We believe that public education about China is of great importance, not the least given the fact that so much of what the Western mainstream media focus on China is negative, condescending or otherwise unbalanced – some even pure propaganda, as we have shown in the TFF Smokescreen Report.
We also believe that it is wrong to try to understand China – which is so very different in most ways from the West – by applying only Western concepts and values. It’s any concerned academic’s duty also to try to understand China on its own premises, its culture, history and ways of thinking.
Here is a video – and there are many like it – that explains to you in just 7 minutes how China’s political system works. It also explains why China is neither a ‘dictatorship’ nor a Western-style democracy – how it is a completely different type of democracy.
It conveys the simple- but to many, still enigmatic – message that there are more ways to be democratic.
Interestingly, Chinese democracy seems to work quite well, given the tremendous socio-economic and other developments in the last 30-40 years in China. It’s also the country in the world that has the highest percentage of its people trusting their government – actually, over 90%.
In contrast, there are many signs that Western democracy is in crisis.
Jan Oberg, editor
