An ideologically driven subset of urban educated youths that was proportionally a tiny subset of the entire Chinese population marched for it in 1989. FTFY.

They are ruling themselves in the sense that their governing systems are emergent consequences of their own cultures. All peoples ultimately deserve the governments they have.

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breezybottom 2 days ago | parent [-]

You could say the exact same thing about the cultural revolution.

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jyscao 2 days ago | parent [-]

Yes, so what's your point?

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nailer 2 days ago | parent [-]

That your point about support for Chinese democracy, could also be applied to Chinese communism - was that not obvious? Also in the Chase of Chinese communism the cult was facing a KMT that had suffered from just defeating the Japanese.

More of the point though they support for Chinese democracy was broad enough to the Beijing army could not be used to suppress the protests. The tanks and the people that killed the students had to come in from outside the city.

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jyscao 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Ironic then that most of the students throughout China who supported and even participated in the Tiananmen protests would later admit that Deng acted correctly in squashing it, and that China is better off today for that. This is a sentiment most Chinese living in China today share.

Could things eventually go south with the CCP in charge? Of course, and given long enough time, that's almost a certainty. But even when that day comes, it still does not directly imply a liberal democracy was the better governing system for the Chinese people, as your original comment strongly implied.

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nailer 14 hours ago | parent [-]

“ most of the students throughout China who supported and even participated in the Tiananmen protests would later admit that Deng acted correctly in squashing it”

That’s a very big claim to make without a reference.

	▲	jyscao 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		IYKYK

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jyscao 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>That your point about support for Chinese democracy, could also be applied to Chinese communism

Incorrect - my point about Chinese democracy does not apply to the current governing body of China (whether you choose to view and harp on them as communist or not is irrelevant).

The Cultural Revolution, which the previous commenter presented as a gotcha, is widely regarded as a dark period and unequivocally a mistake by the majority of Chinese today. But Chinese communism today is both much more and much different than Chinese communism under Mao.

OTOH Tiananmen is much more emblematic of "Chinese democracy" than the Cultural Revolution was of Chinese communism. And as already stated, the way Tiananmen was handled is deemed to be correct by the majority of the Chinese populace today.

And so once again, this goes back to my original point: peoples of different nations choose their own government, including the form of that government, and not just in the narrow sense of who their next public-facing leader should be during the next several years. The Chinese already does exactly that.

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nailer 14 hours ago | parent [-]

No, correct. You said “ideologically driven subset …proportionally a tiny subset of the entire Chinese” which is absolutely true of Mao’s cult.

	▲	jyscao 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Mao's cult as you call it, shares little similarities to the modern day Chinese government, which is arguably the most pragmatic government that exists in the world today, certainly amongst developed countries. So once again, wrong.