5 ms·

Go ask any teacher in any history department in any decent school anywhere in the world (except China) and they will be happy to explain. Just like it’s common

Go ask any teacher in any history department in any decent school anywhere in the world (except China) and they will be happy to explain. Just like it’s common knowledge the USA is a democracy, not a one party dictatorship. The Chinese communist revolution is relatively recent history. Or talk to any Chinese exiles/dissidents living in the US. Or any Taiwanese person.

emodendroket 8y ago
I think this is a poor yardstick that leads to people believing total falsehoods. Show me facts, not a morality play.
- simplecomplex 8y ago
  I’m going to assume you’re young and still learning about world history for the last 100 years, or a CCP shill/citizen whose been brainwashed with revisionist history. If you actually don’t know, I suggest starting with the history of the cultural revolution: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Civil_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Civil_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_dissidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_dissidents
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    You keep condescending to me without having understood, or at least engaged with, my argument (and I'll say that reading about the civil war makes it very hard to see it as a morality play where the virtuous Nationalists are defeated by the evil Communists; Chiang Kai Shek does not have a lot to recommend him as a defender of liberty or human rights). It doesn't matter if they're Satan Incarnate. Skepticism is much more important with American rivals, because the US media leans so much on US government sources who have an agenda (especially now when they want to set the stage for increased military tension with China) and because our "cartoon villain" conceptions of their leaders makes us throw common sense out the window.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      The parent remembers "history", but strangely in singling out China forgot than one might also happen to know or remember the Philippine war, the Mexican War, the Korean War, Vietnam War, colonial occupation of 2/3rd of the world (including China), countless "third worlders" murdered fighting for their freedom, extinction of native populations, and countless other times those criticizing China were doing the same or worse (and in which ways they still do it) just a little before. Those are "old"? Well, and the Cultural Revolution isn't? Besides it was an era of internal conflict and civil war, when a country of more than a billion people changed regime. Europe had tons of wars (and started and fought 2 world wars) when its old feudal provinces turned into nations, and as its later colonial powers and empires broke down. China went through that much later, and after 2 deeply humiliating periods of Western and Japanese occupation and imperialism. And they did quite well despite the toll to turn the tides around from a mostly agrarian dirt poor nation in 1900 to the worlds 2nd economy today. The cultural revolution had a huge toll from the fractions fighting for power and idiotic decisions that led to famines etc (90% of what's count as its toll is that), but it left the country not decimated, but more populous and prosperous -- from ~650million in 1960 to 1 billion in 1980, and more democratic.
      - emodendroket 8y ago
        I agree; I considered making this comparison (especially with reference to "extrajudicial activities" China engages in) but I thought it might sidetrack the discussion. What I think is important here is that none of us would take this long rap-sheet as an excuse to believe, uncritically, everything someone said about the US, whether or not there was any evidence.
  - dang 8y ago
    This comment breaks the HN guidelines in multiple ways. We ban accounts that do that, so please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here. Nationalistic flamewar in particular will get you banned here, so please avoid grandiose hostile generalizations about any country.
coldtea 8y ago
>Go ask any teacher in any history department in any decent school anywhere in the world (except China) and they will be happy to explain. In the US maybe. In the rest of the world it will be a much more nuanced discussion.
- simplecomplex 8y ago
  Nuanced about what? The entire world knows China engages in extrajudicial activities like kidnapping, jailing people, or forced confessions for speaking against the party. The only people who deny this is China.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >extrajudicial activities like kidnapping, jailing people, or forced confessions for speaking against the party So, like Guantanamo, kidnapping, secret sites [1],[2], [3] and so on? Or routine police shootings, Judge Dread style? Or having an out-of-all proportions inhumane incarceration system, with 25% of the world's prisoners for only 4% of the world's population? (a statistic many ignore, and I like to emphasize). Or like Hawaii and Puerto Rico, but not having been snatched in the last 150 years out of nowhere, but actually like Tibet having centuries of being part of China in the past? So, like those bad things, but restricted to their own citizens? And with no bombings and military invasions in 3-4 different countries just in the past 20 years? Where do the rest of the world signs up so that other countries restrict those activities to their own citizens too? If you expect a nuanced discussion about the US, you should expect a nuanced one about China. (Not to mention being the greatest trading partner with China, token statements aside the US have more actual business interests in common with them than even with Britain) https://www.businessinsider.com/at-least-54-countries-helped-the-cia-secretly-kidnap-and-detain-terrorism-suspects-after-911-2013-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/at-least-54-countries-helped... https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/fact-sheets/investigations-cia-renditions https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/fact-sheets/investiga... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...
    - 8y ago

emodendroket 8y ago

I think this is a poor yardstick that leads to people believing total falsehoods. Show me facts, not a morality play.

