Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by bane 1972 days ago
I've always been kind of interested in why autocratic regimes or dictators engage in seemingly unnecessary benevolent or constructive activities. At some point I decided to better understand how the Chinese government functions since for a long time it's been both autocratic and surprisingly benevolent in certain areas. So basically some combination of youtube, wikipedia and a few other places till I more or less came to a high-level understanding.

There are also some English language Chinese government produced youtube videos that also do a pretty good job at giving basic civics lessons on how their government works if you can look past all the self-congratulations. It's definitely "complicated" and is not just Xi Jinping barking his every desire and whim as it tends to get reduced to.

For example: https://youtu.be/Qu4QTxl9GVw

There are plenty of others like: https://youtu.be/fgor9fmA6po