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About 850 million people have lifted themselves out of poverty in China since the eighties. It's extraordinary. Just want to be clear the US is not exactly perf

About 850 million people have lifted themselves out of poverty in China since the eighties. It's extraordinary. Just want to be clear the US is not exactly perfect when it comes to human rights. Sure, China had a lot they need to do better, but the improvements are incredible. In the US, look at Indian reservations, border detentions, hate groups, number of people in jail... We are not the human rights poster child.

threezero 7y ago
I’m not sure I’d call China running over people with tanks and imprisoning millions of Muslims in concentration camps “improvements”.
- dvduval 7y ago
  From the East India company and the opium wars and the unbalanced treaties, to the Chinese civil war and the invasion of Japan, it's not easy for an outsider to understand just how strongly China considers anything that would bring about the instability that they experienced in the past. Most Chinese people support preventing instability, as in the 80s they had the largest famine in human history. Sometimes they are heavy handed and I think they acknowledge this, and would even tell you that it's not right what they did, but I think the average Westerner does not really get the perspective of the reasoning behind it. Think about how many people we have imprisoned in our so-called drug war. As a percent of our population, it's a lot more than in China.
  - wp381640 7y ago
    There is nothing unique about China's own human rights abuses that rationalises it. Every dictatorship ever has had similar rationalisations.
    - dvduval 7y ago
      I don't feel your comment is rooted in a deep understanding of Chinese history, but I hear what you're saying. I personally believe that if the current leader started to exhibit behavior that was crazy, he would be removed. And you might go on to say that what happened in the Muslim territory in the Northwest is already crazy, but the economic track record and the number of people who have been lifted out of poverty is quite good for the current leader.
      - izend 7y ago
        The big question is what happens when that economic track record hits a road bump or a giant pothole, how will the government react?
        dvduval 7y ago
        Currently in China: largest number of people freed from poverty in human history. Their neighbors in SE Asia are also coming out of poverty, maybe 20 years behind China. I think trade war could make it tough for all, hoping we can avoid it. A bump? Let's hope it's not like the great famine China experienced in the eighties. I doubt it.
        NeedMoreTea 7y ago
        Scant consolation for the Uyghurs, Tibetans or even HKers.
        lern_too_spel 7y ago
        The Nazis also pulled Germany out of poverty. This does not excuse their actions towards the Jews any more than your point excuses China's actions towards the Uyghurs.
  - kortilla 7y ago
    Right, running people over with tanks and forcing Muslims into re-education camps is fine because “they don’t want instability” and the US has strict drug sentencing. The mental gymnastics for that reasoning are astounding. Here’s the deal: it doesn’t matter if the US started killing every dissident outright. US behavior is not an excuse for unethical behavior in China. The government and citizens of China are not dumb children that can’t behave ethically if there are other unethical things going on in the world.
  - izend 7y ago
    Minor correction but the Great Chinese Famine was from 1959 to 1961.
  - sdwa 7y ago
    I don't find those trying to explain away China's disdain for human rights by using historical arguments to be in any way credible. Taiwan alone proves that it's possible for China to be a democracy with respect for human rights. But I suppose you're right, it's not easy for me to really get into the mind of someone like you who is comfortable with explaining away organ harvesting by referring to the need for "stability". That which does not bend, will break.
    - dvduval 7y ago
      How many Iraqi civilians did US government forces kill? The US nuclear bomb drops on Japanese ciivilians? Was that fine compared with organ harvesting? My point is not that any of this is okay, but so easy to point the finger and "they" are the bad people and we are good.
      - sdwa 7y ago
        It is easy to point the finger, yes, because no Western country is nearly as bad as China when it comes to human rights, and to suggest otherwise is peak contrarianism. I'm not going to suggest the West is perfect, but it's without question that China is much worse. I'd also like to restate that your claim that historical events dictate that China must abuse human rights to lift people out of poverty is nonsense because Taiwan is Chinese, democratic, developed, and doesn't abuse human rights.
  - kibwen 7y ago
    > Think about how many people we have imprisoned in our so-called drug war. As a percent of our population, it's a lot more than in China. Be careful what you're seeking to compare; with 11M Uyghurs and 1M of them in re-education camps, China has far more of a percentage of the underclass imprisoned (9%) than in the U.S. (with 1.35% of the black population imprisoned). This isn't to defend the prison practices of the U.S., which are still generally indefensible, but some heart can be taken in that the number of U.S. imprisoned (of all races, but especially black prisoners) has fallen year-over-year for more than a decade, whereas China's re-education camps are still growing.
