"About The People's Republic Of China" Topic

"On October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China was formally established, with its national capital at Beijing. "The Chinese people have stood up!" declared Mao as he announced the creation of a "people's democratic dictatorship." The people were defined as a coalition of four social classes: the workers, the peasants, the petite bourgeoisie, and the national-capitalists. The four classes were to be led by the CCP, as the vanguard of the working class. At that time the CCP claimed a membership of 4.5 million, of which members of peasant origin accounted for nearly 90 percent. The party was under Mao's chairmanship, and the government was headed by Zhou Enlai ( 1898-1976) as premier of the State Administrative Council (the predecessor of the State Council).

The Soviet Union recognized the People's Republic on October 2, 1949. Earlier in the year, Mao had proclaimed his policy of "leaning to one side" as a commitment to the socialist bloc. In February 1950, after months of hard bargaining, China and the Soviet Union signed the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance, valid until 1980. The pact also was intended to counter Japan or any power's joining Japan for the purpose of aggression…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Why dontcha go join them commies then? It's pretty ing simple. They're communists. They don't respect human life or individual freedom. Any problem understanding that? It's not rocket science. I love Chinese people by the way. One ex girlfriend and many great students of mine. Chinese people are very similar to Australian people. Free and open minded. They deserve to be free of Communist dictatorship, although unfortunately the Chicoms have conflated support for Communists with Chinese nationalism. Therefore it's hard for Chinese people to go against the Government because they are instantly perceived as going against China. They love their country, as they shoudld. But they should hate the Communists. China could be so much greater as a democracy. Chiense people are naturally democratic.

A few short decades later, the Soviet Union wanted to nuke China back to the stone age, and approached the USA about that to see if we were on board.

We said nyet, so……

China told the Brits they'd keep their hands off Hong Kong for 99 or 100 years, but have reneged on that deal.

Just goes to show neither can be trusted.

Chiense people are naturally democratic.

That's simply not true. The Chinese people are naturally meritocratic: link

Even Taiwan wasn't truly democratic until 1975, since Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek ruled the island from its establishment in 1948 until his death with no term limit.

Unlike America and the West, the Chinese do not presume that their meritocracy should be adopted by all countries as some kind of one-size-fits-all universal political system. So let's stop deluding ourselves thinking that "inside every Chinese there's an American trying to get out."

"inside every Chinese there's an American trying to get out."

No, inside every Chinese there's an American trying to own two cars.

For me, this article kind of summarizes it:
link

This guy lived in China and married a Chinese woman. He has a great Youtube channel.
YouTube link

Chinese students and researchers see it as a patriotic duty to bring back information their country does not have. They don't really see it as stealing or spying. Besides, if they don't they won't get another visa to leave the country.

My next-door neighbor worked for Radio Free Asia. Her boss in the US got whacked and some of her co-workers fled back to China when they heard the FBI was going to question them.

Wolfhag

Thanks!

Amicalement
Armand

No, inside every Chinese there's an American trying to own two cars.

I borrowed that quote from Stanley Kubrick's 1987 Vietnam War movie 'Full Metal Jacket,' which was making the point that Americans tend to see themselves as great white saviors liberating lesser people who innately want to be like them. A most arrogant assumption if there ever is one.

But you're not wrong. Capitalism and Democracy are not mutually inclusive.

Hey Fanatik, tell your theory to the millions of Chinese protestors in Hong Kong or the millions that have fled Chinese communism worldwide.

Ask a lot of that generation who came to the West after Tianamin and see if they don't value democracy.

You see I remember history. Hong Kong and Taiwan flourished long before the mainland because they had Democracy and the vibrant and free Chinese people were a perfect fit for it.

You can't say this about all cultures on earth, they don't necessarily flourish in a democracy but Chinese people do.

China could have been so much greater without the communists.

The problem is the CCP has succesfully brainwashed the youth into thinking that dissent for the CCP equals being a traitor to China. But China isn't the CCP. It had a long long history before 1946.

While pushing back in the SCS the free world need to ramp up the anti China information and get it to the Chinese, get the truth about Tianamin and everything else to them.

It's not about turning Chinese people into Americans. America sure as hell didn't change or try to change Germans or Japanese into Americans. Freedom is a universal value that all people on Earth inherently want.
It is inherent to humanity and I'm so glad America recognises that in its very constitution.

Also think about what democracy means. Really think about it. If you believe in EQUALITY you believe in democracy, NOT communism.

Democracy means each citizen has 1 vote. A cleaner's vote is worth the same as the President's, or the CEO of a big company. Leaders have to lead ALL, equally.

