This is just such a nonsensical ideological piece without any regard to facts, which are always much more intricate and delicate than what simple lofty words su

This is just such a nonsensical ideological piece without any regard to facts, which are always much more intricate and delicate than what simple lofty words such as "capitalism", "democracy", "dictatorship" etc. can cover. First, Xi is known precisely for his pro-market reforms and has been compared to Ronald Reagan for this. Under Xi's reign, the benefits for public servants have been drastically cut and many formerly commonplace practices will now be considered as corruption and land you in deep troubles. Therefore, many have been simply abandoning posts in the public sector and have gone into the private sector. If anything, China is accelerating on its path to become another US. Basically everything is modeled after the US society, and Xi wants to put everything into "the hands of the market". Depending on who you ask it's either fantastic (for the conservatives) or disastrous (for the leftists who much favor the European model of governments). But in no way will there be more restrictions on capitalism and stronger "government rule" out there. Xi wanting to stay on to continue his reforms doesn't automatically mean he wants to curb the market and expand the government. Exactly the contrary is happening. Drawing conclusions automatically from ideological grounds is just ridiculous. Second, many mature so-called western "democracies" perfectly allow one person in power for many years. Merkel is desperately trying to start her fourth term right now, and German economy has been always booming under her reign. Another obvious example (though not really a "western democracy" of course) is Singapore. China is even "more democratic" than Singapore in that the leadership is never passed on to a family member. Yet where are the criticisms against Singapore in the mainstream media during all these years? Zero, simply because Singapore is considered a strategic partner of the US while China a rising competitor, enemy. Could the media and western governments be even more hypocritical than that? Such double standards is quite some feat. Again, Xi's wanting to stay on doesn't automatically mean that China is going to be plunged into a reign of terror and chaos. Nobody can predict how his measures turn out to be, but to say that it's destined for failure and using "dictatorship" which implies something similar to North Korea or some Central American country (its brutal regime supported by the CIA and US politicians all the time, of course), is just laughable. Xi is indeed coming up with some measures that one may call authoritarian such as video surveillance coupled with facial recognition systems everywhere. But so is the US, especially after 911, with the massive overreach of government into civil lives. I sincerely don't think the US is much more a "democracy" than China is. There are some truer democracies among the European countries, which should indeed be protected. I am quite horrified witnessing the transformation of China into another US right now, but I'm afraid that cannot be stopped and the western political establishments would be better off thinking how to cope under a new world order instead of trying their best to deny or distort such a fact with such double standards thinly coated with ideological nonsense, as always.