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Why would it be a black eye to the ccp when they’ve lifted twice as many from poverty as India? And far higher growth, gdp per capita, etc. weird comment https

Why would it be a black eye to the ccp when they’ve lifted twice as many from poverty as India? And far higher growth, gdp per capita, etc. weird comment https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/l...

artificialLimbs 4y ago
Are those numbers from China? Is there a reason to trust them if so, considering they would be coming from a brutal, authoritarian dictator?
- mc32 4y ago
  I wouldn’t doubt that they are roughly accurate. The question is is the growth worth the pound of flesh the CCP takes as its right in return for that growth and social stability? Another fair question is could it not have been achieved through a more humane system of governance?
  - scaramanga 4y ago
    What is interesting to me is that these questions never arise of eg. South Korea.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  You’ve just met with cognitive dissonance
rhaway84773 4y ago
Because the CCP’s (more specifically Xi Jinping’s) entire thesis is that democracies are incapable of producing good outcomes. A lot of the move towards authoritarianism that we’ve been seeing in the world has been driven by the success of the “China model”. If India is successful to a similar degree as China, that shatters this belief, especially since there are very significant questions about the Chinese economy and how stable it is. A lot of the numbers appear to be made up in a way India simply cannot do. And if Democracies can achieve success, Chinese citizens themselves may consider it as the better alternative as it might indicate that China’s economic success was less the result of the CCP and more because the Chinese government chose to move towards a Western capitalist economic system a couple of decades before India.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  I’m curious to see a source that says the modern CCP states that democracy cannot succeed in general. The CCP stance is that democracy wouldn’t work for China. Whether that’s actually true or not is debatable of course. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-politics-xi-idUSBREA3107S20140402 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-politics-xi-idUSBRE...
  - GauntletWizard 4y ago
    Their stance relies mostly on the same tired canards that India disproves; that an uneducated populace, rural areas, etc are hindrances. They are, but they're not ones that Communism/Authoritarianism solves - And India has some authoritarian properties, too. The 2016 Indian banknote demonetisation is perfect example of how a somewhat democratic state can pull off large scale action that China refutes as a possibility. Was it pretty? Was it effective? Who knows. What matters in this argument is that it's the kind of corruption fighting mechanism that China likes to cite as the domain of their heavenly mandate and not possible for democracies. Again, China can keep yelling that their way is the only way for China, but there does need to be a little more supporting basis than that.
    - scarmig 4y ago
      > Again, China can keep yelling that their way is the only way for China, but there does need to be a little more supporting basis than that. Says who? Running a society is hard. You can't simply compare the reality against a hypothetical guaranteed better outcome that would happen under democracy, even ignoring the claim (at best contentious) that India has done better than China for the last couple decades. An equally a propos comparison would be the Soviet Union and its attempt at a transition to democracy. Life spans and material wellbeing collapsed, and even their political system ultimately backslid, to something as bad as the USSR. You can say that they just did democracy wrong--which they certainly did--but that doesn't solve the core issue that getting democracy right is a really hard problem. If the CCP had committed to democratic reforms under Deng, maybe it would have worked out better; but it also might have created turmoil and mass death, as attempts at democracy did in the USSR. And if the latter happened, rubbernecking Westerners would just say "well China did democracy wrong"; democracy never fails, it can only be failed. It's easy to call for from afar, but when your society's well-being is on the line, it's a much scarier risk to take for abstract benefits.
Montaque 4y ago
Linked article is roughly double the time frame referenced for India. Its in the world's largest democracy. Benevolent dictatorships work for as long ad the dictator(s) remains Benevolent.
bergenty 4y ago
I think the idea is we can have both democracy and paradigm shifting changes in a very short time span that hasn’t really been proven out recently.
dQw4w9WgXcQ 4y ago
This is like intentionally shipping bugs into production so you can be the hero and fix them. Why did China have to lift 800M people out of poverty in the first place? Congratulations to the Chinese gov on decreasing the way they treat their populace like farm animals?
- ausudhz 4y ago
  The century of humiliation probably is the reason why. To use the same analogy is like someone hacked their system and placed a bug in production. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation

artificialLimbs 4y ago

Are those numbers from China? Is there a reason to trust them if so, considering they would be coming from a brutal, authoritarian dictator?

