5 ms·

China Is Totalitarian. Why Is That So Hard to Say?

32 points by paulcarroty 5y ago

nabla9 5y ago
It depends how specific you want to be with terminology. If tyranny/authoritarian/dictatorship/totalitarian/fascism is all mushy words used interchangeably, then why not. China is authoritarian. It has been one-party authoritarian country for a long time, now it's going towards strong man rule again. Totalitarianism describes the most extreme form of authoritarian rule that leaves no place for individual or other actors. China becoming more authoritarian rule but it's not close to the level the level totalitarian control over individuals it was during the Mao-era, or height of Stalinism, or Nazi Germany. Nor it is not at the same level as North Korea is totalitarian.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  > now it's going towards strong man rule again. Xi has been "dictator for life" for a while. > it's not close to the level the level totalitarian control over individuals it was during the Mao-era Thanks to the smartphone, you're wrong. It sounds like you're a few years out of date.
- theandrewbailey 5y ago
  > China becoming more authoritarian rule but it's not close to the level the level totalitarian control over individuals it was during the Mao-era, or height of Stalinism, or Nazi Germany. Have you read about the Chinese social credit system?
  - nabla9 5y ago
    Yes. And it's not as effective or as clever form of control as press tries to make it look like. It's typical authoritarian ineffective way to control people. Ends up being more corruption than control. In a totalitarian system, people who don't behave are not getting warnings, worse service etc.
  - throwitaway1235 5y ago
    The West has the same thing. Journalists have had their bank accounts closed over political commentary. Classic social credit system.
- username29376 5y ago
  I agree that China is not a totalitarian state (yet), in that it is currently not uniformising thoughts, words and behaviour (cf. Gleichschaltung), even though civic freedom is gradually disassembled. But the tagline of the article, "China is governed by a totalitarian regime", is correct. The regime is both capable of establishing totalitarian rule and based on a totalitarian ideology.
1231sdfsaf 5y ago
Because if you say "China is a totalitarian state", is an implicit admission that totalitarian states can be ashtoningly sucessful. Would you want to admit that totalitarianism could be a better, more effective way than democracy?
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  More effective at some things, like making all your neighbors mad.
- yann2 5y ago
  The right path always depends on the problem being worked on. So if you are running a cow farm ofcourse you dont want the cows to say, think and do whatever they feel like.
- tharne 5y ago
  > Because if you say "China is a totalitarian state", is an implicit admission that totalitarian states can be ashtoningly sucessful. This is exactly right. For the longest time, it was widely-believed that only liberal democracies could be extremely prosperous countries. The fact that 1) this is clearly not true, and 2), it's quite possible that being a liberal democracy may not even be the most efficient way to become a prosperous country, is a very uncomfortable thing to acknowledge. I think the other piece is that there's a very vocal subset of the western population that is completely uncomfortable criticizing any non-western country, because it doesn't mesh with their worldview.
  - 1231sdfsaf 5y ago
    > it's quite possible that being a liberal democracy may not even be the most efficient way to become a prosperous country I can't phanthom what could happen on the planet if at some point China becames a democratic republic..and it fails. And then you could have a good chunk of the planet in chaos. I think that for the time being, if anybody with chances of success, tries to pursuit a democratic revolution in China, many West forces would came in aid of the CPC just to make sure that their own countries remain safe. If you want to extend the idea, I think the same could happen for many powers, US, Germany, England, France, etc. The "regime change" is an extreme strategy, not much wanted to happen by most powers in other great powers. There are simply too many variants that could go wrong, and most could not be contained. A single (out of control) army regiment with the control of 1 (one) ICBM could be nightmare scenario to solve.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
“ The corrupting influence of China’s totalitarianism… “ I immediately thought of Apple and how it is in such a crazy position because of this. It has to speak out two sides of its mouth, pretending to be one thing for one audience and another for the audience that could destroy the company with the snap of a finger. An example of the compromise is the recent client side hash check, which will allow China to submit hashes related to illegal political content and easily find the offenders.
throwitaway1235 5y ago
The United States, Western Europe and Australia are totalitarian. Something both true and much harder to say than China.
- raarts 5y ago
  Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence.
  - throwitaway1235 5y ago
    In Australia you are forbidden to communicate with fellow citizens in public. I don't recall China demanding that. You guys live in a bubble.
    - raarts 5y ago
      That's Australia only and (hopefully) temporary. Do agree that it has authoritarian aspects to it.
nidhalbt 5y ago
Question: Let's say you took a bunch of indicators and said "I can prove China is a totalitarian state because it has a bad score on each of these indicators". Don't you believe that western "democratic" states probably have embarrassing scores on many of them? My point is: 1 - "Totalitarian" is a tricky concept to deconstruct 2 - The direction western democratic countries are taking is worrying me
cheaprentalyeti 5y ago
We've spent the last thirty years _not talking about totalitarianism_ and it's come back to bite us.
kwere 5y ago
Because the Wall street apparatus wants to milk that fat investiment commisions till they can. Let them feast on western society.
thedudeabides5 5y ago
It's so hard to say because so many people have been literally paid to look away. Think about the battle lines Darryl Morey and the entire NBA Southpark John Cena Many famous investment firms/banks Our medical/science establishment Our international institutions (WHO, UN, etc) Many of our major politicians Heck even on HN. When I post about HK, Taiwan, Xinjiang, South China Sea, organ harvesting, etc, I'm more likely to get downvoted than anything else here. At a minimum it's nice to see our media and policy elite slowly start to wake up to the fact that not only is the regime in China an absolutist, tyranical, genocidal totalitarian state, but that they are playing for keeps. Think the reason we don't want to think about it or talk about it aside from the money/influence campaign is that we literally know how this ends. Either with a lot of printed money and an internal collapse of their state (aka cold war with the USSR) or a lot of dead young men on a beach somewhere in the South China Sea.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
dotcommand 5y ago
It isn't hard to say. That's why the author/propagandist said it. Where has this guy been the past few years? We've been calling china all kinds of names during the trade war. "This year, H&M disappeared from China’s internet..." That's hilarious, if that makes china "totalitarian", then we are all living under totalitarian regimes. Using the propagandists own logic, australia is far more totalitarian than china. Why is a months old anti-china propaganda posted here?

