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Deng Xiaoping was a great leader and massively grew china, but he was a dictator too. I can understand thinking Xi isn't great but i don't see how him being a d

Deng Xiaoping was a great leader and massively grew china, but he was a dictator too. I can understand thinking Xi isn't great but i don't see how him being a dictator plays into it when looking at China's leaders

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Deng Xiaoping was a great leader and massively grew china, but he was a dictator too Deng was a classical dictator, à la Sulla. The point is he stepped down and continued the peaceful transfer of power that characterised the CCP since Mao. That transfer not only provides face-saving flexibility. It also promotes introspection through intraparty competition. Xi, on the other hand, is dictator for life. He can't flag much less correct past fuck-ups because they were his fuck-ups. His treatment of his predecessor takes passing the torch off the table. And his corruption purges have routed out the political competition that could have given Beijing more options. It's thus much more difficult for China under Xi yesterday, today and tomorrow, to e.g. tell India it's changed than it was for Biden or Trump to say they're different from Obama.
- rangestransform 2y ago
  > characterised the CCP since Mao there's a conspiracy theory that this was due to Mao having no suitable heirs. More generally, there's a theory that autocracies "liberalize" when there is no clear successor or a succession conflict involving the autocrat, see: martial law Taiwan
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > there's a theory that autocracies "liberalize" when there is no clear successor Isn’t the clearer history one of civil war?
    - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
      Liberalization while the autocrat is still alive (if at all). Civil war once he's dead, unless the liberalization has time to take root before the autocrat dies.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        If you have sources for this theory, I'd love to see them. From what I've seen, autocracies in developing countries are "more prone to political instability because oppressed citizenries and displaced groups have no other mechanism to voice dissent other than active mobilization in the streets or subversive activities against the state" [1]. Autocracies are only more stable if they can promote "Rentier-state economic systems," like in North Korea, though that comes at the cost of putting that society further and further behind its international peers. [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/intesociscierevi.90.1.01 https://www.jstor.org/stable/intesociscierevi.90.1.01
        AnimalMuppet 2y ago
        No, no sources. I was just saying that, if there was a trend of autocrats trying to liberalize, it was not necessarily inconsistent with a trend of civil war.
  - quuxplusone 2y ago
    Coincidentally, I was just reading this relevant couple of posts when I saw yours: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/what-happens-when-putin-and-khamenei-die https://www.thebulwark.com/p/what-happens-when-putin-and-kha... https://acoup.blog/2021/07/09/fireside-friday-july-9-2021/ https://acoup.blog/2021/07/09/fireside-friday-july-9-2021/ Notice the pre-Ukraine-war dates, especially on the former. Quote from the latter: "The aim of just about every Greek tyrant in the long term was to consolidate power into their family in a durable way, which is to say, convert a tyranny into a kingship. [To a first approximation] they all failed."
- tokioyoyo 2y ago
  I can't even get myself to write anything about China, because I don't want to sound like a China-shill. But, my entire point is, they course correct. A lot actually. They publish literal documents that can be read as course corrections (Government Work Report). They've shown they're willing to take big risks to achieve their written and published goals. And given the recent developments and their achievements in tech/improving QoL of locals, they deserve respect for accomplishments. They're obviously trying to go ahead with their dominance-through-tech plan, and not taking them seriously isn't going to help us in a long run.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > obviously trying to go ahead with their dominance-through-tech plan, and not taking them seriously isn't going to help us in a long run They should absolutely be taken seriously. But nothing you put forward suggests pivots, but minor course corrections. (Granted, that puts them a rung above most of the world's dictatorships.) What's holding Beijing back is the wolf warrior nonsense from before Covid. China has the best industrial supply chains on the planet within any single border, but their neighbors don't trust them. As a result, America can scale using European, Japanese and Korean (and now Indian and Middle Eastern) assets while China has to rely on itself. (And Russia and Iran, the new sick dogs of Europe and Asia, respectively.) Contrast that with e.g. the Trump-Biden-Trump pivots. A lot of that was and will be chaos. But some of it was fruitful policyspace exploration. (A lot of it was course correcting from previous mistakes.) Like, imagine if we replaced Obama's presidency with W. Bush. That is the handicap Beijing is forced to play with.
    - tokioyoyo 2y ago
      Again, I've been hearing it since 2000s, how China is going to fall. So far, no predictions, especially the forced RE market collapse ones have panned out. I think a lot of people want China to fall, so they can point at the political ideology that's not compatible with ours and say "ha, we told you so!". But it just hasn't happened yet. They're smoking the west in a good chunk sectors as well. Also, I think you're underestimating how quickly public perception can turn if the leader becomes disliked. People will flock to be friendly with China, if there's any need.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> Deng Xiaoping was a great leader and massively grew china, but he was a dictator too Deng was a classical dictator, à la Sulla. The point is he stepped down and continued the peaceful transfer of power that characterised the CCP since Mao. That transfer not only provides face-saving flexibility. It also promotes introspection through intraparty competition. Xi, on the other hand, is dictator for life. He can't flag much less correct past fuck-ups because they were his fuck-ups. His treatment of his predecessor takes passing the torch off the table. And his corruption purges have routed out the political competition that could have given Beijing more options. It's thus much more difficult for China under Xi yesterday, today and tomorrow, to e.g. tell India it's changed than it was for Biden or Trump to say they're different from Obama.

