The president understands that the liberal international order was possible only because of U.S. might, and Americans don’t want to pay the bill anymore.
The main fallacy there is the idea that the west is a force for good in the world. The harsh reality is that liberal democracy being portrayed as the sole legitimate form of governance amounts to nothing more than modern-day marketing for colonialism, serving as a pretext for Western invasions and global atrocities masquerading as benevolent civilizing missions. This is precisely what the author laments under the guise of “noble ideas”.
You are conflating the concept of democracy with the failed attempt at its implementation in the west. China is the obvious legitimate alternative today, based on the principles of democratic centralism, where the government actually works in the interest of the working majority and thus enjoys mass public support.
So you prefer a more centralised state that is still beholden to the will of the populace.
That sounds nice, but also somewhat makes me worry that in such a state the issues in local governance, especially in less populated rural areas, are easy to ignore.
About China, and I’ll try to word this as unbiased as I can, from what I’ve seen it’s not a state known for complete freedom of speech. In my country, some Chinese critics are harassed by “Chinese police stations” or radical lovers of china who seem to believe any critic is a death threat. In contrast, people from the country I’m from openly defy and mock ourselves (a bit too much if you ask me).
Btw when you said “liberal democracy” I took it as a democracy where personal freedoms (speech, privacy etc) are respected at least to the point no one really complains about it.
So you prefer a more centralised state that is still beholden to the will of the populace.
The mistake here is in treating the populace as being homogeneous. The reality is that capitalism creates classes. You have a class of people who own capital and use it as their primary source of wealth. These are factory owners, landlords, financial capitalists, and so on. Then you have a second class of people who do not own significant amount of capital and rely on selling their labor as their means of survival. That’s the working class. The state fundamentally represents the interests of the class that holds power in society, and a capitalist liberal state represents the interests of the capital owning class.
About China, and I’ll try to word this as unbiased as I can, from what I’ve seen it’s not a state known for complete freedom of speech.
The reality is that every society puts limit on freedom of speech and expression. There’s nothing unique about China in this regard. What makes you think that the west got this balance fundamentally right while everyone else got it wrong aside from the anchoring bias you experience by virtue of growing up in a particular society? It’s seems clear that China’s approach results in far more social stability than western approach.
The whole narrative of Chinese police stations has been debunked. It’s just another piece of western propaganda.
In contrast, people from the country I’m from openly defy and mock ourselves (a bit too much if you ask me).
People in western countries have the freedom of screaming into the void, but not the freedom to translate their grievances into tangible material change. As Eric Li put it, the biggest difference in the political systems between China and US is that in America, you can change the political parties but you can’t change policies. In China, you can’t change the party but you can change policies.
It’s also worth noting that centralization at high level is in no way at odds with local governance. I urge you to read this excellent article explaining how Chinese system encourages decentralized governance and grassroots organization https://www.noemamag.com/what-the-west-misunderstands-about-power-in-china/
Btw when you said “liberal democracy” I took it as a democracy where personal freedoms (speech, privacy etc) are respected at least to the point no one really complains about it.
Liberalism is an ideology with two main parts. First is political liberalism which focuses on individual freedoms, democracy, and human rights. Second is economic liberalism which centers around free markets, private property, and wealth accumulation. These two aspects form a contradiction. Political liberalism purports to support everyone’s freedom, while economic liberalism enshrines private property rights as sacred in laws and constitutions, effectively removing them from political debate.
Liberalism justifies the use of state violence to safeguard property rights, over supporting ordinary people, which contradicts the promises of fairness and equality. Private property is seen as a key part of individual freedom under liberalism, and this provides the foundational justification for the rich to keep their wealth while ignoring the needs of everyone else. The talks of promoting freedom and democracy is just a fig leaf to provide cover for justifying capitalist relations.
About China, and I’ll try to word this as unbiased as I can, from what I’ve seen it’s not a state known for complete freedom of speech. In my country, some Chinese critics are harassed by “Chinese police stations” or radical lovers of china who seem to believe any critic is a death threat. In contrast, people from the country I’m from openly defy and mock ourselves (a bit too much if you ask me).
I’m not yothos, but the “freedom of speech” you guys have in the west should more accurately be called “the jester’s privilege”. You are allowed to say whatever you want, until what you are saying genuinely threatens the state or capital, in which case you get into legal trouble.
I’ve seen the police crack down on protests with my own eyes at my own university. I’ve seen the independent student media outlet we had get silenced, and have its editorial team disbanded and replaced because they criticized the university’s policies. What does it matter that the students can mock their country and university when the actual avenues of power we had were suppressed? We know that nothing we say truly matters and we are powerless. So we laugh. We mock. It is the soothing balm we use to cope with the pain of knowing that our future is fucked. Our planet will burn and our societies will be overrun by fascists.
