Reagan-Reykjavik-Forty-Eight-Hours-Ended/dp/0062310194

I have that excellent book on my shelf and it was fascinating on how Gorbachev admitted to Reagan on the sad status of the Soviet Union at that time. For Gorbachev, it was as if he was resigned to what he believed was inevitable: the collapse of the Soviet Union.

That collapse was inevitable in the sense that the Soviet Union's economic decline have been going on too long. Like an old tree, the roots of corruption, inefficiency, and worst of all the disillusion of the Soviet people about the Soviet system as a moral foundation for the existence of the Soviet Union as a state, went too deep for gradual reforms.

We in America have no doubts on what we are -- a functional democracy. No matter how flawed, it is a functional democracy. We kept working at it because we believe in the moral foundation that contains democratic and capitalist principles. The bottom line that Gorbachev realized a long time ago, before he became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was that no one inside the Soviet system believed in Marx and Lenin and their associated -isms any more. Hence, no one worked at refining Marxist and Leninist thoughts. No one except Marxists living in the West while trying to subvert it. The result: Everyone that had any interests in the Soviet system became opportunists working hard to preserve their place inside that rotten system for as long as they can with the goal of one day being able to leave that system.

So if I read Gorbachev correctly, if it was not perestroika and glasnost, it would have been the rot within, and the rot was so pernicious that the introduction of reforms, no matter how measured, would have initiate the collapse at the same speed that we have seen.

In my little library at home, I have two bookcases, each 6ft tall, and both filled with books about Russia, China, and Japan. I call them my 'RCJ' section of my basement library. Viktor Belenko was the first to pique my interests about the Soviet Union when I was active duty and I have been going since. I try to have as many variety of opinions about Russia as possible and I have perspectives from reporters such as Andrew Nagorski's Reluctant Farewell, to diplomats to immigrants to politicians. Without a nuclear war, the collapse of the Soviet Union when in direct competition with the Western countries was inevitable. All we had to do was keep up the pressure in every aspects of that competition: scientific, cultural, military, espionage, alliances, economics, and so on.

 

[Aepsilons]

I disagree.

The problem here is that despite all these yrs of democracy in play, there is no consensus on how long should a country take in transitioning from a dictatorship to a democracy.

Amazon.com: Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War (9780062310194): Ken Adelman: Books

I have that excellent book on my shelf and it was fascinating on how Gorbachev admitted to Reagan on the sad status of the Soviet Union at that time. For Gorbachev, it was as if he was resigned to what he believed was inevitable: the collapse of the Soviet Union.

That collapse was inevitable in the sense that the Soviet Union's economic decline have been going on too long. Like an old tree, the roots of corruption, inefficiency, and worst of all the disillusion of the Soviet people about the Soviet system as a moral foundation for the existence of the Soviet Union as a state, went too deep for gradual reforms.

We in America have no doubts on what we are -- a functional democracy. No matter how flawed, it is a functional democracy. We kept working at it because we believe in the moral foundation that contains democratic and capitalist principles. The bottom line that Gorbachev realized a long time ago, before he became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was that no one inside the Soviet system believed in Marx and Lenin and their associated -isms any more. Hence, no one worked at refining Marxist and Leninist thoughts. No one except Marxists living in the West while trying to subvert it. The result: Everyone that had any interests in the Soviet system became opportunists working hard to preserve their place inside that rotten system for as long as they can with the goal of one day being able to leave that system.

So if I read Gorbachev correctly, if it was not perestroika and glasnost, it would have been the rot within, and the rot was so pernicious that the introduction of reforms, no matter how measured, would have initiate the collapse at the same speed that we have seen.

