Comment by bb123 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bb123 | Hacker News Reader

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They publish extremely detailed methodology for each country, so feel free to browse and let me know which parts you disagree with (assuming you're not in China, because you probably won't be able to access this there. All that democracy hey ;)

https://freedomhouse.org/country/china/freedom-world/2021

Some highlights for China:

* There are no direct or competitive elections for national executive leaders. * Elections are not administered by an independent body. * China’s one-party system rigorously suppresses the development of any organized political opposition * The political system is dominated in practice by ethnic Han Chinese men. Societal groups such as women, ethnic and religious minorities, and LGBT+ people have no opportunity to gain meaningful political representation * China is home to one of the world’s most restrictive media environments and its most sophisticated system of censorship, particularly online. * None of China’s national leaders are freely elected, and the legislature plays a minimal role in policymaking and the development of new laws. * The CCP regime has established a multifaceted apparatus to control all aspects of religious activity

It goes on and on. All of this seems pretty tangible to me? Again please let me know what I'm missing.

This methodology is biased towards a western perspective on how democracies "must" be run. Taken literally, a democracy is a direct democracy, but no country today is a direct democracy because everybody recognises that it has flaws. So every democratic system tries to make a balance.

Yes, China fixes a 1-party state, but how does that differ from fixing e.g. the judicial branch in the US system which also cannot be elected?

The minorities angle is just weird and shows you have no understanding about China - minorities generally have preferential policies in many aspects of law, e.g. the One-Child policy (now Two-Child policy). That's more than you can say for the US.

China's censorship system is not that sophisticated it's just large scale. The purpose is more to ensure large-scale stability, and they don't care about small-scale private conversations between individuals. The US is currently grappling difficult questions about how to moderate fake news, large corporations are stuck in a difficult place - on one hand they are accused of promoting fake news, on the other hand they are accused of suppressing free speech. So just because China took a strong stance on this, does not mean they are "evil" for doing so.

Again, you need to have some cultural background of China before judging it, rather than judging it based on western preconceptions of how a democracy "must" work like.

The National People's Congress in China has more members per capita than the US House or Senate as well as more independents and minority party representation.

The NPC has a higher percentage of women than the US Congress (exceeding the world average).

Ethnic minorities make up 8% of China's overall population, but they make up 14.7% of the seats of the NPC. They also make up 7.3% of the more than 90 million members of the Communist Party of China (which also consists of 27.2% women). Ethnic minorities make up 39% of the overall population of the US, but only 25% of the US Congress.

A study by the Harvard Kennedy School found 93.1% satisfaction with the central government in China in 2016. US Congress currently has a 29.3% approval rating, but has been hovering below 20% for most of the last decade.

The two viable US political parties are overwhelmingly funded by billionaires and large corporations. Those two parties decide the criteria for acceptance into the presidential debates which prevents minority parties from gaining national prominence. Billionaires and large corporations also own all the major media outlets and platforms, and they use that power to control narratives and deplatform inconvenient political figures and ideas.

Therefore China is more democratic than the US. See how easy that is?

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