Seems pretty straightforward, if Canada wants some news to be spread via Facebook, they could create a legislative niche that when a national emergency is declared, links to news will not be taxed.
Or they could have a clearing house of certain links that don’t get taxed.
Facebook’s responding to market incentives, as they’re supposed to do. So you apply a tax and Facebook’s opting out of the tax as is allowed by the law. You can’t then force them to do the voluntary thing to pay the tax.
Governments often apply the same logic to things they don’t want people to do. Like smoking. The sin attached to smoking is deliberately and clearly created to keep people from smoking. This is exactly the same as the government putting a 2000% tax on cigarettes and then complaining people aren’t smoking anymore.
ACCRA, Aug 18 (Reuters) - West Africa’s main regional bloc on Friday said it had agreed an undisclosed “D-Day” for a possible military intervention to restore democracy in Niger if diplomatic efforts fail, stressing that it would not hold endless dialogue with the defiant junta.
Military officers deposed Nigerien President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26 and have defied calls from the United Nations, ECOWAS and others to reinstate him, prompting the bloc to order a standby force to be assembled.
Most of its 15 member states are prepared to contribute to the joint force excepting those also under military rule - Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea - and Cape Verde, according to the bloc.
Niger also has strategic importance beyond West Africa because of its uranium and oil reserves and role as a hub for foreign troops involved in the fight against the insurgents linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State.
The United Nations special envoy for West Africa and the Sahel, Leonardo Santos Simao, met with the junta’s Prime Minister Ali Mahamane Lamine Zeine on Friday.
Simao said in comments broadcast on Niger’s state television that he wanted to listen to the junta’s point of view "to study together a way for the country to return as quickly as possible to constitutional normality and legality too.
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I’m perfectly fine with shitting on Meta/Facebook/Instagram for gestures broadly at the last 10+ years, but Canada instituted a link tax for news. They added a fee to a fundamental part of the Internet: linking to something. I can’t blame Meta for refusing to play that game.
OTTAWA, Aug 18 (Reuters) - The Canadian government on Friday demanded that Meta (META.O) lift a “reckless” ban on domestic news from its platforms to allow people to share information about wildfires in the west of the country.
Some people fleeing wildfires in the remote northern town of Yellowknife have complained to domestic media that the ban prevented them from sharing important data about the fires.
“Meta’s reckless choice to block news … is hurting access to vital information on Facebook and Instagram,” Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge said in a social media post.
Chris Bittle, a legislator for the ruling Liberal Party, complained on Thursday that “Meta’s actions to block news are reckless and irresponsible.”
In response, a Meta spokesperson said by email that the company had activated the “Safety Check” feature on Facebook that allows users to spread the word that they are safe in the wake of a natural disaster or a crisis.
Canadians can use Facebook and Instagram to access content from official government agencies, emergency services and non-governmental organizations, the spokesperson added.
The original article contains 314 words, the summary contains 176 words. Saved 44%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
He doesn’t want to come back and the US has zero leverage with DPRK. He’s not a hostage, he’s an asylum seeker. And better than that, he’s a US military member who has a personal grievance with not just the USA but also South Korea. This man is staying in Pyongyang and will be treated quite well.
Why, what do you think will happen? They’ll torture him? Imprison him for life? Make him eat gross foods? Work him to death? Like, what’s your orientalist fantasy here?
What kind of work will he eventually get there that will provide him with a decent quality of life? You think he will have the same level of freedom to move and say what he feels? Do you think he will get any justice if he is racially profiled or mistreated by any authority? Do you think he will have unrestricted access to even three internet?
Come on, this is fucking laughable. What kind of work will he get for a decent quality of life? What do you think NK is like? That some people live under bridges and pick garbage while others are doctors that drive Maseratis? That’s a USA thing. DPRK, like all socialist movements, is focused on raising up the bottom of society first and foremost. He will easily have a decent quality of life even as just an English teacher or as military staff.
Do you think he will get any justice if he is racially profiled or mistreated by any authority in the USA?! That’s one of his principle reasons for defecting! Are you aware of how much racial profiling happens daily in the USA and how very very little gets done about? Did the USA not just have a racial reckoning with the high profile lynching of dozens of individual black people? The Chauvin trial was one of the first ever where the cops suffered a consequebce and the cops on trial for lynchings after Floyd didn’t suffer consequences. You are projecting American anti-blackness into North Korea, but the anti-Blackness in South Korea comes from America, not from Korea. I’m sure he will suffer far and away less individual and structural racism in the DPRK than any black person will experience in the USA in the next 100 years.