    - nkurz 7y ago
      > than in the U.S. (with 1.35% of the black population imprisoned) Interesting. My first thought was that your number was too low, but searching a little it seems you are right, with a couple caveats. The first caveat is that the number for black males is about twice that of the black population as a whole (ie, black females are rarely imprisoned). The second caveat, which is not one I've seen widely reported, is that the percentage of black males currently imprisoned has dropped sharply over recent years, from 3.5% in 2000 to 2.6% now. This article (with the charts from which I got the numbers) goes into possible reasons: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/12/15/a-mass-incarceration-mystery https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/12/15/a-mass-incarce...
- la_barba 7y ago
  Nobody said those were improvements, so what is your point?
- ummonk 7y ago
  Source to running over people with tanks?
  - kortilla 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests
  - mhh__ 7y ago
    Tiananmen, And there is photographic evidence
    - vinceguidry 7y ago
      There were no pictures that actually captured people being run over with tanks. The man in the famous photo was the only incident caught on film, he was not run over that day but his whereabouts are unknown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man
      - low_poly_shiba 7y ago
        An interesting fact I learned the other day is that the man in that picture is from after the protests, when the tanks were leaving the square, not when they were entering it. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5aad3e1a7e3c3aab4ab40b11/5b1fde6e0e2e7204c77b9f4b/5b1fdf956d2a7373bd71f17a/1528815549894/004_LON16896.jpg?format=500w https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5aad3e1a7e3c3aab4ab40...
      - mhh__ 7y ago
        It may not have been a tank but I have a photo of someone who was clearly crushed by something that definitely wasn't a students bicycle let's say
    - Fjolsvith 7y ago
      Not available in China, though...
  - 7y ago
- bitbrewer 7y ago
  The Chinese have tanks running over people. Americans shoot fellow citizens in the dozens with semi-automatic guns. The difference? The former happened ONCE, 30 years ago. The latter happens maybe ONCE A MONTH. Talk about Chinese people living in a horrible country...
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    >Americans shoot fellow citizens in the dozens >happens maybe ONCE A MONTH Not to be a dick but... Cite. A. Source. A shooting with 12+ people getting shot is the kind of event that makes the national news even if nobody of dies. That's not the kind of thing that happens about monthly. I am very skeptical you will be able to back up your assertion assuming any reasonable definition of "shoot" and "dozen". Edit: My skepticism has survived one citation and counting.
    - bitbrewer 7y ago
      https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting
      - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
        I'm in several pages now and don't see a single number of double digit injuries let alone a dozen or multiple dozens. Several of the ones I've clicked through to the source on seem to be counting people injured in things other than the shooting (e.g. brawl injures X, dude draws gun, shoots one person = 1 dead, X injuries). The fact that they call the page "Mass Shootings in 2019" when even they say in their about-us[0] that they attempt to catalog each and every shooting seems to indicate a bias (to put it mildly). Edit: actually I'm wrong, I was only looking at the "Mass shootings" portion of their data. Their definition of "mass" seems to be "4+ people injured and/or killed including people not injured/killed" which seems slimy considering how they seem to be counting injuries. That said, they seem to be a pretty damn good source for raw information and generally unbiased with their numbers. Edit: got through all the 2019 results (couldn't get CSV export to work with my browser) and found exactly two results for a dozen. One event[1] has 6 dead, 6 injured but the source doesn't mention any of the people injured other than the 5 victims and one gunman who died, maybe an error in the data? The other event is the Virginia Beach shooting. In any case I think it's safe to conclude that events where a dozen people get shot happen less than monthly. [0]https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/about https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/about [1]https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/aurora-beacon-news/ct-abn-aurora-pratt-shooting-autopsy-st-0414-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/aurora-beacon-news/ct...
javagram 7y ago
“hate groups” exist in the USA because this is a free country. In places without our commitment to freedom and human rights those type of groups would have been suppressed by the government. Edit: just to be clear some of your other points are fair although I find the “Indian reservations” a bit dated - they are treated as local sovereigns (e.g. casinos, being allowed to violate state level hunting regulations) and are even now being allowed to expand their territory in some places .
