There are 100M citizens in the party, which is a small percentage of the population.

That’s less than 10% of the population, and still everybody can only join under one party program. That’s not democracy.

The system is, in fact, democratic,

No it isn’t, you claiming that only shows you don’t understand what democracy is.

The size of the party in China is small,

That is mostly irrelevant, it’s the lack of political freedom that matters. Here we have 12 parties in parliament, no less than 2 of them are new parties, that sprung from older parties because they wanted to change the political agenda. Such an option does not in any way exist in China.

they have to prevent disruption of the revolutionary government by outside forces.

No they don’t, and they already don’t allow anyone to express such opinions anywhere else, it’s even easier to prevent it within the party. That point is pure bullshit. It’s the authoritarian paranoia that fears change, even if a majority of people want it. But here the CCP fear even the MENTION of change!! The only thing worse is autocracy, where a single individual holds all power.

And as it turns out, the party is incredibly responsive to the people.

But still people are not allowed to ask for democracy.

This isn’t really true in one-party systems. One-party systems have factions and the factions all fight for their program within the party.

The same is true when you have 12 parties, the difference is that in CCP you have to stay within what is allowed under one party program. In a democracy you can do the same but within many different party programs that span a wider spectrum, where in an authoritarian country many of them would be illegal.

The US outlawed the communist party, blacklisted every communist sympathizer

I already mentioned that USA is a deeply flawed democracy, that has failed to improve their democracy. In Scandinavian countries the Communist party is absolutely 100% allowed and legal. But In Denmark when the Soviet Union collapsed, the Danish Communist Party went bankrupt because support from the Soviet Union dried up. And there was so little interest that the communist party doesn’t exist here anymore. We do however have a number of left wing parties that are based on social democracy. Denmark has one of the highest democracy ratings in the world, so when arguing on how democracy works, you should use a functioning democracy as example and not the very flawed democracy of USA.

That would never happen in the US because the US would brutally put such protests down very quickly.

In a democracy demonstrators don’t generally throw bombs at police, because the demonstrations are allowed, and their political viewpoints are allowed, and police does not try to arrest peaceful protestors.

however, we given orders to disengage when things got too violent.

Nice to hear there is some humanism, it didn’t go so well at Tiananmen Square square in 1989.
But yes I’ve been aware for years that the Chinese “thought police” is not as ruthless as it once was. For instance an Internet blogger criticizing the system is not even necessarily imprisoned, but instead the blog can be taken over by authorities, and the content switched to state propaganda. A way more humane approach that is still efficient.
Progress has been made, but silencing opposition is not democracy.

launching point for Western terrorism

Everything you write about Hong Kong sounds like propaganda. But the part about Western Terrorism is weird. There is no reason to believe terrorism would somehow be carried over from the west to China. If a person from Hong Kong perform a terrorist act in China, that is 100% a case of Chinese terrorism.

But these are two very different experiences. China is under siege, being surrounded by nuclear military bases.

Nukes can be intercontinental, so geography is not so relevant. And China is surrounded by Russia, Kazakhstan, India and a bunch of smaller countries, none of those countries would ever stand a chance against China in a war. India and Russia have nukes, but why would China be afraid of being attacked by them?
The idea that China is under siege is exactly what a totalitarian regime would claim before invading another country, just like Putin did before invading Ukraine.
Are you saying China is planning an invasion?

the powers that be in the US do not listen to the people at all, and consistently have terrible approval ratings, whereas the Chinese government is constantly working on their process of listening to and addressing the needs of the people.

As I’ve mentioned already, USA is a very flawed democracy, and some of the dissatisfaction is due to this, they have options, but no good options.
In China however, the people don’t have an alternative political party with an alternative offer to compare the Chinese government to. And considering the development has been generally good for quality of life in China, it is understandable that the majority of Chinese population is pretty happy with how things are going.
I recently watched a Norwegian youtuber called Bjørn Nyland who test drives electric cars, and who went to China, to try some of the new Chinese electric cars. And he filmed freely in China (Shenzhen), something that would not have been possible just a few years ago. But it’s also amazing to see how modern Shenzhen is, and the number of cool eating places is insane. Very clearly the places he visited people had very high living standard. Probably a good bit above average for China, but goddam it looked nice.
I can understand why people in China think things are generally good, and are happy with their government, in some ways they have done an extremely good job.

whereas in the US Indian reservations are horrible places

It’s funny how you continue to use USA as an example, you should be aware that USA is not respected in this regard in Europe. USA is in many ways worse than China.
As a democracy they are a joke that we call only one party better than China. They have a horrible history of slavery, and the racism continue to be high despite being a multicultural society for 2 centuries! They don’t have healthcare for all, like every other democracy, and they don’t have paid education.
You are not really making much of a point by pointing out that USA sucks too.
BUT!! Think about this, among one party countries, China stands as a shiny beacon above the rest. Whereas USA as a democracy is rock bottom in almost every aspect, except they have a huge economy.
USA is about to fall into one party authoritarianism, What do you think the chances are? Will the people be better off with just one party?

