The principle does not have to be ethical or moral or consistent to a philosophy. What OP saying is china does the ability (and uses it) to make unpopular decisions both to Chinese corporations or people unlike other politicians who are beholden to either voters or corporations.

The kind of censure that Jack Ma had for example would be impossible to imagine to say Elon Musk in the US .

OP of the subject comment here: Yes, this is the correct interpretation. I wasn't trying to argue that China's principles are superior, let alone even ethical.

You can be both lawful and evil character, at the same time, as any D&D player will tell you.

Sadly, people misunderstand those two basic concepts.

Autocratic systems are better in some ways. For example, they can be very efficient. CCP says something and it is done. Is it good/right? It is completely different topic.

When a “too big to fail” company misbehaves, China doesn’t bail it out, they nationalize the useful parts, send the rest to bankruptcy, and jail the responsible executives.

We’re talking past each other a bit, but this is evidence of principle driven behavior rather than government capture by the wealthy like we have in the west.

The US doesn't do free bailouts either, we nationalized GM and gave banks loans that we made a profit on. People misread this and just started claiming it was free money.

Airline bailouts last year were good because they saved subcontractors and union contracts.

We're actually in agreement I think. I think I just wasn't sufficiently clear what I meant by "principles". I am not in any way condoning China's national principles, nor did I mean to even suggest they were ethical. (My personal belief there is quite the antithesis.) ....but rather that they are willing to play hardball even if it harms Chinese companies over the issues they care about as a nation. Many of those principles are humanitarian disasters, but that's not the point.

>> China, unlike any of the Western nations, WILL take a stand on their principles over profit

> Surely that's a joke, right?

Nah, it's just an obvious truth.

> China, which still has the audacity to call itself a "Communist" nation, which is basically much closer to a Fascist system, with their authoritarian and state-directed control of capitalism?

That's pretty much what "communism" worked out to in the Soviet Union -- well, in the entire Warsaw Pact -- too. So in practice, that's pretty much what "communism" means nowadays.

> China has one primary governing principle, which is to keep the CCP in power.

Yup, exactly.

And they sure do stand by that principle, don't they?

Q.E.D.

A state-directed control of capitalism, of which the façade will be dropped immediately if their ironclad control of the political will is threatened for a second. They have punished huge companies for placing profit over human life, because it threatens "communist values". In my opinion that is placing principles over profit. Despite these principles being what they are. That is not a value judgment of China, simply a statement that they are not willing to throw away a percentage point of authoritarian control for a few more bucks.

> China has one primary governing principle, which is to keep the CCP in power.

Yes, which they place above profit motive. It seems like you agree with above

It's strange to claim US companies all put profit over everything when they're not nearly dynamic enough to do that. Why do mattress companies sell mattresses instead of cocaine? That'd be more profitable.