- semi-extrinsic 7y ago
  The US "commitment to freedom and human rights" rings a bit hollow, IMHO. If you look at western Europe, free speech is restricted a little more, so "hate groups" are illegal. Yet in pretty much all other aspects, these countries are better at ensuring human rights for their citizens. I'm fairly sure that the US is lagging due to historical reasons. Without a war like Germany experienced, there is too much resistance towards a "clean cut" elimination of racism, so you get an exponentially slow decay instead.
  - justaman 7y ago
    Germany implemented laws that forbid holocaust denial for example. The US has no such laws pertaining to its groups.
  - greedo 7y ago
    So Germany, Japan (and other countries that experienced destructive wars) have eliminated racism?
    - semi-extrinsic 7y ago
      Well, eliminated is a bit strong, as you can never eliminate an ideology. The main point, however, is that Europe has shown over a span of several decades that restricting hate speech a) does not lead to any slippery slope where other forms of speech are restricted and b) that restrictions of hate speech are effective at reducing racism in society.
  - 7y ago
tombert 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes While I'm sure China has made progress, which is great, it doesn't deter from the fact that there are a ton of human-rights violations that happen there all the time that would be front-page stories if they happened in the US. I go back and forth about how I feel about us outsourcing to countries with labor violations, so I'm not even saying I disagree with you, but it's not a good argument to say "Well what about the US's problems?!?!". Yes, we're not perfect either, no one is arguing that we are, and we have a lot of things to apologize for and fix, but that's somewhat irrelevant to the discussion.
flattone 7y ago
Yes we are.
- flattone 7y ago
  Love to note that while I receive a few minus, no effective points for the above are found. I think I'm playing for par but happy to hear something more engaging than "the us isn't the poster child blablabla" get the real stuff out if you're going to make such a large claim with no meat/fauxmeat to it..
ralusek 7y ago
850 million people have been lifted out of poverty by going through an accelerated industrial revolution similar to what lifted the West out of poverty, largely funded by the West outsourcing the labor its citizens' expectations for quality of life would no longer allow.
- vkou 7y ago
  And yet, for some reason, the same has not happened in India. Why is that?
  - ralusek 7y ago
    Because India has not served as the primary manufacturing hub for first world countries to nearly the same degree. Also, China has an authoritarian but competent government that very effectively reinvested their newly acquired wealth into infrastructure/development.
  - Fjolsvith 7y ago
    Perhaps the government in India hasn't yet figured out how to print money like the Chinese Communist Party?
kortilla 7y ago
China doesn’t have Indian reservations because it just forces integration or kills ethnic groups not approved by the government. The government itself functions as a massive hate group against Muslims. It just has a monopoly on which hate groups get a voice.
- rmah 7y ago
  To clarify, China doesn't "hate muslims" in the way some westerners do. Their current policy towards the Uyghurs in Xinjiang is a variation of a long-standing policy of sino-fication (also known as the "one china" policy). A policy that has existed in one form or another for over a thousand years. And it's why China is China today. Other, more benign aspects of this policy are things like calling the various languages in china "dialects", even if they are mutually incomprehensible. Even "autonomous ethnic regions" are part of this policy... giving time for some minorities to slowly adapt chinese culture. You have to understand that recent western ideals of cultural pluralism is not widespread in there. Those in power in China view it as good and moral to move uyghur culture into something more closely resembling the broader chinese culture. I get that most westerners would view this ethos as reprehensible, but if you have goals beyond simply being shocked and angry, then an understanding of their perspective is important.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > To clarify, China doesn't "hate muslims" in the way some westerners do. Yes, they do. > Their current policy towards the Uyghurs in Xinjiang is a variation of a long-standing policy of sino-fication Yes, an attitude of compulsory conformity to common tribal identity and the norms, rituals, and behaviors associated therewith is a particularly common thing in human societies, and it's exactly the main reason Muslims are targeted in the West, as well as in China. > I get that most westerners would view this ethos as reprehensible A sizable and politically powerful subset of westerners actively support the same kind of ethos and keeping pushing it into government in much of the West, and object to sinofication not because of a drive against such conformity but only because not doing so for any other culture undermines the propaganda supporting their own cultural conformity efforts.
legulere 7y ago
A lot of stuff missing on this list: death penalty, war crimes, mass surveillance of the whole world including industry espionage

