Come on bud, that’s a silly argument disproved with a 2 second google search. The U.K. ranks 16th on the democracy index, and China ranks 151st. At this point I can only assume you’re arguing in bad faith for fun.
The problem today is that you have these nice laws to protect the media, but they themselves are not taking responsibility for their own actions, instead they pander to the prejudices of their readers. They have failed to realise that "free speech" (and other rights) can be exercised in a very negative way, and are undermining their own society for the profit motive, or other political motives.
And you’d rather repeat imperialist propaganda, much of which contradicts itself or has been repeatedly debunked.
Last UK election, a small sliver of all votes actually mattered in electing the government. My vote in a solid Tory borough may as well not have been counted.
What due process exactly? The one provided to Assange? Or to those beaten by police for daring to protest? Or to the hundreds that die in police custody?
What free press? Most papers defend the Tories. Have you even seen how demonised Corbyn was almost universally, how unified the slander was?
I’ve spoken to a quite a few people that live in Hong Kong, many support the PRC and condemn the US-backed unrest. I know a few people in Taiwan, many are for some form of unification with the mainland. I know few people in Xinjiang, but from what they said the situation in the western press is being vastly misrepresented.
I'm not the person you spoke to but I can answer this question from my own perspective:
I'm Chinese, grew up in the UK, but I do consider moving back to China as a long-term option that I'll have to think seriously about. The main barrier for me is language & culture, my Chinese skills are awful; for other similar people I'd expect finances too but luckily that's not the case for me.
My parents came to the UK from China to study because they wanted a better life. That was in the 90s where China was admittedly a bit of a shithole, relative to other countries including the UK. My dad went back to China after a few years of working, because he felt he'd do better in a country where he understood the culture better. My mum stayed in the UK because she really really dislikes the Chinese government (for historical reasons). These days they occasionally mention that some of their classmates, that stayed in China, are doing better than them. My mum is quite stubborn though so she doesn't consider moving back as an option.
My cousin visited the UK a few years ago and told me "oh is that all it is" - there's still a cultural impression that western countries are really great, so he thought it'd be way more impressive (he only visited Aberdeen and Manchester, never London, but still London is not that much better), and that's why rich parents still send their kids to school in the west; similarly there's still a cultural impression from western countries that China is a bit of a shithole & authoritarian to boot - but reality has changed a lot in the past 30 years.
I do not believe there is any systematic suppression of the Uighurs in Xinjiang (where they are a majority), this is not consistent with Chinese history. As far as I can make out, a very small minority of people are being held for anti-extremism purposes; but generally the Uighur population and culture are thriving in Xinjiang - there are lots of primary sources on this, search "life in xinjiang" on youtube for example.
The media is certainly currently waging a disinformation war against China, blowing the reality up into "genocide", "cultural suppression", "sterilisation", etc - this is all inconsistent with the masses of primary sources, and the cheap propaganda tactics are disgusting and shameful. The few concrete individual reports that we do have, many of them have also been debunked or are obviously inconsistent (e.g. changing stories multiple times).
The camps may not be great compared to regular life in a first-world country, but compared to what the US did in the middle east - killing 100ks-millions of muslims - Xinjiang is probably the best result that a country has achieved in the world (so far) in fighting terrorism, and that's why most muslim-majority countries in fact support China on this issue. Of course, everyone can strive to do better, but that's not how western media is portraying it.
Oh, “the democracy index”? Good thing we have a neutral and objective measure of each country’s quantity of abstract democracy. I’m sure there’s no cultural chauvinism or politically-motivated biases at play here.
Do you have any specific criticisms of that index, or just generalized ideological grievances? Moreover, are you saying that the UK is not meaningfully more democratic than China, and therefore that index is inaccurate?
I don't think "democracy" is something you can measure objectively like a scientist in a lab. What these indexes measure is proximity to Western liberalism, but I think different peoples have the right to their own forms of government.
They publish extremely detailed methodology for each country, so feel free to browse and let me know which parts you disagree with (assuming you're not in China, because you probably won't be able to access this there. All that democracy hey ;)
* There are no direct or competitive elections for national executive leaders.
