Many are questioning the contents of this video and the concept of rule of law in the USA after the July 1st Supreme Court ruling, which said that presidents are presumed to be immune from prosecution for official acts as outlined in the constitution. Frankly I don't disagree. It does seem to throw the concept of rule of law in the USA into question. We're in an unprecedented moment in American history, and the best I can say here is that we'll have to see how it plays out in practice.
I'm a bit late and new subscriber (sorry, the algorithm didn't show you to me sooner), but I was just gonna add that some of the corruption charges against ccp members are Xi Jinping's way of removing those who displease him, question him, or could challenge him for leadership. Good way to destroy a career.
I would like to say that parliamentary democracies (particularly monarchies) have the lowest corruption due to more effective checks and balances. While not a monarchy, Ireland is a parliamentary republic, but the president's (head of state only-symbol of the country and reserve executive similar to the british monarch) role is clearly defined in the constitution which helps prevent a constitutional crisis. The president can send questionable bills to the Supreme court to check on constitutionality and for policy proposals for legality before granting assent (proactive judicial review), and can submit controversial bills to the people in a binding(?) referendum. The prime minister (head of govt-political leader) is chosen by being the majority party or coalition leader. He can be removed by the president if acting counter to the constitution. The parliament (at least the lower house) is elected by the people with single transferable vote (more similar to Australia than the us or UK's first pass the post, but not the best which is MMP). The reason i think the constitution should clearly state the role of the head of state is that it can grant the powers already assumed and give a de jure check rather than just a de facto check (eg King Charles could dismiss pm kier starmer at any time without excuse, but would hardly do that as riots would ensue).
@realryanchapman, It has already played out in practice, you can see from that ruling that it if president bribes/threatens the Supreme Court, he will get the decision he wants. Maybe you can get it back on track with but I don't think Biden gives a f about that either (dem voters do).
Hi Ryan, I would totally agree that in China the CCP, which established a system called "rule by law" rather than "rule of law", is above the law. In the US, the constitution has the highest legal authority, while in China the CCP does. It has the authority to make laws, interpret them, make court rulings to their liking, so in terms of the legal system it is really a "the party controls all" type of scenario. In fact, on nearly all occasions/forms of official/public pledge of allegiance, there's always the order "party, state and the people", which says it all. For example, the official title of Xi Jinping, in Chinese is "党和国家领导人", which directly translates into "leader of the party and the state". Whilst almost all of your statements and articulation from the video are true and well-observed, I kind of feel that the argument about the legitimacy of the Chinese government is only scratching the surface. It is pretty common that an American, coming from a culture that almost worships its own constitution and democratic system as a religion, finds it difficult to understand other forms of sources of legitimacy. Though I admit legitimacy's too grand a topic to be discussed thoroughly in a 20mins-long video, to shed some light, the best articulation I've heard about this matter is that a lot of things the American people are born with and take for granted are actually "privileges" other than "birthrights" if you'd use those terms and put the perspective at the scale of the entire world because many less developed countries would regard those rights as less prioritized than making a better living with better living conditions, healthcare and education. For example, if you ask an average Chinese person whether they'd like more political freedom and actual rule of law, they'd certainly answer yes. But if you ask if the lack of those rights is their top problem and if they'd overthrow CCP to gain those rights, most would say no. They would normally say they primarily want a better life, and other things can wait. This resonates with Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the idea in the Chinese ancient classic Historical Records "仓廪实而知礼节，衣食足而知荣辱 (those whose barn is full will learn about manners, those whose foods and clothing are plentiful will develop a sense of dignity.)". The CPP has put its focus on development and prosperity and managed the economy so well in the past four decades, it is difficult for an outsider to imagine how much legitimacy this has granted itself among the Chinese people who had suffered poverty and underdevelopment for centuries. There are a few references I could refer to if someone wants to jump into this rabbit hole: [1] hbr.org/2021/05/what-the-west-gets-wrong-about-china [2] www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/east-asian-perspectives-on-political-legitimacy/political-legitimacy-in-china-a-confucian-approach/A29ED90544E1D96E572697EC2B3694C1 [3] journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0097700413511312?journalCode=mcxa Another source of legitimacy is the notion of an omnipotent government such as the Chinese government should take boundless responsibility/accountability as well. This means by not doing something or not doing well enough, such as the poorly executed disaster relief for Hurricane Sandy, in China it'd be seen as a huge deficit to the legitimacy to the CCP as a whole instead of a local politician. This applies to similar cases include things like the power outage in southern states, or the responses of the COVID pandemic. So this often prompts and enables the Chinese government to mobilize and respond to natural disasters and emergencies at a scale that is seemly difficult to comprehend to a lot of Westerners. A couple of interesting reads about this point: [4] www.theglobalist.com/governing-china-accountability-vs-responsibility/ [5] journalofchinesesociology.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40711-017-0051-8 TL;DR: Ryan's statements of CCP above the law is correct, in fact it's often publically and explicitly stated that CCP is above the Chinese nation and its people; the Chinese people love freedom and rule of law too but they love money more (at least in this stage), and CCP created an environment to make it happen so it's now the main source of its legitimacy (for the past four decades); the Chinese people are one of the most secular and realistic bunch, which makes them sometimes indifferent to civil liberties as long as they live their own material life well enough; The Chinese government is an "omnipotent" government with more expectations in some aspects to enforce its legitimacy; I know all this cuz I'm Chinese; I hope the Chinese people find their broader civil liberties and freedoms someday through a non-violent, less chaotic process when the country is more developed and its people better educated, which I consider a somewhat representative opinion among average Chinese. P.S. I.M.O Fukuyama is over-rated with lots of false observations and projections. His views are largely idealistic than realistic. Nor did his supervisor Huntington get it right about this century. History has not ended with liberal democracy nor developed itself into inter-civilizational wars. This short article summarizes this pretty well: [6] www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/12/19/how-huntington-and-fukuyama-got-the-21st-century-wrong P.S2. I'm a scientist living overseas and I've published in top international journals include those studying China. I've spent 1.5 hours of my life writing this essay cuz I respect Ryan's open attitude towards things unfamiliar to him and his efforts to maintain a scientific/neural point of view, and I do want people to have access to higher-quality information about my background on RUclips. And Ryan I'm happy to take questions from you should you have anything to ask about China for your future projects.
Thank you for sharing. Americans don't understand China and have their heads filled with sinophobic garbage here. Every society strives for more democracy (except for the fascists) and the question becomes do you get there via bourgeois "civil rights" or do you get there by a government that enforces your economic rights? I think China has proven it's the latter. Once your society has developed to the necessary level the ppl will seize those means and liberate themselves. China is moving towards that. The US is a declining capitalist empire.
@@ComradeHB Appreciate your reply but I’m not trying to make an argument about which system is better or what is the right choice between more civil liberties and better living, nor do I intend to diminish the value of democracy and freedom. In fact there’s no universal answer around this issue. In the end of the day the people create their nation, and the culture and history are forged into the political system that works for them. The complex dynamics between deep cultural roots and economical positions in modern days, and sometime foreign influences, together shaped the world as we know it. What’s best for a country is a question for which the answer varies with time. I don’t believe China’s system is a good one for the western countries either. All I’m trying to say is neither is perfect but the Chinese system seems to have been working so far for the Chinese people, and this fact should not be denied or painted as some evil political elites forcing the system on the majority of the people. An inconvenient truth that the West has constantly and maybe deliberately misunderstood is that at this stage the CCP is in fact the choice of the vast majority. Many including me don’t like some of their policies, but in general, they actual are leading the country into a direction which the majority is happy with. Maybe someday when people have already maintained a good enough living standard for a while, other rights will become a more prominent part of life for the vast majority, which will then push the CCP into a different direction, but clearly now is not the time.
Many westerners sometimes however sincere have interpreted things using their own logic rather than asian logic and culture. Ray Dalio is arguably the best one I have seen actually as he doesn't just "think", he admits he didn't know everything and he would get advice from renowned experts and understand from their point of view. And Ryan Chapman said CCP doesn't allow those rights, what are the examples? Minority are given education privilege. Buddhists are given freedom to practice. Otherwise, what is Tibet doing now lol?
@@Tbonesteak23 exactly. You made good points there which I always say too. Ppl always have such literal thinking that "when society develops to a certain level they will seize those rights bla bla bla". Well first, China is already very developed in many sense and that didn't happen now because everyone understands how the system work and they are happy within it. Those people still think china lags a lot behind in development. Second, ccp has pivoted many times in history and who is to say CCP will not pivot again? Many westerners continue to be limited by the system or "democracy" that they know of but the truth is no system ever last forever. The rise of democracy was also not that distant in time.
Hey Ryan! As an American whose family has been embroiled in legal battles for a couple years now, I had to pause your video at 9:42 to counter a misconception: We are NOT referring to tax evasion when we say the wealthy are above the law. What we are referring to is the familiar relationship between attorneys and judges which allows specific attorneys, working with specific judges in particular courthouses, to bend the law or to simply utilize the law to protect or convict a defendant. If you work with a public defender or if you represent yourself, the judge will throw the book at you and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. If you hire the right attorney, they can negotiate extraordinary leniancy in your case based largely on their reputation with the courthouse. This, combined with an insanely complicated legal code, makes legal defense inaccessible to the working class. The working class is unable to use the law to protect themselves, but the wealthy are able to use a million and one loopholes to get off scot free.
If you represent yourself, you're sure to lose. Judges fear being corrected by an appellate court. Deciding against a self-represented litigant is safer than deciding against a well represented litigant because someone who won't or can't afford a lawyer is unlikely to appeal their verdict. I have seen this played out countless times in my career.
Nothing you say suggests that those judges are operating above the law. The law gave those judges discretionary powers which I agree can be abused. Any system made of people relies on the people to make good decisions. When people fail to do so, which I would expect is the case on a routine basis, that is not the fault of the legal framework but reveals the imperfection of all human beings. A government of the people by the people is limited by the imperfections of the people. If we want something better, we can try to find the most virtuous among us as proposed by Plato, but good luck finding enough people let alone even a single person so pure and virtuous. A constitutional order is then all about how we go about managing the abuse of power when they occur while trying not to gum up the machinery of governance. In the examples you gave, judges are subject to judicial review by a higher level court. So a judge that is reversed too often at the minimum will never find themselves elevated to a higher court. Also if corruption can be proved, a corrupt judge is removed and prosecuted. To which you will say won’t happen if the judge is a good friend of the prosecutor. I know it isn’t perfect, but the system is there to deal with these problems and it is up to us to make use of them.
Hi, just seeing this. I think your point is valid if you believe that everyone should be equally punished and liable to the law, regardless of their ability to plead their case. If you believe that people should have the right to plead their case or hire (talented and expensive) professionals to do it for them, as we can in America, then your point gets convoluted. But even having talented attorneys at your disposal does not make you above the law. If you think it does, I think you're misunderstanding the concepts at play. You remain below it, and it just makes you more adept at getting out from under it. There are many places in the world where people are truly and flagrantly above the law, and America, from the evidence I can find, is not one of them.
Not only is your content very objective and balanced. But you've also brought together a legion of viewers and commenters who are willing to share, learn, and have their mind changed. You've done a highly commendable job!
I couldn't agree more. The ability to bring people together, holding opposing views, in constructive and objective dialog, allows both sides to feel understood. I say cheers to those, who when presented with evidence, have the ability to change their minds.
You are on point with bringing multiple people with different point of views together to discuss. But I can't help to see that his points are not based on full objectivity and they sway towards an American take with American values on many subjects and you can see that with how his point of view shifts on the same topic whrb taking into a Chinese context vs American one. But I like this content because it drives respect and discussion which is what we usually lack in a political context
With your personality type, I'm impressed at your upload schedule. This is my favorite channel as of the last month. Can't get enough of your even keeled discussions on different topics. None of it is boring. So just upload and don't over think it. Your approach makes it all interesting.
I agree, Ryan. I was initially confused why you chose to explain this, but seeing some comments here I get it. It's somewhat surprising to me that even people living in the US or other real democracies don't see the point. Perhaps I'll make some additional points, mostly related to institutions: 1. Anyone can sue anyone in a real democracy. Typically money is needed for hiring lawyers, but then again in democracies, there is something called 'civil society' or 'institutions'. There are companies, organizations, non-profits willing to financially support various (legal) causes and these cannot be banned. So you don't necessarily need the government to sue the rich and powerful, though that can be important. 2. In a real democracy there are multiple news organizations operating under different biases. Some news organization or other will report on excesses of the powerful, which makes it difficult for the government to ignore it, given regular elections. These news organizations cannot be banned either; far from it - at least in the US they have rights guaranteed by the constitution. 3. Large companies and rich people have been sued time and again in democracies (such as the US). They don't always repent in a meaningful way, but they are not above the law. 4. Even though judges are appointed by the government, once appointed, they are free to judge as they see fit. They are not bound to the president or party that appointed them in any meaningful way (lifetime appointments are one reason for that). Mind, this is assuming the worst situation when a judge is appointed purely because of political reasons - this is not always possible given that the Senate and the White House are frequently controlled by different parties. Are there problems in countries with true rule of law? Of course. This video is not arguing about which system is 'better', it's a statement about the structure of government in the two countries.
Aditya, just want to point out there are exceptions to ur point #1, i.e. qualified immunity, It was in 1967 that the U.S. Supreme Court first gave a police officer qualified immunity. In Pierson v. Ray, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a police officer acting in good faith was not liable for a false arrest.
1. It is the effective-denial of civil remedy, on grounds of wealth. 2. "The press" does not mean "a news organization", but rather, if eye-witness testimony is useful, and it is, then everyone who intends to disseminate reports of an event are "the press". Phuck a badge. 3. Slap on the wrist. Unequal protection. 4. There are good judges, though. Sorta. It goes back to who your representatives are, since this is a republic, and most certainly not a democracy, at least by Law. The law, the statutes, in America, are far too complex. So much so, so as to render them invalid, due only to that fact. Because: informed consent.
I really appreciate these videos. I went to a tech school and never took the time to explore these subjects. Thanks for all your hard work, I'm learning a lot.
@@pierren___ That is just wrong. The longest french Republic was the 3rd Republic which was only 70 years. And even if you include all french republics it only comes to around 300 years, which is nowhere near the longest Republic of Venice which was 1100 years. So like completely wrong
I think the roots of confusion come from the fact that the PRC and the USA have drastically different political structures that are unfortunately described with the same set of terms. The meaning of words such as "party", "politician", "civil servant" are quite different in the two system. This creates confusion when people familiar with one system try to understand, evaluate, or argue about the other. Although it might be difficult, it is necessary to first get familiar with how both systems work to really understand them (for example every step a college graduate theoretically need to take to become the president in the States vs. in China).
China has "reason of state", while America have "state of right". That means that China focuses on state obedience power, while America focuses on individual rights.
@@pierren___ The democratic system came from the loot sharing on the round table among the knights. When there is loot to share, the system works great for the people at the table. This tradition continued to the US, with American abundant resources inside the border and the dollar, military power to extract wealth overseas. For those people shoved from the table, the system is wealthy enough to provide welfare goodies to them to keep peace. Democratic system works as long as resource is not a problem. Freedom and sharing among the knights are always desired if you can afford it.
Not exactly Pierre. In China 93% people support CCP (according to Pew Research). CCP is a holistic Party representing the collective interests of all Chinese people, which is different from a western type of party that only represents a partial group of people. I understand that you said state prevails in China, but the fact is that people prevail (over capital) in China. In contrast, we all know that American is not ruled by people, It's ruled by the deep-state, a group of monopoly capitalists and their hired politicians. Individual rights is just a propaganda.
It's hard to believe that US government focus on individual rights, given that 800+K died from covid. On the other hand, China is willing to sacrifice economy for people's life and now she has got the pandemic under control.
Two points come to mind after watching beginning of this video 1. your previous video is missing another important comparison: who makes the law in America vs in China, i.e. the law reflects whose interest the most in these two countries? 2. To what extent the law plays a role in the functioning of societies in both countries. While the law plays a critical role in US, its role is not as critical in China. If the law is not as critical in China as US, the follow up question is: what other factor in China plays the role of law as it plays in the US?
To answer your first point; the legislative branch, writes and pushes bills that can potentially become law. The Supreme Court rules whether that bill is constitutional and then the executive branch either signs the bill into law or vetoes the bill to be recirculated. As for your second point; The CCP is the law in China and therefore has no stable law set in place to act as a guide post. Essentially it is "do as we say, not as we do" scenario. In America, the law is enforced "blindly" without prejudice; or at least that is the idea. The loopholes that exist are due to interference in the process due to lobbying and people "turning a blind eye". However that does not mean the law isn't there. If caught, perpetrators are supposed to be held accountable to the FULLEST extent of the law.
@@biggoards2772 Good explaination, and the assertion to law in China too. China simply needs this system to service its integrity at current stage, when facing the Containment from the west, which Is not because of CCP or communism which a lot of you west people may think so under the west propaganda, but indeed not. I believe China will develop its political system after its survival to the Containment, but to a form not likely to the west system. Because China has more rather than less than the west has in culture and philosophy.
@@forgettohaveaname2954 Culture and philosophy don't equate to the balance of law. I understand why you may feel that way, but if that was true, China would have stuck with the national party years ago despite the in fighting. Unless there is something I'm missing about the national party. I don't believe the CCP will ever relinquish power nor control over the masses. I guarantee they will continue to push for expansion; not knowing that all that was necessary was decentralization of the CCP. Taiwan and Hong Kong would willingly think upon China's 1 nation, 2 systems rule if that happened.🤷♂️
@@biggoards2772 balance of law is in no way a complex idea, some top leaders showed their understanding and almost did something, but again, because of the reason what I said, it wasn't and still isn't the right time.
@@biggoards2772 As native Chinese, I would say the functioning of law in China is quite different. In US, the Supreme Court has the power to explain law. Once an explanation to law is set by a case, every later case follows the first one. However, in China, the explanation of law are varied. General morality plays an role of law in many scenarios and determines the enforcement and judgement of a case. The law is just a tool to reach the result. People only care about the result.
What I do agree is that both the US and China's highest officials actually in power are not subject to rule of law. They have the power and resources to get away with what they do against the law, no matter how the legal system works. Eventually, it's not about the difference between the US and China, but all about power and class.
Well, actually that’s not entirely the case. Yes some American politicians can get away with abusing power when the law fails to punish them via imprisonment (or death in some cases) but we still have press that reports on it and bad behavior never looks good for re-election. That’s never the case in China. The CCP can do some of the most atrocious things and not only will they escape legal punishment but they’ll also get “re-elected” and face absolutely no public backlash. Look at what happened at Tiananmen Square in 1989, look at what’s happening now with the Uyghurs and Xi Jinping declared himself president for life, practically a new Chinese emperor. Nobody in America could get away with any of that without negative consequences.
I am close to 50, half of my life in China, half in US. I intend to agree with Ryan but not totally. In US, yes consitution is the highest, no one dare to challange that, but the higher law it is, the more obscure it went, so today we have two opposite groups accusing each other violating the constitution. The group who have louder voice to explain it wins. So, yes we have gester to obey the law, but each insterest group have ways to distort, go around and even change the laws.And to be frankly consitution is not something can't change, we do have amendment and each party fight to get supreme court nominations is to bent the law in their favor. In China, CCP is a complicated changing group. Today's CCP is totally different than CCP 40 years ago. If you want to overthrow them , good time is between 1960s and 1980s, they doing badly during that time, I will join you, but not today. Just like Ryan said on other video, in China, everything is flexible, include ideology, party principle and LAW. I agree CCP is above the law, because she is only entity to explain it. In China it has same gester to obey the law, no one dare to say he is above the law, but law if can be bent and changed in US, it is more flexible in China. And there only one interest group, CCP, when it went bad, law went bad, when it start on right track the law is good. After all we need remember why we want law, why we want democracy, why we want freedom of speech. They are all tools to help us to reach a prosperous healthy society. If we can reach this goal, which tools to use is not important. If these tool work on against our goal, we should limit it, change it.
I don't know much about the legal system in the US. But I can say something about China. The current problem in China is that legal provisions lag behind social development. Compared with the problems encountered in life, it will always be five or even ten years before new legal provisions can be formulated to specifically protect the rights and interests of the people. For example, child trafficking, the peak period was after the 1990s. This is also a sequelae of the "one-child" policy. From 2003 to 2008, 2,500 to 5,000 trafficking cases were detected each year. From 2009 to 2013, a total of 13,723 cases of child abduction were solved. Thirty years ago in 1990, the number of missing children in a year was as high as 3,400. In recent years, the number of cases of child robbery has dropped to around 20 per year. In 2020, there were 600 cases of trafficking. There has been a feud over the past decade over buying and selling complicity. Opponents give differentiated criminal responsibilities, which is helpful for buyers to cooperate with the police to detect cases and increase the probability of retrieving abducted children. Reduce the vicious crime rate of maiming and killing children. At the implementation level, it often requires cross-province, cross-time (detected cases of being trafficked for 61 years), and multi-departmental cooperation. The problem is often the need for technical development, joint law enforcement at the grassroots level, and joint cooperation in court trials. Annual numbers of trafficked children www.dlyj.ac.cn/article/2017/1000-0585/1000-0585-36-12-2505/thumbnail/img_3.png ------ Others, such as financial fraud, telecommunications fraud, and drug-related crimes, are always dynamic development and dynamic governance. Different criminals have to face different periods of time, etc... In China, a country with a span of more than 5,000 kilometers from east to west and north to south, the lag of laws is almost inevitable. Any problem in China often requires the participation of the whole people, and the joint efforts of the streets and neighborhood committees , can be solved gradually. But this is also an advantage of grassroots governance in China, and grassroots air defense also played a role during the epidemic. The answer cannot be given in a simple sentence who is above the law.
Excellent point. Many Chinese citizens are shocked about the penalties for child traffickers and buyers in the past, but now shocked about the same low penalties for minors who are involved in violent crimes. Both examples about how popular changes to law can be slower in China. Not sure if that’s related to the system of government, but worth considering.
laws, policies and rules are actually lot faster to make and implement in China, by virtue of their one-party system if they see there is a need of a law or policy, they'll work out out the mechanics and crank it out just like that with no grandstanding of individuals or parties, how else can they continually tailormake, adopt or revise their policies in time to meet their rising economy's demands. In the US, legal provisions, policies or laws are bogged down by bipartisan debates, bureaucracy, redtape, lobbying parties, etc.
It’s interesting to hear the many perspectives fount in the world like for example: People with freedom: “Don’t like it? Don’t live there.” “Oh they won’t let you leave?, Sucks for you.” People without freedom: “You don’t know a thing!” and so the endless and pointless debate ensues…
@@rap3208 They're faster but they're also far more shoddy and poor in comparison. It's like when they said they built a covid hosptial in a week or something, but then shortly afterwards the entire thing fell into disrepair from how shitty the whole thing was done.
