What would be wrong with One Country, One System?
Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life
281–288 of 288 posts
Re: Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
It looks like you've been using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle. That's against the site guidelines and we ban accounts that do it because, as the guidelines explain, it spoils the curiosity that this site exists for. So would you please stop doing this? If you want more explanation there are plenty of past explanations at these links: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme..…
Why responding to me, and not to the post I was responding too, in the same kind? Do whatever you must do.
As I said, it's an issue of what the account is primarily being used for. The important word is 'primarily'. See https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....
There's another issue, which is that we don't see everything that gets posted to HN, even in the same thread. There's far too much material here for anyone to read it all. So if you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
Re: Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have sympathy for the statement that lifting 500 million people out of abject, generational poverty ranks among the greatest humanitarian successes in history. At the same time local corruption, and the number of protests against those officials was an enormous problem and seemed to get remarkably little coverage. A mature legal system is the only reliable way to combat problems like corruption. A legal system is m…
Local corruption is the defacto mechanism CCP exploited to pull 500m out of poverty. Deng's entire model is harnessing corruption with bureaucratic incentives to forward development goals. This is posited by Yukon Huang, former World Bank director for China. He notes China is the only country where increased corruption is correlated to increased growth, everywhere else corruption leads to inefficient allocation. Also…
I think Chinese authoritarianism may be best though if as a rent based system much like resource based economies such as the Gulf states, except that the ‘resource‘ they are extracting rent from is a capitalist market economy. It’s a strange beast for sure. One thing the Chinese authorities do not lack is competence. They make horrific, catastrophic mistakes, sure, but they are incredibly organised and disciplined. They will turn in a dime and execute whatever strategy it takes to set things ‘right’, as defined in their terms with ruthless efficiency. They must not be underestimated.
I think western institutions are being underestimated. The whole point if democratic systems is their flexibility. We will simply adapt and grow new institutions. We have the dynamic systems of social discourse and public accountability to do so. Authoritarian systems find this hard to do because their top down architecture limits them to solutions envisionable by a single authority. They have no way to do public input or to generate a range of options, or try things and have them fail. It’s fine. It’s part of the process.
Re: Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have sympathy for the statement that lifting 500 million people out of abject, generational poverty ranks among the greatest humanitarian successes in history. At the same time local corruption, and the number of protests against those officials was an enormous problem and seemed to get remarkably little coverage. A mature legal system is the only reliable way to combat problems like corruption. A legal system is m…
Local corruption is the defacto mechanism CCP exploited to pull 500m out of poverty. Deng's entire model is harnessing corruption with bureaucratic incentives to forward development goals. This is posited by Yukon Huang, former World Bank director for China. He notes China is the only country where increased corruption is correlated to increased growth, everywhere else corruption leads to inefficient allocation. Also…
> which is why Xi inaugurated his office with the anticorruption campaign. Yes, there was some power consolidation involved, but most of the effort was genuine - CCDI has investigated close to 2,000,000 officials, even Xi doesn't have that many enemies.
Xi became president as a compromise candidate between the internal factions, so he didn't have much support or allies. CCP officials are corrupt by default, of course the effort would be genuine, even though the true intention was to consolidate his power inside the party.
Re. CCP lifting 500m out of poverty -- I'd argue that the Chinese people prospered and lifted themselves out DESPITE of what CCP has done. Looking at the potential alternative and what KMT has done to develop Taiwan, I'd think that's the case. But there is no way of testing that.
> Authoritarianism + capitalism are absolutely compatible.
I agree with this in the case of Singapore. But when CCP is actively exporting its brand of authoritarianism to other countries and influencing the freedoms of other countries' citizens as part of an ideology war [1] using unrestricted warfare [2], then that organization becomes a threat to the world. The best case HK can hope for is the collapse of CCP.
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/chinese-comm... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare
Re: Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have sympathy for the statement that lifting 500 million people out of abject, generational poverty ranks among the greatest humanitarian successes in history. At the same time local corruption, and the number of protests against those officials was an enormous problem and seemed to get remarkably little coverage. A mature legal system is the only reliable way to combat problems like corruption. A legal system is m…
> I have sympathy for the statement that lifting 500 million people out of abject, generational poverty ranks among the greatest humanitarian successes in history. Do the ends justify the means? A long form piece entitled "Why Do Chinese People Like Their Government?”: > But, with only very few exceptions, they really conceived of liberalism not as an end in itself but rather as a means to the decidedly nationalist e…
> > […] By the mid-1920s, the overwhelming majority of Chinese intellectuals believed that an authoritarian solution was China’s only recourse. Some looked to the Soviet Union, and to Bolshevism. Others looked to Italy, and later Germany, and to fascism. Liberalism became almost irrelevant to the violent discourse on China’s future.
I did not read the article, but I'd point out that this is in opposition of what Sun Yat-Tsen and Chiang Kai-Shek believed in. KMT take over happened around the 1920's, they believed the road to rebuild China was through [1]
> three steps: military rule, political tutelage, and constitutional rule. The ultimate goal of the KMT revolution was democracy
And indeed, this is what Taiwan had gone through under the rule of KMT, evolving into the democracy today.
Re: Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I can't help but imagine how different it would be if the US and EU/Britain (as leads) would have strongly denounced their approach. What? What could the US have done beyond what we did other than all out war? The US response to this was very harsh. We undid 50 years of diplomacy with China, and have started building a sortof SEA equivalent to NATO. Chinese/American relations have probably never been as unfriendly…
The problem is the US has done a lot (though it's not solely to blame) to propel China up on the world stage, especially in the last decade+. We have given up a lot of our world leadership duties in many aspects and China wasted no time in filling any voids that we left behind. This isn't just a Trump thing (though he has accelerated pulling the US out of leadership positions) but it goes back to the lack of response…
> China knows that no other country has the influence to form such a coalition. That means it doesn't even need to be coy about what it's doing
At least now that CCP is showing its true colors, the world is more aware of its threat.
Re: Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life
#287This "way of life" was unsustainable anyway, because of the property prices and the de facto feudal system with the tycoons on top. You can rage at the red flag all you want, but ideology has nothing to do with it. HK life was almost unbearable before all this.
Is China any more sustainable?
Yes, because e.g. it invests in infrastructure on an unprecedented scale.
Re: Hong Kong mourns the end of its way of life
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right or wrong, I suggest you and others go back to interviews of Kissinger about why he pushed to open the world to China the way the US did. It was essentially do it on our terms now or theirs for ever after. Not that it was right, but it is informative.
Couldn’t find it can you share a link ?
Personally I watched an old episode of “Firing Line” on amazon prime with him and Ariana Huffington on it. Ariana was arguing against trade with China.
Edit-might be this one: https://youtu.be/U4bBftiRo2Q