From a Taiwan news outlet.
With the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) on Thursday (July 2) issuing a heavy rain warning across China for the 31st straight day, netizens continue to speculate about the integrity of the Three Gorges Dam as it faces its greatest test since completion in 2003. Although Chinese officials have repeatedly labeled fears the dam could suffer a catastrophic collapse as "nonsense," the region continues to be battered by heavy flooding, landslides, and on Thursday an earthquake.
I'm not inclined to believe authoritarian regimes but I hope they are correct.
I'm not inclined to believe our regime, we have lied (US, UK and all the rest) on many occasions, ours is soft fascism because, once the populace is at a certain level of comfort (the modern version of democracy, which originally means people-power) then you can't bully them like China does, you have to placate them and bring the control plan in quietly and slowly.
We are wearing the visor of fake democracy, we are the victims and the perpetrators, because we have been brain-washed (just like any society is) into thinking 'this is the way, it must be right because we apparently have freedom', then we succumb, we think ours is the best version, whether it be the UK or any other of the Five Eyes.
It's the state vs the people, but the state has had so long to train itself in control of the populace (Western gov is based completely on old Rome) but people live generational lives, we only have memories going back to Grand Dad, The State has had Millenia of training, all archived, and much of the writing is inaccessible to the common person.
There's no left or right or east or west, politically, there's the rulers and the ruled, all that changes is the degree and type of enforcement.
