I was confused how someone could become a tycoon in "pro-democracy" but it seems as if he became a wealthy businessperson before and has been active and influential in preserving Hong Kong autonomy since the transfer of management to the PRC/CCP.
Born in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, Lai was 12 when he arrived in Hong
Kong as a stowaway on a fishing boat. He started working menial jobs and
eventually founded a multi-million dollar empire that included the clothing
brand Giordano.
Lai began a new journey as a vocal democracy activist after China's crackdown
on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989.
He went on to launch pro-democracy news outlets like Apple Daily and Next
magazine, while regularly participating in demonstrations.
Sad that the international community doesn’t do more to intervene in Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Tibet. As a reminder, China has violated the treaty around Hong Kong’s handoff. So really the UK and the rest of the world should have demanded its return.
The dissonance between this comment and the one above is striking really :) . One user asks for non-China countries to intervene in China or the occupied territories, and another user is outraged that the same has actually happened in Venezuela, despite that the only person to suffer had been one of the top-10 worst alive humans in the world (per millions humans harmed directly).
Pray tell me, how exactly do you see international law intervening in Chinese crimes, so that it won't look like ops in Venezuela (at minimum)? Issuing a strongly worded letter and Xi would comply?
You're misunderstanding the analogy. The US's operation in Venezuela was itself a violation of international law, which the international community widely condemned and many countries wish they could have stopped. But there's no button they can push to make the US return Maduro, just as there's no button anyone can push to make China free Jimmy Lai. The only options are a variety of escalatory steps which implicate the relationship between one's own country and China as a whole.
> Which ratified treaty did the US's operation in Venezuela violate?
Even if it hadn't violated a ratified treaty (it did violate several, starting with the UN Charter and OAS Charter), it would still violate international law; the US has recognized (among other places, in the London Charter of 1945 establishing the International Military Tribunal) that the crime of aggressive war exists independently of the crime of waging war in violation of international treaties.
E.g. at least 2 children were executed by Maduro for protesting against him, along with at least hundreds of adults. Mass political arrests by masked men have been common since Chavez came to power, there have been executions of entire families. Torture of prisoners. It goes on and on and on and on, and all of it violates the core of international law: the Geneva convention.
Maduro's violations of international treaties include attacks on neighboring states (Maduro's "war on terror" (yes, really) included raids on Columbian territory, plus his promise to attack Guyana). Maduro's violations of international treaties includes, ironically, abducting foreign nationals.
And before you say "but ICE". First, this started more than a decade before ICE, it is actually about far more people than ICE, and with ICE there is at least the allegation that those people violated US law (immigration law). So no, it is not the same. ICE comes disturbingly close, true, but this is still a LOT worse.
So what is your point? Obviously Venezuela since more than a decade did not respect international law. Is your point that since international law exists, Venezuela should have been attacked way sooner, in fact as soon as it became clear what Chavez was doing? Or do you argue that US/Trump's attack is fine since international law can be ignored anyway?
Including Maduro's abduction I think it's very easy to argue that the US behavior is much more in line with international law than Venezuela's. So what is your point?
I mean, what reasoning, exactly, leads to your conclusion that Venezuela/Maduro is the victim here? Or should I put it differently and state the obvious: that your reasoning only makes sense if it defends the idea that Maduro's regime is allowed to kill and attack, and the US is not.
I would hazard to say that most people are upset because a single person decided the fate of our country, and in a manner contrary to the outlines defined in the constitution. And your description of the events there really do clarify just how awful things here are as well - executions in broad daylight, masked men kidnapping people extrajudicially, allegations of laws being violated as a pretext to detail lawful citizens.
It's all horrible and shocking to say the least. And it makes people question whether our actions are justified or the outright thuggery of a wanna-be dictator.
> Next time Putin will kidnap Zelenskyy with the exact same reasoning.
Putin DID do that. He ordered him kidnapped. And it wasn't international law stopping him, it was the Ukrainian army and apparently some regular Ukrainians.
Putin has tried to kidnap him at least twice, and sent out murder squads for him probably several dozen times now.
Putin did not face consequences for this, in fact a number of countries that profess to respect international law protected him against International law: South Africa, China, Mongolia, Belarus, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Azerbeidjan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and India.
Also, as I pointed out, "international law" didn't stop Maduro from committing warcrimes, he also sent out murder squads that even killed children, it didn't stop Putin from doing the same. Nothing at all changed for international law at all.
The only thing victimized is people's illusions about international law. Maduro is himself a war criminal! So using international law grounded arguments to protect him ... fuck that, even if you're technically right.
How does any of this make sense? Other than your first sentence (sorry about that, of course you're right, he tried) every claim is bogus.
> The point of international law isn’t protection but to distinguish wrong from right.
It is actually explicitly stated in almost all international law (mostly except human rights/Geneva convention, which would be the one Maduro violated and Trump didn't) that the ONLY point of international law is international cooperation. International law is completely voluntary for states and consists of individual treaties you can join ... or not join. Don't join or decide to leave? That bit of international law doesn't apply to you anymore.
> What do you think why even Putin made some bogus claims why his actions are justified?
Because Putin always does that. Even decades back, when he was backing gangsters, he did that. I'm sure at one point it was necessary, and now the guy is 73. His habits won't change anymore. Besides, his idol, the Soviet Union, also did that.
> In which war did Maduro commit war crimes?
No war required for that. Besides what even is a war? One of the older "international law" treaties which nobody remembers that a war is only a war when declared by at least one state. Very few declared wars in the last decades. Israel-Palestine? Not declared (according to hamas that's just how things are forever and Israel just defended I guess). Sudan? Not declared. The 123818th conflict between India and Pakistan? Not declared. Iran-Israel? Iran-Syria? Iran-Lebanon? (more like Iran-everyone) Turkey-Kurdistan? You get the picture. The only war that was declared was Russia attacking Ukraine.
> Law protects also criminals to a certain degree because the alternative is anarchy, chaos and global wars.
Unless you mean an extremely minimal degree law does not protect criminals against the state. And any amount of force that is required to get a criminal to stop is legally justified essentially everywhere. In fact, in the countries most humans alive live in, no law protects you against the state, criminal or innocent.
> International war was a lesson learned from the world wars.
Actually the history goes back quite a bit further than that. And if you consider international law is just treaties between countries/factions then ... The most famous bit of international law, the convention of Geneva, was a lesson learned in the holocaust.
> Seems like we need to learn again the hard way.
Why? "We"? Venezuela was not respecting international law before this happened. Neither was Russia. Neither was ...
> Tue right way of doing those things is rarely the glorious, it’s bureaucratic
I doubt Ukraine, or any other actual victims of war crimes will agree on that one. For instance, international law is clear that hamas must surrender to Israel, and obviously they should deliver anyone that had anything to do with taking hostages to the ICC (since both hamas and the PA signed the Rome treaty). The ICC doesn't even want that to happen. Could you explain how this can be achieved in a bureaucratic way?
Putin doesn't need the US providing precedent to do that (and even if he was, there was plenty of that before Maduro), killing or capturing Zelenskyy in a decapitation strike was attempted more than once near the beginning of the 2022 escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian war. He wasn’t stopped by international law.
The US agreed in Article 2 of the UN Charter, which they ratified on July 1945, that they would refrain from the use of force against the political independence of any state.
The reason you rarely see people cite the exact provision is that it's pointless to cite, because the US foreign policy establishment does not care and will not be swayed by persuasive arguments about their treaty obligations.
That's what Trump told you to sound badass and edgy. His advisors might have a more complicated rationale that's harder to explain to the public than a single 3-letter word.
Foreign policy of the US has always been about orchestrating coups to create passive client states for US capitalists more efficiently extract natural resources, going back to 1953 in Iran. Only difference with Trump is he has done away with pretenses. He says the quiet part out loud. He says things like "we want the minerals in Ukraine", and then negotiates a mineral deal. He talks about conquering Panama, Greenland, Canada. He is an unabashed imperialist. It's been at least 70 years of this happening, catch up already. And it goes back even further, to the US controlling the Philippines in 1898, and the Monroe Doctrine in 1823.
Venezuela was heavily sanctioned for years before kidnapping Maduro, how about starting there in regards to China/HK? I'm not saying it's realistic or likely but your comparison is flawed. Nothing at all was done for Hong Kong
That's true. But the point still stands. People are outraged even for a small number of cartel criminals shot. Imagine what would happen if someone would try to liberate oppressed people in China. The count would be in millions.
>Imagine what would happen if someone would try to liberate oppressed people in China.
My original point is very much meant to counter absurd hypotheticals like these. No other sovereign nation on Earth at the current point in time would ever dare to "liberate" China, because this is no longer the 19th century, and so China is no longer weak.
Soft power may buy you hearts and minds; Japan and South Korea are good examples of that in Asia. But hard power is what truly matters at the end of the day when it comes to asserting your geopolitical interests, and that's clearly the philosophy China has decided to operate under.
The U.S. is clearly not oblivious to this reality either. Even if we grant your moral arguments that Maduro was a horrible dictator deserving his fate, the fact that Trump and his administration chose to act when it was geopolitically and domestically convenient strongly suggests that "taking out the big bad Latino dictator for the sake of humanity" was not the primary motivation.
One thing that never ceases to amuse is how people like yourself always inject moralistic prescriptions into what were meant to be purely descriptive commentaries.
My comment on U.S. actions against Venezuela was not a condemnation, but rather just a factual example. Russia's military actions against Ukraine is no different. Nor China's actions towards Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet.
Who "they"? If you want to say that this operation was completely botched and there was no quality improvement for the regular Venezuela citizens, then yes, i would agree completely. and international law also suffered as a result. At the same time it is also true that Maduro deserved to be smuggled out, tried and shot. By any possible law or moral standard of any country in the world. He is a horrible criminal even by known public facts. So these things are true at the same time. Same with China, if anyone would decide to intervene there, it would be good and bad simultaneously. There is no easy clear answer to that.
