Despite disagreement, I do respect Lingling's work and her professionalism, but I must respectfully disagree again with several key points in the article below. I've lived in both countries too as a scholar.
Reducing China's governance to "the Party controls everything" and implicitly romanticizing US governance as "freedom and debate" is a deliberate oversimplified binary narrative.
China's challenges are not about "too much socialism."
America’s challenges are not about "too much democracy."
I think the real contrast is this:
➡️ The US is drifting toward "capital capturing policymaking."
➡️ China practices "the state regulating capital in the public interest."
In China, maybe you can't insult the government freely, but you won't go bankrupt because of medical bills, tuition fees.
In the US, you can insult the government all day-
but you can go bankrupt because of medical bills, tuition fees, or just trying to stay alive.
She says:
"You don't buy a home; you buy a 70-year lease from the government, which it can revoke."
But in America, millions can't even afford a lease. Additionally, some heirs of wealthy families have had to donate their parents' mansions because they can't afford the property taxes.
She says:
"In Mamdani’s New York, you can protest his policies outside City Hall."
But in the US, the reality is far more cynical:
You protest-nothing changes.
You vote-nothing changes.
Because money matters more than votes.
In China, when you call the mayor's hotline or file a petition, the case is registered, processed on a timeline, and officials are held accountable if they ignore it. "We the People" petition site, oh, looks like a joke.
China is not perfect.
But China tries its best to improve public welfare and build a functioning state that prioritizes people's needs.
The US used to do that-but administrations since the Bush era have largely given up on governing for the public good.
One system measures its success by how many problems get fixed;
the other measures success by how loudly people can complain.
Good governance is not about who talks better.
It's about who delivers better.
Be better, the United States of America.
What people have in the U.S. is a messy, loud, and often vicious debate about how to allocate resources. What people have in China is the absence of one.
wsjchina.cmail19.com/t/d-e-g…