Do you think you have unrestricted and free access to the internet? Do you know how many NSLs the USA has issued? Do you know how many DNS take overs have been executed? Do you know the history of COINTELPRO and how thoroughly it infiltrated black communities and likely still does to this day?
You are comparing your orientalist fantasy about the evil Korean commies against the propaganda narrative about the enlightened and virtuous West. None of your beliefs match reality.
Why do you think he will want to come back eventually? A bunch of soldiers have defected to the DPRK since the beginning of the Korean War. Some regret it, some don’t, some died. Why are you so sure he will want to come back when he knows that being black in the West will never change in his lifetime?
Your account has been flagged for CCP tankie shill-like activity. Please review These Nuts and never forget that Mao killed more people than Stalin and Hitler combined!
Your logic is baffling. Hitler killed millions of people in the Holocaust. Mao killed millions more, yet he’s still a folk hero. Where is the disconnect here?
That the only way you can come to the conclusion that Mao “killed more” is if you’re deliberately downplaying how many Hitler killed, aka Holocaust denial.
I may have missed the lesson where numbers aren’t allowed to be bigger than other numbers, so let me rephrase this in a way you might be able to understand. The most conservative estimate of famine deaths during the Great Leap Forward (backward) is greater than the ENTIRE European Jewish population in 1933 by at least six million.
I also like how you’re deliberately trying to whitewash Hitler by ignoring all the non-Jewish deaths he was responsible for.
Seriously, you’re trying to argue that Mao “killed” every single person who starved to death in a famine, but Hitler is completely innocent of any of the deaths that occurred in World War 2. It’s a double standard no one would employ unless they were trying to downplay Hitler’s crimes.
That’s how it works in a dictatorship right? The fish stinks from the head.
To address your disingenuous bad-faith argument, counting non-Jews you have 11 or so million total dead in the Holocaust, we are still nowhere near it. Fuck Hitler, fuck Stalin, fuck Mao, the CCP, and fuck the US federal government.
Again, you’re saying Mao is guilty of every death in a famine because he was a “dictator”, but Hitler isn’t responsible for any of the deaths in WW2 (even the deaths by famine it caused).
Famines were extremely common before the CPC came to power. Most Chinese people lived in extreme poverty, and life expectancy was less than 35, with no significant improvement under the KMT. In between Mao coming to power and his death, life expectancy in China nearly doubled. Today, average life expectancy in China has exceeded that of the US, a feat that would’ve been unimaginable back then.
It’s true that Mao made misteps (which the CPC readily admits), but those specific, dramatic events have been disproportionately elevated to obscure the more general trend, which has been drastic improvements in the lives of the people of China.
Of course, in addition to minimizing the frequency and severity of famines in pre-industrial China, your history books likely did not place the same level of blame on the British for the intentional famines which Ireland and India were subjected to, in which Britain did not only refuse to provide aid to their colonial subjects (often on the express basis that it would motivate people to work harder), but also did not cease their plundering - in both cases, food was exported out of the country while the people starved.
You’re right, what does it matter that every Chinese person gets to live twice as long as they used to, if the process of getting there wasn’t perfect?
Your carefully researched and insightful rebuttal has convinced me. I hate massive increases in life expectancy now. Clearly, we have no choice but to abandon communism no-choice
I read somewhere that Mao’s family was considered well off for peasants because they could afford eggs a few times a year. I have no idea if there’s any truth to that.
the GLF was economic policy made in response to withdrawal of soviet technological and financial aid during the sino-soviet split, one of the primary motivating factors of which being soviet insistence on china essentially allowing the soviets to recolonize the port of dalian to build a naval base from which to deploy its pacific fleet.
on top of being under sanctions from the west, the sino-soviet split further deprived china of markets with which to support its all-important capital intensive industries and so china was forced to resort to agricultural export as a method of making up the shortfall. collectivization was also pursued simultaneously to pool domestic capital for internal consumption, but due to various geographical, technical and political considerations, internal consumption was not sufficiently stimulated to support manufacturing, and so agricultural export became the primary way to finance china’s continued industrialization. most accounts that are not hysterically anti-communist (including liberal darling amartya sen) of the period around the 1958 famine have records of aggregate production being more than sufficient to sustain the overall population, with the primary points of failure being overzealous local governments in highly productive areas, as opposed to popular western conceptions of overbearing central government mandated directives.
all this to say that hitler and the holocaust’s relevance as a point of comparison to mao and the GLF as anything beyond ‘people died when he was in charge’ is laughably superficial and mostly only functions as a thought terminating associative fallacy for juicing your dopamine receptors in order to immunize your brain against more correct opinions.