* Elections are not administered by an independent body.
* China’s one-party system rigorously suppresses the development of any organized political opposition
* The political system is dominated in practice by ethnic Han Chinese men. Societal groups such as women, ethnic and religious minorities, and LGBT+ people have no opportunity to gain meaningful political representation
* China is home to one of the world’s most restrictive media environments and its most sophisticated system of censorship, particularly online.
* None of China’s national leaders are freely elected, and the legislature plays a minimal role in policymaking and the development of new laws.
* The CCP regime has established a multifaceted apparatus to control all aspects of religious activity
It goes on and on. All of this seems pretty tangible to me? Again please let me know what I'm missing.
This methodology is biased towards a western perspective on how democracies "must" be run. Taken literally, a democracy is a direct democracy, but no country today is a direct democracy because everybody recognises that it has flaws. So every democratic system tries to make a balance.
Yes, China fixes a 1-party state, but how does that differ from fixing e.g. the judicial branch in the US system which also cannot be elected?
The minorities angle is just weird and shows you have no understanding about China - minorities generally have preferential policies in many aspects of law, e.g. the One-Child policy (now Two-Child policy). That's more than you can say for the US.
China's censorship system is not that sophisticated it's just large scale. The purpose is more to ensure large-scale stability, and they don't care about small-scale private conversations between individuals. The US is currently grappling difficult questions about how to moderate fake news, large corporations are stuck in a difficult place - on one hand they are accused of promoting fake news, on the other hand they are accused of suppressing free speech. So just because China took a strong stance on this, does not mean they are "evil" for doing so.
Again, you need to have some cultural background of China before judging it, rather than judging it based on western preconceptions of how a democracy "must" work like.
The National People's Congress in China has more members per capita than the US House or Senate as well as more independents and minority party representation.
The NPC has a higher percentage of women than the US Congress (exceeding the world average).
Ethnic minorities make up 8% of China's overall population, but they make up 14.7% of the seats of the NPC. They also make up 7.3% of the more than 90 million members of the Communist Party of China (which also consists of 27.2% women). Ethnic minorities make up 39% of the overall population of the US, but only 25% of the US Congress.
A study by the Harvard Kennedy School found 93.1% satisfaction with the central government in China in 2016. US Congress currently has a 29.3% approval rating, but has been hovering below 20% for most of the last decade.
The two viable US political parties are overwhelmingly funded by billionaires and large corporations. Those two parties decide the criteria for acceptance into the presidential debates which prevents minority parties from gaining national prominence. Billionaires and large corporations also own all the major media outlets and platforms, and they use that power to control narratives and deplatform inconvenient political figures and ideas.
Therefore China is more democratic than the US. See how easy that is?
I'm from the US so that's what I'm qualified to speak about. It rates highly on this supposedly authoritative index so that's why I used it as an example.
What I mentioned about the US is not conjecture. The funding of US political parties is public record. The Commission on Presidential Debates was created by the Democratic and Republican parties. The ownership of the major US media platforms is also public record, and they just unilaterally deplatflormed Donald Trump and QAnon groups.
What's utter nonsense is saying the NPC "plays a minimal role in policymaking and the development of new laws" or that the CPC has a "multifaceted apparatus to control all aspects of religious activity."
I guarantee I've looked into the claims of systemic extermination and genocide against China more seriously than you. I wouldn't be speaking positively about the Chinese government if I thought those claims held water.
I notice from your comment history that you are the business of defending the CCP at every turn. I’m not sure that we could take your work for everything being a-okay with minorities in China.
Is that an argument? I notice from your comment history that you defend the UK at every turn. Why is that more legitimate than someone from the middle of the US taking seriously his country’s history of foreign coups and war crimes and trying to find truth outside the bubble of Western propaganda?
I want the US to have a government that fosters friendly international relationships of mutual benefit, that takes poverty alleviation seriously, that takes ecological preservation seriously. China is doing a better job than the US on all those fronts right now so for me they’re worth learning about.