threezero 7y ago

I’m not sure I’d call China running over people with tanks and imprisoning millions of Muslims in concentration camps “improvements”.

dvduval 7y ago
From the East India company and the opium wars and the unbalanced treaties, to the Chinese civil war and the invasion of Japan, it's not easy for an outsider to understand just how strongly China considers anything that would bring about the instability that they experienced in the past. Most Chinese people support preventing instability, as in the 80s they had the largest famine in human history. Sometimes they are heavy handed and I think they acknowledge this, and would even tell you that it's not right what they did, but I think the average Westerner does not really get the perspective of the reasoning behind it. Think about how many people we have imprisoned in our so-called drug war. As a percent of our population, it's a lot more than in China.
- wp381640 7y ago
  There is nothing unique about China's own human rights abuses that rationalises it. Every dictatorship ever has had similar rationalisations.
  - dvduval 7y ago
    I don't feel your comment is rooted in a deep understanding of Chinese history, but I hear what you're saying. I personally believe that if the current leader started to exhibit behavior that was crazy, he would be removed. And you might go on to say that what happened in the Muslim territory in the Northwest is already crazy, but the economic track record and the number of people who have been lifted out of poverty is quite good for the current leader.
    - izend 7y ago
      The big question is what happens when that economic track record hits a road bump or a giant pothole, how will the government react?
      - dvduval 7y ago
        Currently in China: largest number of people freed from poverty in human history. Their neighbors in SE Asia are also coming out of poverty, maybe 20 years behind China. I think trade war could make it tough for all, hoping we can avoid it. A bump? Let's hope it's not like the great famine China experienced in the eighties. I doubt it.
        NeedMoreTea 7y ago
        Scant consolation for the Uyghurs, Tibetans or even HKers.
        lern_too_spel 7y ago
        The Nazis also pulled Germany out of poverty. This does not excuse their actions towards the Jews any more than your point excuses China's actions towards the Uyghurs.
- kortilla 7y ago
  Right, running people over with tanks and forcing Muslims into re-education camps is fine because “they don’t want instability” and the US has strict drug sentencing. The mental gymnastics for that reasoning are astounding. Here’s the deal: it doesn’t matter if the US started killing every dissident outright. US behavior is not an excuse for unethical behavior in China. The government and citizens of China are not dumb children that can’t behave ethically if there are other unethical things going on in the world.
- izend 7y ago
  Minor correction but the Great Chinese Famine was from 1959 to 1961.
- sdwa 7y ago
  I don't find those trying to explain away China's disdain for human rights by using historical arguments to be in any way credible. Taiwan alone proves that it's possible for China to be a democracy with respect for human rights. But I suppose you're right, it's not easy for me to really get into the mind of someone like you who is comfortable with explaining away organ harvesting by referring to the need for "stability". That which does not bend, will break.
  - dvduval 7y ago
    How many Iraqi civilians did US government forces kill? The US nuclear bomb drops on Japanese ciivilians? Was that fine compared with organ harvesting? My point is not that any of this is okay, but so easy to point the finger and "they" are the bad people and we are good.
    - sdwa 7y ago
      It is easy to point the finger, yes, because no Western country is nearly as bad as China when it comes to human rights, and to suggest otherwise is peak contrarianism. I'm not going to suggest the West is perfect, but it's without question that China is much worse. I'd also like to restate that your claim that historical events dictate that China must abuse human rights to lift people out of poverty is nonsense because Taiwan is Chinese, democratic, developed, and doesn't abuse human rights.
- kibwen 7y ago
  > Think about how many people we have imprisoned in our so-called drug war. As a percent of our population, it's a lot more than in China. Be careful what you're seeking to compare; with 11M Uyghurs and 1M of them in re-education camps, China has far more of a percentage of the underclass imprisoned (9%) than in the U.S. (with 1.35% of the black population imprisoned). This isn't to defend the prison practices of the U.S., which are still generally indefensible, but some heart can be taken in that the number of U.S. imprisoned (of all races, but especially black prisoners) has fallen year-over-year for more than a decade, whereas China's re-education camps are still growing.
