I think the Chinese government has been largely on the right track since 1978, save for the Tiananmen Square tragedy in 1989. Remember that China was in deep poverty less than 30 years ago thanks to Mao ZeDong, and that its economy has jumped leaps and bounds since then.
Democracy is nice, but a gradual transition from autocracy to democracy is a must. Witness the chaos in Russia that happened after the breakdown of the Soviet Union. Sure Russia has since adopted democracy, but it is a crooked democracy. India has had democracy for a few decades, yet its economy has not been able to grow quickly until very recently. My point is that democracy is not an all-cure solution to poverty. Now back to China. 25 years ago the whole country was starving. Realizing the failure of the communist system, Part leader Deng Xiao Ping decided to push for the transition to a market economy. Many other top officials in the party would resist such a change of course, because they weren't sure whether their privleges would be sacrificed. To gain these officials' support, Deng decided to let officials reap benefits from supporting the transition. That means the top turned a blind eye to corrupt doings of many bureaucrats. This is in fact the main cause of the students' protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Is Deng's policy moral? Probably not. But is this necessary to ensure that China would not revert back to communism? Absolitely yes. Not that corruption is a good thing, and China is now clamping down on recent offenders. The old offenders I guess are forgiven, at least for now.
TUrn the clock back to 2004 and the rich coastal region in eastern and southern China enjoys GDP per capita of thousands of US dollars per year, which I think the Communist Party deserves applause for. The governement is still backwards on many issues and particularly on human rights, but I don't think it would be fair to gereralize the governement as a whole as demonic. Because only one party exists in China, factions within the party itself are more prominent than its western counterparts. Often reformists would like to introduce reforms but would be held back by anti-reformers who want to maintain their status quo. An all powerful benvolent dictator, like Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, is IMO what China needs the most at the present moment. Succesion is always a big problem with autocracy, and I think China would need a bit of luck to peacefully transform into a democracy.
And btw I don't think it is reasonable to think that China would catch up in terms of GDP per capita with the West in a short time, democracy or not. Infrastructure and logistical deficiencies are blocking western China from reaching the rest of China, let alone the world. China's growth rate in the past 25 years is already remarkable, largely due to huge investments from overseas Chinese from Hong Kong and Taiwan since the early 80s. Now the China's economic base is a lot bigger than 25 years ago, it would be hard to maintain those high economic growth rates . The governement is in fact stepping on the brakes to prevent the economy from overheating, and shifting from a "growth at all cost" policy towards a
"more even economic growth" policy.
Oops I just realize how long I've written :lol: . CAn't help it haha when it comes to economics and politics, since they are my interests.
