Hi, Jack. You seem like a very successful and educated man. I do not think you can speak for ALL Chinese people as China's system has benefited you, greatly, while many others remain poor with a very low standard of living. Do you view 1984's authoritarian gov't as the "right approach"?... because it aligns with Confucian harmony?
In American, the Left and Right accuse each other of being authoritarian. Of course, the Left are the true authoritarians. :0)
The Left do NOT like us having the rights granted in the U.S. Constitution's 1st and 2nd amendments. Do you agree with the Left?
Yes, it has been said that the benefit of pirated movies in China, is the introduction to Western culture that they provide.
I believe I can speak for 70% Chinese people, if not 80%. I am not rich, just an ordinary people ,"average joe".
And I want to say something about this "political ideology"
When I browse forums in the United States, I find that people frequently use terms such as "authoritarianism", "democracy", "capitalism", "socialism", "communism", etc.
But in China, we rarely discuss these concepts. Because we are realistic creatures. If you have seen some interviews from John Mearsheimer, you will find that he often mentions this point.
In our views, authoritarian governments are not that “authoritarian”, and democratic elections are not that “democratic”.
Even when we mention communism, it seems like we're talking about the "great working class, good people," but does the working class really have such great morals that people are willing to voluntarily work for the entire society in the absence of capitalist style compensation incentives? Obviously, the working class is not as that noble either.
What we believe is that when you encounter problems, you should try to find a solution to the problem, rather than being trapped by many complex concepts before solving the problem.
For example, when we find that the security situation is not good and there are many cases of theft and robbery, we will think like this: "We need to install some cameras on the street, and if someone commits a crime, we can know who they are." We do not feel that this violates our privacy, nor do we feel that we are being monitored by the government. Because we need cameras to control crime. The practical role of the camera is primary, and we will ignore other parts.
We certainly have reason to ignore the issue of whether the cameras on the streets have violated privacy, or whether this has put us under government surveillance, because you can always find some supporters and some opponents regarding these issues. If you want to argue, then the argument will never end, but life must continue.
The same reason applies to LGBTQ, regarding the legality of same-sex marriage. If you want to argue, you can always find supporters and opponents. So the government decides that "we don't discuss it.Keep it quiet".
Regarding the issue of "guns problem" in the United States, we know it involves the 2nd Amendment . If this issue occurred in China, we would think, "Do we have a problem with too many guns? Yes, so we have decided to prohibit everyone from using guns. If you have a gun in your home, voluntarily hand it over to the government. This is an honor because you have made contributions to the country, We don't think about 'whether this has made me lose the ability to confront the government', maybe it is,or it's not, we don't think about it.
We are always willing to sacrifice some personal interests for the benefit of the collective. This is our culture.We have lived in this culture for thousands of years
The problem is that the United States is not China. You have some cultures formed in American history, which are completely different. So it's really difficult for me to make a choice, which side makes more sense.
We have no qualifications to comment on who is right regarding these domestic affairs in the United States. We are not Americans.
But if we make choices solely based on Chinese ideology, we oppose LGBTQ, oppose immigration, oppose restrictions on abortion (people have the right to have abortions), oppose guns, and oppose all drugs.