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solarz said:

Oh please, not that tired old refrain again. Singaporeans have as much a choice about their government as the Chinese have about theirs. The Singaporeans simply go through the extra step of a ritual in the form of elections, where the incumbent party faces no credible opposition, in order to legitimize their choice.

The Chinese do not need any such rituals. If they didn't want the CPC as their government, the CPC would not be governing today, and the CPC leadership knows this full well.

Western pundits talk about how the CPC "reinvents" itself in order to stay in power. In any other context, that would be called "accountability". We could only wish "democratic" governments responded to citizen concerns as promptly!

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Oh Oh. What about the two party system in the US? Oh, how about the total dominance of the national party in New Zealand? Oh the same five political parties have been in the Swedish Riksdag for the last fifty years!

Are there no true democracy? Why is everyone engaging in these meaningless rituals? But lo! Cast your eyes yonder to the East! The Chinese has no need for such meaningless rituals. Such enlightenment. When the people do not want the CCP to govern, a simple revolution with, oh I don't know, 50 million dead, would get rid of them real quick like. Such silly rituals.

Equation said:

So much for peaceful and "well behaved" demonstration.

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Try this in Singapore, gonna get whipped until your momma don't recognise your butt.

Doombreed said:

It is a matter of history and intent. In the UK and the US, the voter trusts that the intent of the electoral colleges and parties is to represent the will of the people. How they do so is a matter of practicality. For the CCP however, people do not trust them to oversee a completely free and unbiased electoral process. Why you ask? Past behaviour of cause! The CCP is not known for their history of liberal democratic values. Indeed, the CCP is known for power and control. So it's only natural for people to think that this "back door" will be used to influence election outcomes to suits the CCP and maybe not the Hong Kong people.

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LOL. You say that while politicians are the least trusted group in US and many other "democratic" states?

PanAsian said:

The people who broke in better be arrested or the population will lose faith in the Hong Kong government preserving law and order.

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street politic is a sword without hilt. people of mainland China have already learned that lesson during the Cultural Revolution. so have the Arab Spring protestors. let's hope HK's lesson won't be too painful.

Doombreed said:

It is a matter of history and intent. In the UK and the US, the voter trusts that the intent of the electoral colleges and parties is to represent the will of the people. How they do so is a matter of practicality. For the CCP however, people do not trust them to oversee a completely free and unbiased electoral process. Why you ask? Past behaviour of cause! The CCP is not known for their history of liberal democratic values. Indeed, the CCP is known for power and control. So it's only natural for people to think that this "back door" will be used to influence election outcomes to suits the CCP and maybe not the Hong Kong people.

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So what you meant was that they have brainwashed people better in the US and UK?

Doombreed said:

Oh Oh. What about the two party system in the US? Oh, how about the total dominance of the national party in New Zealand? Oh the same five political parties have been in the Swedish Riksdag for the last fifty years!

Are there no true democracy? Why is everyone engaging in these meaningless rituals? But lo! Cast your eyes yonder to the East! The Chinese has no need for such meaningless rituals. Such enlightenment. When the people do not want the CCP to govern, a simple revolution with, oh I don't know, 50 million dead, would get rid of them real quick like. Such silly rituals.

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That just shows that working political systems share many similar traits, and you just call them differently, with an added adjective, depending on whether you are describing your allies/tribe or not.

You call Singapore a "democracy" while PRC a "dictatorship" while in reality their systems work pretty much the same way (and BTW, for anyone who follows Chinese politics closely, the NPC is very far from just a rubber stamp, but that is another topic).

Doombreed said:

It is a matter of history and intent. In the UK and the US, the voter trusts that the intent of the electoral colleges and parties is to represent the will of the people. How they do so is a matter of practicality. For the CCP however, people do not trust them to oversee a completely free and unbiased electoral process. Why you ask? Past behaviour of cause! The CCP is not known for their history of liberal democratic values. Indeed, the CCP is known for power and control. So it's only natural for people to think that this "back door" will be used to influence election outcomes to suits the CCP and maybe not the Hong Kong people.

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China under CCP's rule has a secular government. It makes no sense that a secular government has to appeal, nevermind promote a Western religion called liberal democracy.

Doombreed said:

But the difference is that Singaporeans chose that particular form of "dictatorship". If the CCP is so confidant of their benevolence and their stewardship, then why don't they give the people the option to choose.

But of cause. But of cause. They not know what they do...

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That statement of yours is just a variation of : if CCP has nothing to hide, why don't they submit to X.

Also, do passengers on an airliner run elections to determine who pilots the plane? No. Why do some people think popularity contest is a good way to choose a leader whose actions will affect far more lives than those on an airliner.

Mr T said:

I didn't say they were. Hence my use of "pro-Beijing" preceding business/interest groups.



People who are likely to do what they're told by Beijing, and/or see their primary goal is to keep to Beijing happy rather than Hong Kong people.



I didn't say that's not true. The issue is, what do you do if Beijing wants one thing but Hong Kong needs another?



Again, I didn't say they did. I said that Occupy's point was that in order to put the city's interests first, they needed to be able to elect their leader directly and freely.



Whilst not guaranteed, it's possible he (she is unlikely right now) having been elected by the people directly, rather than owing his success to getting on a small pre-approved list through Beijing's consent, would see the local citizens as being the people he needed to seek approval from. Much like mayors in most democratic countries are cheerleaders for their cities trying to get concessions from the national government, rather than cheerleaders for the national government trying to get their citizens to accept the national government's agenda.



