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"At a time when the world thinks the communist model has been proved obsolete, China remains a communist country. In fact, under the current leader, Hu Jintao,
by garply 17y ago
"At a time when the world thinks the communist model has been proved obsolete, China remains a communist country. In fact, under the current leader, Hu Jintao, human rights in China have recently suffered and are now in serious decline, according to Amnesty International-USA, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, and others."
I take two related issues with this statement:
1) He says "in fact... human rights have recently suffered" as if it demonstrates that China remains a communist country. Certainly attempts at communist societies and human rights violations are correlated in recent history, but human rights violations are not evidence of communism.
2) China is not communist, it is Communist - that is, run by a political party which has the name Communist in it. People use the phrase "communist China" as slur. I believe this perpetuates the notion that China is actually communist among a non-trivial portion of the American population. It would be better to call attention to China's authoritarianism, which I think is what he's taking issue with.
- poutine 17y agoWhile China is certainly not communist in the literal sense do not underestimate the extent that the Communist party and its ideals pervade society. However I do agree that China is better referred to as an Authoritarian government with communist and capitalist influences. Also, we should all not underestimate how revolutionary the Chinese can be. They have a short fuse and do not in general enjoy the authoritarian regime. They put up with it for strictly pragmatic reasons, if given a path of their own choosing that they perceive as better they quite possibly will take it.
- rw 17y agoImagine saying "Capitalist America". How accurate is that? Not very :-)
- zaphar 17y agoName an attempt at communism that isn't correlated with human rights violations. The fact is that despite the "ideals" of pure "communism" every time it's tried bad things happen.
- garply 17y agoThat wasn't my point, but here's an example anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Reunion_(Dallas) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Reunion_(Dallas)
- zaphar 17y agoThat doesn't exactly qualify. It was a commune and not a national level Communist Government. Since it was formed within the United States it's members were protected by the laws of a Republic which prevented those very Human Rights abuses.