China will be a democracy by 2020!

**nirmal** · 04 Oct 09,, 05:38

Originally Posted by pChan

China has had its share of problems w.r.t GLF etc. But in India there has been a more insidious evil called the great stagnation. For 40 years the "democratic" government had propagated a "great stagnation". It still continues to stifle the Indian people with its bureaucracy.

China is a success. India is not. The economic base of Indian poor is low that the only comparison is sub-saharan africa. To say that the delayed upliftment of these people is a success is to lower the threshold of "success" to such a point that it makes a mockery of the essence of the term. The indian government has done the barest of the bare of what is expected of a state. India has had a piss-poor leadership (w.r.t military acumen except for Indira) for much of its existence. Its choices of "non-alignment" & economic communism had ill-served its citizens. I find it ironical that some of these members lecturing china about Indian democracy.

On a different note I have heard that the chinese success has a lot more to do with secondary education. I would love to read more about how the quality of chinese growth is so much better than India (I don't buy the 20 years head-start thing). I would appreciate if members could give more pointers to that.

You are right in many ways. poor education, poor implementation of welfare schemes, and poor leadership has caused many of indias problems. but wether these problems will disappear if india is an autocratic state is questionable. these problems could get worse in an autocratic setup in india.
as for non alignment, it is dead and buried.
as for indian comunists and maoists, they are nothing but murderers aspiring to become mass murderers - indians are better off without them.
as for military acumen, gandhiji never had a gun - nor was he a military genius, the dandi march inspires indians more than the long march.

china is a success. its problems will start when and if it tries to implement democracy. the essense of democracy, whatever form it is, is to listen to another person, without contempt, and give respect for anothers position and circumstance, and sometimes to give ground in order to accomodate others. if china is unable to do that, it is better off without democracy.
democracy is not equal to "harmony" - an idea i frequently see among my chinese friends - does that mean people should not disagree with each other? how can a billion people be " harmonious"??( without a gun at thier backs, that is)
In india, a tianenmen square would have been dispersed with riot police wielding sticks, or at the most a few shots at the knees. it remains one of the most revolting sights to use tanks against unarmed protestors. why use guns against people who have none?
til 2 years back, i used to live in india - i am aware of the power cuts, and corruption and other issues. but I have also seen how when bureaucracy and controls were lifted in telecom, the private sector lifted telecom penetration dramatically. privatisation will solve much of the problems u quote. bureaucracy is indias problem, dont blame it on democracy.

I am very interested to see how china solves this inherent paradox. the paradox between iron control by a strong centre and the desire to give its people basic freedoms - you have a very tough job ahead. you will see that this will be more difficult than modernising the military or hosting the olympics - because you are dealing with peoples minds and not machines. because once you start it, you cannot put it back in a bottle without killing millions. and maybe then you may develop more respect for your southern neighbour.
Good luck.

**xizhimen** · 04 Oct 09,, 05:59

democracy is good for chinese in the long run,maybe not for the present,but it should be fully installed in china eventually.although politically speaking china is a party state ,but in terms of economic systems china is even less restricted than the west in many ways,it is a wild rats market economy.india maybe more liberal in its political life ,but may have more regulations to regulate its economy.so we chose initiating freedom from economy,and india chose the otherway around.

and china is no position to be contemtous of other countries,it is still a third world country,has at least same amount of problems india is facing.rich and poor gap may cause life or death trouble if not dealt with properly.

**xizhimen** · 04 Oct 09,, 06:07

and also a lot of my western friends say that china's current system is far better than the west's,but only condition is that you have a good leader or leadership.so huge projects like huge dams,highways,airports...once decided by the leaders,the very next day you can see workers are at the sites and start working on them.but in the west,projects that scale maybe take decades to go through different level of governmental approval and finally brougt to the public to talk about.so we can never develop that fast as china does,but what if you had a stupid leader or leadership,the will spell total disaster.

**xizhimen** · 04 Oct 09,, 06:11

the point is,if you got a very good leadership,good for you.but if you got a terribel leadership,sorry,too bad,you can not change them.

**xinhui** · 04 Oct 09,, 06:27

I am very interested to see how china solves this inherent paradox. the paradox between iron control by a strong centre and the desire to give its people basic freedoms - you have a very tough job ahead. you will see that this will be more difficult than modernising the military or hosting the olympics - because you are dealing with peoples minds and not machines. because once you start it, you cannot put it back in a bottle without killing millions. and maybe then you may develop more respect for your southern neighbour.
Good luck.

Tiananmen was 20 years ago before PAP gained its current role. Notice both the Tibet and Xinjing riots, deadly force by the PAP was not used and in fact, PLA only provided logistic support

In your next post, please change the word "you" to PRC/China/Chinese government, WAB is not the Chinese government.

**xinhui** · 04 Oct 09,, 06:37

Originally Posted by xizhimen

the point is,if you got a very good leadership,good for you.but if you got a terribel leadership,sorry,too bad,you can not change them.

