I had an interesting dialogue the other day on my YouTube comment section - it started with a simple comment relating to whether China is capitalist or communist and the answer is it neither and it's both but that's the subject of another video. A follower called @InspectorA-r2e said: "I think China is a capitalistic country. Claiming it's communist seems disingenuous. Nonetheless, it might be better than so-called democracy, because so-called democracy can also be disingenuous and chaotic. Most leaders in Western countries are dishonest or corrupt".
This is a good point, most elected officials in the West seem to start poor and finish rich, they don't do that on government salaries, that's for sure, and being a politician for a few years in the West does open doors into lucrative opportunities thereafter, with seats on boards, consultancy contracts and speech making, Hilary Clinton, for example, a woman who served as a Senator for New York, and was married to a President, has apparently earnt over $22 million dollars since leaving politics - nice work if you can get it.
Anyway, to respond to the question, I replied:
It's a Socialist country with capitalist characteristics, capitalism is very much allowed, even approved but you need to have socialist leanings and share your wealth or you will get brought down by the government and the people - many people here are extremely wealthy but they're also very charitable too." What I'm trying to say here is that, although I'm no expert in anything related to Marxism, Socialism or any of the ideologies China claims to be, it's clear to me that China has a system where by "trickle down economics" is forced to work and it works very well - rich people help poor people, everyone and every company pays its share of taxes, those taxes are used to help develop society and, every year since I've been in China, I've watched it improve.
But then I got a really interesting comment from a troll called @Jenny-m7g1i - how do I know Jenny is a troll? because the comment gave no facts, just the usual name calling and, when I get these, I often look at the account, this comment was on the 19th of June and Jenny, if that's what his or her name really is, created the account on 18th June - purely to troll pro China accounts, that's all it does, there is no content there and probably never will be. But let me show you even more about this. "Jenny's" comment was this: "@jerrystakeonchina799 It's not anti-corruption. It's an ongoing CCP internal purge. I'm Chinese and from Changsha, buddy. I speak Chinese - You don't!!! Enlighten yourself and don't be a useful CCP puppet.
Hěnduō rén rènwéi wǒ bù huì shuō zhōngwén wǒ bù zhīdào wèishéme, tāmen bù rènshí wǒ
I don't know how this person thinks I survive on the road in China, I've cycled around 40,000 kilometres in the country, most of it without my wife, although she's been with me for some of it - the two other riding partners I've had, Phil and Bev don't speak a word of Chinese, so I order all the food, get any directions, register for hotels and have disagreements with people who tell me that I can't stay there because foreigners aren't allowed - could all of this be done without me being able to speak Chinese??? Somehow I doubt it - I'm the first to admit, I could do better but I'm quite functional and am very able to communicate, ask and answer questions here, after all, I've been here a long time, why wouldn't I be - I don't speak Chinese on camera because I'm conscious that I'm not fluent, I am often invited to appear on other people's shows and I do so in English because that's what they want and expect from me.
As for an internal purging going on it's obvious what happens here - people, perhaps "Jenny" is one of them, get enmeshed in an investigation, they leave the country with whatever they can smuggle out and then they disparage China from outside, it isn't a purge of ideological enemies, it's a purge of corrupt or criminal elements and China is all the better for it, however the negative side of that is that it does create a large number of people who the West love to use to "prove China is bad".
Of course I didn't bother to tell Jenny this, I merely responded with the fact that she/he is definitely not a native Chinese speaker, and even less likely to be a female. Linguistically, they give themselves away - most females would not refer to a person as "buddy", it's a male oriented word, also I've never in my entire time in China with all the tens of thousands of Chinese people I've spoken to, heard one use the word buddy, it's an American anachronism, it's not a word that Chinese speakers use, although, I don't know about Chinese speakers in the USA because the only ones I know from there are the (mostly foolish) people I meet on X and even they have never called me buddy. I very much doubt that this person, claiming to be a Hunan native, is actually what they say they are.
I have been called a "CCP puppet" several times, I wonder if they are all "Jenny" with different account names?? I have only one thing to say about this allegation and that is - prove me wrong - it really doesn't matter if I'm repeating CPC talking points if they happen to be true but Jenny came back with this comment: "@jerrystakeonchina799 Since when have the CCP crooks shared their wealth?"
My answer to that is very simple: Who built the trains, the hospitals, the ports, the roads the educations system which is now world class - who lifted the entire country from poverty and who increased the life expectancy to greater than that of the United States, all while still a developing nation?
This person clearly knows nothing about China and is definitely not living in China - the CPC did that, all of it with the massive support of the people they represent. I've witnessed it for the last 20 years and lived, worked, travelled and studied amongst Chinese people who, all independent surveys confirm, support the CPC, believe they have democracy and definitely DO NOT want a US style of voting for real puppets of the elites to pretend to work on their behalf.
It's really getting embarrassing when this is the best that the West can offer - hopeless failures, inadequately prepared to argue points they have not researched. I just wish they would do better.
Frankly, it's not the business of foreigners from the West to be telling China how to run its country, isn't that what's been happening to China up to 1948, when China finally got down to the business of making its own decisions about how to live. Is it socialist or is it capitalist? Debate all you like, China is trying to survive and prosper in a capitalist world, a world that would rather China surrender to imperialism, so it does what it has to in order to navigate through a world that's largely hostile to China. So as they used to say, 'China's feet unbound!'
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I never thought about how to recognize trolls and why they troll YouTubers like you. They show up in our daily life as often as scammers do...