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China Warns World Leaders: Don't Talk About the Hong Kong Protests

70 points by lawrenceyan 7y ago

mfatica 7y ago
First thought when reading this headline is what is Trump about to say
- devoply 7y ago
  Whatever you wanna say about Trump, in the end silencing dissent all over the world is not something good. It's good that someone stands up to this before we can't do that anymore.
  - mfatica 7y ago
    Totally agreed, I'm actually pro-Trump and didn't mean it in a negative way
  - Arbalest 7y ago
    I was thinking something similar. Trump might not be the brightest person, but he sure can't keep his mouth shut... Which is exactly what we need in this instance.
loceng 7y ago
Does the Streisand effect work with politicians? China already would censor anything related to it, so isn't this simply China trying to see who will fall in line? Re: Tiananmen Square Massacre Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre - https://www.newsweek.com/tiananmen-square-massacre-china-says-us-violating-international-law-honoring-30th-anniversary-1442014 https://www.newsweek.com/tiananmen-square-massacre-china-say... China's response - http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zmgxss/t1669295.htm http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zmgxss/t1669295.htm - "On June 3, 2019, the US side issued a statement on China in the name of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo out of prejudice and arrogance. Under the pretext of human rights, the statement grossly intervenes in China's internal affairs, attacks its system, and smears its domestic and foreign policies. This is an affront to the Chinese people and a serious violation of international law and basic norms governing international relations. The Chinese side expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to it. The Chinese government and people reached the verdict on the political incident of the late 1980s long ago. Over the past four decades of reform and opening-up, China has enjoyed rapid economic and social development, continuous progress in democracy and the rule of law, flourishing culture and significantly improved standards of living. China's human rights are in the best period ever. Socialism with Chinese characteristics, a choice of history and the people, has been proved a right path in line with China's national conditions and supported by the whole population. China is firmly committed to the path of peaceful development and to the development of human rights in China and the whole world, and has made significant contribution to the international human rights governance. This is a fact that is recognized by all unbiased people. The Chinese people have the best say on China. Their pursuit of a better life cannot be stopped by any force. Whoever attempt to patronize and bully the Chinese people in any name, or preach a "clash of civilizations" to resist the trend of times will never succeed. They will only end up in the ash heap of history." Talk about our past and we'll leave you in an ash heap? Sounds like they didn't learn anything in whatever "verdict" the government and people supposedly came to.
- brighton36 7y ago
  The three wise monkees. It's a staple of modern societies.
- PavlovsCat 7y ago
  From the totalitarian perspective, ultimately the whole globe, and the inside of any mind, is an "internal affair". That they talk of "resisting the trend of the times" is just par of the course: > More specific in totalitarian propaganda, however, than direct threats and crimes against individuals is the use of indirect, veiled, and menacing hints against all who will not heed its teachings and, later, mass murder perpetrated on "guilty" and "innocent" alike. People are threatened by Communist propaganda with missing the train of history, with remaining hopelessly behind their time, with spending their lives uselessly, just as they were threatened by the Nazis with living against the eternal laws of nature and life, with an irreparable and mysterious deterioration of their blood. [..] > The scientificality of totalitarian propaganda is characterized by its almost exclusive insistence on scientific prophecy as distinguished from the more old-fashioned appeal to the past. Nowhere does the ideological origin, of socialism in one instance and racism in the other, show more clearly than when their spokesmen pretend that they have discovered the hidden forces that will bring them good fortune in the chain of fatality. [..] > Totalitarian propaganda raised ideological scientificality and its technique of making statements in the form of predictions to a height of efficiency of method and absurdity of content because, demagogically speaking, there is hardly a better way to avoid discussion than by releasing an argument from the control of the present and by saying that only the future can reveal its merits. However, totalitarian ideologies did not invent this procedure, and were not the only ones to use it. Scientificality of mass propaganda has indeed been so universally employed in modern politics that it has been interpreted as a more general sign of that obsession with science which has characterized the Western world since the rise of mathematics and physics in the sixteenth century; thus totalitarianism appears to be only the last stage in a process during which "science has become an idol that will magically cure the evils of existence and transform the nature of man." And there was, indeed, an early connection between scientificality and the rise of the masses. The "collectivism" of masses was welcomed by those who hoped for the appearance of "natural laws of historical development" which would eliminate the unpredictability of the individual's actions and behavior. There has been cited the example of Enfantin who could already "see the time approaching when the 'art of moving the masses' will be so perfectly developed that the painter, the musician, and the poet-will possess the power to please and to move with the same certainty as the mathematician solves a geometrical problem or the chemist analyses any substance," and it has been concluded that modern propaganda was born then and there. -- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism" Same book, but I'm note sure if this passage comes before or after the above: > [The method of infallible prediction] is foolproof only after the movements have seized power. Then all debate about the truth or falsity of a totalitarian dictator’s prediction is as weird as arguing with a potential murderer about whether his future victim is dead or alive – since by killing the person in question the murderer can promptly provide proof of the correctness of his statement. The only valid argument under such conditions is promptly to rescue the person whose death is predicted. Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it. The assertion that the Moscow subway is the only one in the world is a lie only so long as the Bolsheviks have not the power to destroy all the others. In other words, the method of infallible prediction, more than any other totalitarian propaganda device, betrays its ultimate goal of world conquest, since only in a world completely under his control could the totalitarian ruler possibly realize all his lies and make true all his prophecies. same thing for this quote (since this discussion was flagged like a brick anyway I don't feel bad for taking up that much space -- if it's an additional incentive for even just one person to read that book, it's worth it) > We don't know a perfected totalitarian power structure, because it would require the control of the whole planet. But we know enough about the the still preliminary experiments of total organization to realize that the very well possible perfection of this apparatus would get rid of human agency in the sense as we know it. To act would turn out to be superfluous for people living together, when all people have become an example of their species, when all doing has become an acceleration of the movement mechanism of history or nature following a set pattern, and all deeds have become the execution of death sentences which history and nature have given anyway. edit: > The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits 'atrocities' but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future. and > Already history has in a sense ceased to exist, ie. there is no such thing as a history of our own times which could be universally accepted, and the exact sciences are endangered as soon as military necessity ceases to keep people up to the mark. Hitler can say that the Jews started the war, and if he survives that will become official history. He can’t say that two and two are five, because for the purposes of, say, ballistics they have to make four. But if the sort of world that I am afraid of arrives, a world of two or three great superstates which are unable to conquer one another, two and two could become five if the fuhrer wished it. That, so far as I can see, is the direction in which we are actually moving, though, of course, the process is reversible. -- George Orwell If you got this far, read this speech, it's really good, and I want this ray of hope to be your takeaway more than anything: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20262265 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20262265
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
robdachshund 7y ago
Hong kong protests Hong kong protests hong king protests... Tiananmen Square. P.S. Long March Rocket explosion cover up
mc32 7y ago
Wait, is China putting world leaders under a gag order? Under what authority? Are there mechanisms by which they are allowed to do this (stipulated in bilateral or international agreements of any type?). Or is this just the height of arrogance and delusion on the CCP side? I don’t think even Putin goes to these extents to quash dissent. I can even understand internal (domestic censorship, it makes some sense from their perspective), but this is attempting to control what sovereigns of other nations may say... What?
- devoply 7y ago
  Money and power drives leaders mad. It's not delusional if you can retaliate against people who don't toe the party line. Just look at the US destroying whole countries for not upholding "freedom and democracy" mythology... well that's different you say... but is it, really?
  - Fjolsvith 7y ago
    > Money and power drives leaders mad. It's not delusional if you can retaliate against people who don't tow the party line. Just look at the US destroying whole countries for not uploading "freedom and democracy" mythology... well that's different you say... but is it, really? What do you mean by, "Uploading the 'freedom and democracy' mythology?"
    - mc32 7y ago
      It’s referring to thd Middle East meddling we got involved during Bush and to a somewhat lesser extent Obama presidencies (though North AfricanNear East and Middle East Arab spring was a debacle as well).
- girzel 7y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised if they're handling this the way they handle most domestic censorship; not so much the iron hand coming down, but more a wheedling pressure: "why would you stir up so much trouble, don't you know you're just causing bad blood, think about how this might influence future relations, you're not stupid, I know you'll do the right thing." It's rare that they reveal the bare face of authoritarian violence. Only when they're relatively confident no one will see it except their victims.
Shivetya 7y ago
and I ask again, how are American tech giants defending their production in this country. Very quick to toot their human rights horns yet show no shame in being in China.
- bassman9000 7y ago
  this No issue bashing collaboration with DoD, but damning silence when it's the business in China.

