not very tied, actually, precisely because of heavy government interventions
> "Democratic countries". Like russia? Or venezuela? Oh, let me guess, democratic countries you don't like are not "democratic countries". Right.
I think that we can agree that democratic countries are countries where there is a choice and you see changes of government caused by free elections. That's not the case for Russia or Venezuela but it is (still) the case for most of the Western world
> You are just repeating the standard anti-china propaganda. It's the same of nonsense over and over again. > "None of china's data can be trusted. They are lying and they are about to collapse". Followed by, "Oh my god china is an existential threat. They are going to overtake us. Deep seek, rare earth minerals blah blah blah". > Make up your mind.
Who said that? Only you
https://merics.org/en/report/increasing-challenge-obtaining-...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-16/china-is-...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-16/china-is-...
https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2025/05/censored-statistics-de...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10439...
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/china-is-hiding-mo...
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2024/09/05/the-chinese-au...
https://www.socsci.uci.edu/newsevents/news/2024/2024-07-17-w...
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/17/health/covid-origins-who....
Standard communist playbook: as soon as something is embarrassing (like the youth unemployment rate in China), declare it a state secret. The fact that it's getting hard to find something they're not hiding is not a good sign.
The list of things they're hiding is getting pretty damn long: internal trade statistics, housing sales, population numbers (first in the "ghost cities", then border regions, now all of China), disease statistics (they suddenly classified COVID statistics, now everything), unemployment rate (started with unemployed miners, then youth, now everything), immigration/emigration policies, economic growth, how they're treating various ethnic groups (Nepalese, Uyghurs, ...)
A big question a lot of people are starting to ask: is the data the government itself is operating on still accurate? Because, of course, in Soviet Russia and other communist states it wasn't. Such states made very large, often disastrous, decisions based on fictitious data, so odds seem good the same is unfolding in China.
It never fails. I knew someone would post a wall of links to compensate for the lack of actual evidence. And of course all these links are just repeating the same talking point.
> Standard communist playbook: as soon as something is embarrassing (like the youth unemployment rate in China), declare it a state secret. T
But I thought these "damn commie"s manipulate the data? I thought we couldn't trust the data they put out anyways? Nevermind why these commies would put out data to embarrass themselves? Why are you so upset about losing access to manipulate data? Oh, you mean the data that the "commies" put out are accurate? And you are upset they are no longer making accurate and unmanipulated data from you?
> The list of things they're hiding is getting pretty damn long: internal trade statistics, housing sales, population numbers (first in the "ghost cities", then border regions, now all of China),
What difference does it make? They are all untrustworhty "manipulated" data?
This is the problem with you anti-china propagandists. One says the "commie stats" are manipulated and worthless? The other says "it isn't manipulated but these commies are hiding it".
> Because, of course, in Soviet Russia and other communist states it wasn't.
Which was readily apparent by anyone who visited the soviet states in the 70s/80s. Millions of people actually visit china every year. And many post videos of it on tiktok, youtube, etc. Even of uyghers. If china was on the path to a soviet style collapse, you'd see it in the cities, towns, etc.
> A big question a lot of people are starting to ask: is the data the government itself is operating on still accurate?
Is it a question? I thought it was all manipulated and unreliable data.
> so odds seem good the same is unfolding in China.
Then why are you crying about them hiding the bad data?
You just regurgitated the same nonsense anti-china propaganda that's we've been seeing for 10+ years. By the way, what happened with the ugyhur genocide? Still going on? And what happened to the promised china collapse? We've been waiting for many years now.
It’s clear you didn’t read your links because this one concludes with:
> "Scholars in China and at the UN have analyzed these and other data. Not a single person has 'discovered' such a huge discrepancy." ... "China has had at least three censuses since the start of the millennium, and there has been no evidence that more than 100 million people are overreported in China," Wang said.
Then the bubble popped in 1992 and Japan has been struggling ever since. The same thing will inevitably happen to China although it may take a while. Central planning is great at creating the illusion of growth but when you probe deeper you find the actual fair market value generated is much less.
Actually, no. The CPC generally argues this is the case, but it is largely incorrect. Japan responded to the Plaza accords by attempting to massively increase stimulus and preserve the structure (significant industrial, limited service/consumption economy) they started.
In contrast, (West) Germany kept the stimulus relatively low and rotated into higher productivity enterprises and R&D and had a substantially lessened impact. See this (https://www.atlantis-press.com/article/125961733.pdf)
The whole "US destroyed Japan with the Plaza accords" is basically CPC propaganda.
China will have its own issues, but I would guess they look more like the 1992 sterling crisis where China cannot hold its yuan peg as it continues to have trade expansion without corresponding foreign exchange growth.
The US is in serious trouble. If you don't believe trump has already done irreversible damage, he will soon.
For now. China is on a timer, though. Demographic collapse will be pretty extreme.
Americans are both having more children and large numbers of immigrants.
I’d be curious what your definition of democracy is. Mine is the will of the people is happening and it’s systematic and institutional. That for example doesn’t happen in America and never has as evidenced by the constitution
Not hanging a portrait of an insane murderous tyrant in the middle of your capital city? Has there been any other person who was directly responsible for a higher number of deaths in China than him?
The US is absolutely not the gold standard for democracy. In fact the GOP's goal seems to be to become a single party dictatorship much like the CCP is.
Democracy mean that all citizen inherently have equal legitimacy and capacity to exert political power.
For true démocraties you either need random choice of citizens who decide, or votes by all citizen.
We currently have a bunch of oligarchies around the world bending the laws in ridiculous manners to answer to those with power (currently mostly, but not necessarily, the very rich).
You only need to study the past of our "démocraties" when violent and deadly répression of popular upheaval to the benefit of industry barons was a regular thing.
Nowadays you get more of these things in slightly indirect ways, ergonomic social and cultural violence. Also, a brief mention of the Epstein files make it pretty obvious that the people's will does not really matter.
And do not think one second this is unique to America. A few years ago in France you had the Europe referendum, a rare moment of democracy, where the people voted "the wrong way" according to the néolibérals in power, and thus they proceeded to simply ignore said vote.
The founders of our various political systems made it pretty clear they despised democracy in the first place. The word became popular relatively recently...
Democracy is a radical idea. I don't even think many people in this forum actually want democracy. They will think plumbers, or nurses, of people of the "opposite party" are subhumans unfit to decide for the good of the people.
If that's the case, then you should be able to provide tons of evidence. It's difficult to "hide" or "manipulate" data in a country the size of china that is tied to the global trading system.
> But there's a enormous difference between China and democratic countries.
"Democratic countries". Like russia? Or venezuela? Oh, let me guess, democratic countries you don't like are not "democratic countries". Right.
You are just repeating the standard anti-china propaganda. It's the same of nonsense over and over again.
"None of china's data can be trusted. They are lying and they are about to collapse". Followed by, "Oh my god china is an existential threat. They are going to overtake us. Deep seek, rare earth minerals blah blah blah".
Make up your mind.