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Biden says he still believes Xi Jinping is a dictator

https://lemmy.world/post/8330852

Biden says he still believes Xi Jinping is a dictator - Lemmy.World

US President Joe Biden said Wednesday he still believes Chinese President Xi Jinping is a dictator, even as the two leaders made progress in their relationship during a meeting outside San Francisco. “Well, look, he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden told CNN’s MJ Lee. “Anyway, we made progress.” When asked about Biden’s latest comment at a Chinese Foreign Ministry briefing on Thursday, a spokesperson called it “extremely erroneous” and an “irresponsible political maneuver, which China firmly opposes.”

Nov 16, 2023 at 12:25pmWeb
Show threadBloodSlutNov 16, 2023

What a weird way to define a dictator.

Not “he has been in power for an extended period of time in a country with a single ruling party.”

But “he runs a communist country that has a different government than ours”?

Show threadMindSkipperBro12Nov 16, 2023
Probably aiming for the elderly votes or something. Then again, the guy is old himself so I don’t know.
Show threadTelorandNov 16, 2023

Then again, the guy is old himself so I don’t know.

The core problem, sadly. Millennials and younger can’t relate to his worldview without doing a generational-history deep dive.

I’ll still vote for him if he’s the frontrunner, because I don’t enjoy the thought of the fascist alternative, and he’s done a better job than I expected in a lot of areas, but he won’t get my vote in the primaries.

Show threadHeresy_generatorNov 16, 2023

Their form of government is currently totalitarian autocracy. That form of government is ruled by a dictator. It just is what it is.

He's saying, "they have their system, we have ours and they're just different"; he's trying to walk the line of being honest without sounding overly derogatory.

Show threadUniquitousNov 16, 2023
Why is that weird? Seems fairly commonplace to me.
Show threadPatapon EnjoyerNov 16, 2023
It’s weird that he said the quiet part out loud
Show threadMotoAshNov 16, 2023
Because it is fundamentally wrong.
Show threadgregorumNov 16, 2023
The US president being wrong about something isn’t weird. I wish it were, but it isn’t. 
Show threadUniquitousNov 16, 2023
Wrong != weird.
Show threadAmaltheamannenNov 16, 2023
Not really. They have a kind of controlled capitalism where they don’t allow the rich to be too greedy or corrupt. The theory is that you can’t go directly from feudalism to communism, you need capitalism first for rapid development.
Show threadMotoAshNov 16, 2023
and what is the destination of late-stage capitalism?
Show threadBuelldozerNov 16, 2023

They have a kind of controlled capitalism where they don’t allow the rich to be too greedy or corrupt.

I think it’s more accurate to say that they don’t allow the rich to be become too powerful, which is very different from allowing them to be overly greedy or corrupt.

For example Jack Ma, he’s no more greedy or corrupt than many other ultra successful Chinese business people and China didn’t care about him until he got too popular and he started speaking negatively about the CCP in public. He was popular, rich, and criticizing the CCP so they took him down.

Ren Zhiqiang is another example. The CCP was fine with him being stupid wealthy and corrupt as hell but then he started getting popular by criticizing the CCP and that they wouldn’t tolerate and sent “Big Cannon Ren” to prison as quickly as possible.

You don’t even have to Oligarch status to draw their ire. Remember Peng Shuai? She was popular and became a threat to the CCP after making sexual assault allegations against a high ranking official. They do it to famous people of all types but only after they start criticizing the CCP. It’s not a co-incidence.

Unless someone’s Greed and / or Corruption becomes a threat to the Government itself the CCP doesn’t give two shits. It’s why the people behind Evergrande, Country Gardens, and Zhongzhi got away with INSANE levels of greed and corruption for so long. The CCP knew it was happening and didn’t care until that Greed and Corruption was threatening to topple the economy and thus the CCP itself.

Ren Zhiqiang - Wikipedia

Show threadbitspleaseNov 16, 2023
In what sense is modern China a communist country?
Show threadgregorumNov 16, 2023
They insist very much that they’re communist. Like, a lot. It’s even on their letterhead and business cards and website!
Show threaddavepleasebehaveNov 16, 2023
like the USA likes to imagine it is democratic rather than an oligarchy.
Show threadgregorumNov 16, 2023
I’d argue that we’re way more democratic than they are communist. But that would be a very long and tedious argument.
Show threadBernie_SandalsNov 17, 2023
This is basically the Democratic Socialist argument against China. If democracy is a prerequisite for “true socialism”, then the USA is actually closer to achieving that than China.
Show threadCowbeeNov 17, 2023

A few things:

Democratic Socialism isn’t necessarily the only democratic form of Socialism. DemSoc refers to a Socialist system with Liberal Democracy, as opposed to forms like ParEcon, Council Communism, Syndicalism, Soviet Democracy, etc.