32 points by paulcarroty 5y ago

It depends how specific you want to be with terminology. If tyranny/authoritarian/dictatorship/totalitarian/fascism is all mushy words used interchangeably, then why not. China is authoritarian. It has been one-party authoritarian country for a long time, now it's going towards strong man rule again. Totalitarianism describes the most extreme form of authoritarian rule that leaves no place for individual or other actors. China becoming more authoritarian rule but it's not close to the level the level totalitarian control over individuals it was during the Mao-era, or height of Stalinism, or Nazi Germany. Nor it is not at the same level as North Korea is totalitarian.

redis_mlc 5y ago
> now it's going towards strong man rule again. Xi has been "dictator for life" for a while. > it's not close to the level the level totalitarian control over individuals it was during the Mao-era Thanks to the smartphone, you're wrong. It sounds like you're a few years out of date.
theandrewbailey 5y ago
> China becoming more authoritarian rule but it's not close to the level the level totalitarian control over individuals it was during the Mao-era, or height of Stalinism, or Nazi Germany. Have you read about the Chinese social credit system?
- nabla9 5y ago
  Yes. And it's not as effective or as clever form of control as press tries to make it look like. It's typical authoritarian ineffective way to control people. Ends up being more corruption than control. In a totalitarian system, people who don't behave are not getting warnings, worse service etc.
- throwitaway1235 5y ago
  The West has the same thing. Journalists have had their bank accounts closed over political commentary. Classic social credit system.
username29376 5y ago
I agree that China is not a totalitarian state (yet), in that it is currently not uniformising thoughts, words and behaviour (cf. Gleichschaltung), even though civic freedom is gradually disassembled. But the tagline of the article, "China is governed by a totalitarian regime", is correct. The regime is both capable of establishing totalitarian rule and based on a totalitarian ideology.