How did Gang of Four and Hua guo feng lost power? Did JZM stays beyond his 10 years term?

**pChan** · 04 Oct 09,, 06:49

Originally Posted by nirmal

I am very interested to see how china solves this inherent paradox. the paradox between iron control by a strong centre and the desire to give its people basic freedoms - you have a very tough job ahead. you will see that this will be more difficult than modernising the military or hosting the olympics - because you are dealing with peoples minds and not machines. because once you start it, you cannot put it back in a bottle without killing millions.

The chinese government has certain degree of legitimacy among its people. There may be exceptions like tibet, uighers. But they are exceptions. Granted that this setup may have to change at some point of time in the future. I can point at rights violations in manipur, kashmir etc w.r.t India. Indian democracy is institutionalized. The indian people never demanded democracy. It was imposed on them by nehru-congress. There was no people revolution.

There is a difference between democracy & freedom. The best way to improve freedom is to pull people out of poverty. China has succeeded there. Indian democracy has not & has not been working on it till fairly recently. India has a lot more to learn from China than china has from India.

The gist of my argument is that while democracy in general is a good idea that china would inevitably have to look at, the consequences of Indian democracy should mean that it should be looked at with caution rather than something worthy of emulation.

**Luke Gu** · 04 Oct 09,, 06:58

How did Gang of Four and Hua guo feng lost power? Did JZM stay beyond his 10 years term?

Xin，Gang of Four and Hua Guofeng lost power took place in a special historical period，I don't think it's worth considering。As for JZM，it's really a good beginning for China politics，the longest term of a chairman is 10 years，it can solive many problems。But the Chairman isn't decided by people，it's the problem。

**xizhimen** · 04 Oct 09,, 06:59

Originally Posted by xinhui

How did Gang of Four and Hua guo feng lost power? Did JZM stays beyond his 10 years term?

gange of four lost power cause they never got the real power,with mao's death ,those people were destined to doom,same goes to huaguofeng,he didnt have strong background. jzm still exercises some influence as we can see during this parade.but the whole pecking order system is getting much better now ,hopefully can be totally avoided in the near future.

and the comment in my previous post was made by some of my foreign friends,they still have that kind of stereotype towards china,and i have to say that some part of those stereotypes have some truth in them.

**xinhui** · 04 Oct 09,, 07:00

pChan and nirmal

Gents, I highly recommend a lesson in Chinese economic history before commenting.

Look at the Chinese economy from 1978 to 1984 during the rural reform period, to the 1983 to 1988's experiment with export zones and the failure of the dual price control system which led to the hyper inflation of the late 1980s.

Deng's 2002 Southern tour and the beginning of the micro-economic adjustment "policy". the breaking-the-iron-rice-bowl period of the mid 1990s, Asian economic crisis of 1997, economic overhead of the 2003, to the banking crisis of 2005.

My point, there is no single factor that changed China's economic path. (notice I did not use words like "success" or "failure")

**xinhui** · 04 Oct 09,, 07:05

Originally Posted by xizhimen

gange of four lost power cause they never got the real power,with mao's death ,those people were destined to doom,same goes to huaguofeng,he didnt have strong background. jzm still exercises some influence as we can see during this parade.but the whole pecking order system is getting much better now ,hopefully can be totally avoided in the near future.

and the comment in my previous post was made by some of my foreign friends,they still have that kind of stereotype towards china,and i have to say that some part of those stereotypes have some truth in them.

The keyword is ""institutionization". decision making is not based on strong personalities, but rather based on internal debates with inputs from exports. The lack "institutionization" can occur in any form of government, including the democratic one.

**Luke Gu** · 04 Oct 09,, 07:08

Deng's 2002 Southern tour and the beginning of the micro-economic adjustment "policy".

Xin，you make a mistake。It happned in 1992.Deng dead in 1997 before HongKong return to China。

**xinhui** · 04 Oct 09,, 07:10

Originally Posted by Luke Gu

Xin，you make a mistake。It happned in 1992.Deng dead in 1997 before HongKong return to China。

thanks. I blame my fast fingers.

**Luke Gu** · 04 Oct 09,, 07:17

Originally Posted by xinhui

The keyword is ""institutionization". decision making is not based on strong personalities, but rather based on internal debates with inputs from exports. The lack "institutionization" can occur in any form of government, including the democratic one.

xinhui，Democratic countries have established institutionization at least。But China never established it。The best thing I can see is we Determine the term of the Chairman。As for how to choose Chairman，people can do nothing。

thanks. I blame my fast fingers.

You're a wisdom person。

**xinhui** · 04 Oct 09,, 07:20

Who manages economic policies? Chairman Hu or PM Wen.

Of course Chinese want their cake and eat it too and since what we want has no impact on Beijing, so the best we can do is be a neutral observer and analysis the their policies.

As for me, I am an investor of index fund (you actually think I spend time reading policy paper for fun?)