We need to get things straight: everyone should praise the rise of Chinese people's living standards, which has been astonishing in the last 45 years or so, and has taken 850 million people out of poverty[0]! This is not something a reasonable person can argue against! The increase in human wellbeing in the whole planet has been almost entirely due to the Chinese in the last 50 years.
That doest' mean we should praise the CCP (at least not in its current form!), though. Far from it!! Now that people have a decent life standard, they should, and probably will, raise against injustices being committed by the governing party.
Maybe they don't want a democracy modelled on the West, and that's ok!! We need to understand that there may be other ways to govern a country as big as China. But everyone in China definitely wants to be given a fair go to live their lives as best as they can, and to have at least a level of freedom that lets them live a happy life without causing problems to others (after the last few days, even the most avid defender of free speech in the US seems to agree a level of moderation in the public discourse is required, the only point of disagreement seems to be in how much).
It is really painful to see China moving back to authoritarianism in this way after a couple of decades in which it looked like they were embracing, slowly but surely, more freedoms and human rights. Let's hope that they find a way out of this instead of incessantly criticising them as if they were the devil all the time!! I honestly believe that even the CCP highest party members want to see the improvement of the Chinese people's lives, it would be completely irrational to believe otherwise... they are just humans like all of us... the problem cannot that they are evil!! The problem is that they have misguided fears of what may happen if the people is given too much freedom and try to mercilessly prevent their fears from becoming reality (like, you know, a revolutionary government taking power by force, which is the worse that could happen anywhere, even in China).
> I honestly believe that even the CCP highest party members want to see the improvement of the Chinese people's lives, it would be completely irrational to believe otherwise...
It's completely rational to, especially now, when Chinese analogue of bolsheviks are now in power in the party.
USSR's elites lived in the most obscene luxuries, and the CPC has beaten that few times over.
Your last point is salient and I think lost on many westerners who have not studied Chinese history.
Chinese civil wars (for lack of a better term to capture the sheer scale and complexity) have had body counts that make the American Civil War look like a drunken bar fight.
And, there is a history of advantage being taken of China during its civil wars. It hasn’t forgotten any of that, and it’s in the National psyche as something that needs to be balanced in the future.
Let me congratulate you on a more balanced comment on China than 99% of the users here. It is still a little bit naive or supremacist but dont let us the perfect being enemy of the good.
> Now that people have a decent life standard, they should, and probably will, raise against injustices being committed by the governing party.
This has not happened at all in the US with 5X the income per capita (at least in nominal terms), why are you expecting to happen in China?Maybe the relationship is inverse, the more money the Chinese have the less probable they will rebel, same as in America and the rest of the world
> It is really painful to see China moving back to authoritarianism in this way after a couple of decades in which it looked like they were embracing, slowly but surely, more freedoms and human rights.
No country moves in a straight line (assuming you can even trace its "movement"), you should notice that easily with the US. Compared to 30 years ago China is better in almost all indicators, and yes that includes things like freedom of expression, because despite of still having an iron hand on censorship the CCP cannot avoid the common folk to communicate among themselves in million ways. Western people are too naive or arrogant if they think the regular Chinese just buy wholesale everything that is told. This does not mean the other naive take of course, that they dont buy anything that the politicians say and they will align with the western countries if they just had the chance. It turns out, surprise surprise, chinese are as much people as the Americans.
> The problem is that they have misguided fears of what may happen if the people is given too much freedom and try to mercilessly prevent their fears from becoming reality
This fear is not misguided and it is not exclusive to the Chinese by the way. The external threat is very real, and the CCP as every power structure takes very seriously the internal threats too. If you think the US is different I kindly invite you to revise the history on how any political movement not called mainstream Democrat/Republican party has been treated covertly and in the open by the power structures in America. So again, you are not saying nothing new or particular about China that you could not repeat about your own country.
You can be aggrieved, blame the west, assign whatever morality you want, it doesn't change the fact that the planet doesn't have enough resources for everyone to live a middle class lifestyle.
So this whole anti china rhetoric had nothing to do with human rights or unfair trade but everything to do with the west not want to squander its middle life style because our planet can't actually support it.
I appreciate your honesty but I wouldn't actually expect the chinese to actually sit down and accept it tho
Where is the basis of this not enough resources for middle class life style?
Tell me, what is middle class life style anyway? If you are talking about the American consumerism middle class life style, sure, I think most educated people nowadays do not really like that form of life style, or find it actually comfortable.
And even if that's the style everyone wants to. With tech advancement, why cannot everyone afford that, while still keep the environment health and sustainable for human?
Are you really arguing that due to limited resources people in less developed countries in Asia or Africa should continue to suffer so that the developed countries can keep their middle class lifestyle?
I didn't say that, I don't know what the answer is. But the fact remains that there are not enough resources for the consumption level where we are now. If another billion people are raised to China levels it will be a bigger disaster.
That doest' mean we should praise the CCP (at least not in its current form!), though. Far from it!! Now that people have a decent life standard, they should, and probably will, raise against injustices being committed by the governing party.
Maybe they don't want a democracy modelled on the West, and that's ok!! We need to understand that there may be other ways to govern a country as big as China. But everyone in China definitely wants to be given a fair go to live their lives as best as they can, and to have at least a level of freedom that lets them live a happy life without causing problems to others (after the last few days, even the most avid defender of free speech in the US seems to agree a level of moderation in the public discourse is required, the only point of disagreement seems to be in how much).
It is really painful to see China moving back to authoritarianism in this way after a couple of decades in which it looked like they were embracing, slowly but surely, more freedoms and human rights. Let's hope that they find a way out of this instead of incessantly criticising them as if they were the devil all the time!! I honestly believe that even the CCP highest party members want to see the improvement of the Chinese people's lives, it would be completely irrational to believe otherwise... they are just humans like all of us... the problem cannot that they are evil!! The problem is that they have misguided fears of what may happen if the people is given too much freedom and try to mercilessly prevent their fears from becoming reality (like, you know, a revolutionary government taking power by force, which is the worse that could happen anywhere, even in China).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China