I redefine authoritarianism to "when people want things", but when I implement authoritarianism I'll use the more commonly understood description of authoritarianism.
The US killed a million innocent people in Iraq just a few years ago, and is *currently * drone bombing several countries in ME and north africa, and is currently supporting the apartheid state of israel with billions of dollars in military aid.
The PRC has not been in a war since its skirmish with Vietnam in 1979.
The US has a network of > 800 military bases across the globe, and has been involved in regime change in nearly every country.
What a ridiculous assumption, most of the world can speak English you know. Shame on this America centrism and people who perpetuate it. Shame especially on you since you accused me over your baseless assumption. Shame, shame
While the transfer of power itself was fine and legal, didn't they break the basic law they put in by violating people's rights and freedoms? I do agree that it's worded badly though
I’m pretty sure virtually all of the Tibetan people are happy to no longer be suffering under theocratic feudalism. Happy to no longer be illiterate serfs and slaves, suffering depredation under a god-king. I doubt many of them are sad that CIA asset Dalai “suck my tongue” Lama is in exile. [1] [2]
and Hong Kong?
Entirely legal. In fact it would have been illegal for the UK not to hand it over.
Neither, but one of them trained, funded, and organized terrorists in the region, and then made up a genocide narrative, and then imposed illegal sanctions on it using the fabricated genocide narrative as a pretext. Previously.
Idk if it's just me, but it's insane to bring up Uhygur genocide, which has not been in the news or mentioned at all for years, while we watch US funded Israel blowing up starving children on a daily basis.
Philosophies that would make Westerner's mouth water - Forced assimilation / "Taming" the natives type shit
Western sources/"journalists" are dubious, twisting stories out of proportion or making shit up entirely
However there are plenty of testimonies from the Uyghurs themselves -- the sheer volume of which cannot be ignored
Anyways, from what I've heard, China's dialed this shit back when they were first put on the spotlight. For whatever oppression China may have taken part of, it is not even a tenth of what the oppression the United States and other Western nations have been dishing out for the past few centuries.
US genocided Natives to be born, and historically oppressed its own population (slavery, internment camps, etc) and has continually oppressed others (overthrowing democracies, genocide, crimes against humanity, etc)
UK, Germany, France and other Western nations also love aiding genociders while also oppressing anti-genociders.
France also has an obsession with trying to force Muslim women to undress in public, dictate how they dress. Lmao
That's cool and all but still irrelevant to the original point. You can be authoritarian to your own citizens domestically without invading other nations.
Terms like Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism were defined or entrenched by a lot of western supremacist authors, who needed to twist terminology in such a way that excluded the US (capitalism's worldwide enforcer and the cause of so much death and destruction) from any wrongdoing, while demonizing the colonial world who fought back against the US for their own sovereignty as "authoritarian".
I highly suggest reading Losurdo's - Western Marxism, for an in-depth analysis of some of these white supremacist authors, and how they demonize the anti-colonial struggle.
I feel like this is shifting the focus to imperialism, where the US is overwhelmingly and undeniably worse.
However, domestically, if you wanna pretend that someone as a random citizen, has any chance of receiving political representation in China, well you enjoy your fantasy.
The US and China are both deeply undemocratic places. I'm saying this as someone from neither country.
Anyone who's actually been to China would know this. It is authoritarian. It's not even something viewed as bad by most people in China. It's just the way things are there.
There is pretty strong support for the government there, albeit that could be argued as product of censorship, repression and also genuine support. Many see the CCP as having done a lot of good things which they are grateful for, which in addition to the bad things, in fairness, they have done.
I'm getting kinda tired of some leftists knee jerking "China Good", just as much as I'm getting kinda tired of the "China Bad" crowd, when the truth is neither wholly good nor wholly bad.
We can be leftists and not have a hard-on for any country claiming to be socialist, you know
Are you an ML? If so, why are MLs so antagonistic to non-ML lefties? American Democrats, I can understand, but why be so extremely dichotomous about who your allies are?
I don't know you, you could've been a US dem or som EU 'social democrat' or whatever calls themselves lefties.
I formulated the general sentiment of that group, overly represented on .world and crying about Trump's america.
I'm not antagonistic to lefties, only the pseudo-lefties.
If you're not one of then don't feel targeted.
You would be part of a small minority here tho.
"Authoritarian" is largely a meaningless term. All it really means is one group using force against another group, but it doesn't say anything about which group is which. In the US Empire, the capitalists use the state to crush the workers, and export genocide and chaos to the global south. In the PRC, the working class uses the state to keep the capitalists in check as they progress and develop along socialist lines. This stark difference in which class is in power is shown with immense popular support in the PRC:
You are believing in a fantasy. There are countless countries around the world that are arguably more socialist than China without even calling themselves such. Quite frankly, I trust actions and numbers more than words.
What would be a source you deem valid in this case. The only thing I can say is that multiple news sources published about this topic.
And what do you have to say about the problem of half-assed building projects that keep killing people in china because they used the wrong type of sand for concrete for example?
What's important is the framing, and what is left in vs what is left out. Those that were harmed by the government popping the real estate bubble were those who had the extra money to invest in real estate, which is the primary vehicle for balooning your wealth in China. The user I replied to specifically stated working class, which in reality should be more like the petty bourgeois.
Secondly, the scale of violence inplied by the user is the idea that the state sent in jackbooted thugs to crush the protest, but reading the article it seems as though it was only a handful of people that got into a skirmish with plainclothes police officers. That doesn't excuse anything, of course, but now we know "CPC crushes working class protestors with police" is at best an exaggeration of "crushes" and the "working class" part is an embellishment.
Finally, the article says the government worked to address the complaints! This wasn't a protest against the government, but a protest for government intervention. This wasn't because the CPC did something bad, but was a request for the CPC to step into the banking system failing and help people harmed by that.
So, again, we have what appears to be light police skirmishes with upper-middle class people harmed by a banking failure that requested CPC intervention, which they did. What they framed it as was poor, working class protestors harmed by CPC action being met by overwhelming jackbooted thugs in order to squash dissent against the CPC. See how that's dishonest? And that's taking the Guardian at face value, just reading between the lines.
Do you have more information on what the specific banking error was, because most sources I was able to find are focused on the violent intervention and less about what exactly happened in the banks.
If not, the incident doesn’t make china as bad or worse than the us but it does make the perfect image of the chinese government seem a bit more questionable.
Also, what do you think about the issue of things like tofu dreg construction? Why do you think that happens or did it even happen as shown on multiple videos from chine?
I don't personally know more about this single event, but the broader housing bubble has been widely reported on. If you want a Chinese perspective, I recommend searching CGTN.
As for the CPC, it is by no means perfect. As a socialist country, the PRC does a much better job of meeting the needs of the people. Even the linked article was a protest for government action, not against it. The CPC makes mistakes, but the system itself is better, so it's likely shortcomings are resolved over time.
As for "tofu-dregs," they aren't all that common. It has happened, it was a term coined by Zhu Rongji, premier of the CPC at the time. Using insufficient rebar, poor quality concrete, etc has happened because of rapid development and the ability for individuals to cut corners for higher profits or to meet deadlines. However, this is more of a problem of the past, and not a widescale problem, despite how western countries would report on it.
Really, identifying bias within an article and engaging with it critically is good practice in general.
I stated that all states are "authoritarian," all are methods by which one class exerts authority over another. The only way out of "authoritarianism" is to fully collectivize production, eliminating class distinctions. Until then, it's better for capitalists to be under the thumb of the workers, rather than the inverse. Like I said, it's a largely meaningless term.
Meta argument: charts like this are basically useless.
I was raised in a very religious town. If you asked, the people in that town would say “my religion is a religion of love” “people should be as free as possible because it’s an extension of personal agency” and all the while they beat their kids and would rather die than let gay or trans people be themselves.
They can quote the scriptures and could likely write some pretty strong rhetoric implying they are loving and kind and caring, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near the truth.
Point is that just because you get phrases pounded into your head doesn’t mean you truly believe them or even know what they imply.
If your country’s rhetoric specifically states that the government serves the people and says it over and over, regardless of the truth of that statement, people will have a tendency to select it. (Like if your government called itself the people’s republic…)
If you asked Americans and Chinese if they think personal freedom is important, you’d likely get the reverse pattern in your graph. Is this because America has more freedom? No, more likely it’s because the historical rhetoric we get exposed to emphasizes “freedom” whereas China’s revolutionary rhetoric was centered around “democracy”
If you asked Americans if they support socialism, you’d get lower bars than if you asked it indirectly. Just using the word socialism skews your metric.
People will say they support or don’t support concepts they don’t understand, or that they view in a different light than others. Does democracy mean more than two political parties? Does democracy mean no capitalism? Does democracy require freedom to spread information freely? Etc.
So once again these metrics are useless because I’d imagine most of these countries’ voters would disagree on what the statements even mean.
You'd have more of a point if the fact that the people of China support their system wasn't regularly proven in various metrics, not just a single poll.
Why would that have any effect on the point of my argument?
My point is about the ineffectiveness and unscientific nature of this kind of questionnaire.
Doesn’t matter what topics or debates these are used in or who is right in those debates; the point is that these kind of charts are useless regardless of their content.
Sidenote: if you had “various metrics” why’d you post the least scientific one? Like bro, brain-dead “libertarians” could probably pull out some statistic or study that is more sound than this chart to support their idiotic bullshit. If a fellow anarchist tried to use a metric like this I’d call them out too even if I agreed with their point
The questionaire is valid, though. It highlights differences in the system, in an easy to understand graph. If you want, here's another bunch of sources.
The only thing the questionnaire does, assuming it is built well, is show that when asked those questions people in different countries answered differently.
Did the Chinese populations sampled by the study respond more positively to those four questions more than the samples of other nations? Yes.
Can you assert that this is proof that china is more democratic and less authoritarian than those countries? NO.
At best, this study shows that public opinion of the government in china is higher than that of the other countries. Which definitely doesn’t mean all that much at all, for example I could ask half my family members and they’d say that things are better now under trump than they’ve ever been before. Is that the case? Absolutely not. Does that change their minds? No.
Now, the original article you linked seems much more soft science but the article it first mentions actually has more concrete data but still that data is on public opinion.
Unfortunately the democracy index site appears to be missing and “for sale”
If you could find me the actual questionnaire in mandarin so we could read it as it was presented and compare with the English version we could rule out some of the bias I presented earlier, but not all.