In my little library at home, I have two bookcases, each 6ft tall, and both filled with books about Russia, China, and Japan. I call them my 'RCJ' section of my basement library. Viktor Belenko was the first to pique my interests about the Soviet Union when I was active duty and I have been going since. I try to have as many variety of opinions about Russia as possible and I have perspectives from reporters such as Andrew Nagorski's Reluctant Farewell, to diplomats to immigrants to politicians. Without a nuclear war, the collapse of the Soviet Union when in direct competition with the Western countries was inevitable. All we had to do was keep up the pressure in every aspects of that competition: scientific, cultural, military, espionage, alliances, economics, and so on.

Sir @gambit ,

Great point of reflection. As you mentioned in your post, the United States is a functional democracy and one that has satisfied most if not all of the pillars of democracy. In fact the democratic consciousness exists ever since the foundation of the United States, the Declaration of Independence was the manifestation of this manifesto. Since independence, the society has matured enough to build upon this democratic system through various legal charters , ranging from the the debates of Articles of Confederation, to abolition of slavery, the eradication of segregation of schools vis-a-vis the Brown vs Board of Education, to the veracity of gender equality as seen in the Roe vs wade landmark decision. These are but examples that illustrates how alive and well the participatory representative democracy that is seen in the United States.

Compare that with the current Russian Federation. Russia, historically speaking, doesn't have a historical instance of a participatory , representative, inclusive democracy. Before the Soviet Union, Russia was an Absolute Monarchy wherein the Czar had absolute control of government, with the peasants/ serfs mere pawns in the mandate of the state. This absolutist system that was used in the old Imperial Romanov Government is best defined by a quote by the Late King Louis XIV, who said, " l'état, c'est moi" , translated as "I Am The State."

That in mind, after the overthrow of the Romanov Government in 1917, Russia's Bolshevik Revolution set in place a Communist System in Government wherein decision making was, more less, placed in the hands of a few. When that Soviet establishment utterly collapsed in 1991, Russia was placed in a radical transition. Most importantly its leaders were -- forayed into the unknown. Lack of experience in the democratic system, collusion of the black market with political activity, rampant corruption, was a barrier to success. This is why I said that the rapid implementation of Glassnost and Perestroika led to Russia's initial economic and political stagnation, which was directly due in part to the lack of democratic system. To the Russians, this very concept of Democracy was alien to them, it was new, as never in their history did they have a participatory, representative, inclusive democracy.

Thus this explains the relative success of American democracy -- it has 3 centuries of democratic legacy, since its founding as an independent Republic. Russia, on the other hand, have a history of Absolutism and thus makes up the core stratum of their collective state existence. Democracy , especially in regards to Western Enlightenment, is an alien concept to Imperial Russia.

Thus these remain a challenge to Moscow to this current epoch, and remains to be so in the immediate to intermediate future.

 

[Yizhi]

i do believe china will have democracy but not necessarily in a form anyone(especially the west) will recognize.
elections? not necessary nor productive these days.
multiparty? CCP itself has enough sub sections to balance each other.
for me democracy is the eternal struggle of mankind to seek better relationships between the elites and the rest of the society. elites here refer to the rich, the educated, the politicians in office and anyone who has real power in decision making for the entire society. how to make these elites care about the interests of the rest while making crucial decisions is the key here. and in that regard, US performance is actually somewhat disappointing for an outside observer like me.

 

[SarthakGanguly]

i do believe china will have democracy but not necessarily in a form anyone(especially the west) will recognize.
elections? not necessary nor productive these days.
multiparty? CCP itself has enough sub sections to balance each other.

This is the best post to show how a donkey can be painted to sell as a horse.

I really hope you were being sarcastic in there.

 

[Yizhi]

This is the best post to show how a donkey can be painted to sell as a horse.

I really hope you were being sarcastic in there.

i'm just being indifferent btw. just tired of those 'oh no china bad cause they dont have elections and they have one party system'.
CCP is actually kinda cute if you know how the system work.

