Polls show overwhelming support for the current government in China, I know the CCP lifted millions out of poverty and transformed China into a superpower, but still, why do they seem to be fine with authoritarianism, censorship, and lack of free speech?
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Because they end up in the crab rangoon if they speak out against the govt.
lol you answered your own question. Poverty is horrible. If someone helps get you out? You’re more likely to support them. Do you think people really care about “freedom” when they’re extremely poor?
The consequences of complaints can be severe
I have a friend there. She loves that she can now go anywhere in the country by highspeed rail, free healthcare, a feeling of safety, exceptional roads and city busses. She also loves the stable economy, stable politics, and feels like the government is looking out for her.
She really doesn’t hear much about the Uyghurs just like Americans didn’t hear much about USA installing a dictatorship in Brazil. And maybe she doesn’t care just like Israelis don’t care that they are bombing their local concentration camp.
Human rights, free speech, anti-censorship and anti-authoritarianism are not universal values, they are Western values, and even in the West there are people who just don’t care about them. Same with the rest of the world, just in a larger scale because these values are not part of their culture at all. They care more about how the West stumbles into upholding those values than into adopting them. It’s just not their culture and they don’t care about it.
Look at the US. You can watch the MAGAts doing the same thing in real time. It’s as simple as the brainwash the unintelligent and make promises to help the very people whose lives you are actively destroying.
Even authoritarian regimes can have high approval ratings if the economic situation is good. That and China as a very tight grip on their education system. Their internal propaganda works, their economic situation is stable, and they limit access to outside information.
what are some examples of countries that in your opinion don’t currently have authoritarianism, censorship, and lack of free speech?
Most of what you hear is simply American propaganda is why.
There is a difference between authoritarianism that is bad for the working class people- and authoritarianism that is good for working class people. Sure, the CCP absolutely does partake in censorship. But conversely- they don’t really do a lot of outwardly offense or horrible things to their constituents that warrent much need for censorship- like you said- they lifted people out of poverty. As such- not a lot of Chinese people seem to organically have much negative things to say about China.
It’s easy to hear the words “authoritarianism” and attribute bad things to it. But in this case- “authoritarianism” just means they’ll give you healthcare, affordable housing and education- no matter how badly you hate being given nice things. If for some reason you hate having a government that is exponentially improving life, then you are SOL. But it would be kind of weird to have competent leadership and still complain about it. Most importantly- politics in China is not as polarized as it is in the US. As far as I can tell- Chinese citizens really don’t tend to think about it much.
That being said, IMO the hours they are asked to put in for work is insane. They certainly have problems- but I think the standard Chinese citizen has confidence that things are getting better.
Because they aren’t allowed not to.
We are mostly familiar with big obviously evil depictions of totalitarianism. In reality things are less black and white. It’s not that people are stupid and don’t see it but the state having involvement in your life is considered normal, acceptable and correct for some people. From a different perspective authoritarianism can be considered ‘a strong government’ or even helpful. Some will hold the belief that the state provides dignity at the expense of individual freedom. And if individual freedom is less of a thing culturally, that suddenly looks like a great deal.
Because speaking up against it gets you snitched on, and steadily blacklisted from jobs and society.
Can’t speak openly in Hong Kong anymore these days, for your own safety.
they are forced to
Why is it that Americans believe that they live in the freest, best country that has ever existed when innocent people living there are afraid to speak their minds since some of them are thrown in foreign gulags. The reason is government propaganda combined with the fact that the negatives don’t affect them personally. At least in China the CCP has improved peoples’ lives while the American government is currently degrading its peoples’ lives.
Same reason MAGA supports the felon. Steady stream of lies from State media, aka Fox and Newsmax here.
Because the government controls the flow of information to the point that most people in China have never heard of the Tiananmen square massacre. Or the number of people that died during the great leap forward.
If you never hear about your governments failings, of course you overwhelmingly sorry it.
Because it’s authoritarian and violates human rights if you don’t express love for the CCP.
In China most of the very bad violations of human rights (Uighurs) are something the Chinese don’t know about or agree with.
In China you can critize local and state authorities for being bad at their job or “anti socialist” or “not fulfilling socialist principles.
Now critizing the government, system or China as a whole gets you fucked up.
Answer: The CCP lifted millions out of poverty and transformed China into a superpower.
It’s really that simple for ally of people. “Im not poor as all fuck anymore, this is awesome”
Yes – the answer to your question is in your top line – the words before ‘why’.
Pretty similar to what USA has become
Easy.
