Chinese Politics Superthread

All future threads on China and its politics shall go here.
Especially as we are not going away any time soon.

Well let's begin with the past... My greatgrandfather was a Chinese entrepreneur and landowner who sent to jail in the early years of the PRC. After all there was no place for capitalists in the new China. He died a few years later in prison when my grandfather was 15. That explains why my father is anti-communist. It doesn't work and it surely doesn't work for everyone...

The RC is a dictatorship that doesn't respect human rights. China should have a revolution must like those in the Middle East.

Then it's a good thing they won't have one.

Not going too well in Egypt these days, religious strife all over the place. In Libya too, I've been hearing the NTC fighters are looting Sirte. Revolutions don't make everything sunshine and roses you know. It could make things worse than before. My dad lived through the Mao era and the Deng Xiaoping era BTW, which kind of explains why I like Cold War history so much (and the topic of Chinese politics).

I don't fully understand the mindset of the Chinese or any culture east of...I guess Russia. As such I don't really join the whole "hate them China" bandwagon. Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn't. I should do some research first, really.

Are you happy with the current state of China, Imperial? From what I have seen in the media, the vast majority seem to be happy with the way things are going...but that could be sensationalised.

From my experience with friends there, they seem pretty happy. They feel that things are going pretty well at the moment (for them anyway, for others it might be different)

China is the largest abuser of human rights in the modern world, and they get away with it only because we let them. For all of you who call yourselves leftists, you cannot possibly side with the PRC, who exist to stamp out democracy, civil liberties, and political freedoms. We have control of our own markets, and we have the power to close those markets off to the Chinese. It's a very simple dichotomy here: liberty or tyranny. No one is in any state of confusion about which the Chinese represent, especially not their government. This is the 21st century, and quite frankly it's time we put an end to the totalitarian regime that currently oppresses a population of over a billion. Anyone who thinks otherwise cannot possibly consider themselves a supporter of human rights, because above all else human rights are universal.

Ya see, I agree with some of your points Kali, but China looks like it is getting there albeit slowly. I mean, until relatively recently they still had a punishment (not used often but still there nonetheless) that involved executing entire generations of a family for the crimes of one. The quality of life seems to have improved, it is not super, but better than before. Things like the one child policy look like a brutal necessity that were not enacted with pleasure. Plus, dictatorships does not always mean INSTA EVIL. They are not what should be aspired to when looking at the end result of a prosperous nation, but they do seem much better at getting shit done than democracies, China has undergone huge transitions over the past few decades and will probably continue to do so for a while longer. Maybe it needs a one party state, at least for the time being.

Yeah, this argument is full of holes. But so are all your respective mothers.

I'm gonna say that China has improved, but I doubt that it will become a stable superpower. As I recall China was pretty big and powerful for thousands of years, but was so unstable that it only took some small countries from the West to make it their bitch.

The human rights situation is still a hell of a lot better than Mao's time. Hell, you now have the freedom to become an entrepreneur, something that would have been punished harshly back then.

Perhaps a second Communist revolution, huh?

Yes but you still don't have the freedom to speak out against the government.

Nope, i'm going to have to disagree with that. Human rights were respected under the Mao regime. Before Communist China, Human rights were non-existent for the most part. Mao gave everyone, including Chinese women in China (When before they got treated like shit!) Human rights. Since China has gone back to Capitalism, the whole country has now gone into shit, again Human rights is abused again in Capitalist China today.

For you people that still think China is still Communist just because the ruling party is Communist doesn't mean it's Socialist. Revisionists use it has a scapegoat really. When China does something wrong in the world, the West will automatically think those god damn Commies or something. Even though 70% of the Elite Chinese are members of the Chinese Communist Party.

@ Observer
So, what? We congradulate the Western Imperialism? And for the record: the Chinese weren't exactly in the best of political/social/economic conditions back then.
O and the RC thing... I think you have them mixed up. The CCP is the Chinese Communist Party which is in control of the PRC, the People's Republic of China. The Nationalist Party of China is in control of the ROC, the Republic of China, aka Taiwan.
China is alot more stable as a culture than a country, but they are still extremely stable. Not much political turmoil there. No rednecks talking about succeeding. No big political divides in the leadership. No major immigration problems.
And China rewards progressive thinking. Sure, they don't tend to take critisizm well, but add a solution rather than a call for a revolution and you will find them MUCH more receptive.