I'm bowled over by both the quality of this video and the high quality of the responses below. I've feel I've genuinely learnt something about both the Chinese and US systems.
Your objective, non-partisan delivery of history, political philosophy, and law give such an enlightening insight on the ways of the world and the intricacies of nations' political processes. What you do is so important! Thank you!
Dude! Thank-you so much for all the effort you put into these. You’re content is always very grounded and thorough. It’s really a breath of fresh air nowadays.
Ryan, leaving aside the social, historical and cultural context, I believe that these scenarios where America and China are is just the result of an adaptation. In America, the law has to be above party politics because otherwise it would be anarchy. Political parties are elected on popularity contests, manipulation and propaganda, made with public and private money, because any individual entity has the freedom to form a party, and to convince by any method possible that they have the right to decide what happens in the country, no matter how qualified they are to do so, or if once in power, the decisions they make will be the right and proper ones, in correlation with what they promised to do. In China, CCP is above the law because it has to be. In China, not everyone enters politics and rise in authority just because they can (have the background and resources) and because they want to. The whole Chinese political system is built on very solid pillars, namely education, competition, experience, from which meritocracy must come, just like the hierarchy in a company/corporation. Once you get through these thick layers, and finally prove that you know what you are doing, you will get the necessary authority. So by that, the supreme authorities in China are the only ones who have the objective and earned right to be above the law, and to be able to make the best decisions on how it should be changed/amended, not just a bunch of people who are supposed to be neutral, and who are changed very often, just to hope for as much neutrality and objectivity in decisions as possible while they are there. CCP is not a bunch of people fallen from the sky, who because of the historical context, they are above the law. CCP is a whole system, mechanism, political machine, built and made to at least theoretically deliver the best results, regardless of who is at any given moment in space & time in the CCP, because no one is immortal, no one is a God or Devil who wants the good or evil of people. I come from an Eastern European country that 32 years ago left communism for democracy. Through my education, I was able to see what was right and wrong, what went wrong then, and what is right and wrong now. The world is not just black and white, there are many substrates and contexts in every circumstance. The idea is for people to be open to dialogue, to communicate, and not to radicalize and go to extremes, whatever those may be. Great video, congratulations on your work, I look forward to the next one :D
OK, simply say America is rule-of-law and China is rule-by-law. So the real question is why rule of law is better, or is it? As Chinese, some don't presume rule of law is better by definition. Instead we look at the practical results. As long as rule by law brings the society prosperity and most people fairness, we consider it a good enough system and not necessarily want to replace it with rule of law. In contrast, it seems to me American laws especially the constitution is less adaptive. American seems to believe their political system is perfect. So even when they have many social problems, they tend to blame other countries rather than look at their own system.
The difference is big. Ideally, You better live in both countries for years to fully understand it. The main point I want to argue with Ryan is that the American system should not be perfect, superior and universal. Every country can choose a system that they deem fit the culture and level of development etc.
??? what do you mean more adaptive? US also has procedures of adjusting their laws and they can promise the process transparent. rule of law at least can promise less interference and disruptions from people who execute them. It means more transparency. You are saying something completely non-sense. US is not always perfect. TRUE. but rule-by-law means you cannot even ensure everyone is restricted by the law. Then why you call it law? So why not you just abandon the law and listen to the emperor's words? At least to me, the rule-by-law in China does not show any superiority. I can only see the elite class and the president could change the constitution as if that's his notebook.
He never made any claim about which is better. He is comparing and contrasting political structures in the US and China. That being said, rule of law is indisputably better. The pragmatic approach you describe would weigh them equally in the best circumstances (eg if the CCP chooses to prosecute corruption within the party), with no advantage to either. But in the less ideal circumstances, the CCP has the option of not being held accountable for crimes and corruption, whereas in the US, no person has that authority.
I think the most compelling argument in favor of China is the fact that it has 1.4 billion people that the CCP has to govern compared to the US which has only 300 million. The US govt was also much wealthier than the CCP. China's literacy rate in 1950 is only 20% compared to the US which has close to 100% literacy. Unlike the US, China experienced the Century of Humiliation. Its people are understandably jaded and pessimistic, and less likely to believe in higher ideals like freedom, cooperation and rule of law, it's a dog eat dog world out there. The Chinese people are always on the lookout for any signs of weaknesses on the CCP, they are always wary that the govt might lose the "Mandate of Heaven." And lastly unlike the US, China is surrounded by powerful neighbors. Therefore, managing China is going to be much more difficult than managing the US, and the CCP might have to take more drastic measures to maintain order within China. The US has the luxury of starting from zero. It has the luxury of setting the foundation of the country very early in its history, when the country was a mere 13 colonies along the Atlantic coast and it has the luxury of developing organically, without any foreign intervention or colonialism. Unlike the US, China doesn't have that luxury and has to make do with what it has and all of its baggages. Suppose that we accept that the Chinese political system is less than ideal, then what? Are we going to reset to zero? Overthrow the govt and plunge the nation into chaos and cause tremendous suffering to the people? No. Even though the Chinese system is less than ideal, it is the only thing we have, and we have to learn to accept and make do with it. We should really stop treating the interaction between states as equivalent to the interactions between individuals. The Chinese people oftentimes don’t have control over what’s going on in Beijing, just as the American people don’t have control over what’s going on in Washington DC
Nah. China should break apart. Give Tibet to the Tibetans. Give Xinjiang to the Uyghurs. Give inner Mongolia to the Mongols. Give HK to HK. Give Taiwan to Taiwan. Give disputed Ladhak area back to India. Withdraw from the Southchina Sea. __________ One rotten egg will spoil the entire cake. If the corruption of the CCP was self-contained, ok maybe we could tolerate. But its not self-contained. It affects the Chinese a lot, the religious minorities and political dissidents. And also the CCP affects foreign countries. Their disregard for the environment will accelerate the destruction of the oceans. __________ Germany got a do-over without a hard "start from 0", China can do it too. And for that China has to adopt Western values similar to Taiwan.
You have rule of law in US that looks good on paper but then in practice, you see it on the brink of a civil war. Then you have rule of law in China which looks really scary on paper but then in practice, seems like a place where most people from the West who've experienced it would love to live as their place of choice because of its convenience and safety. You be the judge because that same scary rule of law isn't unique to China, it also exists in Singapore, Dubai and some other great countries.
According to his video, the US political landscape should be represented as 4.5 layers: [1:Law, 2:the Rich + 2.5: politics , 3:legislation, 4: the Citizens]. It seems a beautiful setup to enable lawful ways to manipulate the legislation and the citizens bound by the manipulated legislation ... above or below the Law does not really matter that much
"seems like a place where most people from the West who've experienced it would love to live as their place of choice" Not, of course, if you're a Uighur or a Tibetan, or other undesirable non-Han Chinese, or practice Christianity or Falun Gong, etc.
@@wrobinnes You mean like George Floyd, black minority is undersired in Trump america and choked to death by cops who get the greenlight to attack black minorities willy nilly and murder them in broad daylight ? You mean like muslims and urghurs who are still kept and maybe tortured at Guantano Bay in Cuba ? Or native americans who owned Murica and have been genocided to almost extinction and relegated to a few reserves in a zoo like fashion ? Hey you silly, know what you're talking about next time b4 pointing fingers to others, looking hard in the mirror will maybe enlighten you about the darkness that resides in the reflection.
Having lived in both China and US, I generally agree that US political structure looks better (especially on paper, not nearly so in practice). Practically speaking, the enforcement of both countries’ law favors the “elites” (either political or financial).
Agreed. China is rule by law, while US is rule of law. However, that doesn't mean US system is for sure superior. Rule of law sounds good, at least in most times, but the "law" is in words, and words have inherent loopholes, conflicts, different explanations. To mitigate them, people create more laws to specify and clarify. Before long, you will find the system so complicated that only "experts" can understand it. They know all the "tricks" to maneuver through the games. Law becomes tools of ruling. Sooner or later, the system becomes so messy that original spirits of the laws will be lost. Authoritarianism and democracy, human have been talking about them for 3000 years. Some people say democracy is "the end of history" (the ultimate political system last forever). But Aristotle said democracy ends in political deadlock and then anarchy. Time will tell. America has not yet seen a full cycle of ebb and flow. Before that, American will continue to be arrogant. Just wish the country can keep the spirit of rule of law forever.
What is rule-by-law therefore ? To me, its seems CCP is a tool To defend the chinese people by Chinese identity. It has an tacit meaning, an image described in the constitution.
Ryan - The only demographic in the US that may be most similar to “above the law” framework you established would be our military and intelligence community. Either they are judged and sentenced within a separate court system (similar to CCP’s internal discipline committee) or often not allowed to be tried under our normal courts (intel officers are often prevented from facing prosecution for everyday offenses because of the fear that classified info may spillover). This is another reason why efforts to grow the power of the national security state in the US is so dangerous.
5:13 what is the punishment for violating the constitution? I've never heard of a single case of the Supreme court or any other sentencing someone for the crime of violating the constitution.
I understand where you are coming from, but I would still insist that is an over-simplification of CCP's version of ROL.The comparison between CCP and any party in US is losing the fundamental common ground. I would say most of the time they are not even the same concept.
This is a part of the same "comparisons that don't make sense" line but Imagine if there was a part of USA law that guaranteed the Green Party, Libertarian Party, Constitutionalist Party, Working Families Party, Alliance Party, Party For Socialism And Liberation were guaranteed seats in government to give counsel to the 2 ruling parties Because that's what China actually has lol They have minor parties that represent specific interests and offer advice and alternate perspectives to the CPC Despite being a 1 party state, that's a way more democratic way to negotiate power-sharing on a national scale than the USA does.
I think it is only meaningful to view the rule of law in practice, not in theory, since it is not something sacred and inviolable, but a tool of governance. I can't fully agree with Ryan: (1) The US constitution is made by the congress and interpreted by the supreme court, the recent controversy on abortion and gun control are examples that constitution in practice can be changed by the congress and the court can determine how the constitution is enforced and what each clauses means. US citizens can only expect the the congress and the court strictly follow the spirit of constitution. The law protects the citizen just because the court and the congress want it to happen. For example, corruption is the US may be legal in the form of lobbying, while China prohibit any form of bribery and interest transformation; Chinese government can control the business decision by legislation or state-owned relationship, while the US government is hard to so unless in emergency situation (e.g. by Defense Production Act). It is a good example showing the US and China make something happen under the law because the ruling parties want it to happen, not solely because of the law. (2) It is important to notice that CCP has its own constitution which is a legal document regulating the behavior of the party, and the party members who violate this party constitution (not limited to corruption, but like failed governance) will get punished. CCP is not above everything, it still need to follow certain form of law which is supreme. And there is an independent called "Central Commission for Discipline Inspection" inside the party to regulate its members, investigate improper performance. The constraints on CCP is more than you can think of, and you cannot ignore that. (3) Although CCP is against any form of alternative ideologies and ruling parties, this claim is clearly written in the Chinese constitution, it is an obvious fact. But for the US, although the constitution seems not against any alternative ideologies, it give space for the politician and government to control the political environment in administrative way or in the name of "national security". The McCarthyism after WWII against the communist activities and the suppression of Black Panther Party may demonstrate how the US government and politicians exclude alternative ideologies and political parties.
It is a good start to recognize the difference of the US and China in a rational and neutral way, but to understand China, I think we really need to understand her in her context (e.g. the communist context, the Fa school "法家" context), but not in the context of Aristotle or Francis Fukuyama, to name a few, who are not the founder nor the aspiration of the rule of law in China.
You are great, I just watched your earlier video and my primary criticism was a lack of discussion of corruption and… here you are. The video was already made. Thanks for great content!
Thanks Ryan, you bring a degree of rigor and sincerity rarely seen these days when it comes to China topics - but I think I should point out some fundamental issues in trying to make an apples to apples comparison. You might find it interesting to revisit all of the points in your comparison, but to premise for a moment, hypothetically: The CCP is not a party. Not in the traditional sense. If a given political party in the US is an apple, the CCP is not even an orange, it's an orange tree. They might as well just drop the word Party from their name (and while they're at it, drop Communist too) to avoid confusion. It might help to think of a 'party' in the US as analogous to a 'faction' in the CCP. And the "Party" in China is analogous to the collective of both parties in the US. One might consider the CCP as the underlying structure of the whole system of public administration. This is key, because many of your points hinge upon the fact that this "party" is "in power".
It doesn’t really contradict his points though. Whereas in China the CCP is the tree from which all the other branches of government emerges, in the US, that tree is the constitution.
Currently in China CCP is the institution that holds the "Mandate of Heaven". The Constitution comes from the "Mandate of Heaven". Xi is not above CCP or the "Mandate of Heaven". You don't have to be a communist to join CCP. Capitalists or anybody can join as long as they are good enough, like Jack Ma or Ren zhengfei, or someone who is a "pillar of the society".
@@Ivan-td7kb You're right, it doesn't contradict his points if all he's doing is just a mental exercise: "what do we get if we apply the structures of the US system to look at the Chinese one?" Or, "let's look at political systems the way a lawyer would". But if we're talking about a comparison grounded in reality, there's a big, fundamental flaw in his analogy. He himself pointed out the circular logic: "The CCP is in power because it's in power". When you get these strange loops, it's a sign that the framework you're using doesn't actually work. Maybe the "power" in the equation is used in the wrong way, or in the wrong place, or doesn't even belong. The CCP isn't designed to compete for power and the right to rule. That's what parties do in the US, not in China. It's helpful to keep in mind that when compared to the US, governance in China is much less about power, and much more associated with public administration/public service. The difference is huge, and cannot be overlooked in any kind of comparison. Or, let's imagine there is this institution in the US called the American Political Establishment - the APE for short. The APE holds a monopoly on power. Even if public support is low, The APE is still in power, because it can't be voted out. Therefore, it's power is not legitimized. Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are part of this American Political Establishment. It is all levels, all organs of government. The constitution was written by the APE. The APE has the sole right to interpret and amend it. According to Ryan's logic, that means that in the US, government is above the law. On the other hand, if one were to say that "the CCP is above the law", what does that really mean? All organs of government? All levels from central to local? All 90+ million members? I realize that some degree of abstraction/reduction is necessary, but in this case is it even useful? Interestingly, although it wasn't one of his points, the big takeaway that I got from this video is that in the US, 'wealthy individuals' are bound by the law, but Wealth undermines the spirit of the law.
Great video! learned a lot between this and the last one. Everyone out there, this content is way more valuable than most news sources you'll subscribe to, imo. If you have some cash lying around, help grow his patreon so we can get more videos like this
I understand where Ryan is coming from, but nothing in the US Constitution actually gives the Supreme Court the power to declare a law unconstitutional and provide a check and balance against the legislative and executive branch. This feature of American political system did not come until Chief Justice Marshall's ruling in Marbury vs Madison. The role of the Supreme Court depends on POLITICAL INTERPRETATION, because its role is not clearly defined in the Constitution. As such, the US Supreme Court is a political institution from the start, and it is pliable to the pressures of political interests. This is why we're having a Surpreme Court that's about to overturn Roe vs Wade, which is not something the majority of Americans want, but it is made possible by the political maneuvering of politicians like Trump and McConnell who went out of their way to stuff the judicial system with judges that align with their political ideologies. And unfortunately, those on the Left have no respect or appreciation for judicial independence either, because their solution is to stuff the court with even more politically driven judges. I do not see a hard line that separates the judicial branch and the other two political branches in the US. The separation of power that provides check and balance has been permeable and pliable throughout US history, and at the current state ... it is hard to say that the Surpreme Court can provide adequate check and balance on legislations and executive orders. The current hierachy is more like "Political Parties" > "Law" instead of the ideal "Law" > "Political Parties". I agree with Ryan that a problem with the CCP is that it has a monopoly on political power in China. It will not allow much room for political dissent, and we all know that absolute power corrupts absolutely. However, I think the difference with the US is only by degree and not by kind; which means the US also squashes political dissent and exert political monopoly, but it does so in a much more subversive way and it's not as "in your face". For example, the Electoral College was designed to keep out third parties; and until 1968 the Democratic Party's primary election was controlled by party leaders and primary voters had no say on who their party candidate was going to be. Thus, they had only two choices to choose from, and they couldn't even decide on who are the two choices. Combined that with a media press that's cozy with government, and we have a system of "manufactured consent", where American people are given the illusion that their political voices are heard but no real challenge to establish power is tolerated. A clear evidence of this is the fact that American policies are often NOT RESPONSIVE to the needs and demands of the the average citizen. More often than not, legislations in the US serve the interests of political parties and the interests of their lobby groups such as corporations. And of course, they legitimize this in the courts by appointing more pro-corporate judges. But as I said earlier, the court is born from politics was never independent from politics in the first place, so this should not come as a surprise. I'll close off by saying that justice is more the result of "political actions" than "political design". Unlike Ryan, I do not believe there's a higher law that's above the legislation. The "law" comes from the moral sentiments of the people, and it doesn't exist anywhere outside of people or society. Through the process of social politics, and forming mutual understanding, we form consensus on what "the law" should be. Thus, we should bite the bullet and acknowledge that "the law" is the result of political action and social negotiations from the start. There is no real hierarchy that's etched in stone by political designed (whether it's the Chinese system or American system), and it's a dynamic that requires our constant vigilence via political actions to make sure that legislations are balanced with accountability, and the needs of the many are balanced with the needs of the few. Even though some political designs can offer more bells and whistles to provide more balance of power, ALL of them can careen off course and into a ditch if the driver is not vigilent. In any political system, the people is the driver, the people is the source of the "higher law", and that higher law is the result of a political process that requires political action from everyone. In this way, political design is of secondary importance to political action, and we should no have a false sense of confidence that one political system (i.e. one political design) will necessarily provide more protection than another.
Their power comes from that very interpretation and enforcement you just stated. They are the literal gatekeepers of the law, they can technically decide who can go to jail and who doesn’t even the president, congress, rich, or poor if on trial for breaking the law. Just because they may choose not to do it or not doesn’t mean they can’t, that is just trumped to corruption. That is exactly why he brought it up later. Gotta pay attention to what he’s saying and not what you wanna say if you want to understand what’s being said.
Thanks for the detailed comment. I’d say you’re probably correct, it’s good to have a clear explanation of how things should ideally work from Ryan at least. I’m interested to learn about how both systems work in real life now, as well as other systems around the world. This has really sparked my curiosity.
@@gaemr_o5147 I think "Manufacturing Consent" by Chomsky is a good book. BUT, like anything in political science and philosophy, you need to read it critically, because some of its conclusions can be taken too far, and you need to see when that might be the case. You should establish some sort of "limiting principle" for yourself, so that you know when you're taking things too far. ALL of us will eventually be wrong, so the most important thing is not just to find "good" ideas, but to also know when it is enough and when we might be wrong. What I've said above is simply echoing Aristotle's advice on politics, which is "moderation". Unfortunately, it takes exposure to lots of ideas, experience applying some of them, and making some mistakes to learn what moderation means. Just as there's no "royal road in geometry" there's no "royal road" or "quick route guide" to political science either. On the practical experience side, I recommend NOT taking RUclips video essays too seriously. Use them as inspirations or provocative thought pieces for further study and research. Dig deeper into their sources and ask critical questions about their claims before adopting their beliefs, even if they seem so "obvious". It's usually the "obvious truths" and un-checked assumptions that create blindspots and turn us into our own worst enemies in the long-run. Take RUclips videos should be a conversation piece and jumping point for further study. Make friends, ask questions, share ideas ... build communities together ... this is what politics means. Have fun!
The main issue I have with this video is that by 'the rich', you think of rich individuals. In the United States, a rich Individual is indeed beneath the law. However, it's a whole different matter if you look at big corporate interests, because then you have lobbies Writing the law. A good example of this is city planning (which is one of my personal areas of interest) in the United States. In the United States, car lobbies have successfully done the following: dismantled much of public transportation, introduced legislation that made it illegal for people to walk on the streets (which they could, before cars took over all the streets), introduced legislation for minimum parking spaces (in Europe it's the opposite: there's Maximum parking space), and basically razed over many poor (mainly black) districts to make way for highways (I always wondered how the US managed to build those big roads without NIMBYs getting in the way, until I found the answer). Even today, city planning in the United States revolves around the car. Another example is how they can manipulate the press. I recall reading that a while ago, a state wanted to pass legislation to set a maximum number of patients that a nurse could take care of (because nurses were being horribly overworked). Big hospitals didn't want that to pass however, so they financed a huge campaign that claimed the legislation was taking away the right of nurses to decide for themselves. In fact, as a teenager I read the (Western) newspaper regularly, and the war in Iraq completely destroyed any faith I had in the press. Notice that despite being completely wrong about WMD in Iraq, not a single person was held accountable, which makes me pretty skeptical about the 'free press' ability to hold people accountable. In fact, the French press at the time (I was studying in France) completely predicted the sectarian violence that would happen, but it was magically not passed on into international (American) press, nor was the fact that Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden hated each other's guts. Meanwhile, there was the Nayirah testimony, which was outright made up by an American public relations firm. Since then, I've learned more about what's actually going on in Iraq from a few RUclips videos (namely the fact that it is effectively landlocked by unfriendly neighbors which can literally cut off its water, thus explaining why Iraq wanted Kuwait so bad) than I did from a year of subscription to Time magazine for example. In China, the CCP is indeed above the law, but it's also much more effective against big interests. Basically, the central government issues vaguely worded directives which local provinces will then try to figure out on their own. If the central government finds that one province is trying to be clever and did something that's Clearly not ok, it'll then issue hard directives to make that explicitly not-okay. In the case of corporations (such as Jack Ma trying to mess with the financial markets), it will step in directly, so they won't always be 'one step ahead of the law' like they are in the United States. It's not as nice as a proper rule of law of course, but it gets things done in a very fast evolving society. Also, it means energy is being expended on the really big fish rather than all the small fries that are blatantly evading taxes etc.
As someone who agrees with a lot of what you said, you're still missing his point - corporations are still regulated by the constitution. They're abusing the legislation in their favor, that's absolutely true, but if the supreme court makes lobbying illegal tomorrow, they wouldn't be able to lobby anymore. Same about manipulating the press (which is not even illegal as far as I'm aware), if that becomes unconstitutional - it will stop. All the problems you mentioned can theoretically be addressed by the body that governs the law in the United States - which is the supreme court. Not an American citizen myself, so it's not like I'm a big fanboy of the American political system, but Ryan's points still stand. The problem is that the supreme court hasn't been the best at representing and protecting the interest of the American people. The same can be said about the legislative branch, but that's a problem that can be addressed with the correct public course of action, unlike in China's political system which makes any changes to the law impossible as long as it contradicts the interests of the CCP. As I've said - I'm not a US citizen, but with all the disgust I hold for the US government, I still prefer it over the Chinese way of governance. Even if the CCP can be more effective at times, it still is the worst regime out there when considering human rights and the freedom of the individual.