  - nkurz 7y ago
    > than in the U.S. (with 1.35% of the black population imprisoned) Interesting. My first thought was that your number was too low, but searching a little it seems you are right, with a couple caveats. The first caveat is that the number for black males is about twice that of the black population as a whole (ie, black females are rarely imprisoned). The second caveat, which is not one I've seen widely reported, is that the percentage of black males currently imprisoned has dropped sharply over recent years, from 3.5% in 2000 to 2.6% now. This article (with the charts from which I got the numbers) goes into possible reasons: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/12/15/a-mass-incarceration-mystery https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/12/15/a-mass-incarce...
la_barba 7y ago
Nobody said those were improvements, so what is your point?
ummonk 7y ago
Source to running over people with tanks?
- kortilla 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests
- mhh__ 7y ago
  Tiananmen, And there is photographic evidence
  - vinceguidry 7y ago
    There were no pictures that actually captured people being run over with tanks. The man in the famous photo was the only incident caught on film, he was not run over that day but his whereabouts are unknown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man
    - low_poly_shiba 7y ago
      An interesting fact I learned the other day is that the man in that picture is from after the protests, when the tanks were leaving the square, not when they were entering it. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5aad3e1a7e3c3aab4ab40b11/5b1fde6e0e2e7204c77b9f4b/5b1fdf956d2a7373bd71f17a/1528815549894/004_LON16896.jpg?format=500w https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5aad3e1a7e3c3aab4ab40...
    - mhh__ 7y ago
      It may not have been a tank but I have a photo of someone who was clearly crushed by something that definitely wasn't a students bicycle let's say
  - Fjolsvith 7y ago
    Not available in China, though...
- 7y ago
bitbrewer 7y ago
The Chinese have tanks running over people. Americans shoot fellow citizens in the dozens with semi-automatic guns. The difference? The former happened ONCE, 30 years ago. The latter happens maybe ONCE A MONTH. Talk about Chinese people living in a horrible country...
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  >Americans shoot fellow citizens in the dozens >happens maybe ONCE A MONTH Not to be a dick but... Cite. A. Source. A shooting with 12+ people getting shot is the kind of event that makes the national news even if nobody of dies. That's not the kind of thing that happens about monthly. I am very skeptical you will be able to back up your assertion assuming any reasonable definition of "shoot" and "dozen". Edit: My skepticism has survived one citation and counting.
  - bitbrewer 7y ago
    https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      I'm in several pages now and don't see a single number of double digit injuries let alone a dozen or multiple dozens. Several of the ones I've clicked through to the source on seem to be counting people injured in things other than the shooting (e.g. brawl injures X, dude draws gun, shoots one person = 1 dead, X injuries). The fact that they call the page "Mass Shootings in 2019" when even they say in their about-us[0] that they attempt to catalog each and every shooting seems to indicate a bias (to put it mildly). Edit: actually I'm wrong, I was only looking at the "Mass shootings" portion of their data. Their definition of "mass" seems to be "4+ people injured and/or killed including people not injured/killed" which seems slimy considering how they seem to be counting injuries. That said, they seem to be a pretty damn good source for raw information and generally unbiased with their numbers. Edit: got through all the 2019 results (couldn't get CSV export to work with my browser) and found exactly two results for a dozen. One event[1] has 6 dead, 6 injured but the source doesn't mention any of the people injured other than the 5 victims and one gunman who died, maybe an error in the data? The other event is the Virginia Beach shooting. In any case I think it's safe to conclude that events where a dozen people get shot happen less than monthly. [0]https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/about https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/about [1]https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/aurora-beacon-news/ct-abn-aurora-pratt-shooting-autopsy-st-0414-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/aurora-beacon-news/ct...

