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Even as a dictatorship, to call China unstable is to buy into Western propaganda that dictatorship is inherently bad. Rather, dictatorship is the best governmen

by rms 18y ago

Even as a dictatorship, to call China unstable is to buy into Western propaganda that dictatorship is inherently bad. Rather, dictatorship is the best government for China, as long as the goal of government is to maintain the stability of China. China spent millennia not united; the only thing able to keep a country of that size together right now is strong, authoritarian leadership. The leaders of China are not stupid, they understand that democracy is necessary in the long run, they are just in absolutely no rush to bring it to the people, looking at the failure of Russia as the only example of a rush from Communism to Democracy. A democratic China would be unstable. Right now, while the Communist Party continues to rule indefinitely, they have perhaps the only currency in the world guaranteed to slowly appreciate against the dollar, with a not insignificant chance of suddenly appreciating faster. Is there truly no currency market in the RMB? I understand that it doesn't make a good "bribe your way across the border" reserve, but I would think it could make a good hedge in a portfolio. And the Japanese banking system is still facing smoe collateral damage... http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12498399 http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_i...

delackner 18y ago
An unstable dictatorship is not the opposite of a democracy. Nor is democracy something that "China" would do well with, especially given that the country in its current composition is an empire that contains several distinct countries. Singapore did very well economically with a non-ideological dictatorship, as did Taiwan, both mostly peacefully, over the same postwar period that China went through successive mass slaughters. One can hope that China makes the transition safely to a stable government, but while they continue to treat their various populations as simply pawns with no rights to health, safety, the rule of law, then dissatisfaction and unrest remain a risk.

by rms 18y ago

delackner 18y ago

An unstable dictatorship is not the opposite of a democracy. Nor is democracy something that "China" would do well with, especially given that the country in its current composition is an empire that contains several distinct countries. Singapore did very well economically with a non-ideological dictatorship, as did Taiwan, both mostly peacefully, over the same postwar period that China went through successive mass slaughters. One can hope that China makes the transition safely to a stable government, but while they continue to treat their various populations as simply pawns with no rights to health, safety, the rule of law, then dissatisfaction and unrest remain a risk.