> it would be good and bad simultaneously. There is no easy clear answer to that.
Clearly, a weasel take on the "two wrongs make a right" doctrine. According to that new take two wrongs can be good and bad simultaneously, there is no easy clear answer, so any additional wrongs mustn't be called "wrongs", they must be called "maybe-rights".
Interesting, previous comment downvoted with no explanation. A sitting president can depict a former president and his wife as apes, but comments on HN are held to a much higher standard.
Homework assignment:
What is going to happen if Nazi-like propaganda (for example) can use colorful language but its detractors are only allowed to voice polite disagreement? What would the result of that be?
I think the main issue people have with this comment is the word "recent" and to a lesser degree "U.S.". All countries have done anything to further their goals regardless of any common point of agreement, some times framing within that framework, sometimes not. This is not a recent or US-only phenomenon, it's the definition of geopolitics.
I'm all for an alien invasion uniting us but not sure when that will happen.
How many people should've died for Hong Kong? Should we have invaded China? Should we have drafted millions of men from across the west and put boots on the ground?
its certain, i ensure you. taiwan wont get the treat like Hong Kong before. Hong Kong proves the one country two system policy is a failure. the only result is war and taiwan will lose
I don't think this is realistic. A few thoughts in no particular order:
- War is logistics and you're talking about trying to get involved in a war, that would necessitate supply lines thousands of miles long, between two countries that are separated by 80 miles.
- China is extremely technologically advanced with the largest military in the world, by a wide margin.
- China is the at-scale manufacturing king of the world. In a shift to a war economy, nobody would be able to come even remotely close to competing. They parallel the US in WW2 in a number of ways.
- China is a nuclear power, meaning getting involved is going to be Ukraine style indirect aid to try to avoid direct conflict and nuclear escalation.
- Any attempt to engage in things like sanctions would likely hurt the sanctioners significantly more than China.
- The "rest of the world" you're referring to is the anglosphere, EU, and a few oddballs like Japan or South Korea. This makes up less than 15% of the world, and declining.
- War fatigue is real. The US really wanted to invade Syria, but no matter how hard we beat the war drums, people just weren't down with it. I think this is because people saw major echoes of Iraq at the time, and Taiwan will have a far louder echo of Ukraine. This isn't a show many people will be enthusiastic about rerunning.
* The US has the largest military logistics system in the world and regularly uses it to fight wars. It's a well exercised muscle.
* Being close to the front lines is as much of a liability as an asset. China's ports and shipbuilding facilities will be bombed out, the US' will not.
* This will be a naval and air war. You can't march troops across the strait, and as we've seen in Ukraine, flying them is a no-go either.
* China hasn't fought a war within the living memory of anyone of fighting age.
* You have a weird way of trying to diminish what represents most of the economic power of the world. Let's also add the Philippines and Vietnam to those "oddballs". China will be alone. And don't forget that China's population is shrinking.
* War fatigue is not an issue here when it comes to Taiwan. Adventurism in Venezuela was emboldening. We'll see what happens with Iran. I live in the generally pacifist part of the US, and I think most folks would demand that we intervene.
The most likely start to hostilities will be if China declares a blockade. Someone in the US will call their bluff - with warships. If China starts shooting, we're in a war. Moral outrage is an (often unfortunate) American trait.
You're speaking of a hot war which isn't ever going to happen owing to nuclear weapons. And if it did happen it precludes many of your scenarios. For instance naval vessels are highly vulnerable to modern weapons technology. Aircraft carriers were constantly sunk in WW2. The main factor that shifted after WW2 is that nukes precluded direct war between major powers, so they ended up being exclusively used against places incapable of defending themselves. More generally Ukraine has provided many lessons in modern war, and among them is that experience in invading these sort of countries is not only useless but perhaps even harmful as it can contribute to flawed assumptions.
That 15% no longer has the majority of the economic power in the world, or anywhere near it. There's a great visualization of the G7 vs BRICS here. [1] That's obviously not all countries, but those omitted aren't going to change the result nor trend. Just as important is what "economy" means. When we speak of war we're referring to the ability to go from ploughshares to swords, but most of the 15% have neglected their core manufacturing competencies and transitioned to service economies where these large numbers don't really translate into economic might of the sort we might imagine. Again, yet another lesson from Ukraine.
PPP is misapplied here; you literally get more PPP by having less economic power.
You think a hot war won't happen over Taiwan? I mean, I hope you are right. But if China wants to invade, it's going to turn into a hot war including the US and probably a number of other regional neighbors.
My guess is that MAD will keep the war conventional even though people have nukes. After all, Russia has nukes and they haven't used them despite their failure on the battlefield.
I'm curious where you are from? You don't sound like you understand the mentality of Americans. Your reasoning sounds quite a lot like the theories of victory circulating among Japanese leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
PPP is the exchange rate normalized cost of a basket of goods in different countries. The way you have a high PPP is by having an economy where people can buy a lot with a little. Whether that lot happens to be eggs, steel, or artillery shells. The US is avoiding a hot war with Russia over Ukraine. They will never, ever, engage in a hot war with China over Taiwan. They'll feed weapons to Taiwan and let the Taiwanese fight to the last man, somehow try to frame the eventual defeat as a victory, wash our hands of it, and rapidly move on to the next war.
And if you think Russia is failing, then I'm not sure you know what victory looks like when fighting a competent adversary. The Ukrainian army is being fueled by endless and increasingly brutal forced conscription, and backed by Western weapons, tech, hardware, and intelligence. But instead of the present, let's go 4 years back after the invasion and when the West decided to get overtly involved. Imagine I came to you and said 'hey stickfigure not only with this war last for years, but in 4 years Russia will have the strategic initiative, control a massive chunk of Ukraine, and be continuing to push forward' -- what do you think you would have said? 'Russia must be failing' wouldn't really be a logical response then, or now.
I take this as more or less confirmation that you are not American and are so detached from American culture that you haven't the faintest idea what Americans will do over Taiwan.
That adage about being doomed to repeat history would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
I thought your question was quite childish as it's effectively a masked ad hominem to avoid dealing with the fundamentally illogical points in your argument. I expect deep inside you know full well that you're living in a bubble, and that bubble's reality and the world's reality have long since diverged.
Part of the reason people are doomed to repeat history is precisely this effect. By the time Hitler was greenlighting the Volkssturm, he certainly knew it was over. But he refused to step outside of his cognitive dissonance, to the net result that vast numbers of Germans ended up dying for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
You've offered unsupported opinions about American attitudes and future behavior. Since you're setting yourself up as an expert on Americans, I'm impeaching your credibility. Strictly speaking this is not ad homenim.
Reread the thread. You've built something up in your mind that isn't accurate. Obviously I'm American, though it's completely inconsequential to what I have said.
> Imagine I came to you and said 'hey stickfigure not only with this war last for years, but in 4 years Russia will have the strategic initiative, control a massive chunk of Ukraine, and be continuing to push forward' -- what do you think you would have said? 'Russia must be failing' wouldn't really be a logical response then, or now.
"Four years" alone would've raised eyebrows.
If four years ago anyone had said that Russia would invade Ukraine with everything it got and that four years later it would still stuck fighting for the first eastern provinces, with casualties exceeding a million and no end in sight, they would've been dismissed as an insane doomer. And yet here we are.
By now, the war against Ukraine is among the worst disasters in the entire military history of Russia, far worse than the 1979 invasion Afghanistan and the 1904 Russo-Japanese war, which until recently were regarded as the worst catastrophies of the modern era. Notable Russian fascist Maxim Kalashnikov goes much further. He says that Russia tried to subjugate Ukrainians, but failed, and Ukrainians will return for revenge. He calls it a "cultural and civilizational defeat": https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1985270960321130516
US military logistics minnow in Indopac vs PRC mainland logistics. Peak US war fighting capability was calibrated around adversaries with 50% of US GDP, even Iraq took 50% of USN CSGs + extremely favourable region basing in multi month surge operations. PRC conservatively 100x larger high-end target than Iraq, 150% US GDP by PPP, and more by actual industrial output. Before VZ uber trip, US was flexing and failing vs Houthis, i.e. shit tier adversary that actually bothered shooting US ships.
CONUS targets are on the menu, there's a reason China Military Report from last month included US west coast under PRC conventional fire, which TBH was years out of date, i.e. most of CONUS will be vulnerable, and PRC has more harden targets to attrite and more ability to deny US fires in the first place, i.e. PRC taking out exquisitely vulnerable CSG/unrep/tankers logistics tail drops US ability to deliver fires to PRC to zero, vs PRC global strikes complex chilling in hardened tunnels is extremely survivable.
You can aggregate everyone in 1IC and PRC still out manpower and out produce by magnitude. Hence most will stay neutral for the simple reason they're within PRC logistics backyard which US don't have remote capability to defend against. PRC simply that big in scale, i.e. their acquisition of 1m loitering munitions on top of 1m drones and cruise missile Gigafactory that can churn 1000 components (likely floor) per day makes any US posture in 1/2IC not survivable outside of cope war games. PRC has the fire power to literally fight everyone simultaneously, with domestic resources (no imports) to maintain war economy basically indefinitely.
Ultimately, if PRC starts TW blockading, US will likely look at ledger/force balance and bail because PRC sees through US bluff. Doesn't matter if pacifist muricans demand intervention if PRC throws every TWnese in torment nexus, ultimately US unlikely to out attrite PRC in backyard, and more fundamentally, cannot out reconstitute faster than PRC after the fact. US isn't gambling shipyards, energy infra, semi fabs, hyperscalers, payment processors, boeing/lockheed plants over TW. Now 10 years ago, when US could theoretically asymmetrically hit PRC without CONUS vulnerability, US intervention strategically likely, but this 2026, we see the new national security strategy. Much more sensible for US planners to retreat to hemisphere and accept spheres of influence arrangement. Americans being powerless to US foreign policy is an (often unfortunate) American trait.
