>>46375
>>46376
>Is liberal democracy scientific or beholden to "science"?
Irrelevant, China is not a liberal democracy. Under Mao they thought they had the ultimate scientific worldview and, as that is a prestigious and reassuring thing to believe in, have no reason to stop believing since then.
>An "optimistic" guess is that whatever "scientific marxism" they spout is rhetoric to prevent other politicians from outflanking them from the left
Then leftism is a real threat and a relevant force in the present and the Party leadership still has to treat it with respect. But a sensible guess is that, as Party members weren't all killed in 1976 and it didn't "start from a clean slate", it changed its worldview until believing in what it does at the present. Instead of conscious liars, it's easier for the current leadership to sleep peacefully at night knowing they have the most advanced scientific mindset contiuous with the great scientific thinkers of old. It might be hypocritical and inconsistent but ruling ideologies are hypocritical and inconsistent all the time.
>This is hyperbolic language
Go tell my local ambassador.
>Chinese people on both sides of the strait share ethnic and cultural history of many thousands of years. By Chinese civilization standards this separation is a blip
China is huge and every province has its own history, the central power has always wanted everything to be as monolithic as possible and that is tradition but any remote or insular province might acquire a taste for running things locally when they have the chance.
>Would they need to "demolish" political forces in taiwan?
Ask the other question: would they need to preserve political forces in Taiwan? On the long run they have no practical reason not to destroy them, and every symbolic reason to do so. If autonomy is negotiated, the central power might reduce it any moment, though acting too fast is not in its interest. The autonomous government would be mostly powerless in any disagreement with the CCP.
>So in their view HK and Macau have been in a "dark period of history" since returning? Sounds hyperbolic again
A very dark period when outside of the CCP's reach, a slightly better period now but still under an outdated and inferior relic administration and a shining, glorious future when they finally get streamlined with the mainland.
>Of course I have seen china take some steps towards what many among anti-china commentators and ostensibly impartial technologically-savvy defenders of privacy consider large-scale erosion of privacy
There's something naive about the way you write this...