[LV-426]

Leaving Tiananmen Square aside - since nobody can disagree it was a terrible, indefensible crime - can you explain further how you think China is threatening democracy and freedom "worldwide"?

They're certainly a threat in Hong Kong, where they have a degree of control and influence, but how and where else?

While they lay claim to Taiwan, what harm do you think they are going to cause to South Korea and why would they even think of something as insane as enabling North Korea to strike Tokyo or Los Angeles (or anywhere else) with nuclear weapons?

[tanilama]

China represents an existential crisis for some by itself, as a country ignores many fundamental pillars of western society, which have been theorized for half a century to offer an explanation for its own success, yet it so far has achieved much more than expected to be.

Although I think China needs to credit much of its success to western ideas, but it doesn't accept all of them, it takes what it needs and rejects the rest. If this holds, then other developing countries may start adopt the China model (though I don't think it would necessarily work for them), instead of the West's solution, which might signal a global scale retreat on a lot of things, like democracy/free speech/more censorship...you name it.

[baybal2]

China needs to attribute its advancement to 3 generations of technocrat administrations, nothing else.

When a man with brains is on the top, big things do happen.

Now there is Xi, a semiliterate * who spent his youth as a pig rearer. Not a bright talent he is.

[mutteraloo]

Nope. China can attribute that to cheating and lying through wto, which now us japan and eu are now stopping. Also to massive investments brought by.....guess who....evil western forces

[glenstein]

China is projecting their influence across the world in myriad ways. They are experimenting with soft power in Australia, with money and increasingly combative diplomacy.

There are increasingly significant trade agreements and loans with Latin America. They are striking deals across Africa for oil and minerals, and have a permanent naval installation in Djibouti, and seem comfortable supporting antidemocratic regimes on the continent.

[vermontdevil]

Right from America’s playbook

[lostlogin]

Perhaps. It’s bold to target such a strong American ally. Australia is more deeply in the US camp than most.

[lostlogin]

The influence of Chinese money in the political system is currently being debated in New Zealand and Australia. A Chinese MP, Yang, who has a somewhat murky past relationship with a Chinese intelligence agency which he hid somehow ended up on foreign affairs, defence and trade parliamentary select committees.

In the last week lightly veiled comments have been made in parliament over where National Party funding came from, with the implication being that China was behind it. It’s early in the piece but there is plenty enough here to drag this out for ages.

[bufordsharkley]

I don't claim to be an expert on any of this, but it's pretty clear that China is unwilling to deny trade with North Korea, effectively propping up the Kim regime. Kim is engaging in increasingly dangerous provocations (admittedly provoked by the fact that the United States is still fighting the Korean War).

[rqs]

Just that?

Chinese here. I could say, if our government proves capitalism can be very well integrated and become more productive in an authoritarianism society, then that is a really bad news for democracy.

On the other hand though, after watching many Fox News clips on Youtube, I don't think you guys are doing very well on democracy, especially the people in the US.

Democracy is much harder to maintain than authoritarianism. It's very easy to get hijacked, especially the world is full of liars now days.

I'm not saying you should abort democracy, instead, you guys should be grateful for what you have, and be careful don't lose it, because if you did, you probably won't get another one for free.

[soundwave106]

US national level politics has been stuck in neutral for a while. But local and state level governments have been often doing pretty well. So although it's not visible on the surface, I think US democracy is doing "good enough". I think a key here is that one person / governing body really doesn't have all the power here.

Fox News is populist media; populist media is a "feature" in practically every country. On the other hand, populist media on the "other side" exists without too much conflict here so far. There's also more sober sources of information too, for those that feel that both are pretty junky. Honestly, the fact that polar opposite populist mouthpieces can both exist is probably a better indicator of democracy than the fact that a single populist media outlet exists. If one had to ding our democracy at the moment, it's that high level government officials in the US are trying to discredit media sources more than in previous times. It's not censorship by any means yet, but it is something to watch (and, if one was a US citizen, seriously push back on).

China will be interesting to watch too. Although they've come a long way, they are still a middle income country by PPP. I can't think of any high income country of late (other than petro-dictatorships) that hasn't embraced some form of more democratic, more open model. Xi Jinping is going in the opposite direction.

The interesting question is whether his current concentration of power will satisfy, and truly keep the stability they seek, of all of the 1.4 billion people in China... especially at a time when China's middle class is rising. I also wonder whether the current control tightening of information, and a reluctance (so far) to ease off the heavy handiness of government involvement in business, will harm innovation in China in the long run. We'll see -- not being Chinese, I obviously don't know enough to wonder anything other than some vague "armchair thoughts".

[hungerstrike]

Your country already got hijacked by outsiders. You just don't know it because it's a secret.

Yale put Mao Zedong into power. Every US ambassador to China after that has been a member of Skull and Bones.

You are correct that maintaining power in a Democracy is more difficult. That is why the secret society wants to make China the model for a new world government. The US must be destroyed for this to happen.

[zipwitch]

Their trade with North Korea has been cut in half since last year, and they've repeatedly supported increased sanctions, including yesterday. Here in the United States it's popular to isolate nations on the far side of the planet, where we don't have to directly deal with the horrific consequences. But North Korea borders China, and the Chinese will need to deal with the effects of a full or partial North Korean collapse.

And I don't think it's actually an effective (or humane) was to try to solve problems like this to begin with.

[bufordsharkley]

This is fair. Anyway, sanctions of this sort are absolutely immoral unless a government is willing to take on all affected refugees, which is very very rarely the case. Human rights abuses are difficult to solve without open borders, but unfortunately open borders are politically infeasible.

[mutteraloo]

they prop up dictatorships in Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, Burma, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Venezuela

[rorykoehler]

America and the UK have a track record of propping up plenty of dictatorships too which is fairly odd for supposed democratic ideologues.