> supply lines thousands of miles long, between two countries that are separated by 80 miles
I think this one is particularly important. IIRC, it's usually phrased something like "if the USA sends aircraft carriers across the pacific, then China has an unsinkable aircraft carrier 80 miles away: the mainland". It's a huge home turf advantage.
The USA seems to have a very low appetite for helping allies against bullies at present too. And no appetite for taking US soldier casualties.
I think that, if China tries to take Taiwan, rather than a direct military confrontation, the US might just block the Straits of Malacca against oil heading for China - or maybe against anything heading for China.
China would enforce a blockade against Taiwan. The US might or might not be able to break it. But China would have a very hard time breaking a US blockade down there.
You really believe that "the rest of the world" countries should conscript citizens and go to war to help Taiwan? Most people if faced with this choice would direct you to the place where the sun does not shine.
rightly or wrongly, I'm quite confident the US will not go to war with China if it invades Taiwan - the American people simply wouldn't support it. It's one thing to get public support for dropping a few bombs on a tiny opponent with little risk, as the US regularly does, it's another entirely to go to war with a major power with a very high casualty rate. The US wouldn't have even entered WW2 (as much as the administration may have wanted to) if the Japanese hadn't foolishly attacked Pearl Harbor and then Germany declared war as well. But unlike Japan and Germany, China has the manufacturing capacity and access to raw resources that would make it a very different enemy.
The PRC will happily sell chips to the West. I live in Taiwan, I don't want it to happen, but people need to stop acting like countries will prevent an invasion because it means the CPC will control chip manufacturing.
The choice is between possible nuclear war, or, the 5090s are more expensive and sometimes Americans can't buy them when the PRC is punishing the west for something.
Honestly, this is the most reasonable comment here, especially coming from someone in Taiwan. I hear similar views when I'm in Asia, which are very different from what I hear back in the West.
All you can muster to eek a gram of joy in your 996 life is internet trolling on foreign forums while you playact at being a communist - because you know as well as I that you can't even talk about communism on PRC social media.
The irony of enjoying the more open free speech of liberal democracies through a VPN while pretending to be a communist vanguard in a socialist paradise is absolutely beautiful to me, my friends and I are very much enjoying your comments. Please don't stop!
You both broke the site guidelines very badly in this thread. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't do it again, regardless of how wrong another commenter is or you feel they are, or how large the gap between you.
I get set off specifically by wumao/little pinks (the Mandarin term for PRC based nationalist netizens, not necessarily an insult), something about their arrogance while wishing death on me and my family is very personal and hard to resist engaging with.
I accept I broke the rules and will try to avoid doing so again in the future, but for perspective, just imagine if you were Ukrainian, it's 2018, and someone from Russia was posting about how they can't wait for their country to invade yours.
But, I like the site the way it is, and the rules make it that way, so I understand.
You both broke the site guidelines very badly in this thread. We ban accounts that do this, so please don't do it again, regardless of how wrong another commenter is or you feel they are, or how large the gap between you.
It's weirdly myopic how HN users always think of TSMC as the main factor here. In reality the greater concern has always been containing China within the first island chain. As long as mainland China doesn't control Taiwan they have no way to secure their sea lines of communication.
looks at Ukraine, its white people and NATO wont fight for it. how about another group of chinse vs chinese in far far away? and the global south supports china more?
That's a total non sequitur. Ukraine wasn't a NATO member so why would NATO fight for it? (Several NATO members have given substantial aid to Ukraine.) In terms of a potential conflict between mainland China and Taiwan, the only NATO member with the capacity to do anything is the USA. The other players will be Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and Australia so the outcome will largely depend on whether they decide to get involved.
Not really. The world got other problems. Europe is out for now, since we got Fascists at our doorstep trying to conquer Ukraine. The US has the orange clown as president, who is cozy with Putin. I don't think you can ascribe it to others being cowards, if "the world" doesn't react to protect Taiwan. It is right at China's doorstep. The logistic imbalance of trying to protect Taiwan, being this close to China is insane.
In the end, if a war happens, it will be idiotic again, from an economical point of view and from a humanitarian point of view. Economically, of course it will cost huge amount of resources to conquer Taiwan, and it will only disturb trade and what is already established on Taiwan. From a humanitarian point of view, of course many people will die.
The smartest China could do, would be to return to a soft power approach, and continue to develop mainland China, to continue to rival and even surpass Taiwan/Taipei. There are many young people, who don't have the walls in their minds, that the older population has. They don't want war, they want their freedom, and they want a high living standard. All this would be theoretically possible, if China didn't let ideology rule, but instead went for the economically best route, which is most certainly not an invasion.
China's takeover of Hong Kong proved that any notion of "one country, two systems" is a total lie and assurances from the Chinese Communist Party are completely worthless. There's no coming back from that, at least as long as Xi Jinping remains in power. Young people in Taiwan are less supportive of reintegration with the mainland than ever before. Fewer of them even have direct family ties there now.
> Young people in Taiwan are less supportive of reintegration with the mainland than ever before.
Well, go figure, if you run military "exercises" at the doorstep of your neighbor, people are not gonna like you very much, duh. But there was a time before more recent escalations, when lots of young Taiwanese people did not think too badly about being part of China. That's why I said that the smartest move would be (or would have been) to continue an approach of soft power and development, to rival life in Taiwan. Give the people comfort and high living standard, and they are less likely to dislike you.
This thread casually talks about Taiwan being a vassal state of the US during a civil war and Hong Kong being a colony of the British. Yet the world, largely the global south, should intervene and help the global north to exploit the rest of the world more?
Every one gets that far away countries across the world can’t put military bases right next to Europe or the US. However when it comes to China, that is not only acceptable but it’s the anti-cowardly move to support outsider aggressors.
> can’t put military bases right next to Europe or the US
Indeed, Japan and Korea and the Philippines have American military bases on them.
You mentioned Taiwan, curious why? It has no American military bases. Perhaps of all the countries in the region, it's the most sovereign in that sense.
This doesn't make any sense, the USA hasn't touched anything about Taiwan in any meaningful way ever since it became the ROC, and certainly not at all since the KMT was overthrown. In fact American overtures to control chip manufacturing here were rejected explicitly as "economic imperialism."
What's with this Americentric geopolitical analysis?
You mean when the American ambassador escorted Mao to the signing of the Double Tenth agreement because the Americans were worried the KMT would go back on their word and assassinate him? Or in 1950 when Truman announced Taiwan as "Chinese territory" and directed that no American navy presence was to be permitted in the Taiwan strait?
Anyway take up your grievances with the KMT, don't worry, they're about to come crying back into the CPC's arms begging for a shred of political power now that their regime has been overthrown for 30 years, and their efforts to sell Taiwan to the CPC in exchange for a teaspoon of political legitimacy are failing spectacularly.
The US shifted from "China is an economic power we should worry about" to "China is a military power we should worry about", but to me it seems to be a recent mind shift serving the current administration narrative.
As a European, I don't think there is much hostility against China here. Sure, people don't like the overall humanitarian situation with Uyghurs; and there are the usual issues with lobbying, intelligence, and currency manipulation, but overall the general public sentiment is rather neutral I would say.
Not at all. Perhaps you weren't paying attention but the narrative around relations with China started shifting during the Obama administration circa 2011. The bipartisan national security establishment is now broadly aligned with treating China as an adversary and strategic competitor.
Be sure. The US national security establishment absolutely considers China to be an adversary. Look for terms like "pacing threat" when they discuss military acquisition programs.
This is an existential issue. Health has nothing to do with it.
It is amazing in fact how willingly Europe seems to be running into the arms of the actual fascist dictator, Xi, at the first sign of turmoil in the US. The US is written off as a lost cause and you cozy up with a government that is everything you dislike about the current US administration but on steroids. All because the US wants the EU to pay for its own war.
That’s quite an interesting take. You don’t think Europe doing more trade with China (I assume this is what cozying up means?), is a result of a wildly unpredictable trade policy and threats to invade Europe? Instead because the US with their global military presence are sick of footing the bill for it?
Nonsense. They can and should push back much more. If Europe were to show a united front there's little China could do to punish them. Their only option would be to cosy up to America/Trump, which is a realistic possibility, but it's something they would be very uncomfortable with.
Chinese Muslim Uyghurs who were preparing to fight for their people in China started consolidating a home base in Syria where they collected arms and a militia.
They are finally off the terrorist list a few years ago, but for a long time the US policy was to feign outrage but then declare anyone using any teeth to push back against China as a terrorist.
I mean, they were blowing up buses of civilians in China. Then looking up those Brave Uyghur Peace fighters, Wikipedia says they had child soldiers and they were allied with various Islamic state groups (the white text on black flag types, of which they also had their own) and wanted to impose strict sharia law.
I'm pretty confident that most women in Xinjiang are pretty happy that that group was smeared out. You can think Xinjiang and Uyghurs shouldn't be oppressed without supporting actual, unironic terrorist groups who want total theocratic control and full on jihad. I'm more amazed they're removed from the terrorist list. Seems like a weird political decision.
Presume all you've said is true, which, for various factious or groups of Uyghurs likely was true.
That still doesn't establish it as the distinguishing factor as to why the US declared them as terrorist. I fought in the YPG in the Syrian Civil War, an ally of the USA. Guess what, there were those who looked 13,14,15 usually because the Syrian government or ISIS had incapacitated their parents somehow. Mostly they were way back as token guards at training outposts but I also saw some near the front. The YPG also had to ally with a bunch of nasty theocratic arab militias to survive, in fact, that's why the SDF/YPG just got largely wiped out because the consolidation of the rebels in Damascus resulted in their arab allies turning their back. (In fact, Wikipedia page says IS is opponent of Uyghur militia). And I won't even get into the fact that the YPG and PKK are ideologically and pragmatically incredibly similar, yet PKK is magically a terrorist and the YPG is a brave US ally, one gets the blame anytime a Kurdish person does something horrible against innocent people and one doesn't.
