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> It is entirely possible that the CCP is not keen on democracy exactly because of democracy's weaknesses. Weaknesses that traditionally kept China weak. It is

> It is entirely possible that the CCP is not keen on democracy exactly because of democracy's weaknesses. Weaknesses that traditionally kept China weak. It is amusing that you attribute such selflessness to a political faction; the CCP no less

FooBarWidget 7y ago
For all its faults, I don't think the evil caricature is an accurate description of the CCP (or most other entities that westerners consider 'evil', with the exception of some WW2 figures). I believe the truth is more nuanced than that. (Edit: please don’t misinterpret this as me saying that the CCP is virtuous. I hereby specifically assert that I am not saying that. We need to stop the black and white thinking) For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant and wrong. As long as you stick to simple black and white views of the world, you stand no chance to actually solve problems. Also, what does selflessness have to do with this? If the CCP's goal is a strong, prosperous, unified China then it is rational to avoid decisions that don't lead to that goal. Unless you think the CCP is not interested in that, and is only interested in enslaving people for their own amusement. Then we go back to my opinion about the evil caricature.
- throwaway66920 7y ago
  The CCP’s goal, much like the vast majority of political factions out there, is to maintain / grow political power. You’re setting up a very unreasonable straw man in suggesting that the CCP is either cartoonishly evil, or virtuous
  - FooBarWidget 7y ago
    No. I never presented a binary option. I specifically said that the situation is nuanced, and that I reject black and white thinking. I said that CCP is not caricature evil, and that many westerners have a hard time believing that. However, “not caricature evil” does not equal virtuous. Not being at the desert does not mean that you are at the north pole. As for your notion that the goal of the CCP, as well as all other governments, is to maintain/grow power: I agree that that plays a part. I do not agree that that is the only part. I believe there is a mix between maintaining/growing power, legitimate national concerns, and personal advanced. Just like with everything else in life, human motivation is complex and multi-faceted. But all this talk about “how much evil they are” is, in itself, a diversion from more productive endeavors. I see way more value in addressing weaknesses in our democracies first, and then ‘selling’ this, than continuing to argue how much evil various governments are.
    - throwaway66920 7y ago
      except the incompetencies of democracy don’t really have anything to do with the blatant faults of the Chinese government. The censorship, aggressive propaganda campaigns, re-education camps for ethnic and religious minorities, probable organ extraction from unwilling political prisoners, high levels of corruption at every level, deceitful business arrangements with government sponsored theft of IP, aggressive expansion into areas that don’t want Chinese interference, etc. the situations aren’t comparable. We don’t need to care what government ideology brought China to its current position. It is sufficient to say that a world where China has more geo political power is probably a worse one
      - osdiab 7y ago
        Look through that list of injustices. If you're a mainstream Chinese person, most of it doesn't strongly affect you. And additionally, if you're a mainstream Chinese person, your life is very positively affected by the surge in power, wealth, and order that has come to China in recent decades. That power and wealth was not fated to come by divine right, it's something that the CCP has achieved through strong—often unethical—but usually (not always) effective leadership, whether it be in setting industrial strategy to produce tons of jobs for formerly starving rural Chinese (while the US has lost jobs for its working class consistently); developing cities to have best-in-world subway systems and high-speed rail on the base of villages that didn't have reliable water or electricity decades ago (while the US hasn't improved its infrastructure in decades); and paving the way for many of the worlds' foremost scientists, to be Chinese-born (while the share of Americans doing the same thing has been in decline). You cannot say the same for many, if any, other developing countries in the world. And I think most mainstream Chinese people you'd ask (if you can), would say that they do believe the CCP does represent and work for the benefit of the Chinese people. (Note, I didn't say its minorities, I said its people—those mainstream Chinese who comprise the vast majority of its population). Whether or not you think it's "good" for this government to have more power or represent the world, is largely irrelevant. If you want that system to look more like yours, you have to make the alternative materially better _for those who benefit from it_ (or beat that system into the ground). Calling it evil or listing out human rights violations does not achieve that goal, and represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the values that underpin it.
- prewett 7y ago
  > I don't think the evil caricature is an accurate description of the CCP Have a read of a summary of John Garnaut's talk to the Australian Parliament on "Engineers of the Human Soul": https://sinocism.com/p/engineers-of-the-soul-ideology-in https://sinocism.com/p/engineers-of-the-soul-ideology-in He posits that Stalin -> Mao -> Xi consider that everything must serve the State: culture, the arts, etc. Obviously that would include people. So Xi Jinping Thought (recently written into the constitution) has people serving the state. In fact, not only their bodies, but their artistic expression belongs not to them but to the state. The CCP doesn't physically enslave people, it enslaves them through fear. People are theoretically free to choose not serve, but they risk bad things for themselves and their family. On top of this, they claim to serve the people (but instead the people serve them), so they are living out a lie. To maintain the deception they have to control what people know about the world, hence the Great Firewall. If you value liberty, honesty, or free expression, I think being nearly forcibly deprived of them could qualify as evil. Now imagine a society where no one is truly free to think for themselves, where your neighbors can potentially turn you in (= can't trust people close to you), where the arts are limited to the party line. It kind of deprives society of the best of humanity (trust/community, wealth of ideas, innovative arts). That could qualify as evil. But hey, China is strong, prosperous (in terms of money), and seemingly unified. I do believe that the CCP is doing what it thinks is best for China, but creating a cultural dystopia in exchange for outward wealth and strength seems like a bad bargain. If they created cultural wealth I bet outward wealth and strength would show up naturally.

