qwertyytrewq wrote:

Can you define what you mean when you say that China is a communist country?

China is communist in the sense that there is a higher amount of state ownership of infrastructure and businesses.

One-party state with centralized control and political philosophy ignoring human rights and democracy, for one.

Two, whether it is a communist country in practice is irrelevant. They call themselves as such, and the researches seem to agree. That alone makes North Korea their "allies" in sporting ideology that is losing it's appeal with only few countries supporting it.

I would also argue however, that China does capitalism better than even the USA. Less red tape/regulations which allows corporations to decrease their production costs. A high population and low amounts of workers rights laws/unions means low wages and also allows businesses to maximise profits. China does capitalism so well that every American business would take any opportunity to dump American workers and move offshore to China. I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing, but it's a good thing for capitalism. But still bad because of the exporting of pollution.

You know what country does capitalism even better than both countries combined? Somalia. A total state of anarchy (aside from there not being a state at all) with no regulations and laws to hinder the market. USA is USSR in comparison.

Anyway, hardly a country exists that could be called purely capitalistic or a communist state. China leans towards the latter enough to be called as such. it doesn't have to be black-and-white.

As for NK acting as a buffer against US gaining access to China's doorstep, that is a very good reason to support NK from China's PoV. They don't want US that close to them no matter how good relations they have with each other. They are two super powers after all.

NK has nukes and one of the largest armies in the world. What they lose in equipment quality they gain in the fact that their army is insanely large and the whole state practically exists to defend itself. Their people might starve but they are more importantly prepared to go down with a bigger bang than just shelling Seoul. That is merely the beginning. Oh, and when it comes down to it NK has a bunch of dirt cottages and rice fields to be destroyed at best.

Last edited by Betelgeuzah (2011 December 28, 2:02 pm)

JimmySeal wrote:

Not a single one of those things you mentioned is characteristically communist.  Are you sure you know what communism is?

Like I already said, it is irrelevant. Chinese government describes themselves as being a communist state and quite a few political scientists agree so it is not like they are calling cow a pig. That is why China will support NK as their allies ideology-wise, even if they would prefer them to choose a more open-minded approach with their economy like China did.

Just for the heck of it, this is said about Marxism-Leninism:

It supports the creation of a single-party state. It rejects political pluralism external to communism, claiming that the proletariat need a single, able political party to represent them and exercise political leadership.

They also do not completely reject private ownership of property. The current Chinese ideology is very much rooted to Marxism-Leninism.

I can pull out a description of ideal capitalist state too. Does that means America is not one because it doesn't meet said ideals one-to-one? Interesting.

Last edited by Betelgeuzah (2011 December 28, 2:22 pm)

Sounds like a description of America, except it's a two party state

So fundamentally different to Marxism-Leninism then, unlike China. Although I'm sure with enough exceptions you can twist even America to be a Marxist-Leninist state.

I don't think you even read my latest post.

I don't understand this statement. How a country is run in practice, in reality, is irrelevant?

So you believe the Chinese government is communist because they call themselves as such?

I believe that China supports NK because they think of themselves and NK as Communist, thus sharing the same ideology although with differences (which they think are irrelevant).

That was the point all along. I wouldn't have even brought it up if it wasn't tied to the context of this thread, but for some reason several people took it out of said context and started arguing about irrelevant details instead.

What you or everyone else thinks of China doesn't matter. What China thinks does matter, because at the end of the day they choose to support or not support NK.

They tested a nuke, but it was of such low yield that experts were unsure if it was a nuclear explosion at all or just a bunch of dynamite with some radioactive ore mixed in. They also lack any delivery mechanism to attack America with it.

The threat of Nork nukes isn't stopping the US from doing anything.

Are you seriously trying to imply that simply because NK can not attack American soil with their nukes whose existence is unclear (which is as good of a deterrent as having one, in practice), US has no outside pressure keeping them in check that will stop them from acting? If NK attacks China with nukes and USA's actions are at fault shit is going to go down, and both parties are aware of that.

Last edited by Betelgeuzah (2011 December 29, 5:36 am)

Even still, if China can choose whether US forces are knocking on their doorstep or not they obviously will choose the latter option. They don't want Americans on their border but that's what would happen if the nations were to be combined.