It sounds like you’re saying Totalitarian == Fascism == Authoritarian

They have traits in common, Totalitarian is dictatorship by one ruler, Authoritarian is centralized rule that does not allow political opposition much like China.
One of the main aspects of fascism is that it is always authoritarian or totalitarian. So being authoritarian means being similar to fascism in some of their main aspects.
But == usually means identical, and I never claimed that. Just that China being having an authoritarian government, means it shares significant similarities with fascism.

America is more authoritarian than China

By definition democracy is supposed to be the opposite of authoritarian, but most definitely USA is the most authoritarian and also most flawed democracy that exist.

it imprisons more of its people,

USA is the most unjust democracy in the world,

it (USA) uses violence against the entire world,

Yes even Americans are beginning to realize that. Unfortunately China is beginning to behave a lot like USA, which I don’t really blame them for, especially the 2nd term of Trump has been awful for relations between China and USA, but I’m afraid it has also put a strain on relations between China and EU. I find the Nexperia debacle particularly embarrassing for EU. Had it been bought by a company from any other country, there wouldn’t have been a problem. But because it was China, and Trump somehow thinks it his job to make as much pain as possible for China, USA pressured EU and Netherlands to prevent China access to a company they bought fair and square under EU regulation!? Apparently the situation is being resolved, but here should never have been a “situation”.

China, on the other hand, does not allow the president to issue unilateral executive orders

Good. 👍 That may explain why China seems to generally behave more balanced and intelligently than USA.

China is not somehow obviously evil compared to the West.

I never claimed that, I have great respect for what China has achieved in many ways, China seems to respect the sovereignty of other countries, but for some reason Xi is hellbent that Taiwan must be reunited with mainland China. Why not accept that Taiwan is now a different country from China? And try to work together, China is the most obvious major economic partner for Taiwan anyway.look at Russia trying to “reunite” Ukraine, it has made life hell for millions of people. With no benefits for either side. The soviet union was legally dissolved in 1991, why not accept that? And in the same way, why can’t China accept that for all practical purposes Taiwan is an independent country now?

Interesting debate, although I disagree at times, you put forward a reasonably balanced argument IMO.
Now I’m out of space too. 😋
And it’s 02:30 here now, so I say goodnight. 🥱 💤

In theory you could have democracy with only one party, but AFAIK that’s not really how it works in China.
Who people can vote for is decided by the party, and AFAIK not everybody can become a member of the party, and participate in that decision.
Also only one party means only one party program, and that can never be democracy, as when people vote, there is only one party program to vote for.
It’s also not a democracy if certain viewpoints are oppressed, which is very much the case in China, and which we have seen very clearly in Hong Kong.
But yes China has some level of a very very flawed democracy, and there is a visible path for improvement within the system, when the political landscape allows for it.
But as we have seen with the American flawed democracy, the powers that be may be very hesitant to yield power to a more democratic structure. In that way USA has failed for about 200 years. Hopefully the Chinese model allows for a bit more progress than we’ve seen in USA.

Regarding the 95%, that is very high, but I have no doubt that the government/CCP is very popular, after half a century of strong economic progress, with actual progress to the population too, I’ll even go so far as to say it’s well deserved.
But on the humanitarian side, and respect for minorities, China is still way behind. It is also a country with death penalty, which is clearly contrary to democratic values.

The idea that China is fascist is laughable.

The most visible signs are oppression of opposition, which is 100% undeniable. And also oppression of the truth through censorship, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre is still illegal to even talk about. So no processing of the mistakes, and no learning from them. These are the 2 clearest markers of a totalitarian system.
As I wrote, fascist as in authoritarian, and it is a fact, IDK why you consider facts laughable?

Both sides were way worse in the past, but no it is not the west or USA that has been feeding this dispute.
Both sides need to recognize the current situation of China and Taiwan being autonomous states as the status quo. And that from a humanitarian perspective both sides are best served by staying separate.
But today Taiwan is a democracy AFAIK, with elections every 4 years. While China remains totalitarian. So the fascism in the form of totalitarianism is clearly on the Chinese side now, even though they call it Communism, it’s actually closer to Fascist Germany during WW2, than it is to anything normal people would call socialism.

Whether they deliver to China is completely irrelevant in that respect.
It’s what they buy from China that is important. And it’s also what their suppliers buy and sell to China.
China has monopolies on rare earth elements that may be very tough for some of these companies to lose access to.
Don’t for a second think that USA has the upper hand in this situation, because that time has passed, on international trade China is now their equal, and on rare earth resources China has a very decisive upper hand.
For instance the very powerful magnets needed for much high tech equipment, is near impossible to make in quantity without access to rare earth minerals that China control.

Who you mean by “they” is a bit unclear to me, but I bet neither USA or Taiwan are selling weapons to China.
I am also sure that part of the increased tension is because USA has sanctioned TSMC from selling high grade chips to for instance Huawei.
China has had good reason to be pissed at the “west” for a long time, unfortunately they now behave just as bad.
But as I see it, USA absolutely started this shitshow.

