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I recently had a discussion that made me realise how opaque the Chinese government is. I was reclining on my friend’s sofa when he turned his head and asked, “China is a communist country, right?” Right? I mean the central political body CPC does have ‘communist’ in its name; yet, North Korea also refers to itself as the Democratic Republic of Korea, and it is neither democratic or a republic. How about the fact that China has huge state-lead companies, some of which are household names like Huawei and Alibaba; yet it when it comes to income inequality, the antagonist of any socialist or communist government, China ranks slightly higher than America. Or how about the fact that the Chinese government will politically talk about socialism and the necessity of wealth distribution, yet Shanghai contains one of the most important stock exchanges in the world.
By Stanley Ching5
22 ratings
I recently had a discussion that made me realise how opaque the Chinese government is. I was reclining on my friend’s sofa when he turned his head and asked, “China is a communist country, right?” Right? I mean the central political body CPC does have ‘communist’ in its name; yet, North Korea also refers to itself as the Democratic Republic of Korea, and it is neither democratic or a republic. How about the fact that China has huge state-lead companies, some of which are household names like Huawei and Alibaba; yet it when it comes to income inequality, the antagonist of any socialist or communist government, China ranks slightly higher than America. Or how about the fact that the Chinese government will politically talk about socialism and the necessity of wealth distribution, yet Shanghai contains one of the most important stock exchanges in the world.