Quote Originally Posted by Lullapie View Post

Do you not see China as an autocracy currently? Xi Jinping is seen by many Chinese as a dictator. I've worked with many ex-pat Chinese people here and they have contrasting views of China. Most see Xi as a modern day Stalin and are nervous about saying anything negative in public about him, even in New Zealand.

Now that's an overreaching arm of control.

I'm presuming you are in the UK - correct me if I'm wrong . In NZ, Australia and the Pacific, China is seen as the number threat to world peace. They have most governments over a barrel, because of the money that they spend with those countries.

In Africa, the Chinese policy of Belt and Road is putting already impoverished African countries into even more debt, but the Chinese government are extracting their 'interest' payments from natural resources. They are the modern day colonisers.

Along with the abuse of human rights on the Chinese mainland and the offshore territories, it looks like a dictatorship to me.
I'm not sure there can be any doubt that China is a dictatorship with a cowed people. I remember my first visit to China, just before the Beijing Olympics, there had been some concern that the event would be cancelled due to poor air quality. I distinctly remember, asking our tour guide on the day about this and as we boarded the bus in choking smog, she completely denied that there was an issue.

Recently in Africa, I've seen the work gangs, labouring on roads in searing heat as their Chinese overlords, supervised from the cover of a parasol. It was ever so slightly unsettling, one couldn't help being transported back two hundred years as if you were watching a slave gang, the only thing missing was the bullwhip. China will corner the market in REM's, that's if they haven't done so already, the biggest threat to their dominance of Africa, comes from the Russians who are operating as usual, less visibly, in the background.