Lastly, kairos buddy, your argument was that a country (which many of the people you’re trying to persuade think is George Orwell big brother level controlling) isn’t authoritarian. Using polled data, especially that which was “implemented by a reputable domestic Chinese polling firm” is not going to hold much evidentiary worth to your target audience.
I’m not Anti-China, in fact I was and possibly still am thinking about taking a semester or internship out there; I only wanted to point out that you aren’t actually backing your argument up with any solid evidence especially with regards to your target audience.
I really am curious about the test though, especially since the democracy index paper is on a dead site, so if you could find it in Mandarin I’d be interested. If you could find a source on what “reputable polling firm” Harvard used I’d be interested in that too since the report didn’t actually mention the name..?
Oh and one last thing is that the article mentions “Furthermore, China outperforms the US and most European countries on these indicators – in fact, it has some of the strongest results in the world.” Fun statistical fact: outliers are a sign your sampling methodology is flawed, especially when the outliers are a set of samples and not just a singular data point.
From just the “my government serves the people” bars alone, it would appear the Chinese dataset is well beyond 1.5 standard deviations if the other three are so much lower and show such low variation. If this was a single data point, one would throw it out, but considering it is supposedly a longitudinal collection of samples it implies that there is a very strong influencing factor that is only largely affecting the Chinese survey takers.
If the pattern holds for many other metrics, then it implies this singular factor (or other factors) have significantly biased the Chinese samples. This doesn’t necessarily mean that factor is government intervention or bias from being raised in rhetoric from an authoritarian state, but it is statistically unlikely that this factor is simply due to china just somehow having a better democracy than every single country on earth (including all of its allies and enemies alike) by a statistically gigantic margin.
Fun statistical fact: outliers are a sign your sampling methodology is flawed, especially when the outliers are a set of samples and not just a singular data point.
"This jet's speed is an outlier in this set of planes. Outliers mean the methodology must be invalid, so jets can't be faster than planes."
This is nonsense. China and the euros have fundamentally different political systems, there is no reason to suppose they should have similar outcomes. The whole point of the discussion is that China's system is superior, if you say that any data that supports that is an outlier, and therefore must be invalid you're just presupposing your conclusion.
On your other point about the usefulness of this data: while it is true that there can be many different explanations for the observed results, that just means that we need more evidence to show which system is more democratic, not that this evidence is useless. Saying that people's opinion of their own system is irrelevant is extremely chauvinistic. In the case of China, we can see the massive increase in quality of life of it's citizens, as well as a systematic overview of it's political structures like here. I've also heard the book Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners is good, but I haven't read it yet myself.
Furthermore, your point about manipulation of public opinion goes the other way, too. Where did the idea that China is authoritarian come from? People going to China and studying what life is like there, or media manipulation? Who do you think is more likely to be manipulated like that, the people living there who actually experience the political structures of China, or rando westerners whos only source of information is capitalist media? A simple poll like this is more than enough to debunk the people who think China is authoritarian based on nothing but vibes from capitalist media.
KimBongUn already provided other sources, I'm not going to go through the trouble of finding a poll in mandarin when I can't speak it. Popular support for the PRC is well-documented, as well as the ability for the people to direct policy in a far more material way than in liberal countries.
China has democracy comparable to other socialist states. The difference is socialism vs capitalism, it's as simple as that.
I'm a big defender of China when the "China Bad" crowd comes out, but this graph is meaningless beyond what people's perceptions are.
Real trade unions are banned. All must be part of the party, workers rights are routinely not enforced, and given the lattitude the government has to act, there isn't really much of an excuse.
The CCP enjoy massive support, though, this is undeniable. The reasons for this support is debatable and vary from person to person.
I for one, very much enjoy when the Chinese government does things in line with my socialist ideals. But let's not pretend like they're actually keeping the capitalists in check. There are many, many billionaires in China, something that ought not be possible under an actual socialist country.
It doesn't take a genius to look at their system of voting to quickly conclude that you don't really have a say, the People's Congress functions as a rubber stamp for what the inner party has already decided.
Again, my opinions aside, people in China generally are supportive of the government at this present time.
The graph shows that people generally feel they have more democratic input in China than peoole do in the US, France, and Britain. That's a valuable metric.
Secondly, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions is a real union, it fights for worker's rights against the capitalists that still exist in the primary stage of socialism they are in. Yes, it is affiliated with the CPC, and that's a good thing. If unions were allowed to be independent, then they would be directly supported by western governments against the socialist system. China exists in a world where capitalism is dominant and constantly undermining socialism.
Third, capitalists are kept in check. They exist, including billionaires, because China is in the primary stage of socialism. The point of socialism isn't to make everything equal, in the context of the overall economy China is still dramatically improving the rights and well-being of its working class as its core focus. As China develops, private property is sublimated into public property, if the capitalists had control then this wouldn't really be possible at scale.
Overall, I think you should research more on why China does things you may not agree with on the surface. Usually it's either for an understandable reason, or is something that is bad, but is improving (like LGBTQIA+ rights).
Although state censorship and propaganda are widespread in China, these findings highlight that citizen perceptions of governmental performance respond most to real, measurable changes in individuals’ material well-being. Satisfaction and support must be consistently reinforced. As a result, the data point to specific areas in which citizen satisfaction could decline in today’s era of slowing economic growth and continued environmental degradation.
The CPC does restrict the speech of capitalists, yes. However, the reason the people support the CPC is because of dramatic improvements in living conditions, not fear of the state.
The data from the source I provided on perceptions of democracy is from 2024. The Ash Center Study proves that this isn't a recent thing, the CPC has broad support and successfully maintains it. Here are even more sources on the matter.
You have a hypothesis but no evidence that it actually matters.
Alright, you did convince me that the Chinese people report strong support to the CCP and report a strong perception of democracy.
What I am still not convinced of however, is that PRC IS democratic.
In my book, for a country to be democratic it needs to have:
Freedom of speech
Freedom of press
Freedom of reunion
Freedom of protest
Universal access to education
Political plurality
Universal suffrage
Universal respect of human right
My opinion today is that, I highly doubt PRC qualifies to any of this points, but I don't know for sure. If you convince me with credible evidence that PRC is better than, let's say, France, Germany or Norway, on all these points, then I am ready to move to China with you next year.
Edit: I forgot a few important point on my democratic list of requirements:
Laicity (division of state and religion and tolerance for all religions)
Division of power (Legislative, Justice, Executive, etc, must be help by different institution regulating each other)
First of all, you have a very liberal-minded understanding of democracy. A lot of these values are really only "valid" in as much as they apply to capitalists in the west. For example:
Freedom of Speech
Freedom of Press
Both of these only exist in the west as far as they can be abused by those with enough money to buy the media narrative. In China, speech of capitalists and misinformation is cracked down on, but the working class is largely left to speak what they want.
Freedom of reunion (I take to mean freedom of assembly) is partially valid. As China is a socialist country, and the class struggle is very much still alive, creating groups opposed to socialism is cracked down on more. However, there exist many specialty groups, in fact there are 8 political parties other than the CPC that work cooperatively with the CPC when it comes to governing.
Freedom of protest is fine. Protests and public backlash are what caused the CPC to back off on COVID restrictions, even though the CPC was correct. You can't really aim to overthrow socialism or anything, but protests for example are often supported by the CPC against capitalists.
Education is kept extremely cheap in China. Schools are extremely competitive as well, partially because of how many people there are competing for the top universities, but overall education is extremely affordable. It isn't free as far as I'm aware, but it isn't a block for the working class.
Regarding political plurality, there's a saying in China: "let a hundred flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend." I recommend this article on Roland Boer's trip to China.
As for universal respect of human rights, China does quite well, and unlike the countries you listed, it isn't imperialist. France, Germany, Norway, the west in general, all depend on vast looting and plundering of the global south. China doesn't, it runs on largely its own production, which is why countries in the global south are flocking to China for construction contracts and to join the Belt and Road Initiative.
Imperialist countries in the west use vast exports of capital to super-exploit international labor for super-profits, that's where western safety nets come from. Essentially, you can think of the west as capitalists in country form, exploiting those under their domination, while China is aligned with the global south and doesn't have that private domination of finance capital that enables imperialism in the first place.
I'm not moving to China anytime soon. I can't speak Mandarin, and I have friends and family where I live. I do organize with communists, though, and would love to bring about socialism in my country.
Edit for your edit:
Religion is protected.
As for "separation of powers," this circles back to you having a thoroughly liberal understanding of politics. Government should cooperate in a functional society, not work against itself. Capitalist countries rely on this instability of government in order to keep capital on top, but there's no actual reasoning for it. The churn, the competition, it's all by design to keep society turned against itself instead of cooperating.
Okay, but we are talking about a country where you aren't allowed to form a political party that opposes the CCP, right? How can we tell the difference between "hell yeah, my country is making my life great" and "there is exactly one answer to this survey question that will not get me in trouble"? I always try to keep in mind that I am not immune to propaganda, but I've personally known Chinese people who have very explicitly declined to offer any criticism of the Chinese government or go against the party line, even in private conversation, because they didn't want trouble.
Yes, capitalists are prevented from undermining socialism. If you read the studies, the reason the people of China support their system is because it supports them and represents their interests.
But it's also a ban on other socialist parties, not just capitalist ones, and it plays directly into the talking point that socialism is an authoritarian system that is imposed on people, not chosen on its merits. If the CCP really has enjoyed resounding, unwavering support from the proletariat for 75 years straight, why appear so weak by never allowing any competition whatsoever?
The PRC is officially organized under what the CCP terms a "system of multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the CCP," in which the minor parties must accept the leadership of the CCP.
The PRC isn't weak for not allowing capitalist and other liberal parties to compete, and socialist democracy has never cared too much about multi-party "democracy." The PRC values cohesion and cooperation, not needless competition. Any competing "socialist" party would, in all reality, be used by the west to undermine the long-term socialist project.
Further, they have 8 minor political parties that cooperate with the CPC.
They refuse to offer criticism to you, they will criticize the CCP constantly amongst themselves. They've sadly learned right or wrong that westerners are always trying to make China look bad. It's largely from western news like BBC. Just look up the phrase China, but at what cost. The most hilarious one I read was China is curing cancer fast, but at what cost.
Of course not? If they gave you that impression then you would pry. As I said, it's pretty universal at this point. No mind reading needed. The fact that you were trying to do exactly what they're trying to avoid is hilarious to me.
