this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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I'm not saying democracy is a bad thing. But, it is important to understand flaws that are inherent to it. Long term problems are a particular weakness for democratic governments as there is almost no incentive to deal with them instead of short term "sugar high" projects.
I disagree with much of China's strategy but the sort of moves being an autocracy allows enables it to simultaneously pursue a policy of economic growth while planning for the future. (You also get stuff lile the belt and road initiative, which was an incredibly ambitious program.)
Again, I am not saying China is better or democracy is bad. There are a BUNCH of huge flaws to autocratic governments like China's. But, democracy is going to particularly struggle with these sorts of long term threats.
Countries like China can certainly enact unpopular opinion with little opposition. That can get policy thru that may be beneficia at times. You can see this with their recent energy policy. They are bringing online coal power production at a rapid rate. I can understand how that will help them from an economic standpoint. It is certainly something democratic countries would have a tough time implementing where as they can do this with little opposition.
Yup. That same ability to do things without public input also allows China to better multi task. So, while China is building more coal power capacity (much like America is doing with oil) China is also backing it up with an insane amount of renewable projects; China approved 106 GW of coal capacity in 2022 but for comparison has some 379 GW in solar currently under construction and 371 GW of wind power on track to be built by 2025 (which would double the world's wind capacity.)
That ability to multi task is why they've been able to reduce air toxicity by a dramatic 40% in under ten years. While the coal is regrettable, parts of the infrastructure simply aren't constructed for intermittent energy yet (same is true in America, transitioning the grid to be entirely renewable is going to be a Herculean task and there are almost no plans to do so there) so to keep the lights/factories on, coal is a cheap, quick stopgap to meet those needs while they build more renewable capacity than the rest of the world. The ability to over ride popular demands is also why you could easily see those plants being shut down before their natural life cycle.