Not for love of money, but of Humanity. "Greater is he who works for the good of all, then he who works for the good of himself only" ~ Matthew 25:40: "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'"- (NIV). I live in Singapore where the Emperor must not be disturbed.

Friday, November 14, 2014

Communism vs Democracy (Unite): the ball is at President Xi JinPing's feet.

I believe that in all forms of politics: communism, autocracy, democracy etc etc, the main focus should be care for poor people and the elimination of corruption. In this essay, I focus on the latter (corruption) and other points too.

Chiefly, WRT corruption, there are 2 main methods of targeting this, perhaps of equal importance: firstly, those against corruption should be people who are honourable themselves and who place charity above their own needs: healing the wounds of society by uplifting the impoverished. The second is transparency and freedom of speech so that whistle blowers cannot be silenced.

China proclaims itself to be a bastion of the elitism/authoritarianism (communist/ central government): i.e. that its leaders are wise and charitable men, above corruption and are able to stem out/suppress corruption as well as promulgate policies to uplift the impoverished. America/West is bastion of freedom (democracy/ transparency) type politics: Unfortunately, each emphasis (or overemphasis, to the exclusion of the other) has its own problems. China's Mandarins say they are not corrupt, but without real transparency, this isn't believed and many times, the corruption is so bad, that even with state censorship, it still shows). Even in relatively more transparent places e.g. Hong Kong, where Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying says "if the government met student demands and allowed candidates to be nominated by the public, Hong Kong’s poor and working class could dominate the elections": which proves that such elitism breeds inequality and thus social discord: to the extent that a permanent social underclass is formed: even the HKG Chief Executive declared the majority of Hong Konger's working class= poor: Chinese communism has failed to uplift the poor and perhaps made the situation worse.

In the USA, there is so much freedom of speech that voices of integrity and charity are drowned out by radical (/greedy) capitalist interest: large corporations and banks pay large sums of $$$ to politicians as lobby fees such that as as I understand, banks have lobbied their way to being granted leverage ratio on savings deposit reserves of 20:1: i.e. meaning a widespread wipe-out of private savings accounts should these bank investments decline by just 5%!: so much of government/ taxpayers funds have been used to bail out rogue bankers that people now call the the USA a lame duck government and even the Chinese Yuan is fast replacing the USD as the reserve currency of the world (welcome communism everybody). Terrorist like ISIS dance circles because USA is now too $$$-poor to fight back.

So the answer lies in-between and Hong-Kong is that in-between. Returned to China in 1997, the Hong-Kongers still have a penchant for the higher ideals in Marslow's hierarchy of needs: i.e. freedom, (their bellies filled by the freedom to trade and prosper as introduced by the British prior): unfortunately, the lack of transparency and audience for citizen's feedback to the government have made many Hong Kong citizens (especially the young) relatively poor as under Chinese rule, Hong Kong has become an exploited colony with its property prices driven stratospherically by rent-seeking investors from China: charity and welfare for the young and the citizenry has since become a scarcity, thus the eagerness for young Hong Kongers to obtain the universal suffrage that they have been promised: true universal suffrage and not one pre-vetted by Beijing: their only hope for a better life being effective political leverage.

Unfortunately, Hong Kong remains still a colony, once British, now Chinese in every way but name: it doesn't even have its own army and depends upon China for territorial sovereignty: it is in this regard that China defends its veto mandate on Hong Kong political leadership candidates moving forward.

Thus, having contrasted the two essentially differing political systems: i.e. elitist (authoritarian) vs freedom (democratic) government systems of East vs West, and alluding the 1997 Hong Kong separation agreement that 2 systems of government should coexist in China ("one country two systems"), I propose that the go between would be for 50% of politicians in Hong Kong to be fully elected by Hong Kong citizens and 50% of politicians be appointed by the Chinese central government. Hong Kong residents being defined by the measure of their citizenship and diluted by double citizenships: e.g. a PR might be considered only a 'half citizen' with 33% electoral choice (e.g. A USA Citizen with HK-PR and Malaysian-PR) has a 25% voting weightage (50% USA, 25%HKG, 25%M'sia): as the case may be. Neither HKG nor China appointed politicians will have final say except through consensus; although greater interest would prevail: Hong Kong being China's pride as the most stable and advanced political system balancing elitism(communism) with transparency(democracy): an opportunity for the restive XinJiang region to flourish in their own culture and an advancement of current political methods spearheaded by the Chinese Central government on behalf of the world.

The chance to try out this novel (best of both worlds) system is now at the foot of China and China is fortunate to be given this opportunity to shine as a true world political power (a chance that America abused and has since ransomed to corrupt $$$-bankers).

Will the young have a future/ a voice? Will peace prevail in Hong Kong as a microcosm of the world? The outcome of the umbrella movement and how China handles it will tell.
And I hope that there is more wisdom in Chinese president Xi JinPing than to just stab at the fire button (eliminate the students) because his legacy will be the future of this world.
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