@@Shemratov The fact that you hold the CCP as worse than not just the USA but Israel towards Palestine, Eqypt, The Congo, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Columbia, Libya, Russia, etc just shows how little you know and/or how little you are capable of grasping the truth, whether that be from a unwillingness to self-examine or a commitment to prejudice. And you do not seem to understand the dynamic relationship between the CCP and the citizens of China.
Ryan, I think you're applying double standards when comparing US vs China. When discussing US, you keep citing the Constitution to say no one in the US is "above the law", and dismiss any real world example based on technicality. When discussing China, you dismiss its Constitution as technicality, and keep citing real world examples to say the CCP is "above the law". In reality, dear sir, when people say "above the law" they mean it figuratively - some individuals and organizations can maneuver themselves around the law, and many cannot. This means that those who can are in effect "above the law". Your semantics-based argument makes no progress beyond supporting the slogan that China has no rule of law - it's probably true, but it doesn't prove that anyone else has "real" rule of law. We should probably re-evaluate what "rule of law" even means, given that the so-called "independent judicial system" depends on the whims of individual judges who are appointed in a highly political manner in many parts of the world. I have enjoyed almost all of your videos thus far, especially that you apply a very consistent method to analyze many controversial topics. I'm here to learn and have converstaions, and will be genuinely curious what you think.
I don't think I'm applying a double standard. The difference is both formal and practical in both countries. In China they don't formally recognize the Constitution as a higher authority than the CCP, and it also doesn't work as a higher legal authority in practice. In the United States the Constitution is both formally the highest authority, and also the highest authority in practice. So that is including real world examples in both cases. We do have real rule of law in the United States, so do many countries around the world. That doesn't mean it's flawless in the US and couldn't be stronger, but it is real nonetheless. There's no need to re-evaluate what rule of law means. The term works well enough as-is. Our judicial system is considered strongly independent as well, at least from professional analysis. I looked at corruption indexes there and our judicial system ranked very high. So it's easy to be cynical there but the cynicism seems detached from evidence, at least to me. If people want to loosely use the term 'above the law,' that's of course going to happen. But it's worth having a solid handle on what the term technically means, and that's what this video lays out.
Kaiskid, I first read your comment and then started watching the video, which made me analyse it more critically and to that extent I am thankful for your perspective, but at the same time I feel like the video in fact counters most of your points
Your definition of above the law is different from his. In your definition, everyone is above the law sometimes. I am sure it you have ever driven a car, you have broken the law and not get punished. You may have even sped in front of police but he/she chose not to pursue. What he is talking about is in US we are all governed by constitution, but in China CCP is not.
Chinese here, some thoughts on this topic. In US the law itself is designed to serve the rich, so the rich follow the law doesnt tell anything. your statement is right, on the surface, the politician and the rich don`t break the rulls, BECAUSE THEY DON`T NEED TO BREAK THE RULL TO PROFIT THEMSELF. Think about the soviet union, why do the politicians choose to break the country? because only when ussr don`t exist then they can grab power and wealth. In US those in power don`t need to kill the law to grab power and wealth.
In China, the top leader is not above everything, not Xi, not even Mao. Here you got it totally wrong. In ancient China when the dynasties still exists, the Empeor just kill anyone out of his thoughts without any given reason. In nowadays China, this isn`t the case, if Xi is as powerful as ancient Empeors, he don`t need 10 years in office but still can`t take down all the things he don`t like. i.e. try search 秦岭别墅 to find how hard it is for him to take down some illegal built houses in shaanxi province. And "西山会" etc. the list goes on. You said in the video that CPC is above the law because if it falls under certain approve rates it still stays in power, this is wrong either. If CPC falls the people, it will be taken down just like the communist party of soviet union, the people holds power. And yes, there is no entity on the surface that can force CPC down, but in ancient times the Empero is above everyone, check Chinese history book to see how those were taken down.
by the way, in US the law system became so complicated that you need a lot of money to get a powerful lawer team to win in the court. Poor people dont have the money for that and the system is by design made to do that. so the law is not fair for rich and poor people.
corruption indexes rank doesn`t mean anything, it was ranked by human and human can be very subjective. if the ranker loves us or was funded by us money just like the lobby system it can be very wrong. remember the medical index? US ranks very high in that one, but see how US deal with covid, very obvious.
Ryan, the explanation you give about the technicalities of the rule of law might be technically justified, but it's like saying US isn't a 3rd world country where rampant corruption happens like in Africa or Asia, we just have the laws that made corruption legal meaning that we can go around claiming there's no corruption in US because it's being hidden under the guise of lobbying !!!! Just semantics and words have changed but the same reality (corruption) takes place in US and Africa but in US corruption has been sanitized to lobbying. It's like saying rape didn't happen because it's now been sanitized to coercion , a lesser offense than rape, but words don't do justice to what's happening despite all the jargon whether technical or legal !!! The same would apply to your example of rich people being above the law. Well, rich people have always had lots of resources to hire the best lawyers and people to defend them with various outcomes usually in their favor. If you put a rich person vs a poor person in court, there's no contest. The principle of rule of law isn't being upheld because it's not an equal fight. Fairness and equality do have to be taken into account when considering rule of law which can be easily manipulated by the rich and powerful to keep the semblance of rule of law going while actually the spirit of the rule of law is never upheld. For sure, the rich can be sued in court, but the chance that the rich is well connected and can gather more resources on his side will always tilt justice in his favor. Therefore while you have the rule of law in America, it's only in label for display and it's a system designed to be manipulated to pull the wool over ppl's eyes on what's actually going on. If the constitution was really in control of the rule of law in US, then does the constitution allows for assassinations and overthrow of other governments openly or covertly ? Does the constitution allows all kinds of military operations under the name of national security without accountability ? That should be enough to tell you that the constitution is either very limited in its scope or can be manipulated easily to allow all kinds of repulsive activities that are nefarious for other countries deemed adversaries or competitors of USA. Therefore the rule of law is just a sham as per your definition. In other words, in technical terms it might make you happy but in practice, there's obvious issues that something really doesn't work with the kind of rule of law that happens in the US where people die every day on the street from police brutaility or gun shots and yet people can claim on paper that the rule of law as defined in USA is great when it's pretty obvious, USA is in chaos and something terrible isn't working there and it's not a safe place at all. On paper, China seems like a scary place where CCP is that omnipotent creature , but about 70 years of existence has shown its maturity and the creation of a safe society, despite some hiccups along the way which to be honest pale by comparison with the vietnam war fiasco or Iraq war fiasco where indiscriminate war crimes were ordered by the leaders in a country of rule of law but who committed war crimes and were never tried for their war crimes. In contrast, China has never committed any war crime in recent history !!!
You must not read or watch much television. How about you Google Tiananmen Square massacre and the Chinese involvement in the Vietnam War. You obviously do not understand or know the history of the Chinese wars by proxy that have occurred in the last 70 years. You speak of war crimes by the US in Vietnam. but no mention of the Vietcong using children as suicide bombers. If it wasn't for leftist Democrats like yourself, we would have secured the region and the Khmer Rouge catastrophe perpetrated in Cambodia in the name of Communism would have probably never occurred. Funny, China had a hand in facilitating the outcomes of both??? The Vietnam war was popular under Kennedy and Johnson, but only came under intense scrutiny under Nixon. Hmmmmm, wonder why??? Also, the Iraq War part 2 was approved by both houses of Congress in the US, and subsequent votes to withdraw troops while Bush Jr. was president was overwhelming rejected by Congress as well. Another funny... It was only after Obama become president that support for withdraw gained approval with Congress, even though Obama never bothered to bring it to a vote with Congress, but used Executive/Commander in Chief privileges to do so anyways. That move led to the rise of ISAL/ISIS, with all the death and destruction, as well as erasing every gain the US accomplished with spilled blood by American/Coalition/Iraqi people since the start of the war. Why???? Because Democrats voted for the war, then turned on America and made America the enemy. The true war criminal/scourge of America are Left-Wing Democrat Liberals.
I use Google Translate to better explain what I mean (I am not a native English speaker) Yes, the Communist Party of China is indeed above the Constitution, and people in China only regard this as a phenomenon of the dictatorship of the proletariat. So how does the Chinese Communist Party ensure its legitimacy in China? (The following is a personal opinion) In China after reform and opening up, the relationship between cpc and the Chinese people relies on economic commitment ← this is the mainstream view and it is not wrong. The most important point I think is that due to China’s actual one-party dictatorship, cpc’s "full responsibility system" has been created. This means that for any vicious incidents that occur in China, such as COVID-19, or high unemployment rate, cpc must accept all consequences and Blame, the worst thing is to be overthrown. This direct consequence makes cpc one of the most efficient governments in the world. In the United States, this is the opposite. As the video says, no one is higher than the constitution, which makes it very difficult to deal with responsibilities. Take Covid as an example. In the early stage of Wuhan, the ability and legitimacy of cpc was greatly questioned and blamed in China, which caused cpc to do everything possible to control the epidemic. Officials regarded as lazy and corrupt are either removed from their posts or go to jail. What happened in the United States, I believe you know better than me, at least in my cognition, no government official will be directly responsible for the mishandling of the epidemic, such as Trump or Pence. Of course, this only explains why cpc is above the law and is accepted by the Chinese. there are many shortcomings of this model, such as the lack of political power of ordinary people and the occurrence of unjust cases, but when these problems are put on the table , China’s GDP per capita may have surpassed South Korea, haha.
Most of your observations are surprisingly accurate if you're Japanese. I'm from China and I suspect I can come up with the same level of acuity in my observations.👏👍
The rentier oligarchy makes the law. The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence. Martin Gilens and Benjamin I Page. Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 September 2014 Corporations now spend about $2.6 billion a year on reported lobbying expenditures-more than the $2 billion we spend to fund the House ($1.18 billion) and Senate ($860 million). It’s a gap that has been widening since corporate lobbying began to regularly exceed the combined House-Senate budget in the early 2000s. Lee Drutman, The Atlantic, April 20, 2015
First 2 videos about China surprised me for what it looked like an honest try for unbiased content, but as expected it ended soon lol. Americans truly live in an illusion. A travel around the world, through different societies beyond western Europe would do wonders.
Another well balanced, well researched video, sir. You obviously worked very hard to elaborate on subject in response to comments that were -perhaps- not originally made in good faith. I admire your attention to detail and your respect for hard definitions.
Glad I finally found your channel. Watched 3 episodes so far, impressed. This episode has been out awhile so reading the comments by relevance and they were positive, switched to "new" and not so much, so the reason you didn't put Natural before the word Law was pretty clear. I think the algorithm has been tweaked (at least for my demographic). This is the second channel that was recommended in the last week that has proven to be outstanding. The other one is Asianometry (more about Tech and Economics).
The concept of law wasn’t born in Greece. This kind of western centric POV is intrinsically biased. China had Legalism, Confucianism and other philosophies too. And these philosophies guide the Chinese civilization. Today’s CCP is still operating under these frameworks.
@@dirurururuoksjeir9819 lol. I suggest you watch the episode of Asian Boss, where they conducted a street interview in China on the social credit score system. It’s never too late to learn. Trolling is not helping you to win favors from Modi
@@lordlee6473 haha hahaha, did you just recommend an Asian Boss interview done In China ??? Nice joke . Any of those china interviews might as well be called propaganda , at this point you can always predict every answer some on in China will give . I mean ask your what do you think it take for Asian boss to film and publish those china videos, you think they just roll in and film random people there asking whatever they want ??? Lol
some interesting facts: 1. it is explicitly written in cn constitution that the nation is under the leadership of ccp. so technically ccp is above the law, by authorisation of the law itself. 2. if you put the constition to people's vote. it is almost certain that it'll pass the constition given the current approval rate. 3. national people's congress CAN indeed amend the law (say someone want to remove the leadership of ccp). however said so, the system is delicately desinged. there are 5 layers of deputies to the National People's Congress. if anyone try to amend the constition, he/she need to climb up 5 times the ladder of voting system. in china without the help of ccp, it's almost impossible to get to the position where you can cast your vote.
A lot of Chinese see "procedural justice"(or the very idea of due process) as THE PROBLEM with the American legal system, not only the rich are sometimes above the law. on rule of law, my opinion without watching this video would be in the united states there is a convoluted legal system where a lot of the times bugs have become features. China has a unsophisticated legal system, that is flexible to interpretation and is bound to ordinary people's ability to understand. The reason often cited for this difference i hear, is china is vastly different internally and is growing rapidly, so its system need to adopt to the situation in different time and space, and strict adherence to the letter would hinder our agility.
After watching the full video i think my comment kind of stands. You're holding china to a standard set by the west, while china these days is often saying "china is different, so it's fine if we don't do the same thing, and it's not like we're asking other countries to do what we do". I think this is kind of similar to how people in the west often have the misconception Japan is an atheist country, and the statistic backing it up used a definition of what counts as a religion is very ... Christian.
This video (and the comment section for it) are both really interesting food for thought. It demonstrates a stark difference in the historical experiences and political expectations between China and the western world. Here in the west, we mistrust authority and fear the rise of kings and tyrants who do not look out for the public good. Our experience with despots that abuse their power has led us to create a more rigid legal system that has the power to hold errant authorities to account and focuses on protecting the rights of the individual from government overreach. In China, perhaps due to Confucianism (or other historical reasons, I still have more studying to do), there is more of an inclination to trust authority as long as it is doing its job. As long as the government is acting practically and things are going well, any citizen should rationally feel inclined to respect the government's authority and obey even without a strict legal framework protecting them. This gives the Chinese government more flexibility in operating and advancing the goals of their civilization. As a westerner, though, I am forced to ask: What can the Chinese people do if their government becomes corrupt and inefficient. What happens if they go too far and your life becomes worse off due to government mismanagement or because your leaders grow decadent and self-interested?
IMO there will be a coup if the government becomes too inefficient to rule properly, just as Mao's chosen successor was ousted by Deng Xiaoping as China was looking for economic reform.
I want to share some information as reference for your last questions. As a Chinese, the answer for those questions, such as "What can the Chinese people do if their government becomes corrupt and inefficient", is so obvious: change it. PRC is a very young state, however, China is a really really really old country. During our long history, the situation you just asked happened many times already. The result of those situatiion created a unique Chinese term called "Dynastic cycle". According to this theory, each dynasty rises to a political, cultural, and economic peak and then, because of moral corruption, declines, loses the Mandate of Heaven, and falls, only to be replaced by a new dynasty. The cycle exists thousands of years in China. Unlike Western countries, the aristocratic class hardly existed in ancient China (Feudal society period). So when a dynasty goes to its end, ANYONE can found a new dynasty as long as he or she or them can promote the progress of Chinese civilization and lead the people living in this continent to a better life. The similar philosophy can be found everywhere if you go through the history of China. For example, there is a old Chinese saying:"A barracks is an iron-forged whole, where soldiers like water come and go." (Based on the same logic, it can rephase as China is an iron-forged whole, where leaders like water come and go) Although, nowadays, new theories appeared such as capitalism, feudalism, socialism and etc, for us Chinese, the essence is still that same cycle. Of course, CCP wishes to break the cycle which means it has to keep working on the most fundamental desire: "promote the progress of Chinese civilization and lead the people living in this continent to a better life". This needs time to prove. So, generally speaking, when CCP can't keep the right direction, a new cycle will begin, no one can stop it. This is one reason that China is the longest continuously existing polity in the world.
The classical role of government is to tax away economic rents and use it to lower the cost of production. This is done through subsidies for such things as public infrastructure, education, and health care, not raising the cost of living and therefore the cost of labor, as with monopolistic privatization. The problem with economics as it is understood in America, is that there is no distinction between wealth production and wealth extraction. Production of goods and services speaks for itself, but monopolies and the banks (FIRE, finance, insurance, and real estate) extract what is called economic rent. The free market Adam Smith talked about is free FROM economic rent, not free FOR economic rent. This is Industrial Capitalism (China) as opposed to Financial Capitalism (USA), and it is what the conflict is really all about. American democracy is entirely theatrical with the majority having no more effect on the rentier oligarchy than the Chinese majority on the Communist Party of China. If the US was a democracy, we would have a decent minimum wage, public health care, free education, parental leave, and gun control, to name a few, all by popular demand.
As some people pointed out, some things just look good on paper but in practice otherwise. Ryan, you should live in china for awhile and feel it for yourself and ask the most important question: why even with such structure that seems to make CCP above the law, has not collapsed China? What am I missing out there to connect the dot? Feel it, then talk about it again.
Agree! Ryan's analysis should be suplemented by reality check on how the two systems work in practice and how do they produce outcome. The ability of making corruptions legal is the real problem of the us, which is the root of system decay.
@@gxc26tube ya. Too many people like to go into the thinking mode or hypothesis mode by going into theory without being scientific, and it ends there. It's lazy writing. For Ryan, maybe he is satisfied that 1 video is uploaded. Being scientific means you test your hypothesis. I'm disappointed that Ryan never touched the concept of "participating parties", "meritocracy" (which is a unique culture. Ancient Chinese aspires to pass the highly prestigious officer exam to become local officer), voting system that are manifestation of the core principles, JUST LIKE free speech, free media, check and balance concepts to western style democracy! Instead of rushing out something like this, should be like Ray Dalio who takes time to speak to the local scholars.
The problem is when ppl bring judgemental mentality when they study the political differences between two systems and only reinforce their prejudices of the political system they are familiar/unfamiliar with, then you are not learning anything new, you are just self-willingly indoctrinated. The whole argument in this video only touches upon the subject that China is not a constitutional polity as the US, in other words - China is not the US. But to say that CCP's source of power is not legitimized is a judgemental statement rather than a logical conclusion. The video maker has to realize that he just spent the 20 min of his life saying that CCP is not legitimate because they do not have the same system of the US.
Excellent video. I appreciate your willingness to challenge such a wide range of conflicting public opinions, especially since you took the comments of your very own viewers as your point of departure in the conception of this video. Here's an engagement comment to do my tiny part in the hopes that this channel gets a much-deserved surge in viewership. I admit to having a fairly shallow understanding of Chinese politics. I could say a few things about the CCP, Mao, Deng, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping, but not enough to kid anyone truly knowledgeable on the subject that I could speak about contemporary China with any competence. I find Chapman's approach to making these videos more helpful than anything else I've seen online. I largely agree with the points about cynical views regarding the rule of law in America, though I disagree with the point about law enforcement benefiting from qualified immunity so much that police officers "could reliably break the law, and not be prosecuted for it." From all my research into the matter, I've been surprised to find just how exceptional police corruption appears to be in America. This is all the more surprising given how thoroughly scrutinized police departments have been over the past several decades. Perhaps Chapman has come across some powerful evidence to the contrary that I remain ignorant of.
Love your contents btw. It's very rare for a westerner to watch China from your perspective. I just want to add on for what felt like a misperception. "The CCP is in power because they are in power" 1) Although westerner felt that CCP is just a party, the Chinese people was never open to the idea of multiple ruling parties in a government. When they recognise other parties in power like KMT, it is always because China is split and each party is the government of that fraction. In fact, they often address CCP as "the government" or "China's government" instead of CCP. But before you conclude that CCP is illegitimate and Chinese are just obeying blindly, let me explain why it is not what you think. 2) If you ask a ordinary Chinese in China why the CCP is legitimate, they may tell you that they are legitimate by showing results on improving China. But there's more than that. The CCP is much closer to civilians than you think. The CCP is more inclusive than exclusive and that's why they are huge with 95 million members. That is 1 in 15 Chinese citizens. Any Chinese above the age of 18 can join and they have the equal opportunities, more or less, to climb the pyramid of power. It doesn't mean that they come home an entirely different person once they gained membership. Rather, they will still share the same opinions as their families and have the same difficulties as before. Thus with enough people feeling the same way and enough impetus to change, they will climb to a position to induce change in the systems or policies. So when you ask a Chinese on the streets why their government is legitimate, the real reason answer is that "Many of us are a part of them and they are always a part of us". And they would argue that the outcome of this system (i.e. policies and achievements) is the similar, if not better, than an electoral one.
Most party members are just their for added societal benefits such as business deals and other privligies it's not about trying to climb the ladder and improve society
He's right though in that the legal legitimization of the CCP comes because it's in power. However, the same can be said about the constituition of the US; it's the constituition because it's the constituition. But it's true that legitimacy is better understood as whether or not a government is percieved as legitimate by it's subjects and international actors, and for what reasons.
The question is, if I don't agree with the CCP, can I choose another party that I feel represented by? If the answer is no, then there is no freedom One can agree with a totalitarian government and perhaps feel seduced to support these types of regimes because one can subjectively consider that they had good results, but have you ever wondered what you would feel if you did not agree with the ruling party and could not do anything to change it? The truth of one cannot be imposed by silencing the truths of others, it is my humble opinion
@@muiponcomuiponco772 The question is, is there more Chinese or, for example, Americans agreeing with their ruling governments? Even in terms of percentage of the population. A good government will have high approval rates no matter what system they use. Results speak for themselves.
@@lyc1324 But in the West, if you don't agree with the government, you can protest, you can express it, you can vote for alternatives, you can form your own political party with your ideas for change, etc. Obviously you have no guarantees that things will change to your liking, that in any case is decided by a majority under a verifiable method that is free voting, but respect for the minority exists. And even if it were true that China has high approval ratings, it does not solve the problem of the lack of freedom. With that thought we could justify Nazi Germany, if Hitler had high approval ratings then did he have the right to do what he wants?
1} Everything you said so far about China is accurate, although incomplete truth; 2) Most of what you said about the United States are controversial, in a) true only in its forms; b)less and less relevant in people's lives, and c)less and less to do with the upholding of justice esp in dealings with humanity other than the Americans. I am disappointed at sb whom I had held much respect b/c of his clarity and comprehensiveness when presenting. Now I only admire your clarity. I also realize how complex the world is, so much so it's impossible to be concise and accurate at the same time and why Karl Marx devoted all his life's energy just to show us one single truth. I'll leave you a paragraph that I wrote last year to end my reply: The legal system in North America has become a maze for ordinary people like you and me. It has life-changing power over the individual in the spotlight while entertaining the public at large as spectators until one day you become that individual yourself. In the end, it becomes a sword of Damocles hanging over everyone who still fancies the rose garden of freedom, liberty, justice, and democracy, when in fact they are living in a dystopia of an invisible prison that none knows how to get out of. Everyone has heard about the sword but none truly comprehend its lethality until the moment it arbitrarily drops on one's head. When that moment arrives, you suddenly find yourself the loneliest individual ever! This certainly won't apply if you are a citizen living in the people's republic of China. I'll elaborate on that if requested.
