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Having lived in China though the scale issue does seem to be a problem. A brief Google shows that Taiwan has a population of a little over 23mil whereas Hunan p

Having lived in China though the scale issue does seem to be a problem. A brief Google shows that Taiwan has a population of a little over 23mil whereas Hunan province alone has around 67mil and Sichuan has 87mil people. Add to this that because of lack of development and the legacy of Mao many of these people either have no education or live in remote mountains or both. I'm not saying this means democracy is impossible, but if you work in tech I'd hope you'd be able to at least recognize that doing democracy in Taiwan is not even remotely comparable to doing it in China because of scale issues alone.

i_am_proteus 7y ago
What would prevent a federal system from working in China?
- jhedwards 7y ago
  I believe China does in fact have a federal system. Everything is integrated all the way up to the top but every province does have its own government with some degree of autonomy as far as I know. When I lived in Hunan for example the Hunan government was doing some projects with foreign lawyers to develop laws protecting victims of domestic abuse.
  - ajdlinux 7y ago
    > every province does have its own government with some degree of autonomy That's not a federal system as generally understood. Generally, the distinction between a federal system and a unitary state with somewhat-autonomous subdivisions is that in a federal system, the powers of the subnational entities are constitutionally entrenched, whereas in a unitary state, the autonomy of a subnational division is at the will of the national government. The overwhelming majority of countries have some form of autonomous regional government, because it's impossible to run any sufficiently large country any other way, but the majority of countries are not federations.
- pishpash 7y ago
  For one, you'll get the same problems as all the homeless pouring into California, or poorer Central Americans pouring over the border, and the subsequent backlash. Democracies will not support the sort of development model that China has pursued of massive wealth transfer and development of the hinterlands. Developed areas will want to wall themselves off but less developed areas will want populist policies. Add on top of that ethnic issues that would be easily exploitable by demagogues. More likely than not the country falls apart. Don't be so smug, the US and EU are only getting a small taste of the sort of problems that China has been facing for several thousand years as a diverse centralized state, and are already resorting to the sort of things that China ended up having to do with respect to social control and stability.
  - komali2 7y ago
    Why doesn't India have this problem?
    - pishpash 7y ago
      Well yes, the other model is India where they tolerate certain problems and let them go on forever, but people can bitch about it. Analogous to the phenomenon of adults peeing and doing drugs on the streets of downtown SF. Not saying it's better or worse in the end but at the least, the experiment goes on.
      - komali2 7y ago
        India is trying very hard to solve their problems, I'm curious where you get the idea that they're letting them "go on forever." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/03/world/asia/india-toilet-movie.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/03/world/asia/india-toilet-m... Regarding peeing specifically, India has a Nationwide push for increasing toilet infrastructure. The change over the past five years, let alone ten, is dramatic. Possibly faster than anything in human history. I also don't understand why you think nobody is doing anything about people using the restroom on the streets of SF - new bathroom trailers are being added. It's not much but it's something, and more are coming. If you have other ideas, would you like to join me tomorrow at 2pm for the next board of supervisors meeting to present them to the city?
pishpash 7y ago
The closest comparison is India, not Taiwan. 23 mil is about the size of one major city in China. Shanghai alone has more people than all of Taiwan.
wil421 7y ago
Your comment is the exact one I see on HN and reddit. Yet the USA and EU have democracies with close to a billion people combined. India is an example of a developing democracy with a population close to China and all the issues that come with a huge population. Yet India is a democracy and the people have gone from a population ruled by the British to a democracy. The people of anywhere should get to decide what they want.
- jhedwards 7y ago
  > The people of anywhere should get to decide what they want. I don't dispute this. I dispute people in their comfy first world homes pontificating about how China should have democracy, when they haven't been to China and experienced: 1.) the kinds of problems China faces and 2.) the difficulties facing solving those problems in China It smacks of arrogance and youthful naivety. Yes we have a democracy in the US and how is it doing? We have garbage voting machines that are easily hackable, rampant gerrymandering, and coordinated disinformation campaigns that contributed to Trump of all people being our president. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have it than not have it, and I think we can solve these problems. I'm optimistic. But those are just the problems WE have in a developed country one third the size of China, and with better infrastructure, education, and quality of live overall. I can't imagine trying to implement an _effective_ voting system in a country like China where many people do not even have clean water or basic sanitation yet. Not to mention the fact that they don't have division of powers, so before democracy was implemented they'd require a whole bottom up restructuring of their entire governmental apparatus.
  - wil421 7y ago
    What are a few specific issues that are unique to China?
    - jhedwards 7y ago
      Honestly I could name a few things but it's such a massive, complicated place that it's hard to say anything about it. Certainly if you go there and travel around a bit you will learn a lot. You will only scratch the surface but it's a start. One big issue unique to China is related to fallout from the cultural revolution, which affected a huge number of people. Read this section of the Wiki about education to get some idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Education Another is the lack of a separation of powers. The geography of China carries a lot of challenges as well. One of the advantages the US had was being able to develop in an extremely protected place in the world. China has had pressure from a wide variety of neighboring states for almost its entire history.

