Adolf Hitler tried to do the same for Germany... Need I continue?
Xi is no Hitler. But all you have to do is spend time in China to see the pressures, People, people, people, and more people. All those people have to be fed, have housing and be kept relatively content, or you will have big problems. It’s a situation that could easily spin out of control if there is not a firm hand on the economy and the society. So that is what is driving China, improving its economy enough so that the people are kept happy.
No doubt that is the job of a leader to look after his/her people first. I question the methods.
BTW, I have nothing against Xi, for the lack of knowledge.
But I feel very strongly about white-washing Putin and his regime. Russia never was over-civilized, and quickly turning to cavemen with nukes. Don’t let their state-sponsored “Religious Renaissance” fool you: they are still primitive superstitious savages like in the days of Stalin.
One of my girlfriends is in China now. She was born in China and lived through Mao. She was a promising young student at the time and was the only child in her neighborhood selected to be sent to a special school in Beijing.
She was one year into the school when Mao started the Great Leap Forward. Her teachers were suddenly abused or even killed, and she was sent to the hinterlands to learn the ways of the proletariat by working in the fields.
She’s now a US citizen, but visits China often. This time, she says that all of her favorite stores are gone, and that she cannot find anything she wants while shopping.
I wonder what that’s about. She did send some pictures from what looked like a huge mall, and it had Christmas decorations and Christmas trees all over the place. This is Beijing.
She said she could still not find the things she wanted to buy.
——So that is what is driving China-—
I would argue there is a very powerful latent force providing both pressure and direction. That is or perhaps are the young people that not only do not feel the old communist ways but see a modern world to which they can be a part. They will not be kept down.
How ya’ goin to keep them down on the farm after they’ve got daisey mae’s?