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Nuanced about what? The entire world knows China engages in extrajudicial activities like kidnapping, jailing people, or forced confessions for speaking against

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...
- angry_octet 8y ago
  coldtea this is blatant whataboutism and I'm sure you can mount a better argument than that. (And I'm the one getting into trouble for wanting Americans to acknowledge their institional racism. And using all caps.) The parent isn't arguing that Americans are angels, but that it is well established that the Chinese state (which is a glove on the CCP) is responsible for pretty brutal and systematic repression (of Uyghurs in particular), but also dissidents. And despite the regular injustices America dishes out through love of greed, people are not disappeared because they have incorrect thought. >10k people were massacred in 1989. Millions were killed by famine during the cultural revolution. These are only contested in the same way that climate change is contested. One could argue that the 2003 invasion of iraq body count outweighs these sins, and ascribe malice to the US versus high intentions to the Party. But it doesn't change the fact that China is now, and has long been, an authoritarian state. In fact, it is now pre-eminent, the poster-child for post-capitalist autocracy. (But there is one one demonstrably wrong part of the grand-parent's post: calling China 'Communist'.)
  - ethbro 8y ago
    China does still have communist political organs, and a history of communist thought. So while it may trend autocratic, it seems inaccurate to simply call it an autocracy. Just because communist power struggles happen out of sight doesn't mean they don't happen.

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...

angry_octet 8y ago
coldtea this is blatant whataboutism and I'm sure you can mount a better argument than that. (And I'm the one getting into trouble for wanting Americans to acknowledge their institional racism. And using all caps.) The parent isn't arguing that Americans are angels, but that it is well established that the Chinese state (which is a glove on the CCP) is responsible for pretty brutal and systematic repression (of Uyghurs in particular), but also dissidents. And despite the regular injustices America dishes out through love of greed, people are not disappeared because they have incorrect thought. >10k people were massacred in 1989. Millions were killed by famine during the cultural revolution. These are only contested in the same way that climate change is contested. One could argue that the 2003 invasion of iraq body count outweighs these sins, and ascribe malice to the US versus high intentions to the Party. But it doesn't change the fact that China is now, and has long been, an authoritarian state. In fact, it is now pre-eminent, the poster-child for post-capitalist autocracy. (But there is one one demonstrably wrong part of the grand-parent's post: calling China 'Communist'.)
- ethbro 8y ago
  China does still have communist political organs, and a history of communist thought. So while it may trend autocratic, it seems inaccurate to simply call it an autocracy. Just because communist power struggles happen out of sight doesn't mean they don't happen.