In China on the other hand, the government simply listens to the people, which is evident from both the speedy development of the country, the application of mass line methods and high approval ratings of the government. Having consistently high approval ratings of a government across decades is not something any western “democracy” could ever hope to brag about.
So you prefer a more centralised state that is still beholden to the will of the populace.
China is actually a very decentralized model. Local government is very big in China and plays a huge role in social and economic development, as well as in how things are run on a day to day basis. In a sense it is not all that different to how the US federally delegates power to state and local governments, but i’d say China goes even further.
Local governments frequently compete with one another to outdo each other in development and cultural projects. This is a country of nearly one and a half billion people, with over fifty different minority ethnic groups, languages and cultures. The entire country being centrally run out of Beijing would be simply impossible.
I know it can be difficult to find good in-depth English language information on this subject, and doing this sort of research can be dry and boring at times, but if you really want to understand China i advise you to look into non-Western sources about how China actually works.
It is a very complex society, not perfect by any means, but one that cannot be reduced to the simplistic caricature that is painted of it in Western media.
from what I’ve seen it’s not a state known for complete freedom of speech
Neither is any western “liberal democracy”. The last year has shown us this very clearly with how the pro-Palestinian movement has been treated and how aggressively pro-Palestinian speech has been suppressed.
Speech is tolerated only so long as it does not pose a threat to the status quo. You are free to have any opinion you want so long as you don’t act on it in a way that threatens the interests of the ruling class.
This is the same in every country, China included. The difference is that in the West the ruling class are the capitalists and imperialists. In a socialist society the ruling class is the working class and it is their interests that the state protects first and foremost.
when you said “liberal democracy” I took it as a democracy where personal freedoms (speech, privacy etc) are respected
I have already addressed the issue of speech. As for privacy, that concept has become a joke in the US with how ubiquitous surveillance is. Corporations and the government work hand in hand to constantly surveil you.
Have we learned nothing from Edward Snowden’s leaks about the NSA? They have backdoors in nearly all the tech you use and corporations regularly steal your private data. Most of the time they do it for commercial purposes…until the state decides that you pose a threat, and then all that data is used against you.
And Europe isn’t far behind. Your privacy has long since been eroded under the pretext of fighting crime and “terrorism”. People point out the presence of cameras in China, but do you know for instance that the UK has way more CCTV cameras per person than China does?
But at a more concrete, material level, what “personal freedoms” exactly are the Chinese people lacking? What is it that you think they should be able to do but aren’t? I mean:
They can open a small business if they please.
They can go on holiday and travel, both inside and outside China.
They can go out to clubs and restaurants, see a movie, go to a concert… they can do pretty much every recreational activity you can think of.
They can buy almost any product known to man, because China produces essentially everything.
They can own their own house (and most of them do, unlike the country where i live) and even a plot of land if they live in a rural area.
They can form/join social clubs for virtually any interest they have, such as music, sports, dance, etc.
They can practice their cultural and religious traditions.
They can express their opinion about how the government is run, and they can even participate in it at various levels if they wish.
Anyone can become a party member if they study and pass the tests.
The list goes on. But perhaps even more important than the things they are free to do is what they are free from:
They have peace and safety. They are free from fearing to walk the streets at night.
Food is affordable. Housing is affordable. Healthcare is affordable. Higher education is competitive but also quite affordable. These are also forms of freedom: freedom from the kind of crushing economic pressures that so many people in the US and other Western countries now feel.
Public transportation is modern, extensive and generally affordable, which gives them freedom of mobility without having to own a car to get around. It also increases their economic freedom as greater mobility means more options for work.
They have a very low crime rate, so they are largely free from gang violence and drug addiction.
They have a very low, almost non-existent rate of homelessness, thanks to a combination of various policies such as poverty alleviation, government housing initiatives, and the absence of perpetual property taxes.
There is very little police violence and a high level of trust in society, so they are free from many of the fears that people in other countries constantly live with.
And they are generally free from the crippling levels of debt that people in the US have. In fact one of the things that western liberal economists regularly complain about is that Chinese people tend to have “too much” savings.
So then what real, material freedoms are they lacking in your opinion?
at least to the point no one really complains about it
People do complain about it. A lot. They are simply ignored because they have no power. University studies have shown that in the US the majority public opinion on a given policy has essentially no bearing on whether or not it is implemented. Instead the adopted policies reflect almost exclusively the will and interests of the donor class, of corporate and financial power.
As a result virtually all western governments have extremely low approval ratings. The US is actually one of the ones with relatively more approval (still very far from a majority) due to the high degree of political polarization of its society. European governments are even less popular. They regularly stay in power for years and years with at best 20-30% approval ratings, or worse.
Not the case in China. In China the government regularly conducts polls and studies to figure out what the population actually wants. And most of the time they listen to them and do their best to implement it. As a result, the central government of China has an incredibly high approval rating, easily over 90%, the highest in the world even according to Western studies.