Hitler killed millions of people in the Holocaust.
Fascism did this, not Hitler alone. Fascism and Capitalist Imperialism (western as well) started a world war that killed nearly 100 million people in WW2. Mao did not kill anywhere near that much, it’s reactionary nonsense. China experienced the greatest increase in life expectancy in history under Mao
Mao killed trillions of people!!1!1!1111 Stalin killed zillions and Xi is killing gorillions!1111!!1! Omgomgomg wake up sheeple, time to inbade chyna! Heil Amerikkka, Heil Anglostani!
It’s funny how you clowns keep pretending that the only deaths Hitler caused were the ones that specifically happened in the death camps, as if he didn’t literally start WWII. And meanwhile you insist that every single stubbed toe and premature ejaculation that ever happened in a socialist country should be added to the “victims of communism” death toll.
Wow you’re such a :LIB: that you can’t even be bothered to read what you yourself write susie-laugh
Does your brain turn to mush every time you’re questioned or only the times you get quoted? Did you use words that were too big for yourself? michael-laugh
Cancel culture is just changing the channel when there’s someone on your TV screen that you don’t like.
You want go clockwork orange and strap people down, tape their eyes open and force them to watch the things you want them to watch? Because that would ensure the freedom of the people on TV to say whatever they want, right? The freedom of Hollywood assholes are more important that our freedom to change the channel, amirite?
What the fuck are you even talking about with Hollywood and television? Are you on a script? Bitch, you’re the one complaining about cancel culture. You’re the one equating being made fun of for having stupid reactionary opinions to literal torture. Can you please put in the absolute bare minimum of effort when you speak to at least remember the topic of fucking discussion??
I haven’t been so befuddled by a completely deranged and incoherent reply since I last posted on reddit-logo. Buddy I do not miss dealing with dipshits like you.
I understand the liberal brainpan isn’t capable of maintaining a thought or any information for longer than a few sentences, but this is really exceptional. Why are you acting like you weren’t the one crying about cancel culture in the first place? Why do you compare being bullied for your reactionary opinions with torture? Are you stupid?
It’s a problem idiots like to whine about as if it’s actually an important thing and I demonstrated how ridiculous it is because any solution to this “problem” would be insane.
I suggest you read Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” so you’ll be better able to understand this kind of rhetorical device. It’s meant to make you think about what the actual issue is, but apparently you’re unwilling or unable to think.
Hint: If you’re not willing to strap people down and force them to watch what you want them to, then what’s the solution to the “cancel culture” problem? Or maybe it’s not actually a problem that needs to be solved. It’s literally just people not watching things they don’t like.
I’m almost tempted to spend this time mocking you for being so fucking stupid as to believe that some idiot offering a cartoonish solution to a problem is proof that it can’t be solved. Because that’s a real fucking stupid thing to say and you’re a real fucking stupid person for saying it.
But it’s more important that I tell you to shut the fuck up and go back to read what the thread you’re replying to is about. You were the one who whined about cancel culture. Turn off the chatbot in your brain and actually pay the fuck attention to what’s going on around you. Holy shit dude.
Britain has committed a lot of killings in my country for 2 centuries. Winston Churchill also orchestrated the well known Bengal famine induced genocide.
My dude calls people statists but then also cites death tolls spouted by the US State department on Mao’s casualties is a level of mental gymnastics that may finally dethrone the Maga morons.
I’m sure there’s some explanation for how Mao killed 100,000,000 people but somehow the population of China went up and the life expectancy doubled under him. It can’t be because the US stat dept. exaggerated the deaths by an exponent tho.
China is fascist now, they can go on calling themselves communist in a vain attempt to have something resembling legitimacy. But any fool knows that when the ruling party is full of billionaires, that’s no communist system.
They Chinese people are a great people and deserve a better government than the fascist regime lead by Winnie Xi Pooh.
Idk how to tell you this, but the CPC and the Chinese state have like 90% approval from the Chinese people according to western academic sources beloved by libs.
Because it’s not saying Chinese people look like Winnie the Pooh. It’s only Xi looks like Winnie the Pooh. Do you understand the distinction between insulting an ethnicity and insulting an individual?
