China has lashed out at Germany after its foreign minister called Xi Jinping a “dictator” and summoned Berlin’s ambassador for a dressing down, in the latest flaring of tensions with a western democratic power over how the Chinese leader is described overseas.
She’s not exactly known for being a smart person in Germany. Whoever thought she had what it takes to be a diplomat was clearly deluded. She only got the job as foreign minister because of proportional representation.
In China, the people directly elect local council (e.g. village or town level) representatives. Those local council members than select who among themselves to send to represent them at the next level above. This continues all the way the National People’s Congress and the Standing Committee.
This sort of organizational structure is more-or-less how political parties in Germany also work; so by that logic the Green party itself would presumably be an undemocratic institution.
OK, but the CPC can control who is allowed to run in elections, right? Well, Germany banned its communist party: In Germany, any organization (and their members) that wants to abolish the liberal order, capitalism, private property and so on is subject to repression, surveillance and outright bans, and this is enshrined in the constitution. So no fundamental difference there either: In Germany the liberal institutions decide who can and cannot run, and they have decided the commies are out.
Empirically, the Chinese government enjoys way better approval rating than any Western government, Chinese people believe themselves to be living in a democracy, and the Chinese administration seems way more responsive to the actual needs of the people, what with the poverty reduction and all. How is this possible if they’re so much more undemocratic than Western liberal democracies?
Well I think the issue is the people in China haven’t experienced the democracy in US so the comparison would be hard to measure. As funny as it gets the people in the US can laugh at Joe Biden but not those in China that could laugh at president Xi.
A note accompanying the poll results offers a disclaimer, stating that “in authoritarian countries, positive perceptions might result from different conceptions of democracy, high levels of government satisfaction, or fear of speaking out against the government.”
This is kind of my point. Western liberals claim their representative type of democracy is the only correct way to have democracy. But in their version of democracy, economic power allows oligarchs and corporations to own and control the media, there are countless legal (and illegal) ways to influence policy and bribe politicians, and the police and courts routinely suppress anti-capitalist and other emancipatory movements, organizations and individuals.
Giving lectures about democracy when you’re at the helm of a country that is actually ruled by the capitalist class is hypocritical.
Best take I’ve seen here. The big countries in the world have way too much power. Problem is, if any one country has this amount of power, it automatically makes it so that other countries will also want to match that level of power.
Plenty of people would raise their eyebrows on you for mentioning the US, but you would not exactly be wrong. China and Russia are authoritarian. However, the US is a highly flawed democracy with extremely flawed and abusive foreign policy. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has had recent precedence, with US invading Iraq out of trumped up charges. In Putin’s mind, he must have thought “if the Americans did it, why can’t I”? This is why I believe in a multipolar world.
Multipolar means there are more than two influential/great power. Personally, I think this is better than the current state of US being the sole superpower, or during the cold war when there was two rival superpowers. However, some people argue that a multipolar world is not more stable (it led to World War I). I’m not an expert myself, but since we’ve got more democracies now than the time before World War I, I would argue that a multipolar world composed of mostly democratic countries might work.
Dictator is the better word because it implies a choice by the people. It’s the reason why Octavian is the first Roman emperor but every ruler wants to be a Caesar.
In a way, calling Xi a dictator recognizes his legitimization. I am sure that was not intended.
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