Ignoring the blatant ableism in your comment, the PRC has been a socialist country since the CPC successully won the Chinese Civil War. The working class is in power, and capitalists are kept in check by the state. I don't defend the PRC just to criticize the west, but because it's the world's most developed and largest socialist state.
Attacking me with ableism isn't a substitution for a point.
Repeating what you said doesn't make it more true. China is not a socialist Country. It's State Capitalism at best.
The workers have no right to vote. They do not rule the country.
Yes they can vote in local Elections between People that have to be aproved by the CPC... Thats no real choice, not to mention on a National Level they have no say at all.
And about that equality in the last graph, how about we ask the Uighurs about that? Or the tibetans?
And please do provide the source for the first picture, they are very hard to see.
Capitalists and those who would undermine socialism are prevented from political power, yes. As for the source, it's in the bottom left, here's another bunch of sources.
Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.” [12]
Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. [13] Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers as “a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.” [14] In fact it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property, and hunt down runaway serfs.
Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeatedremoved, beginning at age nine. [15] The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.
In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who composed the “middle-class” families of merchants, shopkeepers, and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. [16] The majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care. They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord’s land — or the monastery’s land — without pay, to repair the lord’s houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand. [17] Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their families should their owners lease them out to work in a distant location. [18]
As in a free labor system and unlike slavery, the overlords had no responsibility for the serf’s maintenance and no direct interest in his or her survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system, they were bound to their masters, guaranteeing a fixed and permanent workforce that could neither organize nor strike nor freely depart as might laborers in a market context. The overlords had the best of both worlds.
One 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf, reports: “Pretty serf girls were usually taken by the owner as house servants and used as he wished”; they “were just slaves without rights.” [19] Serfs needed permission to go anywhere. Landowners had legal authority to capture those who tried to flee. One 24-year old runaway welcomed the Chinese intervention as a “liberation.” He testified that under serfdom he was subjected to incessant toil, hunger, and cold. After his third failed escape, he was merciless beaten by the landlord’s men until blood poured from his nose and mouth. They then poured alcohol and caustic soda on his wounds to increase the pain, he claimed. [20]
The serfs were taxed upon getting married, taxed for the birth of each child and for every death in the family. They were taxed for planting a tree in their yard and for keeping animals. They were taxed for religious festivals and for public dancing and drumming, for being sent to prison and upon being released. Those who could not find work were taxed for being unemployed, and if they traveled to another village in search of work, they paid a passage tax. When people could not pay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 to 50 percent interest. Some debts were handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors who could not meet their obligations risked being cast into slavery. [21]
The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.
Selection two, shorter: (CW sexual violence and mutilation)
The Tibetan serfs were something more than superstitious victims, blind to their own oppression. As we have seen, some ran away; others openly resisted, sometimes suffering dire consequences. In feudal Tibet, torture and mutilation — including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation — were favored punishments inflicted upon thieves, and runaway or resistant serfs. [22]
Journeying through Tibet in the 1960s, Stuart and Roma Gelder interviewed a former serf, Tsereh Wang Tuei, who had stolen two sheep belonging to a monastery. For this he had both his eyes gouged out and his hand mutilated beyond use. He explains that he no longer is a Buddhist: “When a holy lama told them to blind me I thought there was no good in religion.” [23] Since it was against Buddhist teachings to take human life, some offenders were severely lashed and then “left to God” in the freezing night to die. “The parallels between Tibet and medieval Europe are striking,” concludes Tom Grunfeld in his book on Tibet. [24]
In 1959, Anna Louise Strong visited an exhibition of torture equipment that had been used by the Tibetan overlords. There were handcuffs of all sizes, including small ones for children, and instruments for cutting off noses and ears, gouging out eyes, breaking off hands, and hamstringing legs. There were hot brands, whips, and special implements for disemboweling. The exhibition presented photographs and testimonies of victims who had been blinded or crippled or suffered amputations for thievery. There was the shepherd whose master owed him a reimbursement in yuan and wheat but refused to pay. So he took one of the master’s cows; for this he had his hands severed. Another herdsman, who opposed having his wife taken from him by his lord, had his hands broken off. There were pictures of Communist activists with noses and upper lips cut off, and a woman who wasremovedd and then had her nose sliced away. [25]
Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was under the “intolerable tyranny of monks” and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people. In 1904 Perceval Landon described the Dalai Lama’s rule as “an engine of oppression.” At about that time, another English traveler, Captain W. F. T. O’Connor, observed that “the great landowners and the priests… exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal,” while the people are “oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft.” Tibetan rulers “invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of superstition” among the common people. In 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, “The Lamaist monk does not spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them. […] The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth.” [26] As much as we might wish otherwise, feudal theocratic Tibet was a far cry from the romanticized Shangri-La so enthusiastically nurtured by Buddhism’s western proselytes.
Turn off right-wing media and actually pay attention to what China's actually like.
You have committed the grave error of credibility by getting the most obvious and trivially checked facts of something (a name) wrong.
I think you'll find the "reeducation camp" is called a "school" in common English. If you want to go for the melodramatic name, however, no skin off my nose.
I love the liberal fanfic that he's completely subservient to the bad foreigners, but won't do the things that would benefit them the most because... uhh... he's hiding his power level or something? 5D Chess? I dunno
And what do you think is happening when he is saying he won't honor article 5 of NATO treaty?
Why is he pushing India (one of biggest proponents of BRICS that didn't want to get rid of dollar) toward Russia by imposing tariffs so high that are essentially an embargo?
Idk what sort of DuPont/Monsanto/Pfizer cocktail y'all got in your drinking water but I stg I listen to any voting gringo talk politics and y'all start frothing at the mouth with the most unhinged theories. Tinfoil sellers gotta be making a killing over there.
Nah dude, nobody talked about an in-between. China bad, and America going bad too. In his image op implies people think that because China bad, america cannot be lol. That's stupid
Yall would be demonizing the Algerians or Vietnamese people fighting for their independence from France's ruthless colonial rule as "authoritarian", and "both sides bad".
I was gonna reply stuff but I don't see how I could gain anything from it ? I was initially saying op's take implied something stupid (note that I'm not saying your scapegoats don't exist; but if they do they're probably a minority), and that yours created a kind of "moderate" persona who's always in between political views to mock that other user's comment about not everything being all black or white. Which I replied to by affirming China already black and america going darker.
And now you're bringing more unrelated shit into athe situation lol. Isolating both china and america they both look like shit, albeit one more than the other. Idk who the fuck is in your "y'all" but it doesn't really matter to me and I don't feel targeted. I don't know enough about the stuff you tried to push on me to properly debate anyways, so I'm just gonna go sleep and enjoy my night lol.
All states are authoritarian, in that they are instruments by which one class oppresses the others. What this doesn't say anything about alone, though, is which class is in power. In the US Empire, the capitalists are in power, and use the authority of the state to crush workers when workers rise up. In the PRC, the working class is in power, and the state keeps capitalists in check and appropriates their capital gradually.
The only way out of authoritarian control by any class is to get rid of classes entirely, which requires full collectivization of production. China is actively building towards that, the US Empire is opposing it. Until we get to a classless society, it's better for the working class to be in charge.
In other words, class struggle will continue to exist even after the proletariat takes control. All of the tensions from class struggle continue to exist, only they are resolved in favor of the working class. This is what "authoritarianism" looks like, class conflict expressed in state response.
Yes. Democracy isn't about choosing between parties, but having substantive input on direction that results in the will of the people being carried out. This is true of China, policy is typically driven from the bottom-up, a process called "whole process people's democracy." This is expressed, as an example, through Five Year Plans that are the result of mass polling and suggestions among the populace. The CPC has over 100 million members in a country of 1.4 billion.
The state isn't a class in and of itself, it can only serve as representative of a class. In the PRC, that class is the working class. The communists beat the nationalists in the Chinese Civil War, and from that point on the working class has been in control.
I think some of the Reddit refuges honestly think Reddit sucks because Spez Man Bad. There's no analysis of what creates Reddits and Spezes, and therefore they don't recognize who made this platform and why.
I have to believe ultimately some of these people will come around, so that's good at least.
That's one of the things I like about blahaj, same as Hexbear. It would be cool if blahaj and Hexbear would refederate, but I understand why that's unlikely.
Yep, used to be very frequent. They're easy to spot because they're either no content accounts, or old accounts, with maybe 1 comment per month. We permaban them as they add nothing of value.
I'm kind of new to lemmy in general and judging by the other comments I want to ask: is lemmy.ml full of ultras? Or is that what you're talking about in saying they didn't send their best?
If it is full of ultras, do you know of an instance(?) that either critically supports AES countries or at least has more of a mixed set of users? I don't mind debate, but on every single comment it would get tiring.
Lemmy.ml is largely Marxist-Leninist, ultras are few on the fediverse. If you want an instance that is explicitly ML, then there's Lemmygrad.ml. Hexbear.net is left-unity but doesn't allow sectarianism, and is generally ML/anarchist, not generally ultra.
I have an account on lemmygrad as well so that's good news to me. I'm now thinking that it's more of an issue of me not fully grasping how the instances are organised having come from reddit.
Totally both are garbage. But from anti-colonial and anti-authoritarian perspective, US has always been garbage. Trump only removed the pretensions. I mean, Joe Biden affirmed that US will invade Holland if any Americans are arrested by the International Court there. So much for a country that purports rules based international order, if the most supreme power the world has ever seen confirmed that such rules and order don't apply to them.
There are a lot of communists on Lemmy, and communists tend to support socialist countries. Simple as that. Plus, in the current era where the US Empire is dying, China is presenting itself as a better trade partner for the global south, one focused more on multilateralism and not on imperialism.
What does a totalitarian state even mean? Based on liberals, left communists, and anarchists, it's every socialist experiment that had lasted a great amount of time and accomplished better living standards for their citizens. 😂
I have no reason to believe people are being disappeared, no, but I do have reason to believe that the US and its junior partners will continue claiming that they are. It’s big business.
It's so weird to me that there are people, like you, who completely ignore established facts just because these facts reflect negatively on some group that you like.
It's like you're completely incapable of understanding that nothing is 100% perfect, and that good people can sometimes do bad things and that (applies here) bad people sometimes do good.
The Chinese government has implemented a shit tonne of repressive rules, it's committing genocide, but to you that must be a lie because they did something that you like.
At some point, you gotta dance with who brung ya. If, after over a century of experimentation, you conclude that every single AES state is as evil as the CIA tells us, there's not much socialism to support.