And you must’ve been living under a rock (or behind a firewall in an authoritarian country) if you’ve never heard of Xi being compared to Winnie the Pooh. I hear he’s sensitive about it, and it’s banned to make such statements in China. But since I’m not in China and Xi is a piece of shit, this incentivizes me to insult that shithead in ways that hurts his fragile little ego.
What a useless definition. It doesn’t even consider the class character of fascism.
Authoritarian is a useless word. It literally could be used to describe any state.
China is actually highly democratic, but that would require expanding your bourgeois ideas about democracy and understanding how their system actually works in practice.
Misogyny is a problem everywhere and is in no way unique to fascism or any political economy, is predates capitalism by thousands of years. I agree it should be abolished, and that is what socialism aspires to do. But the idea that it can be eliminated by flipping a switch is idealist and unrealistic. There is plenty of truth to the critique that patriarchy still exists in China, but the PRC has maybe also done more than any other state to end some of the most oppressive forms of misogyny, for the most number of women, in history.
Propaganda about past grievances? That is too vague to be meaningful either. Some past grievances, like the Japanese war crimes in China, are legitimate. Others, like conspiracies about “judeo-bolshevism” are not. The term “propaganda” here is loaded too, like if the US government does its best to bury its history of chattel slavery (like it is doing in florida, for instance), would it be “propaganda about past grievances” to fight back against that? Would you tell the grandchild of a slave in Florida that by spreading information as wide as possible to the people about the crime of slavery it is somehow fascist? it makes no sense
If you’re living in a place where they will drive over you with a tank if you protest the rulers, you’re living in an authoritarian state. This isn’t exacltly a subtle thing.
Misogyny is a problem everywhere and is in no way unique to fascism or any political economy, is predates capitalism by thousands of years.
I’m not talking about a few weird comments here and there. I’m talking about the ruling class in China raping women and getting away with it because it’s considered ok for the rulers to rape women in their society. Because it’s a fascist society. Communism is supposed to espouse equality between men and women. But China isn’t communist anymore.
Propaganda about past grievances? That is too vague to be meaningful either.
“Century of humiliation! We must allow strongman Xi to rule over us for as long he wants to fight back against the westerners trying to humiliate us!”
This is standard fascist propaganda, fear of outsiders, citing past grievances as a reason for needing a strongman ruler.
In reality it’s the CCP is humiliating the Chinese people. It’s a garbage government. The people of China deserve better.
Nah I live in a democratic country where women aren’t treated like property and we aren’t constantly butt hurt about some bullshit that happened in the past. In fact there are billions of people living in similar countries as mine.
Maybe it’s just you and the people around you that are fashy which makes you think everyone is this way. We aren’t.
I encourage you to learn about how fascism works so you won’t be so easily manipulated by fascist assholes like Xi and Putin.
You have it wrong. The Communist Party isnt producing billionaires or getting rich through corruption (at least not in the recent decade of anti corruption). Billionaires join the CPC for THEIR benefit, clout and image.
China is the only country that actually punishes billionaires for their crimes instead of giving them a slap on the wrist, house arrest or just straight up not punishing them. China executes billionaires when they commit a crime. Liu Han ordered a Mafia hit on a villager who protested one of his illegal real estate expansions, as well as a business rival. He was executed for murder. China is the only country in the world that would sentence someone worth $40 billion, let alone to death, let alone not given a presidential pardon. Jack Ma regularly oversteps and gets punished by the CPC.
The only billionaire the west has executed is Jeff Epstein (for entirely the wrong reasons). China’s executed 14+ in the last decade.
If there was a snap election todaty in China with 100% voter turnout, the Communist Party would be re-elected tonight. The party responsible for improving the lives for 1.4 billion people actually isn’t disliked in China. The Chinese are not without grievances with the government but literally no other political system in the world has matched Chinese progress over the last 70 years. The average Chinese person isn’t unaware of western Liberal democracy, it simply isn’t appealing. A system that’s basically a popularity contest that elects senile old men, cowboy actors and reality TV stars that have no business being statesmen is actually not a good system. Having lifetime appointed judges to interpret the words of long dead slave owners is not a good system. Having a leadership spill and a change of prime minister every year is not a good system. We can improve on freedom of expression, sure, but the Chinese people aren’t sheep who need to be liberated. Neoliberalism is the failure in the world, not the Chinese model.
