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xertshurts t1_j1t7bvg wrote

Reply to comment by BadReview8675309 in Beijing to distribute Pfizer antiviral drug as Covid wave strains health system by web_explorer

> and screwed the rest of the nation.

*still screwing.

They won't get off the Sinovac train. Even though the West, which had effective vaccines (Sinovac was marginal, at best), they freely admit that with the new strains that have developed, the 1st gen don't cut it. Xi won't admit this, god knows why. So, they double down on Sinovac, lockdowns, etc.

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com2420 t1_j1tb6ab wrote

>Xi won't admit this, god knows why.

Hard to justify being an authoritarian when you get it wrong.

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xertshurts t1_j1tband wrote

How could you say that, when he was clearly just reelected in a free and fair system?

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thewayupisdown t1_j1wf6qa wrote

Yeah, how can you say that without the Weibo-police immediately del... oh wait, this is Reddit.

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BrianC_ t1_j1td0s5 wrote

That just shows you don't understand Chinese elections.

Xi's reelection was not "free" or "fair." There are no national level elections in China. It is a one-party political system with indirect elections for all higher level officials.

When the candidates at the local level are already filtered by the ruling party, that is not free. When those candidates are in turn used to insulate all the higher ranking levels from accountability, that is not fair.

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BadReview8675309 t1_j1tfm1w wrote

OP XERT is being sarcastic... Everyone outside of China knows nothing in China is fair or free.

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BrianC_ t1_j1tif8l wrote

At least from the people I know, there are a lot that argue that because China does have local elections which filter upwards in their one-party system, there is an element of representative democracy that isn't that different from America.

In China, the candidates are heavily filtered and selected by the ruling party. The same can be said for the Democrats or Republicans selecting their own candidates to put up in primaries, heavily biasing the vote through gerrymandering and voter suppression, or the election system itself selecting for certain types of people -- namely people with enough inherent wealth or influence to run.

So, is the sarcasm obvious? Maybe if all you read is fairly unsophisticated and biased media. But, when you look at the nuance, is it obviously sarcastic to say Xi was elected fairly and freely? It's about as obviously sarcastic as saying Trump was elected fairly and freely.

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kiwidude4 t1_j1uc19n wrote

Holy shit dude. How can you be this dense?

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freckledass t1_j1tbtwn wrote

>god knows why

Actually many Chinese experts will tell you why: when you spend two years painting the picture that the decadent west is still suffering the deaths of covid, that opening up is not the way to go, and that the Chinese way is the superior way, admitting that you can't yet produce mRNA vaccines (thus needing to import them) is a turnabout Xi can't afford. Both on a personal level (loss of face is massively embarrassing in Chinese culture, and it'll taint him personally as the embodiment of the Party), and structural level (the deal is that the Chinese Communist Party will take care of you if you follow the rules), Xi is stuck between a rock and a hard place. I think the approach they seem to have followed is to throw their population under the bus rather than admit their mistake: "oh you're protesting the lockdowns? fine, we're opening up, just don't complain about the hundreds of thousands of deaths" and be done with it. They haven't stocked up on medicines (except for this most recent one), spare hospital capacity, or anything to deal with the certain upcoming wave. It's going to be a human tragedy in absolute numbers on the scale of the US or India. Very sad.

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fongky t1_j1trgwk wrote

In the free world, the leadership would have been replaced. Too bad, this is China.

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