I think Ryan really short changed his analysis of China. China's culture and history go back thousands of years and Ryan only went back to 1949 when the CCP took over. I don't think the American legal system is perfect but it works well 99% of the time. It is important to be transparent and let the media cover the times when it doesn't work so people can find out about the problems and fix them. There are two downsides to this. One is the media might turn it into a circus just for entertainment. The worse problem is the media will pick up say one incident each week and ignore the 10,000 times that week where everything worked as it should. This might lead people to believe the system is broke when it is actually working as it should. Errors are made public and then the public demands that they be fixed. Of all the things I can be worried about the legal system is the least of my concerns. If anything I am worried that it won't be there when I need it.
@@jamestucker8088 In my opinion, Ryan's video basically says that the US has a "rule of law" whereas China has a "rule of CCP", supplemented by some "rule by law". However, I think the difference between the two could be consequential: The former is letters and words that can become hollow and irrelevant and easily fall into the trap of dogmatism; Whereas is the latter is a live organism that continues to evolve and adapt. As someone in the comment section put it: "A lot of Chinese see "procedural justice"(or the very idea of due process) as THE PROBLEM with the American legal system, not only the rich are sometimes above the law. on rule of law, my opinion without watching this video would be in the united states there is a convoluted legal system where a lot of the times bugs have become features. China has an unsophisticated legal system, that is open to interpretation and is bound to ordinary people's ability to understand. The reason often cited for this difference I hear is china is vastly different internally and is growing rapidly, so its system needs to adapt to the situation in different time and space, and strict adherence to the letter would hinder our agility." Here is another: "China is “rule by law”, while the US is rule of law. However, that doesn't mean the US system is for sure superior. Rule of law sounds good, at least in most times, but the "law" is in words, and words have inherent loopholes, conflicts, different explanations. To mitigate them, people create more laws to specify and clarify. Before long, you will find the system so complicated that only "experts" can understand it. They know all the "tricks" to maneuver through the games. Law becomes a ruling tool. Sooner or later, the system becomes so messy that the original spirits of the laws are lost. Authoritarianism or democracy, humans have been talking about them for 3000 years. Some people say democracy is "the end of history" (the ultimate political system that lasts forever). But Aristotle said democracy ends in political deadlock and then anarchy. Time will tell. America has not yet seen a full cycle of ebb and flow. Before that, Americans will continue to be arrogant."
@@leonal522 Your observations are quite valid. The Chinese had plenty of lessons with worshiping the 'Law' as if sacred above all else. In the ancient times there was the discipline of legalism. Qin Dynasty was in favor of it. Then Qin Dynasty collapsed within a few decades due to its oppressive nature. At the founding of Han Dynasty, the founders made a slogan of 10-character summary of the spirit of law so every common people can understand what Han Dynasty's laws were about, and yes, it's even much shorter and easier to remember than the ten commandments of western religions traditions. I am quite surprised that how few American intellectuals truly understand the meaning and relations of concepts such as law, freedom, morality etc. Lao-Tzu wrote about these 2500 years ago in China and he explained that when you rely on etiquette (aka law), the society is already degenerated and close to chaos. The more the laws, the more the thieves. The more the regulations, the poorer the people. Clearly Lao-Tzu did not worship rule-of-law. I think more western intellectuals should acquaint themselves with Lao-Tzu's work, in order to better understand Chinese wisdom. Yes the CCP also studies Lao-Tzu, and to a large extent it has inherited both Taoist and Confucian legacies.
An excellent analysis. I must admit even I was (and am) quite cynical about American and Western politics in general, but you do make some good points. Glad you stood your ground and further clarified your previous statement with facts instead of just caving to pressure. Sad but not surprised to see parts of the comment sections turning into a pissing contest with some Chinese nationalists coming to try and rescue the unrescuable. It baffles me how some might use the example of govt officials purging to show that there is rule of law in China, rather than understanding that it is about party infighting. It is truly shocking to see how few Chinese people truly understand their own country. Sure enough, the CCP is, as admitted by some of the top experts on the topic, one of the most opaque organisations on earth and so only top CCP officials will ever truly know everything that is going on within the party. But the things you speak of are there in plain sight for all (who want to see) to see. Even more so if somebody has spent some time in China. I honestly struggle to understand why anyone should struggle so much to be critical of their own government. I was born and raised in Italy, and I have no problem acknowledging that we have one of the most corrupt political systems of all Western liberal democracies. But then again, bad as Italy may be, I suppose we are lucky enough to not have to endure years of government indoctrination and propaganda that would thwart our perception of reality. Mostly, anyway. To some extent, government propaganda is everywhere of course, as made even more blatant during the last two years.
I agree with you; as to your question, " I honestly struggle to understand why anyone should struggle so much to be critical of their own government" here is some insight. The Chinese citizen often struggle to publicly denounce their government due to 2 layers of issue: 1. Economic prosperity that they have generally experienced during the past 70 years, meaning that they are generally grateful for CCP's work in rebuilding the nation from devastation. This is pretty different from many western countries where wealth growth has been stagnant for many decades, and the society are in a 'cake dividing' phase instead of a 'cake baking' phase. 2. A cultural habit about "家丑不外扬” - Ugliness at home should not be advertised. - this is very evident - if you're Chinese and talking to another Chinese, you may find that both of you are more prone to talk honestly about the CCP's fault, and towards non-Chinese, and worst yet, western media, Chinese tend to be less willing to talk bad about their government, Another thing is survivorship bias, a lot of people here in RUclips are often young Chinese students that is studying overseas (or young worker), and as you know of young people, they are often idealistic and passionate about their identity. So they are more likely to not engage in an honest conversation but rather a defensive 'debate' stance to talk about anything related to their beliefs.
A couple things I'd like to throw out here. 1. Theoretically there is a reason why the communist party of China is above the law - because it's a socialist system, with an end goal to achieve communism. The communists have to make sure they own the constitution and have full control over the state government so that the system does not deviate from the direction towards the end goal. But there're always different groups within the communist party itself with different political propositions. For example, there are both right-wings and left-wings in the party; some are more conservative while some are more progressive; some wanted to continue with planned economy while some preferred market economy back in 90's; some think A/B/C are priorities while others have X/Y/Z,... Policies are decided after being discussed and debated amongst these people all the time rather than by a single person. One needs to be very naïve to believe Xi Jinping can dictate everything in the party. 2. Ryan only compared between the US and China to prove his point about rule of law. But he didn't prove that China does not honor the rule of law. Just assuming the party is "above the law" in China (according to my 1st point), and because president Xi is the leader of the party, doesn't mean he is exempted from jurisdiction in case he violates the law. Ryan has mixed up the concepts here - no "higher authority" than the party in constitution, doesn't mean there's no authority can hold the party leader(s) to the violation of the law. You may argue that in reality it would be very difficult to sue a party leader or government high official. Yes that is sometimes true. But it's not more difficult than suing the US officials for war crimes they've committed which not only murdered millions of civilians in other countries, but also damaged lives of thousands of US soldiers and their familiars all based on lies. This is not whataboutism. I'm just showing how Ryan's theory is defected. 3. Speaking of corruption, I don't think it has anything to do with ideology. There're many countries who adopted capitalism and "American democracy" that are far more corrupt than China. Some are even frequently shown by American mainstream media as "model of democracy", which is quite ironic. Btw I will also argue that the US shows less corruption on paper just because "lobbying" is legal. I get it "lobbying" is different from "bribery" and there're academic explanations about it. But do you truly believe from your heart that it's not corruption, when you see the rich gets richer and poor keeps getting poorer, when you see more and more homeless on the streets, when public health care and student loan issues are always outstanding, when "tax the rich" never comes true, when mass shooting continues to happen regularly, when "defense budget" gets higher and higher over years and now reaches the ridiculous $778 billion , and so on and on? I think Ryan should put away the books for a little while, have a walk (or drive) across the city and look at what really is going on with your eyes. There may be something that you don't see from books or media.
Or just, like many westerners, live in china for awhile and feel it for yourself and ask the most important question: why even with such structure that seems to make CCP above the law, has not collapsed China? What am I missing out there to connect the dot? Feel it, then talk about it again.
An interesting point in this regard is that in the political textbook of junior high school in China, it is clearly stated that law refers to certain norms formulated, implemented and enforced by the Ruling class through the state machinery under certain historical conditions, and is the embodiment of the interests of the Ruling class. Law is not superclass, universal, or eternal. And: the state is an irreconcilable product of class contradictions.
A few things I feel you didn't address: -yes, the American government needs to base current 'legislation' on past 'higher law' and that helps to set some broad criteria for what is acceptable. But you could also argue that it creates a Conservative force in American politics where increasingly out of date 'higher laws' gradually become irrelevant to changing facts on the ground. I've seen quite a few examples of Americans doing objectively illogical things that apparently made sense 200 years ago when material conditions were very different. -yes, the American government is constrained by the constitution. But they're also capable of altering it (assuming sufficient support etc) -I feel the 'corruption' metrics miss what people mean when they accuse the rich or politicians of being 'above the law'. We know they (mostly) need to comply with current laws but the issue is their ability to heavily influence the laws that get made to suit their narrow individual interests rather than those of the nation. E. G. The rich lobbying to shift the tax burden onto everyone else aren't seen as 'corrupt' or 'breaking the law' but they are using the law as an instrument to get whatever they want -Your argument about why the CCP are in power being circular can easily be applied to America too. So I don't think you're being fair there. 'Why is the constitution anything more than a nice piece of paper?' 'Well the people in power wrote it' 'and why are they in power? 'Because the constitution that they wrote says so' Despite all the propaganda romanticising and mythologizing America's constitution, it is fundamentally just a list of rules written by the people in power at the time (the ones with money, armies, land, *SLAVES* etc) to agree the rules by which they will cooperate in a joint institution (with which they will, like any rulers in any other time and place, enforce their will on the masses through a monopoly on the use of force) -You also argue that the Chinese government is responsible for altering and enforcing the constitution. You didn't really elaborate on how that's any different from the American government also being responsible for amending and enforcing the constitution...? I don't know if the implication is that China has 'one party' (arguably of many facets) and America has a *cough* 'multi party system'. Which functionally has only 2 parties. Which are functionally one party in 2 faces. So...not much material difference there. edit: You did go on to address the 'manipulation of law' to one's own ends. But 'if you see politicians manipulating law to their own benefit; that doesn't necessarily mean they're above the law' frankly sounds like semantics and esoteric technicalities as an excuse to forgive the Americans. By any common definition, manipulating the law to one's own ends is being 'above the law'. You mention a few times that there is power to 'check' other's abuse of power *in theory* but if that isn't successfully applied then, by definition, the system hasn't accomplished its goals in practise and there is some major flaw (perhaps relating to the practical application of these 'checks' in the real world). We wouldn't let China get away with 'promise' vs 'reality' propaganda so I don't see why the Americans should be exempt. It's also a strange argument to make that (paraphrasing) 'American presidents are heavily constrained when trying to do productive things like build infrastructure or agree a budget but luckily they are free as a bird to declare broad, poorly defined wars of aggression on whoever they like'. I'm pretty sure a functioning system should have that the other way around
A lot of technicality in this discussion here, but the point of it for why people want to engage in such discussion is to compare merits. For example, what problems are we facing, does America have rule of the law, if so, does it help address these problems, if not, what is being done to address these problem Then compare to China. Simply answering the question of whether it has XXX is not all that interesting without the follow up.
Ryan, I think you need to make a video on how the whole CPC machinery works. Like how does a Xi Jinping become a Xi Jinping? How people inside the party rise within the ranks? What gets them promoted? Or expelled? What rules do party members follow? How do they make laws? Policies? Do they make laws in a whim or is there a consultative mechanism from the grassroots? That would be interesting. And maybe a comparison vs western democracies. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about how CPC works as an organization. Love, from the Philippines!
He doesn’t know that, there’s no way he could know that! His knowledge is strictly written on paper, and there’s no objective written paper about the internal mechanism of CPC.
America's rule of law may sound good on paper but in practice it has not delivered well for the American people, precisely because of the corruption of the system in recent decades. America is on the verge of civil war with all the internal political strife. Americans suffer from extreme economic inequality. Americans suffer from crumbling infrastructure. Americans suffer from unaffordable health care, unaffordable housing, unaffordable education. And so on. The point being, no political system is ideal. Rule of law does not guarantee good governance. The same applies to China. While China's system has worked extraordinarily well for over four decades, thanks to Deng Xiaoping's 1978 reforms, there's no guarantee that it will continue to serve the people well. As of this moment, China's system is undeniably doing better for its people than the American system is doing for its people. Nobody is suggesting that America should adopt China's political model. But the Chinese are happy with it. This reflects Chinese culture and history going back 5,000 years. Let's accept both systems and stop pitting one against the other.
Thanks Ryan, glad you found your way out of the rabbit hole, your lessons are very much appreciated. It would be good if you could apply your nous and presentation to China's underlying political principle of 'democratic centralism' and what the CPC now refers to as 'whole process people's democracy'. This might help explain why the Chinese people are comfortable with having a centralist government with supreme power..
I was enthralled for the entire video and at the end Ryan says "I know this isn't the most exciting"... Personally I was excited 😂 love the analysis. I'm from the US but I've lived in China for 6 years so anything comparing the two countries and systems are very personal and important to me so thank you !
A rather one dimensional comparison, Laws means different things for different countries and cultures, think Sharia law it's impossible to make the claim the CCP is above the Law, because the CCP itself is woven within the fabric of the Nation state of China, and national entity have legalized violence/oppression on the part of the state. Which is always above the law, because they are the law of the land when National boundaries were drawn 一一一More details: In China for the CCP, aside from the national law, there is the Party Regulations, they are MUCH more strict, Laws in most countries deals with the minimum requirement for human decency, CCP's Party Regulations, deals with morality, many Party regulations are not even about criminal behavior. If a member is found in violation, he or she will be expelled from the Party, and if criminal activities were involved, then said person will be prosecuted criminally. 一一一 The CCP is not a Political Party, it is more or less a meritocratic RULING ORGANIZATION, Political party usually represents certain constituents, and thus cannot claim to represent all sectors of society, Right now more than 1/4 of Americans even refuse to believe Biden is the President. The Chinese system also do not distinguish Civil servants in the professional bureaucracy with Political officials. which means all Chinese politicians are part of the ranked civil service system, similar to the old Imperial Bureaucracy. This means the CCP forms the Ruling organization that runs the country to being part of the social fabric of Chinese society, This goes far beyond what the West would recognize as a political party. This means in the context of the United States, saying the CCP is above Chinese law. would be like saying the United State as a national entity is above the US laws If you don't get that comparison, ask yourself who gave the US government's right to enforce laws or impose their legislations on their citizens? the existence of the Nation State involves the legalization of violence on the part of the State. In the United States, if the Constitution and Supreme court is above politics, then why are the judges lifelong position appointed by the President? and why the 2 parties fight over whether a president in his last year of office can appoint a judge of the Supreme court? 一一一 Another misconception this video makes about China or the CCP is that there is no opposition, which is illogical to believe an organization with 90+ million members are all in agreement. The video did not discuss the fundamental aspect to a socialist system, which is Democratic Centralism Democratic Centralism was alluded above, where the CCP is not a partisan political party, but an organization that have members and supporters from all sectors/classes of society Consultative Democracy, means the CCP and the United Front (the ruling coalition in China) would have their differences resolved BEFORE voting, and the minority MUST follow the will of the majority, So they vote in unison, even though you might be opposed to something, if you are in the minority, you are expected to carry out the policy decisions of the majority. Which means you cannot oppose for the sake of opposing, This gives the illusion of no opposition within the Party or the coalition.
This video is like a textbook reading, Very superficial. On the US side, if your logic is that who constructed who decides who is above who, then the rich is above the law. The Constitution didn't come out by itself but was made by the landlords, not the people. As they took over the wealth from colonization, the law was needed to justify themselves and protect their property rights. Regardless who is above who, a more meaningful question is whose interests the law serves. Many observations show that the law is disproportionally serving the rich by maintaining social order that maximizes their wealth. Unprecedented income inequality already tells it. Why would SOMEONE still use freedom of speech as a cheap defense, do some research on slanted press, manipulated social media, censorship in twitter and youtube first. And then talk about freedom of affordable housing, freedom of education, freedom of not being shot, etc, which are more essential to people's daily life. You can't gauge a sophisticated concept by one metric, which is even inflated constantly. On the China side, I think you are really biased. 1. You cannot interpret Chinese political system simply from Aristotle's perspective, where his philosophy largely rested upon western norms and civilizations. 2. You cannot interpret Chinese political system by only looking at years after 1949. China's current system is an outcome of thousand years civilization accumulation. This civilization process generates a common view of moral history, which is immensely manifested in classic books and widely shared among the elite and the people. Chinese top leaders are subject to this law-like judgement, which prevents their wrongdoing and inspires them to deliver the good to the people so as to have a good fame in the history.
From the priest tradition of the West, the lawgivers were somewhat above the law. If you believed they were also humans in the legislation of laws, then the traditions of Rationalism and Dao will become closer. The Bible, Constitution, isms, were laws made up by humans as snapshots and static representations in a dynamic world of Dao, suitable to the historic contexts given human self-interests, strength and weaknesses in legislating of them.
I’m Indian, and India by most metrics is “technically” as democratic as any western country, if only lagging by some decades on certain social issues. On paper, our constitution is amazing, progressive, modern, secular, yet western metrics often label is as flawed democracy. The exceptions, the power abuse by politicians and rich people, etc, whether in US or India, are not just deviations from an idealized image of democracy, they ARE the democracy, they ARE how these countries function. It’s way too often that western countries are seen as ideal democracies with any flaws as just flaws, but non-western countries are seen as flawed with all their flaws as inherent features. In conclusion, the “not breaking the law just finding ways above the law” explanation is just that, an explanation. For all practical purposes, the people are above the law, cuz they make the laws, they word them nicely so it reads posh.
"our constitution is amazing, progressive, modern, secular, yet western metrics often label is as flawed democracy" Indian Constitution is a dysfunctional Frankenstein's monster created by smart men but ultimately inexperienced in organizing and managing anything larger than a party meeting or a protest. The failure of Planning in India is also a product of this politico administrative dysfunction. Neither "Progressivism" nor "Secularism" predisposes a nation to success(as defined by its possession of material, industrial, scientific prowess, though the latter principle can be quite useful in its pursuit), If the citizens of the nation are divided by 20 different languages, three different religions and 100 million castes. Compound that with Illiteracy and Democracy(at every level of political division, which is the worst form of political organization there can be), you get a half baked country like India condemned to mediocrity in perpetuity. I say this as somebody who voted for BJP(just to show where I am coming from on this issue.). Either a communist or fascistic revolution that enforces linguistic and political homogeneity is the only thing that can save India. then again for such a revolution to take place the precondition itself necessitates a common language spoken across state lines. Perpetual penury is India's unchanging fate as long as the country remains under its current political structure.
Thank you for the voice of reason. Lived in China and then moved to the USA, I am constantly frustrated by people somehow thinking China is a viable better alternative. The United States can learn from many countries as good examples (The Nordic Counties, the Netherland, New Zealand, etc), but China is not one of them.
Many are questioning the contents of this video and the concept of rule of law in the USA after the July 1st Supreme Court ruling, which said that presidents are presumed to be immune from prosecution for official acts as outlined in the constitution. Frankly I don't disagree. It does seem to throw the concept of rule of law in the USA into question. We're in an unprecedented moment in American history, and the best I can say here is that we'll have to see how it plays out in practice.
I'm a bit late and new subscriber (sorry, the algorithm didn't show you to me sooner), but I was just gonna add that some of the corruption charges against ccp members are Xi Jinping's way of removing those who displease him, question him, or could challenge him for leadership. Good way to destroy a career.
I would like to say that parliamentary democracies (particularly monarchies) have the lowest corruption due to more effective checks and balances. While not a monarchy, Ireland is a parliamentary republic, but the president's (head of state only-symbol of the country and reserve executive similar to the british monarch) role is clearly defined in the constitution which helps prevent a constitutional crisis. The president can send questionable bills to the Supreme court to check on constitutionality and for policy proposals for legality before granting assent (proactive judicial review), and can submit controversial bills to the people in a binding(?) referendum.
The prime minister (head of govt-political leader) is chosen by being the majority party or coalition leader. He can be removed by the president if acting counter to the constitution.
The parliament (at least the lower house) is elected by the people with single transferable vote (more similar to Australia than the us or UK's first pass the post, but not the best which is MMP).
The reason i think the constitution should clearly state the role of the head of state is that it can grant the powers already assumed and give a de jure check rather than just a de facto check (eg King Charles could dismiss pm kier starmer at any time without excuse, but would hardly do that as riots would ensue).
You already have found out, the US is a joke on the international stage now. I put the blame on both parties though.
One party state vs "two" party state
Lol, lmao.
@realryanchapman, It has already played out in practice, you can see from that ruling that it if president bribes/threatens the Supreme Court, he will get the decision he wants. Maybe you can get it back on track with but I don't think Biden gives a f about that either (dem voters do).
Don’t beat yourself up about the upload schedule; as long as your quality is consistently high as it’s always been, we’re not going anywhere :)
Absolutely agree
hey checkmark
Agreed
Totally agree. Quality over quantity any time. Keep up the amazing work 👏
Proper research is worth waiting for
Hi Ryan, I would totally agree that in China the CCP, which established a system called "rule by law" rather than "rule of law", is above the law. In the US, the constitution has the highest legal authority, while in China the CCP does. It has the authority to make laws, interpret them, make court rulings to their liking, so in terms of the legal system it is really a "the party controls all" type of scenario. In fact, on nearly all occasions/forms of official/public pledge of allegiance, there's always the order "party, state and the people", which says it all. For example, the official title of Xi Jinping, in Chinese is "党和国家领导人", which directly translates into "leader of the party and the state".