As sister poster alludes, the US has never had an issue allying with "terrorists" when it suits their goals. Especially when fighting against USSR.
So knowing that this isn't the distinguishing factor, can you point to any other present-day armed group in or of China that has credible potential for an armed political uprising that hasn't been declared a terrorist? There might be one, I just don't know who they are, but I am very interested to read about them.
To me it looks like the difference is that they were a credible threat of violence against China, not that they have slaughtered innocent people which the USA and China has done as have many of US allies.
I think by definition any group supporting an armed political uprising in a stable country is considered a terrorist group. Should we consider armed groups in America or Belgium to not be terrorists?
And considering the Syrian civil war ended with a guy from Al Qaeda (famous terrorist group) becoming president and the country now having massacres under his watch, yeah, I think it's correct for groups that support armed uprising to be considered terrorist groups. Because they are. That armed uprising in Syria led to hundreds of thousands being killed, millions displaced, for what? A guy no better than the predecessor took his place, and he ruined countless lives to get there.
OK so anyone fighting a stable tyrant country for political ends is a terrorist in your estimation. I think by some definition of "terrorist" you are correct.
But that's different than what the US uses for listed terrorist organizations.
And that's what I'm pointing out. The US is happy to support these groups when they're actually on board with eliminating tyrants. I think they publicly shit-talk China but low-key they are happy to list as terrorists any group that can credibly threaten them, because it buys them political points in dealing with China. I'm judging them with their value system in mind, which provides a better assessment of the motivations behind their actions than judging them with your value system in mind. That is, by the value system of the US government, if they actually support the overthrow of the government they will also not usually list as terrorists those who are tactically in a position to weaken the government in question, even though by your value system you might.
And I don't agree with your assessment that even if it ends with another tyrant in power, it was for nothing. The Kurds had a slice of relative freedom for a decade. In their estimation it was worth the violence. Obviously I agree with that, otherwise I wouldn't have fought for them. I always knew there was a good chance it ends with everyone slaughtered and I saw my share of artillery and rounds come at me, so I'm not just speaking as a hypothetical on behalf of someone else. Sometimes it's better to be alive for a moment than a slave for a lifetime. (The Chechens, also came to a similar conclusion, with similar ends and a period of relative freedom between the two Chechen wars; I find them to be a less palatable example though I don't blame them for the general idea behind their actions).
The US also props up tyrants in South and Central America. Those people have killed countless and I would consider support of those groups acts of terrorism as well. The Uyghur and Chechen groups want to oppose strict Islamic law, and if you want to support those groups, you're free to go off to Afghanistan or the small pockets of territory ISIS sometimes controls so you can see how great and friendly they are for opposing the oppressive governments that opposed them. As bad as Saddam was, I don't think anyone enjoyed the time that ISIS dominated Iraq more than his reign. And I don't think anyone outside of extremists who just want to keep women as property support Uyghur militants who blow up buses.
I'm glad we can agree the US did not list them as terrorists for the kind of red herring reasons you listed under your own value system, then. Your own opinion of terrorism has nothing to do with why the US pretends to be against China but then declares as terrorists people with the credible power to fight back, even if everything you say is true.
> or the small pockets of territory ISIS sometimes controls so you can see how great and friendly they are for opposing the oppressive governments that opposed them.
This is hilarious to hear you lecture me about, considering I've been shot at by ISIS, and been to both Iraq and Syria, so please lecture me more with your experience what it's like to be in these regions. Yes I am free to go to areas that have been in conflict with ISIS, and I have.
Of course, hilariously, you fail to note the Uyghurs were opponents of ISIS in Afghanistan, another words, working to eliminate ISIS. So even if one engaged in your little dare about going to Afghanistan, they'd find it your little tale earlier was false. The Uyghurs are not bringing ISIS to China, why would they fly their enemies flag?
>As bad as Saddam was, I don't think anyone enjoyed the time that ISIS dominated Iraq more than his reign.
The KRG did (Kurdish Iraq), because ISIS was defeated much more easily. Same with many other factions in Iraq that defeated ISIS. ISIS was just part of the power vacuum that emerged after Saddam, but eliminating Saddam was the first step in breaking up the pieces, ISIS was a natural next adversary but a divided piece. You can't expect to overthrow a tyrant and not end up with fragmented other tyrants to also have to deal with.
You keep trying to dominate the discussion with all the bad things various groups have done while acknowledging the US doesn't give a single shit about it, proving it's a total side show to our discussion. It's not clear why you keep re-iterating it other than it gives you a sense of moral superiority over the US government and value signal your position, which we all know you probably genuinely have.
>think anyone outside of extremists who just want to keep women as property support Uyghur militants who blow up buses.
I'm pretty sure the PKK blew up a bus at one point... so we're not allowed to support Kurds who want independence? The Turks take your same approach. Your argument here is patently absurd. Of course no one wants to support people that blow up buses of civilians. But you've fallen for the extremist Chinese propaganda that because one group of Uyghurs at one point blew up a bus, that we can't look positively on other Uyghurs who might fight against tyranny. And despite your, and even my own, disagreements with Islam -- the Uyghurs are virtually 100% muslim so of course any society they form is likely to be based by their own choice around some form of shariah law and less than libertarian role for women (to pretend like it is just militia that wants this in opposite to the Uyghurs in general is just fraud)
I personally also just don't buy into your system that if some people did bad thing X at one point, then it's also bad if they go after tyrants at some other point -- and it is possible even if they are even more tyrannical than the tyrants that their mutual self destruction with the tyrants works towards liberty as a form of tactical benefit. The US massacred a bunch of people in Vietnam, that doesn't mean I damn them for eliminating Bin Laden, in fact I quite agreed with them for doing so despite the fact the US military themselves have engaged in "terrorism" by your definition at other times. That is, the US military themselves are "terrorists" that I tactically acknowledge the benefit of when it suits the goal of liberty -- and in fact acknowledging the tactical benefit of evil people is sadly often necessary (as I've pointed out, the loss of alliance with several theocratic arab militias is responsible for the downfall of fairly libertarian Rojava). Listing these entities formally as terrorists in those instances erodes their tactical benefit and erodes the pursuit of liberty.
If we measure the cost of freedom, that simply becomes the level of violence a would-be oppressor needs to promise in order to deny it. There isn't an easy or universal answer here and I'd argue there can't be. To give two historical examples, many Americans raised similar objections against entering WW2 to fight the axis. Some of those same people also opposed the US Japanese concentration camps, for the same reasons.
You might disagree on whether HKers' freedoms are truly being abridged or whether you care, but the questions you posed weren't complete enough on their own.
Unfortunately nothing could be done, once HK was China territory. Enforcing the domestic policies of an SAR inside of China was completely unfeasibly for the UK and they knew it when they signed it. Zhao Ziyang (CCP chairman at the time), who signed the treaty, was a reformist and if he had remained in power and China continued down that path, things might have ended very differently for HK. Unfortunately the hardliners won out after the Tiananmen Square protests and he was removed from power.
World did nothing (meaningful) for Gaza. It's hard to believe anyone will be willing to act against China which is much more powerful than Israel.
It was easy to turn the blind eye on Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, etc. because for most people in western hemisphere it's a different culture and it's somewhere else.
It was heart breaking when Russia invaded Ukraine and western media were doing lengthy coverage on every single civilian casualty when thousands of people were silently dying in Gaza without a single mention.
And the initial reaction to the invasion was that the Ukraine should simply surrender. It's like calling police about home invasion only to hear "oh, just give them what they want and stop calling us already".
And now US is doing exactly the same. The attack on Venezuela was a carbon copy of what Putin did, only difference was that the US succeeded. And now Greenland.
It's time to stop pretending there are good and evil forces out there. There's no difference.
Given what US companies did to ICC, it’s not hard to imagine, if UN intervine, their officials’ Chinese EV will be taking over remotely and driven off the bridge.
UK “taking back” HK is also very imaginative , like white people dreaming of recolonizing Asia in 21st century? Good luck.
Welcome to the real world. The UK is obviously in no position to challenge China. And with the US invading and threatening to take over other sovereign nations solely because "it's in our national interest", we're certainly not one to talk.
You use these words like "woke" "TDS" "MDS" "mind virus", not because you want to contribute to the conversation, but because you want to justify your inattention to the conversation.
Most of the mentioned narratives are largely products of Radio Free Asia and the broader Western government propaganda complex. There's not much daylight between London and Washington when it comes to China.
This revolves around a core idea of what used to be called conservatism - the belief that Western values and institutions have some inherent value worth promoting. Both at home in the terms of Constitutionally-limited government, the rule of law, etc. And internationally through diplomacy to do what we can to spread those values - in this case a few strongly worded letters would have been a step up.
And on both topics, it is the same group of anti-American traitors openly trashing our values, both domestically and internationally, while abusing the cloak of "conservatism" to obscure what they actually stand for. So no, there is really no conflict when criticizing both.
(you are of course free to prioritize other values like non-intervention and come to a different answer for yourself on this topic. the point is there is no conflict for the two positions you contrast. and this used to be a pretty popular stance, actually)
If any external force tried to "fix" the US it would result in stubborn revanchism and a deeper slide into corruption. To grossly generalize - the American culture of self-reliance means that any imposition of order, even if positive, would be rejected by most of the population (which is somewhat fair, since external impositions do compromise sovereignty).
If a good outcome is to happen - it needs to be driven and supported domestically.
What has "taking out" Maduro accomplished, other than allowing American oil companies to profit? Venezuela is ruled by the same party, the situation for the Venezuelan people has not changed.
> The woke mob has never been so confused
I'm confused what you mean by "woke" here. Is opposing violation of international law "woke"?
Only if you take a sixth-grader's view of geopolitics.
People can say that the Western world should do more to promote democracy in China (or not financially enable China to suppress its people) while at the same time saying that invading a country and kidnapping its leader is not the way to solve a similar problem.