simplecomplex 8y ago
I’m going to assume you’re young and still learning about world history for the last 100 years, or a CCP shill/citizen whose been brainwashed with revisionist history. If you actually don’t know, I suggest starting with the history of the cultural revolution: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Civil_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Civil_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_dissidents https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_dissidents
- emodendroket 8y ago
  You keep condescending to me without having understood, or at least engaged with, my argument (and I'll say that reading about the civil war makes it very hard to see it as a morality play where the virtuous Nationalists are defeated by the evil Communists; Chiang Kai Shek does not have a lot to recommend him as a defender of liberty or human rights). It doesn't matter if they're Satan Incarnate. Skepticism is much more important with American rivals, because the US media leans so much on US government sources who have an agenda (especially now when they want to set the stage for increased military tension with China) and because our "cartoon villain" conceptions of their leaders makes us throw common sense out the window.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    The parent remembers "history", but strangely in singling out China forgot than one might also happen to know or remember the Philippine war, the Mexican War, the Korean War, Vietnam War, colonial occupation of 2/3rd of the world (including China), countless "third worlders" murdered fighting for their freedom, extinction of native populations, and countless other times those criticizing China were doing the same or worse (and in which ways they still do it) just a little before. Those are "old"? Well, and the Cultural Revolution isn't? Besides it was an era of internal conflict and civil war, when a country of more than a billion people changed regime. Europe had tons of wars (and started and fought 2 world wars) when its old feudal provinces turned into nations, and as its later colonial powers and empires broke down. China went through that much later, and after 2 deeply humiliating periods of Western and Japanese occupation and imperialism. And they did quite well despite the toll to turn the tides around from a mostly agrarian dirt poor nation in 1900 to the worlds 2nd economy today. The cultural revolution had a huge toll from the fractions fighting for power and idiotic decisions that led to famines etc (90% of what's count as its toll is that), but it left the country not decimated, but more populous and prosperous -- from ~650million in 1960 to 1 billion in 1980, and more democratic.
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      I agree; I considered making this comparison (especially with reference to "extrajudicial activities" China engages in) but I thought it might sidetrack the discussion. What I think is important here is that none of us would take this long rap-sheet as an excuse to believe, uncritically, everything someone said about the US, whether or not there was any evidence.
- dang 8y ago
  This comment breaks the HN guidelines in multiple ways. We ban accounts that do that, so please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here. Nationalistic flamewar in particular will get you banned here, so please avoid grandiose hostile generalizations about any country.

coldtea 8y ago

>Go ask any teacher in any history department in any decent school anywhere in the world (except China) and they will be happy to explain. In the US maybe. In the rest of the world it will be a much more nuanced discussion.

simplecomplex 8y ago
Nuanced about what? The entire world knows China engages in extrajudicial activities like kidnapping, jailing people, or forced confessions for speaking against the party. The only people who deny this is China.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >extrajudicial activities like kidnapping, jailing people, or forced confessions for speaking against the party So, like Guantanamo, kidnapping, secret sites [1],[2], [3] and so on? Or routine police shootings, Judge Dread style? Or having an out-of-all proportions inhumane incarceration system, with 25% of the world's prisoners for only 4% of the world's population? (a statistic many ignore, and I like to emphasize). Or like Hawaii and Puerto Rico, but not having been snatched in the last 150 years out of nowhere, but actually like Tibet having centuries of being part of China in the past? So, like those bad things, but restricted to their own citizens? And with no bombings and military invasions in 3-4 different countries just in the past 20 years? Where do the rest of the world signs up so that other countries restrict those activities to their own citizens too? If you expect a nuanced discussion about the US, you should expect a nuanced one about China. (Not to mention being the greatest trading partner with China, token statements aside the US have more actual business interests in common with them than even with Britain) https://www.businessinsider.com/at-least-54-countries-helped-the-cia-secretly-kidnap-and-detain-terrorism-suspects-after-911-2013-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/at-least-54-countries-helped... https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/fact-sheets/investigations-cia-renditions https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/fact-sheets/investiga... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...
  - 8y ago