i_am_proteus 7y ago

What would prevent a federal system from working in China?

jhedwards 7y ago
I believe China does in fact have a federal system. Everything is integrated all the way up to the top but every province does have its own government with some degree of autonomy as far as I know. When I lived in Hunan for example the Hunan government was doing some projects with foreign lawyers to develop laws protecting victims of domestic abuse.
- ajdlinux 7y ago
  > every province does have its own government with some degree of autonomy That's not a federal system as generally understood. Generally, the distinction between a federal system and a unitary state with somewhat-autonomous subdivisions is that in a federal system, the powers of the subnational entities are constitutionally entrenched, whereas in a unitary state, the autonomy of a subnational division is at the will of the national government. The overwhelming majority of countries have some form of autonomous regional government, because it's impossible to run any sufficiently large country any other way, but the majority of countries are not federations.
pishpash 7y ago
For one, you'll get the same problems as all the homeless pouring into California, or poorer Central Americans pouring over the border, and the subsequent backlash. Democracies will not support the sort of development model that China has pursued of massive wealth transfer and development of the hinterlands. Developed areas will want to wall themselves off but less developed areas will want populist policies. Add on top of that ethnic issues that would be easily exploitable by demagogues. More likely than not the country falls apart. Don't be so smug, the US and EU are only getting a small taste of the sort of problems that China has been facing for several thousand years as a diverse centralized state, and are already resorting to the sort of things that China ended up having to do with respect to social control and stability.
- komali2 7y ago
  Why doesn't India have this problem?
  - pishpash 7y ago
    Well yes, the other model is India where they tolerate certain problems and let them go on forever, but people can bitch about it. Analogous to the phenomenon of adults peeing and doing drugs on the streets of downtown SF. Not saying it's better or worse in the end but at the least, the experiment goes on.
    - komali2 7y ago
      India is trying very hard to solve their problems, I'm curious where you get the idea that they're letting them "go on forever." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/03/world/asia/india-toilet-movie.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/03/world/asia/india-toilet-m... Regarding peeing specifically, India has a Nationwide push for increasing toilet infrastructure. The change over the past five years, let alone ten, is dramatic. Possibly faster than anything in human history. I also don't understand why you think nobody is doing anything about people using the restroom on the streets of SF - new bathroom trailers are being added. It's not much but it's something, and more are coming. If you have other ideas, would you like to join me tomorrow at 2pm for the next board of supervisors meeting to present them to the city?

pishpash 7y ago

The closest comparison is India, not Taiwan. 23 mil is about the size of one major city in China. Shanghai alone has more people than all of Taiwan.

wil421 7y ago

Your comment is the exact one I see on HN and reddit. Yet the USA and EU have democracies with close to a billion people combined. India is an example of a developing democracy with a population close to China and all the issues that come with a huge population. Yet India is a democracy and the people have gone from a population ruled by the British to a democracy. The people of anywhere should get to decide what they want.

jhedwards 7y ago
> The people of anywhere should get to decide what they want. I don't dispute this. I dispute people in their comfy first world homes pontificating about how China should have democracy, when they haven't been to China and experienced: 1.) the kinds of problems China faces and 2.) the difficulties facing solving those problems in China It smacks of arrogance and youthful naivety. Yes we have a democracy in the US and how is it doing? We have garbage voting machines that are easily hackable, rampant gerrymandering, and coordinated disinformation campaigns that contributed to Trump of all people being our president. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have it than not have it, and I think we can solve these problems. I'm optimistic. But those are just the problems WE have in a developed country one third the size of China, and with better infrastructure, education, and quality of live overall. I can't imagine trying to implement an _effective_ voting system in a country like China where many people do not even have clean water or basic sanitation yet. Not to mention the fact that they don't have division of powers, so before democracy was implemented they'd require a whole bottom up restructuring of their entire governmental apparatus.
- wil421 7y ago
  What are a few specific issues that are unique to China?
  - jhedwards 7y ago
    Honestly I could name a few things but it's such a massive, complicated place that it's hard to say anything about it. Certainly if you go there and travel around a bit you will learn a lot. You will only scratch the surface but it's a start. One big issue unique to China is related to fallout from the cultural revolution, which affected a huge number of people. Read this section of the Wiki about education to get some idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Education Another is the lack of a separation of powers. The geography of China carries a lot of challenges as well. One of the advantages the US had was being able to develop in an extremely protected place in the world. China has had pressure from a wide variety of neighboring states for almost its entire history.