Are you saying the rest of the world should have stood up for what ultimately is colonialism? And colonialism of the British out of all the people? And also in a territory, that is directly on or neighboring the Chinese landmass? The Chinese people have a long history of others trying to conquer them or colonize them. They are probably pretty allergic to such notions, and will reject them. Realistically speaking, no one would have had the resources to force HK staying the same enclave it has been. This all sounds rather unrealistic.
We can agree on the treatment of HK being far from ideal, and I would go as far as saying, that even economically for China itself, it was not good to handle the matter as they did. That is where their ideology shows. HK was an economical hub. In recent times though many businesses left and more are unwilling to invest. This is the economical downside, that could simply have been avoided by not doing what they did. The question should be asked "Why not just leave it as it is, since it is working well, economically?" But they had to mess with it. Another downside is international reputation damage of course. China has achieved many great things in the past decades and now has cities more modern and convenient than most of what you find in Europe. Their one problem remains ideology. That they sometimes feel the need to do things, that are not economically sound, for the sake of ideology.
However, I can't agree with anyone arguing, that HK should not be part of China, like some people do in the comments here. It's a separate matter from policies implemented. Of course I wish for HKers to keep their freedoms. Who doesn't. Of course I wish China would not implement policies, that endanger the freedom of its people. But territorial? Nope, HK always was bound to become a part of China.
What I can say more from visiting HK twice is, that they still got Internet (uncensored), in contrast to other parts of China. Every week I am speaking with someone from HK, using Signal, which is not practical for anyone from (most?) other parts of China. When traveling in China, I used a HK eSIM, to have reliable and uncensored Internet. I hope that these aspects still remain intact for a long time, or that the rest of China will open up. At some point they should have the confidence in their own economy to compete on global scale.
Why so? Do you think Monaco should be part of France? Do you think Singapore should be part of Malaysia? A lot of big countries respect the sovereignty of neighboring smaller countries, although that is unfortunately becoming less true now.
It isn't about colonialism. I have never seen anyone seriously argue it should go back to the British. It is about a framework to ensure they maintain their rights. It would be great if that looked like expanded rights for all of China but it can also look like some degree of sovereignty, which was in place for quite some time.
Monaco is already 90% part of France. There was an agreement until recently that Monaco would become French if the Princeship went extinct. By law the Prime Minister and the Police has to be French. France also handles their defense etc. It's very conditional sovereignty, the deal being that they can be a tax heaven if they want to, but not to France and Italy.
> Do you think Singapore should be part of Malaysia?
AFAIK they've been expelled from Malaysia after independence.
I'm not trying to disprove your point, just that it's fluid and fragile. Sovereignty itself has only been conceptually defined with the Treaties of Westphalia, it's recent and quintessentially Western.
> I think the Westphalia thing is somewhat overblown there were lots of sovereignty analogs throughout human history all over the world before that.
I'm sure you understand there's a deep qualitative difference between a thing existing and the same thing being described, formalized and conceptualized. The latter allows us to use it with intent.
For example rationalism, which is a favoured subject on HN (I'm picking this because I've had a similar discussion recently with a friend of mine who uses to teach Philosophy, especially Epistemology, at UCSB) : it's obvious reason and structured rational thought existed before Descartes and Leibniz. But it's also undeniable there's been an extreme change is Human society after they defined it.
Conceptualizing ends up bringing changes at the cognitive level to the entire species. It's not a very deeply researched subject because of the lag time between the written material and observable anthropological effects, but at this point it's common knowledge, even if intuitively.
I'll digress for a bit and say that in my opinion there's a superior quality of knowledge, above Cartesianism, that'll I call informed intuitional. And I credit Srinivasa Ramanujan for forcefully bringing it back into Western Thought. [1]
In any case regarding Sovereignty, once we're sophisticated enough we'll accept multiple sovereignty as the rule. I don't see why, for example, Monaco couldn't be all at the same time the Sovereign State of Monaco, part of French Department of Alpes Maritimes, part of the Italian Province of Imperia and part of the European Federation. The specific conditions can be decided ad hoc with contract law, we've got the tools, we invented them.
Last time, I checked Hong-Kong didn't become a free city but part of another country. So they have traded a master for another one.
I am genuinely lost in your argument. You start against colonialism then justify Hong-Kong being reintegrated to China because they would have taken it by force anyway which is pretty much the same thing as colonialism.
You then pivot to arguing HK was always going to be part of China for a reason I find unclear. Hong-Kong was never part of the PRC before the handover so I don't really see the appeal to continuity.
Have you considered that people are not arguing for colonialism but actually against any form of coercitive control?
Why are you lost in the argument? The point I am making is, that it would be great to have both. HK as part of China, no longer a UK colony, but also having freedoms remain intact. Shouldn't be too hard to grasp. Furthermore, I am saying, that economically how HK has been handled does not make much sense, and that ideology was at play.
Giving back HK might have been the only sensible move back then, and it might have bought HKers time and avoided a more open conflict, that wouldn't have ended well for HK.
At least Wikipedia disagrees with your sentiment, that HK was never part of China. Well, technically you said "PRC", maybe even intentionally, and you could take some weird position of claiming, that nothing inside China is part of China, because it was a different entity before PRC. But then so do many countries all over the world lose any claim to their territory. Germany, after second world war, France after French revolution, most prominently the US, after its founding ... Historically, HK was a grab of land by the UK. Granted, they built something nice up there, but only after the despicable acts they committed historically in the region. If we get into what the UK did historically in the region, it will not lead to a moral high ground.
China is repressive, autocratic, dictatorial, illiberal, unaccountable, coercive, censorious, surveillance-heavy, propagandistic, corrupt, brutal, heavy-handed, intolerant, secretive, and very very very militarised.
Thanks, I looked into it. I seem to have a few flagged comments, but I'm not yet fully hellbanned. I guess I have to be a little less political on here.
> I seem to have a few flagged comments, but I'm not yet fully hellbanned
I think you're as fully banned as I've seen anyone be, and I don't think anything will change for your account if you're "little less political." You probably need to contact the admins, or start over with a new account (from a new IP address).
How many Trump's bad polices did the protestors force him to retreat? if nothing changes, its a shitshow just for the people to feel good about themselves.
Mao's revolution failed, the PRC is a capitalist nation with a highly stratified class system and no path to Communism. Why would you wish that on the USA?
And if you don't believe that, how does a peasant army stand up to the USA military?
> Mao's revolution failed, the PRC is a capitalist nation with a highly stratified class system and no path to Communism
it failed doesn't means we forget it and dont want it anymore. we still think of him all the time and wish we can try again. we are not commusim, but we are still the closet one. and we still have the biggest chance to become one. so i hope USA people can have someone like him, and live a better life, not pathetic enough to compare their living standard to a developing country like china.
Post on 小紅書 about class consciousness and time how long before your post is deleted.
Developing country for 70 years huh? Maybe if you keep working 996 while living in a tiny apartment you rent from a Beijing Billionaire, the PRC will finally become an industrialized nation.
Stop redirecting. Invading Taiwan won't stop 996 and won't give you communism. You're just like an American Trump supporter, allowing yourself to be distracted from your degrading working and living conditions imposed by an aloof ruling class exploiting your labor for their excessive profit. All it takes is picking a foreign bad guy and you clap and cheer and believe the people exploiting you when they tell you that actually it's these Big Bad Other People that are making your life worse.
>> How many Trump's bad polices did the protestors force him to retreat? if nothing changes, its a shitshow just for the people to feel good about themselves.
> What's your alternative suggestion?
Good question. For starters, the common saying about "doing the same thing over and over expecting different results" applies here, which you seem to at least entertain.
What I would do is try and figure out exactly how and why people protest some things and not others. What spurns them on to stand in negative weather with snow and windchill standing for Cause A but not Cause B, C, or D?
My theory is essentially manipulation. The trolley problem is interesting to apply here. Why are some causes (lives, because people are dying every day across many conflicts) worth protesting and others simply don't matter?
If this theory has any value (probably not, but maybe) what should be done about it? I posit trump is a symptom. Focusing on the symptom is why harris lost. "I'm not him!" didn't work as a platform. Protesting against the symptom is like slapping a cold cloth on a fevered person instead of treating the infection causing the fever. It might even work for a half hour or so, a little, maybe.
What is the root cause of all this? How did we get here? I posit, and hold your breath for this one: money and power. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I cannot figure out how the stock market is at ATHs, unknown hundreds of billions are sloshing around for "AI" and I have friends making over 130k/yr trying to figure out how to pay their electric bills. How does that happen? How do we fix THAT?
I don't think protesting trump fixes that. If anything, it emboldens him. "Oh you don't want me to stop hitting you? You mean like this hit (punches you in the face) or this one (punches you in the stomach)? Ok, so not the face?" [Proceeds to punch you in the stomach]
Follow the money. Figure out the inception of these causes people get off their couch to protest. Fix that. These epstein files might have been a good start. Find the other 100 epsteins, they're out there. Blow the whole up for real.
> I don't think protesting trump fixes that. If anything, it emboldens him. "Oh you don't want me to stop hitting you? You mean like this hit (punches you in the face) or this one (punches you in the stomach)? Ok, so not the face?" [Proceeds to punch you in the stomach]
America could never have a successful communist revolution if the best its communist parties can muster is support from an imperialist nation whose motives aren't at all aligned with global worker revolution - after all, that's Trotskyism, which is, uh, somehow also counter revolutionary?
> From a legal perspective, the Lai judgment reflects the institutional professionalism of Hong Kong's courts. The proceedings were conducted in accordance with established judicial practice, with extensive evidence presented, tested and assessed under the criminal standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt. The judgment, running more than 800 pages, was published in full, demonstrating the court's commitment to transparency and reasoned decision-making.
That's the 2nd paragraph in the article. In my experience, articles that have to go to this extent to really convince the reader that the court is so above rapproach have an agenda. And gee, coming from a CCP state media outlet, I wonder what that agenda could be...