Secondly, technically China subscribes to a form of Democracy, based on the concept of Democratic Centralism.

I personally don’t think the US or China is actually very Democratic, neither are truly accountable to the will of the people. The US is slightly more democratic, but it isn’t saying much.

Show threadBernie_SandalsNov 17, 2023

Agree with almost everything you said, didn’t mean to come off like I was saying Democratic Socialism is the only form of Socialism with Democracy. I used democratic socialism use DemSocs are a bit more prevalent.

I am always dubious of “Democratic Centralism” though, at least in mainstream ML parties. Always seems to be a way to ban factionalism and therefore any opinion dissenting from the party line.

Show threadGoblin_ModeNov 17, 2023

Fair and based.

We are still actually an Oligarchy though lol just, like you said, closer to what we claim we are then China is

Show threadmarkrNov 16, 2023
They think that they are. Part of marxist theory, at least traditional ‘orthodox’ marxist theory is that the development of a capitalist mode of production is essential to development of revolutionary consciousness in the proletariat. The CCP keeps its oligarchs on a leash. They have been allowed to prosper only as part of the rapid modernization of the Chinese economy over the last 30-40 years.
Show threadBuelldozerNov 16, 2023

I’m not a big fan of President Biden after some consideration I’ve decided I do like his answer. It’s nuanced, which means the Internet won’t understand it, but it answered the question correctly (Yes he is) while making it clear that other countries have different styles of Government that we may not like but must accept if we want to have relations with them.

Countries with Liberal Democracies, like the United States, have no responsibility to lie about another countries style of Government to spare their feelings but we also don’t need to let our distaste preclude us from talking to them.

Show threadbighiNov 17, 2023
What a weird take.
Show threadocchionautNov 17, 2023
Nah its a p good take methinks
Show threadbighiNov 18, 2023

It’s as good a take as some news in the US saying everyone in Scandinavian countries are unemployed and lazy, collecting welfare money while doing nothing other than selling cupcakes.

That was an actual (fake) news published in the US. And cupcakes aren’t even a thing in these countries. The person creating the fake news didn’t even research local sweets. They just used whatever they know from the US, because they don’t care to make it look real, just want to spread lies.

The same is true for most things you read about China/Cuba/Korea/etc in the US and similar countries.

Show threadKarmaTrainCabooseNov 17, 2023
What makes it weird?
Show threadbighiNov 18, 2023

Everything. Its fully loaded with fake news from the biggest propaganda machine in the world: the US.

There’s no dictatorship in China. But the US spends A LOT of money to make every socialist country look bad, because if people knew there was an alternative to capitalism, most of the ruling class in the US would fall. They can’t let that happen.

Show threadKarmaTrainCabooseNov 19, 2023
China is effectively a dictatorship. It has one political party and Xi Jinping ended the two term limit so he could stay in power. What form of government would you say they have?
Show threadbighiNov 19, 2023

It has nine political parties, not one. But also, political parties work differently in a socialist country. You can’t expect other systems to be a 1-to-1 mapping of what you have in your country.

Even in a socialist country with a single party (which is not the case of China), there is competition for leadership.

The leader of China is elected. Really elected, without rigged elections like you see in countries like Russia. That effectively makes it not a dictatorship.

All this talk of China being a dictatorship comes from US propaganda.

So let me try and break a few of the misconceptions created by the US propaganda machine: the leader is elected. People can complain about the government, and they do. Not only that, but the government is regularly reading criticism and using that to make things better. There is no social credit score.

Show threadKarmaTrainCabooseNov 20, 2023

There may be other political parties but none of them have anywhere near the power of the CPC. They are all subordinate. For example, all election candidates must be approved by the CPC.

Also, the only direct elections in China are at the local level. At higher levels of government everything is chosen by local congresses. This results in a system where the people at the top are very removed from the votes of citizens.

Also, the national Congress largely exists to rubber-stamp whatever Xi Jinping wants. Any opposition would be swiftly stamped out.

Show threadquicksandNov 17, 2023
Care to share yours?
Show threadLinkerbaanNov 17, 2023
In China you can vote for 1 party but in America you can for for 2 (and 80% of their policies are the same) . Wow!
Show threadbighiNov 18, 2023

There are multiple parties in China.

But political parties play a different role in socialist/communist countries. It’s not similar to how it works in most western countries.

Show threadDoc Avid MorningtonNov 17, 2023

But that’s just not what Biden said, at all. Here’s what Biden actually said: “he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours.”

