Communism vs Democracy (Unite): the ball is at President Xi JinPing's feet. I believe that in all forms of politics: communism, autocracy, democracy
etc etc, the main focus should be care for poor people and the
elimination of corruption. In this essay, I focus on the latter
(corruption) and other points too.
Chiefly, WRT corruption, there are 2 main methods of targeting this,
perhaps of equal importance: firstly, those against corruption should be
people who are honourable themselves and who place charity above their
own needs: healing the wounds of society by uplifting the impoverished.
The second is transparency and freedom of speech so that whistle blowers
cannot be silenced.
China proclaims itself to be a bastion of the
elitism/authoritarianism (communist/ central government): i.e. that its
leaders are wise and charitable men, above corruption and are able to
stem out/suppress corruption as well as promulgate policies to uplift
the impoverished.
America/West is bastion of freedom (democracy/
transparency) type politics: Unfortunately, each emphasis (or
overemphasis, to the exclusion of the other) has its own problems.
China's Mandarins say they are not corrupt, but without real
transparency, this isn't believed and many times, the corruption is so
bad, that even with state censorship, it still shows). Even in
relatively more transparent places e.g.
Hong Kong, where Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying says "if the government met student demands and allowed candidates to be
nominated by the public, Hong Kong’s poor and working class could
dominate the elections": which proves that such elitism breeds
inequality and thus social discord: to the extent that a permanent
social underclass is formed: even the HKG Chief Executive declared the
majority of Hong Konger's working class= poor: Chinese communism has
failed to uplift the poor and perhaps made the situation worse.
In the USA, there is so much freedom of speech that voices of integrity
and charity are drowned out by radical (/greedy) capitalist interest:
large corporations and banks pay large sums of $$$ to politicians as
lobby fees such that as as I understand, banks have lobbied their way to
being granted
leverage
ratio on savings deposit reserves of 20:1: i.e. meaning a widespread
wipe-out of private savings accounts should these bank investments
decline by just 5%!: so much of government/ taxpayers funds have
been used to bail out rogue bankers that people now call the the USA a
lame duck government and even the Chinese Yuan is fast replacing the USD
as the reserve currency of the world (welcome communism everybody).
Terrorist like ISIS dance circles because USA is now too $$$-poor to
fight back.
So the answer lies in-between and Hong-Kong is that in-between. Returned to China in 1997, the Hong-Kongers still have a penchant for
the higher ideals in Marslow's hierarchy of needs: i.e. freedom, (their
bellies filled by the freedom to trade and prosper as introduced by the
British prior): unfortunately, the lack of transparency and audience for
citizen's feedback to the government have made many Hong Kong citizens
(especially the young) relatively poor as under Chinese rule, Hong Kong
has become an exploited colony with its property prices driven
stratospherically by rent-seeking investors from China: charity and
welfare for the young and the citizenry has since become a scarcity,
thus the eagerness for young Hong Kongers to obtain the universal
suffrage that they have been promised: true universal suffrage and not
one pre-vetted by Beijing: their only hope for a better life being
effective political leverage.
Unfortunately, Hong Kong remains still a colony, once British, now
Chinese in every way but name: it doesn't even have its own army and
depends upon China for territorial sovereignty: it is in this regard
that China defends its veto mandate on Hong Kong political leadership
candidates moving forward.
Thus, having contrasted the two essentially differing political systems:
i.e. elitist (authoritarian) vs freedom (democratic) government systems
of East vs West, and alluding the 1997 Hong Kong separation agreement
that 2 systems of government should coexist in China ("one country two
systems"), I propose that the go between would be for 50% of politicians
in Hong Kong to be fully elected by Hong Kong citizens and 50% of
politicians be appointed by the Chinese central government. Hong Kong
residents being defined by the measure of their citizenship and diluted
by double citizenships: e.g. a PR might be considered only a 'half
citizen' with 33% electoral choice (e.g. A USA Citizen with HK-PR and
Malaysian-PR) has a 25% voting weightage (50% USA, 25%HKG, 25%M'sia): as
the case may be. Neither HKG nor China appointed politicians will have
final say except through consensus; although greater interest would
prevail: Hong Kong being China's pride as the most stable and advanced
political system balancing elitism(communism) with
transparency(democracy): an opportunity for
the restive XinJiang region to
flourish in their own culture and an advancement of current political
methods spearheaded by the Chinese Central government on behalf of the
world.
The chance to try out this novel (best of both worlds) system is now
at the foot of China and China is fortunate to be given this opportunity
to shine as a true world political power (a chance that America abused
and has since ransomed to corrupt $$$-bankers). Will the young have a future/ a voice? Will peace prevail in Hong
Kong as a microcosm of the world? The outcome of the umbrella movement
and how China handles it will tell.
And I hope that there is more wisdom in Chinese president Xi JinPing
than to just stab at the fire button (eliminate the students) because
his legacy will be the future of this world.