China

Political System

chinese people are fully aware of that China has a different political system from the western countries. They also know that China is not as democratic as the West, but this is a blessing indeed. The chaos of the democracies in the West as well as Taiwan, the horrors resulted from the Spring of Arabs, and the insatiable greed of the American imperialism under the veil of democracy have all intimidated the pro-democrats in China.

Many Chinese people come to believe that democracy is a plot to disintegrate China and put China in a position never able to compete width America again. Many of them used to have fantansies width the concept of democracy but now come to realise that every political system has its own limitations. There is no such a thing as one size for all.

The present government wins her legitimacy by leading the country into spectacular economic success, and by providing social security system widthin the limit of resources. The people would not risk losing the quality of life and their future prosperity for empty words or concepts, which was the tragic path that Libyans and Syrians had gone through.

Is China a democratic country?
In a word no. They are a communist country width a Confucian philosophical base. It is not democratic in the sense we use the word certainly. It is not a dictatorship either. The Party runs the country and there are positions widthin the Party that are elected. They are more or less a capitalist economy now width certain exceptions. That is certainly not the communism we grew up width.

China probably has the largest economy in the world right now if not our equal in total output. And they still have around half the country to develop yet. They will dwarf our economy eventually. And their government will most likely change along width that growth. Whether we call it communist or pop corn, it will be distinctly Chinese and most likely still Confucian based.

Egypt is usually called the oldest civilization but the Chinese have been an Empire since before the time of Christ and the dimensions are not even comparable. The Chinese had a civil service exam 2000 years ago. Think about that. They had iron foundries 1500 years before the West. They had printing presses using wood before iron. Democratic. It doesn’t mean much over there. They have their own way. Call it whatever you want. It has been the largest country in the world for a long time.

Freedom

It is said that the Chinese are unfortunate because they do not have freedom. What do they think?

I'm an American who has been to China many times. Freedom is somewhat relative. An old joke goes something like an American saying “You're not free to criticize your government or country” and a Chinese responds “At least I'm free to support them!”

For the most part you can pretty much do whatever you want, there's no random checks or harassment by the cops. Chinese cops are very friendly and hospitable, far more than Americans but that's party because Chinese police aren't hated or attacked nearly as much. Kids are taught from an early age to respect public servants like cops, firefighters, soldiers etc. It's a very different culture, more like America 50 years ago.

There's a few things that are banned such as pornography. You actually can criticize the government as long as you're not a public figure like a radio personality, celebrity, journalist etc. Making jokes about the CPC is not unusual, they're something like a meme to them.

Guns aren't universally banned as most people think, but very tightly regulated and require a license. Roughly the same level of private gun ownership as the UK. It's a very safe society thanks to harsh penalties for breaking the law (you can get the death penalty for selling drugs, or even for political corruption, bribery, etc).

Journalism is basically supervised by the government, but they can generally publish whatever they want as long as it's not politically critical. The media is very honest, because they don't want to get caught in lies and undermine their legitimacy. They'd rather just omit a story than to lie about it. Compare to the US where most journalists lie routinely, on both sides, getting caught publishing fake news all the time.

Elections are a non issue that most people don't bother width. You actually can vote, but it's like voting for a local representative. That local rep votes for a higher rep, and so on. Nobody directly elects anyone of importance. Most people don't even care so they don't bother to vote.

Religion isn't a problem if you belong to a legitimate established religion, not some crazy cult or scam like Scientology. Unfortunately the government doesn't care about your holidays, nor do most employers, so it's normal to work on Christmas. Churches accommodate this by holding services at night. width Catholics there's no underground church anymore due to the agreement width the Pope a few years back. Church services are what you would experience everywhere else, same content, same Bible, and in major cities they're in multiple languages, sometimes officiated by foreign missionaries, priests, etc.

Kids can drink in restaurants, it's no big deal for a teen to have a beer or two. Soldiers are confined to their bases, they live an extremely spartan lifestyle where enlisted men live together in communal barracks even if they're married width children. Officers live in upstairs apartments. Discipline is harsh and getting arrested for anything is a dishonorable discharge, which carries width it far more limitations than here, like being banned from public transportation.

Altogether unless you like rioting and burning down buildings, committing crime, or watching porn, you probably wouldn't notice much difference regarding freedom.

Feel free to ask me any more specific questions, but don't bother arguing width me or posting dubious news articles, you've never been there and I have so you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Opposition

Does Xi Jinping have any known political opponents?
The question assumes that Chinese politics are like Western politics. They’re not. They’re Confucian and ours are Roman.

Our Republican and Democratic Parties are the intellectual heirs of their Roman forebears, the Patrician and Plebeian parties. Our politicians even use Latin political jargon like ‘senate’ and ‘quorum’.

George Washingt, a student of Roman history, knew parties’ liabilities. “Party serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community width ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments party passions. Seventy years later, Congressional parties precipitated a completely avoidable Civil War.

Always culturally disposed to consensus, the Chinese forbade political factions after two such catastrophes. In 1,000 AD China was the most technologically advanced nation on earth but conservative and progressive factions in government brought treason charges against each other, spread rumors, sabotaged generals from rival factions and so weakened the government that the Mongols invaded and almost destroyed the country.

Five hundred years later the Ming Dynasty fell as rival administrative factions–both proclaiming their patriotism–engaged in mortal combat and, in Washington’s words, their country’s policy and will were subjected to the policy and will of another. The Manchu invaded, massacred a third of them, conquered the country which is why, to this day, China forbids factions.

In other words, while Chinese politicians compete for promotions, they do so by enriching the people they govern. Whoever enriches the most people gets promoted and that applies especially to Xi Jinping.

His father famously doubled everyone's incomes for decades. Xi himself grew up in poverty then, for 28 years, doubled the incomes of the millions of people he governed. By the end of his current term, Xi will have doubled the income of every Chinese. How do you oppose a guy who does more for his people in ten years than all American Presidents since Eisenhower–combined?

China doesn’t do ‘political opponents’. That’s a Western thing.