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Comment by pcwalton | Hacker News Reader

> My theory is that even if Chinese government was toppled, the replacement would still have same characteristics because that is the expectation that people have from their government.

Taiwan is a counterexample.

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It all comes down to economics. The population is OK with the CCP's policies because they brought unprecedented growth. The GDP growth chart since the cultural revolution is really almost hard to believe. The part of the population that's profiting from this development happens to be large enough to lead to a somewhat stable political situation.

This is obviously supported by extremely authoritative measures from government. Just look at what's happening in Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan. Imagine now, what happens when the growth engine stops or even reverses. The population might be much less accommodating to restrictive policies like the social credit system.

And this can happen in a blink of an eye the fall of the berlin wall for example.

And I suspect the fate of Ceausescu must weigh on the minds of the party leaders.

Not a good example though. Many Chinese see the current Taiwan government as a failure and use it as an argument that China should NOT adopt western democracy

"Many Chinese"... where did you get this number from?

By talking to people and reading online. I'm Chinese btw.

That is surprising since Taiwan eclipsed China in technological development and its GPD per capita is over 5x larger than Chinas.

edit: despite economic pressure from China.

But why should they have a realistic impression if information is controlled?

Because Taiwan was much more prosperous in the last few decades of last century, before Taiwan fully embraced western democracy and started having two ruling parties. Now, however, with Taiwan's economy/average wage being almost stagnant for almost twenty years, and the huge mess in the Taiwan politics, it is hard to see anything good came out of "democracy".

> But why should they have a realistic impression if information is controlled?

They may not know Taiwan well enough, but on average they know it much better than westerners.

So what? Many Chinese people also see Taiwan as a success.

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