Are you saying you actually don't know? You think all of Hong Kong's needs are being adequately served and there are no significant problems?



It's the nominating committee itself that is arguably Beijing's veto/pre-approval system because the majority of the members appear to be pro-Beijing and accordingly only pro-Beijing candidates will get enough votes to be nominated.

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Anyway, I had a feeling last night some members didn't want to cover this ground again. Does this mean that actually people do want old arguments rehashed?

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You are just artificially attaching stigmas to the term "pro-Beijing".

Let's look at it this way, the opposite to pro-Beijing would be anti-Beijing. People who are anti-Beijing would rather undermine the central government if given the chance. They don't recongize the legitimacy of CCP. At the very least, we can say that these people do not want to work with the central government.

Given that Hong Kong is part of China, it is expected that any chief executive will have to work with Beijing on many levels. In other words, cooperation with the central government, and working within the established frameworks are part of the job description.

So the issue here isn't about the scale being tipped in favor of pro-Beijing candidates at all. Rather, a person who is anti-Beijing simply doesn't fit the job description. It is that simple. Putting this another way, there is nothing wrong with the notion of pro-Beijing as the term is equivalent to pro-sane and pro-realistic.

Most people, people everywhere, are irrational, ignorant and self-interest driven. Even if they're indeed rational, sensible, altruistic, and moral beings, not everyone has the amount of information and/or knowledge required to make policies and govern the country.

All successful governance share one very simple trait: that they do what is right for the country and her people, taking into consideration of all international dynamics and plan for the future, at a time scale of years if not decades. They don't do what is popular with the people, or change policies to cater to the interest of any particular group within the society.

Fundamentally, I do not believe that people have to be given a choice in how they're governed. That's only one of the means towards an end. The ultimate goal is better standard of living for the people.

Someone brought up the example of Singapore. I've been studying and living in Singapore for six years now. I can honestly tell you that Singaporeans do not have a real say in politics, nor do they feel so.

The government recently banned a documentary on how the Communists in Singapore were purged and eradicated from politics by Lee Kwan Yew. The government recently banned children's books in the National Library just because they showed two male penguins loving each other. The government still canes criminals, hangs criminals to death. Gay marriage is illegal. The government still upholds the Internal Security Act which gives it the executive power to detain ANYONE without trials in the court for a certain period of time. The government built two casinos despite huge domestic opposition. The government continues to welcome foreign talents despite increasing xenophobia.

You can't post anti-government comments online. You can't go on a strike because a cabinet Minister heads the nations' "workers' union". You can initiate a "civil disobedience"--like the OC movement, or else the ISA will immediately kick in. You can't even destroy a picture of the Prime Minister, or else you'll be sued and have to pay a huge sum of fine.

You can't vote the party out, because the opposition is simply too weak. Furthermore, gerrymandering is done all the time to ensure the PAP holds on to power.

In many ways the Singaporean government is more authoritarian than the Chinese government. It's just that Singapore is such a small country hardly anyone from the outside world keeps an eye on her domestic politics.

But the Singapore government is one of the most competent in the world. The economy is managed so well, and the city as well. She has one of the highest growth rates among developed nations, one of the lowest crime rates, unemployment rates, drugs, and corruption. Her citizens enjoy one of the highest GDP per capita in the world. Being one of the most densely populated island-state, Singapore's home ownership rate is surprisingly one of the highest in the world. A degree-holder is able to purchase a large government flat within years of graduation, which is impossible to imagine in Hong Kong. She's rated as one of the best places to do business.

All these thanks to a government that does not bow to popular views, keep an iron fist on opposition, ensures stability, and make sure meritocracy is key.

Also, here'a link to an article about some content of national education in Singapore. Every student in mainstream Singaporean schools have to learn these stuff as part of the Social Studies course. They are required to be able to memorise this stuff in-and-out, and regurgitate it out at any time. I used to be able to do it when I was studying it. For anyone interested in how the government of Singapore educates the future of the nation, you can take a serious look at it.

I'll pick out one part for you guys: Leadership Is Key

Governance is more than just a set of institutional arrangements to ensure the effective functioning of society. Many countries have democratic elections, separation of powers and systems to hold their bureaucracies accountable to the legislature but they are not necessarily well governed. Effective systems of governance are necessary but the key is the quality of leadership that resides in all the institutions of governance. In fact, quality institutions of governance follow naturally from good leadership.

My experiences of the drastic changes that happened in my home country, China, and what I've seen and experienced first-hand in Singapore, told me one thing, and that is, the Western democratic system is NOT the only way of governing a society. A nation can progress, in fact, when the ingredients are right, can progress MUCH FASTER and MUCH BETTER when democracy is out of the way. Look at all those new born democracies around the world after WW2 and after the Cold War, how many of them have achieved the kind of spectacular success that China and Singapore achieved in improving the lives of their citizens?

Even long-established Western democracies, how many have a government that's as competent as the Chinese and Singaporean government?

China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping once famously said , that we must "seek truth from facts". No matter how good democratic ideals sound, when empirical facts do not deliver what it's promised to do, but rather the opposite has taken place, I find it really really hard to convince myself that democracy is the ONLY way to run a country and to become prosperous, as some suggest.