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Comment by eva1984 | Hacker News Reader

eva1984

Or it could be just telling the truth.

It might be telling the truth but that seems unlikely given that it's repeating the "conversion to consumer society" script that unraveled at the same time that China's stock market unraveled in the very recent past.

Basically, the "rising consumer society" mantra has been going on for a number of years, then various revelations show how false that. Then this just repeats the mantra rather than in any way refuting the revelations.

It's happening all over Asia. First you have Japan, then South Korea, then China and Thailand (where Sony now make their top end cameras), next Vietnam, the Phillipines and Indonesia, with its huge boom in mobile commerce. Bali is no longer so cheap to manufacture and holiday. This is exactly why Myanmar has woken up and wants to become the next place in line for cheap manufacturing.

The money they spent does not lie... Look at the 2014 sales record of BMW and Audi.

Thats simply not true. They sold lots of cars to Greece before that country went into crisis. Money is not actually a real measure, and very much can be created on demand. There is also a big difference between money spent by a growing middle class versus money spent by corrupt officials. So you need better data than number of BMWs bought.

You right. For instance, before huge drop in value of Ruble, people rushed to buy all kinds of goods (Big TV's, Apple products, Cars) to capture value of currency. It can be argued that sudden increase in purchases can signal anticipation of economic downturn.

Telling the truth?

Until Aug,2015 about 276 lawyers who help Chinese people protecting their human right have been arrested. But China still claim it is a country under the rule of law.

Another example is that recently an official media of China claim that China is the most democratic country in the world.

CCP is evil, never trust it!!!!!

Nothing you said contradicts anything written in the article. In fact it's basically a completely different topic. If someone wrote an article about the American economy it wouldn't be contradicted because you can denounce the American government or criminal justice system.

From where do you get the ridiculous claim that human rights and the rule of law are preconditions for economic prosperity? There are many unfree yet rich countries, i.e. Singapore.

A person who pretend to be asleep cannot be waken up （你永远唤不醒装睡的人）

In this case, it's more like: "A person being paid 50 cents[0] to pretend to sleep cannot be woken up".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party

This question was answered years ago by the magna carta. Without rule of law, you get corruption and a dissatisfied population. Then you get economic stagnation and suffering by the masses. Finally, you get the French Revolution, the various Communist revolutions, and so on.

Rule of law is necessary for economic prosperity because without rule of law, entrepreneurs cannot confidently engage in economic activity without fearing that their property rights will be trampled and the wealth they generate will be taken away by an arbitrarily deciding government. Why should someone take so much risk and then be punished for their success? Without rule of law, there can be a temporary party for a few decades, but the party stops when the government starts getting out of hand and abuses its power. This is why Xi Jiping is making stamping out corruption one of his top public priorities, more so than any previous Chinese leader in modern history. He is also on record that he wants China to move forward to have proper rule of law.

I dislike it when people bring up Singapore as an example. Singapore is so small that it's really easy to manage compared to a large country with a large population. And besides that, Singapore doesn't have poor quality rule of law compared to other countries (yet).

edit: I get the impression that you equate rule of law with democracy. But you didn't actually say that, so please confirm for me whether or not that's what you really think. Rule of law is something else entirely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law

This is why Xi Jiping is making stamping out corruption one of his top public priorities, more so than any previous Chinese leader in modern history.

And/or this campaign is destroying rivals to his power....

He is also on record that he wants China to move forward to have proper rule of law.

And if so, we'd better hope he's a 2nd Lee Kuan Yew. Except as you note, the scales don't even vaguely match, trying to effect such a policy change without well neigh unimaginable reforms all the way down to the local level strikes me as equally unimaginable.

One of the reasons to equate the rule of law with "democracy" is checking the power of local potentates; hard to see how a huge, all powerful state like the PRC can do that from the top down.

Yes, definitions and platitudes aside, feasibility is a completely different matter. It would be interesting to see whether the PRC really can implement proper rule of law from the top down, and it is quite possibly not feasible. That doesn't necessarily imply that the desire and effort are false.

Xi Bolai was an example of a campaign to destroy rivals to his power using the claim of wanting to clean up corruption. He had goals to achieve not yet achieved. Xi's already at the top. It would be very difficult to remove him from power, given the way the Chinese government operates. It would be tantamount to revolution. If revolution happens, I can't see it being because power rivals plot it.

It's a pre-condition nearly across the board.

Name the long list of countries with low freedom and high economic prosperity - the list is in fact extraordinarily short.

Singapore isn't a low freedom country, it's a mid freedom country. It has a level of freedom comparable to Mexico or Turkey. Low freedom nations: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan etc.

Off the top of my head for relatively free + prosperous: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, UK, US, Japan, South Korea, France, Denmark, Netherlands, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Iceland, Belgium.

Now match that list with relatively unfree nations that are prosperous. Outside of a select few petro States, you're almost entirely out of luck. That list of prosperous + free states is so far beyond the low freedom list across the board on quality of life and economic metrics, there is no meaningful comparison to be had.

Edward Snowden is being hunted by the US. Are you for him or against him? If you're for him, then you'd have to stand against the US government.

One could argue that due to the spying and the prosecution of Edward Snowden, that the US gov't is also lost legitimacy.

That someone posts something negative about a given country, doesn't mean posting something negative about the US therefore refutes or otherwise alters it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

True, but you can stand up against the US government. Try that in China - anywhere. I live in Macau for 6 years, so I am a bit closer to the situation, and I have been to the mainland several times. One could also argue that there have been more than a dozen 'Edward Snowden's' in China that have been silenced, jailed or killed before they could get the word out. At least, whistle blowing does work in US some times when it counts, however, I believe there were some that were silenced in the US too. Interesting, when a tragedy occurs in the mainland, scaffold collapse, etc... a number is reported that most people say is half or a quarter of the true body count.

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