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Comment by Moodles | Hacker News Reader

Are you seriously comparing Merkel to Xi? Or the political structure of Germany to China?

Haha, Moodles, have you not heard about Merkel jailing the opposition, executing people in the thousands, censoring the internet with the (very much known to her) Big German Wall, and the corruption in everyday German life?

What a blasphemy, to compare officials and political systems of different countries! What must he/she have been thinking!

In other news, more US-centric brainwashing coming soon...

The point is that the GP did not compare political systems, but only looked at the number of terms that leaders are serving in very different systems, as if that was a meaningful comparison.

You don't need US-centric brainwashing to understand the difference between Germany, with our seven(!) major parties, and China.

Five of the major parties just raised their own salaries substantially, while the population widely earns EUR 500 above social security level.

There are many parallels between Germany and China. The population gets low wages in order to facilitate exports, which benefits the ruling classes and the civil servants.

The lavishly paid functionaries of the state television keep people calm.

The German president can only be elected two times and he has limited power. The German chancellor also has limited power. Terms for chancellor are not limited, but he/she has to be elected every 4 years. Merkel barely made it this time, and it's almost certain she will not be re-elected next time and also very likely that she will not strife for candidacy next time.

Comparing China's system with Germany's makes a lot of sense, but you have to do it correctly. If Xi would be a chancellor with limited power in a parliament that consists of members of 6 different parties, then it would be less of a problem if he ran as a candidate in a third election.

Of course not, Merkel will be politically gone in a few years, she will be slowly forgotten just like many previous German leaders. There will probably be a couple of words about her in the book of history but do you believe she is going to shape the future of this world? ;)

Some might argue that she indeed shaped the future of this world by accelerating the demise of Europe as a modern and heavyweight force in the world.

Wut? The EU in the Merkel years went through some complex growth crisis; she helped resolving them in ways that undeniably benefited Germany and, in some cases, helped the bloc as well. Some of her choices (Schaußle...) weren’t great, but she hardly killed the EU project single-handedly - the project is actually very much alive, with commissioners increasingly flexing their muscles towards the world at large. If anything, she’s managed to keep some contradictory stances together for longer than many expected.

> she helped resolving them in ways that undeniably benefited Germany

A lot of smart people actually deny that.

Which ones?

In other news: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/germany-books-...

> modern

I don't know: digital rights, digital privacy, climate change? Those all sounds fairly modern to me.

> heavyweight

What other large political institution in the world says "Nope, not with our citizens" to big data, and actually sees it through?

> the demise of Europe

has been greatly exaggerated.

You’re aware of automatic face recognition in Berlin‘s public places, the Diesel scandal, flight passenger data agreements and so on, aren’t you?

For your data point, I can assure you that eu govs are just lagging behind, they failed to keep pace. They will get there, trust me.

I think she already has, for the better.

This comment does nothing to assuage the impression that Xi's goals are of an autocratic nature.

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