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"?
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.
What a weird take.
Care to share yours?
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!
Probably aiming for the elderly votes or something. Then again, the guy is old himself so I don’t know.
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.
In what sense is modern China a communist country?
They insist very much that they’re communist. Like, a lot. It’s even on their letterhead and business cards and website!
like the USA likes to imagine it is democratic rather than an oligarchy.
I’d argue that we’re way more democratic than they are communist. But that would be a very long and tedious argument.
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.
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.
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.
Why is that weird? Seems fairly commonplace to me. Like, not that it's necessarily correct, just not weird at all.
Well. He is.
And I'm pretty sure Xi wouldn't deny it in private.
In private, whoever said it would be killed summarily.
I mean he literally abolished the term limits which were put in place to prevent another dictator from taking power in China.
He also has complete control over the party that controls the chinese equivalent of a congress, who then votes him into power. He won the last election with 100% of the vote, 2,952 For and 25 Absent.
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.
"And if there's one thing we love, it's dictators. Just ask our biggest ally, Saudi Arabia."
Do we really need a news article for every sentence uttered?
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.
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.
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.
Did anyone else see that camera on Blinken wincing when he said it?
It's gold.
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.
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!
Try saying From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! In Berlin. Or the many US states were boycotting Israel is illegal.
Seems a bit disingenuous to use a phrase co-opted by antisemites as your example here. I don't believe most people say it with that intent, but that doesn't change that Hamas and company use it to refer to ethnic cleansing.
Wikipedia has a pretty good page that discusses the history of it. My perception is that it was used by proponents for a one state solution, but the opposition to it very purposely boosted the violent groups who used it. It's like if I talk about the blood and soil in Israel or Palestine or work in the number 88. There are clear antisemitic connotations to those. It's fairly idiotic to use any phrases like that if your goal is to keep antisemitism completely separate from criticism of Israel.
Anyway, assuming you're in the US, you did just say it without reprisal too. This is one of those cases where providing an example immediately disproves it, because clearly, you're allowed to say it.
That isn't to say that some people haven't tried to criminalize or have successfully criminalized similar sentiments. But the difference is that if I post about Xi being Winnie the Pooh on Chinese social media, I'm going to see reprisal from the government no matter where in the country I post it from. There are shades of authoritarian disallowance of criticism, and the US certainly has some of that. China is just considerably more.
Edit: I'm thinking of the original charter. The most recent version actually makes it clear that it isn't directed towards all Jewish people.
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.
I get where you're coming from but that's not an argument about the defining characteristics of dictatorships, that's an argument about the existence or lack thereof of free speech.
In my opinion a better argument would be that China has 1 leader at the top of the ladder with near unquestionable power over government precedings who will remain in that position until he either dies or chooses to step down. That already would make him something analogous to a monarch, but add the regular use of military strength in forcing compliance from the masses and now we have a dictator.
And water is wet. What else?
I mean Biden casually bribed the Pakistan army to remove the previous government and yet he calls Pakistan a totally legit democracy even though elections still haven't happened.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.”
Beijing responded furiously over the summer when the president made a similar comment and compared his Chinese counterpart to “dictators” in June.
The president made that comment during an off-camera campaign reception in California, hitting Xi for being caught by surprise after the US had shot down a Chinese spy balloon that had veered off course over the United States.
“The remarks seriously contradict basic facts, seriously violate diplomatic etiquette, and seriously infringe on China’s political dignity,” the spokesperson for the foreign ministry said.
Wednesday’s comment could threaten to derail the positive energy coming out of the meeting, which Biden described earlier in the news conference as “some of the most constructive and productive discussions we’ve had.”
“Both sides should understand each other’s principles and bottom lines, not make or stir up trouble or cross boundaries, (but instead) communicate more, have more dialogue and more discussions, and handle differences and accidents calmly,” Xi said.
The original article contains 533 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
But does he still believe fire is hot?
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News