They also have a reputation of carrying billions of people out from poverty and to prosperity. Of course the credit mostly goes to the people, but still it's something.
Sure I don't like the censorship and change narratives, but most governments do the same thing. Let me know if you find one government that is both competent and honest.
>They also have a reputation of carrying billions of people out from poverty and to prosperity.
So did the Soviet Union. They lifted hundreds of millions of people from the ruinous World World 2 to a modern industrial society. It's what happened after _that_ that warrants concern.
Another argument is that, yes, CCP did lift most of the population out of subsistence poverty, but can another Party do better? Can the Taiwanese Republic of China government do better (probably not)? can another party modernize China in less time than CCP's 50 years (1949-2000)?
As for censorship and change narratives. I can swear at the leader of my country without fear. Can you do the same to Xi in China?
I live in Sweden and yes, absolutely, I can do that. I've seen people swear towards the police and absolutely nothing happened.
Assaulting someone by hitting them however is not a freedom, you're violating someone else's freedom of not being harmed. Which is not what the post you're responding to was mentioning.
It looks like you want to steer the discussion away from free speech, because you know the West has that and China doesn't, towards an argument that if you can't do anything you want in the West it's not really free. Which has nothing to do with China.
There's none. That's why people rely on elections and news to hear about events even if they are not favourable to the government. Better informed people can then keep the bastards honest.
When you don't have either, what can you do about it?
We do have both. The election doesn't work the same way as in other countries, but I'd be lying if I say there is none. For the news, you can find quite a lot of news that are not favorable to the government on weibo/wechat if you read Chinese.
I don't fully agree with censorship (they do serve some good I must say that), but it's not black and white. I'm also very pessimistic about "better-informed" people. Receiving news from different sources doesn't make you just. You can't receive A and B and just average them.
> I'm also very pessimistic about "better-informed" people. Receiving news from different sources doesn't make you just. You can't receive A and B and just average them.
... you don't average them. You use critical thinking to evaluate the information with regards to its sources, their agendas and integrate those sources. When there are contradictions you try to understand why.
Sure I don't like the censorship and change narratives, but most governments do the same thing. Let me know if you find one government that is both competent and honest.