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If there was one critical miscalculation the West (particularly the US) made in the last 40 years, it was thinking that investment in China would equal liberali

If there was one critical miscalculation the West (particularly the US) made in the last 40 years, it was thinking that investment in China would equal liberalization and democratic reforms. There was a mistaking of capitalism for human rights. While it is a human right to own property and use it to rationally pursue one's self-interests, that does not mean that capitalism in its current form is conducive to that for the greatest number of people, or to the evolution of other human rights in the societies in which capitalism is practiced. If investment was the key to liberalization, we would have seen far greater investment behind the then-fallen Iron Curtain, where countries had actively turned their backs on command economies. The cynic in me thinks that capital didn't like just how that had turned out. If a country's people could either violently (Romania) or peacefully (almost everywhere else) remove such totalitarian systems of politics and economics, they could also reject methods of accumulating capital that might run afoul of their values. China, on the other hand, had not moved away from command economics at the time. Instead, the result was state capitalism. People were free to try new things that could create economic expansion, but only in a way that served the needs of the state. Anything else would be handled with the same totalitarian methods that political dissidents and class enemies were once handled with under Mao. While this has ebbed and flowed over the years, it essentially remains the system in place. Lai is a victim of this miscalculation.

alephnerd 10mo ago
> it was thinking that investment in China would equal liberalization and democratic reforms... That's a rewriting of history and a common misconception I've seen repeated ad nauseam both on HN and (what I assume is it's origin) Reddit. The West (primarily the US and then-West Germany) began investing in China in the 1970s to 1989 explicitly as a bulwark against the USSR [0] due to the Sino-Soviet Split. The "economic democratization" argument was a 1990s-era framing to reduce opposition to the PRC joining GATT/WTO [1] along with to reduce the sanctions enforced following the Tienanmen Square massacre [2]. George HW Bush as well as Clinton's NSC Asia Director Kenneth Lieberthal were both massive Chinaphiles, and played a major role in cementing the position China is in today. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46264332 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46264332 [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/20/opinion/IHT-america-needs-china-in-gatt-and-the-world-trade-organizaiton.html https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/20/opinion/IHT-america-needs... [2] - https://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/14/opinion/forget-the-tiananmen-fixation.html https://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/14/opinion/forget-the-tianan...
- lenerdenator 10mo ago
  I think that it's both a rewriting of history and a rationalization of the investment on some people's parts. Nixon's opening of relations with China was definitely a move against the USSR, but that was nothing compared to the extent of investment that was seen after the fall of Communism in Europe. The fact that the CPC was still very much in charge while all of this investing was occurring had to be rationalized somehow in the minds of people who were less cynical, and "it'll help liberalization" was probably one of the rationalizations used. And in some ways, you can use investment as a way to leverage social changes within countries, and some people (though apparently not enough) thought that was the intention with China, but there was only a carrot, not a stick, and by the time there was a desire to use a stick, there was too much dependency on China as a market and producer for the West. That's where we're at now.
  - alephnerd 10mo ago
    > but that was nothing compared to the extent of investment that was seen after the fall of Communism in Europe Most of the capital investment and institution building that led to China Shock in the 2000s only happened due to the extreme degree of tech and capital transfer in the 1970s-80s, along with the visiting student program. Heck, Vietnam had a higher HDI [0] and GDP PPP per Capita [1] than the PRC until the early 2000s. The only difference was Vietnam was strictly in the Warsaw Bloc camp, and was negatively impacted by the collapse of the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and GDR while China was able to leverage ties with the US during that period. [0] - https://countryeconomy.com/hdi?year=2005 https://countryeconomy.com/hdi?year=2005 [1] - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?end=2003&locations=VN-CN&start=1990 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?end=2...
- earlyreturns 10mo ago