Whilst almost all of your statements and articulation from the video are true and well-observed, I kind of feel that the argument about the legitimacy of the Chinese government is only scratching the surface. It is pretty common that an American, coming from a culture that almost worships its own constitution and democratic system as a religion, finds it difficult to understand other forms of sources of legitimacy. Though I admit legitimacy's too grand a topic to be discussed thoroughly in a 20mins-long video, to shed some light, the best articulation I've heard about this matter is that a lot of things the American people are born with and take for granted are actually "privileges" other than "birthrights" if you'd use those terms and put the perspective at the scale of the entire world because many less developed countries would regard those rights as less prioritized than making a better living with better living conditions, healthcare and education. For example, if you ask an average Chinese person whether they'd like more political freedom and actual rule of law, they'd certainly answer yes. But if you ask if the lack of those rights is their top problem and if they'd overthrow CCP to gain those rights, most would say no. They would normally say they primarily want a better life, and other things can wait. This resonates with Maslow's hierarchy of needs and the idea in the Chinese ancient classic Historical Records "仓廪实而知礼节，衣食足而知荣辱 (those whose barn is full will learn about manners, those whose foods and clothing are plentiful will develop a sense of dignity.)". The CPP has put its focus on development and prosperity and managed the economy so well in the past four decades, it is difficult for an outsider to imagine how much legitimacy this has granted itself among the Chinese people who had suffered poverty and underdevelopment for centuries. There are a few references I could refer to if someone wants to jump into this rabbit hole:
[1] hbr.org/2021/05/what-the-west-gets-wrong-about-china
[2] www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/east-asian-perspectives-on-political-legitimacy/political-legitimacy-in-china-a-confucian-approach/A29ED90544E1D96E572697EC2B3694C1
[3] journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0097700413511312?journalCode=mcxa
Another source of legitimacy is the notion of an omnipotent government such as the Chinese government should take boundless responsibility/accountability as well. This means by not doing something or not doing well enough, such as the poorly executed disaster relief for Hurricane Sandy, in China it'd be seen as a huge deficit to the legitimacy to the CCP as a whole instead of a local politician. This applies to similar cases include things like the power outage in southern states, or the responses of the COVID pandemic. So this often prompts and enables the Chinese government to mobilize and respond to natural disasters and emergencies at a scale that is seemly difficult to comprehend to a lot of Westerners. A couple of interesting reads about this point:
[4] www.theglobalist.com/governing-china-accountability-vs-responsibility/
[5] journalofchinesesociology.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40711-017-0051-8
TL;DR: Ryan's statements of CCP above the law is correct, in fact it's often publically and explicitly stated that CCP is above the Chinese nation and its people; the Chinese people love freedom and rule of law too but they love money more (at least in this stage), and CCP created an environment to make it happen so it's now the main source of its legitimacy (for the past four decades); the Chinese people are one of the most secular and realistic bunch, which makes them sometimes indifferent to civil liberties as long as they live their own material life well enough; The Chinese government is an "omnipotent" government with more expectations in some aspects to enforce its legitimacy; I know all this cuz I'm Chinese; I hope the Chinese people find their broader civil liberties and freedoms someday through a non-violent, less chaotic process when the country is more developed and its people better educated, which I consider a somewhat representative opinion among average Chinese.
P.S. I.M.O Fukuyama is over-rated with lots of false observations and projections. His views are largely idealistic than realistic. Nor did his supervisor Huntington get it right about this century. History has not ended with liberal democracy nor developed itself into inter-civilizational wars. This short article summarizes this pretty well:
[6] www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/12/19/how-huntington-and-fukuyama-got-the-21st-century-wrong
P.S2. I'm a scientist living overseas and I've published in top international journals include those studying China. I've spent 1.5 hours of my life writing this essay cuz I respect Ryan's open attitude towards things unfamiliar to him and his efforts to maintain a scientific/neural point of view, and I do want people to have access to higher-quality information about my background on RUclips. And Ryan I'm happy to take questions from you should you have anything to ask about China for your future projects.
🎯💯👏👍
Thank you for sharing. Americans don't understand China and have their heads filled with sinophobic garbage here. Every society strives for more democracy (except for the fascists) and the question becomes do you get there via bourgeois "civil rights" or do you get there by a government that enforces your economic rights? I think China has proven it's the latter. Once your society has developed to the necessary level the ppl will seize those means and liberate themselves. China is moving towards that. The US is a declining capitalist empire.
@@ComradeHB Appreciate your reply but I’m not trying to make an argument about which system is better or what is the right choice between more civil liberties and better living, nor do I intend to diminish the value of democracy and freedom. In fact there’s no universal answer around this issue. In the end of the day the people create their nation, and the culture and history are forged into the political system that works for them. The complex dynamics between deep cultural roots and economical positions in modern days, and sometime foreign influences, together shaped the world as we know it. What’s best for a country is a question for which the answer varies with time. I don’t believe China’s system is a good one for the western countries either. All I’m trying to say is neither is perfect but the Chinese system seems to have been working so far for the Chinese people, and this fact should not be denied or painted as some evil political elites forcing the system on the majority of the people. An inconvenient truth that the West has constantly and maybe deliberately misunderstood is that at this stage the CCP is in fact the choice of the vast majority. Many including me don’t like some of their policies, but in general, they actual are leading the country into a direction which the majority is happy with. Maybe someday when people have already maintained a good enough living standard for a while, other rights will become a more prominent part of life for the vast majority, which will then push the CCP into a different direction, but clearly now is not the time.
Many westerners sometimes however sincere have interpreted things using their own logic rather than asian logic and culture. Ray Dalio is arguably the best one I have seen actually as he doesn't just "think", he admits he didn't know everything and he would get advice from renowned experts and understand from their point of view. And Ryan Chapman said CCP doesn't allow those rights, what are the examples? Minority are given education privilege. Buddhists are given freedom to practice. Otherwise, what is Tibet doing now lol?
@@Tbonesteak23 exactly. You made good points there which I always say too. Ppl always have such literal thinking that "when society develops to a certain level they will seize those rights bla bla bla". Well first, China is already very developed in many sense and that didn't happen now because everyone understands how the system work and they are happy within it. Those people still think china lags a lot behind in development. Second, ccp has pivoted many times in history and who is to say CCP will not pivot again? Many westerners continue to be limited by the system or "democracy" that they know of but the truth is no system ever last forever. The rise of democracy was also not that distant in time.
Hey Ryan! As an American whose family has been embroiled in legal battles for a couple years now, I had to pause your video at 9:42 to counter a misconception: We are NOT referring to tax evasion when we say the wealthy are above the law. What we are referring to is the familiar relationship between attorneys and judges which allows specific attorneys, working with specific judges in particular courthouses, to bend the law or to simply utilize the law to protect or convict a defendant. If you work with a public defender or if you represent yourself, the judge will throw the book at you and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. If you hire the right attorney, they can negotiate extraordinary leniancy in your case based largely on their reputation with the courthouse. This, combined with an insanely complicated legal code, makes legal defense inaccessible to the working class. The working class is unable to use the law to protect themselves, but the wealthy are able to use a million and one loopholes to get off scot free.
If you represent yourself, you're sure to lose. Judges fear being corrected by an appellate court. Deciding against a self-represented litigant is safer than deciding against a well represented litigant because someone who won't or can't afford a lawyer is unlikely to appeal their verdict. I have seen this played out countless times in my career.
Nothing you say suggests that those judges are operating above the law. The law gave those judges discretionary powers which I agree can be abused. Any system made of people relies on the people to make good decisions. When people fail to do so, which I would expect is the case on a routine basis, that is not the fault of the legal framework but reveals the imperfection of all human beings.
A government of the people by the people is limited by the imperfections of the people. If we want something better, we can try to find the most virtuous among us as proposed by Plato, but good luck finding enough people let alone even a single person so pure and virtuous.
A constitutional order is then all about how we go about managing the abuse of power when they occur while trying not to gum up the machinery of governance. In the examples you gave, judges are subject to judicial review by a higher level court. So a judge that is reversed too often at the minimum will never find themselves elevated to a higher court. Also if corruption can be proved, a corrupt judge is removed and prosecuted. To which you will say won’t happen if the judge is a good friend of the prosecutor. I know it isn’t perfect, but the system is there to deal with these problems and it is up to us to make use of them.
This is a case of the Law is unjust, not people being above the Law.
That's...the law and normal functionning of the system
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Hi, just seeing this. I think your point is valid if you believe that everyone should be equally punished and liable to the law, regardless of their ability to plead their case. If you believe that people should have the right to plead their case or hire (talented and expensive) professionals to do it for them, as we can in America, then your point gets convoluted. But even having talented attorneys at your disposal does not make you above the law. If you think it does, I think you're misunderstanding the concepts at play. You remain below it, and it just makes you more adept at getting out from under it. There are many places in the world where people are truly and flagrantly above the law, and America, from the evidence I can find, is not one of them.
This is the hightest quality of videos I have ever seen. Impartial, and balanced, you have completely raised the bar for me on informational videos.
Not only is your content very objective and balanced. But you've also brought together a legion of viewers and commenters who are willing to share, learn, and have their mind changed. You've done a highly commendable job!
I couldn't agree more. The ability to bring people together, holding opposing views, in constructive and objective dialog, allows both sides to feel understood. I say cheers to those, who when presented with evidence, have the ability to change their minds.
You are on point with bringing multiple people with different point of views together to discuss. But I can't help to see that his points are not based on full objectivity and they sway towards an American take with American values on many subjects and you can see that with how his point of view shifts on the same topic whrb taking into a Chinese context vs American one. But I like this content because it drives respect and discussion which is what we usually lack in a political context
With your personality type, I'm impressed at your upload schedule. This is my favorite channel as of the last month. Can't get enough of your even keeled discussions on different topics. None of it is boring. So just upload and don't over think it. Your approach makes it all interesting.
What kind of personality type is he?
I agree, Ryan. I was initially confused why you chose to explain this, but seeing some comments here I get it. It's somewhat surprising to me that even people living in the US or other real democracies don't see the point.
Perhaps I'll make some additional points, mostly related to institutions:
1. Anyone can sue anyone in a real democracy. Typically money is needed for hiring lawyers, but then again in democracies, there is something called 'civil society' or 'institutions'. There are companies, organizations, non-profits willing to financially support various (legal) causes and these cannot be banned. So you don't necessarily need the government to sue the rich and powerful, though that can be important.
2. In a real democracy there are multiple news organizations operating under different biases. Some news organization or other will report on excesses of the powerful, which makes it difficult for the government to ignore it, given regular elections. These news organizations cannot be banned either; far from it - at least in the US they have rights guaranteed by the constitution.
3. Large companies and rich people have been sued time and again in democracies (such as the US). They don't always repent in a meaningful way, but they are not above the law.
4. Even though judges are appointed by the government, once appointed, they are free to judge as they see fit. They are not bound to the president or party that appointed them in any meaningful way (lifetime appointments are one reason for that). Mind, this is assuming the worst situation when a judge is appointed purely because of political reasons - this is not always possible given that the Senate and the White House are frequently controlled by different parties.
Are there problems in countries with true rule of law? Of course. This video is not arguing about which system is 'better', it's a statement about the structure of government in the two countries.
Aditya, just want to point out there are exceptions to ur point #1, i.e. qualified immunity, It was in 1967 that the U.S. Supreme Court first gave a police officer qualified immunity. In Pierson v. Ray, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a police officer acting in good faith was not liable for a false arrest.
Quite a bit late to say so since you’ve been here for so long, but regardless, I’d like to say welcome to America.
1. It is the effective-denial of civil remedy, on grounds of wealth.
2. "The press" does not mean "a news organization", but rather, if eye-witness testimony is useful, and it is, then everyone who intends to disseminate reports of an event are "the press". Phuck a badge.
3. Slap on the wrist. Unequal protection.
4. There are good judges, though. Sorta. It goes back to who your representatives are, since this is a republic, and most certainly not a democracy, at least by Law. The law, the statutes, in America, are far too complex. So much so, so as to render them invalid, due only to that fact.
Because: informed consent.
imagine thinking that the us is a "real democracy"
Dxracer
@@cl8804 okay dumas, what country of your choice would you consider to be a "real democracy"?
I really appreciate these videos. I went to a tech school and never took the time to explore these subjects. Thanks for all your hard work, I'm learning a lot.
same
In France we call rule-by-law
"raison d'état", state-reason.
The state survival is more important than to comply to law.
Cool
This may be a cheap joke, but I would say that being on the 5th republic means that you have been doing a pretty bad job at that :)
Rule of law is « l’État de droit, »
« La raison d’État » is precisely the opposite, it’s putting the interest of the State above the law.
@@freddiepatterson1045 its the longest republic ever, so we did a pretty good job.
@@pierren___ That is just wrong. The longest french Republic was the 3rd Republic which was only 70 years. And even if you include all french republics it only comes to around 300 years, which is nowhere near the longest Republic of Venice which was 1100 years. So like completely wrong
I think the roots of confusion come from the fact that the PRC and the USA have drastically different political structures that are unfortunately described with the same set of terms. The meaning of words such as "party", "politician", "civil servant" are quite different in the two system. This creates confusion when people familiar with one system try to understand, evaluate, or argue about the other. Although it might be difficult, it is necessary to first get familiar with how both systems work to really understand them (for example every step a college graduate theoretically need to take to become the president in the States vs. in China).
China has "reason of state", while America have "state of right".
That means that China focuses on state obedience power, while America focuses on individual rights.
@@pierren___ The democratic system came from the loot sharing on the round table among the knights. When there is loot to share, the system works great for the people at the table. This tradition continued to the US, with American abundant resources inside the border and the dollar, military power to extract wealth overseas. For those people shoved from the table, the system is wealthy enough to provide welfare goodies to them to keep peace. Democratic system works as long as resource is not a problem. Freedom and sharing among the knights are always desired if you can afford it.
Not exactly Pierre. In China 93% people support CCP (according to Pew Research). CCP is a holistic Party representing the collective interests of all Chinese people, which is different from a western type of party that only represents a partial group of people. I understand that you said state prevails in China, but the fact is that people prevail (over capital) in China. In contrast, we all know that American is not ruled by people, It's ruled by the deep-state, a group of monopoly capitalists and their hired politicians. Individual rights is just a propaganda.
@@lindeng3035 i understand because the state is linked to the people, therefore to protect the people is = to protect the state.
It's hard to believe that US government focus on individual rights, given that 800+K died from covid. On the other hand, China is willing to sacrifice economy for people's life and now she has got the pandemic under control.
Two points come to mind after watching beginning of this video
1. your previous video is missing another important comparison: who makes the law in America vs in China, i.e. the law reflects whose interest the most in these two countries?
2. To what extent the law plays a role in the functioning of societies in both countries. While the law plays a critical role in US, its role is not as critical in China. If the law is not as critical in China as US, the follow up question is: what other factor in China plays the role of law as it plays in the US?
To answer your first point; the legislative branch, writes and pushes bills that can potentially become law. The Supreme Court rules whether that bill is constitutional and then the executive branch either signs the bill into law or vetoes the bill to be recirculated. As for your second point; The CCP is the law in China and therefore has no stable law set in place to act as a guide post. Essentially it is "do as we say, not as we do" scenario. In America, the law is enforced "blindly" without prejudice; or at least that is the idea. The loopholes that exist are due to interference in the process due to lobbying and people "turning a blind eye". However that does not mean the law isn't there. If caught, perpetrators are supposed to be held accountable to the FULLEST extent of the law.
@@biggoards2772 Good explaination, and the assertion to law in China too. China simply needs this system to service its integrity at current stage, when facing the Containment from the west, which Is not because of CCP or communism which a lot of you west people may think so under the west propaganda, but indeed not. I believe China will develop its political system after its survival to the Containment, but to a form not likely to the west system. Because China has more rather than less than the west has in culture and philosophy.
@@forgettohaveaname2954 Culture and philosophy don't equate to the balance of law. I understand why you may feel that way, but if that was true, China would have stuck with the national party years ago despite the in fighting. Unless there is something I'm missing about the national party. I don't believe the CCP will ever relinquish power nor control over the masses. I guarantee they will continue to push for expansion; not knowing that all that was necessary was decentralization of the CCP. Taiwan and Hong Kong would willingly think upon China's 1 nation, 2 systems rule if that happened.🤷♂️
@@biggoards2772 balance of law is in no way a complex idea, some top leaders showed their understanding and almost did something, but again, because of the reason what I said, it wasn't and still isn't the right time.
@@biggoards2772 As native Chinese, I would say the functioning of law in China is quite different. In US, the Supreme Court has the power to explain law. Once an explanation to law is set by a case, every later case follows the first one. However, in China, the explanation of law are varied. General morality plays an role of law in many scenarios and determines the enforcement and judgement of a case. The law is just a tool to reach the result. People only care about the result.
What I do agree is that both the US and China's highest officials actually in power are not subject to rule of law. They have the power and resources to get away with what they do against the law, no matter how the legal system works. Eventually, it's not about the difference between the US and China, but all about power and class.
Well, actually that’s not entirely the case. Yes some American politicians can get away with abusing power when the law fails to punish them via imprisonment (or death in some cases) but we still have press that reports on it and bad behavior never looks good for re-election.
That’s never the case in China. The CCP can do some of the most atrocious things and not only will they escape legal punishment but they’ll also get “re-elected” and face absolutely no public backlash. Look at what happened at Tiananmen Square in 1989, look at what’s happening now with the Uyghurs and Xi Jinping declared himself president for life, practically a new Chinese emperor. Nobody in America could get away with any of that without negative consequences.
I am close to 50, half of my life in China, half in US. I intend to agree with Ryan but not totally.
In US, yes consitution is the highest, no one dare to challange that, but the higher law it is, the more obscure it went, so today we have two opposite groups accusing each other violating the constitution. The group who have louder voice to explain it wins. So, yes we have gester to obey the law, but each insterest group have ways to distort, go around and even change the laws.And to be frankly consitution is not something can't change, we do have amendment and each party fight to get supreme court nominations is to bent the law in their favor.
In China, CCP is a complicated changing group. Today's CCP is totally different than CCP 40 years ago. If you want to overthrow them , good time is between 1960s and 1980s, they doing badly during that time, I will join you, but not today. Just like Ryan said on other video, in China, everything is flexible, include ideology, party principle and LAW. I agree CCP is above the law, because she is only entity to explain it. In China it has same gester to obey the law, no one dare to say he is above the law, but law if can be bent and changed in US, it is more flexible in China. And there only one interest group, CCP, when it went bad, law went bad, when it start on right track the law is good.
After all we need remember why we want law, why we want democracy, why we want freedom of speech. They are all tools to help us to reach a prosperous healthy society. If we can reach this goal, which tools to use is not important. If these tool work on against our goal, we should limit it, change it.
Well said.
As Deng used to say "Black Cat, White Cat who cares as long as it can catch the mouse."
Great , another CCP shield who has a distorted idea of The benefits of the current Chinese system
@@oliverbanes5121 Let's be honest, if the CCP is doing so bad why would the US spend so much time and energy to stop China?
@@EricChien95 Because sometimes the cat is a tiger, and uses you as food too.
I don't know much about the legal system in the US. But I can say something about China. The current problem in China is that legal provisions lag behind social development. Compared with the problems encountered in life, it will always be five or even ten years before new legal provisions can be formulated to specifically protect the rights and interests of the people.
For example, child trafficking, the peak period was after the 1990s. This is also a sequelae of the "one-child" policy.
From 2003 to 2008, 2,500 to 5,000 trafficking cases were detected each year. From 2009 to 2013, a total of 13,723 cases of child abduction were solved. Thirty years ago in 1990, the number of missing children in a year was as high as 3,400.
In recent years, the number of cases of child robbery has dropped to around 20 per year. In 2020, there were 600 cases of trafficking.
There has been a feud over the past decade over buying and selling complicity. Opponents give differentiated criminal responsibilities, which is helpful for buyers to cooperate with the police to detect cases and increase the probability of retrieving abducted children. Reduce the vicious crime rate of maiming and killing children.
At the implementation level, it often requires cross-province, cross-time (detected cases of being trafficked for 61 years), and multi-departmental cooperation. The problem is often the need for technical development, joint law enforcement at the grassroots level, and joint cooperation in court trials.
Annual numbers of trafficked children
www.dlyj.ac.cn/article/2017/1000-0585/1000-0585-36-12-2505/thumbnail/img_3.png
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Others, such as financial fraud, telecommunications fraud, and drug-related crimes, are always dynamic development and dynamic governance. Different criminals have to face different periods of time, etc... In China, a country with a span of more than 5,000 kilometers from east to west and north to south, the lag of laws is almost inevitable. Any problem in China often requires the participation of the whole people, and the joint efforts of the streets and neighborhood committees , can be solved gradually. But this is also an advantage of grassroots governance in China, and grassroots air defense also played a role during the epidemic. The answer cannot be given in a simple sentence who is above the law.
Excellent point. Many Chinese citizens are shocked about the penalties for child traffickers and buyers in the past, but now shocked about the same low penalties for minors who are involved in violent crimes. Both examples about how popular changes to law can be slower in China. Not sure if that’s related to the system of government, but worth considering.
I love seeing the copes in the comments.
laws, policies and rules are actually lot faster to make and implement in China, by virtue of their one-party system if they see there is a need of a law or policy, they'll work out out the mechanics and crank it out just like that with no grandstanding of individuals or parties, how else can they continually tailormake, adopt or revise their policies in time to meet their rising economy's demands.
In the US, legal provisions, policies or laws are bogged down by bipartisan debates, bureaucracy, redtape, lobbying parties, etc.
It’s interesting to hear the many perspectives fount in the world like for example:
People with freedom: “Don’t like it? Don’t live there.” “Oh they won’t let you leave?, Sucks for you.”
People without freedom: “You don’t know a thing!”
and so the endless and pointless debate ensues…
@@rap3208 They're faster but they're also far more shoddy and poor in comparison. It's like when they said they built a covid hosptial in a week or something, but then shortly afterwards the entire thing fell into disrepair from how shitty the whole thing was done.
I'm bowled over by both the quality of this video and the high quality of the responses below. I've feel I've genuinely learnt something about both the Chinese and US systems.
Your objective, non-partisan delivery of history, political philosophy, and law give such an enlightening insight on the ways of the world and the intricacies of nations' political processes. What you do is so important! Thank you!
Dude! Thank-you so much for all the effort you put into these. You’re content is always very grounded and thorough. It’s really a breath of fresh air nowadays.
Ryan, leaving aside the social, historical and cultural context, I believe that these scenarios where America and China are is just the result of an adaptation.
In America, the law has to be above party politics because otherwise it would be anarchy. Political parties are elected on popularity contests, manipulation and propaganda, made with public and private money, because any individual entity has the freedom to form a party, and to convince by any method possible that they have the right to decide what happens in the country, no matter how qualified they are to do so, or if once in power, the decisions they make will be the right and proper ones, in correlation with what they promised to do.