PS: Recently there were talks that even Turkey who is a NATO member couldn’t be allowed to receive high tech NATO weapons. Because they made an agreement buying Russian equipment that required Russian technicians to teach their use.
This was considered a security risk, as it might give Russians access to sites that had NATO equipment.
So most definitely no NATO country is selling weapons to China, Russia, North Korea or Iran. I think Taiwan has a defense agreement with USA, that would prevent them too even if they wanted to. But I doubt they want to give weapons to their biggest security threat.

China was progressing before Xi, before Xi relations between Taiwan and China were a lot better than they are now.
I hope they can be better again after Xi.

My sympathies are absolutely with Taiwan in this.
I hope when Xi is out that maybe China will finally recognize Taiwan as an independent country.

Regarding China sanctioning American companies over this, they are just using the American rule book, that USA has so often used against China. So there is no reasonable way we can call foul over that.

Which is exactly the kind of things she is warning against.
But compared to USA/UK/China EU still has way better standards on all counts like: Environment, civic rights, consumer protection, worker protection, so no we are not “winning the race to the bottom”, in fact we aren’t really participating.

Edit PS:
Compared to USA that is actively making things worse on literally all the above mentioned fronts, it is without comparison better in EU, where some programs to improve are merely delayed, and not outright abandoned.
As an example the EV thing is delayed from 2035 to 2040. Generally the direction remains the same, to improve on all the above counts, even if it in some cases is a bit slower than originally planned.

Good article, and she is 100% correct.

Like Mitt Romney so correctly stated: “They feel they are entitled to it!”
Except he stated it about people wanting health care! But the true astounding entitlement is with the rich, and with the really rich, it’s mind boggling! They truly believe they DESERVE to be that rich, that they are ENTITLED to every extreme privilege they have!! But an ordinary person working two jobs barely deserve a home, food and health care?!
Remember the people are allowing this, we could change it easily if a majority really wanted to change it.

After pulling what we (EU) did with Nexperia on China, it’s no wonder China is pissed.
EU is following USA orders and is discriminating heavily against Chinese companies.
What Netherlands did with Nexperia was basically a nationalization without compensation, and we have shown China very clearly that on trade we are no more reliable than USA. The situation is somewhat resolved now AFAIK, but it’s too late, the damage is already done.
We are teaching China to treat us like shit, when they achieve global dominance.
And only to please USA, that is a very unreliable partner both as an ally and trade partner, that has outright declared they want to harm EU, because EU is considered to be against American global interests now.
USA should be thought a lesson, that they can’t abandon us, and then expect EU support to yield their soft power.
Instead we keep rolling on the bag like a small puppy.

After the Nexperia fiasco to please Trump, I have very little respect for how EU has been handling the USA/China relations.
Even thought the total shut off of the factory between Netherlands and China was ended, all we’ve shown China is that we are as untrustworthy as USA.

This thing could have been handled in many ways, and EU chose the worst of them all.
Same with ASML, EU has zero interest in preventing ASML from selling to China.
If USA was a reliable ally and trade partner, it might have been different, but they are neither of those things.
So for fucks sake we should stop harming ourselves just to suck up to USA!!
USA needs to learn their lesson, that they can’t abandon old agreements, and then still expect to wield soft power supported by EU.

For now Russia doesn’t even have a suitable launch pad for their rockets!
Their last functional pad collapsed with the rocket they launched last month.

https://www.sciencealert.com/russia-faces-space-mission-crisis-after-severe-soyuz-launch-pad-accident

Russia is collapsing just like that launchpad did, and this will never go anywhere.

I hope they have the right guy, because it seems the evidence is inconclusive, at least the article doesn’t really show it to be very strong, and the guy having an inflated ego is in no way evidence of anything.
This is where we are supposed to trust the system, which can be tough sometimes.

They chose not to.

Not really, Belgium wouldn’t budge, there was a clear majority in favor of using the frozen assets. This is mainly on Belgium.

But not rich people, which is all that matters for the Trump administration.
Trump is cutting aid to the poor every way he can, no amount saved is to petty, and no amount of human suffering is to high.
That’s the ultimate Republican way, and the majority of Americans support it until it hits themselves.
Because USA has become a society where sociopathy is celebrated as the ultimate expression of freedom.
But the joke is on them, because the tax cuts they think they too will benefit from, are designed to benefit the 1% the most.

Yes Orban is a disgrace, and so is Hungary for allowing him to continue for so long.
Let’s hope they get rid of him soon.

Yes I found out I was wrong, and I thought I had edited most of the wrong posts claiming deepseek is open source.
You are right it isn’t, despite articles claiming it is.

A facebook without the fake news, propaganda, lies and surveillance of users, would be a HUGE improvement.
Many keep in contact through facebook, a better alternative is sorely needed.

we don‘t need Starlink with a European touch.

Ukraine war shows you are wrong, we sorely do.

USA is a rogue nation.