> CGTN is the English-language news channel of state-run China Global Television Network, based in Beijing, China. It is one of several channels provided by China Global Television Network, the international division of Chinese state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), under the control of the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party.
Get out of here with this Wolf Warrior jingoist bullshit. Your country was brutally suppressing a democratic movement in Hing Kong and Lai is only guilty of publishing books critical of the politburo. Which I might add is carrying out a genocide in Xianjang, illegally occupies Tibet, and mudrered perhaps thousands in and around Tiananmen Square in 1989. You'll note you can't even post on chinese social media anything containing both "Tiananmen Square" and "1989", and you call Lai a fascist... pathetic.
In my experience, a very significant proportion of self-reported "anti-fascists" and "anti-imperialists" turn out, upon closer scrutiny, to actually be anti-US-fascism and anti-US-imperialism. They ignore, downplay, deny and ridicule all allegations of fascism and imperialism when perpetrated by others, like China or Russia.
In a somewhat related vein, there are entirely too many "anti-colonialists" in what is now fashionably called The Global South who, when push comes to shove, reveal themselves to be actually kind of okay with colonialism as long as it's not perpetrated against them. When a colonialist war of aggression is perpetrated against these white folks called "Ukrainians", and perpetrated by Russia, a country they really rather like, then what's a little colonialism between friends? Heck, Russia shows up with a colonialist militia to prop up dictators and mine for diamonds and gold all over the Sahel and it's like, heck yeah, thank for your kicking out the French. Really interesting logic.
My opinion, they're mostly middle class westerners that grew up in a cradle of empire, sucking from the teat of exploitative resource extraction. Then when they stopped seeing the benefits of imperialism as their country fell into late stage capitalism and eating itself alive, they turn their resentment against capitalism and correctly identify it as what's ailing their society, but somehow completely fall for the propaganda that there are socialist countries on this planet that are "fighting capitalism." They do nothing to challenge their deeply rooted western arrogance or imperialist savior complex, and begin lecturing people from smaller nations that actually, it's not imperialism when a country with a red flag does it.
You're joking, right? The quintessential imperialist power of the Cold War. Post-WW2 subjugation of eastern Europe. Occupation of the Baltic states. The failed colonialist war against Finland. Suppression of attempts to leave its imperialist orbit in Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, to a lesser extent Poland under Gomulka. The disaster in Afghanistan was started b1y the Soviet colonialist war there, of course.
>Or Vietnamese imperialism
Laos was a client state for a while, and their involvement in Cambodia crossed the line into imperialism at various points in the 70s.
>Or Cuban imperialism.
This one has a long and storied history. Cuban mercenaries were used to bolster far-left authoritarians and Soviet-aligned strongmen all over Latam and in Africa too. Even to this day they gladly send mercs to fight Russia's fascist war of aggression in Ukraine.
How can you call yourself a Marxist if you have apparently not bothered to read a single book on the history of the USSR? Shining examples of imperialism are unavoidable turning points in Soviet history. The invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia are the most well-known, but one must not forget OMON terrorizing Lithuanians, the infamous MVD troops cracking the skulls of Georgians with sapper shovels, and many many other examples.
Show one example of Soviet imperialism, you say? There are entire museums dedicated to the subject!
Do you mean PRC? The invasion of Tibet is canonically imperialism according to Party doctrine: they were "freeing the population" from the reactionary ruling class, which is maybe a great thing to do, but is by definition imperialism.
Making threats against sovereign Taiwan is imperialism, though of course a soft form for now. However it has engaged in imperialist economic pressure such as when it prevented vaccine deliveries to Taiwan during COVID-19, forcing the country to develop its own domestic vaccine.
The genocide and economic exploitation in Xinjiang is old school imperialism.
As for the soviets, if American operations in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam are imperialism, then so too were Soviet operations in Afghanistan.
For Tibet, may I remind you the local population rose up against tyranny. That they requested assistance from their central govt into putting down rabid theocrats is only fair tbh. But as every time, when the people are fighting against criminals, the western press only gives the microphone to the said criminals, especially when the stolen property of those criminals is being freed (the property being humans).
Also only fools still believe in a genocide in Xinjiang. Show me the camps. Show me the victims. Show me the refugees. Show me any muslim person genuinely outraged about it. I can show you plenty for Palestine, but for some reason for some western leftists, these people do not count.
When one is this far gone into a nationalist information bubble haze, it ceases to be productive to argue with them. Everything this poster demands to be “shown” is openly available in abundance from the relevant victims, decades of it. But offered such material they will quickly categorically dismiss it all and move goal posts again.
Yes when CCP undertakes an ethnonationalist settler campaign into Tibet and then instructs the settlers to “call for help”, it can be presented as Tibet “asking” for CCP authoritarianism. Same playbook as Russia in eastern Ukraine.
Yes, when the Xinjiang muslim population is terrorized by police state and concentration camps in a country with no free speech, it is hard to find locals publicly complaining and advocating for themselves.
1) I'm not Chinese, but I still have skin in the game for I am an internationlist.
2) Apart from a few google maps pictures, there are no pictures of those extermination camps.
3) Tibet has been part of China for centuries. Only since Mao landreforms that criminalised slavery have we been hearing about Tibet's "independence" movement.
4) If Xinjiang has concentration camps, then why are the Chinese allowing the UN , tourists and journalists in? Right now in Palestine, UN workers and journalists are shot on sight. Tourists are non existant. Muslim countries refuse to qualify any of the anti-terrorist measures as genocidal, but denounce the extermination campaign against the Palestinian people.
So as to keep the conversation productive, could you please define "China?" I have no idea what you're talking about when you say, "Tibet has been a part of China for centuries," but it sounds like the sort of ethnonationalism that the CPC likes to play with.
> If Xinjiang has concentration camps, then why are the Chinese allowing the UN , tourists and journalists in?
They didn't used to, I should know, I tried to go and was rejected.
Yes, Israel is committing a genocide in Palestine, and a far more violent one than the CPC committed against Xinjiang. The PLA did not snipe Uighur Muslim children in the back of head and did not airstrike hospitals in Xinjiang. It still committed a genocide.
Remember the words of Chen Quanguo: "Round up everyone who should be rounded up," immediately before ordering mass arrests.
I'm sorry, but I've had this conversation too many times, I will simply need to give you the challenge I've given everyone else. Please, can you canonically dismiss each of these sources? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_Chin... There are 402 of them. I understand it's a relatively monumental task, but that's the unfortunate reality you find yourself in when you argue against consensus, it's a lot of work. If you can't do that, then, I don't understand why I should believe you instead of the mountain of evidence against you. And no, "it's all CIA" doesn't really work considering the diversity of sources.
By the way, you never addressed imperialist threats against Taiwan. Could you please explain how threatening to invade a sovereign nation isn't imperialist?
As a marxist, I am obsessed about contradictions. I found two regarding the 402 sources that you've shown. I do not pretend to have read and understood all of them. I just scanned a couple titles, recognised a few famous newspapers.
1) Why is that that are very few if none of the sources you've linked are Islamic sources ? If Muslim people can recognise the plight of the Palestinian people, why can't they recognise the plight of the Uighurs?
2) Those sources are, for most of them, from countries that were extremely hostile to the idea of islamic and arabic independence movement. Why is that they wished for the continuation of Colonialism, wish for the destruction of the Palestinian people, and yet cheer for Uighur independence?
What we are facing here doesn't require spooks forcing journalists to write articles with a gun cocked against their head. This is gramscian cultural hegemony. Bourgeois journalists are reporting on those "facts" because it directly serves the interest of their wealthy Masters, and if we follow the rule of "don't bite the hand that feeds you" they would rarely if never contradict them.
Great! Me too. In fact I am a communist. That's why I can't enter the PRC without facing prison. Discussion of class consciousness is currently banned.
> 1) Why is that that are very few if none of the sources you've linked are Islamic sources ? If Muslim people can recognise the plight of the Palestinian people, why can't they recognise the plight of the Uighurs?
I don't understand how something like a newspaper can be "Islamic." As far as I know, all well-regarded news organizations are secular. So, I guess that is why none of the sources I've linked are "Islamic sources": because newspapers are secular.
Also, who is "Muslim people?" Every follower of Islam on planet earth? Why is it their specific responsibility to take notice of something in Xinjiang? Because the people have a religion of the same name? What's that matter?
This is what I meant when I wrote, "smells like ethnonationalism," this seems to me like an ideology that creates Statehood around people, and draws lines around people based on their ethnicity or religion. I prefer to take people as they are, rather than lump them into arbitrarily defined categories. Why aren't men in France doing anything to stop school shootings in America, which are committed almost entirely by men?
> Those sources are, for most of them, from countries that were extremely hostile to the idea of islamic and arabic independence movement.
Which sources? What does it mean to be hostile to "the islamic and arabic independence movement?" Which countries?
> Why is that they wished for the continuation of Colonialism
Who is "they?"
> Bourgeois journalists are reporting on those "facts" because it directly serves the interest of their wealthy Masters
And reports out of the PRC serve the interests of the CPC. The bourgeois journalists have provided substantially more evidence. The CPC restricted entry to Xinjiang, and when it finally acknowledged the existence of the reeducation camps, still never let foreign journalists in. As a Marxist, I choose the side with the most evidence.
By the way, some of the sources include: a PRC based associate professor in Fudan University (Chuchu Zhang), a newspaper famous for exposing corruption in South Africa (AmaBhungane), and other independent or NGO sources that I challenge you to claim are afraid to "bite the hand that feeds them." Did you know that Blackwater had plans to build a training center in Xinjiang? Did you know that it set aside 2.7$ million USD for establishing business in Xinjiang? Did you know that American companies helped build the surveillance system used in Xinjiang? (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Promega) But, it's the journalists that are bourgeois? (https://www.thenation.com/article/world/china-xinjiang-genoc...)
You still have not addressed PRC imperialism against Taiwan.