  Interesting point and pardon my naïveté but I’m curious, by “the west began investing” do you mean public sector investments? Or are you including people like jim rodgers long time China bull? I think private sector investment wouldn’t be done for anything other than profit. It seems like trade liberalism is an ideological thing that people seem to believe in above and beyond geopolitical concerns. Those who believe in trade liberalization (globalization) are sort of religious in their belief that it leads to liberalism in all spheres, not just the economic. I’m thinking of classic liberals, economists, Ayn Rand fanboys, etc.
shevy-java 10mo ago
> Lai is a victim of this miscalculation. I don't think it was a miscalculation. Greed always ran deep in the West too. > If a country's people could either violently (Romania) or peacefully (almost everywhere else) remove such totalitarian systems of politics It's not always possible. It works in some countries but not in others. For instance, it seems not possible in Russia. > China, on the other hand, had not moved away from command economics at the time. Instead, the result was state capitalism. People were free to try new things that could create economic expansion, but only in a way that served the needs of the state. I somewhat agree, as the sinomarxist theorem and strategem is about that (and the sinomarxists also managed to bring out many people out of poverty too), but your analysis is not entirely correct either as China has many superrich now, which is a perversion in the system. So Xi also lies here. Because how can there be so many super-superrich? This is a master-slave situation, just like in other capitalistic countries. So why then the lie about sinomarxism? They just sell it like an ideology now, not unlike the Juche crap in North Korea.
- nine_k 10mo ago
  > seems not possible in Russia. But Russia has never removed the Communists from power. It removed the Communist party, that's true. But plenty of the revolutionaries were themselves Communists; both Gorbachev and Yeltsin were very high-ranking Communists. They liked the idea of economic liberalization, but the political liberalization was only allowed as long as they stayed in power. I'm not sure Russia has seen even a single honest presidential election. The current "president" of Russia is a former KGB officer.
  - YC34987349872 10mo ago
    Calling Yeltsin a communist is bananas. He played a central role in collapsing the Soviet Union by pulling Russia out of the Union, without any democratic input from the people. He then privatized everything, sold it all to the oligarchs and outside American/European hedge funds, and gutted all of Russia's remaining social safety programs from the SU. Yeltsin would be considered the very definition of a neoliberal, and was considered a friend and ally of the United States, which is now something we try to whitewash.
szundi 10mo ago
[dead]
thenthenthen 10mo ago
Miscalculation on what level? I think you are right concerning the methods as during the “last-stand” at hk poly technic, tanks were assembling in Futian Shenzhen (sat images.. what was this site again)
- lenerdenator 10mo ago
  I think that laypeople in the US were willing to see more investments in China with the rationalization that it could lead to more human rights. If you had polled random Americans in 1995 with a question like, "Should the US government and American companies invest in the People's Republic of China in an effort to increase human rights and liberalization there?", most people would have responded "yes". The miscalculation comes from thinking that the investment would actually have that effect. And I do think some people at the top knew it wouldn't have that effect, but of course, there was cheap labor to be had, and that was what they wanted more than anything else.
slibhb 10mo ago
So far you're right but the tide can always turn. China has massively overbuilt housing supply, which is the kind of mistake that a freer economy couldn't make. China's failed birth policies (1 child until 2015!) are another example. My opinion is still that capitalism (Western style) will win. Not because markets are never wrong but because the scope for fucking up is so much less. Markets can't decide "families can have only one child" or "we need to build 90 million units of housing" (that now sits empty). An accumulation of fuck-ups in this vein is inevitable when you have a small group of people making these kinds of decisions. In the long run, it will be fatal.
- cogman10 10mo ago
  > Markets can't decide "families can have only one child" Actually they can. It's part of the reason why a lot of capitalist nations are seeing major problems with population stagnation and possibly shrinkage. The problem is markets don't care at all about society. If they can require that every member of a household has to work and extract all their money as efficiently as possible, then they leave little room for society to have families. Capitalism is geared towards minimizing workers' free time. And, unfortunately, free time is how babies get made and kids get raised. That is where western capitalism is failing. Shouting louder and young adults to pull on bootstraps harder isn't making them have kids in their studio apartments. South Korea and Japan are 2 examples of this train-wreck that's coming for the US and other nations.
  - fn-mote 10mo ago
