Comments by "Alan Friesen" (@alanfriesen9837) on "Can Capitalist China Survive Default? (w/ Prof. Richard Wolff)" video.

Much of the persecution and repression is western propaganda sourced by individuals and organizations with a personal or ideological beef with China and spread uncritically by western media outlets. China is by no means perfect and they have done some dumb oppressive things like kidnapping book sellers in Hong Kong selling contraband books. But there is no solid evidence for Uighur genocide, slave labor in Xinjiang, or widespread repression in Hong Kong or anywhere else in China. Your comment about comparing economic growth between a country emerging from widespread poverty to a country that has not been there for a century and a half is a good argument. I would agree. However, China's accomplishment emerging from the third world at the rate that they have is still unprecedented in human history and it is worthy of our appreciation both for it's impressive scope and for its contribution to the betterment of mankind. China will not be able to maintain 6%-9% growth going forward and nobody expects them to. But right now it looks like the Chinese government is trying to take better care of its people than many western governments including that of the United States, and the vast majority of Chinese appreciate that and support their system and the government. The Chinese do not feel oppressed, and they don't have nearly as much anxiety in their lives as Americans do because they're not carrying a ton of personal debt and they know that their government has the flexibility to take care of problems without having to publicly debate every decision out of existence.
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It was approximately 6000 deaths. The number is even more remarkable considering the first explosion occurred in Wuhan and it was spreading all around while they were still trying to figure out if it was contagious. As for not believing the numbers, is there a reason beyond anti-Chinese bias for that?
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@Roust7 One of the problems with anti-socialist criticism is that so many liberals and capitalists portray Marxism/Communism/Socialism as a static ideology that has to follow Marxism (or in some views Stalinism) to the letter. What the Chinese have done is to start with Marxism and adopt the Leninist changes that made it appropriate to an agrarian society and then to evolve it further to match the needs of China in the real world of international trade. The flexibility of the Chinese government is what makes it work. China takes what it needs from Marx, Lenin, Mao, Deng and Adam Smith and forgets about the orthodoxy.
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@lcg3092 Japan's postwar economy was kickstarted during the Korean Civil War with American investment in supporting industries.
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@lcg3092 Korea was fairly industrialized when it was part of Japan. Of course it was devastated by the Civil War and in 1953 South Korea was the poorest country in the world. It helped a lot in the aftermath though that they had institutions (including chaebol families) either in place or at least in recent memory which had industrial experience and was capable of following the authoritarian military leadership into a resurgent industrial reality.
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@lcg3092 No problem. Korea's history is fascinating and complex, and even a lot of Koreans don't want to bring up all aspects of the time of occupation. It can have a bit of a pythonesque feel to it. "What have the Romans ever done for us"
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@garcjr Let's see what shakes out of this real estate crisis. It will be an interesting test of the Chinese governments ability to deal with an economic situation that comes from within. My bet is that the Chinese government will do what's necessary to staunch the bleeding and this will all be another one of regime-ending events that turns out to be nothing of the sort.
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Five if you include Outer Mongolia.
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