3 ms·

Maybe one day, if China embraces democracy, it might hope to become as prosperous as India. /s In all seriousness, "democracy" is at this point almost meaningl

Maybe one day, if China embraces democracy, it might hope to become as prosperous as India. /s In all seriousness, "democracy" is at this point almost meaningless as a barometer of good governance. There are a lot of spectacularly successful autocracies and a lot of dismally awful democracies. In the broad scheme of things, the CPC has done a damned good job of advancing the interests of the Chinese people. China might one day gradually transition towards democracy in the manner of Singapore, but many Chinese people are rightly fearful of the possibility of the collapse of the CPC. The most common outcome after the overthrow of a dictatorship is chaos and economic collapse, followed by a much worse dictatorship.

paulryanrogers 7y ago
> CPC has done a damned good job of advancing the interests of the Chinese people. Certainly the nation has modernized rapidly. But at what cost? Western media speaks of famines, proxy wars, land grabs, implicit and explicit suppression of anything/anyone different. (Not saying other forms of governing are guaranteed to do better, but at least with democracies power is supposed to be more distributed.)
tanilama 7y ago
Agree. Democracy isn't the end of governance. A dysfunctional democracy is no better than an effective authoritarian government.
repolfx 7y ago
This seems to be a remarkably common talking point on HN in this thread, but nobody ever cares to substantiate it with evidence. There are a lot of spectacularly successful autocracies and a lot of dismally awful democracies Where are these "successful autocracies"? I hope you're not imagining that mere economic growth is sufficient for success, because examples like Taiwan, Japan and Korea show that rapid 20th century economic growth in Asia is the norm not the exception. To the extent China has grown fast in recent decades it's only been by abandoning many of the bad policies the dictatorship previously imposed, in favour of policies used by democratic countries. Meanwhile other countries managed to become 1st world countries with clean air, and without throwing millions of citizens into concentration camps. China's performance is thus significantly sub-par compared to its neighbours. The most common outcome after the overthrow of a dictatorship is chaos and economic collapse, followed by a much worse dictatorship Maybe? I'd have to see stats on that. Dictatorships that were overthrown or collapsed and which were replaced by peace and (relative) prosperity in the 20th century: 1. Nazi Germany 2. USSR 3. Japanese emperor system 4. DDR/East Germany 5. Franco in Spain 6. Various other petty dictators in places like Greece 7. Arguably, Turkey, albeit it seems a rather weak democracy
- dang 7y ago
  If you keep doing ideological flamewar on HN we are going to ban you. Breaking the site guidelines will eventually get your main account banned as well. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
heraclius 7y ago
I’m not sure where your sample starts but to start from the beginning one has to take into account the Great Leap Forwards, Cultural Revolution, invasion of Tibet, and so on. The ineptitude and corruption of the Nationalists never approached the suffering of the 50s and 60s which were actively difficult to achieve. The sole mechanism by which the party became a force for stability is slowly being eliminated: collective leadership in China is now something of a joke. That’s where things went wrong under Mao; it’s why the “bad emperor” problem exists as a concept; and it’s where things are beginning to go wrong at the edges (Xinjiang, Tibet…) under Xi.

paulryanrogers 7y ago

> CPC has done a damned good job of advancing the interests of the Chinese people. Certainly the nation has modernized rapidly. But at what cost? Western media speaks of famines, proxy wars, land grabs, implicit and explicit suppression of anything/anyone different. (Not saying other forms of governing are guaranteed to do better, but at least with democracies power is supposed to be more distributed.)

tanilama 7y ago

Agree. Democracy isn't the end of governance. A dysfunctional democracy is no better than an effective authoritarian government.

repolfx 7y ago

This seems to be a remarkably common talking point on HN in this thread, but nobody ever cares to substantiate it with evidence. There are a lot of spectacularly successful autocracies and a lot of dismally awful democracies Where are these "successful autocracies"? I hope you're not imagining that mere economic growth is sufficient for success, because examples like Taiwan, Japan and Korea show that rapid 20th century economic growth in Asia is the norm not the exception. To the extent China has grown fast in recent decades it's only been by abandoning many of the bad policies the dictatorship previously imposed, in favour of policies used by democratic countries. Meanwhile other countries managed to become 1st world countries with clean air, and without throwing millions of citizens into concentration camps. China's performance is thus significantly sub-par compared to its neighbours. The most common outcome after the overthrow of a dictatorship is chaos and economic collapse, followed by a much worse dictatorship Maybe? I'd have to see stats on that. Dictatorships that were overthrown or collapsed and which were replaced by peace and (relative) prosperity in the 20th century: 1. Nazi Germany 2. USSR 3. Japanese emperor system 4. DDR/East Germany 5. Franco in Spain 6. Various other petty dictators in places like Greece 7. Arguably, Turkey, albeit it seems a rather weak democracy

dang 7y ago
If you keep doing ideological flamewar on HN we are going to ban you. Breaking the site guidelines will eventually get your main account banned as well. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

heraclius 7y ago

I’m not sure where your sample starts but to start from the beginning one has to take into account the Great Leap Forwards, Cultural Revolution, invasion of Tibet, and so on. The ineptitude and corruption of the Nationalists never approached the suffering of the 50s and 60s which were actively difficult to achieve. The sole mechanism by which the party became a force for stability is slowly being eliminated: collective leadership in China is now something of a joke. That’s where things went wrong under Mao; it’s why the “bad emperor” problem exists as a concept; and it’s where things are beginning to go wrong at the edges (Xinjiang, Tibet…) under Xi.