Interesting Language From China's Constitution

Taking this Constitution Day to do a little benchmarking of how our Constitution compares with others from around the world, and came across this translation from China's constitution.

The Preamble begins thus:

"China is a country with one of the longest histories in the world. The people of all of China's nationalities have jointly created a culture of grandeur and have a glorious revolutionary tradition.

After 1840, feudal China was gradually turned into a semi-colonial and semi- feudal country. The Chinese people waged many successive heroic struggles for national independence and liberation and for democracy and freedom.

Great and earthshaking historical changes have taken place in China in the 20th century.

The Revolution of 1911, led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, abolished the feudal monarchy and gave birth to the Republic of China. But the historic mission of the Chinese people to overthrow imperialism and feudalism remained unaccomplished.

After waging protracted and arduous struggles, armed and otherwise, along a zigzag course, the Chinese people of all nationalities led by the Communist Party of China with Chairman Mao Zedong as its leader ultimately, in 1949, overthrew the rule of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism, won a great victory in the New-Democratic Revolution and founded the People's Republic of China. Since then the Chinese people have taken control of state power and become masters of the country.
...

Major successes have been achieved in economic development. An independent and relatively comprehensive socialist system of industry has basically been established.

There has been a marked increase in agricultural production. Significant advances have been made in educational, scientific and cultural undertakings, while education in socialist ideology has produced noteworthy results. The life of the people has improved considerably." (emphasis mine)

I'm sure there is much lost in the translation, but "a more perfect union" it's certainly not.

Anyway, with the word "socialist" being bandied about so freely (and most often mistakenly), I thought it might be instructive to shine a light on just how different our system -- and especially our founding document -- are from a country that actually prides itself on its commitment to socialist principles.

It's also interesting to read the statement that "an independent and relatively comprehensive socialist system of industry has basically been established." Talk about scoping your goals -- basic relative comprehensiveness is easy to exceed (something which China has definitely done in the last few decades).