Both are correct. China should be congratulated for crawling out of the third world abyss, from manufacturing cheap fake Rolexes in the 1980s to state-of-the-art iPhones today. It’s fired millions of state workers in the last two decades (as U.S. government ranks have swollen) and is arguably more capitalist than the United States. Congratulations!
Of course that freedom does not extend to political or religious freedom. The question is how long China can pull it off. Over the last 20+ years, Bill Clinton, GWB, and Hillary Clinton have all predicted that economic freedom in China would necessarily create (through some unknown mechanism) political freedom. Nope. Also who would have guessed that a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy activists (violating western governments’ rule #1: never fire on unarmed protesters!) would have resulted in peace and prosperity for the next 30 years?
Sen. Pat Toomey complains that the Chinese government, over different periods, has been “oppressive,” “autocratic,” “seized and redistributed personal property,” “mandated economic activities,” “regularly violated human rights,” “the state seeks to erase their way of life” of religious minorities, with an “Orwellian surveillance state.”
Is he talking about China–or what the U.S. would experience under President R.F. O’Rourke or President K. Harris?
Both are correct. China should be congratulated for crawling out of the third world abyss, from manufacturing cheap fake Rolexes in the 1980s to state-of-the-art iPhones today. It’s fired millions of state workers in the last two decades (as U.S. government ranks have swollen) and is arguably more capitalist than the United States. Congratulations!
Of course that freedom does not extend to political or religious freedom. The question is how long China can pull it off. Over the last 20+ years, Bill Clinton, GWB, and Hillary Clinton have all predicted that economic freedom in China would necessarily create (through some unknown mechanism) political freedom. Nope. Also who would have guessed that a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy activists (violating western governments’ rule #1: never fire on unarmed protesters!) would have resulted in peace and prosperity for the next 30 years?
Sen. Pat Toomey complains that the Chinese government, over different periods, has been “oppressive,” “autocratic,” “seized and redistributed personal property,” “mandated economic activities,” “regularly violated human rights,” “the state seeks to erase their way of life” of religious minorities, with an “Orwellian surveillance state.”
Is he talking about China–or what the U.S. would experience under President R.F. O’Rourke or President K. Harris?