It is good to be an Optimist, but one must also be a Realist. There will be several obstacles to China's "One Belt One Road" - A Chinese Dream that became an Opportunity and now an on-going major project. One very useful advice by the Chinese Sage Hung Yin-Ming (1572-1620) is: "On the road of PRINCIPLE (capitals my emphasis), do not step back even a little, do not hesitate over the difficulties. Because once you have stepped back in retreat, you will be separated from your goal by a thousand mountains".
China's overland Silk Road and Maritime Silk Road Thread
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
PiSigma
"the engineer"
I do generally agree with this position. An independent judiciary will be needed to keep corruption low. I think it may eventually evolve into a dual system (both communist party members) executives (politburo) being appointed and the legislative members being elected (but still party members and have good standing).
And if anyone thinks I'm anti-ccp, I'm far from it. I'm a realist and essentially comes from a CCP royalty family. The party always have to evolve, its just doing it slowly.
Equation
Lieutenant General
The growing Chinese middle classes has seen and grown accustom to the ways the CPC leaderships are far better than any other government out there. The idea of checks and balance with universal suffrage has already failed due to rampant unchecked or don't care attitude in corruption. Don't get me wrong there are corruption within the CPC as well but at least President Xi is doing something progressive about it, meanwhile the same ole status quo goes on in Washington where entitlement is the exception to the norm. The corporation and elitist has already bought out ALL of the candidates and politicians, therefore a voting of any kind won't change anything. Do I even have to mention the religious institutions interference in government as well (separation of church and government be damn)?
plawolf
Lieutenant General
I have always been highly suspicious of the western obsession with the notion of 'independence'.
Indeed, the very idea of an 'independent' judiciary is highly dubious if not downright self-contradictory.
Let's break it down logically here. In the western dream model, the elected legislature arm makes the laws, while the 'independent' judiciary interpret and applies those said laws.
But the key answer arises if there is some conflict in interpretation. In the event of a highly significant case coming before the court, what happens if the court 'interpretation' differs significantly and fundamentally from what the legislature intended?
It is wilful stupidity to think that only politicians can be influenced by political decisions while judges cannot.
They are all human, thus equally susceptible, and so need to be treated as such.
A good example of that can be found in Hong Kong, where the judiciary, with its deep western sympathic roots, gave the most lenient possible sentences to protestor leaders while throwing the proverbial book at the police officers.
Thus, an extreme small number of individuals can undermine the national interest at the direction of foreign powers (via the propaganda machine of the western media).
One of the harsh realities that the west just cannot stomach is that sometimes, for the benefit of the many, the interests of the few need to be sacrificed.
There needs to be massive checks and balances in place to make sure such power is not abused, and this is an area that China needs to work on so very hard. But even with all the exploits and abuses of such power, I would argue that China has benefited incalculably because it's leaders and most of its people recognise this simply reality, while the west has stagnated because it denies it.
It's easy to pull heart strings with stories of the poor old couple who lost their homes to corrupt local officials in league with developers. But what is never reported in the western press is the undeniable and enormous benefits that comes from such development projects.
All the lives changed fundamentally for the better or even saved from the hundreds of millions who moved from mud and straw houses into modern apparments.
The opportunities created by the better transportation, education, medical and business infrastructure created etc.
The power of government can be humbling, terrifying even. But the answer to the threat of the abuse of that power is not to blunt and shatter it, as the west has done, but to better safeguard it against abuse.
A recent article on the uncelebrated contributors to the iPhone was unexpected illuminating in that it found that of the 10 fundamental technological breakthroughs that made the iPhone possible, every single one was born from a government funded research project or programme.
Most of those were military projects and programmes, but I think that is more down to the fact that military research was the only area where significant government participation and investment was tolerated in the free market crazy west, rather than anything that inextricably links innovation with the military.
The fundamental reason I believe China is catching up so fast compared to the west is because of the power and role the Chinese state plays in scientific R&D in all areas of Chinese society. On the other hand, since the end of the Cold War, western government investment in military R&D has pretty much collapsed, never mind in other fields.
Instead, all R&D has been effectively outsourced to the private sector.
While innovation and advancement has hardly stopped in the west, it has slowed down, and lost a lot of its focus and direction.