You also really need to jam your eyes shut and ignore the enormous improvements in quality of life, even in the face of adverse economic headwinds, in the surviving socialist block. "Ah, but I'm not free to shitpost on the Internet the same way!" is such sad metric for a country's success
You mean freedom of speech.... That's what you're saying is not an important value? The freedom to speak truth to power without the goon squad kicking down your door? Clearly that is being eroded in the US right now, but China certainly doesn't have it.
The freedom to speak truth to power without the goon squad kicking down your door?
Has never existed in a practical sense within the United States. Not under Bush. Not under Eisenhower. Not under Woodrow Wilson. Not under James Buchanan. Not under John Adams.
Americans have a long and storied history of arresting outspoken dissidents, assaulting them, and disappearing anyone who persisted.
Clearly that is being eroded in the US right now
We have more political prisoners in jail today than China has had since the end of the colonial era.
It doesn't exist, how is that hard to admit for you? Freedom of speech is intended to protect exactly the kind of speech you disagree with, otherwise it's not a thing. "Largely free" = NOT FREE
Then nowhere has freedom of speech. True freedom of speech only exists for the ruling class of society, and the speech of those other classes oppressed by them that agree with the ruling class. In the US Empire, freedom of speech only truly exists for capitalists. In the PRC, it's the opposite, it only exists for the working class, and those who do not oppose the working class.
The large firms and key industries are overwhelmingly publicly owned, and the working class is in charge of the state. It's been socialist since the CPC beat the Kuomintang. The presence of private property in a system doesn't mean the system is capitalist, this was already understood in Marx's time.
If the US acted more like China y'all could actually be the best country in the world like your delusional population believes.
Rising standards of living, life expectancy, housing for everyone, affordable healthcare and fresh produce. What horrors, they don't even poison themselves with hormone burgers bro.
What on earth do you mean by "totalitarian?" China's a democratic country, if the US was acting more like China we'd actually have good infrastructure, manufacturing, democracy, and a coherent plan for the future. Sadly, the US isn't a socialist country.
Democracy doesn't mean "the ability to vote between parties," it means the ability for the people to dictate policy. Socialist democracy cares far more about the latter than the former, while capitalists sell the lie that the former is what democracy even means to begin with.
Imagine shilling for the modern American and European states like they’re anything anything like the ideals of socialism. Lmao. Ah yes, a neo-liberal oligarchic state ala America and a mass-surveilled and thought-crime regulating state ala the EU, what a worker’s paradise.
Here’s a question for your NATO handlers, if your ideas are so good, why do you feel the need to limit your citizen’s access to affordable healthcare? Why did they feel the need to treat the working class in such a way?
Because they have the same mentality as the uber religious, they think their beliefs are the one truth, but yet they’re terrified they can’t stand up to new information.
Don’t get me wrong, China might have its small issues, but at least they prioritize collective welfare over individual greed.
You've definitely absorbed some propaganda. It's anyone's guess whether it came from Russia or China though. There is literally no reason to have a problem with NATO.
NATO is a millitary alliance of the world's imperialist powers. Just like the cops are the thugs protecting capital, NATO are the fascists protecting imperialism. NATO destroyed Libya and Yugoslavia, and has launched terrorist attacks.
Small issues . Lmao ok. Tell me what the the villages are like in rural China. Have the collective welfare trickled down to them yet?
And open access to information via the internet and open speech are one of the main pillars of a successful society, and neither states have that. Who cares if you’re my comrade of I can’t speak against you if need be or have the ability to refute your information with research.
China has one of the fastest growing numbers of millionaires in the world yet its farmers and factory workers are still poor as shit, how’s that collectivism? It’s just state capitalism
Kensington Philadelphia is so drug infested people walk around like zombies. Does China have poor areas like that? Actually no, even the poorest villages aren't that bad.
The gap between rural and urban development has long been acknowledged and is already something worked on. The famous poverty eraducation campaign was focused on just that. Read The Metamorphosis of Yuangudui to see what that looks like in practice.
Secondly, the speech of capitalists and western media is restricted, but citizens speak to each other freely. The purpose of the control on western and capitalist propaganda is to develop independence and not let the west set the narrative.
Lastly, purchasing Power in 2022 was 25 times higher than 1978. This process is continuous. Further, the large firms and key industries are publicly owned, it's a socialist country. You need to turn off Fox News and actually look at what's happening in China right now.
Depends, are they capitalists trying to undermine the system, or are they genuinely in support of socialism? If the former, no, if the latter, probably, though again if your other comments are anything to go by you just want liberalism to take over China.
Yeah every one I’ve come across in the last few days have sounded like children. Or maybe they didn’t train hard enough on their language skills at troll camp
Never claimed to be any kind of China expert but it's absurd to claim "much more open discourse" if you've spent any appreciable amount of time in the countries being discussed. You can literally just walk + talk in public and see the difference.
Like all these asserted freedoms it just magically happens better and free'er but you definitely can't verify it because "media". The open political discourse I see and hear in major EU/US cities pales in comparison to the uh... hidden... open discourse in T1/T2 Chinese cities? Definitely heard some first/second hand political discourse but it was never, ever, ever a public forum.
By all means, give me evidence to the contrary. Maybe I just keep catching China with a bad case of the Mondays. Have you been? Can you point to any discourse on domestic politics? Where is the asserted diversity of opinion on hotbed issues? Can you show me any strong opposition to the party line on a public stage?
I have! Have you been on it in China? Have you contrasted the foreign feed to a citizen's? Have you seen the coordinated response to genuine spreading political discontent vs mundane petty scandals? Because it kinda sounds like you haven't if you think that's a killer response.
I have! And I have my Chinese friends feed too. Inside and outside of china. There's definitely differences, but that's how algorithms work
Have you seen the coordinated response to genuine spreading political disconten
Yes i have seen it. They solve things pretty fast e.g. COVID lockdowns when minor protests broke out, petit bourgeois real estate protests, etc. doesn't look like you pay attention to things like that
So do Chinese citizens, though. The state exerts control over private media and the speech of wealthy capitalists, but there's broad diversity in political thought and discussion.
We have a few Chinese folks in the revolupedia discord so they definitely exist. We're pretty aggressively against modern China.
From what I've seen on Chinese social media, you have two kinda minds. The folks who want a return to maoism, and the folks that are more liberal minded. That's extremely reductive but that seems to be a sentiment repeated frequently by Chinese people so it's likely got some truth to it.
I don't uphold China, but I do think ~95% of what people have said in defense of China on this post is true. There's lot of propaganda that paints China as monstrously worse than it is.
Chinese too, and openly in the US currently not so much.
People in China are heavy controlled by the Gov, but they have more civil rights and services as citizen in the US
Complete list of banned books in the US. (Autoscroll enabled, due to the hugh amount of those, stop/start with mouseclick)
Lmao what? Do you know what "banning" a book means? It's just not on offer in schools or a library for that specific state. It's completely normal to just buy it for yourself and there are even organizations dedicated to distributing banned books.
It's hilarious to try and dunk on America with this of all things. Media restricted/censored in China is entirely unavailable. It's actually very interesting how the censorship manifests in daily life, but I imagine any .ml reader will discard those anecdotes (or any verifiable reports) and try to redirect back to the West somehow.
Crazy how you can literally just look this stuff up and find out what's true instead of discarding arguments.
Independent trade unions are illegal in China. The single, state sanctioned trade union is widely criticized by international trade union orgs for not faithfully representing its workers. By most accounts it exists to funnel labor disputes through a bureaucratic meat grinder of mediation to maintain the status quo. With the exception of a handful of actions for international leverage, all strikes are wildcat.
If you're actually interested in labor relations in China I'd recommend this article for starters. It's older but the situation hasn't improved under recent leadership.
Fun fact: It's actually possible for two countries to both be authoritarian!
We Need To Talk About "Authoritarianism"
People really need to stop getting their views from the internet.
Citations are in the description, if your so opposed to the format their presented in
The US killed a million innocent people in Iraq just a few years ago, and is *currently * drone bombing several countries in ME and north africa, and is currently supporting the apartheid state of israel with billions of dollars in military aid.
The PRC has not been in a war since its skirmish with Vietnam in 1979.
The US has a network of > 800 military bases across the globe, and has been involved in regime change in nearly every country.
Which one is authoritarian?
"They can both be authoritarian"
"WELL USA INVADED IRAQ"
Lmao
You can't either it seems since I'm not American. What's with assuming everyone online is American lol
What a ridiculous assumption, most of the world can speak English you know. Shame on this America centrism and people who perpetuate it. Shame especially on you since you accused me over your baseless assumption. Shame, shame
scale matters my guy. One is not committing war crimes at least.
Well duh, it's just a funny reply to the statement that they're both authoritarian
Which one is currently genociding Uhygurs? Which one illegally annexed Tibet and Hong Kong? Both countries are authoritarian shit-holes.
what
Like I can get not agreeing with it but illegally annexed how do you expect to be taken even a little seriously
While the transfer of power itself was fine and legal, didn't they break the basic law they put in by violating people's rights and freedoms? I do agree that it's worded badly though
Only one country is genociding muslins.
"illegally annexed" Hong Kong LMAO
tibet was never invaded, theocrats lost their slaves and libs are somehow mad about it
Nope, only one of them is a shithole.
I’m pretty sure virtually all of the Tibetan people are happy to no longer be suffering under theocratic feudalism. Happy to no longer be illiterate serfs and slaves, suffering depredation under a god-king. I doubt many of them are sad that CIA asset Dalai “suck my tongue” Lama is in exile. [1] [2]
Entirely legal. In fact it would have been illegal for the UK not to hand it over.
The UK’s 99 year lease to subjugate Hong Kong ended. A lease which had been forced upon Imperial China at gunpoint during the century of humiliation. Hong Kong reintegration after the lease expired was a foregone conclusion. The last minute, US-backed attempt at color revolution failed.
Neither, but one of them trained, funded, and organized terrorists in the region, and then made up a genocide narrative, and then imposed illegal sanctions on it using the fabricated genocide narrative as a pretext. Previously.
Idk if it's just me, but it's insane to bring up Uhygur genocide, which has not been in the news or mentioned at all for years, while we watch US funded Israel blowing up starving children on a daily basis.
There is evidence that China was oppressive to Ughyurs, but currently enacting an active genocide is a stretch.
If you want an overview of someone cutting through the bullshit: https://youtu.be/cz9ICFDk8Js
TLDW:
Anyways, from what I've heard, China's dialed this shit back when they were first put on the spotlight. For whatever oppression China may have taken part of, it is not even a tenth of what the oppression the United States and other Western nations have been dishing out for the past few centuries.
