Why would that have any effect on the point of my argument?

My point is about the ineffectiveness and unscientific nature of this kind of questionnaire.

Doesn’t matter what topics or debates these are used in or who is right in those debates; the point is that these kind of charts are useless regardless of their content.

Sidenote: if you had “various metrics” why’d you post the least scientific one? Like bro, brain-dead “libertarians” could probably pull out some statistic or study that is more sound than this chart to support their idiotic bullshit. If a fellow anarchist tried to use a metric like this I’d call them out too even if I agreed with their point

The only thing the questionnaire does, assuming it is built well, is show that when asked those questions people in different countries answered differently.

Did the Chinese populations sampled by the study respond more positively to those four questions more than the samples of other nations? Yes.

Can you assert that this is proof that china is more democratic and less authoritarian than those countries? NO.

At best, this study shows that public opinion of the government in china is higher than that of the other countries. Which definitely doesn’t mean all that much at all, for example I could ask half my family members and they’d say that things are better now under trump than they’ve ever been before. Is that the case? Absolutely not. Does that change their minds? No.

Now, the original article you linked seems much more soft science but the article it first mentions actually has more concrete data but still that data is on public opinion.

Unfortunately the democracy index site appears to be missing and “for sale”

If you could find me the actual questionnaire in mandarin so we could read it as it was presented and compare with the English version we could rule out some of the bias I presented earlier, but not all.

Lastly, kairos buddy, your argument was that a country (which many of the people you’re trying to persuade think is George Orwell big brother level controlling) isn’t authoritarian. Using polled data, especially that which was “implemented by a reputable domestic Chinese polling firm” is not going to hold much evidentiary worth to your target audience.

I’m not Anti-China, in fact I was and possibly still am thinking about taking a semester or internship out there; I only wanted to point out that you aren’t actually backing your argument up with any solid evidence especially with regards to your target audience.

I really am curious about the test though, especially since the democracy index paper is on a dead site, so if you could find it in Mandarin I’d be interested. If you could find a source on what “reputable polling firm” Harvard used I’d be interested in that too since the report didn’t actually mention the name..?

Oh and one last thing is that the article mentions “Furthermore, China outperforms the US and most European countries on these indicators – in fact, it has some of the strongest results in the world.” Fun statistical fact: outliers are a sign your sampling methodology is flawed, especially when the outliers are a set of samples and not just a singular data point.

From just the “my government serves the people” bars alone, it would appear the Chinese dataset is well beyond 1.5 standard deviations if the other three are so much lower and show such low variation. If this was a single data point, one would throw it out, but considering it is supposedly a longitudinal collection of samples it implies that there is a very strong influencing factor that is only largely affecting the Chinese survey takers.

If the pattern holds for many other metrics, then it implies this singular factor (or other factors) have significantly biased the Chinese samples. This doesn’t necessarily mean that factor is government intervention or bias from being raised in rhetoric from an authoritarian state, but it is statistically unlikely that this factor is simply due to china just somehow having a better democracy than every single country on earth (including all of its allies and enemies alike) by a statistically gigantic margin.

What would be a source you deem valid in this case. The only thing I can say is that multiple news sources published about this topic.

And what do you have to say about the problem of half-assed building projects that keep killing people in china because they used the wrong type of sand for concrete for example?

What's important is the framing, and what is left in vs what is left out. Those that were harmed by the government popping the real estate bubble were those who had the extra money to invest in real estate, which is the primary vehicle for balooning your wealth in China. The user I replied to specifically stated working class, which in reality should be more like the petty bourgeois.

Secondly, the scale of violence inplied by the user is the idea that the state sent in jackbooted thugs to crush the protest, but reading the article it seems as though it was only a handful of people that got into a skirmish with plainclothes police officers. That doesn't excuse anything, of course, but now we know "CPC crushes working class protestors with police" is at best an exaggeration of "crushes" and the "working class" part is an embellishment.

Finally, the article says the government worked to address the complaints! This wasn't a protest against the government, but a protest for government intervention. This wasn't because the CPC did something bad, but was a request for the CPC to step into the banking system failing and help people harmed by that.

So, again, we have what appears to be light police skirmishes with upper-middle class people harmed by a banking failure that requested CPC intervention, which they did. What they framed it as was poor, working class protestors harmed by CPC action being met by overwhelming jackbooted thugs in order to squash dissent against the CPC. See how that's dishonest? And that's taking the Guardian at face value, just reading between the lines.

Do you have more information on what the specific banking error was, because most sources I was able to find are focused on the violent intervention and less about what exactly happened in the banks.

If not, the incident doesn’t make china as bad or worse than the us but it does make the perfect image of the chinese government seem a bit more questionable.

Also, what do you think about the issue of things like tofu dreg construction? Why do you think that happens or did it even happen as shown on multiple videos from chine?

I don't personally know more about this single event, but the broader housing bubble has been widely reported on. If you want a Chinese perspective, I recommend searching CGTN.

As for the CPC, it is by no means perfect. As a socialist country, the PRC does a much better job of meeting the needs of the people. Even the linked article was a protest for government action, not against it. The CPC makes mistakes, but the system itself is better, so it's likely shortcomings are resolved over time.

As for "tofu-dregs," they aren't all that common. It has happened, it was a term coined by Zhu Rongji, premier of the CPC at the time. Using insufficient rebar, poor quality concrete, etc has happened because of rapid development and the ability for individuals to cut corners for higher profits or to meet deadlines. However, this is more of a problem of the past, and not a widescale problem, despite how western countries would report on it.