mc32 4y ago
I wouldn’t doubt that they are roughly accurate. The question is is the growth worth the pound of flesh the CCP takes as its right in return for that growth and social stability? Another fair question is could it not have been achieved through a more humane system of governance?
- scaramanga 4y ago
  What is interesting to me is that these questions never arise of eg. South Korea.
wahnfrieden 4y ago
You’ve just met with cognitive dissonance

rhaway84773 4y ago

Because the CCP’s (more specifically Xi Jinping’s) entire thesis is that democracies are incapable of producing good outcomes. A lot of the move towards authoritarianism that we’ve been seeing in the world has been driven by the success of the “China model”. If India is successful to a similar degree as China, that shatters this belief, especially since there are very significant questions about the Chinese economy and how stable it is. A lot of the numbers appear to be made up in a way India simply cannot do. And if Democracies can achieve success, Chinese citizens themselves may consider it as the better alternative as it might indicate that China’s economic success was less the result of the CCP and more because the Chinese government chose to move towards a Western capitalist economic system a couple of decades before India.

endisneigh 4y ago
I’m curious to see a source that says the modern CCP states that democracy cannot succeed in general. The CCP stance is that democracy wouldn’t work for China. Whether that’s actually true or not is debatable of course. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-politics-xi-idUSBREA3107S20140402 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-politics-xi-idUSBRE...
- GauntletWizard 4y ago
  Their stance relies mostly on the same tired canards that India disproves; that an uneducated populace, rural areas, etc are hindrances. They are, but they're not ones that Communism/Authoritarianism solves - And India has some authoritarian properties, too. The 2016 Indian banknote demonetisation is perfect example of how a somewhat democratic state can pull off large scale action that China refutes as a possibility. Was it pretty? Was it effective? Who knows. What matters in this argument is that it's the kind of corruption fighting mechanism that China likes to cite as the domain of their heavenly mandate and not possible for democracies. Again, China can keep yelling that their way is the only way for China, but there does need to be a little more supporting basis than that.
  - scarmig 4y ago
    > Again, China can keep yelling that their way is the only way for China, but there does need to be a little more supporting basis than that. Says who? Running a society is hard. You can't simply compare the reality against a hypothetical guaranteed better outcome that would happen under democracy, even ignoring the claim (at best contentious) that India has done better than China for the last couple decades. An equally a propos comparison would be the Soviet Union and its attempt at a transition to democracy. Life spans and material wellbeing collapsed, and even their political system ultimately backslid, to something as bad as the USSR. You can say that they just did democracy wrong--which they certainly did--but that doesn't solve the core issue that getting democracy right is a really hard problem. If the CCP had committed to democratic reforms under Deng, maybe it would have worked out better; but it also might have created turmoil and mass death, as attempts at democracy did in the USSR. And if the latter happened, rubbernecking Westerners would just say "well China did democracy wrong"; democracy never fails, it can only be failed. It's easy to call for from afar, but when your society's well-being is on the line, it's a much scarier risk to take for abstract benefits.

Montaque 4y ago

Linked article is roughly double the time frame referenced for India. Its in the world's largest democracy. Benevolent dictatorships work for as long ad the dictator(s) remains Benevolent.

bergenty 4y ago

I think the idea is we can have both democracy and paradigm shifting changes in a very short time span that hasn’t really been proven out recently.

dQw4w9WgXcQ 4y ago

This is like intentionally shipping bugs into production so you can be the hero and fix them. Why did China have to lift 800M people out of poverty in the first place? Congratulations to the Chinese gov on decreasing the way they treat their populace like farm animals?

ausudhz 4y ago
The century of humiliation probably is the reason why. To use the same analogy is like someone hacked their system and placed a bug in production. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation