5 ms·

See, this is pretty typical of how the Chinese are told about their own government’s abuses in schools and media: “but what about the other guy?!”. It’s just n

See, this is pretty typical of how the Chinese are told about their own government’s abuses in schools and media: “but what about the other guy?!”. It’s just not a valid argument. It serves only to change the topic and justify nationalism.

AsyncAwait 7y ago
I just want OP to be aware that if he wants to vote for somebody like Trump for i.e. his 'stance' on China, it's worth noting that the U.S. doesn't really care, it's just posturing, this is not to say I like what China does here, if they're indeed doing it. It's possible to hold both of these positions i.e. being against the Iraq war and not believing that the U.S. really believes in the propaganda they're putting out on it does not mean you had to like Saddam.
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  The minority of voters voted for Trump. Statistically you’re even less likely today to find his supporters. I’m more than happy to criticize my own country, its actions, its leaders, and the people that enable them. In case you haven’t noticed a lot of Americans don’t hold their government in high regard. Feel free to keep shining the light on those abuses, we need to remember them and learn from them. Now, what about China?
  - jtdev 7y ago
    The thing that most commenters here in tacit support of China fail to take into account is that China and the US are global superpowers (unlike the litany of baddies that have been mentioned here)... The US taking a hard line on China can have a cascading affect. The US can’t boil the ocean in regard to fixing all of the worlds ills, and we’re by no means perfect. China is simply the best hill to stand our ground on at the moment.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      > The US can’t boil the ocean in regard to fixing all of the worlds ills, and we’re by no means perfect. China is simply the best hill to stand our ground on at the moment. That sounds suspiciously like "changing myself is hard, so I'll try to force my neighbor to change instead". China would certainly be a high-impact change on the global human rights situation (so would the US be), but on the other hand the probability of change seems somewhat low (especially because you are right: they are close enough to the US in strength that they can't be bullied around that easily). Moonshots are nice and certainly valid as side bets, but not as the primary strategy. Let's work on Turkey and the Saudis, they are "allies", somewhat dependent on Western support (Saudis) and money (Turkey) and nudging them into the right direction can make a huge difference. Reward them generously if they do, and you may see it spread. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. It would have the nice side-effect that we'd clean up our back yard a bit, too. Credibility does matter on these things where people will question your motives.
ghostDancer 7y ago
I'm not from the USA, so I can't vote, but IMHO if the candidate truly cares about human rights will condemn equally and publicly the crimes in China, Saudi Arabia or any other country , if it only talks about the Chinese or Iranian one, just when there's a big manipulation campaign against those countries I know that candidate is a liar and is scamming the voters who fall for it. Also it's the same card some US people play when they are told about the abuses of their government/businesses, hey look at Iran , look at China, ...
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  Many of us want candidates to go after Saudi Arabia, but what does that have to do with China?
  - ghostDancer 7y ago
    Candidates only talking about one means that they don't mind about human rights, that they are only doing these for , economical reasons, someone wants to wage a economical war with China that will cost USA lots of money, but some companies will get huge amounts of money and power, so first you declare them the evilest country in the world and then continue. They did it with Afghanistan , later with Iraq. OTOH the are silent about other places like SA or many other dictatorships in the world. Hypocrisy and blatant lies about human rights. And yes, the Chinese government is really fucked up. No one can deny that.
    - barryparr 7y ago
      KSA is a US ally, so our military aid makes us complicit in crimes against humanity. We don’t have a Similar level of engagement or leverage with the PRC.
jdietrich 7y ago
The US has a strong trade and military relationship with KSA, despite their utterly appalling human rights record. It's entirely legitimate to say "If this is really about human rights, why are you selling hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons to an authoritarian regime?". That isn't whataboutism, it's a fundamental critique of the motivations of foreign policy decisions. Analogy: Joe and Paul are gangsters with a nasty reputation. Paul is in hiding because the police department have declared him public enemy number 1, while Joe was a guest of honor at the last police benevolent society dinner. Are you not at least the tiniest bit skeptical about whether the police chief is really trying to fight crime? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia%E2%80%93United_States_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia%E2%80%93United_St...
- randomGen99 7y ago
  To your analogy, yes, police is fighting crime because getting Paul in jail would reduce rate by 50%. And after that, they can focus on Joe. It’s not nothing or everything (false dilemma/perfect solution fallacy).
  - AsyncAwait 7y ago
    Except, they're not only not going after Joe, they're actively hosting him. That's a crucial difference.
- lixtra 7y ago
  As the saying goes, punish one educate hundreds. You can Paul first and then go after Joe later if he does not improve. This is not fair, but politics is not primarily about fairness. It’s about reaching you goals (here: establish human rights world wide).
- kyboren 7y ago
  It is possible for a person to believe that both Joe and Paul, broadly speaking, do nasty things. On one hand, they have dealt with Joe for a long time and, while the relationship is far from perfect, they and Joe have a sort of understanding and Joe takes their opinions into account, in part with all the opinions of other stakeholders, when they're very insistent about it. On the other hand, Paul in recent memory has committed truly unspeakable atrocities against masses of even his nominal stakeholders--and this hypothetical person may not even have the 'favor' of being one. Paul is obviously much more hostile to his stakeholders (Great Leap Forward, June 4/Tiananmen, Xinjiang concentration camps, Falun Gong genocide, ubiquitous hyper surveillance, etc. etc.). Paul has recently become much more rich and powerful, and has started asserting that power in ways that would totally violate the understanding between our person and Joe. At the same time, Paul has been asserting his power in other person-gangster relationships, dictating terms and helping those gangsters better oppress their own stakeholders. Are you even the tiniest bit skeptical about whether our person's interests best lie in a maximally adversarial relationship with Paul vs. with Joe? Our person may very much want a better relationship with Joe. If they see Paul as a bigger threat, though, then it makes perfect sense to focus on confronting Paul.
luckylion 7y ago
> It’s just not a valid argument. It's not a valid argument for the Chinese to justify their practices, you are right in that. It is a valid argument for critics that are (collectively) guilty of similar abuses, however. In this case: why make China's abuses the issue of your vote instead of your government's abuses? The US government has limited power over the Chinese (and so your vote has even less), but it has full power over itself. Pledging your vote to somebody that will not create new wars sounds more reasonable to me than pledging your vote to someone that promises to be "tough on China". The horrors in Libya that the Obama administration is responsible for are arguably worse than China's human rights abuses in their Gulag system. First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye and all that.
- pimmen 7y ago
  We can't go too far with this logic, though. Nobody's perfect yet I wouldn't want to live in a world where everyone reflects on themselves, finds out they aren't perfect themselves, and just passively watches human rights abuses. It is absolutely vital that we do improve what we can and start with ourselves but we should not get carried away with that idea to a ridiculous degree. Someone who has committed crimes can and should still speak out if someone is committing something absolutely abhorrent in plain view instead of remaining silent.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    Certainly, that is a theoretical possibility. Note that I'm not suggesting ignorance and passivity. I prefer this route: 1) get your house in order before you try to fix the world 2) start with small, achievable improvements 3) be just in your judgement. > Someone who has committed crimes can and should still speak out if someone is committing something absolutely abhorrent in plain view instead of remaining silent. Absolutely. Yet he may have to answer why his own abhorrent acts should be ignored, especially when they aren't from the distant past and he hasn't shown to be a changed man. The lion telling the tiger he should go vegetarian for moral reasons ...
    - 7y ago

AsyncAwait 7y ago

I just want OP to be aware that if he wants to vote for somebody like Trump for i.e. his 'stance' on China, it's worth noting that the U.S. doesn't really care, it's just posturing, this is not to say I like what China does here, if they're indeed doing it. It's possible to hold both of these positions i.e. being against the Iraq war and not believing that the U.S. really believes in the propaganda they're putting out on it does not mean you had to like Saddam.

ilikehurdles 7y ago
The minority of voters voted for Trump. Statistically you’re even less likely today to find his supporters. I’m more than happy to criticize my own country, its actions, its leaders, and the people that enable them. In case you haven’t noticed a lot of Americans don’t hold their government in high regard. Feel free to keep shining the light on those abuses, we need to remember them and learn from them. Now, what about China?
- jtdev 7y ago
  The thing that most commenters here in tacit support of China fail to take into account is that China and the US are global superpowers (unlike the litany of baddies that have been mentioned here)... The US taking a hard line on China can have a cascading affect. The US can’t boil the ocean in regard to fixing all of the worlds ills, and we’re by no means perfect. China is simply the best hill to stand our ground on at the moment.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    > The US can’t boil the ocean in regard to fixing all of the worlds ills, and we’re by no means perfect. China is simply the best hill to stand our ground on at the moment. That sounds suspiciously like "changing myself is hard, so I'll try to force my neighbor to change instead". China would certainly be a high-impact change on the global human rights situation (so would the US be), but on the other hand the probability of change seems somewhat low (especially because you are right: they are close enough to the US in strength that they can't be bullied around that easily). Moonshots are nice and certainly valid as side bets, but not as the primary strategy. Let's work on Turkey and the Saudis, they are "allies", somewhat dependent on Western support (Saudis) and money (Turkey) and nudging them into the right direction can make a huge difference. Reward them generously if they do, and you may see it spread. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. It would have the nice side-effect that we'd clean up our back yard a bit, too. Credibility does matter on these things where people will question your motives.

ghostDancer 7y ago

I'm not from the USA, so I can't vote, but IMHO if the candidate truly cares about human rights will condemn equally and publicly the crimes in China, Saudi Arabia or any other country , if it only talks about the Chinese or Iranian one, just when there's a big manipulation campaign against those countries I know that candidate is a liar and is scamming the voters who fall for it. Also it's the same card some US people play when they are told about the abuses of their government/businesses, hey look at Iran , look at China, ...

