>If you give most people the choice between a place that has jobs, clean trains and where women can walk safely at night and one that looks like the Purge but you can insult the prime minister we can make a bet how people will vote with their feet.

Well, umm, far more people (rich, middle, poor) are emmigrating out of China with preference for Western Liberal Democracies than Westeners immigrating in. The thing is, in terms of job opportunities, the USA still far surpasses China for same amount of individual effort. And if I want to just live comfortably, Japan, Australia, Korea are all valid options.

Like even the abysmally poor birthrate dosen't reflect on China with regards to the long viability of what you describe.

▲ margalabargala 8 days ago | parent [-]

Plenty of people are emigrating from China to Singapore, which is not particularly less authoritarian.

▲ corimaith 8 days ago | parent [-]

Singapore is much less authoritarian than China. The PAP plays dirty in a legal way, but they very much obey rule of law as opposed to explicit Rule By Law in the CCP. They also don't effectively declare themselves God as the ultimate authority and moral arbiters of the nation.

Like, having mandatory bomb checks in your metro systems is already on the excessive and comical side of authoritarianism here. Most countries, even poorer ones don't do that.

	▲	throwaway2037 8 days ago \| parent [-]
		`> Singapore is much less authoritarian than China. The PAP plays dirty in a legal way` I think the easiest way to explain the Singaporean democracy to someone from a North American/European mindset: In Singapore, the opposition in parliament is freely elected, but the ruling party is virtually guaranteed to be PAP ("People's Action Party"... I just love how that rolls off the tongue, and the logo has 1970s Batman vibes). `> having mandatory bomb checks in your metro systems is already on the excessive and comical side of authoritarianism here` Are you speaking about mainland China here? I have experienced it many times in different cities. I wonder if the Chinese Dark Web has memes about the people that they employ. I have hardly seen lower motivation people at their jobs. They move like zombies and are hardly reactive even when you bag causes a "beep" from one of their machines. Do Chinese people think this actually helps? Do they feel safer? I would love to know.