This isn’t nuanced, it’s an ignorant and belligerent hot-take. He clearly indicated that either having a different form of government from ours, or being communist, or perhaps the combination of those two things (which is redundant), makes a country a dictatorship. That’s not a straw man reading, it’s what he said, in pretty clear terms. He didn’t say, or even approach saying, any of the things you suggested, except the “yes he is” bit.

Biden spews toxic nonsense almost as badly as Trump, sometimes. Thankfully, not as constantly.

Show threadRapidcreekNov 16, 2023

Gee, I hope the Chinese dictator isn’t offended.

You realize if Biden had failed to call Xi a dictator, they’d be squawking about how he was weak.

Show threadHeresy_generatorNov 16, 2023
I'm sure he's not; Xi knows what he is. They'll make some statements taking offense, probably say this is an attack on Chinese sovereignty like they always do, then it will go away.
Show threadSocsaNov 16, 2023
I mean he literally abolished the term limits which were put in place to prevent another dictator from taking power in China.
Show threaddoctorcrimsonNov 17, 2023
He also has complete control over the party that controls the chinese equivalent of a congress. He won the last election with 100% of the vote, 2,952 For and 25 Absent.
Show threadbus_go_fastNov 16, 2023
Stuff like this is a waste of time.
Show threadrecapitatedNov 16, 2023
Do we really need a news article for every sentence uttered?
Show threadthemeatbridgeNov 16, 2023

This headline, while accurate, puts Biden’s statement in a way most likely to undermine current cooperations with China. The goal is to offend Xi and scuttle any deals reached, and if that doesn’t work, at least it paints Biden as a hypocrite for working with a dictator.

It’s scortched earth politics. It’s not meant to be news.

Show threadBuelldozerNov 16, 2023

at least it paints Biden as a hypocrite for working with a dictator.

The United States has generally had no problem working with anyone, including Dictators. We’ve only every refused to do so when their crimes grow so obscenely large that they literally cannot be overlooked.

Show threadcecinestpasunbotNov 17, 2023
You underestimate how much the US is willing to overlook. I think it’s more fair to say they’ll work with anyone who benefits them up until the point they become a liability.
Show threadSorgan71Nov 16, 2023
I mean he is right
Show threadMotoAshNov 16, 2023
He is correct in the label and completely wrong with the explanation.
Show threadOctavioNov 16, 2023
Well. He is.
Show threadTelorandNov 16, 2023
And I’m pretty sure Xi wouldn’t deny it in private.
Show threadocchionautNov 17, 2023
In private, whoever said it would be killed summarily.
Show threadPatapon EnjoyerNov 16, 2023
“And if there’s one thing we love, it’s dictators. Just ask our biggest ally, Saudi Arabia.”
Show threadphotonic_sorcererNov 16, 2023
Biggest ally isn’t the descriptor I’d use for the Saudis…
Show threadPatapon EnjoyerNov 16, 2023
Biggest frienemy?
Show threadocchionautNov 17, 2023
I think its a Trump quote?
Show threadphotonic_sorcererNov 17, 2023
Wouldn’t surprise me
Show threadDoorbookNov 17, 2023
Xan you be a dictator if you are a king with a kingdom?
Show threadlolcatnipNov 16, 2023
But does he still believe fire is hot?
Show threadAmaltheamannenNov 16, 2023

While Xi’s move to remove term limits and humiliate his predecessor is worrying and very much dictator moves, china is still more democratic than most people realize. It’s just another model of democracy. Democracy happens within the Chinese Communist party, which anyone can join and participate in to elect local officials, which elect regional officials and so on.

Obviously not perfect, but not completely dictatorial eitherr.

Show threadassassin_aragornNov 17, 2023

If I go in a public square and liken Xi to Winnie the Pooh for several hours, will I be returning home untouched by the government and continue to live without government reprisal?

I think we could learn a lot from their more restrained capitalism system. But that doesn’t mean I can’t recognize the authoritarian dictatorship.

There’s an old Soviet Russia joke that applies here. They had freedom of speech too – in the US you can rant about Reagan all day and the government won’t do any reprisal, and in the USSR you can also rant about Reagan without any reprisal!

Show threadCatTrickeryNov 17, 2023
Recently in the UK, we had a lot of “not my king” protests where people were arrested for blank signs after people had signs mentioning Prince Andrew’s misdeeds.
Show threadMindSkipperBro12Nov 17, 2023
That’s just the British
Show threadAmaltheamannenNov 17, 2023
Try saying From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! In Berlin. Or the many US states were boycotting Israel is illegal.