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Many of us want candidates to go after Saudi Arabia, but what does that have to do with China?
- ghostDancer 7y ago
  Candidates only talking about one means that they don't mind about human rights, that they are only doing these for , economical reasons, someone wants to wage a economical war with China that will cost USA lots of money, but some companies will get huge amounts of money and power, so first you declare them the evilest country in the world and then continue. They did it with Afghanistan , later with Iraq. OTOH the are silent about other places like SA or many other dictatorships in the world. Hypocrisy and blatant lies about human rights. And yes, the Chinese government is really fucked up. No one can deny that.
  - barryparr 7y ago
    KSA is a US ally, so our military aid makes us complicit in crimes against humanity. We don’t have a Similar level of engagement or leverage with the PRC.

jdietrich 7y ago

The US has a strong trade and military relationship with KSA, despite their utterly appalling human rights record. It's entirely legitimate to say "If this is really about human rights, why are you selling hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons to an authoritarian regime?". That isn't whataboutism, it's a fundamental critique of the motivations of foreign policy decisions. Analogy: Joe and Paul are gangsters with a nasty reputation. Paul is in hiding because the police department have declared him public enemy number 1, while Joe was a guest of honor at the last police benevolent society dinner. Are you not at least the tiniest bit skeptical about whether the police chief is really trying to fight crime? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia%E2%80%93United_States_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia%E2%80%93United_St...

randomGen99 7y ago
To your analogy, yes, police is fighting crime because getting Paul in jail would reduce rate by 50%. And after that, they can focus on Joe. It’s not nothing or everything (false dilemma/perfect solution fallacy).
- AsyncAwait 7y ago
  Except, they're not only not going after Joe, they're actively hosting him. That's a crucial difference.
lixtra 7y ago
As the saying goes, punish one educate hundreds. You can Paul first and then go after Joe later if he does not improve. This is not fair, but politics is not primarily about fairness. It’s about reaching you goals (here: establish human rights world wide).
kyboren 7y ago
It is possible for a person to believe that both Joe and Paul, broadly speaking, do nasty things. On one hand, they have dealt with Joe for a long time and, while the relationship is far from perfect, they and Joe have a sort of understanding and Joe takes their opinions into account, in part with all the opinions of other stakeholders, when they're very insistent about it. On the other hand, Paul in recent memory has committed truly unspeakable atrocities against masses of even his nominal stakeholders--and this hypothetical person may not even have the 'favor' of being one. Paul is obviously much more hostile to his stakeholders (Great Leap Forward, June 4/Tiananmen, Xinjiang concentration camps, Falun Gong genocide, ubiquitous hyper surveillance, etc. etc.). Paul has recently become much more rich and powerful, and has started asserting that power in ways that would totally violate the understanding between our person and Joe. At the same time, Paul has been asserting his power in other person-gangster relationships, dictating terms and helping those gangsters better oppress their own stakeholders. Are you even the tiniest bit skeptical about whether our person's interests best lie in a maximally adversarial relationship with Paul vs. with Joe? Our person may very much want a better relationship with Joe. If they see Paul as a bigger threat, though, then it makes perfect sense to focus on confronting Paul.

luckylion 7y ago

> It’s just not a valid argument. It's not a valid argument for the Chinese to justify their practices, you are right in that. It is a valid argument for critics that are (collectively) guilty of similar abuses, however. In this case: why make China's abuses the issue of your vote instead of your government's abuses? The US government has limited power over the Chinese (and so your vote has even less), but it has full power over itself. Pledging your vote to somebody that will not create new wars sounds more reasonable to me than pledging your vote to someone that promises to be "tough on China". The horrors in Libya that the Obama administration is responsible for are arguably worse than China's human rights abuses in their Gulag system. First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye and all that.

pimmen 7y ago
We can't go too far with this logic, though. Nobody's perfect yet I wouldn't want to live in a world where everyone reflects on themselves, finds out they aren't perfect themselves, and just passively watches human rights abuses. It is absolutely vital that we do improve what we can and start with ourselves but we should not get carried away with that idea to a ridiculous degree. Someone who has committed crimes can and should still speak out if someone is committing something absolutely abhorrent in plain view instead of remaining silent.
- luckylion 7y ago
  Certainly, that is a theoretical possibility. Note that I'm not suggesting ignorance and passivity. I prefer this route: 1) get your house in order before you try to fix the world 2) start with small, achievable improvements 3) be just in your judgement. > Someone who has committed crimes can and should still speak out if someone is committing something absolutely abhorrent in plain view instead of remaining silent. Absolutely. Yet he may have to answer why his own abhorrent acts should be ignored, especially when they aren't from the distant past and he hasn't shown to be a changed man. The lion telling the tiger he should go vegetarian for moral reasons ...
  - 7y ago