Is China Communist? Pop Quiz of Modern China 101

[SSGPA1]

China has eveolved into a 'Socialist Democracy'.

Chinese Socialist Democracy is a term used by the Communist Party leaders in China to describe aspects of their system which they assert embody participatory representative government.

For example, in a November 23, 2002 interview, the Chinese ambassador to Egypt, Liu Xiaoming, said:

"I think what we are practicing today is Chinese socialist democracy, which is represented by the National People's Congress and a broad participation of the Chinese people. In fact, in today's China, the political participation at the grassroots level is much higher than any western country you can name of. We have grassroots level democracy demonstrated by village election. The turnout is 99 percent, i.e. 99% of villagers participating in this political process to elect their village leaders, comparing with only less than 50% of participation in election process in many western countries."

People in West need to understand that democracy will thrive only if it is according to the norms of a given society. For example, if Canadian democracy is imposed in the US then Southern States will break away because they will not accept gay rights and other liberties.

If majority of Chinese are not complaining against the present system then it means their system works whether they call it socialism or they call it Chinese Socialist Democracy.

 

[spsk]

Come on guys, what is the big deal? Do you ever wonder why Jack Bauer is hailed as a hero?
Top One Hundred Facts About Jack Bauer

I did not understand what does that mean?

 

[spsk]

Yes, and no.
Yes, China is still under one party system, but that is not unique to communism.

No, the party does not worship Lenin and Marx despite what says on its party charter except very few people who does. That is the reality in China right now. Most people don't know the first thing about Marxism and Leninism in China except its name.

If you are under one party system, What does that "one party" follow ?

 

[chauism]

I did not understand what does that mean?

Have you ever watched TV show 24 and know who Jack Bauer is?

 

[chauism]

If you are under one party system, What does that "one party" follow ?

Why does it have to follow anything beside staying power? In order for it to do so, it has to keep the majority of the people happy by improving their living standards and meets their needs, and keeps China independent from foriegn interference by builds the nation stronger both militarily and economically. What China doesn't do is try to force anything idealogical onto others. Like what Xi Jinping has said "There are some bored foreigners, with full stomachs, who have nothing better to do than point fingers at us [China]. First, China doesn't export Revolution; second, China doesn't export hunger and poverty; third, China doesn't come and cause you headaches, what more to be said?"

 

[spsk]

Why does it have to follow anything beside staying power? In order for it to do so, it has to keep the majority of the people happy by improving their living standards and meets their needs, and keeps China independent from foriegn interference by builds the nation stronger both militarily and economically. What China doesn't do is try to force anything idealogical onto others. Like what Xi Jinping has said "There are some bored foreigners, with full stomachs, who have nothing better to do than point fingers at us [China]. First, China doesn't export Revolution; second, China doesn't export hunger and poverty; third, China doesn't come and cause you headaches, what more to be said?"

No country or no political party has any policy to keep people under poverty . Even Idi Amin will not have policy to keep people suffering, If you did not get my question what is the ideology your "one party follow" ?

Just one last thing I would like to add but do not want to derail the thread by this - China strongly supporting Srilankan Government in Tamil genocide issue raised in UN.Approximately 20000 civilians dead unofficially and officially 7000 announced dead (Srilanka has already sent out most of the western media and UN officials and red cross were not allowed in war zone).

 

[spsk]

Have you ever watched TV show 24 and know who Jack Bauer is?

I dont watch TV , not even sports, very rarely some news channels, you can explain me what you were trying to say, I can understand...

 

[chauism]

No country or no political party has any policy to keep people under poverty . Even Idi Amin will not have policy to keep people suffering, If you did not get my question what is the ideology your "one party follow" ?

As I said before many times, there is no defined ideology to speak of. It is not the policy, it is the end result that matters. Keeping people relative content is easy, but keep people more satisfied today than yesterday, and even more satisfied tomorrow is a whole different ball game. If you really want an ideology to be identified with what the Chinese government is doing, then it is pragmatism.

Just one last thing I would like to add but do not want to derail the thread by this - China strongly supporting Srilankan Government in Tamil genocide issue raised in UN.Approximately 20000 civilians dead unofficially and officially 7000 announced dead (Srilanka has already sent out most of the western media and UN officials and red cross were not allowed in war zone).

By supporting if you mean trade, then supporting a friendly government is not something uncommon in international politics, no matter what the government is doing internally. Do you want to do a comparison of how many other governments US supported had committed worse atrocities than the one China had supported?

