I just assume the ccp default mode is to cover up, even when there is nothing to cover up. When legitimacy derives from competence rather than from election, you better never have any high profile incompetence.
This is the kind of behavior you see in organizations where the penalty for making mistakes is overly severe, the only recourse for people is to lie and cover-up the truth at all costs. This is how projects at some companies continue despite being way behind schedule and overbudget until eventually the weight of the truth brings everything crashing down.
The old story of the Chinese general Chen Shen comes to mind:
Apparently he was running late due to rainstorms and the penalty for appearing this late to the Qin emperor was execution. Since that’s the same penalty for open rebellion, he decided he might as well try that too. And that was the beginning of the end of the Qin dynasty.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Sheng_Wu_Guang_uprising
If the penalty for lying and being caught is the same league as screwing up, people are going to cover up problems.
The English idiom for this is "I'd rather be hanged for a sheep than a lamb."
That is to say, if the punishment for any kind of crime is death, no matter how serious or how trivial, you might as well go ahead and commit the much more serious one and try and cover that up instead.
Everybody will always have a motive to prevent others from discovering their failures. A democratically elected politician has just as much reason to want their failures covered up as a CCP member does. The reason governments like the CCP have such a hard time dealing with that issue is that their entire system is set up so that you have one party, with no opposition, all working in concert to conceal the truth from the people. The “voters” have no mechanism to scrutinize their government, and no alternative to “vote” for if they don’t like what they’re doing. A natural consequence of this is that the opacity the CCP relies on to protect itself from scrutiny, also prevents central committee members from being able to effectively scrutinize the system themselves. A good story is always made available for public consumption, but what’s known internally is equally controlled by individual political actors trying to protect their own interests.
This is also why dictatorship always have corruption. They cannot have transparency which means there will be corruption.
Of course democracies are just as vulnerable to all the bad stuff as they are run by humans, but transparency is at least possible. Sadly we see national security being used as reason to avoid transparency, and of course corruption follows.
Any organisation, or group, or person who’s granted any power will tend towards trying to accumulate more power. So while your comment is a bit hyperbolic, it’s true of the US government in the same way it’s true of every other government. For any grossly authoritarian policy you see the US government implement, you’ll typically find equivalent policies in Canada and the EU and the UK and Australia...
It’s not a new thing. The (paraphrased) quote “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance” is at least a couple hundred of years old. In practice however it’s not a very simple proposition at all. People typically agree with endlessly granting government additional powers when it’s for a policy they agree with.
The difference between the US (or France, or Germany, or the UK...) and China however, is that we actually have some mechanisms for holding our government to account (however flawed they might be). Whereas Chinese citizens have none at all.
It’s how all centrally planned systems work. Avoiding accountability for failure is always the most optimal strategy, which inevitably ends up involving concealing failure. It was one of the defining characteristics of the soviet system. You can even see it play out in large companies (which essentially operate as miniature planned economies), where political actors promote bad ideas, and then somehow end up rewarded after they fail. The only difference being that companies in a free market (usually) have to suffer the consequences of their failures, and politicians in a democratic system can (usually) be replaced if they fall out of favor.
You're being down-voted but this is exactly what my friends who live in China have told me. People were also downvoting big time back in March when I and others were saying that the numbers China was quoting were made the heck up. Suddenly the western media realizes that's true[1] yet we don't see a mass back-lash against China as a result...
"Chinese friends/wife/coworker said" is particularly kind of ridiculous appeal to authority considering the average citizen is not typically a subject matter expert on relevant topics being discussed outside of generalized familiarity with the censorship apparatus. The only useful things the average Chinese person will tell you is Chinese numbers / stats with Chinese characteristics are not accurate, but analysts familiar with Chinese stats will at least use oblique indicators to tell you if numbers are useful, i.e. Chinese GDP smoothing.
Or in this case, how covid19 export case numbers from places like Taiwan, HK, SK, Singapore, Australia, Newzealand all indicate Chinese numbers are not grossly exaggerated - China only exported a fraction of covid19 cases compared to Europe or North America because covid19 never exploded in China due to harsh restrictions. The article you're citing is also sourcing figures from _Chinese_ CDC on antibody prevalence rate which is expected to be higher than pure testing data seen in similar studies in other countries. So again, it's official Chinese numbers being useful and comporting to similar measures elsewhere. The difference is western media like BBC attempting to spin as the numbers being uniquely nefarious and useful idiots eating it up, just like in this NYT article.
I turned into a jaded citizen. When first reports from China emerged, and we saw how the CCP was dragging people out of their homes over a ‘flu.’ I knew something was very, very wrong. I told my parents and immediate family to secure provisions for at least 3 months and to prepare for a time to not leave the house at all until c19 passes.
Then, nothing happened. Not one country stopped their domestic travel, no one prepared and mandated a ‘3 month summer staycation’ (my poor attempt at marketing a terrible circumstance with some positive spin)... and we all started blaming each other.