javagram 7y ago

“hate groups” exist in the USA because this is a free country. In places without our commitment to freedom and human rights those type of groups would have been suppressed by the government. Edit: just to be clear some of your other points are fair although I find the “Indian reservations” a bit dated - they are treated as local sovereigns (e.g. casinos, being allowed to violate state level hunting regulations) and are even now being allowed to expand their territory in some places .

semi-extrinsic 7y ago
The US "commitment to freedom and human rights" rings a bit hollow, IMHO. If you look at western Europe, free speech is restricted a little more, so "hate groups" are illegal. Yet in pretty much all other aspects, these countries are better at ensuring human rights for their citizens. I'm fairly sure that the US is lagging due to historical reasons. Without a war like Germany experienced, there is too much resistance towards a "clean cut" elimination of racism, so you get an exponentially slow decay instead.
- justaman 7y ago
  Germany implemented laws that forbid holocaust denial for example. The US has no such laws pertaining to its groups.
- greedo 7y ago
  So Germany, Japan (and other countries that experienced destructive wars) have eliminated racism?
  - semi-extrinsic 7y ago
    Well, eliminated is a bit strong, as you can never eliminate an ideology. The main point, however, is that Europe has shown over a span of several decades that restricting hate speech a) does not lead to any slippery slope where other forms of speech are restricted and b) that restrictions of hate speech are effective at reducing racism in society.
- 7y ago

tombert 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes While I'm sure China has made progress, which is great, it doesn't deter from the fact that there are a ton of human-rights violations that happen there all the time that would be front-page stories if they happened in the US. I go back and forth about how I feel about us outsourcing to countries with labor violations, so I'm not even saying I disagree with you, but it's not a good argument to say "Well what about the US's problems?!?!". Yes, we're not perfect either, no one is arguing that we are, and we have a lot of things to apologize for and fix, but that's somewhat irrelevant to the discussion.

flattone 7y ago

Yes we are.

flattone 7y ago
Love to note that while I receive a few minus, no effective points for the above are found. I think I'm playing for par but happy to hear something more engaging than "the us isn't the poster child blablabla" get the real stuff out if you're going to make such a large claim with no meat/fauxmeat to it..

ralusek 7y ago

850 million people have been lifted out of poverty by going through an accelerated industrial revolution similar to what lifted the West out of poverty, largely funded by the West outsourcing the labor its citizens' expectations for quality of life would no longer allow.

vkou 7y ago
And yet, for some reason, the same has not happened in India. Why is that?
- ralusek 7y ago
  Because India has not served as the primary manufacturing hub for first world countries to nearly the same degree. Also, China has an authoritarian but competent government that very effectively reinvested their newly acquired wealth into infrastructure/development.
- Fjolsvith 7y ago
  Perhaps the government in India hasn't yet figured out how to print money like the Chinese Communist Party?

kortilla 7y ago

China doesn’t have Indian reservations because it just forces integration or kills ethnic groups not approved by the government. The government itself functions as a massive hate group against Muslims. It just has a monopoly on which hate groups get a voice.

rmah 7y ago
To clarify, China doesn't "hate muslims" in the way some westerners do. Their current policy towards the Uyghurs in Xinjiang is a variation of a long-standing policy of sino-fication (also known as the "one china" policy). A policy that has existed in one form or another for over a thousand years. And it's why China is China today. Other, more benign aspects of this policy are things like calling the various languages in china "dialects", even if they are mutually incomprehensible. Even "autonomous ethnic regions" are part of this policy... giving time for some minorities to slowly adapt chinese culture. You have to understand that recent western ideals of cultural pluralism is not widespread in there. Those in power in China view it as good and moral to move uyghur culture into something more closely resembling the broader chinese culture. I get that most westerners would view this ethos as reprehensible, but if you have goals beyond simply being shocked and angry, then an understanding of their perspective is important.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > To clarify, China doesn't "hate muslims" in the way some westerners do. Yes, they do. > Their current policy towards the Uyghurs in Xinjiang is a variation of a long-standing policy of sino-fication Yes, an attitude of compulsory conformity to common tribal identity and the norms, rituals, and behaviors associated therewith is a particularly common thing in human societies, and it's exactly the main reason Muslims are targeted in the West, as well as in China. > I get that most westerners would view this ethos as reprehensible A sizable and politically powerful subset of westerners actively support the same kind of ethos and keeping pushing it into government in much of the West, and object to sinofication not because of a drive against such conformity but only because not doing so for any other culture undermines the propaganda supporting their own cultural conformity efforts.

legulere 7y ago

A lot of stuff missing on this list: death penalty, war crimes, mass surveillance of the whole world including industry espionage