    > If they can require that every member of a household has to work and extract all their money as efficiently as possible, then they leave little room for society to have families. This ascribes an agency to capitalism that doesn’t exist. The families themselves make the choices to have more or fewer children. Capitalism says nothing about free time. Make the connection in your argument - people without enough money work as much as they can, maybe… but I still don’t see the lower wage people I know working 16 hour days. In fact it is the people who have a use for the extra money, usually to buy free time later, as one would expect in a capitalistic system.
cogman10 10mo ago
> While it is a human right to own property and use it to rationally pursue one's self-interests, that does not mean that capitalism in its current form is conducive to that for the greatest number of people, or to the evolution of other human rights in the societies in which capitalism is practiced. I'd argue that communism is the only system of government that guarantees property for all. That's somewhat a core tenant that every member in a communist society collectively owns everything. Capitalism is optimized to reduce or eliminate property access. For example, a free market capitalist has no problems with a very rich individual buying a city and perpetually renting the property to it's employees at rates above their salary, putting them in perpetual debt to that individual. They own nothing and can't escape their circumstances. Nor can their children. Capitalism with minimal or no regulation naturally devolves into feudalism.
- psunavy03 10mo ago
  Communism as such has never existed and will never exist because it ignores human nature. Private property rights are a fundamental tenet of human psychology. But hey, in defiance of 100+ years of failed attempts, if you want to see Politburos putting people in gulags again for being counterrevolutionaries . . . sure, give it another go. Capitalism is the worst economic system that has ever been tried . . . except for all the others.
  - cogman10 10mo ago
    For the record, I'm not a communist. I'd probably say my values are pretty close to socialist-capitalist. And that is a form of government that many nations have adopted and are successfully running. What's been failing is neoliberalism. Every nation that's been moving in that direction has serious problems as their social safety nets have started to collapse.
    - bpt3 10mo ago
      > socialist-capitalist What is this? Are the existing examples you mentioned considered examples of democratic socialism, or are you referring to something else?
tankenmate 10mo ago
"Lai is a victim of this miscalculation."; I don't think Lai miscalculated, he knew what was coming and fought it anyway. "Authority comes from submission"; sure someone can threaten you with physical coercion, but they can't make you want to submit. I would strongly suspect that Jimmy knew what was coming, but the point isn't "winning" in the "hollywood" sense, but rather that he did the right thing even. I would suspect not even in spite of the cost, but because of the cost. Are principles that don't cost you anything even principles?
- _tik_ 10mo ago
  It’s hard to see Jimmy Lai purely as a victim. Much of his “martyr” narrative appears to be constructed by Western media as part of an ideological battle. From what I remember in Hong Kong, Jimmy Lai had a rather shady reputation. His media outlet was widely known for publishing paid-for stories, spreading misinformation, harassing news sources, and sensationalising sex scandals. His original intent in setting up the news outlet was often said to be market manipulation for personal gain rather than journalism. He was also known for publishing xenophobic content targeting mainland Chinese. One of the most controversial examples was running ads that portrayed mainland tourists as “locusts” and called for them to be driven out of Hong Kong. In addition, he donated money to prominent US neoconservatives. I’m not sure whether Western media are unaware of his earlier background in Hong Kong, or if they are deliberately choosing to whitewash his reputation.
BurningFrog 10mo ago
China hasn't become a Western capitalist democracy, but it has changed enormously for the better from the genocidal tyranny of the Mao era, and my guess is that it will keep changing. One "first principles" way to think about it is that money is power, and as the Chinese middle class grows bigger and richer, it will have more and more of the power. I expect it will want similar things as the middle class in other countries. This may take any number of decades, which unfortunately makes this a hard theory to falsify.
cyberax 10mo ago
> it was thinking that investment in China would equal liberalization and democratic reforms China now _is_ far more liberal than in the 80-s. But it's also not even close to the Western democracies. > China, on the other hand, had not moved away from command economics at the time. Instead, the result was state capitalism. Not really. "State capitalism" really is misleading. China is fiercely capitalistic, far more than any modern Western country. The ruling party has an unspoken agreement with the population: you stay out of politics, and they stay out of your business. But I don't think this is sustainable. Russia had a similar social compact, and it had been broken after the Ukrainian invasion. There was too much power concentrated in one person, and it just never works.