In China, CCP is above the law because it has to be. In China, not everyone enters politics and rise in authority just because they can (have the background and resources) and because they want to. The whole Chinese political system is built on very solid pillars, namely education, competition, experience, from which meritocracy must come, just like the hierarchy in a company/corporation. Once you get through these thick layers, and finally prove that you know what you are doing, you will get the necessary authority. So by that, the supreme authorities in China are the only ones who have the objective and earned right to be above the law, and to be able to make the best decisions on how it should be changed/amended, not just a bunch of people who are supposed to be neutral, and who are changed very often, just to hope for as much neutrality and objectivity in decisions as possible while they are there.
CCP is not a bunch of people fallen from the sky, who because of the historical context, they are above the law. CCP is a whole system, mechanism, political machine, built and made to at least theoretically deliver the best results, regardless of who is at any given moment in space & time in the CCP, because no one is immortal, no one is a God or Devil who wants the good or evil of people.
I come from an Eastern European country that 32 years ago left communism for democracy. Through my education, I was able to see what was right and wrong, what went wrong then, and what is right and wrong now. The world is not just black and white, there are many substrates and contexts in every circumstance. The idea is for people to be open to dialogue, to communicate, and not to radicalize and go to extremes, whatever those may be.
Great video, congratulations on your work, I look forward to the next one :D
Very well said.
very precise!
Wow. I'm amazed by your perspectives
This is so far the best and accurate explaination for both political system . Unlike most of those brainwashed westerners , you are very smart.
Wow.. Well said
5:28 It's because bribery is legal in the USA for politicians.
Keep up the good work. Your presentation style, research ethic, and impartiality are greatly appreciated. I’ve shared your videos widely.
OK, simply say America is rule-of-law and China is rule-by-law. So the real question is why rule of law is better, or is it? As Chinese, some don't presume rule of law is better by definition. Instead we look at the practical results. As long as rule by law brings the society prosperity and most people fairness, we consider it a good enough system and not necessarily want to replace it with rule of law. In contrast, it seems to me American laws especially the constitution is less adaptive. American seems to believe their political system is perfect. So even when they have many social problems, they tend to blame other countries rather than look at their own system.
Nice. What is the fifference ? I still dont understand
The difference is big. Ideally, You better live in both countries for years to fully understand it. The main point I want to argue with Ryan is that the American system should not be perfect, superior and universal. Every country can choose a system that they deem fit the culture and level of development etc.
@@lindeng3035 i would say china is reason of state
??? what do you mean more adaptive? US also has procedures of adjusting their laws and they can promise the process transparent. rule of law at least can promise less interference and disruptions from people who execute them. It means more transparency. You are saying something completely non-sense. US is not always perfect. TRUE. but rule-by-law means you cannot even ensure everyone is restricted by the law. Then why you call it law? So why not you just abandon the law and listen to the emperor's words? At least to me, the rule-by-law in China does not show any superiority. I can only see the elite class and the president could change the constitution as if that's his notebook.
He never made any claim about which is better. He is comparing and contrasting political structures in the US and China.
That being said, rule of law is indisputably better. The pragmatic approach you describe would weigh them equally in the best circumstances (eg if the CCP chooses to prosecute corruption within the party), with no advantage to either. But in the less ideal circumstances, the CCP has the option of not being held accountable for crimes and corruption, whereas in the US, no person has that authority.
I think the most compelling argument in favor of China is the fact that it has 1.4 billion people that the CCP has to govern compared to the US which has only 300 million. The US govt was also much wealthier than the CCP. China's literacy rate in 1950 is only 20% compared to the US which has close to 100% literacy. Unlike the US, China experienced the Century of Humiliation. Its people are understandably jaded and pessimistic, and less likely to believe in higher ideals like freedom, cooperation and rule of law, it's a dog eat dog world out there. The Chinese people are always on the lookout for any signs of weaknesses on the CCP, they are always wary that the govt might lose the "Mandate of Heaven." And lastly unlike the US, China is surrounded by powerful neighbors. Therefore, managing China is going to be much more difficult than managing the US, and the CCP might have to take more drastic measures to maintain order within China.
The US has the luxury of starting from zero. It has the luxury of setting the foundation of the country very early in its history, when the country was a mere 13 colonies along the Atlantic coast and it has the luxury of developing organically, without any foreign intervention or colonialism. Unlike the US, China doesn't have that luxury and has to make do with what it has and all of its baggages.
Suppose that we accept that the Chinese political system is less than ideal, then what? Are we going to reset to zero? Overthrow the govt and plunge the nation into chaos and cause tremendous suffering to the people? No. Even though the Chinese system is less than ideal, it is the only thing we have, and we have to learn to accept and make do with it.
We should really stop treating the interaction between states as equivalent to the interactions between individuals. The Chinese people oftentimes don’t have control over what’s going on in Beijing, just as the American people don’t have control over what’s going on in Washington DC
Good argument!
👍😊
Nah.
China should break apart.
Give Tibet to the Tibetans.
Give Xinjiang to the Uyghurs.
Give inner Mongolia to the Mongols.
Give HK to HK.
Give Taiwan to Taiwan.
Give disputed Ladhak area back to India.
Withdraw from the Southchina Sea.
__________
One rotten egg will spoil the entire cake.
If the corruption of the CCP was self-contained, ok maybe we could tolerate. But its not self-contained. It affects the Chinese a lot, the religious minorities and political dissidents. And also the CCP affects foreign countries.
Their disregard for the environment will accelerate the destruction of the oceans.
__________
Germany got a do-over without a hard "start from 0", China can do it too.
And for that China has to adopt Western values similar to Taiwan.
@@jonson856 Well, tough. China will never adopt Western values.
@@jonson856 and the West grows at the expense of the entire world so…
@@Ivan-td7kb Except that it already did. But the wrong ones. You know which? Marxism.
You have rule of law in US that looks good on paper but then in practice, you see it on the brink of a civil war. Then you have rule of law in China which looks really scary on paper but then in practice, seems like a place where most people from the West who've experienced it would love to live as their place of choice because of its convenience and safety. You be the judge because that same scary rule of law isn't unique to China, it also exists in Singapore, Dubai and some other great countries.
Well said sir greetings from Singapore. Nationality?
I think the most important thing for real democracy is enlarge the benefits of people. Also, people means the real people, not the internet army. 😄
According to his video, the US political landscape should be represented as 4.5 layers: [1:Law, 2:the Rich + 2.5: politics , 3:legislation, 4: the Citizens]. It seems a beautiful setup to enable lawful ways to manipulate the legislation and the citizens bound by the manipulated legislation ... above or below the Law does not really matter that much
"seems like a place where most people from the West who've experienced it would love to live as their place of choice"
Not, of course, if you're a Uighur or a Tibetan, or other undesirable non-Han Chinese, or practice Christianity or Falun Gong, etc.
@@wrobinnes You mean like George Floyd, black minority is undersired in Trump america and choked to death by cops who get the greenlight to attack black minorities willy nilly and murder them in broad daylight ? You mean like muslims and urghurs who are still kept and maybe tortured at Guantano Bay in Cuba ? Or native americans who owned Murica and have been genocided to almost extinction and relegated to a few reserves in a zoo like fashion ? Hey you silly, know what you're talking about next time b4 pointing fingers to others, looking hard in the mirror will maybe enlighten you about the darkness that resides in the reflection.
Having lived in both China and US, I generally agree that US political structure looks better (especially on paper, not nearly so in practice). Practically speaking, the enforcement of both countries’ law favors the “elites” (either political or financial).
Another great video. I really enjoy the throughness and thoughtfulness of your presentations. Thanks for taking the time to make them.
Agreed. China is rule by law, while US is rule of law. However, that doesn't mean US system is for sure superior. Rule of law sounds good, at least in most times, but the "law" is in words, and words have inherent loopholes, conflicts, different explanations. To mitigate them, people create more laws to specify and clarify. Before long, you will find the system so complicated that only "experts" can understand it. They know all the "tricks" to maneuver through the games. Law becomes tools of ruling. Sooner or later, the system becomes so messy that original spirits of the laws will be lost.
Authoritarianism and democracy, human have been talking about them for 3000 years. Some people say democracy is "the end of history" (the ultimate political system last forever). But Aristotle said democracy ends in political deadlock and then anarchy. Time will tell.
America has not yet seen a full cycle of ebb and flow. Before that, American will continue to be arrogant. Just wish the country can keep the spirit of rule of law forever.
What is rule-by-law therefore ? To me, its seems CCP is a tool To defend the chinese people by Chinese identity. It has an tacit meaning, an image described in the constitution.
Ryan - The only demographic in the US that may be most similar to “above the law” framework you established would be our military and intelligence community. Either they are judged and sentenced within a separate court system (similar to CCP’s internal discipline committee) or often not allowed to be tried under our normal courts (intel officers are often prevented from facing prosecution for everyday offenses because of the fear that classified info may spillover). This is another reason why efforts to grow the power of the national security state in the US is so dangerous.
Always very captivating and high quality content. Thank you!
5:13 what is the punishment for violating the constitution? I've never heard of a single case of the Supreme court or any other sentencing someone for the crime of violating the constitution.
I understand where you are coming from, but I would still insist that is an over-simplification of CCP's version of ROL.The comparison between CCP and any party in US is losing the fundamental common ground. I would say most of the time they are not even the same concept.
This is a part of the same "comparisons that don't make sense" line but
Imagine if there was a part of USA law that guaranteed the Green Party, Libertarian Party, Constitutionalist Party, Working Families Party, Alliance Party, Party For Socialism And Liberation were guaranteed seats in government to give counsel to the 2 ruling parties
Because that's what China actually has lol
They have minor parties that represent specific interests and offer advice and alternate perspectives to the CPC
Despite being a 1 party state, that's a way more democratic way to negotiate power-sharing on a national scale than the USA does.
I have to hand it to you. I’ve been watching your videos and they are consistently very high quality. Excellent work!
I think it is only meaningful to view the rule of law in practice, not in theory, since it is not something sacred and inviolable, but a tool of governance. I can't fully agree with Ryan:
(1) The US constitution is made by the congress and interpreted by the supreme court, the recent controversy on abortion and gun control are examples that constitution in practice can be changed by the congress and the court can determine how the constitution is enforced and what each clauses means. US citizens can only expect the the congress and the court strictly follow the spirit of constitution. The law protects the citizen just because the court and the congress want it to happen.
For example, corruption is the US may be legal in the form of lobbying, while China prohibit any form of bribery and interest transformation; Chinese government can control the business decision by legislation or state-owned relationship, while the US government is hard to so unless in emergency situation (e.g. by Defense Production Act). It is a good example showing the US and China make something happen under the law because the ruling parties want it to happen, not solely because of the law.
(2) It is important to notice that CCP has its own constitution which is a legal document regulating the behavior of the party, and the party members who violate this party constitution (not limited to corruption, but like failed governance) will get punished. CCP is not above everything, it still need to follow certain form of law which is supreme. And there is an independent called "Central Commission for Discipline Inspection" inside the party to regulate its members, investigate improper performance. The constraints on CCP is more than you can think of, and you cannot ignore that.
(3) Although CCP is against any form of alternative ideologies and ruling parties, this claim is clearly written in the Chinese constitution, it is an obvious fact. But for the US, although the constitution seems not against any alternative ideologies, it give space for the politician and government to control the political environment in administrative way or in the name of "national security". The McCarthyism after WWII against the communist activities and the suppression of Black Panther Party may demonstrate how the US government and politicians exclude alternative ideologies and political parties.
It is a good start to recognize the difference of the US and China in a rational and neutral way, but to understand China, I think we really need to understand her in her context (e.g. the communist context, the Fa school "法家" context), but not in the context of Aristotle or Francis Fukuyama, to name a few, who are not the founder nor the aspiration of the rule of law in China.
You are great, I just watched your earlier video and my primary criticism was a lack of discussion of corruption and… here you are. The video was already made. Thanks for great content!
Very well articulated. Thanks
10:30 They cannot be above the law, but they can make the law lower than them. That is what Congress is doing.
Thanks Ryan, you bring a degree of rigor and sincerity rarely seen these days when it comes to China topics - but I think I should point out some fundamental issues in trying to make an apples to apples comparison. You might find it interesting to revisit all of the points in your comparison, but to premise for a moment, hypothetically:
The CCP is not a party. Not in the traditional sense.
If a given political party in the US is an apple, the CCP is not even an orange, it's an orange tree. They might as well just drop the word Party from their name (and while they're at it, drop Communist too) to avoid confusion. It might help to think of a 'party' in the US as analogous to a 'faction' in the CCP. And the "Party" in China is analogous to the collective of both parties in the US. One might consider the CCP as the underlying structure of the whole system of public administration.
This is key, because many of your points hinge upon the fact that this "party" is "in power".
It doesn’t really contradict his points though. Whereas in China the CCP is the tree from which all the other branches of government emerges, in the US, that tree is the constitution.
The CCP is like a school
Currently in China CCP is the institution that holds the "Mandate of Heaven". The Constitution comes from the "Mandate of Heaven". Xi is not above CCP or the "Mandate of Heaven". You don't have to be a communist to join CCP. Capitalists or anybody can join as long as they are good enough, like Jack Ma or Ren zhengfei, or someone who is a "pillar of the society".
@@Ivan-td7kb You're right, it doesn't contradict his points if all he's doing is just a mental exercise: "what do we get if we apply the structures of the US system to look at the Chinese one?" Or, "let's look at political systems the way a lawyer would".
But if we're talking about a comparison grounded in reality, there's a big, fundamental flaw in his analogy. He himself pointed out the circular logic: "The CCP is in power because it's in power". When you get these strange loops, it's a sign that the framework you're using doesn't actually work. Maybe the "power" in the equation is used in the wrong way, or in the wrong place, or doesn't even belong. The CCP isn't designed to compete for power and the right to rule. That's what parties do in the US, not in China. It's helpful to keep in mind that when compared to the US, governance in China is much less about power, and much more associated with public administration/public service. The difference is huge, and cannot be overlooked in any kind of comparison.
Or, let's imagine there is this institution in the US called the American Political Establishment - the APE for short. The APE holds a monopoly on power. Even if public support is low, The APE is still in power, because it can't be voted out. Therefore, it's power is not legitimized. Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are part of this American Political Establishment. It is all levels, all organs of government. The constitution was written by the APE. The APE has the sole right to interpret and amend it. According to Ryan's logic, that means that in the US, government is above the law.
On the other hand, if one were to say that "the CCP is above the law", what does that really mean? All organs of government? All levels from central to local? All 90+ million members? I realize that some degree of abstraction/reduction is necessary, but in this case is it even useful?
Interestingly, although it wasn't one of his points, the big takeaway that I got from this video is that in the US, 'wealthy individuals' are bound by the law, but Wealth undermines the spirit of the law.
@@connor3563 Ummm... which point would that be? Are you talking about the same multi-billionaire Jack Ma? The CCP member since the 80's Jack Ma?
Just found this channel and I have a feeling I'm going to be burning a lot of time on these videos! Great job man!
Great video! learned a lot between this and the last one. Everyone out there, this content is way more valuable than most news sources you'll subscribe to, imo. If you have some cash lying around, help grow his patreon so we can get more videos like this
Just discovered this channel. We need more of this calm and centered reasoning
I understand where Ryan is coming from, but nothing in the US Constitution actually gives the Supreme Court the power to declare a law unconstitutional and provide a check and balance against the legislative and executive branch. This feature of American political system did not come until Chief Justice Marshall's ruling in Marbury vs Madison. The role of the Supreme Court depends on POLITICAL INTERPRETATION, because its role is not clearly defined in the Constitution. As such, the US Supreme Court is a political institution from the start, and it is pliable to the pressures of political interests. This is why we're having a Surpreme Court that's about to overturn Roe vs Wade, which is not something the majority of Americans want, but it is made possible by the political maneuvering of politicians like Trump and McConnell who went out of their way to stuff the judicial system with judges that align with their political ideologies. And unfortunately, those on the Left have no respect or appreciation for judicial independence either, because their solution is to stuff the court with even more politically driven judges. I do not see a hard line that separates the judicial branch and the other two political branches in the US. The separation of power that provides check and balance has been permeable and pliable throughout US history, and at the current state ... it is hard to say that the Surpreme Court can provide adequate check and balance on legislations and executive orders. The current hierachy is more like "Political Parties" > "Law" instead of the ideal "Law" > "Political Parties".
I agree with Ryan that a problem with the CCP is that it has a monopoly on political power in China. It will not allow much room for political dissent, and we all know that absolute power corrupts absolutely. However, I think the difference with the US is only by degree and not by kind; which means the US also squashes political dissent and exert political monopoly, but it does so in a much more subversive way and it's not as "in your face". For example, the Electoral College was designed to keep out third parties; and until 1968 the Democratic Party's primary election was controlled by party leaders and primary voters had no say on who their party candidate was going to be. Thus, they had only two choices to choose from, and they couldn't even decide on who are the two choices. Combined that with a media press that's cozy with government, and we have a system of "manufactured consent", where American people are given the illusion that their political voices are heard but no real challenge to establish power is tolerated. A clear evidence of this is the fact that American policies are often NOT RESPONSIVE to the needs and demands of the the average citizen. More often than not, legislations in the US serve the interests of political parties and the interests of their lobby groups such as corporations. And of course, they legitimize this in the courts by appointing more pro-corporate judges. But as I said earlier, the court is born from politics was never independent from politics in the first place, so this should not come as a surprise.
I'll close off by saying that justice is more the result of "political actions" than "political design". Unlike Ryan, I do not believe there's a higher law that's above the legislation. The "law" comes from the moral sentiments of the people, and it doesn't exist anywhere outside of people or society. Through the process of social politics, and forming mutual understanding, we form consensus on what "the law" should be. Thus, we should bite the bullet and acknowledge that "the law" is the result of political action and social negotiations from the start. There is no real hierarchy that's etched in stone by political designed (whether it's the Chinese system or American system), and it's a dynamic that requires our constant vigilence via political actions to make sure that legislations are balanced with accountability, and the needs of the many are balanced with the needs of the few. Even though some political designs can offer more bells and whistles to provide more balance of power, ALL of them can careen off course and into a ditch if the driver is not vigilent. In any political system, the people is the driver, the people is the source of the "higher law", and that higher law is the result of a political process that requires political action from everyone. In this way, political design is of secondary importance to political action, and we should no have a false sense of confidence that one political system (i.e. one political design) will necessarily provide more protection than another.
Their power comes from that very interpretation and enforcement you just stated. They are the literal gatekeepers of the law, they can technically decide who can go to jail and who doesn’t even the president, congress, rich, or poor if on trial for breaking the law. Just because they may choose not to do it or not doesn’t mean they can’t, that is just trumped to corruption. That is exactly why he brought it up later. Gotta pay attention to what he’s saying and not what you wanna say if you want to understand what’s being said.
Thanks for the detailed comment. I’d say you’re probably correct, it’s good to have a clear explanation of how things should ideally work from Ryan at least. I’m interested to learn about how both systems work in real life now, as well as other systems around the world. This has really sparked my curiosity.
This was an interesting read. I recognize the phrase "manufacturing consent" from the chomsky book, would you recommend it to learn more about this?
@@gaemr_o5147 I think "Manufacturing Consent" by Chomsky is a good book. BUT, like anything in political science and philosophy, you need to read it critically, because some of its conclusions can be taken too far, and you need to see when that might be the case. You should establish some sort of "limiting principle" for yourself, so that you know when you're taking things too far. ALL of us will eventually be wrong, so the most important thing is not just to find "good" ideas, but to also know when it is enough and when we might be wrong.
What I've said above is simply echoing Aristotle's advice on politics, which is "moderation". Unfortunately, it takes exposure to lots of ideas, experience applying some of them, and making some mistakes to learn what moderation means. Just as there's no "royal road in geometry" there's no "royal road" or "quick route guide" to political science either.
On the practical experience side, I recommend NOT taking RUclips video essays too seriously. Use them as inspirations or provocative thought pieces for further study and research. Dig deeper into their sources and ask critical questions about their claims before adopting their beliefs, even if they seem so "obvious". It's usually the "obvious truths" and un-checked assumptions that create blindspots and turn us into our own worst enemies in the long-run. Take RUclips videos should be a conversation piece and jumping point for further study. Make friends, ask questions, share ideas ... build communities together ... this is what politics means.
Have fun!
Wonderfully explained as always. Thank you Ryan!
"No matter it is a black cat or a white cat, it is a good cat if it catches mice" - Deng Siu Peng
*Deng Xiaoping?
Bro your content is fire
The main issue I have with this video is that by 'the rich', you think of rich individuals. In the United States, a rich Individual is indeed beneath the law. However, it's a whole different matter if you look at big corporate interests, because then you have lobbies Writing the law.
A good example of this is city planning (which is one of my personal areas of interest) in the United States. In the United States, car lobbies have successfully done the following: dismantled much of public transportation, introduced legislation that made it illegal for people to walk on the streets (which they could, before cars took over all the streets), introduced legislation for minimum parking spaces (in Europe it's the opposite: there's Maximum parking space), and basically razed over many poor (mainly black) districts to make way for highways (I always wondered how the US managed to build those big roads without NIMBYs getting in the way, until I found the answer). Even today, city planning in the United States revolves around the car.
Another example is how they can manipulate the press. I recall reading that a while ago, a state wanted to pass legislation to set a maximum number of patients that a nurse could take care of (because nurses were being horribly overworked). Big hospitals didn't want that to pass however, so they financed a huge campaign that claimed the legislation was taking away the right of nurses to decide for themselves.
In fact, as a teenager I read the (Western) newspaper regularly, and the war in Iraq completely destroyed any faith I had in the press. Notice that despite being completely wrong about WMD in Iraq, not a single person was held accountable, which makes me pretty skeptical about the 'free press' ability to hold people accountable. In fact, the French press at the time (I was studying in France) completely predicted the sectarian violence that would happen, but it was magically not passed on into international (American) press, nor was the fact that Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden hated each other's guts. Meanwhile, there was the Nayirah testimony, which was outright made up by an American public relations firm. Since then, I've learned more about what's actually going on in Iraq from a few RUclips videos (namely the fact that it is effectively landlocked by unfriendly neighbors which can literally cut off its water, thus explaining why Iraq wanted Kuwait so bad) than I did from a year of subscription to Time magazine for example.
In China, the CCP is indeed above the law, but it's also much more effective against big interests. Basically, the central government issues vaguely worded directives which local provinces will then try to figure out on their own. If the central government finds that one province is trying to be clever and did something that's Clearly not ok, it'll then issue hard directives to make that explicitly not-okay. In the case of corporations (such as Jack Ma trying to mess with the financial markets), it will step in directly, so they won't always be 'one step ahead of the law' like they are in the United States. It's not as nice as a proper rule of law of course, but it gets things done in a very fast evolving society. Also, it means energy is being expended on the really big fish rather than all the small fries that are blatantly evading taxes etc.
