I disagree with the notion that human rights are a problem in China compared to the west. First of all, we have to clarify what we mean by rights here. The types of rights people in the west enjoy are poorly defined and largely ephemeral such as the right to free speech. This is no more than jester’s privilege where you’re allowed to scream into the void, but you typically cannot translate that into any tangible action.
For example, people in the US have the right to vote and to elect politicians. Yet, the tangible outcome is that the political system represents the interests of the ruling capital owning class and not the voting majority. As Eric Li put it, the biggest difference in the political systems between China and US is that in America, you can change the political parties but you can’t change policies. In China, you can’t change the party but you can change policies.
The ongoing genocide in Gaza is another great example. Majority of western public opposes this atrocity, but the regimes they live under actively facilitate the continuation of the atrocities. Here, not only the rights of the citizens of the west are nowhere to be found, but it’s also the rights of people living outside the west that are being trampled. The west is responsible for destruction of many countries in the past decades, and by extension the rights of millions of people who lived in them.
Furthermore, the western conception of human rights focuses on positive freedoms while largely ignoring the importance of negative freedoms, such as freedom from poverty and the fear of illness or a lack of financial security in old age. These are tangible, real-world freedoms that directly impact our quality of life. This brings us to the subject of liberal ideology and the fact that it is directly at odds with meaningful human rights.
Liberalism consists of two main parts. First is political liberalism which focuses on wholesome ideas such as individual freedoms and democracy. Second is economic liberalism which centers around free markets, private property, and wealth accumulation. These two aspects form a contradiction. Political liberalism purports to support everyone’s freedom, while economic liberalism enshrines private property rights as sacred in laws and constitutions, effectively removing them from political debate.
As a result, liberalism justifies the use of state violence to safeguard property rights, over supporting ordinary people, which contradicts the promises of fairness and equality. Private property is seen as a key part of individual freedom under liberalism, and this provides the foundational justification for the rich to keep their wealth while ignoring the needs of everyone else. Thus, the talk of freedom and democracy ends up being nothing more than a fig leaf to provide cover for justifying capitalist relations.
The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23119/w23119.pdf
All these things translate into tangible freedoms allowing people to live their lives to the fullest. Freedom can be seen as the measure of personal agency an individual enjoys within the framework of society. A good measure of whether people genuinely feel free is to look at what people of the country have to say on the subject. Even as mainstream western media openly admits, people in China overwhelmingly see their system as being democratic, and the government enjoys broad public trust and support.
Russia is much more democratic than Ukraine. While Russia is unfortunately still capitalist and therefore ruled by a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, it is no less democratic than the western countries - countries that are also bourgeois dictatorships - that call Russia autocratic as a convenient way to demonize their enemy. Meanwhile Ukraine is ruled by a fascist coup regime installed by NATO, a regime that has indefinitely suspended elections and regularly kidnaps members of its population off the street in unmarked vans to be sent off to the front lines of the war as cannon fodder. It is the most openly neo-Nazi country on the planet, much to the consternation of western journos and politicians who have to keep making excuses and trying to redirect everyone’s attention away from the swastikas and cult-like deference to a dead Nazi nationalist.
So if you’re disregarding the previous comment because you think its sources are dubious all because they report on topics you find distasteful, it’s time you started questioning the sources that you have mistakenly trusted, the ones that are telling you the lies about Ukraine that you seem to have swallowed without any critical thought or questioning.
Hopefully we can all agree at least that yes, China is far more democratic than any of the above in that its people can and do effect change in the system that governs them, and they are almost universally happy with their government.
I disagree with the notion that human rights are a problem in China compared to the west. First of all, we have to clarify what we mean by rights here. The types of rights people in the west enjoy are poorly defined and largely ephemeral such as the right to free speech. This is no more than jester’s privilege where you’re allowed to scream into the void, but you typically cannot translate that into any tangible action.
For example, people in the US have the right to vote and to elect politicians. Yet, the tangible outcome is that the political system represents the interests of the ruling capital owning class and not the voting majority. As Eric Li put it, the biggest difference in the political systems between China and US is that in America, you can change the political parties but you can’t change policies. In China, you can’t change the party but you can change policies.
The US also practices modern day slavery which violates fundamental human rights even as the west defines them.
