| > You keep alleging this I back up my assertions. You make sound like I just make random statements like, "Xi sucks" without offering a reason why > Something Bo wouldn't do, and things Hu failed to do. imo Bo seemed to be a clone of Xi with some slight variation. He's a little smarter, but more deeply flawed in terms of corruption. If my memory is correct, both want a return to Mao's style of rule. Hu was superior to both of Bo and Xi. He is the last of the Deng era: rule by a moderate committee based in pragmatism and not Xi's bullshit theatrics. > Destroying the old and uniting society under common national identity was paramount to enabling subsequent reforms. Destruction WAS the progress. It was the point. Destruction is only 'progress' for insane psychopaths. Millions of Chinese people needlessly died due to a dangerous mixture of hubris and incompetence. There was no progress. Families were broken. Society was broken. Even the very people who engineered China's revival as a superpower were in mortal danger. The terrible ideas in the Great Leap Forward were comedic like getting villagers to smelt different grades of metal in homemade furnaces. Mao's opus was his brilliant Modern Theory of Guerrilla Warfare, which still affects the world theatre. He was a legendary military strategist. Unfortunately, he was a really terrible statesman. I've already explained why multiple times. He would kill people who reported problems, allowing these problems to fester and get even worse. That alone is terrible enough. You have to be extremely delusional if not brainwashed to believe that the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were successes. > India STILL has hunger problems on level of North Korea today This is a good one coming from someone who's defending Mao's accidental genocide. I'm surprised that you're not calling it "progress". India has a lot of problems, but they also have a free press and transparency. It does NOT have the hunger levels of North Korea. North Korea is basically what would happen if Mao was an immortal ruler and there were no pragmatists like Zhou Enlai to eventually overthrow his flawed train of thought. > Waiting is how PRC got embarassed in 3rd strait crisis and Belgrade embassy bombing with inpunity. Embarrassment? It was a very temporary setback that everyone else in the world has more or less forgotten. The only people who really remember it is the US Navy. Even if Xi wasn't leading, I think we can both agree that it wasn't a matter of if China would surpass US naval power in Asia, it was only when. The Belgrade embassy bombing was clearly an accident. It's also yet another issue that everyone in the world has forgotten. Do you know what Chinese embarrassments that people still remember today? The Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang in reverse order. Those are embarrassments that the world will remember for generations to come. Half of them happened under Xi's watch. As a Chinese person, Xinjiang angers me the most. I will never forgive Xi for that, especially because millions of overseas Chinese will most likely be subjected to danger because of it for decades to come. > Again, learn some history, US pivoted to Asia before Xi. Where did I show my ignorance on this issue? The US pivoted to Asia immediately after WWII because Imperial Japan caught most US leadership by surprise. The humiliations in Vietnam and Korea bolstered this position. You make this pivot seem recent, but it's ancient. Everyone already knows about it and why it happened. > Except Xi chose respond to US as equal. And it worked. Trump is an idiot insurgent with a temporary hold on power, as designed in a democracy. All you have to do is wait until US elites regain their power. The US is another country that is essentially ruled by committee. The only time to worry is if Trump somehow miraculously holds on to power. Regardless, the US is on a course for implosion. Only a "genius" would have the bright idea of moving into the blast radius. For some reason showmanship impresses is what impresses Xi's fans more than actual pragmatic leadership with real gradual progress. I guess I was right in calling Xi China's Trump. > Except... none of this is true outside of western MSM headlines. MSM headlines barely mention it. I don't even think Fox News glamorizes it because it's boring to the masses in the West, so I'm not sure what you're reading. No one outside of investment bankers and maybe tech company leadership care about TSMC foundries being built in multiple countries. > Every one of these "cooperative" alliance has stalled or failed to affirm intent to contain PRC. Yes, I've already mentioned that the TPP, the only true danger that Xi faced, failed because Trump unilaterally killed it. I find it comedic that the only true recent threat to China wasn't even mentioned until now and you didn't even name it. If Xi didn't emulate Trump's bravado and idiocy, new threats would emerge much more slowly. Instead, now we're seeing new cooperation amongst rival nations, even the very ones targeted by the TPP. > Lost gen had enough political capita to block NSL and patriotic education and were gaining support. They did not, until Xi broke the One China Two Systems policy which was pure 'genius'. No one cared about