> Not really. Your assertions have been Xi sucks / his decisions are bad, then quote XYZ trope about authoritarian governance from western perspective.
Like you've done anything differently (Xi is great / his decisions are good, then quote XYZ troupe from PRC's perspective)? At least I'm doing it from the world perspective instead of just one country's POV.
> Like I said, he was excessive and did the hard things sometimes poorly, but it was important to do them none the less.
Mao didn't have to do anything. He could have at the very least delegated it to someone else more pragmatic.
> Go look up hunger indexes over last 20 years. India is at North Korean level.
You're right about the hunger index. I should have checked it. I can believe India's score. However, how is it even close to accurate for North Korea? Data isn't exactly easy to collect from the Hermit Kingdom. It could be much worse than the index score.
> Because democracy sucks for development.
India is a developing nation that doesn't represent all democracies. The US would be a much better example. Even then, it would be more accurate if we also look at the EU.
Less centralized economies, which is representative for democracies, are actually very good for development. One could see this at work before and after Deng's policies took effect.
> Authoritarianism is the worst form of government for developing countries... except for all the others.
Sometimes it works because of good leadership. Deng & his successors are the best example of this. I'm sure there are plenty more since dictators dominated most of human history. The issue with authoritarianism is that when you have bad leadership it's near impossible to get rid of them. They are there for life. Also any bad decisions get magnified 100x because there's no checks and balances of power. Democracy has a control for that: voting and term limits. For example, the US was able to neatly depose of Trump in four years without blood. You can't same about bad dictators.
> Why does it matter what others or diasphora are embarassed by?
Because the PRC obviously cares about saving face. Only barbarians would be indifferent to the developed world's uproar. The fallout for overseas Chinese is just a side effect, but it's still important.
> This makes PRC citizens happy, and forwards interest of PRC.
That's very debatable. How do we truly know when there's no free speech and free press? Data is not accurate within an authoritarian regime.
> Except... he hasn't bumbled outside of this imaginary CIA report.
He did and I've already listed his mistakes. Even you and the other guy admit that he doesn't seem very bright.
I think we're going around in circles. Your arguments are not going to move me, and vice versa. The second that you mentioned that the Great Leap Forward was "progress" is the second that this conversation became a waste of time for the both of us. We're grounded in different realities.
Okay I've been watching your back and forths for a while now and you guys seem to deadlock. I'll add some verifiable data.
Exhibit 1: "From Yao To Mao" by Kenneth James Hammond, history professor at New Mexico State University
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VMEFNcbR0o&t=8m30s
This history lecture states that The Great Leap Forward actually achieved many of its goals. One famous failure was the famine. But you better listen to his very interesting explanation of that instead of reading a summary by me.
Exhibit 2: life expectancy from 1850 to 2020. https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1439608272940519430?t=4-p...
You see a couple of interesting things. From 1949 onwards, there was a steep gain. Even the famine only managed to slow the gain rather than reversing it. That same thread also refers to the Barefoot Doctor system which was a major contributor to raising life expectancy.
Exhibit 3: Kevin Tellier, a very good China watcher (corroborated by another HN user in this submission), discusses the nature of Xi's power centralization. https://twitter.com/kevtellier/status/1441774309652025346
Rather than grabbing power for the sake of power, Xi's power centralization served a real purpose that is in the interest of the nation, namely removing entrenched interests that keep the country back. The problem of entrenched interests influencing policy is unfortunately an unsolved problem in many democracies.
Kenneth James Hammond isn't objective. He's funded by the Confucius Institute. imo his opinion is compromised by money i.e. he is a paid CCP apologist. It's no different from researchers who deny climate change and are conveniently funded by the oil industry. I don't see any change in mental gymnastics just because it's coming from a caucasian. Incentives tend to drive the outcome of anything like someone's public opinion.
Mao was a brilliant military strategist, but he was a complete disaster as a statesman. He is not vindicated. He made Zhou Enlai's work much harder to accomplish and much longer to take effect. There are few statesmen who were worse than Mao like Stalin. I have to question either your logic, or whether or not if you're commenting from inside the mainland.
> Exhibit 2: life expectancy from 1850 to 2020.
Again, how can we trust the data from yet another secretive authoritarian government?
> Exhibit 3: Kevin Tellier, a very good China watcher
I don't know much about Kevin Teller, but if he has a conflict of interest like Hammond, then his opinion is worth less than more objective sources.
For the record, I am neither anti China or even anti CCP (I don't even think it really exists anymore since it's a dictatorship again); nor am I a pro US zealot. I am only anti-Xi, and I am not a fan of Mao's governance.
If something stinks, I'm not going to pretend that it's nice perfume.
Like you've done anything differently (Xi is great / his decisions are good, then quote XYZ troupe from PRC's perspective)? At least I'm doing it from the world perspective instead of just one country's POV.
> Like I said, he was excessive and did the hard things sometimes poorly, but it was important to do them none the less.
Mao didn't have to do anything. He could have at the very least delegated it to someone else more pragmatic.
> Go look up hunger indexes over last 20 years. India is at North Korean level.
You're right about the hunger index. I should have checked it. I can believe India's score. However, how is it even close to accurate for North Korea? Data isn't exactly easy to collect from the Hermit Kingdom. It could be much worse than the index score.
> Because democracy sucks for development.
India is a developing nation that doesn't represent all democracies. The US would be a much better example. Even then, it would be more accurate if we also look at the EU.
Less centralized economies, which is representative for democracies, are actually very good for development. One could see this at work before and after Deng's policies took effect.
> Authoritarianism is the worst form of government for developing countries... except for all the others.
Sometimes it works because of good leadership. Deng & his successors are the best example of this. I'm sure there are plenty more since dictators dominated most of human history. The issue with authoritarianism is that when you have bad leadership it's near impossible to get rid of them. They are there for life. Also any bad decisions get magnified 100x because there's no checks and balances of power. Democracy has a control for that: voting and term limits. For example, the US was able to neatly depose of Trump in four years without blood. You can't same about bad dictators.
> Why does it matter what others or diasphora are embarassed by?
Because the PRC obviously cares about saving face. Only barbarians would be indifferent to the developed world's uproar. The fallout for overseas Chinese is just a side effect, but it's still important.
> This makes PRC citizens happy, and forwards interest of PRC.
That's very debatable. How do we truly know when there's no free speech and free press? Data is not accurate within an authoritarian regime.
> Except... he hasn't bumbled outside of this imaginary CIA report.
He did and I've already listed his mistakes. Even you and the other guy admit that he doesn't seem very bright.
I think we're going around in circles. Your arguments are not going to move me, and vice versa. The second that you mentioned that the Great Leap Forward was "progress" is the second that this conversation became a waste of time for the both of us. We're grounded in different realities.