[actionfromafar]

The Belt and Road initiative is a nice try, but it's not a roaring success. The flaws of democracies are easy to see because of the openness, and whatever goes wrong usually do so over a long time. Dictatorships go wrong in more dramatic ways.

[riffraff]

I think it's also worth noting that China today is not China from twenty years ago. The communist party ran the country but there was some form of "internal quasi democracy" and leadership changes happened, with term limits.

This changed under Xi Jinping and no one knows what the effects will be.

[Danox]

China run by engineers, America run by lawyers and you can still have a career in China as a merchant marine.

[actionfromafar]

Winnie the Pooh is an engineer?