US genocided Natives to be born, and historically oppressed its own population (slavery, internment camps, etc) and has continually oppressed others (overthrowing democracies, genocide, crimes against humanity, etc)
UK, Germany, France and other Western nations also love aiding genociders while also oppressing anti-genociders.
France also has an obsession with trying to force Muslim women to undress in public, dictate how they dress. Lmao
Uighurs
Tibet
Supporting Russia in Ukraine
Ya and that's why they don't let tourists into Tibet without a guide.
Next you're going to tell me Putin isn't the aggressor.
Both...
Look up the definition of authoritarianism. Bombing other countries is not the defining feature of an authoritarian government.
You might be interested in a book by Lenin titled: "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism".
That's cool and all but still irrelevant to the original point. You can be authoritarian to your own citizens domestically without invading other nations.
The US is both imperialist and authoritarian.
Terms like Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism were defined or entrenched by a lot of western supremacist authors, who needed to twist terminology in such a way that excluded the US (capitalism's worldwide enforcer and the cause of so much death and destruction) from any wrongdoing, while demonizing the colonial world who fought back against the US for their own sovereignty as "authoritarian".
I highly suggest reading Losurdo's - Western Marxism, for an in-depth analysis of some of these white supremacist authors, and how they demonize the anti-colonial struggle.
I feel like this is shifting the focus to imperialism, where the US is overwhelmingly and undeniably worse.
However, domestically, if you wanna pretend that someone as a random citizen, has any chance of receiving political representation in China, well you enjoy your fantasy.
The US and China are both deeply undemocratic places. I'm saying this as someone from neither country.
Anyone who's actually been to China would know this. It is authoritarian. It's not even something viewed as bad by most people in China. It's just the way things are there.
There is pretty strong support for the government there, albeit that could be argued as product of censorship, repression and also genuine support. Many see the CCP as having done a lot of good things which they are grateful for, which in addition to the bad things, in fairness, they have done.
I'm getting kinda tired of some leftists knee jerking "China Good", just as much as I'm getting kinda tired of the "China Bad" crowd, when the truth is neither wholly good nor wholly bad.
We can be leftists and not have a hard-on for any country claiming to be socialist, you know
We don't need anti-American propaganda, we already hate America, my guy
You mean temporarily until Trump is gone so they can bomb brown people democratically
I don't know you, you could've been a US dem or som EU 'social democrat' or whatever calls themselves lefties.
I formulated the general sentiment of that group, overly represented on .world and crying about Trump's america.
I'm not antagonistic to lefties, only the pseudo-lefties.
If you're not one of then don't feel targeted.
You would be part of a small minority here tho.
its the truth tho.
"Authoritarian" is largely a meaningless term. All it really means is one group using force against another group, but it doesn't say anything about which group is which. In the US Empire, the capitalists use the state to crush the workers, and export genocide and chaos to the global south. In the PRC, the working class uses the state to keep the capitalists in check as they progress and develop along socialist lines. This stark difference in which class is in power is shown with immense popular support in the PRC:
The state used the police to crush the working class when they demanded the money from the banks that invested it in a runaway housing scam.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/11/china-violent-clashes-at-protest-over-frozen-rural-bank-accounts
You are believing in a fantasy. There are countless countries around the world that are arguably more socialist than China without even calling themselves such. Quite frankly, I trust actions and numbers more than words.
Using a western, anti-communist news source for a report on how China is supposedly crushing the working class? Color me shocked! You have no points.
What would be a source you deem valid in this case. The only thing I can say is that multiple news sources published about this topic.
And what do you have to say about the problem of half-assed building projects that keep killing people in china because they used the wrong type of sand for concrete for example?
What's important is the framing, and what is left in vs what is left out. Those that were harmed by the government popping the real estate bubble were those who had the extra money to invest in real estate, which is the primary vehicle for balooning your wealth in China. The user I replied to specifically stated working class, which in reality should be more like the petty bourgeois.
Secondly, the scale of violence inplied by the user is the idea that the state sent in jackbooted thugs to crush the protest, but reading the article it seems as though it was only a handful of people that got into a skirmish with plainclothes police officers. That doesn't excuse anything, of course, but now we know "CPC crushes working class protestors with police" is at best an exaggeration of "crushes" and the "working class" part is an embellishment.
Finally, the article says the government worked to address the complaints! This wasn't a protest against the government, but a protest for government intervention. This wasn't because the CPC did something bad, but was a request for the CPC to step into the banking system failing and help people harmed by that.
So, again, we have what appears to be light police skirmishes with upper-middle class people harmed by a banking failure that requested CPC intervention, which they did. What they framed it as was poor, working class protestors harmed by CPC action being met by overwhelming jackbooted thugs in order to squash dissent against the CPC. See how that's dishonest? And that's taking the Guardian at face value, just reading between the lines.
Do you have more information on what the specific banking error was, because most sources I was able to find are focused on the violent intervention and less about what exactly happened in the banks.
If not, the incident doesn’t make china as bad or worse than the us but it does make the perfect image of the chinese government seem a bit more questionable.
Also, what do you think about the issue of things like tofu dreg construction? Why do you think that happens or did it even happen as shown on multiple videos from chine?
I don't personally know more about this single event, but the broader housing bubble has been widely reported on. If you want a Chinese perspective, I recommend searching CGTN.
As for the CPC, it is by no means perfect. As a socialist country, the PRC does a much better job of meeting the needs of the people. Even the linked article was a protest for government action, not against it. The CPC makes mistakes, but the system itself is better, so it's likely shortcomings are resolved over time.
As for "tofu-dregs," they aren't all that common. It has happened, it was a term coined by Zhu Rongji, premier of the CPC at the time. Using insufficient rebar, poor quality concrete, etc has happened because of rapid development and the ability for individuals to cut corners for higher profits or to meet deadlines. However, this is more of a problem of the past, and not a widescale problem, despite how western countries would report on it.
Really, identifying bias within an article and engaging with it critically is good practice in general.
Can you please provide a source for the graphic?
It's in the bottom left, here's another bunch of sources.
So you consider a state censoring all it's citizens from discussing certain words and topics to not be authoritarian?
I stated that all states are "authoritarian," all are methods by which one class exerts authority over another. The only way out of "authoritarianism" is to fully collectivize production, eliminating class distinctions. Until then, it's better for capitalists to be under the thumb of the workers, rather than the inverse. Like I said, it's a largely meaningless term.
Meta argument: charts like this are basically useless.
I was raised in a very religious town. If you asked, the people in that town would say “my religion is a religion of love” “people should be as free as possible because it’s an extension of personal agency” and all the while they beat their kids and would rather die than let gay or trans people be themselves.
They can quote the scriptures and could likely write some pretty strong rhetoric implying they are loving and kind and caring, but it wouldn’t be anywhere near the truth.
Point is that just because you get phrases pounded into your head doesn’t mean you truly believe them or even know what they imply.
If your country’s rhetoric specifically states that the government serves the people and says it over and over, regardless of the truth of that statement, people will have a tendency to select it. (Like if your government called itself the people’s republic…)
If you asked Americans and Chinese if they think personal freedom is important, you’d likely get the reverse pattern in your graph. Is this because America has more freedom? No, more likely it’s because the historical rhetoric we get exposed to emphasizes “freedom” whereas China’s revolutionary rhetoric was centered around “democracy”
If you asked Americans if they support socialism, you’d get lower bars than if you asked it indirectly. Just using the word socialism skews your metric.
People will say they support or don’t support concepts they don’t understand, or that they view in a different light than others. Does democracy mean more than two political parties? Does democracy mean no capitalism? Does democracy require freedom to spread information freely? Etc.
So once again these metrics are useless because I’d imagine most of these countries’ voters would disagree on what the statements even mean.
You'd have more of a point if the fact that the people of China support their system wasn't regularly proven in various metrics, not just a single poll.
Why would that have any effect on the point of my argument?
My point is about the ineffectiveness and unscientific nature of this kind of questionnaire.
Doesn’t matter what topics or debates these are used in or who is right in those debates; the point is that these kind of charts are useless regardless of their content.
Sidenote: if you had “various metrics” why’d you post the least scientific one? Like bro, brain-dead “libertarians” could probably pull out some statistic or study that is more sound than this chart to support their idiotic bullshit. If a fellow anarchist tried to use a metric like this I’d call them out too even if I agreed with their point
The questionaire is valid, though. It highlights differences in the system, in an easy to understand graph. If you want, here's another bunch of sources.
The only thing the questionnaire does, assuming it is built well, is show that when asked those questions people in different countries answered differently.
Did the Chinese populations sampled by the study respond more positively to those four questions more than the samples of other nations? Yes.
Can you assert that this is proof that china is more democratic and less authoritarian than those countries? NO.
At best, this study shows that public opinion of the government in china is higher than that of the other countries. Which definitely doesn’t mean all that much at all, for example I could ask half my family members and they’d say that things are better now under trump than they’ve ever been before. Is that the case? Absolutely not. Does that change their minds? No.
Now, the original article you linked seems much more soft science but the article it first mentions actually has more concrete data but still that data is on public opinion.
Unfortunately the democracy index site appears to be missing and “for sale”
If you could find me the actual questionnaire in mandarin so we could read it as it was presented and compare with the English version we could rule out some of the bias I presented earlier, but not all.
Lastly, kairos buddy, your argument was that a country (which many of the people you’re trying to persuade think is George Orwell big brother level controlling) isn’t authoritarian. Using polled data, especially that which was “implemented by a reputable domestic Chinese polling firm” is not going to hold much evidentiary worth to your target audience.
I’m not Anti-China, in fact I was and possibly still am thinking about taking a semester or internship out there; I only wanted to point out that you aren’t actually backing your argument up with any solid evidence especially with regards to your target audience.
I really am curious about the test though, especially since the democracy index paper is on a dead site, so if you could find it in Mandarin I’d be interested. If you could find a source on what “reputable polling firm” Harvard used I’d be interested in that too since the report didn’t actually mention the name..?
Oh and one last thing is that the article mentions “Furthermore, China outperforms the US and most European countries on these indicators – in fact, it has some of the strongest results in the world.” Fun statistical fact: outliers are a sign your sampling methodology is flawed, especially when the outliers are a set of samples and not just a singular data point.
