CBS News, 10 years later
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Obviously the top article has come to the correct conclusion, but isn’t this just an instance of two people with different opinions writing articles on the same news site ten years apart?
At the time when the first article was written, the US blob was still living under the delusion that the PRC would become a liberal democracy because of markets. They really believed they would abandon socialism because of magical thinking that being open to the market just magically forces populations to demand they become exactly like the US. I don’t have the sources, but i remember reading Foreign Affairs in the early 2000s, and lines like “naturally a growing middle class will cause China to liberalize” were thrown around in like every issue
Well it’s not entirely wrong, as Marx and Lenin pointed out on petty bourgeoisie and their sentiment. Huge capitalists aren’t that dangerous under socialism, those are just few necks, but China did allowed petty burgies to grow and thrive and it now have tons of liberals which are constant danger.
That’s a good point. I am glossing over actual reasons why a liberalised China was viewed as being possible, and wasn’t a completely unreasonable view.
I think that how i personally remember it from the time was the arrogance these views were expressed with. The way they treated China’s liberalization as a forgone conclusion that is the only possible outcome. It was still in the thick of The End of History, and there was a lot of unearned triumphilism from the US establishment
this was during a time where the US was completely unchallenged economically, politically and military. There was quite a few times where this could’ve been the case, glad it never happened, as people now rightfully see just how western-style ‘democracy’ has really been.
