"Absolute power and all that"

Absolute power? Yet voted out of office. Logic takes a holiday.

"others swoon over fraudsters like Donald Trump."

Only those who understand, or bother to try to understand, his policies.

Foxy,
Xi is engaged in an act of genocide. I know you try to avert your eyes from that but are you really comparing him to Trump?

Dear Paul1405,

You wrote: "I believe China has the Worlds best system of Government....for China, AND, Australia has the Worlds best system of Government.... for Australia,"

In Hong Kong where people were able to express their opinion they apparently didn’t want the Chinese system of government. They were then shut up by that government. Same in Tiananmen Square, Taiwan and Sinkiang province. In Australia we have the opportunity to change the government. We can also change the system of government by making changes in the Constitution. China does not have the best system of government for China if that government is what the Chinese people want or are satisfied to live under.

Mao said:

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun... whoever has an army has power, for war settles everything."

That is not right for any society, but it is the present system in China.

Hi David,

When I said China and Australia respectively have the "best system of Government", I did not say they have the perfect systems of Government, each has its flaws, each has it advantages. Its easy for one to bucket on the other, China has many problems, its history is one of war, colonial upheaval and social instability, poverty, starvation, things that Australia fortunately has never experienced to the same degree, and hopefully never will. You mention Hong Kong and Taiwan, certainly problems for China, but look where those problems stem from, colonialism and civil war. Modern China has had a very difficult birth, it continues to suffer growing pains and will for sometime to come.

Mao Zedong did say that, but he has been dead for almost 50 years, a tyrant who was a product of China's environment of war and dysfunction. The naysayers sit waiting for the collapse of China, what they seem to forget is the downfall of China would result in far worse outcomes for the rest of the world than a stable and prosperous China brings under Communist rule.

mhaze,

No. Trump is in a class all by himself - as are
his supporters.

Just to expand on my comments above....

It's long been known that China faces a demographic cliff in the next decade. This primarily arises due to the anti-human one child policy which simultaneously hollowed out an entire generation but also left that generation with the worst male-to-female imbalance in history. Then when that generation came of age, they refused to repopulate and even after the one-child policy was removed, continued to have small families.

No-one should believe Chinese statistics, but even they show that the population is starting to decline. But unofficial statistics show that the decline is much greater and that the official numbers may be over-stated by 100 million. Worse, all of that 100 million is in the child-bearing generation and so the decline in numbers coupled with the aging demographic means a very troubling few decades for China. Some estimates have its population halving by 2060.

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Ever since Trump launched a trade war with Xi, the inherent instability in the Chinese model was apparent. Basically, they were utterly reliant on the west for their growth but at the same time sought to displace the west.

In recent days, the US has dramatically upped the ante by further restricting US exports of high-end and medium level silicon chips to China. Whatismore, it is now telling US tech workers in China to get out or risk repercussions when they finally decide to return home. And they are getting out in a hurry. Consequently, overnight the Chinese stock-market suffered massive and unprecedented losses primarily in their tech sector.

China has shown that they are incapable of making high-end chips - this is one reason why they desperately want Taiwan which can do so. Without these chips, expect Chinese manufacturing to become increasingly uncompetitive.

Things are unravelling in a hurry for Xi. Expect him to lash out as a result.