Billionaires join the CPC for THEIR benefit, clout and image.
Yeah that’s how it works in a fascist system. The wealthy join the ruling party and gain connections to other wealthy people so they can all become wealthier.
The existence of billionaires in China indicates that China is not communist. If it were communist the wealth of the billionaires would be seized and redistributed to the people. China is a country where billionaires are legal and labour unions are illegal.
And your obsession with executions is indicative devaluing life. And it’s interesting that you buy into the conspiracy that Epstein was killed to silence him but haven’t considered the possibility that executions happen in China for the same reason.
If there was a snap election todaty in China with 100% voter turnout, the Communist Party would be re-elected tonight.
Then why isn’t there an election? Why aren’t opposition parties allowed in China? If the CCP would easily win an election, why not have them?
It’s because China is fascist. I think you’re confusing fascism with corporatism. They’re not at all the same. in fascism there’s a hierachy and corporations benefit by falling in line with the hierarchy. Winnie Xi Pooh (who shouldn’t even be leader, but pesky rules bout term limits don’t apply to autocrats) is at the top. Questioning his authority gets you executed. The leadership of China is most certainly misogynistic. The propaganda in China is all about century of humiliation kind of things. China is anti-democracy. These are all the properties of a fascist system.
And yeah fascists will lie about being left wing. See “National Socialism”.
Billionaires exist as a necessary evil, they’re not deities like they are to the west like Gates or Bezos, or a pillar of power like Russian oligarchs. China may not be Marxist as it is, but to completely cut away from the rest of the globe would be suicide. Market socialism relies on being a necessary part of the global economy, and China being able to manufacture in it’s current state while being able to raise the conditions of the proletariat makes it either the worst socialist state or the best capitalist state. Neither is worth of the vitriol it has received. If they must exist, better they exist for the benefit of the people rather than own media companies that push right wing agenda.
The fixation with executions comes from the accusation that billionaires are in charge. It they truly were, they wouldn’t be subject to the same laws as the common folk, and yet herr they are. Unlike Russia or the west, they are held accountable for their actions to a higher degree. All else equal, the CPC treats billionaires worse than any other form of government, and that’s not a bad thing.
For your second point re: elections: Why? The US doesn’t even have free elections, an electoral college overrules pupular vote, nor does the UK, the king and house of Lords aren’t subject to democracy. The Soviets had a free election in 91, voted to remain socialist,nand it was hijacked by the west. Allende was democratically elected and the west supported the usurper. An election while liberalism exists is just inviting interference. Taiwan didn’t have elections for 4 decades and were still beloved by liberalss. The house of Saud doesn’t have elections, did 9/11 and is a close US ally.
If the outcome is obvious, why waste time and resources to indulge western sensibilities, as if bourgeoisie democracy is a human norm, when you can skip that step and move on with increasing society? If it just leads to a Chinese Jan 6th, or worse, why would that possibly be on the table? The CPC would win and somehow the losers would obtain US military grade weapons and seize power. And even if there were no interference and the CPC won anyway, guess what? Every paper in the west would claim it was rigged.
Ren Zhengfei, the CEO of Huawei, has had people arrested and thrown into a dungeon. Billionaires here don’t have that level of power.
You keep imagining yourself as some communist revolutionary, but you’re just another useful idiot that’s been fooled by fascist propaganda.
You should know that fascists are liars and will even label themselves as “communist” if it furthers their goals of acquiring power.
After the ruling party of China did the Tiananmen Square massacre (en.wikipedia.org/…/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests…) and got away with it, they shifted to being fascist thugs whose only goal was to maintain and expand their power.
If you’re gonna support fascist thugs, at least be honest about who they are. You look really silly otherwise.
Source? Zhengfei couldn’t even keep his own daughter out of prison. Xi has been the one to crack down on billionaires (part of why a lot of my family like him better than Hu) so if it happened ages ago, I don’t remember. Even so, he’s less wealthy than Jack Ma, who is subject to the CPC’s rules, not vice versa.
All I know is the CPC has done more for the working class, lifted more workers out of poverty than any of the government’s that have earned your respect.
If all they wanted to do post 1989 was to maintain and expand power why the fuck haven’t they? Mongolia is right there, the Qing annexed it, the ROC annexed it, but the PRC can’t? Why forgive loans for Africa?
Why exempt Tibetans and Uyghurs and Mongolians from the One Child Policy? What kind of fascism does population control on the Han majority but not the minorities in their country?