There is much that can still be improved, and the Chinese people are very vocal and critical when they see problems. It would be very naive to think it is some kind of utopia, but one thing that the majority of Chinese people agree on is that they are on a very positive trajectory. They have hope for a bright future. Can we in the West say the same?
The main fallacy there is the idea that the west is a force for good in the world. The harsh reality is that liberal democracy being portrayed as the sole legitimate form of governance amounts to nothing more than modern-day marketing for colonialism, serving as a pretext for Western invasions and global atrocities masquerading as benevolent civilizing missions. This is precisely what the author laments under the guise of “noble ideas”.
Honestly curious, what forms of governance, other than a democracy, do you see as legitimate alternatives?
You are conflating the concept of democracy with the failed attempt at its implementation in the west. China is the obvious legitimate alternative today, based on the principles of democratic centralism, where the government actually works in the interest of the working majority and thus enjoys mass public support.
Thanks for the interesting read.
So you prefer a more centralised state that is still beholden to the will of the populace. That sounds nice, but also somewhat makes me worry that in such a state the issues in local governance, especially in less populated rural areas, are easy to ignore.
About China, and I’ll try to word this as unbiased as I can, from what I’ve seen it’s not a state known for complete freedom of speech. In my country, some Chinese critics are harassed by “Chinese police stations” or radical lovers of china who seem to believe any critic is a death threat. In contrast, people from the country I’m from openly defy and mock ourselves (a bit too much if you ask me).
Btw when you said “liberal democracy” I took it as a democracy where personal freedoms (speech, privacy etc) are respected at least to the point no one really complains about it.
Would love to read your thoughts on this topics.
The mistake here is in treating the populace as being homogeneous. The reality is that capitalism creates classes. You have a class of people who own capital and use it as their primary source of wealth. These are factory owners, landlords, financial capitalists, and so on. Then you have a second class of people who do not own significant amount of capital and rely on selling their labor as their means of survival. That’s the working class. The state fundamentally represents the interests of the class that holds power in society, and a capitalist liberal state represents the interests of the capital owning class.
The reality is that every society puts limit on freedom of speech and expression. There’s nothing unique about China in this regard. What makes you think that the west got this balance fundamentally right while everyone else got it wrong aside from the anchoring bias you experience by virtue of growing up in a particular society? It’s seems clear that China’s approach results in far more social stability than western approach.
The whole narrative of Chinese police stations has been debunked. It’s just another piece of western propaganda.
People in western countries have the freedom of screaming into the void, but not the freedom to translate their grievances into tangible material change. As Eric Li put it, the biggest difference in the political systems between China and US is that in America, you can change the political parties but you can’t change policies. In China, you can’t change the party but you can change policies.
It’s also worth noting that centralization at high level is in no way at odds with local governance. I urge you to read this excellent article explaining how Chinese system encourages decentralized governance and grassroots organization https://www.noemamag.com/what-the-west-misunderstands-about-power-in-china/
Similarly, the government itself is also organized based on using grassroots structures as its foundation https://news.cgtn.com/event/2021/who-runs-the-cpc/index.html
Liberalism is an ideology with two main parts. First is political liberalism which focuses on individual freedoms, democracy, and human rights. Second is economic liberalism which centers around free markets, private property, and wealth accumulation. These two aspects form a contradiction. Political liberalism purports to support everyone’s freedom, while economic liberalism enshrines private property rights as sacred in laws and constitutions, effectively removing them from political debate.
Liberalism justifies the use of state violence to safeguard property rights, over supporting ordinary people, which contradicts the promises of fairness and equality. Private property is seen as a key part of individual freedom under liberalism, and this provides the foundational justification for the rich to keep their wealth while ignoring the needs of everyone else. The talks of promoting freedom and democracy is just a fig leaf to provide cover for justifying capitalist relations.
This is an excellent primer on the subject https://orgrad.wordpress.com/articles/liberalism-the-two-faced-tyranny-of-wealth/
I’m not yothos, but the “freedom of speech” you guys have in the west should more accurately be called “the jester’s privilege”. You are allowed to say whatever you want, until what you are saying genuinely threatens the state or capital, in which case you get into legal trouble.
I’ve seen the police crack down on protests with my own eyes at my own university. I’ve seen the independent student media outlet we had get silenced, and have its editorial team disbanded and replaced because they criticized the university’s policies. What does it matter that the students can mock their country and university when the actual avenues of power we had were suppressed? We know that nothing we say truly matters and we are powerless. So we laugh. We mock. It is the soothing balm we use to cope with the pain of knowing that our future is fucked. Our planet will burn and our societies will be overrun by fascists.