their little movement until everyone saw them being abused in the streets. This was exactly what the West wanted and the blame falls directly on Xi. Without Xi, their little movement would have died out to little fanfare. Of course, Xi loves theatrics even when it hurts China's standing and stability. He is Chinese Trump. > That's not how it works. Did economic integration swayed PRC closer to US orbit? Under Deng's policies it did. There certainly wasn't as much animosity as there is now, but that's a poor analogy because you're speaking of two nation states and not two provinces, or are you saying that Taiwan is a country? > TW generations that grew up under democracy like HK generations that grew up under liberal educationisn't going to clamor for reunication with PRC under CCP... which it will be for foreseeable future. Pro-PRC parties were gaining ground until the mess in Hong Kong. If HK was left in peace to meet their destiny of being fully swallowed by the mainland, Taiwan would have soon followed. China's economic tendrils are too deep. Now you have many countries going out of their way to provide more economic support to Taiwan. That is directly Xi's fault. > Xi isn't some genius sweeping the west with grand strategy That's putting it very lightly. The CIA report was very accurate. With Xi, the question isn't whether a disaster will happen due to his bumbling. The question is when and how big. His comparison to Winnie the Pooh is also accidentally accurate if you ever watch the cartoons. |
Not really. Your assertions have been Xi sucks / his decisions are bad, then quote XYZ trope about authoritarian governance from western perspective. It's dogmatic like "at least India has free press and transparency"... because democracy gud??? Reality is Xi's performance has been overall good for PRC interests.
> 'progress' for insane sociopaths
It was never the less "right" progress. Mao was bad statesman for right goals. Like I said, he was excessive and did the hard things sometimes poorly, but it was important to do them none the less. Ditto with Xi. Zhou corrected Mao's excess. Someone will correct Xi's excess. But they will also all build off the "necessary" foundation Mao and Xi built. PRC simply could not be where it is if population trapped by old culture and social structure.
> India does NOT have the hunger levels of North Korea.
Go look up hunger indexes over last 20 years. India is at North Korean level. Or excess death studies due to poverty. Hundreds of millions, mostly children dead. Because India is a fragmented multicultural society with broken free press and transparency that can't coordinate for their citizens well being. India is what happens when you don't have "immortal rulers" doing the hard, dirty but necessary work. Because democracy sucks for development. Which is why I'm fine with Xi doing what he does. Authoritarianism is the worst form of government for developing countries... except for all the others.
>everyone else in the world has more or less forgotten.
...and PRC? The actual party that matters. Consistently being preoccupied with non-PRC interest and non-PRC POV when discussing the PRC is asinine. Why does it matter what others or diasphora are embarassed by? They don't matter. XJ terrorism stopped. HK is firmly under PRC control. This makes PRC citizens happy, and forwards interest of PRC. GLF and CR at least got that 30% bad label. This applies to the rest of yoru comments re: conflating Pivot to Asia policy to... history of US in east asia, TPP as magic China containment meme, Xi not worrying about Trump 2nd term. You can call/compare Xi to who/whatever. Still doesn't change the fact that has been massive boon for PRC interests. He's not looking for your forgiveness.
>Under Deng's policies it did.
And how did that work out? A bunch of political and people-to-people linkages that ultimately revealed the extend of US infiltration into PRC political systems. Why do you think the new animosity exist? Because PRC under Xi, eliminated foreign NGOs, intelligence networks and other sources of foreign influence that dangerously upset the system - the cost result of drawing closer to US orbit. Security dilemma trumps trade at end of day. Again see HK. I don't care if people refer to TW as country like it's a gotcha.
> Now you have many countries going out of their way to provide more economic support to Taiwan. That is directly Xi's fault.
Who didn't affirm 92 consensus? PRC or TW/DPP. Or TW Sunflower movement in 2014 that protested against trade integration with PRC before Xi did anything. The undercurrents were there, Xi didn't create it. So far, TW support has been marginal, and only beacause TSMC dominantes (for now). It's something to be managed, but ultimately there's no cultural or economic victory with TW.
>CIA report was very accurate
Except... he hasn't bumbled outside of this imaginary CIA report. He may very well in time, because he's tackling the hard things previous leaders couldn't. And from PRC perspective of his track record, there's a good chance he'll do well. The amount of irrationally angry western reporting on diifcult reforms CCP can tackle but west systemically can't will probably tell you how well.
Look we're clearly not going to agree on Xi. I'll eat my hat if PRC collapses in 2028.