From just the “my government serves the people” bars alone, it would appear the Chinese dataset is well beyond 1.5 standard deviations if the other three are so much lower and show such low variation. If this was a single data point, one would throw it out, but considering it is supposedly a longitudinal collection of samples it implies that there is a very strong influencing factor that is only largely affecting the Chinese survey takers.
If the pattern holds for many other metrics, then it implies this singular factor (or other factors) have significantly biased the Chinese samples. This doesn’t necessarily mean that factor is government intervention or bias from being raised in rhetoric from an authoritarian state, but it is statistically unlikely that this factor is simply due to china just somehow having a better democracy than every single country on earth (including all of its allies and enemies alike) by a statistically gigantic margin.
"This jet's speed is an outlier in this set of planes. Outliers mean the methodology must be invalid, so jets can't be faster than planes."
This is nonsense. China and the euros have fundamentally different political systems, there is no reason to suppose they should have similar outcomes. The whole point of the discussion is that China's system is superior, if you say that any data that supports that is an outlier, and therefore must be invalid you're just presupposing your conclusion.
On your other point about the usefulness of this data: while it is true that there can be many different explanations for the observed results, that just means that we need more evidence to show which system is more democratic, not that this evidence is useless. Saying that people's opinion of their own system is irrelevant is extremely chauvinistic. In the case of China, we can see the massive increase in quality of life of it's citizens, as well as a systematic overview of it's political structures like here. I've also heard the book Socialism with Chinese Characteristics: A Guide for Foreigners is good, but I haven't read it yet myself.
Furthermore, your point about manipulation of public opinion goes the other way, too. Where did the idea that China is authoritarian come from? People going to China and studying what life is like there, or media manipulation? Who do you think is more likely to be manipulated like that, the people living there who actually experience the political structures of China, or rando westerners whos only source of information is capitalist media? A simple poll like this is more than enough to debunk the people who think China is authoritarian based on nothing but vibes from capitalist media.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/
KimBongUn already provided other sources, I'm not going to go through the trouble of finding a poll in mandarin when I can't speak it. Popular support for the PRC is well-documented, as well as the ability for the people to direct policy in a far more material way than in liberal countries.
China has democracy comparable to other socialist states. The difference is socialism vs capitalism, it's as simple as that.
I'm a big defender of China when the "China Bad" crowd comes out, but this graph is meaningless beyond what people's perceptions are.
Real trade unions are banned. All must be part of the party, workers rights are routinely not enforced, and given the lattitude the government has to act, there isn't really much of an excuse.
The CCP enjoy massive support, though, this is undeniable. The reasons for this support is debatable and vary from person to person.
I for one, very much enjoy when the Chinese government does things in line with my socialist ideals. But let's not pretend like they're actually keeping the capitalists in check. There are many, many billionaires in China, something that ought not be possible under an actual socialist country.
It doesn't take a genius to look at their system of voting to quickly conclude that you don't really have a say, the People's Congress functions as a rubber stamp for what the inner party has already decided.
Again, my opinions aside, people in China generally are supportive of the government at this present time.
The graph shows that people generally feel they have more democratic input in China than peoole do in the US, France, and Britain. That's a valuable metric.
Secondly, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions is a real union, it fights for worker's rights against the capitalists that still exist in the primary stage of socialism they are in. Yes, it is affiliated with the CPC, and that's a good thing. If unions were allowed to be independent, then they would be directly supported by western governments against the socialist system. China exists in a world where capitalism is dominant and constantly undermining socialism.
Third, capitalists are kept in check. They exist, including billionaires, because China is in the primary stage of socialism. The point of socialism isn't to make everything equal, in the context of the overall economy China is still dramatically improving the rights and well-being of its working class as its core focus. As China develops, private property is sublimated into public property, if the capitalists had control then this wouldn't really be possible at scale.
Overall, I think you should research more on why China does things you may not agree with on the surface. Usually it's either for an understandable reason, or is something that is bad, but is improving (like LGBTQIA+ rights).
Better answer the survey correctly when you live in a country that has laws like "disagreeing with the government is a crime"
Understanding CPC Resiliance
The CPC does restrict the speech of capitalists, yes. However, the reason the people support the CPC is because of dramatic improvements in living conditions, not fear of the state.
The data from this article is up to 2016. Things have changed quite a bit since the COVID crisis.
The data from the source I provided on perceptions of democracy is from 2024. The Ash Center Study proves that this isn't a recent thing, the CPC has broad support and successfully maintains it. Here are even more sources on the matter.
You have a hypothesis but no evidence that it actually matters.
Alright, you did convince me that the Chinese people report strong support to the CCP and report a strong perception of democracy. What I am still not convinced of however, is that PRC IS democratic.
In my book, for a country to be democratic it needs to have:
My opinion today is that, I highly doubt PRC qualifies to any of this points, but I don't know for sure. If you convince me with credible evidence that PRC is better than, let's say, France, Germany or Norway, on all these points, then I am ready to move to China with you next year.
Edit: I forgot a few important point on my democratic list of requirements:
First of all, you have a very liberal-minded understanding of democracy. A lot of these values are really only "valid" in as much as they apply to capitalists in the west. For example:
Both of these only exist in the west as far as they can be abused by those with enough money to buy the media narrative. In China, speech of capitalists and misinformation is cracked down on, but the working class is largely left to speak what they want.
Freedom of reunion (I take to mean freedom of assembly) is partially valid. As China is a socialist country, and the class struggle is very much still alive, creating groups opposed to socialism is cracked down on more. However, there exist many specialty groups, in fact there are 8 political parties other than the CPC that work cooperatively with the CPC when it comes to governing.
Freedom of protest is fine. Protests and public backlash are what caused the CPC to back off on COVID restrictions, even though the CPC was correct. You can't really aim to overthrow socialism or anything, but protests for example are often supported by the CPC against capitalists.
Education is kept extremely cheap in China. Schools are extremely competitive as well, partially because of how many people there are competing for the top universities, but overall education is extremely affordable. It isn't free as far as I'm aware, but it isn't a block for the working class.
Regarding political plurality, there's a saying in China: "let a hundred flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend." I recommend this article on Roland Boer's trip to China.
As for universal suffrage:
>All citizens of the People’s Republic of China who have reached the age of 18 have the right to vote and stand for election, regardless of ethnic background, race, sex, occupation, family background, religious belief, education level, property status or length of residence. People who have been deprived of their political rights according to law do not have the right to vote and stand for election. One voter has only one vote in each election.
As for universal respect of human rights, China does quite well, and unlike the countries you listed, it isn't imperialist. France, Germany, Norway, the west in general, all depend on vast looting and plundering of the global south. China doesn't, it runs on largely its own production, which is why countries in the global south are flocking to China for construction contracts and to join the Belt and Road Initiative.
Imperialist countries in the west use vast exports of capital to super-exploit international labor for super-profits, that's where western safety nets come from. Essentially, you can think of the west as capitalists in country form, exploiting those under their domination, while China is aligned with the global south and doesn't have that private domination of finance capital that enables imperialism in the first place.
I'm not moving to China anytime soon. I can't speak Mandarin, and I have friends and family where I live. I do organize with communists, though, and would love to bring about socialism in my country.
Edit for your edit:
Religion is protected.
As for "separation of powers," this circles back to you having a thoroughly liberal understanding of politics. Government should cooperate in a functional society, not work against itself. Capitalist countries rely on this instability of government in order to keep capital on top, but there's no actual reasoning for it. The churn, the competition, it's all by design to keep society turned against itself instead of cooperating.
Okay, but we are talking about a country where you aren't allowed to form a political party that opposes the CCP, right? How can we tell the difference between "hell yeah, my country is making my life great" and "there is exactly one answer to this survey question that will not get me in trouble"? I always try to keep in mind that I am not immune to propaganda, but I've personally known Chinese people who have very explicitly declined to offer any criticism of the Chinese government or go against the party line, even in private conversation, because they didn't want trouble.
Yes, capitalists are prevented from undermining socialism. If you read the studies, the reason the people of China support their system is because it supports them and represents their interests.
But it's also a ban on other socialist parties, not just capitalist ones, and it plays directly into the talking point that socialism is an authoritarian system that is imposed on people, not chosen on its merits. If the CCP really has enjoyed resounding, unwavering support from the proletariat for 75 years straight, why appear so weak by never allowing any competition whatsoever?
There are 8 other minor parties in China.
Oh, c'mon.
The PRC isn't weak for not allowing capitalist and other liberal parties to compete, and socialist democracy has never cared too much about multi-party "democracy." The PRC values cohesion and cooperation, not needless competition. Any competing "socialist" party would, in all reality, be used by the west to undermine the long-term socialist project.
Further, they have 8 minor political parties that cooperate with the CPC.
They refuse to offer criticism to you, they will criticize the CCP constantly amongst themselves. They've sadly learned right or wrong that westerners are always trying to make China look bad. It's largely from western news like BBC. Just look up the phrase China, but at what cost. The most hilarious one I read was China is curing cancer fast, but at what cost.
I'm in awe of your ability to read minds, because that was not at all the vibe I got when I was actually in that conversation.
Of course not? If they gave you that impression then you would pry. As I said, it's pretty universal at this point. No mind reading needed. The fact that you were trying to do exactly what they're trying to avoid is hilarious to me.
Ignoring the blatant ableism in your comment, the PRC has been a socialist country since the CPC successully won the Chinese Civil War. The working class is in power, and capitalists are kept in check by the state. I don't defend the PRC just to criticize the west, but because it's the world's most developed and largest socialist state.
Attacking me with ableism isn't a substitution for a point.
Repeating what you said doesn't make it more true. China is not a socialist Country. It's State Capitalism at best. The workers have no right to vote. They do not rule the country.
The large firms and key industries in China are publicly owned:
State capitalism would be like the US, Singapore, or the Republic of Korea. Further, workers absolutely have the right to vote, and do so regularly:
Repeating what you said doesn't make it more true. It's time to stop it with the generic anti-communism.
Yes they can vote in local Elections between People that have to be aproved by the CPC... Thats no real choice, not to mention on a National Level they have no say at all. And about that equality in the last graph, how about we ask the Uighurs about that? Or the tibetans? And please do provide the source for the first picture, they are very hard to see.
Capitalists and those who would undermine socialism are prevented from political power, yes. As for the source, it's in the bottom left, here's another bunch of sources.
As for Uyghurs, see the Xinjiang Resource List. They are roughly similar in approval rates, same with Tibet, which was liberated from feudalism. Read Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth. Here's 2 excerpts:
Selection two, shorter: (CW sexual violence and mutilation)
Turn off right-wing media and actually pay attention to what China's actually like.