- disgruntledphd2 10mo ago
  > Not really. "State capitalism" really is misleading. China is fiercely capitalistic, far more than any modern Western country. The ruling party has an unspoken agreement with the population: you stay out of politics, and they stay out of your business. I mean sure, unless you happen to be Jack Ma and are about to IPO your financial institution.
  - LexiMax 10mo ago
    I was under the impression that he got got for the very political reason for his company being used to circumvent capital controls.
malvim 10mo ago
Did big businesses in the West really think “investing” in China would lead to “freedom” and such? Isn’t that framing a bit naive? They went to China because it was cheaper. They went there in detriment of their countrymen that went without jobs, in detriment of the environment (what with all the shipping boom that followed), even in detriment of their own countries, since this would stifle development and industrialization. And they KNEW that technology transfer would follow, because China had made it clear. No one forced them to do it. They did it knowingly in the name of short and medium-term profit. I’m not even judging if that is bad (I do THINK it’s bad overall, but I’m not arguing it here). I’m just pointing out what happened. So now the West must not be surprised. And they aren’t! They just need to craft narratives that will paint them in good light.
- drdec 10mo ago
  > Did big businesses in the West really think “investing” in China would lead to “freedom” and such? Isn’t that framing a bit naive? I think the OP would frame this as the Western governments allowing Western businesses to invest in China.
- jrmg 10mo ago
  Did big businesses in the West really think “investing” in China would lead to “freedom” and such? You’re right in your assumption that profit-seeking was the major part of it - like, it wouldn’t have happened otherwise. But the idea that the West trading and interacting with China would mean the populous (and perhaps government) would come to understand the benefits of a free society, and so China would trend towards a Western political system - probably gradually rather than violently - was a mainstream view from the 80s to the early 2010s.
- derektank 10mo ago
  Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that US policymakers deregulated capital flows with China in the hopes that it would lead to political liberalization. Businesses always just follow the money, but for a long time American policy makers had made it difficult to invest in China, from regulatory uncertainty to restrictions on dual use technology exports to high tariffs. It really was an intentional decision, largely on the part of the Clinton administration, to make investing in the country easier and improve the economic well being of Chinese citizens in the hopes it would inevitably lead to democratization. Clearly, those hopes were just that though
jandrese 10mo ago
The weird thing is China is absolutely jam packed with small companies. Go to a trade show and you'll find dozens of companies selling basically the same products with minor variations. It's absolutely cutthroat. In the US we tend to see small companies get gobbled up by huge incumbents regularly, but in China the situation is much more in flux and it's not always obvious who the winners are going to be. It's the opposite of what you would expect from a command economy, at least in the tech and consumer product sectors.
- overfeed 10mo ago
  > It's absolutely cutthroat. Meanwhile in the land of the free, it's consolidation galore with very little competition.
- refurb 10mo ago
  I think your perspective is biasing you. The US has a massive number of small and medium companies. For example small part machining there are dozens per city. 43% of US GDP is small and medium size business. That’s effectively 50% of China’s entire GDP. Sure China has more, but it also has 4x the population and an economy more focused on labor intensive industry.
- HDThoreaun 10mo ago
  China isnt a command economy, its state capitalism.
dyauspitr 10mo ago
The West failed in its goals but the flip side is they unintentionally made it possible to pull 750 million people out of poverty. Probably the greatest western foreign policy victory ever.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
lvl155 10mo ago
I think it started out that way before Xi. But they soon realized they can actually overtake the US if they play it right. At least until the Chinese demand higher wages relative to the world, it’s going to be nearly impossible to compete against China in manufacturing. Likely at least another 15-20 years.
class3shock 10mo ago
I don't think it was a miscalculation, it was big business interests winning over geopolitical considerations. Of course, with some added hubris when it came to opinions on the ability of third world countries to develop into competitors and willful ignorance of the direction things were going over the years. But I do think it was all quite calculated, specifically to make the line go up for the shareholders.
testrun 10mo ago
Nixon went to China because he thought he could use the PRC as a wedge against the USSR. Then China opened up in 1979 and a lot of people believed it will be a new market for goods. It was until it wasn't.