rangestransform 2y ago
> characterised the CCP since Mao there's a conspiracy theory that this was due to Mao having no suitable heirs. More generally, there's a theory that autocracies "liberalize" when there is no clear successor or a succession conflict involving the autocrat, see: martial law Taiwan
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > there's a theory that autocracies "liberalize" when there is no clear successor Isn’t the clearer history one of civil war?
  - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
    Liberalization while the autocrat is still alive (if at all). Civil war once he's dead, unless the liberalization has time to take root before the autocrat dies.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      If you have sources for this theory, I'd love to see them. From what I've seen, autocracies in developing countries are "more prone to political instability because oppressed citizenries and displaced groups have no other mechanism to voice dissent other than active mobilization in the streets or subversive activities against the state" [1]. Autocracies are only more stable if they can promote "Rentier-state economic systems," like in North Korea, though that comes at the cost of putting that society further and further behind its international peers. [1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/intesociscierevi.90.1.01 https://www.jstor.org/stable/intesociscierevi.90.1.01
      - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
        No, no sources. I was just saying that, if there was a trend of autocrats trying to liberalize, it was not necessarily inconsistent with a trend of civil war.
- quuxplusone 2y ago
  Coincidentally, I was just reading this relevant couple of posts when I saw yours: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/what-happens-when-putin-and-khamenei-die https://www.thebulwark.com/p/what-happens-when-putin-and-kha... https://acoup.blog/2021/07/09/fireside-friday-july-9-2021/ https://acoup.blog/2021/07/09/fireside-friday-july-9-2021/ Notice the pre-Ukraine-war dates, especially on the former. Quote from the latter: "The aim of just about every Greek tyrant in the long term was to consolidate power into their family in a durable way, which is to say, convert a tyranny into a kingship. [To a first approximation] they all failed."
tokioyoyo 2y ago
I can't even get myself to write anything about China, because I don't want to sound like a China-shill. But, my entire point is, they course correct. A lot actually. They publish literal documents that can be read as course corrections (Government Work Report). They've shown they're willing to take big risks to achieve their written and published goals. And given the recent developments and their achievements in tech/improving QoL of locals, they deserve respect for accomplishments. They're obviously trying to go ahead with their dominance-through-tech plan, and not taking them seriously isn't going to help us in a long run.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > obviously trying to go ahead with their dominance-through-tech plan, and not taking them seriously isn't going to help us in a long run They should absolutely be taken seriously. But nothing you put forward suggests pivots, but minor course corrections. (Granted, that puts them a rung above most of the world's dictatorships.) What's holding Beijing back is the wolf warrior nonsense from before Covid. China has the best industrial supply chains on the planet within any single border, but their neighbors don't trust them. As a result, America can scale using European, Japanese and Korean (and now Indian and Middle Eastern) assets while China has to rely on itself. (And Russia and Iran, the new sick dogs of Europe and Asia, respectively.) Contrast that with e.g. the Trump-Biden-Trump pivots. A lot of that was and will be chaos. But some of it was fruitful policyspace exploration. (A lot of it was course correcting from previous mistakes.) Like, imagine if we replaced Obama's presidency with W. Bush. That is the handicap Beijing is forced to play with.
  - tokioyoyo 2y ago
    Again, I've been hearing it since 2000s, how China is going to fall. So far, no predictions, especially the forced RE market collapse ones have panned out. I think a lot of people want China to fall, so they can point at the political ideology that's not compatible with ours and say "ha, we told you so!". But it just hasn't happened yet. They're smoking the west in a good chunk sectors as well. Also, I think you're underestimating how quickly public perception can turn if the leader becomes disliked. People will flock to be friendly with China, if there's any need.