The West likes throwing around words like dictator and democracy when it suits them. Even Trump was labelled a dictator but when Bush ignores UNSC resolutions he is a hero.
Putin is elected. If it was about 'dictatorship', Xi who is US greatest creditor and trading partner is the closest we may come to a definition.
Xi's government enjoys over 90% support of his people, per a 15-year Harvard study
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/ I dare anyone here to show me which "democratic" leader enjoys just a bit more than 50%.
I've come to believe a lot of this stuff like the best governing model (democracy, they say) we believe out of faith, like religion, not facts. What leadership needs is
legitimacy, which means the people accept/support your leadership, not necessarily competitive voting blocks that can sometimes split diverse nations irreparably along ethnic or religious lines. The democracy hypothesis is that winning elections confers this legitimacy directly on election night.
In China, legitimacy is earned by delivering. The reason their govt is ever outperforming itself is because it earns its legitimacy by working for its masses. Local govts in China enjoy the same level of support you see in Western democracies, like 50s percentage-wise, but the CCP enjoys 90% support. So which dictatorship? In addition, governance is also evaluated by public surveys; people actually rate whether the sectors they're familiar with (water, electricity, transport, security, health services, etc) are being run well or not, and their input is a big factor in whether the person running things should be replaced or promoted to run an even bigger sector
. Is it any wonder they grew so fast?
So, is it democracy or dictatorship? I say it's neither. It's a hybrid system that has grown out of Chinese culture, married to socialist principles. What I cannot pretend is that the Western system would do a better job in China. Case in point, India. Neither will I pretend that the Chinese model would do a better job in Europe!
Everything doesn't have to be the same. Let every country choose the path that best serves its people.
In China, they enjoy most personal liberties apart from the one about choosing the number of children you can have. The govt doesn't care what you wear, eat, who you love/sleep with, which clubs/movies you watch etc. Its uninvolved in like 99% of its people's personal life/decisions. What they don't enjoy is direct involvement in every decision-making wrung of govt and some political freedoms, for example, the govt will shut down some sites it deems dangerous, and interferes with religious freedoms in some communities, which is of course bad. . . I still cannot pretend their system somehow doesn't work for them when it has taken 800 million out of poverty in a single generation.
The only constant I've seen in democracies, from the big U.S. of A to our Kenyan shenanigans is propaganda and fake news. This system is about who spins the best yarn, and the media companies are all in on it. You either:
(1) Sell some conservative red-neck or liberal suburban house-wife or Kenyan mama mboga the most terrifying story you can think up about all the horrible things
the other side will do to them if they are allowed to win.
Or
(2) Some false promise you have no intention to keep about changing their life.
Then these three, pumped on all these lies, pick on one day in five years, who will have keys to nuclear weapons and all sorts of unbelievably important things.
Hiyo ndio democracy, and you can't tell me the Chinese are wrong for not wanting it.
Even Socrates thought it was insane.
Topic: If dictatorship bleeds wars and inhumanity (Read 2534 times)