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Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

economist.com

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Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#171

Post by api »

pishpash wrote: post #164
api wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's part of the same larger pattern. The entire world seems to be moving toward totalitarianism to varying degrees. I have yet to encounter a really good explanation of why this trend is occurring across so many nations and cultures.

The explanation is the rise of populism following a bad economic episode. What you are seeing now has been seen in the 20's and 30's. If some good social policies had been implemented and the gains well distributed in the prior decades of growth this wouldn't be happening. But humans won't learn until forced to.

That's surely valid to some extent but I don't think it goes back far enough. I've seen this trend firmly in place since 9/11 or shortly thereafter and across virtually every segment of society.

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#172

Post by jerf »

freech wrote: post #162
jerf wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a card up your sleeve is still valuable, even if nobody knows it is there, because it means if you have to pull it out all of a sudden, it's there. Taiwan would be my A#1 pick for "country most likely to secretly have nuclear weapons" because while everyone around China has reason to be nervous at one level or another, Taiwan's clearly got the best one. "The world" as a whole is also a bit jumpy about nuclear…

So china invades Taiwan, Taiwan nukes them, and then? China decides to nuke them of the map instead?

Are you demanding easy answers? There aren't any.

The goal is deterrence, but deterrence doesn't work if you don't have a credible threat, which means that you have to have the credible threat, and a sufficiently insane opponent may call you on it. It's the reason why China going to a dictatorship is scary... the details of the dictatorship are irrelevant, the mere fact that one man will be in charge of the military of China is intrinsically scary. This is one place where the general bias towards inaction and other problems of a committee are advantageous; history shows that an individual is much likelier to do something really stupid for really stupid reasons than any government that is run by many people, even if there is a clear leader. A committee may fail to exploit many opportunities and may in various ways run their country into the ground, or they may even engage in misguided military adventures, but they never really rise to the level of outright evil and stupidity that an individual can muster up.

For instance, if you've got a spare hour to listen, you could do worse than this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdM3ID4m38U Which contains numerous examples of Napoleon doing stupid and evil things that cost thousands of lives and burned massive piles of reputation just to benefit himself. If you do watch that video, can you imagine a world in which that Napoleon has nukes? Or, can you imagine a world in which he has them, but doesn't use them? I can't.

So, alas, no, I can't promise that some of the really stupid wargame outcomes aren't on the table now. China could previously be modeled as reasonably rational, but that's rapidly going "poof", and yeah, that means some seriously bad outcomes are on the table, and the mere fact that they are seriously ugly doesn't take them off the table.

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#173

Post by kolbe »

debt wrote: post #88
kolbe wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there something in particular about him that you find scary? I'm not sure why length of rule should play such a large part in this calculus.

"I'm not sure why length of rule should play such a large part." Look to all of human history and you'll find your answer.

What are you talking about? The most aggressive country since WW2 has been a representative democracy with 8 year term limits. And before 1900, aside from Ancient Greece and Rome, there's basically no examples of people with term limits.

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#174

Post by kolbe »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #134
kolbe wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there something in particular about him that you find scary? I'm not sure why length of rule should play such a large part in this calculus.

Personally, the big thing I find scary about him is that he abolished term limits for himself. Oh, yeah, and he enshrined his thinking in the constitution. Why should length of rule be such a large part of my opinion of him? Well, let's pick a different leader. Suppose Trump wanted to change the US Constitution so that he could remain president for an unlimited time. Would that set off alarm bells for you? It would f…

You're right that this clearly does suck for China. But I was wondering why we should think it endangers other countries.

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#175

Post by natecavanaugh »

mercer wrote: post #167
natecavanaugh wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember reading an intro to Orwell's Animal Farm that discussed Orwell's ability to see the dystopian use of technology, but couldn't see how it could liberate a citizenry from totalitarianism (like the shortwave, for example). I think the same of this high level tech as well. I could be wrong, but I think individuals do desire freedom and agency, and as long as that desire is there in some, it's going to be hard…

I do hope you're right. One of my 'in the realm of possibility' dystopian fears is that a totalitarian regime figures out how to (chemically?) keep their society docile. Ideally the populace would still be creative, to an extent, but that might not even be necessary, or compensated for by stealing innovation from other places. One could argue that this is already sort of happening in many places, without there being…

I do too. Things like CRISPR scare the bejeezus out of me for reasons like you mention.