As someone who agrees with a lot of what you said, you're still missing his point - corporations are still regulated by the constitution.
They're abusing the legislation in their favor, that's absolutely true, but if the supreme court makes lobbying illegal tomorrow, they wouldn't be able to lobby anymore. Same about manipulating the press (which is not even illegal as far as I'm aware), if that becomes unconstitutional - it will stop.
All the problems you mentioned can theoretically be addressed by the body that governs the law in the United States - which is the supreme court.
Not an American citizen myself, so it's not like I'm a big fanboy of the American political system, but Ryan's points still stand. The problem is that the supreme court hasn't been the best at representing and protecting the interest of the American people. The same can be said about the legislative branch, but that's a problem that can be addressed with the correct public course of action, unlike in China's political system which makes any changes to the law impossible as long as it contradicts the interests of the CCP.
As I've said - I'm not a US citizen, but with all the disgust I hold for the US government, I still prefer it over the Chinese way of governance. Even if the CCP can be more effective at times, it still is the worst regime out there when considering human rights and the freedom of the individual.
@@Shemratov Ah, I see, you're saying Theoretically, all the things that are problematic now in the US can be made illegal. Gotcha.
@@Shemratov The fact that you hold the CCP as worse than not just the USA but Israel towards Palestine, Eqypt, The Congo, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Columbia, Libya, Russia, etc just shows how little you know and/or how little you are capable of grasping the truth, whether that be from a unwillingness to self-examine or a commitment to prejudice.
And you do not seem to understand the dynamic relationship between the CCP and the citizens of China.
he started distinguishing between law & legislation and I plotzed
- thank you so very very lots
Ryan, I think you're applying double standards when comparing US vs China. When discussing US, you keep citing the Constitution to say no one in the US is "above the law", and dismiss any real world example based on technicality. When discussing China, you dismiss its Constitution as technicality, and keep citing real world examples to say the CCP is "above the law".
In reality, dear sir, when people say "above the law" they mean it figuratively - some individuals and organizations can maneuver themselves around the law, and many cannot. This means that those who can are in effect "above the law". Your semantics-based argument makes no progress beyond supporting the slogan that China has no rule of law - it's probably true, but it doesn't prove that anyone else has "real" rule of law. We should probably re-evaluate what "rule of law" even means, given that the so-called "independent judicial system" depends on the whims of individual judges who are appointed in a highly political manner in many parts of the world.
I have enjoyed almost all of your videos thus far, especially that you apply a very consistent method to analyze many controversial topics. I'm here to learn and have converstaions, and will be genuinely curious what you think.
Could you give any real world example of infringement of Constitution?
I don't think I'm applying a double standard. The difference is both formal and practical in both countries. In China they don't formally recognize the Constitution as a higher authority than the CCP, and it also doesn't work as a higher legal authority in practice.
In the United States the Constitution is both formally the highest authority, and also the highest authority in practice. So that is including real world examples in both cases.
We do have real rule of law in the United States, so do many countries around the world. That doesn't mean it's flawless in the US and couldn't be stronger, but it is real nonetheless. There's no need to re-evaluate what rule of law means. The term works well enough as-is. Our judicial system is considered strongly independent as well, at least from professional analysis. I looked at corruption indexes there and our judicial system ranked very high. So it's easy to be cynical there but the cynicism seems detached from evidence, at least to me.
If people want to loosely use the term 'above the law,' that's of course going to happen. But it's worth having a solid handle on what the term technically means, and that's what this video lays out.
Kaiskid, I first read your comment and then started watching the video, which made me analyse it more critically and to that extent I am thankful for your perspective, but at the same time I feel like the video in fact counters most of your points
Your definition of above the law is different from his. In your definition, everyone is above the law sometimes. I am sure it you have ever driven a car, you have broken the law and not get punished. You may have even sped in front of police but he/she chose not to pursue. What he is talking about is in US we are all governed by constitution, but in China CCP is not.
@@mongoldiscipline every supreme court case that ended up being unconstitutional is real world example.
That was an exciting topic Ryan. I learned a lot. Thanks.
Chinese here, some thoughts on this topic.
In US the law itself is designed to serve the rich, so the rich follow the law doesnt tell anything. your statement is right, on the surface, the politician and the rich don`t break the rulls, BECAUSE THEY DON`T NEED TO BREAK THE RULL TO PROFIT THEMSELF. Think about the soviet union, why do the politicians choose to break the country? because only when ussr don`t exist then they can grab power and wealth. In US those in power don`t need to kill the law to grab power and wealth.
In China, the top leader is not above everything, not Xi, not even Mao. Here you got it totally wrong. In ancient China when the dynasties still exists, the Empeor just kill anyone out of his thoughts without any given reason. In nowadays China, this isn`t the case, if Xi is as powerful as ancient Empeors, he don`t need 10 years in office but still can`t take down all the things he don`t like. i.e. try search 秦岭别墅 to find how hard it is for him to take down some illegal built houses in shaanxi province. And "西山会" etc. the list goes on.
You said in the video that CPC is above the law because if it falls under certain approve rates it still stays in power, this is wrong either. If CPC falls the people, it will be taken down just like the communist party of soviet union, the people holds power. And yes, there is no entity on the surface that can force CPC down, but in ancient times the Empero is above everyone, check Chinese history book to see how those were taken down.
by the way, in US the law system became so complicated that you need a lot of money to get a powerful lawer team to win in the court. Poor people dont have the money for that and the system is by design made to do that. so the law is not fair for rich and poor people.
corruption indexes rank doesn`t mean anything, it was ranked by human and human can be very subjective. if the ranker loves us or was funded by us money just like the lobby system it can be very wrong. remember the medical index? US ranks very high in that one, but see how US deal with covid, very obvious.
Love the content. Can’t wait for more.
Ryan, the explanation you give about the technicalities of the rule of law might be technically justified, but it's like saying US isn't a 3rd world country where rampant corruption happens like in Africa or Asia, we just have the laws that made corruption legal meaning that we can go around claiming there's no corruption in US because it's being hidden under the guise of lobbying !!!! Just semantics and words have changed but the same reality (corruption) takes place in US and Africa but in US corruption has been sanitized to lobbying. It's like saying rape didn't happen because it's now been sanitized to coercion , a lesser offense than rape, but words don't do justice to what's happening despite all the jargon whether technical or legal !!! The same would apply to your example of rich people being above the law. Well, rich people have always had lots of resources to hire the best lawyers and people to defend them with various outcomes usually in their favor. If you put a rich person vs a poor person in court, there's no contest. The principle of rule of law isn't being upheld because it's not an equal fight. Fairness and equality do have to be taken into account when considering rule of law which can be easily manipulated by the rich and powerful to keep the semblance of rule of law going while actually the spirit of the rule of law is never upheld. For sure, the rich can be sued in court, but the chance that the rich is well connected and can gather more resources on his side will always tilt justice in his favor. Therefore while you have the rule of law in America, it's only in label for display and it's a system designed to be manipulated to pull the wool over ppl's eyes on what's actually going on. If the constitution was really in control of the rule of law in US, then does the constitution allows for assassinations and overthrow of other governments openly or covertly ? Does the constitution allows all kinds of military operations under the name of national security without accountability ? That should be enough to tell you that the constitution is either very limited in its scope or can be manipulated easily to allow all kinds of repulsive activities that are nefarious for other countries deemed adversaries or competitors of USA. Therefore the rule of law is just a sham as per your definition. In other words, in technical terms it might make you happy but in practice, there's obvious issues that something really doesn't work with the kind of rule of law that happens in the US where people die every day on the street from police brutaility or gun shots and yet people can claim on paper that the rule of law as defined in USA is great when it's pretty obvious, USA is in chaos and something terrible isn't working there and it's not a safe place at all. On paper, China seems like a scary place where CCP is that omnipotent creature , but about 70 years of existence has shown its maturity and the creation of a safe society, despite some hiccups along the way which to be honest pale by comparison with the vietnam war fiasco or Iraq war fiasco where indiscriminate war crimes were ordered by the leaders in a country of rule of law but who committed war crimes and were never tried for their war crimes. In contrast, China has never committed any war crime in recent history !!!
👏💯🎯
You must not read or watch much television. How about you Google Tiananmen Square massacre and the Chinese involvement in the Vietnam War. You obviously do not understand or know the history of the Chinese wars by proxy that have occurred in the last 70 years. You speak of war crimes by the US in Vietnam. but no mention of the Vietcong using children as suicide bombers. If it wasn't for leftist Democrats like yourself, we would have secured the region and the Khmer Rouge catastrophe perpetrated in Cambodia in the name of Communism would have probably never occurred. Funny, China had a hand in facilitating the outcomes of both??? The Vietnam war was popular under Kennedy and Johnson, but only came under intense scrutiny under Nixon. Hmmmmm, wonder why??? Also, the Iraq War part 2 was approved by both houses of Congress in the US, and subsequent votes to withdraw troops while Bush Jr. was president was overwhelming rejected by Congress as well. Another funny... It was only after Obama become president that support for withdraw gained approval with Congress, even though Obama never bothered to bring it to a vote with Congress, but used Executive/Commander in Chief privileges to do so anyways. That move led to the rise of ISAL/ISIS, with all the death and destruction, as well as erasing every gain the US accomplished with spilled blood by American/Coalition/Iraqi people since the start of the war. Why???? Because Democrats voted for the war, then turned on America and made America the enemy. The true war criminal/scourge of America are Left-Wing Democrat Liberals.
Good, clear and calm explanation.
I use Google Translate to better explain what I mean (I am not a native English speaker)
Yes, the Communist Party of China is indeed above the Constitution, and people in China only regard this as a phenomenon of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
So how does the Chinese Communist Party ensure its legitimacy in China? (The following is a personal opinion)
In China after reform and opening up, the relationship between cpc and the Chinese people relies on economic commitment ← this is the mainstream view and it is not wrong.
The most important point I think is that due to China’s actual one-party dictatorship, cpc’s "full responsibility system" has been created. This means that for any vicious incidents that occur in China, such as COVID-19, or high unemployment rate, cpc must accept all consequences and Blame, the worst thing is to be overthrown. This direct consequence makes cpc one of the most efficient governments in the world.
In the United States, this is the opposite. As the video says, no one is higher than the constitution, which makes it very difficult to deal with responsibilities.
Take Covid as an example. In the early stage of Wuhan, the ability and legitimacy of cpc was greatly questioned and blamed in China, which caused cpc to do everything possible to control the epidemic. Officials regarded as lazy and corrupt are either removed from their posts or go to jail.
What happened in the United States, I believe you know better than me, at least in my cognition, no government official will be directly responsible for the mishandling of the epidemic, such as Trump or Pence.
Of course, this only explains why cpc is above the law and is accepted by the Chinese. there are many shortcomings of this model, such as the lack of political power of ordinary people and the occurrence of unjust cases, but when these problems are put on the table , China’s GDP per capita may have surpassed South Korea, haha.
Most of your observations are surprisingly accurate if you're Japanese. I'm from China and I suspect I can come up with the same level of acuity in my observations.👏👍
I agree. Abstract définitions deletes responsabilities. Only rights are talken about, not duties.
In China, society is made out of duties.
the problem is that the ccp control the media and what people know think and see so they can never take responsobility if its not a nation seen event
The rentier oligarchy makes the law.
The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence. Martin Gilens and Benjamin I Page.
Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 September 2014
Corporations now spend about $2.6 billion a year on reported lobbying expenditures-more than the $2 billion we spend to fund the House ($1.18 billion) and Senate ($860 million). It’s a gap that has been widening since corporate lobbying began to regularly exceed the combined House-Senate budget in the early 2000s. Lee Drutman, The Atlantic, April 20, 2015
First 2 videos about China surprised me for what it looked like an honest try for unbiased content, but as expected it ended soon lol. Americans truly live in an illusion. A travel around the world, through different societies beyond western Europe would do wonders.
Excellent, clear exposition. I'm truly informed now. Thx.
Another well balanced, well researched video, sir. You obviously worked very hard to elaborate on subject in response to comments that were -perhaps- not originally made in good faith. I admire your attention to detail and your respect for hard definitions.
Glad I finally found your channel. Watched 3 episodes so far, impressed. This episode has been out awhile so reading the comments by relevance and they were positive, switched to "new" and not so much, so the reason you didn't put Natural before the word Law was pretty clear. I think the algorithm has been tweaked (at least for my demographic). This is the second channel that was recommended in the last week that has proven to be outstanding. The other one is Asianometry (more about Tech and Economics).
The concept of law wasn’t born in Greece. This kind of western centric POV is intrinsically biased. China had Legalism, Confucianism and other philosophies too. And these philosophies guide the Chinese civilization. Today’s CCP is still operating under these frameworks.
+ 50 social credit score, you are a loyal warrior of Supreme leader jinping
@@dirurururuoksjeir9819 lol. I suggest you watch the episode of Asian Boss, where they conducted a street interview in China on the social credit score system. It’s never too late to learn. Trolling is not helping you to win favors from Modi
@@lordlee6473 haha hahaha, did you just recommend an Asian Boss interview done In China ??? Nice joke . Any of those china interviews might as well be called propaganda , at this point you can always predict every answer some on in China will give . I mean ask your what do you think it take for Asian boss to film and publish those china videos, you think they just roll in and film random people there asking whatever they want ??? Lol
some interesting facts:
1. it is explicitly written in cn constitution that the nation is under the leadership of ccp. so technically ccp is above the law, by authorisation of the law itself.
2. if you put the constition to people's vote. it is almost certain that it'll pass the constition given the current approval rate.
3. national people's congress CAN indeed amend the law (say someone want to remove the leadership of ccp). however said so, the system is delicately desinged. there are 5 layers of deputies to the National People's Congress. if anyone try to amend the constition, he/she need to climb up 5 times the ladder of voting system. in china without the help of ccp, it's almost impossible to get to the position where you can cast your vote.
Brilliant.
And the 1948 Security State Act violates the Constitution. The NDAA violates the Constitution and the PATRIOT ACT also violates the Constitution.
Truth.
A lot of Chinese see "procedural justice"(or the very idea of due process) as THE PROBLEM with the American legal system, not only the rich are sometimes above the law. on rule of law, my opinion without watching this video would be in the united states there is a convoluted legal system where a lot of the times bugs have become features. China has a unsophisticated legal system, that is flexible to interpretation and is bound to ordinary people's ability to understand. The reason often cited for this difference i hear, is china is vastly different internally and is growing rapidly, so its system need to adopt to the situation in different time and space, and strict adherence to the letter would hinder our agility.
Bull's eye.🎯💯
After watching the full video i think my comment kind of stands. You're holding china to a standard set by the west, while china these days is often saying "china is different, so it's fine if we don't do the same thing, and it's not like we're asking other countries to do what we do".
I think this is kind of similar to how people in the west often have the misconception Japan is an atheist country, and the statistic backing it up used a definition of what counts as a religion is very ... Christian.
@@XiaosChannel Exactly!
You are very good at what you do...thank you for clarifying by connecting the dots and being very thorough.
This video (and the comment section for it) are both really interesting food for thought. It demonstrates a stark difference in the historical experiences and political expectations between China and the western world.
Here in the west, we mistrust authority and fear the rise of kings and tyrants who do not look out for the public good. Our experience with despots that abuse their power has led us to create a more rigid legal system that has the power to hold errant authorities to account and focuses on protecting the rights of the individual from government overreach.
In China, perhaps due to Confucianism (or other historical reasons, I still have more studying to do), there is more of an inclination to trust authority as long as it is doing its job. As long as the government is acting practically and things are going well, any citizen should rationally feel inclined to respect the government's authority and obey even without a strict legal framework protecting them. This gives the Chinese government more flexibility in operating and advancing the goals of their civilization.
As a westerner, though, I am forced to ask: What can the Chinese people do if their government becomes corrupt and inefficient. What happens if they go too far and your life becomes worse off due to government mismanagement or because your leaders grow decadent and self-interested?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven
IMO there will be a coup if the government becomes too inefficient to rule properly, just as Mao's chosen successor was ousted by Deng Xiaoping as China was looking for economic reform.
The people would abandon the government. It is similar as dismissing all management due to poor performance in the company.
I want to share some information as reference for your last questions. As a Chinese, the answer for those questions, such as "What can the Chinese people do if their government becomes corrupt and inefficient", is so obvious: change it. PRC is a very young state, however, China is a really really really old country. During our long history, the situation you just asked happened many times already. The result of those situatiion created a unique Chinese term called "Dynastic cycle". According to this theory, each dynasty rises to a political, cultural, and economic peak and then, because of moral corruption, declines, loses the Mandate of Heaven, and falls, only to be replaced by a new dynasty. The cycle exists thousands of years in China. Unlike Western countries, the aristocratic class hardly existed in ancient China (Feudal society period). So when a dynasty goes to its end, ANYONE can found a new dynasty as long as he or she or them can promote the progress of Chinese civilization and lead the people living in this continent to a better life. The similar philosophy can be found everywhere if you go through the history of China. For example, there is a old Chinese saying:"A barracks is an iron-forged whole, where soldiers like water come and go." (Based on the same logic, it can rephase as China is an iron-forged whole, where leaders like water come and go)
Although, nowadays, new theories appeared such as capitalism, feudalism, socialism and etc, for us Chinese, the essence is still that same cycle. Of course, CCP wishes to break the cycle which means it has to keep working on the most fundamental desire: "promote the progress of Chinese civilization and lead the people living in this continent to a better life". This needs time to prove. So, generally speaking, when CCP can't keep the right direction, a new cycle will begin, no one can stop it. This is one reason that China is the longest continuously existing polity in the world.
nothing ,because they have weapons
The classical role of government is to tax away economic rents and use it to lower the cost of production. This is done through subsidies for such things as public infrastructure, education, and health care, not raising the cost of living and therefore the cost of labor, as with monopolistic privatization.
The problem with economics as it is understood in America, is that there is no distinction between wealth production and wealth extraction. Production of goods and services speaks for itself, but monopolies and the banks (FIRE, finance, insurance, and real estate) extract what is called economic rent. The free market Adam Smith talked about is free FROM economic rent, not free FOR economic rent.
This is Industrial Capitalism (China) as opposed to Financial Capitalism (USA), and it is what the conflict is really all about.
American democracy is entirely theatrical with the majority having no more effect on the rentier oligarchy than the Chinese majority on the Communist Party of China.
If the US was a democracy, we would have a decent minimum wage, public health care, free education, parental leave, and gun control, to name a few, all by popular demand.
Assange: "Rule of Law? Free Speech? I DISAGREE!!!"
I love your videos man, they are real quality
As some people pointed out, some things just look good on paper but in practice otherwise. Ryan, you should live in china for awhile and feel it for yourself and ask the most important question: why even with such structure that seems to make CCP above the law, has not collapsed China? What am I missing out there to connect the dot? Feel it, then talk about it again.
Agree! Ryan's analysis should be suplemented by reality check on how the two systems work in practice and how do they produce outcome. The ability of making corruptions legal is the real problem of the us, which is the root of system decay.
@@gxc26tube ya. Too many people like to go into the thinking mode or hypothesis mode by going into theory without being scientific, and it ends there. It's lazy writing. For Ryan, maybe he is satisfied that 1 video is uploaded. Being scientific means you test your hypothesis. I'm disappointed that Ryan never touched the concept of "participating parties", "meritocracy" (which is a unique culture. Ancient Chinese aspires to pass the highly prestigious officer exam to become local officer), voting system that are manifestation of the core principles, JUST LIKE free speech, free media, check and balance concepts to western style democracy! Instead of rushing out something like this, should be like Ray Dalio who takes time to speak to the local scholars.
Nice video. Thanks for the explanation
The problem is when ppl bring judgemental mentality when they study the political differences between two systems and only reinforce their prejudices of the political system they are familiar/unfamiliar with, then you are not learning anything new, you are just self-willingly indoctrinated.
The whole argument in this video only touches upon the subject that China is not a constitutional polity as the US, in other words - China is not the US. But to say that CCP's source of power is not legitimized is a judgemental statement rather than a logical conclusion. The video maker has to realize that he just spent the 20 min of his life saying that CCP is not legitimate because they do not have the same system of the US.
I don’t remember him talking anything about legitimacy
hey Ryan, Who made the American constitution ?
It means sitting on the Constitution. Duh.
Chapman, how do you explain the fact that NYC new mayor Adams immediately promoted his brother, a parking facility admin, to NYC police bureau head???
Excellent video. I appreciate your willingness to challenge such a wide range of conflicting public opinions, especially since you took the comments of your very own viewers as your point of departure in the conception of this video. Here's an engagement comment to do my tiny part in the hopes that this channel gets a much-deserved surge in viewership.
I admit to having a fairly shallow understanding of Chinese politics. I could say a few things about the CCP, Mao, Deng, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping, but not enough to kid anyone truly knowledgeable on the subject that I could speak about contemporary China with any competence. I find Chapman's approach to making these videos more helpful than anything else I've seen online.
I largely agree with the points about cynical views regarding the rule of law in America, though I disagree with the point about law enforcement benefiting from qualified immunity so much that police officers "could reliably break the law, and not be prosecuted for it." From all my research into the matter, I've been surprised to find just how exceptional police corruption appears to be in America. This is all the more surprising given how thoroughly scrutinized police departments have been over the past several decades. Perhaps Chapman has come across some powerful evidence to the contrary that I remain ignorant of.
Hot damn, a Ryan Chapman video fresh off the press!
Love your contents btw. It's very rare for a westerner to watch China from your perspective. I just want to add on for what felt like a misperception.
"The CCP is in power because they are in power"
1) Although westerner felt that CCP is just a party, the Chinese people was never open to the idea of multiple ruling parties in a government. When they recognise other parties in power like KMT, it is always because China is split and each party is the government of that fraction. In fact, they often address CCP as "the government" or "China's government" instead of CCP. But before you conclude that CCP is illegitimate and Chinese are just obeying blindly, let me explain why it is not what you think.
2) If you ask a ordinary Chinese in China why the CCP is legitimate, they may tell you that they are legitimate by showing results on improving China. But there's more than that. The CCP is much closer to civilians than you think. The CCP is more inclusive than exclusive and that's why they are huge with 95 million members. That is 1 in 15 Chinese citizens. Any Chinese above the age of 18 can join and they have the equal opportunities, more or less, to climb the pyramid of power. It doesn't mean that they come home an entirely different person once they gained membership. Rather, they will still share the same opinions as their families and have the same difficulties as before. Thus with enough people feeling the same way and enough impetus to change, they will climb to a position to induce change in the systems or policies.