A very important thing to remember about China and Chinese in general: their mindset is different and they are not changing it anytime soon. So give suggestions, but don't nag. And certainly they would not like it if you force them to adopt any system.

@ Kali
'We'? Who is 'we'? Last I checked, everyone is violating the UDHR in some form. Nobody has the ligitimacy to demand that China does ANYTHING, because that would be hypocritical.
Sure, they have to clean up their act on some levels, but its a different place with different standards. No Chinese would stand to enforce an unpopular and alien Western standard in China that not even the West succeeds in.
You threaten to close the markets, but I'm not seeing it. Oh wait, maybe that is because nobody is stupid enough to do that. Nobody would win in that. You are just as dependent on China as they are on you. And there is no proof that that would aid in human rights. In fact, most people acknoledge that it would probably hurt.
If you are so pro-democratic, why not push to declare war? Maybe you'll win over the Chinese by bombing their homes and workplaces. Maybe raping their women and slaughtering their children will make them more democratically inclined.
I see you complaining and calling for democracy, but that would solve nothing that the Chinese are concerned with at the moment.
For all your democracy, you are:
1. Still mired in war, wheras the Chinese have no such problems
2. Largely responcible for a great chunk of a global recession
3. Politically trapped in a stalemate between a majorically two-party system
I don't see the attration to that at the moment, and I don't think that the average Chinese does either.

@ Aritismoke
Any way you cut it, there are not millions of Chinese in the streets rioting against the government at the moment. And when they do, it is usually them petitioning the central government to remove a corrupt local government official and replace him/her. Which they usually do in a timely manner, even if it is more for reasons of saving face than anything else.

Sorry Soviet but your're kinda of wrong, Mao was responsible for the Great Leap Foward which caused an estimated 16.5 to 46 million deaths most due to the shitty agricultural policies but a lot are from being tortured and beaten and that wasn't exclusive to men, woman were tortured too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward

I wouldn't say Chiang Kai Shek did any better when it came to human rights abuses. But really SovietEmpireUSSR, you should stop talking out of your ass. China under Mao was fucking slaughterhouse, but so did Chiang Kai Shek's.

Seconded.

It may or may not be arguable that he may or may not have improved the human rights issues over what the Nationalists did when they controlled China [shooting anyone, even Communists, in the streets is usually frowned on], but he certainly didn't usher in sunshine and happiness on a mass scale.

Screw China. Everyone loves them for some God-damn reason and they are the most diabolical bastards ever and are even more imperialist than me. They're willing to starve the entire nation of North Korea for their convenience.

Their education system is total crap. It leaves hundreds of millions with only functional litteracy (read, they can read basic things like signs but a book is beyond them) and yet I hear about how amazing it is.

It seems like half their Catholics are barely Catholic and are more willing to follow China than the motherfucking Pope. They will follow their tyrannical dictator, but God's Victor? Nah.

They bitch up and down about how evil the West is, and how America is this jingoistic nightmare. Then they invade Tibet, claim Mongolia, and try to puppetize half the 3rd World.

Agreed.

China has a great economic system though. I think their incredible economic growth can testify to that.

No they don't. This whole thread is based on the scant handful of Chinese supporters defending against the massed consensus of the majority of this forums hating on China.

I can't say to how imperialistic or not you are, but last I checked, China only invaded a country over 50 years ago...
Out of the Middle East yet?

That makes no sense. China ships millions of tons of food and other necessities to North Korea every year. Maybe you mean Westernize.

There is probably a reason why they rank higher than the U.S. in every subject. Including English. That probably means that their education system isn't that bad.

There is some truth to this one. The Chinese government appoints an archbishop. And for the record, those other half follow the Pope. And don't bash their nationalism. They have every right to be nationalisitic. Its their choice, not yours.

Follow the inner workings more closely. The President isn't as powerful as you think.

What are you talking about?

That is just the culture in general. They are very isolationist. Hense the real translation for the Chinese word for China: "Middle Kingdom". Basically, 'We are the center of civilization, all others are barbarians'.

1. Tibet isn't new to being part of a Chinese country you know...
2. Mongolia only broke away after WW2, with Soviet backing.
3. They seem to be helping them more than the West. Its a mutual alliance.