The utter mess the US patent system has become has also badly misdirected western R&D resources from true innovations to diversification.
Rather than using existing technologies and pushing the frontier of science and technology outwards, companies instead are wasting time and resources reinventing the wheel at times, because the morons at the US patent office has granted ridiculous patent requests to people who have neither the ability or desire to do anything other than ransom legitimate innovators.
As a consequence, the truly important innovations are slowing down massively or simply not happening because it's just not as profitable to invest the vast sums of money over an extremely long time to make that key breakthrough. Instead, companies would much rather their R&D teams figure out how to do exactly the same thing as existing technology, but in a different enough way as to be able to file it as a new patent.
In light of all that, it's no accident or fluke that China appears to not only be catching up with the west, but is actually also pulling ahead in a lot of key next gen tech fields like quantum and super computing; hypesonic vehicles and EM tech.
The growing Chinese middle classes has seen and grown accustom to the ways the CPC leaderships are far better than any other government out there. The idea of checks and balance with universal suffrage has already failed due to rampant unchecked or don't care attitude in corruption. Don't get me wrong there are corruption within the CPC as well but at least President Xi is doing something progressive about it, meanwhile the same ole status quo goes on in Washington where entitlement is the exception to the norm. The corporation and elitist has already bought out ALL of the candidates and politicians, therefore a voting of any kind won't change anything. Do I even have to mention the religious institutions interference in government as well (separation of church and government be damn)?
The Church or any religious organisations have no right to interfere with politics or government in any country. They should focus on prayers & good work for the good of the nation. From what I heard, I believe the Catholic Church - i.e. the Vatican is coming closer to re-establishing Diplomatic Relations with China. Pope Francis & the Holy See have reportedly come to some agreement with China's Foreign Ministry that (1) The Catholic Church in China will only focus on Religious matters (2) The Church will not interfere with China's politics and governance. Yes, this would be the best way to go, as the Catholic Church had since the 18th Century (sic) had close relations with China (the Imperial Court then.) I understand some suspicion of religious interference in politics & some countries government. Examples of the "Boxers" during the time of Imperial China, and now the radicalised Chinese Muslims in Xijiang Province. Islamic (IS) radicalisation and terrorist activities have spread to several countries of the world including London recently, the EU countries and even in Southeast Asia. But like everything else, we should not generalise that because a particular religion had been hijacked by extremists, it means all Religions whether Catholics, Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists etc. are the same. Time advances, & changes in thinking & policies must suit the Country's & its people needs. The sage Chuang Tzu "The candle may be consumed, but fire will be passed on, and will never be extinguished" - this can be related to Religions of Peace & are caring to people and the good of the country. God bless.
PiSigma
"the engineer"
I don't think cleaning up the party like what Xi is doing is effective long term, long term solution needs a change in governance where corruption is punished regardless of power.The growing Chinese middle classes has seen and grown accustom to the ways the CPC leaderships are far better than any other government out there. The idea of checks and balance with universal suffrage has already failed due to rampant unchecked or don't care attitude in corruption. Don't get me wrong there are corruption within the CPC as well but at least President Xi is doing something progressive about it, meanwhile the same ole status quo goes on in Washington where entitlement is the exception to the norm. The corporation and elitist has already bought out ALL of the candidates and politicians, therefore a voting of any kind won't change anything. Do I even have to mention the religious institutions interference in government as well (separation of church and government be damn)?
An independent judiciary is still important for stopping the abuse of power. If there are misinterpretations of laws it just means the legislation was poorly written, because the people writing it should also ensure it is applicable.
Greater good doesn't mean the little guys can be sacrificed. The cases that some guy losses his house for development is normally because they are not compensated adequately or at all for their loss and not because a new development is bad (corruption).
timepass
Brigadier
: KPK 202 Km Peshawer Circular Railway project cost 190 Billion Rs to be presented In Beijing Road Show..
CM Khyber Pakhtunkhwa shares the government's plan to engage Chinese firms for Peshawer's Circular Railway project that has been included in China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The interest will be gauged in an investment road show in Beijing next month, and will lead to start of work soon afterwards.
he said the two hundred and two kilometers long railway project will be completed at a cost of one point nine billion dollars.