If the goal was to acquire power, there are dozens of regimes that have done a better job at seizing absolute power, but instead the CPC open up more? The Juche government of the DPRK has absolute power, why didn’t China cloister itself from the world like pre Deng? Or start proxy wars in foreign countries to push nationalist jingoism?
I support my countrymen, no fascist thugs. If you’ve ever been to China you’d know it’s not some Orwellian nightmare state. Listening to the media’s portrayal of China when they lie or twist the truth on just about anything else is the brain worm talking. China’s fascist like Saddam has WMDs.
Think about where you’ve gotten your conception of China from and question whether or not they’re biased. You’re talking to someone with first hand experience in China.
I think you make some excellent points and I was glad to read much of what you wrote. If you don’t mind, I am curious about how concerned you are about the points raised above regarding women in positions of power and Xi’s unprecedented (to my knowledge) third term?
I’m not an expert on the gender dynamics of the political system, so it’s something I’ll have to look into, but to address the term limits thing, I kinda have to explain how the political system of the PRC works.
The way the President of China is decided is on the system of the People’s Congress. Starting from the lowest, most local level (will refer to as level 1), grassroots civilians will elect a congress representing the village/town. Larger populations elect people to a congress representing whole smaller cities, municipal districts or a county. This is level 2. Then for level 3, it’s a congress for cities and prefectures. Level 4 is a congress for provinces and autonomous regions. Level 5 is the National People’s Congress.
Depending on where you live and how populated, as a grassroots/civilian voter level, you elect someone to level 1 (more rural areas) or 2 (cities). Then, candidates from 1 & 2 elect someone among them to move up to level 3, level 3 select someone among them to move up to level 4, and so on. Its not possible to “skip” levels, you can’t get elected into a position of power unless you’ve held a lesser position of power and was competent enough for your equals deem you worthy of advancing. Level 5, the National People’s Congress consisting of around 3000 delegates, then elects the Central Committee for the PRC as well as the President of China by majority vote. The move to abolish term limits was put forth and passed by the National People’s Congress. They must have thought it was inconsequential, or it was more important to consolidate power during rising tensions with the west. Whatever the reason, this did not increase the powers of the office of President. If it was a malicious power grab by Xi, this was a poorly done one since General Secretary (the leader of the executive branch of government) had no term limits to begin with and holds more power (for reference, Deng Xiaoping was never President, but served 3 terms as General Secretary but was the most influential man in China during his active years)
Now, term limits in and of themselves aren’t necessarily good or bad. They were never in the original constitution of the PRC to begin with, were added I believe in the 80’s and abolished in 2018 since its effectiveness is questionable. German Chancellor’s have no term limits, nor most countries with Prime Ministers.
Thanks for answering and for trying to contextualize the answer as well. I think the latter in particular was very helpful. You are very much correct in your assertion that term limits are not a part of many democratic institutions, and I do not see any inherent issue with this. I imagine it might also depend on the particular mechanics and dynamics of the systems in question. Countries such as Germany and those with prime ministers often have a system of representation that allows for smaller political parties, which I think makes it harder for a single candidate to stay as head of state for a prolonged time (though I know of at least one case of this happening even if it isn’t necessarily a bad thing).
I did not know about the way you (to me) seem to choose representatives who then iteratively elects further candidates representing them. If my understanding is correct, then I would say that the first election seems to form the basis for the subsequent ones, which I think is a neat idea. However, that would also imply that how the first election is conducted is quite important for the composition of government. What limits are there to who can be a candidate in the first and second stages of the elections? I assume of course you had to make some simplifications, so I might be off track a bit here.
Well instead of minor parties, there are simply different factions in both the CPC (the executive branch) as well as the People’s Congress. Although there are actually minor parties in the National People’s Congress, but even to me they seem like tokens.
There are more hardline Leninists vs more free market liberals, among other stances for the way China should move forward in both branches. Nanjie, for example is still Maoist because the people chose leadership to remain Maoist, compared to Shenzhen or Shanghai which is far more liberal. Although as a whole, in recent years “centrists” (by Chinese standards) have been more likely to be elected upwards beyond a regional/county level, but that might be due to the fact that the status quo, although not perfect, has been more beneficial than detrimental to the average Chinese.
As far as I’m aware, the lowest levels of election would be the equivalent of like a village council (although villages in China may be considered a small city in other countries), and candidates I believe have to be citizens that have no prior convictions. Relevant background also helps.
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