It's an alternative civilization!
The last 30 years we've seen it develop at a rate that is obviously impossible given the experience of all other countries. Yet this, very different, country does it.
It's good to have diversity in governance systems and be able to see the different outcomes, even from systems everyone "knows" shouldn't work.
I've been lucky not to experience this myself, but I imagine it is bad to experience the "different outcomes" firsthand when the governance system -- novel as it might appear from a distance -- has foundations in violent suppression of individual freedom.
China was one of the poorest countries on earth in the 1980s.
Then again, when some lunatic American colonists tried an alternative system of governance everyone knew was absurd and evil, it worked out surprisingly well.
I guess what I most of all am arguing against is unified world government.
Kind of ridiculous hyperbole here; there may have been the usual establishment bootlickers saying that, but the US was hardly the first Republic in the world.
Look at the previous century and how quickly they modernized.
As for other examples of extreme growth this century. Look at South Korea, Taiwan, the USSR etc... China shows a difference in scale due to population size, but it's growth rate was certainly not unprecedented.
Are you sure they did? At the time republicanism was in vogue because Roman classicalism was currently in fashion. However these same men (particularly Hamilton) spoke very negatively about democracy, considering it a road to tyranny.
So at the time, democracy was considered absurd and perhaps evil. But were republics? The UK had an experience with republicanism before America, under Cromwell (that left a bad taste in the mouths of many monarchists) but even so it changed the way a lot of people thought. John Locke for instance predates the American revolution.
For the United States, many land owners were concerned with these radical ideas of free people and a republic, e.g. breaking away from autocracy, because they believed that people would be inherently prone to chaos and violence.
For China, the opposite is true. People are concerned about the autocratic dictatorship that subdues personal freedom to the goal of the PRC and state, as they believe human progress, kindness and trust will be stifled and ultimately destroyed in such a system.
I find it quite interesting.
China was a communist military dictatorship. All resources went to the military, while millions starved to death.
Not only was China poor on an African level. It had a communist command economy. Compare to how the former Soviet block countries have floundered in the same period, despite starting from a higher economic level.
Maybe South Korea and Taiwan are comparable, I don't know. China's rise is still by its size the biggest event in world history the last 30 years. And no one in 1989 would have predicted it.
When you say individual freedom, I think you really mean individual political freedom. Excluding Xinjian, China has probably more freedom in day-to-day life for individuals than, say, America because it has less violent crime, less imprisonment, and lower regulatory barriers to doing business. It might be that it can only achieve these good things by restricting political freedom.
Even when they do restrict individual freedom, like with the one child policy, and internal travel restrictions, that has the aim of making the overall society better. There's a trade-off between individual freedom and survival and growth of the society. Too much freedom is anarchy and too little is totalitarianism. Where is the sweet spot?
That's what I said. Other developing countries have grown just as fast or faster. The difference is that China happens to have the largest population in the world.
>Not only was China poor on an African level. It had a communist command economy. Compare to how the former Soviet block countries have floundered in the same period, despite starting from a higher economic level.
China voluntarily introduced capitalism in a controlled fashion. Former Soviet countries were the remnants of a collapsed nation. They aren't particularly comparable during the time period you're looking at.