None of both are democracies, neo-liberalism and democracy are a oximoron, they are disguised feudalism.
I don’t think it’s fair to characterize China as being neoliberal. I’ve seen no evidence of that being the case.
It’ so neo-liberal as any US, EU or Rusia, only disguised in different way, in all of these markets, Banks and Big Companies are more important than the people, In none of them does the popular sovereignty, that authentic democracy requires, exist. They are still feudal systems with more or less rights and freedoms for the citizen.
China is a state governed by the Communist party where Marxism-Leninism is the official state ideology. 87.6% of young Chinese identify with Marxism, and the party has 95 million members. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that these people do in fact understand what socialism is.
All the essential industry is state owned, and capitalists are not in charge of the government. One simple test to consider is that China doesn’t suffer from regular crashes seen under capitalism. An inherent contradiction within capitalism is that the capitalists always want to cut pay for their employees to minimize the costs, while they also require consumers with enough spending power to consume the commodities they produce. This is why capitalism results in regular economic crashes when wages fall below the point where consumption can keep up with the rate of commodity production. At that point you end up with overproduction and a crash. If China was capitalist then it should be experiencing these kinds of crashes regularly just like actual capitalist nations are in the Western world.
Pandemic handling is another clear example of this. If companies were more important than people then China would’ve sacrificed people for profit the way every capitalist country has. Every capitalist country prioritized business interests over human lives. Meanwhile, every socialist country like China, Cuba, and Vietnam did the opposite.
China consistently directs labor and resources towards the needs of the majority. As a result, quality of life in China continues to steadily improve and the government is actively working on doing things like eliminating poverty, creating public infrastructure, providing healthcare, housing, food, and education for all citizens. Chinese government practically eliminated poverty, and in fact China is the only place in a world where any meaningful poverty reduction is happening. If we take China out of the equation poverty actually increased in real terms:
China also massively invests in infrastructure having used more concrete in 3 years than US in all of 20th century and built 27,000km of high speed rail in a decade.
90% of families in the country own their home giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. What’s more is that 80% of these homes are owned outright, without mortgages or any other leans. Real wage (i.e. the wage adjusted for the prices you pay) has gone up 4x in the past 25 years, more than any other country. This is staggering considering it’s the most populous country on the planet.
Finally, Chinese government has recently passed massive regulation on big business and released a a five-year blueprint calling for greater regulation of vast parts of the economy. The government has also openly stated that the era of capital expansion is over and the interests of the majority outweigh the interests of shareholders.
None of these things happen under capitalism. In fact, we can directly compare China to India. Both countries started roughly in the same place with India going the capitalist route. The difference is very stark.
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I think you are giving them a bit to much credit. Poverty is still a huge problem. No matter what the government is claiming.
China started from a place of utter devastation during WW2, and they’ve managed to consistently and dramatically improve the quality of life for the people ever since.
China is also directly tackling problems with pollution, and does things like reforestation at massive scale. They’re leading in both renewables and nuclear by a wide margin. China is the only country that has a concrete plan to transition off fossils that’s actually being implemented.
Meanwhile, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore had billions poured into them by western imperialists. And this is an example of the amazing personal freedoms you’re touting.
Lastly I would like to mention their health care. Its not socialized very well. If you don’t have money you die.
[citation needed]
He is right to say money really rules there. The banks still get what they want. Money is still the most important factor in whether or not you will be successful in China growing up.
Banks absolutely don’t get what they want. Again, we saw this clear as day during the pandemic. It will never cease to amaze me how propagandized western people are against China.
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So did Japan, so did many other countries. China is not unique in this.
What’s unique is that China continue to focus on lifting people out of poverty today. The two articles I linked in my original comment show that this is in fact unique.
I can’t really take this statement seriously when china is the world’s top polluter.
That’s a very simplistic way to look at things. China has become world’s workshop. Much of pollution in China is a result of producing things that are consumed in the rest of the world. The cause for the pollution is the consumer demand. The fact that the rest of the world shipped their factories over to China does not ship the responsibility. Meanwhile, China’s energy consumption per capita is far lower than that of western countries.
You have not provided any citations.
I’ve literally cited all my statements. Please cite yours as well. Everything I’ve read shows that healthcare is absolutely accessible to everyone in China.
This is not a fair argument because I don’t think western countries have given those countries anywhere close to the amount of money and investment they gave China. China is America’s favorite Trading partner.
It is a fair statement because these countries became vassal states of the US. The reason US invested in these countries is to create proxies that it controls. China does trade with US on its own terms, and has retained control over its core economy in a way these countries failed to do. The economies of countries like Japan and Korea primarily serve US interests as opposed those of their own people. I highly recommend reading up on what happened when US started seeing Japan as an economic threat in the 80s.
And in regards to people wanting to escape south korea, what do you mean? You couldn’t possibly be trying to make the argument south is better than north korea?
I mean precisely what the article says. South Korea is not a state that acts in the interest of its people.
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Fundamentally, a democracy is a system where the government implements the will of the majority. How that’s accomplished is an implementation detail. What China practices is referred to as democratic centralism.