 

[gambit]

That in mind, after the overthrow of the Romanov Government in 1917, Russia's Bolshevik Revolution set in place a Communist System in Government wherein decision making was, more less, placed in the hands of a few. When that Soviet establishment utterly collapsed in 1991, Russia was placed in a radical transition. Most importantly its leaders were -- forayed into the unknown. Lack of experience in the democratic system, collusion of the black market with political activity, rampant corruption, was a barrier to success. This is why I said that the rapid implementation of Glassnost and Perestroika led to Russia's initial economic and political stagnation, which was directly due in part to the lack of democratic system. To the Russians, this very concept of Democracy was alien to them, it was new, as never in their history did they have a participatory, representative, inclusive democracy.

Valid point -- that Russia and the Russians have nothing to fall back upon when the Soviet Union collapsed.

It was -- and still is -- easy to conflate the Soviet Union with Russia when politically speaking, Russia is a distinct country that happened to be the center of a union of countries and led that union for so many yrs. The collapse of that union is what I was talking about. What happened to Russia and the Russian people was very much inevitable since it is not as if Stalin and his successors really planned for a catastrophic event like the collapse of their empire and needed an alternative political system to keep control of Russia. Without nuclear weapons, Russia would be at best a country that barely reached 2nd world status.

But here a significant excerpt from Adelman's book...

Amazon.com: Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War (9780062310194): Ken Adelman: Books

Chapter 8

From the Worst to the Best of Times

But there had been no breakthrough at Reykjavik -- at least none evident then. If anything, Reyjavik ad worsened Gorbachev's problems. It showed Reagan moving full steam ahead on SDI and claiming great progress on the program.

Hence, there was no time to spare. Gorbachev had to push reforms -- hard. everywhere, and at once. Consequently, just weeks after Reykjavik, he called a special session of the Party's Central Committee to meet in Moscow in January 1987, and asked the committee to adopt his package of political changes, known as glasnost, and economic reforms, dubbed perestroika. It was, he told his colleagues, adapt or die for the Soviet system.

While his proposed reforms were extensive, they were still only reforms. They would modify, not replace, the system Lenin had created and Stalin expanded. Gorbachev -- like Lenin with his New Economic Policy in 1921 -- wanted an upgrade and not a replacement to the existing system.

Consequently, his reforms became discombobulated. Gorbachev spoke of greater freedom, but would not release most political prisoners nor allow many Jews to emigrate. He permitted the printing of long-banned books, including Doctor Zhivago and Nineteen Eighty-Four, but would not relinquish state control over all televisions, radio, and print media. He allowed elections between competing candidates, but not competing parties. All candidates came from the Communist Party and only competed for local posts. Gorbachev never allowed anyone to run against himself.

Even such baby steps, however, posed grave dangers. Candidates soon learned that they could garner support by tearing down Moscow and boosting up local pride. This posed a mortal danger to a centrally controlled, multiethnic empire like the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev's economic reforms were similarly confused. A CIA report at the time concluded that he advocated " 'profound' changes in the area of economic reform, while strongly supporting the need to maintain central control. " He allowed firms to determine their own products and set their own outputs, but only after they had fulfilled their state quotas. He allowed them to sell their products in the open market, but only at a price set by the state, after fulfilling state orders. Firms could raise their own funds and operate as they wished, but still had to be owned and answer to the state. While some firms could be privately owned, none could own private property. All had to pay high taxes and get state permission to hire or fire employees. Soviet products could compete internationally, yet the ruble would stay nonconvertible.

Even the most adept executive -- of which there were few then -- had to slap his forehead at such convoluted restrictions. And even the most experienced executive -- of which there were none then -- was destined to fail if he followed the rules.

Adding to the gloom was a suddenly sprung jihad against drinking. This, too, was well-intended and right-minded, as drunkenness had become a Russian pandemic. But Gorbachev's crusade did nothing to lessen alcohol consumption and much to heighten popular resentment.