The ongoing genocide in Gaza is another great example. Majority of western public opposes this atrocity, but the regimes they live under actively facilitate the continuation of the atrocities. Here, not only the rights of the citizens of the west are nowhere to be found, but it’s also the rights of people living outside the west that are being trampled. The west is responsible for destruction of many countries in the past decades, and by extension the rights of millions of people who lived in them.
Furthermore, the western conception of human rights focuses on positive freedoms while largely ignoring the importance of negative freedoms, such as freedom from poverty and the fear of illness or a lack of financial security in old age. These are tangible, real-world freedoms that directly impact our quality of life. This brings us to the subject of liberal ideology and the fact that it is directly at odds with meaningful human rights.
Liberalism consists of two main parts. First is political liberalism which focuses on wholesome ideas such as individual freedoms and democracy. Second is economic liberalism which centers around free markets, private property, and wealth accumulation. These two aspects form a contradiction. Political liberalism purports to support everyone’s freedom, while economic liberalism enshrines private property rights as sacred in laws and constitutions, effectively removing them from political debate.
As a result, liberalism justifies the use of state violence to safeguard property rights, over supporting ordinary people, which contradicts the promises of fairness and equality. Private property is seen as a key part of individual freedom under liberalism, and this provides the foundational justification for the rich to keep their wealth while ignoring the needs of everyone else. Thus, the talk of freedom and democracy ends up being nothing more than a fig leaf to provide cover for justifying capitalist relations.
On the other hand, people in China enjoy genuine human rights, like right to housing, education, and healthcare. 90% of families in the country own their home giving China one of the highest home ownership rates in the world. What’s more is that 80% of these homes are owned outright, without mortgages or any other leans. https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/03/30/how-people-in-china-afford-their-outrageously-expensive-homes
The real (inflation-adjusted) incomes of the poorest half of the Chinese population increased by more than four hundred percent from 1978 to 2015, while real incomes of the poorest half of the US population actually declined during the same time period. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23119/w23119.pdf
From 1978 to 2000, the number of people in China living on under $1/day fell by 300 million, reversing a global trend of rising poverty that had lasted half a century (i.e. if China were excluded, the world’s total poverty population would have risen) https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/China’s-Economic-Growth-and-Poverty-Reduction-Angang-Linlin/c883fc7496aa1b920b05dc2546b880f54b9c77a4
In fact, people in China enjoy high levels of social mobility in general https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/18/world/asia/china-social-mobility.html
Student debt in China is virtually non-existent because education is not run for profit. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jlim/2016/08/29/why-china-doesnt-have-a-student-debt-problem/
China massively invests in public infrastructure. They used more concrete in 3 years than US in all of 20th century https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2014/12/05/china-used-more-concrete-in-3-years-than-the-u-s-used-in-the-entire-20th-century-infographic/
China also built 27,000km of high speed rail in a decade https://www.railjournal.com/passenger/high-speed/ten-years-27000km-china-celebrates-a-decade-of-high-speed/
All these things translate into tangible freedoms allowing people to live their lives to the fullest. Freedom can be seen as the measure of personal agency an individual enjoys within the framework of society. A good measure of whether people genuinely feel free is to look at what people of the country have to say on the subject. Even as mainstream western media openly admits, people in China overwhelmingly see their system as being democratic, and the government enjoys broad public trust and support.
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Russia is much more democratic than Ukraine. While Russia is unfortunately still capitalist and therefore ruled by a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, it is no less democratic than the western countries - countries that are also bourgeois dictatorships - that call Russia autocratic as a convenient way to demonize their enemy. Meanwhile Ukraine is ruled by a fascist coup regime installed by NATO, a regime that has indefinitely suspended elections and regularly kidnaps members of its population off the street in unmarked vans to be sent off to the front lines of the war as cannon fodder. It is the most openly neo-Nazi country on the planet, much to the consternation of western journos and politicians who have to keep making excuses and trying to redirect everyone’s attention away from the swastikas and cult-like deference to a dead Nazi nationalist.
So if you’re disregarding the previous comment because you think its sources are dubious all because they report on topics you find distasteful, it’s time you started questioning the sources that you have mistakenly trusted, the ones that are telling you the lies about Ukraine that you seem to have swallowed without any critical thought or questioning.
Hopefully we can all agree at least that yes, China is far more democratic than any of the above in that its people can and do effect change in the system that governs them, and they are almost universally happy with their government.
The sources I use are mainstream western sources. Just because you don’t like what these sources show does make them invalid.