The CCP has no continuity with the previous imperial government. They love to make that claim when it's convenient but it's bullshit. It would be like the US claiming they have a national continuity with Britain going back millennia.
Half of jurisprudence is grounded not in writings that came after the Revolution, but English Common Law. We lean on the First Amendment for issues of free speech, but we lean on the Magna Carta for questions of whether you've produced the right magic slip of paper to prove you own the land your outhouse sits on.
... hell, many of the states have a right to grant exclusive ownership of that land that's fundamentally rooted in a king having granted them that right.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. You can't ignore that we're mostly speaking English for some reason...
It isn't. Learn your history.
With respect, between the work of a Cornell professor and an internet rando, I'm going to defer to the professor on the topic the professor wrote on.
Yes, and China ended up very far behind.
China's progress has come through Westernization. China needs more of it.
> It may not be wise to categorically dismiss the shared philosophy and cultural experience of billions of people.
Billions more know better.
China's got a better rail network than the US, more industrial capacity, and produces the world's electronics now. The gap in tech is measured in decades at most, and by that metric the world was behind England (until it wasn't) because England had the accident of thirst for coal and the use for automated, sustained drainage and pumping that allowed them the critical mass of tech and need to build and refine the steam engine.
In terms of world history, the era of European / American tech ascendancy is a blip on the radar.
It's hilarious that the very first example you pick is the quintessential example of Western industrialization and infrastructure.
Good old Westernization proceeds apace. You admit China needs more of it.
True. America's failure to maintain and update its rail infrastructure relative to other countries is downright absurd.
The US may have had rail first, but you wouldn't know it to look at them.
Maybe you should have put your thinking on rails.
... now, China's running with the generation of ideas America pioneered and refined, and America's mostly playing catchup because they're off the rails (tragically literally, if you live in East Palestine, OH).
I do. The Western model is superior. Your Chinese model is inferior.
You can live under the boot of an authoritarian regime if you lack the self respect to stand up for yourself. Liberal democracy and the rule of law do take work, and you do sound lazy.
Maybe you do need to be told what to do.
> tragically literally, if you live in East Palestine, OH
Like trains don't derail in China:
https://apnews.com/article/china-guangzhou-accidents-c179ac1...
China likes covering them up too:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/25/chinese-rail-c...
Now you're just being foolish.
History suggests previous attempts at democracies were unstable. Maybe the alchemy was right this go around. But I'm watching this one allow itself to be spun up into division and polarization that has resulted in a civil war in the past, so we'll see how it goes. The house has a tendency to win, especially when the house is time herself.
Yes, but don't worry. I do.
> I would consider it lazy to write off the political structure coordinating over a billion people
You're not considering anything. You're only desperately trying to hold on to a losing proposition you've arrived at through a lack of principle, a profound laziness, and a basic nihilism.
> I'll let America get a couple more hundred under its belt before I conclude this Democratic experiment is working.
Such sloppy thinking. You really do need to broaden your horizons.
It may not be wise to categorically dismiss the shared philosophy and cultural experience of billions of people. We Westerners have a philosophical concept inherited from our ancestors that describes that attitude: "hubris."