1231sdfsaf 5y ago

Because if you say "China is a totalitarian state", is an implicit admission that totalitarian states can be ashtoningly sucessful. Would you want to admit that totalitarianism could be a better, more effective way than democracy?

mensetmanusman 5y ago
More effective at some things, like making all your neighbors mad.
yann2 5y ago
The right path always depends on the problem being worked on. So if you are running a cow farm ofcourse you dont want the cows to say, think and do whatever they feel like.
tharne 5y ago
> Because if you say "China is a totalitarian state", is an implicit admission that totalitarian states can be ashtoningly sucessful. This is exactly right. For the longest time, it was widely-believed that only liberal democracies could be extremely prosperous countries. The fact that 1) this is clearly not true, and 2), it's quite possible that being a liberal democracy may not even be the most efficient way to become a prosperous country, is a very uncomfortable thing to acknowledge. I think the other piece is that there's a very vocal subset of the western population that is completely uncomfortable criticizing any non-western country, because it doesn't mesh with their worldview.
- 1231sdfsaf 5y ago
  > it's quite possible that being a liberal democracy may not even be the most efficient way to become a prosperous country I can't phanthom what could happen on the planet if at some point China becames a democratic republic..and it fails. And then you could have a good chunk of the planet in chaos. I think that for the time being, if anybody with chances of success, tries to pursuit a democratic revolution in China, many West forces would came in aid of the CPC just to make sure that their own countries remain safe. If you want to extend the idea, I think the same could happen for many powers, US, Germany, England, France, etc. The "regime change" is an extreme strategy, not much wanted to happen by most powers in other great powers. There are simply too many variants that could go wrong, and most could not be contained. A single (out of control) army regiment with the control of 1 (one) ICBM could be nightmare scenario to solve.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

“ The corrupting influence of China’s totalitarianism… “ I immediately thought of Apple and how it is in such a crazy position because of this. It has to speak out two sides of its mouth, pretending to be one thing for one audience and another for the audience that could destroy the company with the snap of a finger. An example of the compromise is the recent client side hash check, which will allow China to submit hashes related to illegal political content and easily find the offenders.

throwitaway1235 5y ago

The United States, Western Europe and Australia are totalitarian. Something both true and much harder to say than China.

raarts 5y ago
Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence.
- throwitaway1235 5y ago
  In Australia you are forbidden to communicate with fellow citizens in public. I don't recall China demanding that. You guys live in a bubble.
  - raarts 5y ago
    That's Australia only and (hopefully) temporary. Do agree that it has authoritarian aspects to it.

nidhalbt 5y ago

Question: Let's say you took a bunch of indicators and said "I can prove China is a totalitarian state because it has a bad score on each of these indicators". Don't you believe that western "democratic" states probably have embarrassing scores on many of them? My point is: 1 - "Totalitarian" is a tricky concept to deconstruct 2 - The direction western democratic countries are taking is worrying me

cheaprentalyeti 5y ago

We've spent the last thirty years _not talking about totalitarianism_ and it's come back to bite us.

kwere 5y ago

Because the Wall street apparatus wants to milk that fat investiment commisions till they can. Let them feast on western society.

thedudeabides5 5y ago

It's so hard to say because so many people have been literally paid to look away. Think about the battle lines Darryl Morey and the entire NBA Southpark John Cena Many famous investment firms/banks Our medical/science establishment Our international institutions (WHO, UN, etc) Many of our major politicians Heck even on HN. When I post about HK, Taiwan, Xinjiang, South China Sea, organ harvesting, etc, I'm more likely to get downvoted than anything else here. At a minimum it's nice to see our media and policy elite slowly start to wake up to the fact that not only is the regime in China an absolutist, tyranical, genocidal totalitarian state, but that they are playing for keeps. Think the reason we don't want to think about it or talk about it aside from the money/influence campaign is that we literally know how this ends. Either with a lot of printed money and an internal collapse of their state (aka cold war with the USSR) or a lot of dead young men on a beach somewhere in the South China Sea.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

dotcommand 5y ago

It isn't hard to say. That's why the author/propagandist said it. Where has this guy been the past few years? We've been calling china all kinds of names during the trade war. "This year, H&M disappeared from China’s internet..." That's hilarious, if that makes china "totalitarian", then we are all living under totalitarian regimes. Using the propagandists own logic, australia is far more totalitarian than china. Why is a months old anti-china propaganda posted here?