Before long, a joke began circulating around Moscow -- allegedly told to Gorbachev himself -- about some fellow who, after hours of waiting in line for bread, goes berserk and tells others in line that he's going to find and shoot Gorbachev. He leaves the bread line but soon returns, quietly resumes his place, and explains that he's back because the other line, the line to shoot Gorbachev, was even longer.

There are many parallels between the Soviet Union -- not Russia -- and China we see today in terms of reforms, how they are executed, and how they at least appears to be confusing or even contradicting to observers. The pornography jihad the Chinese government have is quite similar to what Gorbachev did with Russian drinking.

The Chinese government may have taken lessons from the collapse of the Soviet Union, but I believe what really saved China from the fate of the Soviet Union is that China is not a union. China is also not a confederation the way the US or the Swiss are. China is very much unitary and the Chinese people does have a collective social consciousness that spans literally thousands of yrs. There was no Soviet like there is Chinese or American or Japanese or Chilean. Another thing that saved China, not from collapse like the Soviet Union but at least from chaos like when Mao destroyed the Chinese economy, was that the Chinese government was wise enough to admit they needed external assist, especially in terms of economic reforms.

And finally, my Japanese friend on the other side of the world...

Hello from the US.

 

[senheiser]

Valid point -- that Russia and the Russians have nothing to fall back upon when the Soviet Union collapsed.

It was -- and still is -- easy to conflate the Soviet Union with Russia when politically speaking, Russia is a distinct country that happened to be the center of a union of countries and led that union for so many yrs. The collapse of that union is what I was talking about. What happened to Russia and the Russian people was very much inevitable since it is not as if Stalin and his successors really planned for a catastrophic event like the collapse of their empire and needed an alternative political system to keep control of Russia. Without nuclear weapons, Russia would be at best a country that barely reached 2nd world status.

But here a significant excerpt from Adelman's book...

Amazon.com: Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War (9780062310194): Ken Adelman: Books

There are many parallels between the Soviet Union -- not Russia -- and China we see today in terms of reforms, how they are executed, and how they at least appears to be confusing or even contradicting to observers. The pornography jihad the Chinese government have is quite similar to what Gorbachev did with Russian drinking.

The Chinese government may have taken lessons from the collapse of the Soviet Union, but I believe what really saved China from the fate of the Soviet Union is that China is not a union. China is also not a confederation the way the US or the Swiss are. China is very much unitary and the Chinese people does have a collective social consciousness that spans literally thousands of yrs. There was no Soviet like there is Chinese or American or Japanese or Chilean. Another thing that saved China, not from collapse like the Soviet Union but at least from chaos like when Mao destroyed the Chinese economy, was that the Chinese government was wise enough to admit they needed external assist, especially in terms of economic reforms.

And finally, my Japanese friend on the other side of the world...

View attachment 181698

Hello from the US.

there is no American either its fake identity, if the US wouldn't be an island it would be easy to conquer it and divide its people.
Russia barley second world country? its gdp per capita is 24.5k that richer than most of your eastern european serf state which you funded tons of money and they are still shit.

US Soldiers Raped Boys In Front Of Their Mothers

 

[Judge]

@Horus @WebMaster @Oscar
Kindly sticky this thread for the wonderful discussion taking place here. All members will benefit from keeping this and reading this , rather than it getting lost in the deluge of other threads.

 

[Yizhi]

While I'm not in the mood to say we need to make the switch, I also want to rain on your parade, it's not working, not entirely.

Corruption is rampant, the car inspection place is a 500,000 dollar job per year, it's such a place that no one person can work there 2 years in a role, and it's about a 100,00 to 200,000 dollars just to get the job.

You want to know how I know that? I got a huge family, though I rarely see them, they work in the government, they know all the crock things they do in there.

At this point, it's an open secret.

Has Xi improved things? Yes, definitely real changes, businesses get no calls from the tax collection agencies for some fake *** collections, and the wine and dine things are over, at least in the open, corruption has been curbed a bit, but it's not gone.

