In the West, we decided that individual liberty is more important than mass control. The Chinese government is corrupt to the core. Do you want that kind of government controlling you?
I have several rebuttals, however note that I do not support the CCP and I wont kid myself in saying that I'm not in China not for a reason.
China looks towards stability and economic growth right now instead of individual liberty simply because it has poor people who live in abject poverty in vilages and this is the majority. Only the coastal minority and the major cities have seen economic uplift.
Corruption is rampant and that is true but the objective is still for economic progress and national development, other countries suffer this issue, with the BRICs being a great example, Brazil's presidencies have been rocked by corruption scandals and the establishment is strong.
Individual liberty is not really on an individual basis in USA. Individual liberty and full rights has only been given to citizens which is every person born in America. It has traditionally been given to WASP and Americans of European descent and neglected for former descendants of slaves, etc.
What I would say is that this is a transition. China will become better and be the kind of govt people need. After all, we all know that if you were Black in USA in the past, you did not have a good time and would see govt as a negatice coercive force trying to control and probably actively enslave you dependant on the times.
EDIT: irrelevent anecdote, I started judging countries based on their airports because its a quick litmus test for either how bad corruption is or just how bad the local govt is. I started this after the person checking my ticket in Nepal would only let me pass and depart if I paid a bribe. This was in front of a queue of people.
How is the west any less corrupt? The big corporations are basically machinery at this point. Their only purpose is to self perpetuate and benefit themselves and their shareholders, many times at the expense of the public. At least their government is attempting to fix problems, and not leaving everything to the free market Gods.
Besides, look who the US elected for president. Every single check and balance in the system failed to keep Trump in check. I'd say the US government doesn't look that much better.
Liberty is a double edged sword that cuts both ways. Few wield it as intended. Most people pick it up and swing wildy because they don't like something, and they are no better than a mob.
Because their legal, at least they are somewhat transparent. It also helps the west better adhere to rule of law, while in china it is all illegal but happens anyways (law isn’t very important compared to official whimsy).
The true measure or corruption is performance. If those corrupt politicians somehow stil ensure a decent standard of living for their citizens, then they're better than the ones elsewhere.
I'd rather be a citizen of the US or France than of China.
You're setting up a fake strawman that the parent comment never suggested at all.
In no regard did the parent say that politicians in the West are not or are never corrupt, nor did they imply it. They said China's government is corrupt to the core.
The parent did mention that "in the West" individual liberty is more important than mass control without providing any evidence to back it up. Then proceeded to mention how corrupt the Chinese government is. It is true that they never say that the governments in the West are not corrupt, but by setting up the main point like that, it sure looks like trying to mirror the corruption and mass control in China with the individual liberty of the West, which seems a lot like whitewashing to me.
There is mass control and corruption in the West, it just takes a less obvious form.
And couldn't the same be said about US government? Or France government? Or any other Western government?
How is it that China is obviously "corrupt to the core", but our governments are not? Pretty much daily reports in the news about corruption in western democracies - they all don't count, I assume, because what we have here is not True Corruption?
It’s not binary! China is more corrupt than western countries, even if the west stil has corruption. The west has frequent reports about corruption because the media is separate from the government as well as separation of power, nothing can be papered over even if Donald Trump wants to silence it. In china, only corruption is reported on from official direction, the press can’t act independently.
There are plenty of countries that are more corrupt than China (e.g. India and Russia, as well as most of Africa). Again, it’s not binary!
Of course it's not binary. What I'm suggesting is that differences in corruption may be small between all those countries (note that we can't just count everything that China does that's undemocratic as corruption, because China is not a democracy).
China simply doesn’t have very strong rule of law, so the notion of illegal isn’t meaningful. What is deemed corruption is up to official discretion, and so you’ll be “made an example” if you step out of line; likewise, if you are too clean, you won’t get promoted because you can’t be controlled like this. There is no independent judicial system, no separation of power to carry out independent prosecutions, no independent media to do investigative reporting independently to cause public outrage (and when they do by accident, the punishments are severe). You are either safe or you aren’t as china has basically rejected rule of law (and constitutional law) as a western imperialistic concept.
This has nothing to do with democracy. Singapore is relatively undemocratic (opposition parties are slapped with libel suits on a regular basis) but lacks significant corruption as they have very strong rule of law (the Lees are benevolent tyrants).
Saying corruption in china is similar to corruption in the states is like saying their air pollution is similar.
So you're saying that because we do not hear about corruption in state-controlled media in countries like China and Russia, but we do hear about corruption in countries like the US or France, is evidence that Western corruption is more rampant than elsewhere?
I'm saying that nowhere in this thread there is proof suggesting that Western corruption is meaningfully smaller, and not just different in phenotype but functionally still in the same ballpark as Chinese corruption.
Very interesting, I've never heard anyone in China have their organ stolen by smoking weeds or taking drugs. China may execute drug dealers but not drug users.
Organ harvesting of condemned prisoners continues although China has promised to to stop it multiple times. It’s why china has some of the quickest turn around times for organ transplants even though it has one of the lowest voluntary donation rates.