> In my experience, a very significant proportion of self-reported "anti-fascists" and "anti-imperialists" turn out, upon closer scrutiny, to actually be anti-US-fascism and anti-US-imperialism. They ignore, downplay, deny and ridicule all allegations of fascism and imperialism when perpetrated by others, like China or Russia.
Or, to put it another way: they're really anti-Americans.
It's interesting to see the exaggerated responses to Trump. Objectively, he's less authoritarian than say the PRC, but he's unlocked a lot of probably pre-existing resentment in US allies (probably derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_difference...), and gotten a much stronger and more vicious response.
> Gyal Lo, a Tibetan education researcher, became alarmed by the boarding schools in 2016, when he saw that his two preschool-aged grandnieces, who were attending one in his hometown in northwestern China, preferred to speak Mandarin, not Tibetan.
> When the grandnieces, then ages 4 and 5, went home on the weekend, he said in an interview, they appeared withdrawn and spoke awkwardly in Tibetan with their parents, much changed from when he saw them in the previous year. Now they behaved “like strangers in their own home,” he said.
> “I said to my brother, ‘What if you don’t send them to the boarding school?’” Gyal Lo said. “He said he had no choice.”
> Gyal Lo set out to investigate the changes that families were going through as the schools expanded across Tibetan regions in China. Over the next three years he visited dozens of such schools, and saw that many Tibetan students spoke little of their mother tongue and were sometimes only able to see their parents once every several weeks or even months.
I mean, not to descend too deeply into the stereotype of nerds and comic books, but you'd probably be a lot more distraught and critical of Professor X making terrible, self-interested and decidedly unfriendly choices than you would be about Magneto doing Magneto things.
Annexing Greenland, even if it did happen, is objectively not nearly as terrible as the genocide of Uygurs or murdering tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians. You just don't expect it from America, that's all. But no worries, give us time, the rest of us are re-calibrating our expectations and next time we won't be nearly so comically shocked.
> I mean, not to descend too deeply into the stereotype of nerds and comic books, but you'd probably be a lot more distraught and critical of Professor X making terrible, self-interested and decidedly unfriendly choices than you would be about Magneto doing Magneto things.
I mean, that's a rationalization for feelings, but I don't explains the responses. Isn't Canada pursing closer relations with China because Trump, for instance? That's like deciding to ally with Magneto because Professor X fell short of your expectations.
Feelings have nothing to do with it (anymore?). Just a different logic for a different world.
Canada is doing the normal things countries do in a multipolar world in which none of the big players (other than maybe the EU if they become a big player) will be a truly reliable ally from which no danger to its sovereignty emanates.
Due to geographical and logistics constraints, China is in many ways far less dangerous to Canada than the US, if the likelihood of the US going full fash and invading us is anything above 0. It's a good move to offset your complete dependence on the big and somewhat friendly player next door, who can swallow you up whole if it decides to do so, by engaging more closely (than before) with a big and somewhat unfriendly player far far away, who can do little damage to you in case your relationship sours. Realpolitik the big boys call it, I think.
I’m sure the western chauvinists all over Hacker News and Reddit are actually correct. NATO, US, EU going into East Slavic civilization are the innocent ones.
“what's a little colonialism between friends” who has ever said that? Why not stick to what is actually said, that it’s an aggressive war by NATO?
I'm from Ukraine and I'm very curious about this "East Slavic civilization" you mention. What is it? Are my cousins who are fighting to defend their homes, relatives and neighbours from Russian fascists part of this civilization, or only the scumbags trying to re-colonize them?
I'm anti-fascist, and have organized anti-fascist protests in the USA.
If you have a moment, I invite you to take a peek at my blog, website (see "Values"), or comment history, and let me know in what ways I'm fascist. Should be quite easy for you, if I'm one of the most fascist people in existence.
In the PRC, like many countries, the law is nothing more than a tool wielded by the State to protect its interests. Said interests sometimes, but often don't, align with the needs of the people within the borders of the State.
The actions of the State always align with the needs of those who hold the most power in that State.
It doesn't matter if you follow the law or not if someone powerful decides your existence is inconvenient.
Indeed. People very easily conflate laws which every state since antiquity has had, with the rule of law, that exists only in a minority of countries even today.
Where are those handy mainland astroturfers when you need 'em?
They weren't fighting for anything. They were unhappy. And people like Lai and others whipped them up and sent their anger in a direction. And a lot of those kids went to jail.
When they could have taken that energy and put it towards building a better tomorrow. In a place with so many opportunities and changing so fast, they bet it all on traditional education when they could have adopted the entrepreneurial spirit of their ancestral geneartions. Their violence only played into the hands of the Central Government to yield all the pretext it needed to enact the very things the "protesters" thought they were against.
This argument is often brought up against protesters, in Russian circles as well, but we need to remember that it's _the government_ that's jailing kids, not the protesters.
Kids, need to remember they're responsible for their choices. The people who manipulated and misdirected their energy to ends that would come with heavy consequences have lots of responsibility, too.
You claimed that they were not fighting for anything, but there is a lot of evidence available with a quick search that shows they were fighting for democracy and civil rights that have been a part of Hong Kong life for a long time. That changed when the CCP started intervening in Hong Kong in aggressive ways, in violation of the treaty around Hong Kong.
As for violence, clearly, there is no comparison between the violence of the protesters and the violence of the Chinese government. The CCP is literally responsible for tens of millions of deaths. How can people focus on entrepreneurship when they’re facing the loss of basic freedoms and the threat of mass detention and death?
Vagueness, misunderstanding. Like so many of the choral voices then and now. Sad. Have some truth, sister:
The legco of HK was unchanged until after the protests when they then extented national law into the SAR. Contrary to the Western media propaganda around the protests there was no violation of the "treaty" (joint dec, and basic law) which gave China broad powers to do what it saw fit in terms of national security (read Article 18, everything China did was already permitted by the BL that Britain signed off on.) https://www.basiclaw.gov.hk/filemanager/content/en/files/bas...
Western media could have made other criticisms of China wrt HK, but it chose these dumb lies instead. A whole lot of dumb lies went into whipping up the protesters, who then committed crimes and went to jail. As if the entire purpose was to remove from society a lively rebellious element, and misdirect the vital creative energy of a generation to an end that would contribute to their own destruction. Yet those Westerners claiming they "support" this stupidity bc of "freedom and democracy" are just more pawns in that overall game, that they didn't think enough about before joining in. So must bear the responsibility of their stupidity, now. And, hopefully, silence themselves in shame and reflection before adding more stupidity, into the chorus.
You could say the people of HK and the people of the West were both made useful idiots by a joint Chinese-Western psyop to fold HK fully into the Chinese model. The Westerners provided the agitators and agitprop, and the Chinese duly responded with legislation. West really helped China advance its interests in HK. Must have been a coincidence, or cooperation, couldn't have just been lies and stupidity. So dumb.
Next time something big happens in the world. Stop, observe and think about it. BTW I was there at the significant lead ups to the unrest, both times. I know the place really well, and I loved what it used to be. I don't know what it is now, but I doubt it's same as it was. Different probably.
The real issue causes were a weak mentality of younger generations, who grew up after the golden times of 80s/90s when HK was way ahead of most other places in East Asia, and then became too conservative in their ambitions and tactics to get rich and happy. Laziness, arrogance and ignorance, basically - all of which you can see clearly expressed in their 'protest' actions. As well as economic capture by a small wealthy elite that didn't advance great economic policies for the younger generations, while keeping real estate ownership centralized. In other words, the "Freedom and democracy" of HK, didn't handle itself so well, way before China started messing with it. The immaturity is HK wanted to blame outsiders (mainlanders, colonists) for good/bad outcomes, rather than really owning their future. Sad when previous generations of HKers really created stuff with gusto.
> As for violence, clearly, there is no comparison between the violence of the protesters and the violence of the Chinese government. The CCP is literally responsible for tens of millions of deaths. How can people focus on entrepreneurship when they’re facing the loss of basic freedoms and the threat of mass detention and death?
That's the stupidest reasoning I've ever heard. The people in mainland China managed to do it ("focus on entrepreneurship") pretty well, despite the spectre of the past they themselves created. So did the Japanese, etc. The HK protesters were violent, and why expect them to be different? They're part of the same bloodlines that created and participated in the violence on the mainland. I guess it's just a violent culture. That's been human history. The issue was the HKers didn't properly sublimate their violence into some kind of aggressive creativity and better life seeking, and instead let themselves be misdirected to a useless and self-destructive outlet. That's the bitter pill, that once they swallow and own responsibiltiy for, maybe they can move on.
Or you can just keep resisting that idea, and getting mad when you see it reflected - and stay stuck forever. Your choice.
> The sentence "signifies the total destruction of the Hong Kong legal system and the end of justice", Sebastien said.
Hong Kong was facing imperialist takeover by the PRC. The people in Hong Kong naively thought they could maintain some measure of self determination through public appeal and law - tools that don't work in the PRC. The CPC is founded on complicity shedding the blood of enemies of the Party, that's the only language it speaks and its default fallback tool.
If the Hong Kong protests had continued into insurgency, the CPC would have simply sent in the PLA and massacred people. It would create some legal justification afterwards, of course.
In Taiwan, I think we haven't fully reckoned with the reality of dealing with Imperialists. See: Venezuela. If an imperialist country wants to have its way with you, there's basically nothing you can do from a military, political, or legal standpoint to stop it. Non-statist strategies are needed.
You could go the way of Mao but I think in the modern era a peasant army simply can't stand up to waves of drones and high accuracy targeted missile strikes. And besides, Mao's revolution became exactly the thing it was meant to overthrow: a capitalist, imperialist, stratified society. This will probably be the same fate of any successful violent revolution (see The Anarchist Cookbook by Keith McHenry for further examples). Anyway, never fight imperialists on their own grounds.