 

[chauism]

I dont watch TV , not even sports, very rarely some news channels, you can explain me what you were trying to say, I can understand...

Well, never mind then. Just read the link about Jack Bauer if that helps.

 

[spsk]

As I said before many times, there is no defined ideology to speak of. It is not the policy, it is the end result that matters. Keeping people relative content is easy, but keep people more satisfied today than yesterday, and even more satisfied tomorrow is a whole different ball game. If you really want an ideology to be identified with what the Chinese government is doing, then it is pragmatism.


By supporting if you mean trade, then supporting a friendly government is not something uncommon in international politics, no matter what the government is doing internally. Do you want to do a comparison of how many other governments US supported had committed worse atrocities than the one China had supported?

I would say China still follows some kind of communism mixed with American concept after the collapse of USSR , But it is not yet proved a successful one , may be after some major crisis if it still proven to be a successful one in China it may even be accepted world wide !!!

USA being bad does not justifies anything , All I wanted to say is China blocking any form of sanction against Srilanka, If you do not know still red cross not freely operating there in Srilanka,it deviates the topic,so lets not discuss further about it.

My point is no country can be that good as you said,including India.

And off topic , chauism - don't get tensed with the word communism or communist , in my constitution communists ruled for 10 years . In India we still follow socialism to an extent and it has proven to be best sometimes . One best example would be our telecom, even in remote villages we have good coverage for government owned mobile phone service but not private players'. We even have a proverb first 20 years man should be communist and 20+ of age should be selfish

 

[chauism]

I would say China still follows some kind of communism mixed with American concept after the collapse of USSR , But it is not yet proved a successful one , may be after some major crisis if it still proven to be a successful one in China it may even be accepted world wide !!!

What works for China might not work for someone else, and China is not trying to encourage other people to adopt China's system. Actually after Mao's death and the downfall of the Gang of Four in 76, people already start to reform its system. It was in early 90s this movement has reach its maturity.

And off topic , chauism - don't get tensed with the word communism or communist , in my constitution communists ruled for 10 years . In India we still follow socialism to an extent and it has proven to be best sometimes . One best example would be our telecom, even in remote villages we have good coverage for government owned mobile phone service but not private players'. We even have a proverb first 20 years man should be communist and 20+ of age should be selfish

I actually don't hate communism or like it, but i really get offended when someone is trying to implement it. In theory communism in economic and social sense, it is supposed to be the most efficient form, but it will never work in a human society, because human being are born to be selfish and greedy. I guess Marx did not study human psychology that well.

 

[gambit]

Here's my view on the capitalism and communism:
They are two competing systems used to exist during the cold war.
It's just shallow to say one is better than other.

Why were they competing? If they were in competition, does that not tell you that some people...No...make that BILLIONS of people, who believe one may be superior to the other and that they were willing to kill to either propagate or defend their beliefs? It is shallow to expect people to swallow the absolute neutrality argument when wars have been fought over these beliefs.

And because of these 2 competing systems the world is well balanced and relatively stable.

Stable? Absurd. There were proxy wars, large and small, all over the world, managed by the major proponents of these competing systems.

The collapse of former Soviet Union and east Europe in the late 80, however, broke the balance and made capitalism the only dominating system across the world.

Begs the question of WHY did one system collapse, so spectacularly and ignobly.

Consequently, privatization and capitalization rampage without any limitation, countries that previously ruled by communist embrace the "free market" economy without the necessary regulations and opposing forces which took decades for the western countries to work out. The result, of course, is chaos and disaster, the prosperity and freedom become a failed promise as these countries struggled to survive from plunged living condition and social disorder.
It's not surprise why ppl in eastern Europe now feel cheated and lost.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and that mean the political environment as well. It could have been anarchy instead of capitalism that replaced the failed political system and economic policies of communism. At least with capitalism, there are existing experts and authority figures, such as the Western alliance, that served as examples of fucntional capitalist societies. The failure in one region does not negate the validity of the principles and systems when there are examples of functional capitalist societies. China's MANAGED transition to a capitalist economic system negate your criticisms of capitalism regarding the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet empire. The advantage that China had over Eastern Europe is that China is largely a homogenous society whereas the Soviet empire was a conglomerate of distinct nations, cultures and countries that were coerced into that empire.

