[nyokodo]

> there's no way we'd approach this as a complex multi factor and multi opinion problem.

No country I’m aware of really nails free and fair elections. There’s always some kind of third party acting as gatekeeper that makes it difficult or impossible for absolutely any candidate to win who the electorate might want. But, countries fall on a spectrum of how well they approximate this ideal. It’s pretty clear that an electoral system like in HK where all the candidates are chosen by the one party allowed to rule is way to one extreme of the spectrum; the opposite side to free and fair! There’s no hand waving this away with calls for inappropriate nuance.

[xwolfi]

The key difference between China and the rest of the elective systems is: do they even consider voting as a positive feedback loop?

As long as we dont convince (and as a "small" city, we cant force, only convince) them that it s in their own interest to let us support, or midly criticize them by voting, they'll go backward and decide for us. And they may not even take bad decisions, just remove ownership from the local population which for me is key to buy into the policies.

Most democracies manage well the dance between "we ll only propose policies that make sense" and "people can vote freely". We have to learn that too.

[mdp2021]

> do they even consider voting as a positive feedback loop

To some material I have read (probably a TED talk), value is given to feedback, but it is top-down in evaluation (strong reliance on performance reports of/on officials) and made through surveys (instead of voting) in the bottom-up side.

I think it could have been: Eric X. Li, "A tale of two political systems" (Jul 2013), https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_... : «[...] Adaptability, meritocracy, and legitimacy are the three defining characteristics of China's one-party system [...]»

The TED website has a categorization of topics, so there exist a collection: https://www.ted.com/talks?topics[]=china

[xwolfi]

Yeah it's funny because while I would agree the communists have shown adaptability (hey we still kinda vote in HK and they just today told us to "cast our sacred ballot", impressive gymnastics), I think meritocracy and legitimacy need more work.

Meritocracy is difficult because it means you d have to tolerate a certain amount of conflict from the competent bottom towards the rotting top like everything and that's difficult when you're built so top down as the communist party. They tend to prioritize loyalty to truth and just like a Church, suffer dire consequence when the odd loyal corrupt is discovered.

As for legitimacy, I really dont see it until an alternative, even virtual like in the US, is presented and a choice made. We would have very diff problems with Beijing in HK if they had a believable legitimacy: we d have a lot more people defending the country against the localists instead of what we have now: localists, people defending the country against the localists AND the communists, and people defending the communists OVER the country.

Or to give a US example people in HN could understand: if you have separatists in Texas asking why they even need a federation, people wouldnt pinpoint the democrats or the republicans as stealing the true meaning of the country and join the texan localists in trying to split away to find something more legitimate. Which is what split families in HK currently.