culture economics

China and Human rights

I’ve seen quite a bit of stuff written about China and their track record on freedoms and general human rights issues. It’s true that they do not have an open and free culture in a lot of dimensions. It’s also true that the government is guilty of being autocratic and intolerant of criticism. Jailing people because they belong to a certain religion or say certain things really isn’t acceptable.

On the other hand, they have made dramatic improvements in those areas over the past 40 years, heck, even in the last 20 years. Compare now with China in the 1970’s, there is far more freedom in all aspects of life now. And of course we forget how far general freedoms have come with the demise of the Soviets. China was always overshadowed by the Soviets when it came to human rights abuses. They set the bar and everyone fell underneath it. So no, things are not perfect in China, but I give them credit for improving so much in recent history.

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