[Kon5ole]

China was arguably a democracy of sorts before they changed their constitution to allow unlimited terms. Before that, they had two terms. Even though the next leader had to come from the same party, having a party with several million members means they actually had some form of general representation.

Having a peaceful mandatory transfer of power from any individual after a set number of years is not the only requirement but it's one of the most fundamental. China has removed that. The US for all its problems still has that, despite the troubles during the most recent election.

A democracy that has been subverted by corporate interests and is not acting in the best interests of its population still has mechanisms in place by which the population can detect and change such subversions. The forced transition of power being one of the most important.

[yogthos]

This may shock you, but plenty of western countries don't have term limits. Merkel had a longer term than Xi for example, and nobody was screaming that Germany turned into a dictatorship as I recall.

Ultimately, a democracy is a government that works in the interest of the majority and that's being held accountable to the majority. Chinese system seems to do a good job of that as evidenced by the fact that quality of life in China continues to improve. People living in China think they have a democracy because they see the government working for them. The same can't be said for many western countries.

[Kon5ole]

Merkel did not have supreme power over Germany and was also supported by officials that do have term limits. The bundestag is re-elected every 4 years and could end Merkel’s chancellorship if she went nuts, and even if she went nuts she couldn’t do much damage since her powers were limited.

Any democracy that gives great power to its leader has term limits (or they are not a democracy for very long). Most democracies have both divided executive powers and also term limits.

[Tarsul]

but a democracy also has saveguards that protect minorities. Does China have those? I'm thinking about e.g. Uighurs. Also, in a democracy everyone is entitled to have an opinion and say it (good that you can write freely, here!), e.g. criticizing political leaders (like Winnie the pooh) and also freedom of information, e.g. knowing about history (Tiananmen square etc.). Does China offer this?

[ashwagary]

By your standards, based on how the US treats minorities, antiestablishment groups, and whistleblowers; runs CIA blacksite prisons, gitmo, and regularly invades and overthrows and/or assassinates democratically elected leaders; it isn't a democracy either. Similar things can be said about England.

[krapp]

It isn't. The US is a military-industrial oligarchy whose elements of democracy exist primarily as theater.

Americans believe they live in a democracy because they've been conditioned through propaganda that their guns make them free. Yet their consent for American imperialism is manufactured by lies from the media, their police steal from them and murder from them with impunity, their intelligence services spy on everything they say and do, and their government is engineered to operate completely divorced from the will of the people. They suffer a quality of life worse in many metrics than other first world countries, with fewer rights and freedoms. But it's cool as long as they can shoot a senator in the head whenever they want.

[yogthos]

Uyghurs in China certainly enjoy a lot better lives than indigenous people in US do. Meanwhile, you appear to be confusing your ability to scream into the void with being an actual stakeholder in the political decision making process.

And of course China offers this. Here is the footage of Tianamen Square 1989 as reported on television in China https://web.archive.org/web/20200604205421/https://www.youtu...

Interestingly enough this footage was removed from youtube recently, which leads to the question of which government is actually practising censorship here.