Communism means that power is given to 1 party and the members of that party to decide the fates of millions or billions.

I laugh so hard when leftists I know say Communism is more equal. No, the party just owns you and everything else they want to. In a democracy the people own the government. That's something all people want unless they're duped by the promises given to the people of "utopia" given by elites who will conveniently be at the top of the tree and on the inside in the brave new commie future.

Sorry, but you can't extrapolate people in Hong Kong and Taiwan and argue that they represent the "Chinese people" as a whole because they comprise less than 10 percent of ethnic Chinese in the world, which are Han. Hong Kong was a British protectorate so their political tradition is obviously democratic, while Taiwan was a break-away republic that wasn't a true liberal democracy until at least 1975 after Chiang Kai-shek passed.

You obviously don't know much about Chinese history, because otherwise you would know that China never had a democratic tradition in its 5,000+ year history. Never. Its government and civil service have always been a meritocracy since the time of Confucius (you know, the famous and revered wise philosopher), with aspirants studying hard and traveling to the capital to take civil service entrance exams. Few pass.

Today's China is nominally "communist" ruled by the CCP but the vast majority of Chinese are hardly oppressed or made to suffer like they were during the Mao Zedong days, when people starved and were forced to do back-breaking labor in communal farms to meet Chairman Mao's ambitious but doomed to fail "5-Year Plans." Typical Chinese city-dwellers are prospering, living "fat and happy" western lifestyles just like their American counterparts. Shanghai is as cosmopolitan as any major western metropolis. American and western pop culture are embraced by the Chinese, but that doesn't mean they will ditch their meritocracy for democracy because they think the latter is "superior."

So your ignorant and narrow-minded opinion that they are better off adopting American Democracy simply doesn't wash and smacks of the same self-important arrogance as the guy who made the comment that "in every [insert nationality here] there's an American trying to get out" in 'Full Metal Jacket.' One might even consider it anglo-centric racism.

If I say too much I'll get DH'd.

But a couple of years ago at a round table discussion. At the University where I graduated from ROTC. I was invited to the round table. To add to the discussion, etc., etc.

A Ret. USMC LTC said and I find this to be true :

"The Russians what to destroy us and the Chinese want to own us."

I told him we should put that on a t-shirt !

Fanatik has hit it out of the park it seems. I have a Chinese wife, only 10 years out of mainland China, and I spent some time there last year, living in a Chinese apartment and hanging out with her friends. No that does not make me an expert, but it did, and still does, give me some insight.

I'll reiterate what Fanatik said. Hong Kong, and Taiwan are in no way representative of "Mainland" China. In fact those living in the big cities like Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing and Shenzhen are in no way representative of the people living in smaller cities, and so on…

Yeah in over 5000 years they have never once had a government that resembled democracy. There is no basis to think that the people want to rise up and be free. They don't for the most part. Or rather, as the article that Wolfhag posted, they have such a deeply ingrained inferiority they just won't. Their lives are governed by fate, not the will of a free people. I would think generations would be necessary to break that.

I always thought of communism as shared labor. At best shared by all, at worst forced on some. During Mao's time China would fit my definition of communist. Now not so much. Authoritarian, certainly, capitalist, certainly. For every big government business, there are hundreds of little mom and pop places, or vendors in the street markets. If you are looking for designer stores, they are everywhere, even in a small city in the middle of Manchuria. They really have access to most of what they could want.

The real thing that holds the Chinese together is patriotism, and the underdog role. It is alive and well. One of my wife's friends wants to marry an American and come here. Her father calls her a traitor. My wife runs a group on Chinese social media QQ where people come on in video and sing. At least once a month she is called a traitor or some such since she came to America. When Covid came out, and China forced everyone to stay home, people praised the government left and right on social media, proclaiming what other government could get things done like ours! Also, they are told by the government, and truely believe, that the west is trying to control China, hold her back.

There are cameras all over the place. You kind of become desensitized to them. The people don't mind, or complain about them. It is part of the way things are at this point.

I doubt any of us would see a democratic China in our lifetimes, or the lifetime of are grandchildren. And while there are some that would want it, there are way more that don't.

@wolfhag Thanks for the heads up on that guys videos. Talk about hitting the nail on the head. At least he is smart enough to understand the Chinese are different, than everyone one else in this world….

Thanks also!.

Amicalement
Armand

Nice observations, Stosstruppen. The main differences between the Chinese and American mindset are:

Americans believe in individualism and personal freedom. To the Chinese, the common good of the group overrides individual wants and liberties when the two come in conflict.

The Chinese respects authority and venerates elders (not just their own), while Americans are irredeemably rebellious and independent.

