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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   36173 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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The big story today: Xi Jinping secures historic third term as leader of China

The Communist Party leader broke with the traditional two-term limit, extending his authoritarian rule over the world’s second-largest economy.

HONG KONG — Xi Jinping secured a historic third term as the leader of China on Sunday, cementing his status as the country’s most powerful figure in decades and extending his authoritarian rule over the world’s second-largest economy.

Xi’s third five-year term became official when he was the first to walk out onstage at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, where a twice-a-decade congress of the ruling Chinese Communist Party wrapped up Saturday. He was followed in descending order of rank by the six other members of the new Politburo Standing Committee, China’s top leadership body.

Chinese stocks are falling hard on this news, down 10% or more. Is the prelude to something worse, or will China recover?

Of course, the media has its priorities right:

In his speech opening the party congress on Oct. 16, Xi said he remained “committed to the fundamental national policy of gender equality.” But only 11 of the new Central Committee’s 205 members are women, and there is not a single woman in the new 24-member Politburo. (The previous Politburo’s only female member, Sun Chunlan, retired at 72.)

The second largest economy in the world may be in economic and political crisis, but are there enough women in power?

Dictators always follow the same pattern – start with breaking the two-term rule and then break the country.

A lot of places don't have a two term rule or anything similar, leading to prime ministers who sit 10-15 years and there are no issues. In short, I'm not really understanding the doom and gloom in your post.

All those places have serious issues.

Most places have serious issues.

I don't subscribe to the view that every country is basically the same. Serious issues in poor countries are much much worse than those in rich countries.

I agree completely. Where I don't agree is that if we just had voting booths and term limits, those problems would be in any meaningful way affected.

Netherlands, a famous hotbed of authoritarianism and dictators, currently has its longing serving prime minister in history surpassing 3 American president terms.

I don't know even his name. Apparently he is of no significance because the system is stronger than the leader. Very timely tweet from Tabeb in this regard: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1584882478287757312

Stop complaining about the turnover in Britain. You don't seem to get it. It is much healthier and more stable than Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other nations that have NO turnover. The virtue of the system is that it does not depend on a single person

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