[pi-err]

tl,dr: CCP involves as many ordinary people as it can into the judicial and extra-judicial killing process in what could be "life insurance" for the regime: too many have blood on their hands to ever face accountability.

Personally, the dissonance around China has come to an extreme. Is most reporting incorrect, or has CCP become the most efficient and durable totalitarian regime in history? Or is it a form of social engineering that has actual mainstream support in China? Or is it a doomed experiment, just like all other previous authoritarian regimes in history?

There is something quietly unsustainable building up.

[Nesco]

Your post seems to me that you intensely believe the creed that western-style “liberal democracy” is the most stable political regime. It is true it is very stable though you should try to separate the reality with the propaganda set up by those states, especially the US one. For example:

> Or is it a doomed experiment, just like all other previous authoritarian regimes in history?

The Pharaonic system which was may be the most despotic ever created lasted for nearly three millenia. The current age of all “democracies” (~ representatively guided states with some kinds of power separations) pales in comparison. And regarding the robustness of those regimes the only continental country to not crumble when confronted to the shock of the blitzkrieg was the USSR (operation barbarossa lead to the death of 5 millions people in 200 days to give an idea).

I am not trying to defend authoritarian regimes but the questions of which political system is the fairest, which one is the most legitimate, which one is the most stable and which one is the most robust are not the same and should not be conflated

[megameter]

There's an unsustainable component to every empire, in that the premise is always growth-centric and stratified; empires do not "prosper together". Growth turns to killing when the psyche of the nation needs a boost, cleaving a harder line into the social constructs of stratification by informing everyone of who is clean and goodly, and who is guilty by default and deserves their punishments. It reallocates praise and blame such that the established in-groups get the most credit by their own reckoning. On this I see Heather Marsh's views as some of the most clear-eyed.

The thing about authoritarian impulses throughout history is that they flare up and, for time, keep a country firmly gripped. Then they relax, and are somewhat forgotten about, even reconciled, until something comes along to trigger it again, in a replica of the abuse cycle. And China is not going to be different in this respect - moments where things get more oppressed for a time, and then moments of relief. The Xi regime has been relatively more oppressive in most recountings by Western sources. This is believable yet also not meaningful, since clearly the apparatus was there before.

IMHO, just because China has gotten this far with its current model says little about tomorrow. There is propaganda coming from all directions these days, so I'm always a little hesitant about "real truth" coming from random sources, but simultaneously suspicious of the official ones too. It's that climate, in itself, that damages the credibility of all regimes; it leaves truth and credit up for grabs to those who can forge a new path that makes the world cohere better. It's hard to defeat the real truth in the long run.

[DiogenesKynikos]

> Is most reporting incorrect, or has CCP become the most efficient and durable totalitarian regime in history?

Neither. Most Americans and Europeans have zero idea what life is like in China. The media doesn't help. Anyone who knows something about the country has noticed the rising level of hysteria and propaganda about China since Trump was elected.

[CyanBird]

> has CCP become the most efficient and durable totalitarian regime in history?

Not really, here are just forces at play which would benefit if you thought so

We are in due time for the US and Western public to have a new evil boogyman presented to them. People are getting too unruly these days, so this will help keep them in line