Ironically, ppls lived in old line capital countries like US also take the pinch. The overturn of former communist countries create a lot of cheap free labors desperately seeking work opportunities, and this is obvious in the interest of big corp. and "multi-national" companies. As said by Carl Max, the only motivation of capitalism is to pursue higher profit, when there is a cheap labor, the workers in US immediately got ruthlessly betrayed and dumped. Most of the manufacturing jobs are outsourced to 3rd world countries now, and the Union barely have any leverage to negotiate with capitalist. The average income of US family never budged an inch over the past decade. And now in this economy more workers are laid off and the whole country is dragged into a downward spiral that seems still endless

So how does this make communism any more palatable? Should China go back to communism and its failed economic system?

Under communism, the state owns the resources, the means of production and set policy. There is no competition. Under fascism, capitalism do exist. Private businesses owns the resources and the means of production but the state remains in control of policy. The state can step in and impose price and wage control at its convenience. That happened under Nazi Germany and there were plenty of wealthy capitalists such as Krupps or Bavarian Motor Works (BMW) whose icon is that of a spinning propeller, a reminder of the company's heritage from aviation. China took the fascism model as we see today.

 

[kungpaochicken]

After 911, an American night show audience called in and ask the host "why China is not one of the "axis of evil"? The host and everyone in the studio immediately agreed that China is the biggest lost in the axis of evil

In US, when you turn on the TV or radio, China is always the stereotype of dark side, it is 100% related with Chaos, disaster, political turmoil, terrorism,Anti-Christ, Anti-west, Anti-Human being, Anti Universe. Every thing about China is bad bad bad, Chinese ppl are cross eyed yellow evils that one day will come to US and take over. China poison the American Children (of course US media will never report that all the lead-containing toys are designed by US company and fully under the US supervision), China is allied with Terrorism, China is killing Americans and China is the enemy of free world and of course, China is a fascism country (I bet less than one out of ten americans can give me an accurate definition of "fascism").

In my whole life I've never seen such one-sided biased propaganda against sth.
(probably during culture revolution we have sth here in China similar to that , but Dude, that was culture revolution..)

And right now, China have one more thing to be guilty of -- China single handly created the current US economical crisis.--This is according to some American economist that China is killing US by deliberately lending US government too much money.(well if that's not bitchy...)

So in US, China serves as a multifunctional subject:
1) China is the banker of US
2) China the is ultimate cause of every domestic problem in US
3) China is escape goat for every failed diplomatic/internal policy
4) China is the ultimate answer for every unsolved case on American most wanted
5) China should keep lending US money to counterbalance huge US government deficit
6) China should stop lending US money to free the future inflation pressure and depreciation of US dollar

It's kind of difficult to believe that a country like this is holding 1.5 trillion of American treasury bond--A country that depicted by American media as an evil empire that behind the every terror and plot to demolish US and "free world".

I thought about it for quite a while and still can not get it?
Why Americans are so full of fear?
Why American are so afraid of a country tens thousand miles away and never constitute any threat to it?
Why Americans believe that only way to survive is to kill every imaginary enemy in the world and there is nothing like "coexist" in the world?

Why Americans can not leave China alone?

Are Americans brain-washed so much by their "free media" that they lost their last bit of common sense?

 

[taiji]

China is a fake communism. China is not even socialism. Actually no country had ever achieve communism by its definition. I think as long as the current system fits the current situation, why not just let it evolve?

 

[gpit]

It’s foolish to adhere to a particular ideology, be it communism or capitalism or whatever-ism.

It is equally foolish to label a country with a particular –ism label.

China is a country with mixed –isms, so is USA; so are many other countries in the world.

Take USA for example:

Social welfare/Affirmative action – socialism
Progressive tax rate/Free 12 year education/Labor union – communism
Wall Street and Corporate America – capitalism
Corporate culture - despotism
Pro-abortion/stem cell/gay lesbian– liberalism
Viet Nam War / Iraq War – imperialism
Selective Service System – militarilism
Hospital must admit dying beggars – humanitarianism
Near extinction of Native Indians– fascism
Guantanamo Bay/ Abu Ghraib – authoritarianism
China-towns – feudalism
Two-party monopoly – bi-dictatorship
Popular election – democracy
Electoral voting system – unfair-but-accepted-ism

…

The bottom line: it never makes sense to use one label to describe a country. Nonetheless, when you hear calling China communism, it is propaganda; when you hear calling USA imperialism, it’s propaganda; when you hear the Indians calling themselves democracy, it’s propaganda.