Americans can't stand people in power for too long (now every 6 to 12 years in cycle); the Chinese have no problem with that as long as the leaders do a good job which gives them the "Mandate of Heaven."

Call me crazy … but I ain't going to take up residence in the PRC anytime soon.

I'm right stay'n here in 'Merica !!!!

From my observations and experience a generalization would go like this:

China: My country right or wrong but always right
Westerners: My country – always wrong

Stosstruppen, what does your wife have to say about the "Left Behind Women"?

As a regular Chinese citizen, I guess you could compare what the current government has done compared to how China did in the last 400 years. Rather than being dominated by Western powers they are now going to dominate them. As bad as some may see it the current situation is a vast improvement, at least for now.

The future outlook of government economies is to increase internal consumption as relying on exports is going to be problematic. That means an increasingly young population as consumers to keep the economy growing and support the older generation. According to some "experts", China does not have enough young people (new consumers) coming up to generate the internal consumption of their economic demands. The US is in better shape because of liberal immigration.

My opinion is that the Chinese leadership knows they'll shortly be having a rough time which is why their leadership it taking steps to track people's social behavior, cameras all over the place, and persecuting religion and other non-Chinese practices. Look at Hong Kong right now. I think most Chinese will go along with the leadership because it is what's needed to stay in control. China has a long and bloody history of what happens when things get out of control.

Wolfhag

The Chinese have pride in their country as the current regime has really modernized the military, is standing up to other powers, and economically they are all better off. Not to western standard necessarily, but for them it is a vast improvement.So even though they government is bad per our standards, they remain happy overall.

<q Americans are irredeemably rebellious and independent./q>

My wife still does not get this, she may never. Though she is not a fan of the CCP, Americans are a strange breed.

@wolfhag my wife came to the US about 12 years ago, she married an older guy that passed a few years ago. We met online just a couple years ago. Just to give you some background. "Left Behind Women" has a couple definitions. Those women in their mid to late 30's and up that are not married for whatever reason, and then there are those that are married but the husband works elsewhere. She was one of the former, getting divorced in her early 20's due to having a girl child. Her husband abandoned them, and never had anything to do with his daughter. so she was single til in her mid 40s when she came here.She has an overall, low opinion of Chinese men.The older single men tend to want young women. I know for sure three of her friends are single and wanting to be married. The other where men leave to work, is just the way things are. It is very common in China so really just part of life. Her brother is one of them. He is an artist and travels around the country working. There would be little to no work for him in Siping where they are from. His wife stays there, I did not get to meet her, apparently she is not very friendly.

The Chinese economy is a house of cards. We had a Chinese doctor visiting the US stay with us last summer. Really nice guy and interesting to talk to. He said that China is just a shell of the coastal cities, where all the wealth is is the crust, with the vast interior being largely poor. This ties into what you are saying about comsumerism. There can't be enough people in China to sustain their economy. The one child policy really devastated the population. And even opening that up, with all the added propaganda, has not really changed things. Most people can't afford more than one child. Both parents have probably moved away from their ancestral home to work, and they both have to work to get by, especially in a big city. China is such an ingrain, insular society, I can never see immigration working to help them out. They definitely look down on other peoples.

Back to the one child policy. My wife and all her siblings were affected by it. Three of them had girls, while the younger brother had the lone boy, who is of course the darling. Interestingly enough, they ones that had girls kept them, and did not remarry as was common. That's what happened to my wife. The cool thing about my wife's daughter, is that I get to be a Dad to a sweet young woman who has never had one before. Her real father doesn't know what he missed out on. She is the happiest, sweetest young lady you could ever meet. Best of all she will be arriving here in the US for good on Saturday, we are quite excited. I would highly recommend watching One Child Nation on Netflix. It is quite sad, and very eyeopening. Before you watch it, you must take off your judgement cap. It is tough to watch.

Probably one of the biggest problems China has with the rural population is education. Many people can't afford to send their kids to high school. Yeah education id free through middle school, but not high school. so those kids end up as unskilled labor either on local farms, or they go to big cities and end up as dishwashers or the like. I did read last year that some manufacturing plants, notably car makers, were stating up their own vocational academies, so that people that lacked education could learn skills.

It is funny, I read an article by a Chinese journalist here in the states. It was quite interesting. So much so I sent her an email, kind of playing devils advocate. I said that the Communists really did start out benefiting the Chinese people, particularly the poor. While they may have been teaching propaganda, they were still teaching them to read, write, and other tasks such as manufacturing that they may never have learned otherwise. Yeah things did go horribly wrong, but they started out with the right idea.