What would you suggest? Something by Xi Xinping?
Yes, actually. Would be a great place to start.
Democracy is Not an Ornament
Xi on Marx
Dialectical Materialism is the Worldview and Methodology of Chinese Communists
Regarding the Construction of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics
Who the Hell is Xi Xinping?
I have committed the grave sin of spelling the name of the Dear Leader wrong. I'll report to the nearest reeducation camp as soon as possible.
You have committed the grave error of credibility by getting the most obvious and trivially checked facts of something (a name) wrong.
I think you'll find the "reeducation camp" is called a "school" in common English. If you want to go for the melodramatic name, however, no skin off my nose.
Deleted by a suckass loser
Except one country is authoritarian and lying about the authoritarianism of China
China?
Oh, right. China.
Right now the US is led by fan of xi and putin, so no surprise he wants to implement the same things there.
If that was actually true, then NATO would be dissolved and the US would be trying to dedollarize and join BRICS.
I love the liberal fanfic that he's completely subservient to the bad foreigners, but won't do the things that would benefit them the most because... uhh... he's hiding his power level or something? 5D Chess? I dunno
Yea, there are far easier and better ways to capitulate if he wanted to.
Not when he wants to appear that he fights for America.
That's a lot of effort for no personal payoff, lol. There's no reason to believe it's true.
And what do you think is happening when he is saying he won't honor article 5 of NATO treaty?
Why is he pushing India (one of biggest proponents of BRICS that didn't want to get rid of dollar) toward Russia by imposing tariffs so high that are essentially an embargo?
He's bad at his job and is flailing around because the US Empire is finding the end result of hollowing out domestic industry for decades.
Idk what sort of DuPont/Monsanto/Pfizer cocktail y'all got in your drinking water but I stg I listen to any voting gringo talk politics and y'all start frothing at the mouth with the most unhinged theories. Tinfoil sellers gotta be making a killing over there.
This is your brain on black-and-white thinking
Nah dude, nobody talked about an in-between. China bad, and America going bad too. In his image op implies people think that because China bad, america cannot be lol. That's stupid
Yall would be demonizing the Algerians or Vietnamese people fighting for their independence from France's ruthless colonial rule as "authoritarian", and "both sides bad".
I was gonna reply stuff but I don't see how I could gain anything from it ? I was initially saying op's take implied something stupid (note that I'm not saying your scapegoats don't exist; but if they do they're probably a minority), and that yours created a kind of "moderate" persona who's always in between political views to mock that other user's comment about not everything being all black or white. Which I replied to by affirming China already black and america going darker.
And now you're bringing more unrelated shit into athe situation lol. Isolating both china and america they both look like shit, albeit one more than the other. Idk who the fuck is in your "y'all" but it doesn't really matter to me and I don't feel targeted. I don't know enough about the stuff you tried to push on me to properly debate anyways, so I'm just gonna go sleep and enjoy my night lol.
US is in a situation where even the Chinese government can make fun of how undemocratic it is. I think this explains a lot.
Nafo clown propagandists eating shit as usual.
Edit because you did an edit:
Wet water
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm
Freedom with the most people in prison
They're not always in prison, sometimes we let them do their forced labor outside.
Agreed, the US prison system is legalized form of slavery
both are. have fun fighting eachother in the mud.
All states are authoritarian, in that they are instruments by which one class oppresses the others. What this doesn't say anything about alone, though, is which class is in power. In the US Empire, the capitalists are in power, and use the authority of the state to crush workers when workers rise up. In the PRC, the working class is in power, and the state keeps capitalists in check and appropriates their capital gradually.
The only way out of authoritarian control by any class is to get rid of classes entirely, which requires full collectivization of production. China is actively building towards that, the US Empire is opposing it. Until we get to a classless society, it's better for the working class to be in charge.
In other words, class struggle will continue to exist even after the proletariat takes control. All of the tensions from class struggle continue to exist, only they are resolved in favor of the working class. This is what "authoritarianism" looks like, class conflict expressed in state response.
"the working class" meaning the (one) party tho, lol.
Yes. Democracy isn't about choosing between parties, but having substantive input on direction that results in the will of the people being carried out. This is true of China, policy is typically driven from the bottom-up, a process called "whole process people's democracy." This is expressed, as an example, through Five Year Plans that are the result of mass polling and suggestions among the populace. The CPC has over 100 million members in a country of 1.4 billion.
The state isn't a class in and of itself, it can only serve as representative of a class. In the PRC, that class is the working class. The communists beat the nationalists in the Chinese Civil War, and from that point on the working class has been in control.
I just gotta pop in and say: thank you, comrades, for absolutely making my morning by dunking on some capitalists' useful idiots.
I don’t know what it is about this post in particular, but the threadiverse isn’t sending its best 🤷
Edit to add: Some of them were so angry that they broke out their alt accounts to downvote some more.
I think some of the Reddit refuges honestly think Reddit sucks because Spez Man Bad. There's no analysis of what creates Reddits and Spezes, and therefore they don't recognize who made this platform and why.
I have to believe ultimately some of these people will come around, so that's good at least.
Many do come around, Lemmy is quite good at radicalizing and educating in my experience.
Jokes on them, my instance ignores down votes. Lol
That's one of the things I like about blahaj, same as Hexbear. It would be cool if blahaj and Hexbear would refederate, but I understand why that's unlikely.
How frequent are alt-downvotes?
Not as frequent as they used to be.
Gotcha.
Yep, used to be very frequent. They're easy to spot because they're either no content accounts, or old accounts, with maybe 1 comment per month. We permaban them as they add nothing of value.
Makes sense!
They get Rule 4, “No Ads / Spamming,” because they’re spamming votes.
I'm kind of new to lemmy in general and judging by the other comments I want to ask: is lemmy.ml full of ultras? Or is that what you're talking about in saying they didn't send their best?
If it is full of ultras, do you know of an instance(?) that either critically supports AES countries or at least has more of a mixed set of users? I don't mind debate, but on every single comment it would get tiring.
Lemmy.ml is largely Marxist-Leninist, ultras are few on the fediverse. If you want an instance that is explicitly ML, then there's Lemmygrad.ml. Hexbear.net is left-unity but doesn't allow sectarianism, and is generally ML/anarchist, not generally ultra.
I have an account on lemmygrad as well so that's good news to me. I'm now thinking that it's more of an issue of me not fully grasping how the instances are organised having come from reddit.
Thanks for your input, my friend :)
No problem, comrade!
Anytime comrade 🫡
Both are garbage. The US is just a bigger pile of garbage (for now).
Totally both are garbage. But from anti-colonial and anti-authoritarian perspective, US has always been garbage. Trump only removed the pretensions. I mean, Joe Biden affirmed that US will invade Holland if any Americans are arrested by the International Court there. So much for a country that purports rules based international order, if the most supreme power the world has ever seen confirmed that such rules and order don't apply to them.
recently found out this is a shunned view on a lot of lemmy
I'm not very tech savvy and I'm just happy to have an account somewhere lol.
🤣
generally lemmy.ml is known for being a community with strong opinions on the subject.
Communists tend to support communists 🤷
liberals brain breaking
That is a camper van. Probably cozy tbh
There are a lot of communists on Lemmy, and communists tend to support socialist countries. Simple as that. Plus, in the current era where the US Empire is dying, China is presenting itself as a better trade partner for the global south, one focused more on multilateralism and not on imperialism.
Why are they trying to brute-force propaganda? At least be subtle, and bribe us next time.
What do you mean by "brute-forcing" propaganda? Agitprop is one of the main ways communists recruit new members.
Apparently "telling the truth" is now labeled "brute-forcing propaganda" lol
Communists asserting our stances and sharing memes? Straight to jail.
Ah yes, convincing argument: "China good, USA bad"
That's just a stance, the arguments are in the comments.
System of a Down - The Prison Song
https://redirect.invidious.io/watch?v=m4L20t8Dvlg
What does a totalitarian state even mean? Based on liberals, left communists, and anarchists, it's every socialist experiment that had lasted a great amount of time and accomplished better living standards for their citizens. 😂
Yes, true
Thank God that in China you can't simply be "disappeared", you won't be sent to reeducation camps, and you won't be slaughtered.
Right?
Good thing you ate the capitalists’ propaganda onion and are now doing their work for free, contributing to your continued exploitation.
Meanwhile people actually are being disappeared in the US right now, and people actually are subjected to forced labor.
And you don’t think this happens in China?
I have no reason to believe people are being disappeared, no, but I do have reason to believe that the US and its junior partners will continue claiming that they are. It’s big business.
Correct, you won't.
Just more western propaganda to push the china bad narrative
Yea yea yea, just keep parroting those liberal talking points ROFL
It's so weird to me that there are people, like you, who completely ignore established facts just because these facts reflect negatively on some group that you like.
It's like you're completely incapable of understanding that nothing is 100% perfect, and that good people can sometimes do bad things and that (applies here) bad people sometimes do good.
The Chinese government has implemented a shit tonne of repressive rules, it's committing genocide, but to you that must be a lie because they did something that you like.
It must be nice being 15 years old
How much have you travelled, lived and worked in China? How far outside the tier 1 cities have you gotten?
If you think every criticism of China is just liberal talking points, I assume the answers to those questions are all “not very much”.
Why does he wear military clothing? Can the ICE agents not also just wear civilian clothes?
Being in uniform plus body armor and padding adds more to intimidation.
yeah that increases the propaganda effect of this meme.
Lemmy.ml has a ton of communists, communists tend to support socialist countries 🤷
At some point, you gotta dance with who brung ya. If, after over a century of experimentation, you conclude that every single AES state is as evil as the CIA tells us, there's not much socialism to support.
You also really need to jam your eyes shut and ignore the enormous improvements in quality of life, even in the face of adverse economic headwinds, in the surviving socialist block. "Ah, but I'm not free to shitpost on the Internet the same way!" is such sad metric for a country's success
You mean freedom of speech.... That's what you're saying is not an important value? The freedom to speak truth to power without the goon squad kicking down your door? Clearly that is being eroded in the US right now, but China certainly doesn't have it.
I mean "posting online".
Has never existed in a practical sense within the United States. Not under Bush. Not under Eisenhower. Not under Woodrow Wilson. Not under James Buchanan. Not under John Adams.
Americans have a long and storied history of arresting outspoken dissidents, assaulting them, and disappearing anyone who persisted.
We have more political prisoners in jail today than China has had since the end of the colonial era.