In China on the other hand, the government simply listens to the people, which is evident from both the speedy development of the country, the application of mass line methods and high approval ratings of the government. Having consistently high approval ratings of a government across decades is not something any western “democracy” could ever hope to brag about.
China is actually a very decentralized model. Local government is very big in China and plays a huge role in social and economic development, as well as in how things are run on a day to day basis. In a sense it is not all that different to how the US federally delegates power to state and local governments, but i’d say China goes even further.
Local governments frequently compete with one another to outdo each other in development and cultural projects. This is a country of nearly one and a half billion people, with over fifty different minority ethnic groups, languages and cultures. The entire country being centrally run out of Beijing would be simply impossible.
I know it can be difficult to find good in-depth English language information on this subject, and doing this sort of research can be dry and boring at times, but if you really want to understand China i advise you to look into non-Western sources about how China actually works.
It is a very complex society, not perfect by any means, but one that cannot be reduced to the simplistic caricature that is painted of it in Western media.
Neither is any western “liberal democracy”. The last year has shown us this very clearly with how the pro-Palestinian movement has been treated and how aggressively pro-Palestinian speech has been suppressed.
Speech is tolerated only so long as it does not pose a threat to the status quo. You are free to have any opinion you want so long as you don’t act on it in a way that threatens the interests of the ruling class.
This is the same in every country, China included. The difference is that in the West the ruling class are the capitalists and imperialists. In a socialist society the ruling class is the working class and it is their interests that the state protects first and foremost.
I have already addressed the issue of speech. As for privacy, that concept has become a joke in the US with how ubiquitous surveillance is. Corporations and the government work hand in hand to constantly surveil you.
Have we learned nothing from Edward Snowden’s leaks about the NSA? They have backdoors in nearly all the tech you use and corporations regularly steal your private data. Most of the time they do it for commercial purposes…until the state decides that you pose a threat, and then all that data is used against you.
And Europe isn’t far behind. Your privacy has long since been eroded under the pretext of fighting crime and “terrorism”. People point out the presence of cameras in China, but do you know for instance that the UK has way more CCTV cameras per person than China does?
But at a more concrete, material level, what “personal freedoms” exactly are the Chinese people lacking? What is it that you think they should be able to do but aren’t? I mean:
They can open a small business if they please.
They can go on holiday and travel, both inside and outside China.
They can go out to clubs and restaurants, see a movie, go to a concert… they can do pretty much every recreational activity you can think of.
They can buy almost any product known to man, because China produces essentially everything.
They can own their own house (and most of them do, unlike the country where i live) and even a plot of land if they live in a rural area.
They can form/join social clubs for virtually any interest they have, such as music, sports, dance, etc.
They can practice their cultural and religious traditions.
They can express their opinion about how the government is run, and they can even participate in it at various levels if they wish. Anyone can become a party member if they study and pass the tests.
The list goes on. But perhaps even more important than the things they are free to do is what they are free from:
They have peace and safety. They are free from fearing to walk the streets at night.
Food is affordable. Housing is affordable. Healthcare is affordable. Higher education is competitive but also quite affordable. These are also forms of freedom: freedom from the kind of crushing economic pressures that so many people in the US and other Western countries now feel.
Public transportation is modern, extensive and generally affordable, which gives them freedom of mobility without having to own a car to get around. It also increases their economic freedom as greater mobility means more options for work.
They have a very low crime rate, so they are largely free from gang violence and drug addiction.
They have a very low, almost non-existent rate of homelessness, thanks to a combination of various policies such as poverty alleviation, government housing initiatives, and the absence of perpetual property taxes.
There is very little police violence and a high level of trust in society, so they are free from many of the fears that people in other countries constantly live with.
And they are generally free from the crippling levels of debt that people in the US have. In fact one of the things that western liberal economists regularly complain about is that Chinese people tend to have “too much” savings.
So then what real, material freedoms are they lacking in your opinion?
People do complain about it. A lot. They are simply ignored because they have no power. University studies have shown that in the US the majority public opinion on a given policy has essentially no bearing on whether or not it is implemented. Instead the adopted policies reflect almost exclusively the will and interests of the donor class, of corporate and financial power.
As a result virtually all western governments have extremely low approval ratings. The US is actually one of the ones with relatively more approval (still very far from a majority) due to the high degree of political polarization of its society. European governments are even less popular. They regularly stay in power for years and years with at best 20-30% approval ratings, or worse.
Not the case in China. In China the government regularly conducts polls and studies to figure out what the population actually wants. And most of the time they listen to them and do their best to implement it. As a result, the central government of China has an incredibly high approval rating, easily over 90%, the highest in the world even according to Western studies.
There is much that can still be improved, and the Chinese people are very vocal and critical when they see problems. It would be very naive to think it is some kind of utopia, but one thing that the majority of Chinese people agree on is that they are on a very positive trajectory. They have hope for a bright future. Can we in the West say the same?