Re:China is betting that the West is in irreversible decline
by AnimalMuppet on Tuesday April 13, 2021 @02:43PM
(#26797076)
> The majority of the people in China don't care about the kind of freedom you talk about. As a nation, they seem to have a very singular goal: follow the Party, make progress, and beat the rest of the world.
Sure. The people of Russia didn't care about freedom and just wanted to follow the Party, too. Until they were given the chance, and it turned out that they actually wanted freedom and didn't give a rip about following the Party, because the Party was denying them the freedom they wanted, and was feeding them a perpetual diet of lies in the process. And despite all the lies, they could tell that it was lies, and that it wasn't freedom.
Now, it didn't work out in Russia. They didn't wind up at freedom. They wound up back with lies. But the point is, however much it looked in Soviet years as though everyone wanted to follow the Party, that was just a facade.
Are the Chinese so different? Do they really not care about freedom? Do they really in their hearts want to follow the Party? Or can they tell that it's all propaganda, and they just are going along on the surface?
The one difference is that China has delivered a fair amount of prosperity to a lot of people, which the Soviet system didn't. That might buy the Party in China another generation. But then the next generation sees that as the baseline. Can the Party continue to deliver improved prosperity? And will that be enough to keep people from wanting actual freedom?
Sure. The people of Russia didn't care about freedom and just wanted to follow the Party, too. Until they were given the chance, and it turned out that they actually wanted freedom and didn't give a rip about following the Party, because the Party was denying them the freedom they wanted, and was feeding them a perpetual diet of lies in the process. And despite all the lies, they could tell that it was lies, and that it wasn't freedom.
Now, it didn't work out in Russia. They didn't wind up at freedom. They wound up back with lies. But the point is, however much it looked in Soviet years as though everyone wanted to follow the Party, that was just a facade.
Are the Chinese so different? Do they really not care about freedom? Do they really in their hearts want to follow the Party? Or can they tell that it's all propaganda, and they just are going along on the surface?
The one difference is that China has delivered a fair amount of prosperity to a lot of people, which the Soviet system didn't. That might buy the Party in China another generation. But then the next generation sees that as the baseline. Can the Party continue to deliver improved prosperity? And will that be enough to keep people from wanting actual freedom?