Really, identifying bias within an article and engaging with it critically is good practice in general.

Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread in China, these findings highlight that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being. Satisfaction and support must be consistently reinforced. As a result, the data point to specific areas in which citizen satisfaction could decline in today’s era of slowing economic growth and continued environmental degradation.

Understanding CPC Resiliance

The CPC does restrict the speech of capitalists, yes. However, the reason the people support the CPC is because of dramatic improvements in living conditions, not fear of the state.

Taking China’s pulse 

Ash Center research team unveils findings from long-term public opinion survey.

^{Dan Harsha (Harvard Gazette)}

The data from the source I provided on perceptions of democracy is from 2024. The Ash Center Study proves that this isn't a recent thing, the CPC has broad support and successfully maintains it. Here are even more sources on the matter.

You have a hypothesis but no evidence that it actually matters.

Studies show strong public support for China’s political system

Conventional narratives in the West hold that the government in China lacks popular legitimacy and only retains power through coercion.

^{Jason Hickel}

Alright, you did convince me that the Chinese people report strong support to the CCP and report a strong perception of democracy.
What I am still not convinced of however, is that PRC IS democratic.

In my book, for a country to be democratic it needs to have:
- Freedom of speech
- Freedom of press
- Freedom of reunion
- Freedom of protest
- Universal access to education
- Political plurality
- Universal suffrage
- Universal respect of human right

My opinion today is that, I highly doubt PRC qualifies to any of this points, but I don't know for sure. If you convince me with credible evidence that PRC is better than, let's say, France, Germany or Norway, on all these points, then I am ready to move to China with you next year.

Edit: I forgot a few important point on my democratic list of requirements:
- Laicity (division of state and religion and tolerance for all religions)
- Division of power (Legislative, Justice, Executive, etc, must be help by different institution regulating each other)

First of all, you have a very liberal-minded understanding of democracy. A lot of these values are really only "valid" in as much as they apply to capitalists in the west. For example:

1. Freedom of Speech
2. Freedom of Press

Both of these only exist in the west as far as they can be abused by those with enough money to buy the media narrative. In China, speech of capitalists and misinformation is cracked down on, but the working class is largely left to speak what they want.

Freedom of reunion (I take to mean freedom of assembly) is partially valid. As China is a socialist country, and the class struggle is very much still alive, creating groups opposed to socialism is cracked down on more. However, there exist many specialty groups, in fact there are 8 political parties other than the CPC that work cooperatively with the CPC when it comes to governing.

Freedom of protest is fine. Protests and public backlash are what caused the CPC to back off on COVID restrictions, even though the CPC was correct. You can't really aim to overthrow socialism or anything, but protests for example are often supported by the CPC against capitalists.

Education is kept extremely cheap in China. Schools are extremely competitive as well, partially because of how many people there are competing for the top universities, but overall education is extremely affordable. It isn't free as far as I'm aware, but it isn't a block for the working class.

Regarding political plurality, there's a saying in China: "let a hundred flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend." I recommend this article on Roland Boer's trip to China.

As for universal suffrage:

>All citizens of the People’s Republic of China who have reached the age of 18 have the right to vote and stand for election, regardless of ethnic background, race, sex, occupation, family background, religious belief, education level, property status or length of residence. People who have been deprived of their political rights according to law do not have the right to vote and stand for election. One voter has only one vote in each election.

As for universal respect of human rights, China does quite well, and unlike the countries you listed, it isn't imperialist. France, Germany, Norway, the west in general, all depend on vast looting and plundering of the global south. China doesn't, it runs on largely its own production, which is why countries in the global south are flocking to China for construction contracts and to join the Belt and Road Initiative.

Imperialist countries in the west use vast exports of capital to super-exploit international labor for super-profits, that's where western safety nets come from. Essentially, you can think of the west as capitalists in country form, exploiting those under their domination, while China is aligned with the global south and doesn't have that private domination of finance capital that enables imperialism in the first place.

I'm not moving to China anytime soon. I can't speak Mandarin, and I have friends and family where I live. I do organize with communists, though, and would love to bring about socialism in my country.

Edit for your edit:

Religion is protected.

As for "separation of powers," this circles back to you having a thoroughly liberal understanding of politics. Government should cooperate in a functional society, not work against itself. Capitalist countries rely on this instability of government in order to keep capital on top, but there's no actual reasoning for it. The churn, the competition, it's all by design to keep society turned against itself instead of cooperating.

Imperialism - ProleWiki

Imperialism is the highest stage of the capitalist mode of production, in which monopolies and cartels become the prevalent economic force of society. Lenin synthesized...

^ProleWiki

Nope, only one of them is a shithole.

Which one illegally annexed Tibet

I’m pretty sure virtually all of the Tibetan people are happy to no longer be suffering under theocratic feudalism. Happy to no longer be illiterate serfs and slaves, suffering depredation under a god-king. I doubt many of them are sad that CIA asset Dalai “suck my tongue” Lama is in exile. [1] [2]

and Hong Kong?

Entirely legal. In fact it would have been illegal for the UK not to hand it over.

The UK’s 99 year lease to subjugate Hong Kong ended. A lease which had been forced upon Imperial China at gunpoint during the century of humiliation. Hong Kong reintegration after the lease expired was a foregone conclusion. The last minute, US-backed attempt at color revolution failed.

Which one is currently genociding Uhygurs?

Neither, but one of them trained, funded, and organized terrorists in the region, and then made up a genocide narrative, and then imposed illegal sanctions on it using the fabricated genocide narrative as a pretext. Previously.