alephnerd 10mo ago

> it was thinking that investment in China would equal liberalization and democratic reforms... That's a rewriting of history and a common misconception I've seen repeated ad nauseam both on HN and (what I assume is it's origin) Reddit. The West (primarily the US and then-West Germany) began investing in China in the 1970s to 1989 explicitly as a bulwark against the USSR [0] due to the Sino-Soviet Split. The "economic democratization" argument was a 1990s-era framing to reduce opposition to the PRC joining GATT/WTO [1] along with to reduce the sanctions enforced following the Tienanmen Square massacre [2]. George HW Bush as well as Clinton's NSC Asia Director Kenneth Lieberthal were both massive Chinaphiles, and played a major role in cementing the position China is in today. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46264332 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46264332 [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/20/opinion/IHT-america-needs-china-in-gatt-and-the-world-trade-organizaiton.html https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/20/opinion/IHT-america-needs... [2] - https://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/14/opinion/forget-the-tiananmen-fixation.html https://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/14/opinion/forget-the-tianan...

lenerdenator 10mo ago
I think that it's both a rewriting of history and a rationalization of the investment on some people's parts. Nixon's opening of relations with China was definitely a move against the USSR, but that was nothing compared to the extent of investment that was seen after the fall of Communism in Europe. The fact that the CPC was still very much in charge while all of this investing was occurring had to be rationalized somehow in the minds of people who were less cynical, and "it'll help liberalization" was probably one of the rationalizations used. And in some ways, you can use investment as a way to leverage social changes within countries, and some people (though apparently not enough) thought that was the intention with China, but there was only a carrot, not a stick, and by the time there was a desire to use a stick, there was too much dependency on China as a market and producer for the West. That's where we're at now.
- alephnerd 10mo ago
  > but that was nothing compared to the extent of investment that was seen after the fall of Communism in Europe Most of the capital investment and institution building that led to China Shock in the 2000s only happened due to the extreme degree of tech and capital transfer in the 1970s-80s, along with the visiting student program. Heck, Vietnam had a higher HDI [0] and GDP PPP per Capita [1] than the PRC until the early 2000s. The only difference was Vietnam was strictly in the Warsaw Bloc camp, and was negatively impacted by the collapse of the USSR, Czechoslovakia, and GDR while China was able to leverage ties with the US during that period. [0] - https://countryeconomy.com/hdi?year=2005 https://countryeconomy.com/hdi?year=2005 [1] - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?end=2003&locations=VN-CN&start=1990 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?end=2...
earlyreturns 10mo ago
Interesting point and pardon my naïveté but I’m curious, by “the west began investing” do you mean public sector investments? Or are you including people like jim rodgers long time China bull? I think private sector investment wouldn’t be done for anything other than profit. It seems like trade liberalism is an ideological thing that people seem to believe in above and beyond geopolitical concerns. Those who believe in trade liberalization (globalization) are sort of religious in their belief that it leads to liberalism in all spheres, not just the economic. I’m thinking of classic liberals, economists, Ayn Rand fanboys, etc.

