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China may be oppressive compared to developed countries, but if you look at where it came from, at its current state it's probably the least oppressive governme

China may be oppressive compared to developed countries, but if you look at where it came from, at its current state it's probably the least oppressive government it's ever had. Historically revolts were fought by peasants over high taxes that left them starving. Now-a-days the issue is the lack of private land ownership, and the government is already implementing land reform for this specific reason. Corruption is still rampant, but people are generally kept well-fed. People will only shed blood if their livelihood is on the line, usually abstract reasons such as freedom of speech alone is not enough, these things usually only change gradually from within.

tokenadult 17y ago
at its current state it's probably the least oppressive government it's ever had. That's a commonly made statement, and I don't claim to have a basis for definitively disagreeing with that statement. But I have heard some historians claim that many of the regions of China had better governance in the 1930s (some under "warlords," and some under the KMT central government) than China has had at any time under the PRC regime. That would be an interesting historical question, and probably depends on which forms of "oppression" one counts and which subgroups of the population are most regarded in the analysis. Even as I knew Taiwan in early 1982 when I first arrived there, when Taiwan was still a one-party Leninist dictatorship that practiced censorship and even political assassination, it was a less oppressive place than China is today, in my personal view of what is oppressive and what is not and who is most oppressed.
- papersmith 17y ago
  Interesting that you brought it up, I actaully thought about this for quite a while before I wrote the original comment. I agree the forms and targets of oppression between ROC then and PRC today are quite similar in urban areas. However, the main difference being that for most of the time Chiang Kaishek ruled China under martial law, and due to the amount of opposition Chiang faced back then, and the civil wars happening in the rurals, I would say the level of violence was much more severe. In the end though, China probably would have been better off if ROC stayed, but the fact of the matter is different. Note that by China I am referring to the mainland. Taiwan is hands down better off today.

tokenadult 17y ago

at its current state it's probably the least oppressive government it's ever had. That's a commonly made statement, and I don't claim to have a basis for definitively disagreeing with that statement. But I have heard some historians claim that many of the regions of China had better governance in the 1930s (some under "warlords," and some under the KMT central government) than China has had at any time under the PRC regime. That would be an interesting historical question, and probably depends on which forms of "oppression" one counts and which subgroups of the population are most regarded in the analysis. Even as I knew Taiwan in early 1982 when I first arrived there, when Taiwan was still a one-party Leninist dictatorship that practiced censorship and even political assassination, it was a less oppressive place than China is today, in my personal view of what is oppressive and what is not and who is most oppressed.

papersmith 17y ago
Interesting that you brought it up, I actaully thought about this for quite a while before I wrote the original comment. I agree the forms and targets of oppression between ROC then and PRC today are quite similar in urban areas. However, the main difference being that for most of the time Chiang Kaishek ruled China under martial law, and due to the amount of opposition Chiang faced back then, and the civil wars happening in the rurals, I would say the level of violence was much more severe. In the end though, China probably would have been better off if ROC stayed, but the fact of the matter is different. Note that by China I am referring to the mainland. Taiwan is hands down better off today.