You wouldn’t want to end up on the wrong side of a certain Square where nothing of note happened in 1989.
So yeah: it’s like asking why the victims of domestic abuse since childhood aren’t fleeing/rebelling. If that’s all you’ve known your entire life, you almost automatically assume that’s the ONLY WAY.
for dictatorships nothing succeeds like success
”why do they seem to be fine with authoritarianism, censorship and lack of free speech?”
I think you need to read that line again xd
Same reason an overwhelming majority of American people support Trump.
They don’t.
Chinese government has been very scary to me for a long time (political/military alliances and disdain for US) and they have been long time adversaries to the US. Can someone explain why the US had catered to China via manufacturing/trading reliance? Was it to maintain some type of peace or feed our consumerism as a people ti keep us happy or both?
Democracy is a luxury. Most Western states didn’t give everyone the vote until they reached a level of development beyond that of today’s China.
And how do we know polls are real?
Never trust polling frim authoritarian nations. China jails dissenters.
So, just like the MAGA Moron Cult that votes against their interest for the Orange Pustule.
Ya and polling probably would have shown Germans in the 30s loved the nazis
I mean, user statistics say you are probably american. So I might ask you the same – why are you fine with what’s currently happening in your country? Is everything there alright? No? Then why are you fine with it/still there? Answer is, it’s complicated, outsiders don’t get the full perspective, you might not support your current government while it somehow has a majority of votes, fucked up things like gerrymandering exist and warp statistics etc.
As an example from my life reality, there’s been a lot of press coverage over social scores and what not in China while no one bats an eye at what Germany is allowing in the form of “Schufa” – it’s a form of social security score, backed by the law, outsourced to a private company, with the official stance of “Yeah, these guys don’t have to heed privacy laws”. But that is something not many people talk about and if you live here (and know about it), it’s kinda just “always been there”. If these guys said so you won’t get a loan, insurance or even a bank account without massive hassle of at all. Meanwhile China had some pilot projects in some cities, mostly scrapped them and those that are still running don’t punish you but reward social behavior. I know which I would choose, but if you go by press coverage you would have kind of a different image. And make no mistake, nothing scares the west as much as China, so there is a lot of misleading news/propaganda going on.
I have friends in China and things have been changing, not saying all of them stopped supporting CCP but sentiments have definitely been different.
Also, trump also got a lot of supporters many of whom are the ones that are getting screwed over by him. That’s the power of brainwash
Survey be like:
>”Do you support the CCP?”
>□ yes
>□ no (go directly to gulag)
Wow so many people say they love the CCP I wonder why
Chinese society highly values social harmony. Chinese society has long been influenced by Confucian values, which prioritize social harmony, respect for authority, and the fulfillment of one’s role within a hierarchical structure. In this framework, the government is seen as a paternal figure responsible for the well-being of its citizens.
The CCP lifted millions out of poverty, provides world class infrastructure, free healtcare, brings stability to the country among other things. The government is doing is what is expected of it so wouldn’t the citizens not want to disturb this social order until the government starts failing to live up to its promises?
It is very easy to falsify statistics if you are running an authoritarian state.
China is more free than the US. The US is run by corporations who divide the country and a government who serve themselves, their donors and not the people.
The human rights angle is pure BS. There are worse human rights violations in the US.
Three of my friends have migrated to china (Brit, Spaniard and a Pole), and each one of them loves it there and every time we meet they try to talk me into moving.
I’m just saving money for travel and covering debts that have me tied down to a western country, once that’s sorted I’m outta here.
Fear
I will provide a historical perspective, a lot of answers already mentioned the economic side of things. China has thousands of years of history, it’s in fact the longest continuous civilization on the planet. Throughout this long history, economic prosperity is highly correlated with a strong central government. Chaos, war and famine correlated with weak central government. So you see, the Chinese are historically conditioned to prefer a strong authoritarian government that takes care of the people. Liberal democracy is not the only system that can work, and is not inherent better than monarchy or authoritarianism. Singapore for example is another strong authoritarian government with a very successful society.
The same reasons that China rose up and the USSR fell in 1989, economic prosperity (caused by china having started as an extremely poor agrarian society which had recently suffered severe famine from the great leap forward attempt under mao), lack of educated class, lack of connections to international institutions and cultures, and the confidence that deng had in stifling dissent wheras Gorbachev failed to do so.
nowadays China has an extremely well contained and controlled nationalist culture that punishes people for being against the regime both by the government and by others in the society, ie. if you start talking anti-ccp your friends might start criticizing you for being anti china etc, similar to certain political parties or views being called “un-american” in the states