shevy-java 10mo ago

> Lai is a victim of this miscalculation. I don't think it was a miscalculation. Greed always ran deep in the West too. > If a country's people could either violently (Romania) or peacefully (almost everywhere else) remove such totalitarian systems of politics It's not always possible. It works in some countries but not in others. For instance, it seems not possible in Russia. > China, on the other hand, had not moved away from command economics at the time. Instead, the result was state capitalism. People were free to try new things that could create economic expansion, but only in a way that served the needs of the state. I somewhat agree, as the sinomarxist theorem and strategem is about that (and the sinomarxists also managed to bring out many people out of poverty too), but your analysis is not entirely correct either as China has many superrich now, which is a perversion in the system. So Xi also lies here. Because how can there be so many super-superrich? This is a master-slave situation, just like in other capitalistic countries. So why then the lie about sinomarxism? They just sell it like an ideology now, not unlike the Juche crap in North Korea.

nine_k 10mo ago
> seems not possible in Russia. But Russia has never removed the Communists from power. It removed the Communist party, that's true. But plenty of the revolutionaries were themselves Communists; both Gorbachev and Yeltsin were very high-ranking Communists. They liked the idea of economic liberalization, but the political liberalization was only allowed as long as they stayed in power. I'm not sure Russia has seen even a single honest presidential election. The current "president" of Russia is a former KGB officer.
- YC34987349872 10mo ago
  Calling Yeltsin a communist is bananas. He played a central role in collapsing the Soviet Union by pulling Russia out of the Union, without any democratic input from the people. He then privatized everything, sold it all to the oligarchs and outside American/European hedge funds, and gutted all of Russia's remaining social safety programs from the SU. Yeltsin would be considered the very definition of a neoliberal, and was considered a friend and ally of the United States, which is now something we try to whitewash.

szundi 10mo ago

[dead]

thenthenthen 10mo ago

Miscalculation on what level? I think you are right concerning the methods as during the “last-stand” at hk poly technic, tanks were assembling in Futian Shenzhen (sat images.. what was this site again)

lenerdenator 10mo ago
I think that laypeople in the US were willing to see more investments in China with the rationalization that it could lead to more human rights. If you had polled random Americans in 1995 with a question like, "Should the US government and American companies invest in the People's Republic of China in an effort to increase human rights and liberalization there?", most people would have responded "yes". The miscalculation comes from thinking that the investment would actually have that effect. And I do think some people at the top knew it wouldn't have that effect, but of course, there was cheap labor to be had, and that was what they wanted more than anything else.

slibhb 10mo ago

So far you're right but the tide can always turn. China has massively overbuilt housing supply, which is the kind of mistake that a freer economy couldn't make. China's failed birth policies (1 child until 2015!) are another example. My opinion is still that capitalism (Western style) will win. Not because markets are never wrong but because the scope for fucking up is so much less. Markets can't decide "families can have only one child" or "we need to build 90 million units of housing" (that now sits empty). An accumulation of fuck-ups in this vein is inevitable when you have a small group of people making these kinds of decisions. In the long run, it will be fatal.

cogman10 10mo ago
> Markets can't decide "families can have only one child" Actually they can. It's part of the reason why a lot of capitalist nations are seeing major problems with population stagnation and possibly shrinkage. The problem is markets don't care at all about society. If they can require that every member of a household has to work and extract all their money as efficiently as possible, then they leave little room for society to have families. Capitalism is geared towards minimizing workers' free time. And, unfortunately, free time is how babies get made and kids get raised. That is where western capitalism is failing. Shouting louder and young adults to pull on bootstraps harder isn't making them have kids in their studio apartments. South Korea and Japan are 2 examples of this train-wreck that's coming for the US and other nations.
- fn-mote 10mo ago
  > If they can require that every member of a household has to work and extract all their money as efficiently as possible, then they leave little room for society to have families. This ascribes an agency to capitalism that doesn’t exist. The families themselves make the choices to have more or fewer children. Capitalism says nothing about free time. Make the connection in your argument - people without enough money work as much as they can, maybe… but I still don’t see the lower wage people I know working 16 hour days. In fact it is the people who have a use for the extra money, usually to buy free time later, as one would expect in a capitalistic system.