China has it for the working class. Capitalist speech and misinformation are targeted, but the working class is largely free to say what they want.
It doesn't exist, how is that hard to admit for you? Freedom of speech is intended to protect exactly the kind of speech you disagree with, otherwise it's not a thing. "Largely free" = NOT FREE
Then nowhere has freedom of speech. True freedom of speech only exists for the ruling class of society, and the speech of those other classes oppressed by them that agree with the ruling class. In the US Empire, freedom of speech only truly exists for capitalists. In the PRC, it's the opposite, it only exists for the working class, and those who do not oppose the working class.
China is about as socialist as my shit is a bouquet of roses.
It's capitalism. It's always capitalism.
The large firms and key industries are overwhelmingly publicly owned, and the working class is in charge of the state. It's been socialist since the CPC beat the Kuomintang. The presence of private property in a system doesn't mean the system is capitalist, this was already understood in Marx's time.
False.
Is China State Capitalist?
Shit redditors say 😂
If the US acted more like China y'all could actually be the best country in the world like your delusional population believes.
Rising standards of living, life expectancy, housing for everyone, affordable healthcare and fresh produce. What horrors, they don't even poison themselves with hormone burgers bro.
What on earth do you mean by "totalitarian?" China's a democratic country, if the US was acting more like China we'd actually have good infrastructure, manufacturing, democracy, and a coherent plan for the future. Sadly, the US isn't a socialist country.
You know how America's two party system is bad and really just a shadow of democracy?
China has a one-party system.
Democracy doesn't mean "the ability to vote between parties," it means the ability for the people to dictate policy. Socialist democracy cares far more about the latter than the former, while capitalists sell the lie that the former is what democracy even means to begin with.
I'm not from the USA.
China? The US is currently more compeeting with North Corea respect freedom and human rights.
and who supports north korea?
Oh no! What ever will we do without the libs!
Please report comments like this in the future ppl.
You are correct, this is all imaginary
You've definitely absorbed some propaganda. It's anyone's guess whether it came from Russia or China though. There is literally no reason to have a problem with NATO.
NATO is a millitary alliance of the world's imperialist powers. Just like the cops are the thugs protecting capital, NATO are the fascists protecting imperialism. NATO destroyed Libya and Yugoslavia, and has launched terrorist attacks.
Small issues . Lmao ok. Tell me what the the villages are like in rural China. Have the collective welfare trickled down to them yet?
And open access to information via the internet and open speech are one of the main pillars of a successful society, and neither states have that. Who cares if you’re my comrade of I can’t speak against you if need be or have the ability to refute your information with research.
China has one of the fastest growing numbers of millionaires in the world yet its farmers and factory workers are still poor as shit, how’s that collectivism? It’s just state capitalism
This is a tier 4 city in China. Which is far down the development ladder and considered poor.
https://youtu.be/kZon-AlmJbM
The vast majority of Chinese live in cities like this or better. Saying that there are still poor villages, well I give you this
https://youtu.be/fI30F0Vt88E
Kensington Philadelphia is so drug infested people walk around like zombies. Does China have poor areas like that? Actually no, even the poorest villages aren't that bad.
The gap between rural and urban development has long been acknowledged and is already something worked on. The famous poverty eraducation campaign was focused on just that. Read The Metamorphosis of Yuangudui to see what that looks like in practice.
Secondly, the speech of capitalists and western media is restricted, but citizens speak to each other freely. The purpose of the control on western and capitalist propaganda is to develop independence and not let the west set the narrative.
Lastly, purchasing Power in 2022 was 25 times higher than 1978. This process is continuous. Further, the large firms and key industries are publicly owned, it's a socialist country. You need to turn off Fox News and actually look at what's happening in China right now.
Can citizens investigate their government and publish and distribute criticisms of their government?
Depends, are they capitalists trying to undermine the system, or are they genuinely in support of socialism? If the former, no, if the latter, probably, though again if your other comments are anything to go by you just want liberalism to take over China.
Just changing the Countries names doesn't make it true... There is no mass surveillance in Europe. There is in China.
There's absolutely mass surveilance in Europe, lmao.
Sure buddy, if you say so
Yes, I do, lol.
Extremely incorrect, in any easily verifiable way for which a reasonable person would be deeply embarrassed
They're right, cry about it
Pure projection
We are not all like this. I think this meme is stupid too.
Does the liberal mindset have no bottom to the ChInA BaD narratives it can spin?
Winnie the Pooh was never banned in China, be less gullible
Oh my, you have a NATOpedia article? Clearly that's beyond reproach.
I guess Epstein killed himself and Nordstream just did that on its own.
Really? Let me guess, you'd prefer Conservapedia?
Lol you are like a little baby
Using a yellow bear to refer to a Chinese man is pretty clearly a racist dogwhistle.
China is a great place to live, that is constantly improving and developing. The evidence backs this.
China isn't imperialist, it doesn't run an economy focused on international extraction like the west does.
Yeah every one I’ve come across in the last few days have sounded like children. Or maybe they didn’t train hard enough on their language skills at troll camp
100% Agree. They all seem to be excusing chinese authoritarianism
Bedtimes are authoritarian
No bedtime, no spinach 😤
Yes, both countries have serious problems. At least Americans can discuss theirs openly.
Tell that to Malcolm X, MLK, or Fred Hampton
And it’s not like those were one-offs, COINTELPRO was crazy in scope and did massive damage beyond just the murders.
It’s not like that’s all in the past either, just look at how the Palestine protests were handled as well as the Floyd protests.
Lol have you seen what's been happening to pro Palestine protestors? BLM protestors? Anti Trump protestors? Julian Assange? Edward Snowden?
Those against the Iraq war, or Vietnam war...
You're free to discuss anything you want as long as it doesn't actually threaten the status quo in any way lol
Just don't demand or try to enact real lasting change
You are free to protest as long as we can tuck you in the corner and ignore you
The freedom to shout into the void and have none of your concerns addressed.
Not to mention the fact that China has far more open discourse than the US and its media organs / capitalist controlled platforms allow.
I'll take "things foreigners say when they've never been to China" for 500 Alex
I'll take "sexpat that's been to China, never left his bubble and is a China expert now" for 500 alex
Never claimed to be any kind of China expert but it's absurd to claim "much more open discourse" if you've spent any appreciable amount of time in the countries being discussed. You can literally just walk + talk in public and see the difference.
Like all these asserted freedoms it just magically happens better and free'er but you definitely can't verify it because "media". The open political discourse I see and hear in major EU/US cities pales in comparison to the uh... hidden... open discourse in T1/T2 Chinese cities? Definitely heard some first/second hand political discourse but it was never, ever, ever a public forum.
By all means, give me evidence to the contrary. Maybe I just keep catching China with a bad case of the Mondays. Have you been? Can you point to any discourse on domestic politics? Where is the asserted diversity of opinion on hotbed issues? Can you show me any strong opposition to the party line on a public stage?
I guess you've never been on weibo westoid
I have! Have you been on it in China? Have you contrasted the foreign feed to a citizen's? Have you seen the coordinated response to genuine spreading political discontent vs mundane petty scandals? Because it kinda sounds like you haven't if you think that's a killer response.
I have! And I have my Chinese friends feed too. Inside and outside of china. There's definitely differences, but that's how algorithms work
Yes i have seen it. They solve things pretty fast e.g. COVID lockdowns when minor protests broke out, petit bourgeois real estate protests, etc. doesn't look like you pay attention to things like that
So do Chinese citizens, though. The state exerts control over private media and the speech of wealthy capitalists, but there's broad diversity in political thought and discussion.
Really? So Chinese citizens can go out and publish an article about why they believe Xi Jinping is actually betraying socialist ideals?
Some have. They'd be wrong, so it's not super common, but it's possible, assuming they aren't a wealthy capitalist or something.
We have a few Chinese folks in the revolupedia discord so they definitely exist. We're pretty aggressively against modern China.
From what I've seen on Chinese social media, you have two kinda minds. The folks who want a return to maoism, and the folks that are more liberal minded. That's extremely reductive but that seems to be a sentiment repeated frequently by Chinese people so it's likely got some truth to it.
I don't uphold China, but I do think ~95% of what people have said in defense of China on this post is true. There's lot of propaganda that paints China as monstrously worse than it is.
Chinese too, and openly in the US currently not so much. People in China are heavy controlled by the Gov, but they have more civil rights and services as citizen in the US
Complete list of banned books in the US. (Autoscroll enabled, due to the hugh amount of those, stop/start with mouseclick)
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/a45012950/banned-book-list/
US Freedom and Human rights only exist in Fox News.
Lmao what? Do you know what "banning" a book means? It's just not on offer in schools or a library for that specific state. It's completely normal to just buy it for yourself and there are even organizations dedicated to distributing banned books.
It's hilarious to try and dunk on America with this of all things. Media restricted/censored in China is entirely unavailable. It's actually very interesting how the censorship manifests in daily life, but I imagine any .ml reader will discard those anecdotes (or any verifiable reports) and try to redirect back to the West somehow.
You guys are completely brainwashed if you believe this. They can't even form a union or strike.
It always amazes me how gringos can just say the dumbest, fakest shit with such confidence then call you brainwashed.
If the State Department said Chinese people can't play guitar you'd call us brainwashed if we showed you a video of one of them playing.
Crazy how you can literally just look this stuff up and find out what's true instead of discarding arguments.
Independent trade unions are illegal in China. The single, state sanctioned trade union is widely criticized by international trade union orgs for not faithfully representing its workers. By most accounts it exists to funnel labor disputes through a bureaucratic meat grinder of mediation to maintain the status quo. With the exception of a handful of actions for international leverage, all strikes are wildcat.
If you're actually interested in labor relations in China I'd recommend this article for starters. It's older but the situation hasn't improved under recent leadership.
Chinese average citizens can freely discuss what they want, the "disappearing" is just western propa
Really? So Chinese citizens can go out and publish an article about why they believe Xi Jinping is actually betraying socialist ideals?
I've spent some time in Shanghai and that was not my experience there.
Cool story
K
Clearly your experiences didn't involve a whole lot of being disappeared, you're still here
My cat’s breath smells like cat food.
Sometimes. For now.
At least "you have right to remain silent" :)
What the fuck does this even mean lmao y'all scraping the bottom of the barrel so hard it's now a tube
They're just throwing phrases out like right-wing think-tanks, and seeing what sticks.
Rhetorical Zerg rush
Damn, it was a joke!