That was sickening to me... it’s bad enough when we don’t take the proper action to protect our fellow neighbor, but even after acknowledging the cause is basically lost, we turn on each other.
So my quip was in that jaded poor taste, when I saw the finger pointing beginning again... and I should have just commented this to begin with...
Down votes or up votes don't matter to me - I'm just glad (and surprised) that what I thought was basically an innocuous "IMO" comment generated so much discourse.
Isn't this the point of public forums? To encourage discussion?
Although disagree with almost everything about trump, I think he was in some way right about China. I don’t think it has anything to do with the Chinese people though.
Also, I don’t think he went about it in an effective way at all, it seems like the ccp was betting on him just going away after a while and just suffering the pain for a while.
What you mention deserves to be repeated. The chinese people and the CCP are not the same thing, just as the national security apparatus of the US... and US citizens are separate too.
its natural to catch flak, but it happens to both sides.
The saudi arabia govt is friendly to our govt, but the vast majority of their population thinks its totally OK to blow up US citizens.
Iranian leadership is constantly at odds with the US military leadershp, but iranians themselves welcome tourists from the US with open arms , love US culture and movies, and want americans to visit.
The CCP consists of 90M+ party members who represent all facets of society--larger than entire population of Germany. Include family members and it's 300M+ almost size of US.
Furthermore, it's an integral part of Chinese society with overwhelming support among its citizens (>90%). The CCP is continuation of past dynasties operating under the 'Mandate of Heaven' to serve the people. Failure to do so and it will be replaced.
So no, this often repeated fallacy by the west that they condemn CCP not the Chinese people is not only ignorant but supremely arrogant and condescending in assuming 1.4B are somehow mindless robots at the mercy of the few.
Demonizing the CCP, is in effect, directly insulting the Chinese people.
They are not mindless robots. They are doing the best the can living in a totalitarian state operating the most sophisticated internal surveillance ever.
How can you claim they the CCP has support with a straight face? First, says who? CCP-controlled media? Second, would the average Chinese person answer honestly? Third, the Chinese have never experienced real democracy. Asking them if they support the CCP is meaningless. It’s like asking a third-gen Red Sox fan if they support the Rex Sox.
Why would a totalitarian state allow 150M+ of its citizens to travel abroad annually pre-covid to experience 'democracy/freedom' yet despite doing so they overwhelmingly returned to their supposedly oppressive country.
As for 'real democracy' no country has it least of all the US which more accurately an oligarchic plutocracy with power held by select few/wealthy(ie top 1%).
Ultimately, they are sufficiently confident in their indoctrination that they are unafraid that exposure to other ideologies will lead to a rejection of their own. Where they are not confident, they do limit travel. See their cancellation of passports for Hong Kongers.
I will not respond to your whataboutism argument as it is beside my point.
The govt is confident that most citizens will see the downsides of democracy and how it leads to much social divisiveness and govt dysfunction as evidenced by the US.
HKrs fomenting riots/violence and breaking the law have rightfully had their passports confiscated to face consequences of their actions.
The CCP is an institution. Your argument implies that belonging to an institution means agreeing 100% with every single decision of the institution.
As, an example, imagine we are talking about a specific action Google took. While you could argue that all Google employees have some kind of responsibility in action s the company takes, would you argue that the millions of the company employees agree with every decision the institution takes?
One can be offended for anything. I fail to see what is arrogant or condescending about criticising an institution (even if millions of people belong to it).
P.S. I am ignoring the dynamics/incentives of being a member of an institution, which could be many more than agreeing with everything the institution does or say.
No, the CCP is the governing body of China which is a sovereign entity. CCP contains multiple factions representing all facets of society hence 90M+ membership who do not all agree and have agendas.
What distinguishes CCP from western governments is that party membership and advancement is based on meritocracy not populism resulting in only the most qualified/accomplished rising to positions of leadership.
> What distinguishes CCP from western governments is that party membership and advancement is based on meritocracy not populism
What makes the CCP like the West, though it's different in other ways, is that advancement in the CCP is based largely on the convenience of your views and actions to the established elites, which is only “meritocracy” to the extent that “advancing the interests of the established elites” is “merit”.
No, the meritocracy is actually defined by performance/KPIs which determine advancement. For example all party members must first pass 2 tests before acceptance as members than work at local rural level to advance from there.
There is no concept of 'established elites' because even the poorest can rise to top as President Xi has.
I'm sure a lot of Chinese are not fans even if they are forced to join by practical considerations. Like most communist systems they are unable to have democratic elections because people would vote them out.
In a country of 1.4B not everyone is going to agree which is evident in US w/only 1/4 of population. Chinese are free to immigrate elsewhere if the choose to do so.
Chinese citizens elect leaders at local level who in turn elect those above them and this continues to the highest levers where only the most competent rise to the top.
Communism is a misnomer when applied to China. It is no more communist than US is a democracy. In fact in many ways China is more democratic than US whereby it's govt of 90M+ members more accurately represent interests of Chinese society.