cogman10 10mo ago

> While it is a human right to own property and use it to rationally pursue one's self-interests, that does not mean that capitalism in its current form is conducive to that for the greatest number of people, or to the evolution of other human rights in the societies in which capitalism is practiced. I'd argue that communism is the only system of government that guarantees property for all. That's somewhat a core tenant that every member in a communist society collectively owns everything. Capitalism is optimized to reduce or eliminate property access. For example, a free market capitalist has no problems with a very rich individual buying a city and perpetually renting the property to it's employees at rates above their salary, putting them in perpetual debt to that individual. They own nothing and can't escape their circumstances. Nor can their children. Capitalism with minimal or no regulation naturally devolves into feudalism.

psunavy03 10mo ago
Communism as such has never existed and will never exist because it ignores human nature. Private property rights are a fundamental tenet of human psychology. But hey, in defiance of 100+ years of failed attempts, if you want to see Politburos putting people in gulags again for being counterrevolutionaries . . . sure, give it another go. Capitalism is the worst economic system that has ever been tried . . . except for all the others.
- cogman10 10mo ago
  For the record, I'm not a communist. I'd probably say my values are pretty close to socialist-capitalist. And that is a form of government that many nations have adopted and are successfully running. What's been failing is neoliberalism. Every nation that's been moving in that direction has serious problems as their social safety nets have started to collapse.
  - bpt3 10mo ago
    > socialist-capitalist What is this? Are the existing examples you mentioned considered examples of democratic socialism, or are you referring to something else?

tankenmate 10mo ago

"Lai is a victim of this miscalculation."; I don't think Lai miscalculated, he knew what was coming and fought it anyway. "Authority comes from submission"; sure someone can threaten you with physical coercion, but they can't make you want to submit. I would strongly suspect that Jimmy knew what was coming, but the point isn't "winning" in the "hollywood" sense, but rather that he did the right thing even. I would suspect not even in spite of the cost, but because of the cost. Are principles that don't cost you anything even principles?

_tik_ 10mo ago
It’s hard to see Jimmy Lai purely as a victim. Much of his “martyr” narrative appears to be constructed by Western media as part of an ideological battle. From what I remember in Hong Kong, Jimmy Lai had a rather shady reputation. His media outlet was widely known for publishing paid-for stories, spreading misinformation, harassing news sources, and sensationalising sex scandals. His original intent in setting up the news outlet was often said to be market manipulation for personal gain rather than journalism. He was also known for publishing xenophobic content targeting mainland Chinese. One of the most controversial examples was running ads that portrayed mainland tourists as “locusts” and called for them to be driven out of Hong Kong. In addition, he donated money to prominent US neoconservatives. I’m not sure whether Western media are unaware of his earlier background in Hong Kong, or if they are deliberately choosing to whitewash his reputation.

BurningFrog 10mo ago

China hasn't become a Western capitalist democracy, but it has changed enormously for the better from the genocidal tyranny of the Mao era, and my guess is that it will keep changing. One "first principles" way to think about it is that money is power, and as the Chinese middle class grows bigger and richer, it will have more and more of the power. I expect it will want similar things as the middle class in other countries. This may take any number of decades, which unfortunately makes this a hard theory to falsify.

cyberax 10mo ago

> it was thinking that investment in China would equal liberalization and democratic reforms China now _is_ far more liberal than in the 80-s. But it's also not even close to the Western democracies. > China, on the other hand, had not moved away from command economics at the time. Instead, the result was state capitalism. Not really. "State capitalism" really is misleading. China is fiercely capitalistic, far more than any modern Western country. The ruling party has an unspoken agreement with the population: you stay out of politics, and they stay out of your business. But I don't think this is sustainable. Russia had a similar social compact, and it had been broken after the Ukrainian invasion. There was too much power concentrated in one person, and it just never works.

