Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border with Hong Kong

Re:Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border... by baybal2 on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @07:44AM (#20684767)

> Xi is very much a dictator, but he also needs money to maintain his dictatorship.

To maintain dictatorship, you need bullets, not money.

In USSR during Stalin, regular people were pretty much eating grass, but he never doubted his ability to do virtually anything to them without repercussions.

Soviet army of the time had a meal of 3 slices of dried bread and a millet porridge. Even Stalin's personal bodyguards were eating thin gruel, but none of them ever dared to do anything about that.

A tactic of trying to economically starve a dictatorship has no logic. Yes, you can cripple a country, but not the dictatorship itself.

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Re:Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border... by loyukfai on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @07:51AM (#20684818)

Maybe yes, but Xi is not Kim, at least not yet.

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Re:Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border... by baybal2 on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @07:56AM (#20684857)

I heard a good phrase for that: "you need to be pretty stupid to appoint yourself a president for life"

In other words, great villains have exit plans, bad ones don't

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Re:Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border... by whoevercares on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @08:26AM (#20685088)

Well Chinese has been ruling by lifelong kings and dictators like Mao for thousands of years. Democracy doesn’t have a great foundation there and it just need years of cultivation through education or whatever. The culture also somewhat aligned with the “do greater good” and “society should be unionized” ideology which doesn’t make lifelong leaders look like a stupid idea

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Re:Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border... by swordsmith on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @01:35PM (#20688153)

This is a common argument that Chinese/East-Asian culture makes democracy extremely difficult. The prime counter examples are Taiwan, South Korea, and even Japan. Similar cultural background, but all are able to operate in a liberal democracy in a relatively short amount of time.

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Re:Chinese military entering Shenzen, just across the border... by whoevercares on Tuesday August 13, 2019 @09:19PM (#20691895)

Well for one thing the scale is quite different in terms of population and size. They are more like at most two Chinese provinces combined. Another thing is more historical: they are all effectively allies of the US and even with US troops deployed on their land. IMO they are not quite compelling examples.

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