FooBarWidget 7y ago

For all its faults, I don't think the evil caricature is an accurate description of the CCP (or most other entities that westerners consider 'evil', with the exception of some WW2 figures). I believe the truth is more nuanced than that. (Edit: please don’t misinterpret this as me saying that the CCP is virtuous. I hereby specifically assert that I am not saying that. We need to stop the black and white thinking) For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, elegant and wrong. As long as you stick to simple black and white views of the world, you stand no chance to actually solve problems. Also, what does selflessness have to do with this? If the CCP's goal is a strong, prosperous, unified China then it is rational to avoid decisions that don't lead to that goal. Unless you think the CCP is not interested in that, and is only interested in enslaving people for their own amusement. Then we go back to my opinion about the evil caricature.

throwaway66920 7y ago
The CCP’s goal, much like the vast majority of political factions out there, is to maintain / grow political power. You’re setting up a very unreasonable straw man in suggesting that the CCP is either cartoonishly evil, or virtuous
- FooBarWidget 7y ago
  No. I never presented a binary option. I specifically said that the situation is nuanced, and that I reject black and white thinking. I said that CCP is not caricature evil, and that many westerners have a hard time believing that. However, “not caricature evil” does not equal virtuous. Not being at the desert does not mean that you are at the north pole. As for your notion that the goal of the CCP, as well as all other governments, is to maintain/grow power: I agree that that plays a part. I do not agree that that is the only part. I believe there is a mix between maintaining/growing power, legitimate national concerns, and personal advanced. Just like with everything else in life, human motivation is complex and multi-faceted. But all this talk about “how much evil they are” is, in itself, a diversion from more productive endeavors. I see way more value in addressing weaknesses in our democracies first, and then ‘selling’ this, than continuing to argue how much evil various governments are.
  - throwaway66920 7y ago
    except the incompetencies of democracy don’t really have anything to do with the blatant faults of the Chinese government. The censorship, aggressive propaganda campaigns, re-education camps for ethnic and religious minorities, probable organ extraction from unwilling political prisoners, high levels of corruption at every level, deceitful business arrangements with government sponsored theft of IP, aggressive expansion into areas that don’t want Chinese interference, etc. the situations aren’t comparable. We don’t need to care what government ideology brought China to its current position. It is sufficient to say that a world where China has more geo political power is probably a worse one
    - osdiab 7y ago
      Look through that list of injustices. If you're a mainstream Chinese person, most of it doesn't strongly affect you. And additionally, if you're a mainstream Chinese person, your life is very positively affected by the surge in power, wealth, and order that has come to China in recent decades. That power and wealth was not fated to come by divine right, it's something that the CCP has achieved through strong—often unethical—but usually (not always) effective leadership, whether it be in setting industrial strategy to produce tons of jobs for formerly starving rural Chinese (while the US has lost jobs for its working class consistently); developing cities to have best-in-world subway systems and high-speed rail on the base of villages that didn't have reliable water or electricity decades ago (while the US hasn't improved its infrastructure in decades); and paving the way for many of the worlds' foremost scientists, to be Chinese-born (while the share of Americans doing the same thing has been in decline). You cannot say the same for many, if any, other developing countries in the world. And I think most mainstream Chinese people you'd ask (if you can), would say that they do believe the CCP does represent and work for the benefit of the Chinese people. (Note, I didn't say its minorities, I said its people—those mainstream Chinese who comprise the vast majority of its population). Whether or not you think it's "good" for this government to have more power or represent the world, is largely irrelevant. If you want that system to look more like yours, you have to make the alternative materially better _for those who benefit from it_ (or beat that system into the ground). Calling it evil or listing out human rights violations does not achieve that goal, and represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the values that underpin it.
prewett 7y ago
> I don't think the evil caricature is an accurate description of the CCP Have a read of a summary of John Garnaut's talk to the Australian Parliament on "Engineers of the Human Soul": https://sinocism.com/p/engineers-of-the-soul-ideology-in https://sinocism.com/p/engineers-of-the-soul-ideology-in He posits that Stalin -> Mao -> Xi consider that everything must serve the State: culture, the arts, etc. Obviously that would include people. So Xi Jinping Thought (recently written into the constitution) has people serving the state. In fact, not only their bodies, but their artistic expression belongs not to them but to the state. The CCP doesn't physically enslave people, it enslaves them through fear. People are theoretically free to choose not serve, but they risk bad things for themselves and their family. On top of this, they claim to serve the people (but instead the people serve them), so they are living out a lie. To maintain the deception they have to control what people know about the world, hence the Great Firewall. If you value liberty, honesty, or free expression, I think being nearly forcibly deprived of them could qualify as evil. Now imagine a society where no one is truly free to think for themselves, where your neighbors can potentially turn you in (= can't trust people close to you), where the arts are limited to the party line. It kind of deprives society of the best of humanity (trust/community, wealth of ideas, innovative arts). That could qualify as evil. But hey, China is strong, prosperous (in terms of money), and seemingly unified. I do believe that the CCP is doing what it thinks is best for China, but creating a cultural dystopia in exchange for outward wealth and strength seems like a bad bargain. If they created cultural wealth I bet outward wealth and strength would show up naturally.