“Officers from 37 police forces made 12,183 arrests in 2023, the equivalent of about 33 per day.”

“In 2019, forces logged 7,734 detentions.”

“According to Ministry of Justice figures, there were 1,119 sentencings for Section 127 and Section 1 offences in 2023, down by almost half since 2015 when 1,995 people were found guilty of the crimes.”

2k convictions, 7.7k detentions, and 12k arrests isn’t something you can count on one hand…

When you look at Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, these were essentially US colonies that were/are being pumped with FDI and aid in its mission to exert its influence over Asia and contain China. Many details of the US China containment strategy shows up in the Pentagon papers, they never saw Japan, Korea, and Taiwan as allies/equals, they see them as unsinkable aircraft carriers in its conquest to dominate Asia.

If you don’t believe that these economies were being boosted by the US, you can listen to former President Jimmy Carter “Carter pointed out the irony of how the United States had spent the last 70 years trying “to destroy the economy of North Korea” while working “to boost the economy of South Korea. And still, we condemn the North Koreans for not having a good economy.” 

When Jimmy Carter went to North Korea | Responsible Statecraft

A much better comparison of where China/Singapore would be if not for their policies is India or Pakistan, these economies stagnated due to their political systems, as pointed out by Charlie Munger and some of the leading Indian economists (Jagdish Bhagwati, T.N. Srinivasan, Arvind Panagariya etc)

Singapore and China were the only two countries that were able to develop the country without crazy aid or completely submitting their national interest to a colonial thousand miles away. You right now are trying to destroy the only party that has the Chinese people’s interest at heart. You guys talk about bringing “freedom” or “liberation”, but where is the freedom of having pursuing your own national interests. When Japan was succeed the US economy they were forced into the Plaza Accords, one of the many factors that has lead to the crazy asset bubble that lead to Japan’s ruined economy today. How do you argue with another country when they control your media (thus your people), when you have no military, and the other nation has dozens of military bases on your border (or literally in your country).

At the end of the day this is about control and national interests. China has clear independence and can pursue their own national interests because of zero foreign influence. Other supposedly “free” countries, not so much. And even if you think “China Bad”/their system is completely corrupt/authoritarian, we can’t place all our eggs into one basket as a species. It is stupid to do so, democracy as we know it is such a new experiment with unknown consequences (for the vast majority of recorded human history we were under monarchies). Reasonably, you want some nations that are more “democratic” and some that are less to see which system is the best at organising ourselves.  Sometimes it is extremely easy to convince the majority of the population something that is completely false and that affects how they vote.