I tend to think that's the killer equation in the US culture, which is incentives that are set up for exposing stuff like this.

We don't need our journalists, politicians, scientists or any authority to be looking out for our best interest.

As long as there are ways for them to further their own self-interest in ways that go against other authorities, we have some folks watching our backs.

But in cases where you fundamentally alter someone's idea of self-interest, you're in a crazy amount of danger. And with the power one can wield, you're in for a lot of unintended consequences. Hopefully Pandora can be restrained just a bit.

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#176

Post by mistermann »

marnett wrote: post #146
mistermann wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how clear this is, yet so few people can see it, it makes me wonder if there would be less confusion if we didn't have two different cultures involved. Of course, Western corporations and their executives who are profiting handsomely from it have good reason to "not notice" what's happening and continue to talk their book, but the wilful ignorance of genuinely well-meaning liberals is more complex. I alw…

This is just how the state operates. It will never be transparent about just how threatening the Chinese are and vise versa. Ignorance is bliss within the world of global power dynamics. If you ever meet someone who works/has worked for intelligence agencies, ask them about China. Whether they will share anything verbal or not, their true feelings have already flushed across their face.

If that's true then how would you explain their obsession with the "Russian Hackers" boogeyman, while remaining completely mum on the absolutely massive economic and political threat China has become, which anyone could have seen coming well over a decade ago?

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#177

Post by [deleted] »

marnett wrote: post #146
mistermann wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how clear this is, yet so few people can see it, it makes me wonder if there would be less confusion if we didn't have two different cultures involved. Of course, Western corporations and their executives who are profiting handsomely from it have good reason to "not notice" what's happening and continue to talk their book, but the wilful ignorance of genuinely well-meaning liberals is more complex. I alw…

This is just how the state operates. It will never be transparent about just how threatening the Chinese are and vise versa. Ignorance is bliss within the world of global power dynamics. If you ever meet someone who works/has worked for intelligence agencies, ask them about China. Whether they will share anything verbal or not, their true feelings have already flushed across their face.

[deleted]

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#178

Post by darawk »

Dolores12 wrote: post #163
darawk wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is only growing economically to the extent that it's relaxed its socialist, authoritarian policies. As soon as it reasserts them, all that growth will go away. The fact that people's lives are improving is not sufficient evidence that the government is benevolent. There is only one thing that reliably predicts human behavior: incentives. The incentives of the communist party are much more weakly aligned with th…

I must be missing something, top reply in this post shows exactly opposite - there is no relaxation of authoritarian policies. They tighten freedoms to be stable.

Relative to say, the 1980s, China is less authoritarian. I'm not in any way excusing or diminishing their authoritarianness , btw. I find it truly frightening, and reprehensible. However, what i'm worried about is that they've found a way to thread the needle such that they may maintain most of their authoritarian surveillance state, while also getting solid economic growth.

In the past, in order to develop a modern economy, it's been necessary for authoritarian states to relax their grip substantially. China may have found a path forward that allows them to relax substantially less than in the past, and that deeply concerns me, because it may mean that the liberalizing effects of progress are muted in that part of the world - and eventually, maybe the rest.

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#179

Post by [deleted] »

JBlue42 wrote: post #165
pishpash wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is infighting because the electorate wants to be infighting. When the citizenry is so sheltered and content to know nothing about the world this is what happens.

>When the citizenry is so sheltered and content to know nothing about the world this is what happens. I thought we were supposed to learn that lesson after 9/11?

[deleted]

Re: Xi Jinping decides to abolish presidential term limits

#180

Post by pishpash »

JBlue42 wrote: post #165
pishpash wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is infighting because the electorate wants to be infighting. When the citizenry is so sheltered and content to know nothing about the world this is what happens.

>When the citizenry is so sheltered and content to know nothing about the world this is what happens. I thought we were supposed to learn that lesson after 9/11?

We learned the wrong lesson from 9/11 buddy. Look at the TSA still going strong, all the domestic snooping, and an imperial presidency with open-ended powers unchecked by Congress. Over all the conclusion has been to not deal with the world's problems, kick everybody that might cause problems out, and close the door.
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