disgruntledphd2 10mo ago
> Not really. "State capitalism" really is misleading. China is fiercely capitalistic, far more than any modern Western country. The ruling party has an unspoken agreement with the population: you stay out of politics, and they stay out of your business. I mean sure, unless you happen to be Jack Ma and are about to IPO your financial institution.
- LexiMax 10mo ago
  I was under the impression that he got got for the very political reason for his company being used to circumvent capital controls.

malvim 10mo ago

Did big businesses in the West really think “investing” in China would lead to “freedom” and such? Isn’t that framing a bit naive? They went to China because it was cheaper. They went there in detriment of their countrymen that went without jobs, in detriment of the environment (what with all the shipping boom that followed), even in detriment of their own countries, since this would stifle development and industrialization. And they KNEW that technology transfer would follow, because China had made it clear. No one forced them to do it. They did it knowingly in the name of short and medium-term profit. I’m not even judging if that is bad (I do THINK it’s bad overall, but I’m not arguing it here). I’m just pointing out what happened. So now the West must not be surprised. And they aren’t! They just need to craft narratives that will paint them in good light.

drdec 10mo ago
> Did big businesses in the West really think “investing” in China would lead to “freedom” and such? Isn’t that framing a bit naive? I think the OP would frame this as the Western governments allowing Western businesses to invest in China.
jrmg 10mo ago
Did big businesses in the West really think “investing” in China would lead to “freedom” and such? You’re right in your assumption that profit-seeking was the major part of it - like, it wouldn’t have happened otherwise. But the idea that the West trading and interacting with China would mean the populous (and perhaps government) would come to understand the benefits of a free society, and so China would trend towards a Western political system - probably gradually rather than violently - was a mainstream view from the 80s to the early 2010s.
derektank 10mo ago
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that US policymakers deregulated capital flows with China in the hopes that it would lead to political liberalization. Businesses always just follow the money, but for a long time American policy makers had made it difficult to invest in China, from regulatory uncertainty to restrictions on dual use technology exports to high tariffs. It really was an intentional decision, largely on the part of the Clinton administration, to make investing in the country easier and improve the economic well being of Chinese citizens in the hopes it would inevitably lead to democratization. Clearly, those hopes were just that though

jandrese 10mo ago

The weird thing is China is absolutely jam packed with small companies. Go to a trade show and you'll find dozens of companies selling basically the same products with minor variations. It's absolutely cutthroat. In the US we tend to see small companies get gobbled up by huge incumbents regularly, but in China the situation is much more in flux and it's not always obvious who the winners are going to be. It's the opposite of what you would expect from a command economy, at least in the tech and consumer product sectors.

overfeed 10mo ago
> It's absolutely cutthroat. Meanwhile in the land of the free, it's consolidation galore with very little competition.
refurb 10mo ago
I think your perspective is biasing you. The US has a massive number of small and medium companies. For example small part machining there are dozens per city. 43% of US GDP is small and medium size business. That’s effectively 50% of China’s entire GDP. Sure China has more, but it also has 4x the population and an economy more focused on labor intensive industry.
HDThoreaun 10mo ago
China isnt a command economy, its state capitalism.

dyauspitr 10mo ago

The West failed in its goals but the flip side is they unintentionally made it possible to pull 750 million people out of poverty. Probably the greatest western foreign policy victory ever.

deleted 10mo ago

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lvl155 10mo ago

I think it started out that way before Xi. But they soon realized they can actually overtake the US if they play it right. At least until the Chinese demand higher wages relative to the world, it’s going to be nearly impossible to compete against China in manufacturing. Likely at least another 15-20 years.

class3shock 10mo ago

I don't think it was a miscalculation, it was big business interests winning over geopolitical considerations. Of course, with some added hubris when it came to opinions on the ability of third world countries to develop into competitors and willful ignorance of the direction things were going over the years. But I do think it was all quite calculated, specifically to make the line go up for the shareholders.

testrun 10mo ago

Nixon went to China because he thought he could use the PRC as a wedge against the USSR. Then China opened up in 1979 and a lot of people believed it will be a new market for goods. It was until it wasn't.