The people needs a voice, not because I think people have good ideas, or even it won't hamper development, but the problem of corruption is too deep rooted at this point, fighting fire with fire will only make the fire burn brighter.


I'm going to say corruption will happen, especially during thsi period of change, due to general poverty, lack of rule of law, lack of people power, and all that regardless of what system it is, this will happen. However that doesn't mean, just because it happened, you don't fix it, it must be fixed, for the good of the country.

While we can live without CCP, but a person without a nation...Just look at our Muslim brothers and African brothers. They work just as hard, some of them, if not harder and here they are. We must not become that...Again.

agreed. similar experience.
state sectors definitely need reform, but they still have crucial roles to play in the future. if we do it right, then that's a real challenge to the 'free market, privatization the best' school.
CCP today is not just some political party we can simply get rid of and expect positive change will come 'automatically'. anyone who think like that is basically suggesting anarchy. it's the entire governmental structure. they should have changed its name into 'chinese development party' or sth....
there are fundamental differences between west and china (to some extend, east asians) on how people view the role of state. a strong state in china actually make chinese feel safe while perhaps the entire opposite in the west. so no matter how democracy turn out to be in a chinese form, i'm afraid this strong competent state factor will continue.

 

[Aepsilons]

Valid point -- that Russia and the Russians have nothing to fall back upon when the Soviet Union collapsed.

It was -- and still is -- easy to conflate the Soviet Union with Russia when politically speaking, Russia is a distinct country that happened to be the center of a union of countries and led that union for so many yrs. The collapse of that union is what I was talking about. What happened to Russia and the Russian people was very much inevitable since it is not as if Stalin and his successors really planned for a catastrophic event like the collapse of their empire and needed an alternative political system to keep control of Russia. Without nuclear weapons, Russia would be at best a country that barely reached 2nd world status.

But here a significant excerpt from Adelman's book...

Amazon.com: Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War (9780062310194): Ken Adelman: Books

There are many parallels between the Soviet Union -- not Russia -- and China we see today in terms of reforms, how they are executed, and how they at least appears to be confusing or even contradicting to observers. The pornography jihad the Chinese government have is quite similar to what Gorbachev did with Russian drinking.

The Chinese government may have taken lessons from the collapse of the Soviet Union, but I believe what really saved China from the fate of the Soviet Union is that China is not a union. China is also not a confederation the way the US or the Swiss are. China is very much unitary and the Chinese people does have a collective social consciousness that spans literally thousands of yrs. There was no Soviet like there is Chinese or American or Japanese or Chilean. Another thing that saved China, not from collapse like the Soviet Union but at least from chaos like when Mao destroyed the Chinese economy, was that the Chinese government was wise enough to admit they needed external assist, especially in terms of economic reforms.

And finally, my Japanese friend on the other side of the world...

View attachment 181698

Hello from the US.

Excellent point(s), Sir. And as a veteran service man of the US Armed Forces , I take my hat off to you. Thanks for serving and protecting the United States (which i graciously call my 'home' now), and also for directly being part of the American-Japanese vanguard during the Cold War.

 

[Armstrong]

Excellent point(s), Sir. And as a veteran service man of the US Armed Forces , I take my hat off to you. Thanks for serving and protecting the United States (which i graciously call my 'home' now), and also for directly being part of the American-Japanese vanguard during the Cold War.

You're not a Japanese anymore then ?

 

[ashok mourya]

One question from a half educated person like me...
Is America, UK, Canada, Australia, etc so called democratic countries really democratic?

 

[illuminatidinesh]

What is the term Fake Democracy? Stupid comment though on US being Fake democracy..... I have the power to kick the current ruling fellas when I feel disappointed with them- Can any of those living in fairy land do that with dictators?
Chinese people have adapted without democracy , its their choice . I cant comment on is it that really they want though.
The forefathers of all democracy thought one man cannot be given too much power, they were right. Democracy has empowered me......