Goatgarien

This analysis is straight-up horseshit. It's a discourse on China devoid of any complexity. Why is it so hard to look at China's political system without this fixation that the end point should be Western liberal democracy? China does not hold competitive national elections and practises considerable censorship. China’s authoritarianism deserves scrutiny. But the reflexive Western verdict — that China is “just another politically repressive regime” — obscures more than it educates. A recent survey by the Alliance of Democracies, a Danish-based NGO with no sympathy for authoritarianism, found that perceptions of democracy are stronger in China than in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. China’s political system is also more meritocratic than many Western liberal democracies. You cannot buy your way to national office in China. Politicians typically spend years demonstrating competence at the provincial level before being considered for senior roles. Whether you’re a fan of China’s governance model or not, it’s undeniably a model characterised by high levels of legitimacy and commitment to delivering economic development for its people. And this model of governance — where they've actually managed to put competent people in charge who care deeply about public service — helps explain why the material achievements in China are so impressive compared to, for example, the US. Compared to the US, China has higher life expectancy, broader basic healthcare coverage, a superior public transport system, more sophisticated urban infrastructure, and fewer people living in extreme poverty. With a GDP per capita one-sixth that of the US, China has pulled off an extremely impressive feat of governance and state capacity. Perhaps it's time we ask, instead, why so many countries in the West that are supposedly so democratic and so wealthy achieve so damn little for their people.