Libs seething that China is a better country that didn’t rely on settler colonialism and imperialism to grow it’s power
And slavery. Don’t forget the slavery.
In fact, because of the wording of the 14th amendment, it’s still cool. As long as you get locked up for committing a crime first.
Apologies for the minor nitpick since it’s probably a typo, but it’s actually the 13th amendment, which is even worse since that’s the one that supposedly abolished slavery
China is an anathema for liberals because it’s a tangible real world demonstration that viable alternatives to liberal ideology are possible. The whole argument for liberalism is premised on the idea that liberalism sucks, but everything else is worse.
Liberals promoted western model as the only viable system going forward ever since USSR dissolved. Any country that deviated from this model was painted as being backwards and a type of country you wouldn’t want to live in. Now we’re seeing China developing rapidly and going from strength to strength. China doesn’t suffer from the economic crashes the west has once every decade, it’s continuously improving the standard of living for its people, it coexists peacefully with other countries. It’s an example of an alternative model to liberalism that demonstrably produces better outcomes by pretty much every metric. This is why China is such a threat to liberals, it blows apart the argument that nothing better is possible.
I say this as someone who would be happy to advocate for China if I thought they were advocating for a proper socialist alternative to liberalism but sees things (propaganda?) that turn me off.
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the Uyghur genocide: is this just Western propaganda that’s totally fabricated? Are there no “reeducation camps” and no ethnic cleansing happening?
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standard anticapitalist takes: landlordism, bourgeoise rule, both things I oppose and seem to be alive and well in China. I see sometimes the State pushes against these forces, but so do European liberals. Walmart couldn’t even expand into the EU when they tried due to government regulating their shitty corporate practices so hard (undercutting at a loss to push local businesses out is illegal for example)
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authoritarianism: children being banned from video games. This one hits close to home for me since I spent easily 40-60 hours a week as a kid some weeks playing video games. My childhood would’ve been vastly different, and I’m still a programmer who is employed by Alphabet so I’m “successful” and wasn’t ruined by video games. Is the idea that video games are a cancer that ruin kids and they should be studying instead? That seems dystopian, I made a bunch of longtime friends playing games growing up (10+ years at this point). I had a lot of fun as a kid. That seems important.
Essentially China seems like a European country that also happens to be an authoritarian dictatorship. Arguably better than living in the U.S still, no doubt, but when compared to Europe I think China falls short (but socialism doesn’t). Europe/China are both incredibly far from where we need to be. Massive liberal exploitation of the masses occurs in both places.
- Uyghur “genocide”: complete BS. Vocational training schools (call them “re-education camps” if you wish) did exist because of the severe terrorism problem @ksynwa mentioned. The population of Uyghurs in XInjiang has increased since the anti-terrorism measures were implemented
- Landlordism and bourgeois rule: only exists on local levels. The reason why the bourgeoisie is still allowed to exist in China is because it’s a countermeasure against imperialism, but the CPC (whose higher-level members are chosen through bottom-up democratic elections and can be recalled by the voters if they’re unsatisfied, unlike any bourgeois “democracy”) is in charge and they crack down on bourgeois criminals, including executing billionaires. The bourgeoisie don’t own any land whatsoever, it’s only leased from the state and can be revoked
- “Authoritarianism”: every state is inherently authoritarian. Focusing on the limits on online video games for children (single-player games aren’t affected) is an extremely silly reason to denounce a socialist project
the Uyghur genocide: is this just Western propaganda that’s totally fabricated? Are there no “reeducation camps” and no ethnic cleansing happening?
Does this look like ethnic cleansing to you?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DABhjZjPJDA&pp=ygUOa2FzaGdhciBJbmRpYW4%3D
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dpmaeIaZM&pp=ygUOa2FzaGdhciBJbmRpYW4%3D
Xinjiang had a terrorism problem. There terrorist attacka happening until 2012. The government’s crackdown is in response to that and at worst it can be described as overpolicing. Can you name one person who was confirmed dead in this ethnic cleansing and genocide?
They would rather keep living a lie in which they’re still the main character and that the world runs on simplistic logic akin to a Marvel movie. The illusion can’t be kept up forever with the realities of China slowly dismantling the hegemony, tho tbh it’s not like China needs to do much when the US is deleting itself
Pretty much, and I don’t know whether people will ever learn to see past anti-China propaganda in the west, but I’ve come to realize that the west doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.
It’s around 20% of the global population, and the rest of the world will simply move on regardless of what the west does at this point. Majority of the world is the side of China and human progress will continue to march on.