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com2420 t1_j1tb6ab wrote

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

>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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