So when you ask a Chinese on the streets why their government is legitimate, the real reason answer is that "Many of us are a part of them and they are always a part of us". And they would argue that the outcome of this system (i.e. policies and achievements) is the similar, if not better, than an electoral one.
Most party members are just their for added societal benefits such as business deals and other privligies it's not about trying to climb the ladder and improve society
He's right though in that the legal legitimization of the CCP comes because it's in power. However, the same can be said about the constituition of the US; it's the constituition because it's the constituition. But it's true that legitimacy is better understood as whether or not a government is percieved as legitimate by it's subjects and international actors, and for what reasons.
The question is, if I don't agree with the CCP, can I choose another party that I feel represented by?
If the answer is no, then there is no freedom
One can agree with a totalitarian government and perhaps feel seduced to support these types of regimes because one can subjectively consider that they had good results, but have you ever wondered what you would feel if you did not agree with the ruling party and could not do anything to change it?
The truth of one cannot be imposed by silencing the truths of others, it is my humble opinion
@@muiponcomuiponco772 The question is, is there more Chinese or, for example, Americans agreeing with their ruling governments? Even in terms of percentage of the population.
A good government will have high approval rates no matter what system they use. Results speak for themselves.
@@lyc1324 But in the West, if you don't agree with the government, you can protest, you can express it, you can vote for alternatives, you can form your own political party with your ideas for change, etc. Obviously you have no guarantees that things will change to your liking, that in any case is decided by a majority under a verifiable method that is free voting, but respect for the minority exists.
And even if it were true that China has high approval ratings, it does not solve the problem of the lack of freedom.
With that thought we could justify Nazi Germany, if Hitler had high approval ratings then did he have the right to do what he wants?
I continue to enjoy your informative pod cast
1} Everything you said so far about China is accurate, although incomplete truth;
2) Most of what you said about the United States are controversial, in
a) true only in its forms;
b)less and less relevant in people's lives, and
c)less and less to do with the upholding of justice esp in dealings with humanity other than the Americans.
I am disappointed at sb whom I had held much respect b/c of his clarity and comprehensiveness when presenting. Now I only admire your clarity. I also realize how complex the world is, so much so it's impossible to be concise and accurate at the same time and why Karl Marx devoted all his life's energy just to show us one single truth.
I'll leave you a paragraph that I wrote last year to end my reply:
The legal system in North America has become a maze for ordinary people like you and me. It has life-changing power over the individual in the spotlight while entertaining the public at large as spectators until one day you become that individual yourself. In the end, it becomes a sword of Damocles hanging over everyone who still fancies the rose garden of freedom, liberty, justice, and democracy, when in fact they are living in a dystopia of an invisible prison that none knows how to get out of. Everyone has heard about the sword but none truly comprehend its lethality until the moment it arbitrarily drops on one's head. When that moment arrives, you suddenly find yourself the loneliest individual ever!
This certainly won't apply if you are a citizen living in the people's republic of China. I'll elaborate on that if requested.
I think Ryan really short changed his analysis of China. China's culture and history go back thousands of years and Ryan only went back to 1949 when the CCP took over. I don't think the American legal system is perfect but it works well 99% of the time. It is important to be transparent and let the media cover the times when it doesn't work so people can find out about the problems and fix them. There are two downsides to this. One is the media might turn it into a circus just for entertainment. The worse problem is the media will pick up say one incident each week and ignore the 10,000 times that week where everything worked as it should. This might lead people to believe the system is broke when it is actually working as it should. Errors are made public and then the public demands that they be fixed. Of all the things I can be worried about the legal system is the least of my concerns. If anything I am worried that it won't be there when I need it.
@@jamestucker8088 In my opinion, Ryan's video basically says that the US has a "rule of law" whereas China has a "rule of CCP", supplemented by some "rule by law". However, I think the difference between the two could be consequential: The former is letters and words that can become hollow and irrelevant and easily fall into the trap of dogmatism; Whereas is the latter is a live organism that continues to evolve and adapt.
As someone in the comment section put it: "A lot of Chinese see "procedural justice"(or the very idea of due process) as THE PROBLEM with the American legal system, not only the rich are sometimes above the law. on rule of law, my opinion without watching this video would be in the united states there is a convoluted legal system where a lot of the times bugs have become features. China has an unsophisticated legal system, that is open to interpretation and is bound to ordinary people's ability to understand. The reason often cited for this difference I hear is china is vastly different internally and is growing rapidly, so its system needs to adapt to the situation in different time and space, and strict adherence to the letter would hinder our agility."
Here is another: "China is “rule by law”, while the US is rule of law. However, that doesn't mean the US system is for sure superior. Rule of law sounds good, at least in most times, but the "law" is in words, and words have inherent loopholes, conflicts, different explanations. To mitigate them, people create more laws to specify and clarify. Before long, you will find the system so complicated that only "experts" can understand it. They know all the "tricks" to maneuver through the games. Law becomes a ruling tool. Sooner or later, the system becomes so messy that the original spirits of the laws are lost.
Authoritarianism or democracy, humans have been talking about them for 3000 years. Some people say democracy is "the end of history" (the ultimate political system that lasts forever). But Aristotle said democracy ends in political deadlock and then anarchy. Time will tell.
America has not yet seen a full cycle of ebb and flow. Before that, Americans will continue to be arrogant."
@@leonal522 Your observations are quite valid. The Chinese had plenty of lessons with worshiping the 'Law' as if sacred above all else. In the ancient times there was the discipline of legalism. Qin Dynasty was in favor of it. Then Qin Dynasty collapsed within a few decades due to its oppressive nature. At the founding of Han Dynasty, the founders made a slogan of 10-character summary of the spirit of law so every common people can understand what Han Dynasty's laws were about, and yes, it's even much shorter and easier to remember than the ten commandments of western religions traditions.
I am quite surprised that how few American intellectuals truly understand the meaning and relations of concepts such as law, freedom, morality etc. Lao-Tzu wrote about these 2500 years ago in China and he explained that when you rely on etiquette (aka law), the society is already degenerated and close to chaos. The more the laws, the more the thieves. The more the regulations, the poorer the people. Clearly Lao-Tzu did not worship rule-of-law. I think more western intellectuals should acquaint themselves with Lao-Tzu's work, in order to better understand Chinese wisdom. Yes the CCP also studies Lao-Tzu, and to a large extent it has inherited both Taoist and Confucian legacies.
An excellent analysis. I must admit even I was (and am) quite cynical about American and Western politics in general, but you do make some good points. Glad you stood your ground and further clarified your previous statement with facts instead of just caving to pressure. Sad but not surprised to see parts of the comment sections turning into a pissing contest with some Chinese nationalists coming to try and rescue the unrescuable. It baffles me how some might use the example of govt officials purging to show that there is rule of law in China, rather than understanding that it is about party infighting. It is truly shocking to see how few Chinese people truly understand their own country. Sure enough, the CCP is, as admitted by some of the top experts on the topic, one of the most opaque organisations on earth and so only top CCP officials will ever truly know everything that is going on within the party. But the things you speak of are there in plain sight for all (who want to see) to see. Even more so if somebody has spent some time in China. I honestly struggle to understand why anyone should struggle so much to be critical of their own government. I was born and raised in Italy, and I have no problem acknowledging that we have one of the most corrupt political systems of all Western liberal democracies. But then again, bad as Italy may be, I suppose we are lucky enough to not have to endure years of government indoctrination and propaganda that would thwart our perception of reality. Mostly, anyway. To some extent, government propaganda is everywhere of course, as made even more blatant during the last two years.
I agree with you; as to your question, " I honestly struggle to understand why anyone should struggle so much to be critical of their own government" here is some insight.
The Chinese citizen often struggle to publicly denounce their government due to 2 layers of issue:
1. Economic prosperity that they have generally experienced during the past 70 years, meaning that they are generally grateful for CCP's work in rebuilding the nation from devastation. This is pretty different from many western countries where wealth growth has been stagnant for many decades, and the society are in a 'cake dividing' phase instead of a 'cake baking' phase.
2. A cultural habit about "家丑不外扬” - Ugliness at home should not be advertised. - this is very evident - if you're Chinese and talking to another Chinese, you may find that both of you are more prone to talk honestly about the CCP's fault, and towards non-Chinese, and worst yet, western media, Chinese tend to be less willing to talk bad about their government,
Another thing is survivorship bias, a lot of people here in RUclips are often young Chinese students that is studying overseas (or young worker), and as you know of young people, they are often idealistic and passionate about their identity. So they are more likely to not engage in an honest conversation but rather a defensive 'debate' stance to talk about anything related to their beliefs.
A couple things I'd like to throw out here.
1. Theoretically there is a reason why the communist party of China is above the law - because it's a socialist system, with an end goal to achieve communism. The communists have to make sure they own the constitution and have full control over the state government so that the system does not deviate from the direction towards the end goal. But there're always different groups within the communist party itself with different political propositions. For example, there are both right-wings and left-wings in the party; some are more conservative while some are more progressive; some wanted to continue with planned economy while some preferred market economy back in 90's; some think A/B/C are priorities while others have X/Y/Z,... Policies are decided after being discussed and debated amongst these people all the time rather than by a single person. One needs to be very naïve to believe Xi Jinping can dictate everything in the party.
2. Ryan only compared between the US and China to prove his point about rule of law. But he didn't prove that China does not honor the rule of law. Just assuming the party is "above the law" in China (according to my 1st point), and because president Xi is the leader of the party, doesn't mean he is exempted from jurisdiction in case he violates the law. Ryan has mixed up the concepts here - no "higher authority" than the party in constitution, doesn't mean there's no authority can hold the party leader(s) to the violation of the law. You may argue that in reality it would be very difficult to sue a party leader or government high official. Yes that is sometimes true. But it's not more difficult than suing the US officials for war crimes they've committed which not only murdered millions of civilians in other countries, but also damaged lives of thousands of US soldiers and their familiars all based on lies. This is not whataboutism. I'm just showing how Ryan's theory is defected.
3. Speaking of corruption, I don't think it has anything to do with ideology. There're many countries who adopted capitalism and "American democracy" that are far more corrupt than China. Some are even frequently shown by American mainstream media as "model of democracy", which is quite ironic. Btw I will also argue that the US shows less corruption on paper just because "lobbying" is legal. I get it "lobbying" is different from "bribery" and there're academic explanations about it. But do you truly believe from your heart that it's not corruption, when you see the rich gets richer and poor keeps getting poorer, when you see more and more homeless on the streets, when public health care and student loan issues are always outstanding, when "tax the rich" never comes true, when mass shooting continues to happen regularly, when "defense budget" gets higher and higher over years and now reaches the ridiculous $778 billion , and so on and on?
I think Ryan should put away the books for a little while, have a walk (or drive) across the city and look at what really is going on with your eyes. There may be something that you don't see from books or media.
🎯💯👏👍
Or just, like many westerners, live in china for awhile and feel it for yourself and ask the most important question: why even with such structure that seems to make CCP above the law, has not collapsed China? What am I missing out there to connect the dot? Feel it, then talk about it again.
love your analyses.
Such clear and well explained videos - keep them coming please!
An interesting point in this regard is that in the political textbook of junior high school in China, it is clearly stated that law refers to certain norms formulated, implemented and enforced by the Ruling class through the state machinery under certain historical conditions, and is the embodiment of the interests of the Ruling class. Law is not superclass, universal, or eternal. And: the state is an irreconcilable product of class contradictions.
A few things I feel you didn't address:
-yes, the American government needs to base current 'legislation' on past 'higher law' and that helps to set some broad criteria for what is acceptable. But you could also argue that it creates a Conservative force in American politics where increasingly out of date 'higher laws' gradually become irrelevant to changing facts on the ground. I've seen quite a few examples of Americans doing objectively illogical things that apparently made sense 200 years ago when material conditions were very different.
-yes, the American government is constrained by the constitution. But they're also capable of altering it (assuming sufficient support etc)
-I feel the 'corruption' metrics miss what people mean when they accuse the rich or politicians of being 'above the law'. We know they (mostly) need to comply with current laws but the issue is their ability to heavily influence the laws that get made to suit their narrow individual interests rather than those of the nation. E. G. The rich lobbying to shift the tax burden onto everyone else aren't seen as 'corrupt' or 'breaking the law' but they are using the law as an instrument to get whatever they want
-Your argument about why the CCP are in power being circular can easily be applied to America too. So I don't think you're being fair there.
'Why is the constitution anything more than a nice piece of paper?'
'Well the people in power wrote it'
'and why are they in power?
'Because the constitution that they wrote says so'
Despite all the propaganda romanticising and mythologizing America's constitution, it is fundamentally just a list of rules written by the people in power at the time (the ones with money, armies, land, *SLAVES* etc) to agree the rules by which they will cooperate in a joint institution (with which they will, like any rulers in any other time and place, enforce their will on the masses through a monopoly on the use of force)
-You also argue that the Chinese government is responsible for altering and enforcing the constitution. You didn't really elaborate on how that's any different from the American government also being responsible for amending and enforcing the constitution...? I don't know if the implication is that China has 'one party' (arguably of many facets) and America has a *cough* 'multi party system'. Which functionally has only 2 parties. Which are functionally one party in 2 faces. So...not much material difference there.
edit: You did go on to address the 'manipulation of law' to one's own ends. But 'if you see politicians manipulating law to their own benefit; that doesn't necessarily mean they're above the law' frankly sounds like semantics and esoteric technicalities as an excuse to forgive the Americans. By any common definition, manipulating the law to one's own ends is being 'above the law'. You mention a few times that there is power to 'check' other's abuse of power *in theory* but if that isn't successfully applied then, by definition, the system hasn't accomplished its goals in practise and there is some major flaw (perhaps relating to the practical application of these 'checks' in the real world). We wouldn't let China get away with 'promise' vs 'reality' propaganda so I don't see why the Americans should be exempt.
It's also a strange argument to make that (paraphrasing) 'American presidents are heavily constrained when trying to do productive things like build infrastructure or agree a budget but luckily they are free as a bird to declare broad, poorly defined wars of aggression on whoever they like'. I'm pretty sure a functioning system should have that the other way around
A lot of technicality in this discussion here, but the point of it for why people want to engage in such discussion is to compare merits. For example, what problems are we facing, does America have rule of the law, if so, does it help address these problems, if not, what is being done to address these problem Then compare to China. Simply answering the question of whether it has XXX is not all that interesting without the follow up.
Ryan, I think you need to make a video on how the whole CPC machinery works. Like how does a Xi Jinping become a Xi Jinping? How people inside the party rise within the ranks? What gets them promoted? Or expelled? What rules do party members follow? How do they make laws? Policies? Do they make laws in a whim or is there a consultative mechanism from the grassroots? That would be interesting. And maybe a comparison vs western democracies. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about how CPC works as an organization. Love, from the Philippines!
He doesn’t know that, there’s no way he could know that! His knowledge is strictly written on paper, and there’s no objective written paper about the internal mechanism of CPC.
CGP Grey's "Rules for Rulers" video is relevant everywhere ;)
that‘s CCP, not CPC.
@@vonvandenburg3309 it's official name is Communists Party of China (CPC)
@@vonvandenburg3309 technically it’s cpc CPC is what they call themselves.
Perfect explanation! I love your rational way of explaining things. I distrust emotional expositions of such subjects.
America's rule of law may sound good on paper but in practice it has not delivered well for the American people, precisely because of the corruption of the system in recent decades. America is on the verge of civil war with all the internal political strife. Americans suffer from extreme economic inequality. Americans suffer from crumbling infrastructure. Americans suffer from unaffordable health care, unaffordable housing, unaffordable education. And so on.
The point being, no political system is ideal. Rule of law does not guarantee good governance. The same applies to China. While China's system has worked extraordinarily well for over four decades, thanks to Deng Xiaoping's 1978 reforms, there's no guarantee that it will continue to serve the people well.
As of this moment, China's system is undeniably doing better for its people than the American system is doing for its people. Nobody is suggesting that America should adopt China's political model. But the Chinese are happy with it. This reflects Chinese culture and history going back 5,000 years.
Let's accept both systems and stop pitting one against the other.
Illuminating content, thank you!
Thanks Ryan, glad you found your way out of the rabbit hole, your lessons are very much appreciated. It would be good if you could apply your nous and presentation to China's underlying political principle of 'democratic centralism' and what the CPC now refers to as 'whole process people's democracy'. This might help explain why the Chinese people are comfortable with having a centralist government with supreme power..
I was enthralled for the entire video and at the end Ryan says "I know this isn't the most exciting"... Personally I was excited 😂 love the analysis. I'm from the US but I've lived in China for 6 years so anything comparing the two countries and systems are very personal and important to me so thank you !
A rather one dimensional comparison, Laws means different things for different countries and cultures, think Sharia law
it's impossible to make the claim the CCP is above the Law, because the CCP itself is woven within the fabric of the Nation state of China,
and national entity have legalized violence/oppression on the part of the state. Which is always above the law, because they are the law of the land when National boundaries were drawn
一一一More details:
In China for the CCP, aside from the national law, there is the Party Regulations, they are MUCH more strict, Laws in most countries deals with the minimum requirement for human decency, CCP's Party Regulations, deals with morality, many Party regulations are not even about criminal behavior.
If a member is found in violation, he or she will be expelled from the Party, and if criminal activities were involved, then said person will be prosecuted criminally.
一一一
The CCP is not a Political Party, it is more or less a meritocratic RULING ORGANIZATION,
Political party usually represents certain constituents, and thus cannot claim to represent all sectors of society, Right now more than 1/4 of Americans even refuse to believe Biden is the President.
The Chinese system also do not distinguish Civil servants in the professional bureaucracy with Political officials. which means all Chinese politicians are part of the ranked civil service system, similar to the old Imperial Bureaucracy.
This means the CCP forms the Ruling organization that runs the country to being part of the social fabric of Chinese society, This goes far beyond what the West would recognize as a political party.
This means in the context of the United States, saying the CCP is above Chinese law. would be like saying the United State as a national entity is above the US laws
If you don't get that comparison, ask yourself who gave the US government's right to enforce laws or impose their legislations on their citizens? the existence of the Nation State involves the legalization of violence on the part of the State.
In the United States, if the Constitution and Supreme court is above politics, then why are the judges lifelong position appointed by the President? and why the 2 parties fight over whether a president in his last year of office can appoint a judge of the Supreme court?
一一一
Another misconception this video makes about China or the CCP is that there is no opposition, which is illogical to believe an organization with 90+ million members are all in agreement.
The video did not discuss the fundamental aspect to a socialist system, which is Democratic Centralism
Democratic Centralism was alluded above, where the CCP is not a partisan political party, but an organization that have members and supporters from all sectors/classes of society
Consultative Democracy, means the CCP and the United Front (the ruling coalition in China) would have their differences resolved BEFORE voting, and the minority MUST follow the will of the majority, So they vote in unison, even though you might be opposed to something, if you are in the minority, you are expected to carry out the policy decisions of the majority.
Which means you cannot oppose for the sake of opposing, This gives the illusion of no opposition within the Party or the coalition.
Wonderfully explained. Thanks!
This video is like a textbook reading, Very superficial. On the US side, if your logic is that who constructed who decides who is above who, then the rich is above the law. The Constitution didn't come out by itself but was made by the landlords, not the people. As they took over the wealth from colonization, the law was needed to justify themselves and protect their property rights. Regardless who is above who, a more meaningful question is whose interests the law serves. Many observations show that the law is disproportionally serving the rich by maintaining social order that maximizes their wealth. Unprecedented income inequality already tells it. Why would SOMEONE still use freedom of speech as a cheap defense, do some research on slanted press, manipulated social media, censorship in twitter and youtube first. And then talk about freedom of affordable housing, freedom of education, freedom of not being shot, etc, which are more essential to people's daily life. You can't gauge a sophisticated concept by one metric, which is even inflated constantly. On the China side, I think you are really biased. 1. You cannot interpret Chinese political system simply from Aristotle's perspective, where his philosophy largely rested upon western norms and civilizations. 2. You cannot interpret Chinese political system by only looking at years after 1949. China's current system is an outcome of thousand years civilization accumulation. This civilization process generates a common view of moral history, which is immensely manifested in classic books and widely shared among the elite and the people. Chinese top leaders are subject to this law-like judgement, which prevents their wrongdoing and inspires them to deliver the good to the people so as to have a good fame in the history.
I think that above the law is also being able to not being punished by courts because with money you can call 10 experts or 10 lawyers.
From the priest tradition of the West, the lawgivers were somewhat above the law. If you believed they were also humans in the legislation of laws, then the traditions of Rationalism and Dao will become closer.
The Bible, Constitution, isms, were laws made up by humans as snapshots and static representations in a dynamic world of Dao, suitable to the historic contexts given human self-interests, strength and weaknesses in legislating of them.
I’m Indian, and India by most metrics is “technically” as democratic as any western country, if only lagging by some decades on certain social issues. On paper, our constitution is amazing, progressive, modern, secular, yet western metrics often label is as flawed democracy. The exceptions, the power abuse by politicians and rich people, etc, whether in US or India, are not just deviations from an idealized image of democracy, they ARE the democracy, they ARE how these countries function. It’s way too often that western countries are seen as ideal democracies with any flaws as just flaws, but non-western countries are seen as flawed with all their flaws as inherent features.
In conclusion, the “not breaking the law just finding ways above the law” explanation is just that, an explanation. For all practical purposes, the people are above the law, cuz they make the laws, they word them nicely so it reads posh.
"our constitution is amazing, progressive, modern, secular, yet western metrics often label is as flawed democracy"
Indian Constitution is a dysfunctional Frankenstein's monster created by smart men but ultimately inexperienced in organizing and managing anything larger than a party meeting or a protest. The failure of Planning in India is also a product of this politico administrative dysfunction. Neither "Progressivism" nor "Secularism" predisposes a nation to success(as defined by its possession of material, industrial, scientific prowess, though the latter principle can be quite useful in its pursuit), If the citizens of the nation are divided by 20 different languages, three different religions and 100 million castes. Compound that with Illiteracy and Democracy(at every level of political division, which is the worst form of political organization there can be), you get a half baked country like India condemned to mediocrity in perpetuity. I say this as somebody who voted for BJP(just to show where I am coming from on this issue.). Either a communist or fascistic revolution that enforces linguistic and political homogeneity is the only thing that can save India. then again for such a revolution to take place the precondition itself necessitates a common language spoken across state lines. Perpetual penury is India's unchanging fate as long as the country remains under its current political structure.
Thank you for the voice of reason. Lived in China and then moved to the USA, I am constantly frustrated by people somehow thinking China is a viable better alternative. The United States can learn from many countries as good examples (The Nordic Counties, the Netherland, New Zealand, etc), but China is not one of them.
You’re absolutely right on ccp being above the law in China. Keep up the good work.