I think China is going to be greatest civilization... or that's their aim. And with their population and level of growth they may very well get there.
We better make sure we are still relevant by the time the Chinese have some internal chaos.
We have a lot of examples of people protesting and calling for more representation when they're not doing well economically but do we have any examples, any evidence, any indication at all of people doing that when things go well economically?
The potential loss of quality of life associated with such resistance failing is massive and the probability of a failure is high. The people have too much to lose by calling for more representation and honestly not that much to gain.
I don't see this happening in the immediate future, except maybe temporarily due to global economic issues. I'd expect it to take at least a decade until this becomes a problem and as the article shows, China is certainly planning that far ahead and is able to execute these plans.
Making and executing long term plans is definitely something China has a significant advantage in compared to the democracies in the west.
Interestingly, Trump's economic plan will likely have the same effect in the end. High spending and low taxes will inevitable inflate government debt. In the short term that will create economic stimulus, the current generation of Americans might benefit, but America may well be looking at persistent stagnation for a generation or more after.
I respectfully disagree. There is no need to do it as long as near total control over information is possible - and it is . Western, money-and-profit-oriented business don't see or don't care that any help they deliver in exchange for money will kill them later when internal-external asymmetry of Chinese economical and political system becomes too cumbersome to deal with.
China is positioning itself as a global monopoly externally but cutthroat capitalism internally. External players are allowed in only if they bring more than they take out - again, they might not notice or not think it's a problem.
I have been there. I went on a business trip to visit our offshore development office in Beijing. A few of the devs went sightseeing with me one weekend and we ended up going to see the forbidden city. The cab dropped us off at Tienamen Square and I asked if we could spend some time there before going across the street. There was general consternation as to why I was interested in such a boring place. I said I wanted to see where the iconic photo of the man standing in front of the tank was taken, just to pay my respects to such an act of bravery. Not one of the six Chinese devs had ever seen that photo or had any knowledge of what happened there. That history has been censored so completely that very few Chinese are aware of it.
You can't be democratic with that level of censorship. A functioning democracy requires and informed electorate. For proof of this, look no further than the recent US presidential election.
Even if it's not in the history textbook and it's not allowed to be discussed in the public, most of the Chinese citizens who were alive in 1989 have heard of this event. I can't say children in next generations would remember it, but at least in 2016, Chinese people do remember it.
Do you talk to Germans by starting off discussing how Hitler killed millions of people? Do you talk to Japanese people about WW2 and how was the experience being bombed by nukes after saying hello? Do you expect non-US citizens to start talking to you about the massacres of indigenous peoples of the Americas during the first meeting?
You don't go to a country just to re-visit their dark history. Regardless of how bad the censorship is, that is just rude behavior. Show some respect first, if you are really interested, make friends with them, then talk about it, they'd be happy to discuss it with a friend but not a stranger.
The last time I heard, Japanese is trying to modify their textbook to downplay its involvement in WW2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_history_textbook_cont...
How's US history lesson? Do you all get taught about the genocides of native Americans? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#Americas
Bottomline is, every country has its own unpleasant history, maybe China has more of those and is not willing to share them with its citizens. But as a foreigner visiting China, is it a nice gesture to poke about it with people you barely know?
Sorry for being awfully off-topic. Just had to type this out. Won't reply to anything further.
Government brainwash is not exclusive to communist countries.
When I was in Uni, the Tiananmen square videos are all over the university intranet, including the documentary shot by Hongkong journalist and some shorter documentaries made by the west in later times. Everyone in my class has watched them and we all know what happened on 04/06/1989.
The censorship power of chinese government has been greatly over estimated.
Censorship being soft and porous does not help - it keeps the outrage from bubbling over as the 5% of smart potential leaders who could give a voice to discontent will (a) work around the censors in ways that the 95% can't or don't bother [VPN etc] and their discontent has an outlet, and (b) these 2% can be kept in line by offering or refusing career opportunities based on compliance to the mainstream party line... [if you speak out against current policy, you won't get that professorship or that managerial role or your company returns will be tax audited in a way your corrupt competitors aren't]
Don't get me wrong, I'm not pro censorship. But you and many in the west assume people in China are all brain washed and incapable of seeing their own history. Sure, a large part of the population can't be bothered, but I'd bet it's not 95% as you assumed, and they have increasingly less influence in today's China.
And speaking of which, you don't think the west is ruled by 2% of elites and manipulate the media to tame the rest?
I don't think this is unique to China and I think it happens to some extent in the US. I think people, especially the right wing Republican voters, are shielded from the viewpoints of the rest of the world on many topics. Having been outside the US for almost the entire election cycle, I don't think most voters in the US realize just how much Trump is ridiculed outside of the US. In the US, the comparison with Clinton is roughly 50-50. Outside the US, I've yet to meet one person who doesn't believe that Trump could be a serious choice. There's recognition that Clinton isn't perfect and we should have nominated someone better, but there's general consternation that our country could have made the choice that it did. Granted, I've been mostly in Asian, Muslim countries where Trump's rhetoric about Muslims has an even greater ring of ignorance to it. But the US media has contextualized a lot of what went on in the election cycle very differently from the way the media in the rest of the world has.
The difference, of course, is that the recontextualizing in China is at the behest of the Chinese government. It's disturbing and dangerous no matter how it happens. But it's undemocratic when the government is the one doing it.
Inside China, educated people tend to be familiar with the event but discussing it with a tourist is absolutely the last thing they are going to do.
There are many possible interpretations of your anecdote, but I wouldn't read too much into it. With all due respect, you brought up a minor (to them) and yet sensitive point of Chinese history, and your guests, reasonably enough, declined to discuss it with you. Another way of saying it might be that you committed a social faux pas and they changed the topic in a way that saved as much face as possible for everyone.
A bit like how some countries gloss over wars they lost or ended in a true....China takes it to the next level for some reason...it's not like the tank ran over the dude.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_China
China has had a central government for a long time. Before Roman civilization was more than a bunch of farmers.
"people will start calling for more representation"
No, people seldom have started calling for more representation. Rather, a portion of the intelligentsia has yearned for a system with more representation, based either on ideals originating in philosophy (europe) or out of spite of colonial masters (americas).
Now, the question is - based on what philosophical framework would the intelligentsia base their request?
I'm not saying you are wrong. I'm just pointing out that a european or american view of history will skew the political intuition around a framework that can lack a basis once one leaves these spheres of influence.
Maybe Russia or USA will plant some seeds of doubt in the popuplation and China will be split up in the next 50 years.
You mean the next super-power?