`Vote in national elections` is the most common value of X when comparing OECDs to China, but it is not a very useful one.
The more important political freedoms (free speech, freedom of assembly, free press) are all restricted in China, but the general trend is toward less restriction, albeit with more monitoring. (The insightful will point out we are restricted and monitored in every country, but I respond there is an order of magnitude difference)
Economic freedoms are being relinquished at a much faster pace, and since that is what most people encounter in the day-to-day the average Chinese citizen will think you are pretty silly for saying he or she is not 'free'.
But the big issue for quality of life of the citizens of every country is transparency and the rule of law. And while China has been making major strides forward in the rule of law it still has abysmal transparency.
And that is a much more worrying thing than any voting metric.
Since when is it not a useful value of X? Maybe it's not a flattering value of X...
Since the Enlightenment, freedom has meant political freedom. That's why the Bill of Rights has explicit guarantees about the freedom of the press and nothing, textually, about starting a business.
Yes, this is an ethnocentric way of looking at things, but my comment was made as an American criticizing American businessmen.
`Vote in national elections` is the most common value of X when comparing OECDs to China, but it is not a very useful one.
The more important political freedoms (free speech, freedom of assembly, free press) are all restricted in China, but the general trend is toward less restriction, albeit with more monitoring. (The insightful will point out we are restricted and monitored in every country, but I respond there is an order of magnitude difference)
Economic freedoms are being relinquished at a much faster pace, and since that is what most people encounter in the day-to-day the average Chinese citizen will think you are pretty silly for saying he or she is not 'free'.
But the big issue for quality of life of the citizens of every country is transparency and the rule of law. And while China has been making major strides forward in the rule of law it still has abysmal transparency.
And that is a much more worrying thing than any voting metric.