I don't know if anything short term could have prevented the PRC's takeover of Hong Kong, but protesting was basically pointless. That time should have been spent setting up alternative channels of communication, alternative means of resource distribution, and perhaps infiltration of same into the territory of the PRC to destabilize the legitimacy of the CPC there.
They did a lot of bad things - but I'm not going to bring them up because that's not the point here. The point is their power was misdirected from the purpose they wanted.
There are plenty of nuance to be had on the situation in China but I wonder what you mean here.
Are you arguing that it's legitimate to put a 78 years old from a former democratic city forcefully reintegrated to another state in jail for 20 years because he is saying that the will of the people should be heard?
That's not why he and his company was convicted with multiple counts of sedition. This is what I am talking about. It's a rewriting of reality to fit a neat black and white narrative to suit whatever agenda you want.
The crime of "conspiracy to publish seditious materials" is an unethical law and should be abolished. We can argue that point if you'd like? Furthermore, promoting self rule is not seditious, it's anti imperialist. We can argue that one as well?
The charge of colluding with foreign governments is blowing his actions way out of proportion so as to artificially inflate the severity of his "crime" for political reasons. We can argue that?
We could also argue that the reason the CPC is doing this is to suppress any Hong Kong self-determinist agitation?
Is anything I've said disagreeable on the premise of them being strawmen?
The strawman is saying " legitimate to put a 78 years old from a former democratic city forcefully reintegrated to another state in jail for 20 years because he is saying that the will of the people should be heard?" That's not even close to reality.
I don't think anything you said is a strawman though. You can of course argue whether that's right or wrong or how it fits into the greater whole. That's showing nuance. You can come to it with your own opinions and feelings but it's another thing to approach with a predetermined idea of what happened that is nothing like what happened.
Yeah and the actual strawman I tried to point out was assuming that a random person held a very specific belief of how Lai came to be imprisoned and that it was justified.
I mean, originally you only complained about the hyperbole and lack of nuances, there wasn't even anything that implied you agreed with the conviction, let alone the rationale.
Feels like you're trying to purity test. My point still is about the excess of hyperbole and lack of nuance. Whether that's "China did nothing wrong" or "Jimmy is the best person ever." Which you seem to agree with. My feelings on it are kind of irrelevant to that and much more complex than that.
Well, it is difficult to have a nuanced conversation about it, when the dialog coming from the Party itself is always hyperbole like "Make criminals like rats scurrying across the street, with everyone shouting 'Beat them!'"
Like the charges themselves seem hyperbolic to me.
Forcefully reintegrated? Colonialism was the forceful part. Not a country having control of its own land.
He isn’t demanding any will of the people. Unlike the EU, US, etc, Chinese people are actually happy with their democratic China.
In no way in Europe or US can a city claim they want “democratic” independence and go completely against the rest of the country on the side of recent protests and meddling by outside state depts. They would correctly be viewed as traitors and agitators.
The PRC never owned Hong-Kong before the handover and I don't remember the population of Hong-Kong voting for reintegration so yes, forcefully reintegrated seems like a nice way to frame it. Actually taken over would be more correct, traded as merchandise would also be appropriate I guess. You get the idea.
China existed 100 years ago. Hong Kong is Chinese.
I have never come across a person who isn’t a bigot and raging chauvinist who tries to act like the Chinese civilization and the PRC are distinct things. Though not saying you are, you may be an exception
So you are saying that world borders should be redrawn according to a state some few hundred years ago? Please tell be, which exact year do you think we should use for that?
How can they be democratically independent when the entire continent is controlled by NATO? Democracy means something. Democracy can’t exist while you’re a vassal state.
There is nothing democratic about China. This is just a fact. Admittedly western countries are also not democratic per definition, but at least they have an elected oligarchy, which is miles closer to democracy than Chinese despotic regime. Even if the regime in China is kinda benevolent to the subjects, it doesn't matter for this question. Democracy is a word used a for a very specific thing, and it's completely absent in China.
It obviously is how? Because they are yellow Asians and not white like you? Hilarious that Europe and the west’s govts are not liked by their people. China’s is. And yet these same westerners act like China is the non democratic and non free country.
Because that's how autocratic regimes like the CCP (asian), Belarus (white), Uganda (black) work? As opposed to states like Taiwan (asian), France (white), South Africa (black).
> Hilarious that Europe and the west’s govts are not liked by their people. China’s is
Tell me you're a CCP troll without telling me you're a CCP troll.
China is basically the epitome of non-democratic - the CCP has even gone so far as to point to the messiness traditionally involved in democracy as a justification for why it doesn't work.
In a country with a one-party authoritarian politicial system, the only conceivable way they'd be allowed to not be so is if a non-predetermined outcome was not considered to be a threat to the CCP.
So in a country of 1.4 billion people, literally it might not be the case, but it 100% effectively is so.
I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of one party systems. One party systems do not mean everyone agrees on everything. It still has all the nuances of any other political party. There are different factions, ideas and plans and that's what party members run on to get elected. It's pretty much identical to any other democracy with a majority across the government. Plenty of people are cheering on Japan who just elected that.
Obviously the goal is the betterment of the country and society is shared among all the elected officials. That's why they get elected. I think a good portion of the west likes to pretend that they have parties and elected officials who want to overthrow the government in their government. But that's just not true. The overwhelming majority of western countries have actively suppressed or fought back anyone who wants to dismantle or reform the country. So are all democratic elections predetermined as well?
> I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of one party systems. One party systems do not mean everyone agrees on everything.
I am aware of this, and that the USSR had elections which allowed the people to express themselves to some extent, though never in any major way.
> It still has all the nuances of any other political party
This simply cannot be true on a very fundamental level, which is the lack of competition that other parties bring. Multi-party systems have both inter and intra party dynamics; by definition single-party systems can only have the latter. Saying "it's pretty much identical" shows a fundamental misunderstanding on your part.
> Plenty of people are cheering on Japan who just elected that.
I fail to see how this is relevant.
> Obviously the goal is the betterment of the country and society is shared among all the elected officials
Well, no, not at all. History is replete with examples of officials of all political, cultural and ethnic persuasions being far more interested with enriching themselves than the betterment of society. This statement comes across as rather naive.
> who want to overthrow the government in their government.
If you're talking about a ruling party losing an election to another party, we don't call that a government overthrow, we call that a transition of power. It is a feature of the system, and there is a lot of concern that it is done fairly and peacefully.
> The overwhelming majority of western countries have actively suppressed or fought back anyone who wants to dismantle or reform the country
This just reads like outright propaganda, I'm not going to bother addressing it on the merits.
> So are all democratic elections predetermined as well?
This is predicated on your previous propagandized statement having any real substantive factual bearing, which I don't believe it does, so my answer is no, they aren't. In fact, there are many, many examples of surprise results (see JFK, Obama, Trump, Brexit, Ukraine, etc.). So if there is some kind of global suppression operation at play, it doesn't have a very good track record of success.
Not sure what the USSR has to do with Chinese elections. Which is the topic.
The "lack of competition because other parties don't exist" is simply a naive view. Single party system DO have those same dynamics. The difference is purely aesthetic. If you think they don't then you're the one repeating propaganda.
It's relevant because it is an effective one party system when one party gains full control of the government. But because another party exists it's okay then?
Saying bad people existed in history doesn't mean everyone today is bad too. It's a bit reductionist. The point I was making is that one party systems eliminate the dynamics of "the other". Multiparty systems inevitably lead to tribalist behavior of "we're the good ones and the other groups are the bad ones". It's not productive and prevents progress for political theater.
No, I wasn't talking about one party winning over another. I'm talking about actual revolutions against the current government of any country.
I think you're continuing the misunderstanding. I am talking about actual revolutionary action. Regardless of political flavor revolutionary actors are suppressed by the state. The US didn't welcome the communist party and the UK didn't invite ISIS to form their own party.
Your last paragraph just continues this misunderstanding further. My point still stands that democracy can absolutely exist under a single party system and it's purely a cosmetic difference from a multiparty one. That doesn't mean it is ALWAYS the case or that one party systems are the best and flawless. Way too much anti-soviet era propaganda still shapes our views on politics and what is and isn't good. If we fail to honestly engage with our own and other political systems then we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes of the past.
“Used for a specific thing”. Democracy doesn’t mean liberalism. You can’t take a word and make up a meaning. Democracy is a govt that is the will of the people. China is quite literally democratic per that definition. While Europe and the west are not at all.
Also electoralism isn’t democracy. The west is not the entire world. What the west says does not make things so.
I'm not sure what do you mean by liberalism or electoralism or even a will of a people. Especially in this context.
Democracy is a power of citizens to decide on the governing of a country they live in. This doesn't happen anywhere nowadays, except in Switzerland, where "demos"=people can actually execute their will of majority "kratos" to vote on the governing of their country. With some limitations of course, but it is a real democracy.
Other western countries have an elective oligarchy, and people can't decide on what those oligarchs will vote on, the system is indirect.
And China is pure and simple autocracy. A despotia governed a by a single man plus his cronies. There is no election process in China, so demos is completely separated from governing, there is not even indirect link.
The smugness and superiority about how the rest of the world are immoral barbarians and the global status quo of white/western hegemony is amazing and very moral is pretty funny.
It’s pretty obvious these same people in the past would’ve said the US’s chattel slavery is not that bad because other countries do slavery too. The equivocations westerners will do.
Let’s start with it being hell bent on annexing a peaceful independent island democracy, by force if needed, because of their own political insecurities.
The examples expand from there, but that one alone is sufficient.
You aren't familiar with Chinese illegal occupation of the South China Sea? Or the official government documentation claiming that independent Taiwan is their property?
Brinkmanship with the Philippines and Taiwan, and direct threats of imperialist takeover against the latter (Xi has reaffirmed this recently).
Exploitative labor in Xinjiang is imperialism and led to genocide.
African "investments" is imperialist, it's focused on resource extraction, debt traps and the like. Or was Japan not imperialist when it took over Taiwan, because they built our trains?
Not just westerners can correctly identify PRC imperialism.
