This TED Talk challenges and educates our view of the (authoritarian?) one-party system of the People’s Republic of China.
For years, I’ve been a critic of the PRC’s government, but it’s reinvented itself so much over just my own lifetime that I can’t keep my own opinions static. I am still concerned about human rights, Tibetan occupation, and cannot forgive the Cultural Revolution‘s oppression of traditional Chinese culture, from medicine to religion to martial arts. But economic advances of a planned economy are not all smog-and-mirrors, building empty cities to prop up the GNP figures while displacing millions by projects such as the Three Gorges Dam.
The alternative to democracy is not devoid of popular control, and in some ways has succeeded where Western representative, two-party or multi-party republics have failed. And the speaker suggests an interesting thought: The West is in decline because it assumes the moral high ground and imposes it on others instead of addressing endemic imperfections.
I cannot say this isn’t a tad propagandist, or at least unbiased. But it’s insightful and thought-provoking. Enjoy!
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