3 ms·

You need to think of China like North Korea. There is very little chance they are going to democratize in the near future.

derefr 7y ago
All else being equal, sure. But China are still making construction workers into nuveau-riche at a prodigious rate. They're creating the proto-Rockefellers and proto-Carnegies of China, right now. Those people, and especially their children (who would become the actual Rockefellers and Carnegies of China), are going to have some impact. China might "manage" (i.e. suppress) that impact, but a large bourgeoisie class is uniquely powerful in terms of its ability to throw money around to influence foreign politics as a knife against the throat of the local state. Consider: the Napoleonic Wars weren't a consequence of the French Revolution; they were the second phase of the French Revolution. Sometimes the best thing to do to get your government in better shape, is to convince every other major power that your state is the bad guy and needs its ass kicked. Right now, China is (barely) keeping a lid on global unrest against them—but a big part of that is that right now, Chinese citizens are still mostly positive and patriotic about their homeland, as you'd expect of people who just went through an industrialization boom. Take that coefficient and flip the sign the other way, though...
- president 7y ago
  You are 1) assuming the majority Chinese people want democracy and 2) underestimating the strength of the CCP to crack down on freedom seeking peoples. I get that you are being optimistic and I would like to believe the same but the current state of reality proves otherwise. If we were observing the earth in a computer simulation, I would love to give infinite time to see if democracy arises in China. However, in the real world, China does not live in a vacuum and it is actively undermining democracies by exporting its crackpot communist worldview to free countries all around the world. We cannot just sit there and wait for them to erode our freedoms. It's as simple as that.
  - mrobot 7y ago
    Good god you people are disgusting.
    - dang 7y ago
      Obviously we ban accounts that break the site guidelines like this, so please stop. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - dang 7y ago
    Please stop using HN for nationalistic flamewar. It's not what this site is for. We've already had to ask you this, and ban accounts that won't stop, so please stop. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - president 7y ago
      Understood the first time but am I being singled out here? I see lots of comments spewing unsubstantiated nationalistic hate and I don't see them getting flagged/banned. Those comments are getting left up and leaving the argument totally unbalanced. At least when I comment I make an attempt to link to (legit mainstream) sources and explain in a rational way.
      - dang 7y ago
        I know it inevitably feels like bias to get moderated like that, but we are careful not to single users out because of their views, and indeed there's a child comment to yours which expressed an opposite view in an unacceptable way, and we moderated it. If you see a glaring case where the rules weren't enforced, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here. You are welcome to alert us to such cases, by flagging them (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html for how to flag comments), or by emailing hn@ycombinator.com about egregious ones.
- killjoywashere 7y ago
  That's one of the more odd assessments of China that I've heard. These proto-Carnegies and their children you speak of are a well defined class. Specifically, the children are the "princling" class, Xi is one of them. They have been raised to understand the source of their wealth is the state. They are quite happy with the status quo and greatly value the power of the state as an instrument of suppression.

derefr 7y ago

All else being equal, sure. But China are still making construction workers into nuveau-riche at a prodigious rate. They're creating the proto-Rockefellers and proto-Carnegies of China, right now. Those people, and especially their children (who would become the actual Rockefellers and Carnegies of China), are going to have some impact. China might "manage" (i.e. suppress) that impact, but a large bourgeoisie class is uniquely powerful in terms of its ability to throw money around to influence foreign politics as a knife against the throat of the local state. Consider: the Napoleonic Wars weren't a consequence of the French Revolution; they were the second phase of the French Revolution. Sometimes the best thing to do to get your government in better shape, is to convince every other major power that your state is the bad guy and needs its ass kicked. Right now, China is (barely) keeping a lid on global unrest against them—but a big part of that is that right now, Chinese citizens are still mostly positive and patriotic about their homeland, as you'd expect of people who just went through an industrialization boom. Take that coefficient and flip the sign the other way, though...

president 7y ago
You are 1) assuming the majority Chinese people want democracy and 2) underestimating the strength of the CCP to crack down on freedom seeking peoples. I get that you are being optimistic and I would like to believe the same but the current state of reality proves otherwise. If we were observing the earth in a computer simulation, I would love to give infinite time to see if democracy arises in China. However, in the real world, China does not live in a vacuum and it is actively undermining democracies by exporting its crackpot communist worldview to free countries all around the world. We cannot just sit there and wait for them to erode our freedoms. It's as simple as that.
- mrobot 7y ago
  Good god you people are disgusting.
  - dang 7y ago
    Obviously we ban accounts that break the site guidelines like this, so please stop. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 7y ago
  Please stop using HN for nationalistic flamewar. It's not what this site is for. We've already had to ask you this, and ban accounts that won't stop, so please stop. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - president 7y ago
    Understood the first time but am I being singled out here? I see lots of comments spewing unsubstantiated nationalistic hate and I don't see them getting flagged/banned. Those comments are getting left up and leaving the argument totally unbalanced. At least when I comment I make an attempt to link to (legit mainstream) sources and explain in a rational way.
    - dang 7y ago
      I know it inevitably feels like bias to get moderated like that, but we are careful not to single users out because of their views, and indeed there's a child comment to yours which expressed an opposite view in an unacceptable way, and we moderated it. If you see a glaring case where the rules weren't enforced, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here. You are welcome to alert us to such cases, by flagging them (see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html for how to flag comments), or by emailing hn@ycombinator.com about egregious ones.
killjoywashere 7y ago
That's one of the more odd assessments of China that I've heard. These proto-Carnegies and their children you speak of are a well defined class. Specifically, the children are the "princling" class, Xi is one of them. They have been raised to understand the source of their wealth is the state. They are quite happy with the status quo and greatly value the power of the state as an instrument of suppression.