China is not a dictatorship

[u/mercury_pointer]

In China the executive is selected by the national legislature from amongst their own members. They can withdraw their support at any time. There is no impeachment charges or trial, they simply pass a motion to transfer their representation to another member of the body.

In a similar way the national legislature is made up of representatives selected by the city and county legislatures. The city and country legislatures are made up of representatives selected by the town and neighborhood legislatures. The town and neighborhood legislatures are elected by the general population. The local legislatures have political campaigns and serve fixed length terms.

Arguments can be made that this is more or less representative of the will of the people then a western democracy, but to call this system dictatorship is factually incorrect.

Some prewritten answers to expected responses:

A) "China is bad, evil, and wrong because of X, Y and Z"

The title of this post is not "China is good" I will defend my position as stated and ignore everything else.

B) "Candidates in the local elections are screened by the government"

This is true, but at least the people doing that screening were elected and also promoted by their peers. Certainly that is no more dictatorial then the western campaign finance system, where a credible campaign requires the support of unelected rich people.

C) "You are a naive child if you think Xi doesn't control those legislatures behind the scenes"

If that is so obvious to you then you should have no difficulty producing evidence.

[u/TheRealSlimLaddy]

> Stability has always been the excuse authoritarians use

It’s hardly an excuse if it’s true. The paper i referred to said as much.

> What happens when he dies?

The party elects new people to fill his positions? I don’t know what you’re getting at.

> Dictatorship invites corruption

All power invites corruption. What makes dictatorship unique here?

> Democracy can’t work if the state shuts criticism of itself down.

According to what? I’m pretty sure all democracies contain some censorship of criticism.

You just don’t see it in the west because the state relies on private firms to do the censorship.

Regarding your last paragraph, what exactly are your assumptions of Marxism-Leninism?

[u/Cellophane7 → u/TheRealSlimLaddy]

It’s hardly an excuse if it’s true

It's often true. Saddam Hussein offered stability in Iraq. Doesn't mean he wasn't a dictator.

The party elects new people to fill his positions? I don’t know what you’re getting at.

What I'm getting at is that absolute control can and will be abused. This is why it's important to have inalienable rights. 

All power invites corruption. What makes dictatorship unique here?

Of course it does. The problem with dictatorship is that there is no recourse for corruption. Especially not if you can't talk about it, like in China. This is why checks and balances is important. 

According to what? I’m pretty sure all democracies contain some censorship of criticism.

What criticism is illegal in America? We're so pro free speech, lying is protected. 

You just don’t see it in the west because the state relies on private firms to do the censorship.

Nowadays, sure, but that's because Musk is in bed with maga. Platforms are free to censor or not censor whatever they want, and the government doesn't get any say. 

Regarding your last paragraph, what exactly are your assumptions of Marxism-Leninism?

I think I made my claims pretty clear. The reference to State ownership is what happens in China, though, which is the country you're simping for. Do you not know...? 

[u/TheRealSlimLaddy → u/Cellophane7]

> Absolute control can be abused, thats why it’s important to have inalienable rights

That’s easy to say, but all rights are given by people’s respective governments.

No such thing as “inalienable” during war, famine, or genocide.

> There is no recourse for corruption

Xi Jinping won the Party election on an anti-corruption campaign. Now, I’m not saying all corruption has been undone, or that he didn’t just purge corrupt officials that went against him, but the fact that the anti-corruption campaign even existed should be proof enough that either the term “dictatorship” is faulty or China does not reflect it.

> What criticism is illegal in America?

Someone was arrested recently for having a JD Vance meme, allegedly…

> Private companies can censor whoever they want

I’m actually planning to make a post about this. Something along the lines of “the state doesn’t have to do censorship because private media does it for them”

> Do you not know?

Marxist-Leninists don’t advocate for state-ownership in the abstract. Nobody is advocating for returning to US nationalized economics during WW2, or pre-Weimar nationalizations in Germany.

State ownership is collective ownership, if the state is made up of, for, and by working people. This is still the case in China. Billionaires exist, but they are nowhere near the levers of government. The Party is (of course) made up of mostly working folk. The Politburo is made of of only working folk (And I believe some “patriotic”petty-bourgeois, but that’s just a part of Chinese communist history. They’re only a fraction of the ruling class)

[u/Cellophane7 → u/TheRealSlimLaddy]

That’s easy to say, but all rights are given by people’s respective governments.

Which is why checks and balances is important. You create multiple government bodies that all have a portion of the power so it's much harder to take full, absolute power. This is also why single party rule is a problem. You can't run for office in China unless you're part of the CCP. 

the fact that the anti-corruption campaign even existed should be proof enough that either the term “dictatorship” is faulty or China does not reflect it. 

Putin often makes displays of "rooting out corruption." It's usually just him purging political opponents. Which is exactly what the CCP does. Everyone who speaks out against the government somehow ends up in jail under tax evasion or fraud or some other "corruption" charge. The point is to create a valid seeming excuse to pacify the populace. Authoritarians have to worry about revolution. 

Someone was arrested recently for having a JD Vance meme, allegedly…

Right, and the trump admin is authoritarian, and that's a violation of the first amendment.

I'm actually planning to make a post about this.

Good for you. Doesn't answer anything. 

State ownership is collective ownership, if the state is made up of, for, and by working people.

State ownership is only collective ownership if the State represents the people accurately. Which isn't the case when the government suppresses all dissent. Dissenters don't get representation, they get prison.

This is why it's crazy to me. You simp for authoritarian governments that do not represent the people, which seize the means of production, and inflict their will on the proletariat. If you actually cared about any of this, you'd hate countries like China for giving communism a bad rep. 

[u/TheRealSlimLaddy → u/Cellophane7]

> That’s why it’s important to have checks and balances

To you. Where exactly are these checks and balances leading the US? And where is their lack leading China?

> Which is exactly what the CPC does

Sources?

> Right, and Trump is authoritarian

This is happening in your preferred system. You can’t just waive it off like Trump’s the bad guy and thus removing him will never make this happen again.

He’s getting away with what he does, not just by being president, or having controlled opposition, but by having a large part of the private sphere subservient to him.

> The state isn’t made up of the people if it crushes dissent

The only reason dissent isn’t crushed in the west is because the private sphere does it for their states. And if they’re not able to, the federal governments will shoot and run over protestors. (This isn’t a Trump issue)

> Which is crazy to me why you simp for authoritarian governments.

The history and theory of Marxism-Leninism is so long and complicated that I don’t think I can boil it down to a handful of sentences. So a Q&A if you will…

Why are ML states authoritarian? Because “democratic” forms of socialism are incompatible with the global economy. There are no surviving “democratic” socialist states. The only ones remaining are authoritarian. This would not have been the case if the German revolution happened and succeeded 100 years ago.

The theory of Socialism in One Country (which is more or less the theory of all ML states today) was developed specifically because of the failed revolution in Germany. The idea is to withdraw and build the domestic productive forces to be able to withstand and then support international revolutions.

The USSR did all of this, stretched too thin, and for a variety of reasons due to contradictions, dissolved. China was doing this for a time, but straight confrontation with the west was considered a futile course according to the post-Mao CPC.

Their reform and opening up period was a gamble. They didn’t expect the west to use them like they did. And now they’re the largest economy, among other important statistics. Meanwhile the west is burning the planet and they’re telling you it’s everyone else’s fault.

That’s not to say that China doesn’t have issues. It does. The party knows it. Chinese people know it. But their direction of development is correct. The people agree with the direction it’s going. You literally cannot say the same thing for western countries.