How much has the political structure of China changed over the past twenty years?

[DSeid]

In the thread devoting to a possible non-shitty path forward for Iran an interesting discussion is emerging but one that might hijack that thread:

The example is being made of China twenty years after Tiananmen Square as an argument that Iranians will soon forget these protests and that nothing will change.

One argues that China is in fact a very different country now and another that China is the same oppressive political structure just richer.

So which is it?

[Quartz]

China has had 20 years of economic expansion. Times have - for the most part - been good. I don't know about Iran.

[Siam Sam]

It is much, much easier for people to leave China now. I can't remember the last time I heard of someone asking for "political asylum." I've known quite a few Chinese nationals here in Thailand who come and go to and from their home country as they please. Even as recently as 15 years ago, maybe just 10 years ago, citizens had to show a compelling reason why they needed to leave, such as for school.

[Siam Sam]

BTW: I know a middle-aged Chinese national here in Bangkok who is hands down one of the nicest people I have ever known, bar none. They simply don't come any nicer than he is. Seriously.

He is also an ardent, die-hard communist. His name is Chao, and we call him, to his face, Chairman Chao, which delights him no end. He remains a fan of Mao. During our riots and other political troubles here these past few years, Chao's kept expecting "the people" to rise up and take over and seems bemused why that's not happened yet. A funny old guy, the irony of his working here in this capitalist society as a proofreader and of the forces that have worked to allow him to make his frequent trips back home and return here again is completely lost on him.

[sailor]

Originally Posted by Siam Sam

It is much, much easier for people to leave China now. I can't remember the last time I heard of someone asking for "political asylum." I've known quite a few Chinese nationals here in Thailand who come and go to and from their home country as they please.

Don't tell that to DrDeth.

[DSeid]

This article makes (among several) the argument that the intellectuals of 20 years ago are now some of the rising powers within the government today and that the change that they and their experiences bring may be less than revolutionary but is inexorable.

If you were a peasant off in Guizhou Province then it's largely irrelevant. In general for people in the countryside, people in towns outside of Beijing, workers--there are a lot of bad things that have happened in Chinese history and Tiananmen by the numbers is just tiny. If you think about almost 30 million people dying as a consequence of the Great Leap Forward at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s, then a few hundred people--400 maybe 500 people--dying in Tiananmen is nothing. But having said that, one of the lessons of Chinese history is that if you are a Chinese leader, you can get away with killing workers, you can get away with killing peasants, but you can't really get away with killing students or intellectuals. They're the ones whose grievances fester and linger. They write history. And so among the elite and among intellectuals, Tiananmen certainly matters. And it's those elite, it's those intellectuals who rise in the Communist Party. So there certainly are voices within the Communist Party who would like to see the verdict on Tiananmen changed, but who know that's not going politically anywhere right now--that would be too divisive. ... There's a view among the "modernists" within the Communist Party that you can't continue to reform the economy and to develop an economy unless you loosen the political controls. One example is corruption. Corruption is a huge problem all across China and everybody recognizes it and the Communist Party leaders know that. And they have tried very hard to arrest it. They send out judges, and they send out prosecutors, and when they catch corrupt officials in some cases they sentence them to death. It's something they take very seriously. But the problem is that if you don't have a rival political party, then it's very hard to take that far enough. If you don't have a free press, you don't have that kind of oversight. So there are a lot of people within the party who think that they're just never going to get a handle on corruption as long as they have this top-down political system and that the only real check they can have to reduce the corruption is going to be a free press. They want a parliamentary political system at least at a local level. In Taiwan, democracy was introduced initially by electing mayors and that would be the argument that some party members in China would advocate. They would say "the country may not be stable enough to elect a president, but we can introduce democracy and elections of local leaders much more than we have." ...

[China Guy]

the Chinese economy has more than doubled - twice since then. The old neighborhood watch system has largely broken down. 200 million peasants who have been tied to the land since time immemorial are part of a migrant labor force and there is real income (not much) and wealth accumulation for the first time ever in Chinese history in the countryside. With that wealth accumulation people can leave, buy lawyers, buy a form of justice, or just eat better and not have a flood and/or famine at least once a decade wipe them out. You have to look hard to find someone wearing the old proletarian one size fits all blue suit these days - and shops don't sell them in the major cities, yet 20 years ago that's all anyone wore. There was no food 20 years ago beyond low grade rice and whatever vegetable is in season (and for 3 months a year in winter that meant napa cabbage). College students 20 years ago lived on the verge of malnutrician, as did much of the country. State owned enterprise and the government economy is less than 20% of the total economy and shrinking. There are still vestiges of state planning and the iron rice bowl, but these are vestiges.

Now the deal is the government generally is pretty laise faire as long as you don't question the right to rule. "To get rich is glorious."

Seriously, the change in the world of China today versus 20 years ago is huge. The top level government is largely the same. The local and lower level government has experiements with democracy and more accountability to the masses.

check out any evolution of economic power and the government has to adapt.

[sailor]

Originally Posted by China Guy

College students 20 years ago lived on the verge of malnutrician, as did much of the country.

A bit less than 20 years ago my girlfriend was recommended to a boarding school for advanced students and I went back there with her this year. She told me how they went hungry all the time so she would bring food from home when she could. They had no hot water or even running water so washing up meant a trip across the road to the river side with small tub in hand.

Today the trip to Guangzhou is a couple hours by bus but then there were hardly any passable roads or buses and the trip to Guangzhou was a whole day by boat.

The changes in China in the last 20 years are amazing.

[sweeteviljesus]

Originally Posted by Quartz

China has had 20 years of economic expansion. Times have - for the most part - been good. I don't know about Iran.

Iran's economy is in the crapper from what I have been reading and that was a large part of the grievance against Ahmadinejad.