70 points by lawrenceyan 7y ago

mfatica 7y ago

First thought when reading this headline is what is Trump about to say

devoply 7y ago
Whatever you wanna say about Trump, in the end silencing dissent all over the world is not something good. It's good that someone stands up to this before we can't do that anymore.
- mfatica 7y ago
  Totally agreed, I'm actually pro-Trump and didn't mean it in a negative way
- Arbalest 7y ago
  I was thinking something similar. Trump might not be the brightest person, but he sure can't keep his mouth shut... Which is exactly what we need in this instance.

loceng 7y ago

Does the Streisand effect work with politicians? China already would censor anything related to it, so isn't this simply China trying to see who will fall in line? Re: Tiananmen Square Massacre Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre - https://www.newsweek.com/tiananmen-square-massacre-china-says-us-violating-international-law-honoring-30th-anniversary-1442014 https://www.newsweek.com/tiananmen-square-massacre-china-say... China's response - http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zmgxss/t1669295.htm http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zmgxss/t1669295.htm - "On June 3, 2019, the US side issued a statement on China in the name of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo out of prejudice and arrogance. Under the pretext of human rights, the statement grossly intervenes in China's internal affairs, attacks its system, and smears its domestic and foreign policies. This is an affront to the Chinese people and a serious violation of international law and basic norms governing international relations. The Chinese side expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to it. The Chinese government and people reached the verdict on the political incident of the late 1980s long ago. Over the past four decades of reform and opening-up, China has enjoyed rapid economic and social development, continuous progress in democracy and the rule of law, flourishing culture and significantly improved standards of living. China's human rights are in the best period ever. Socialism with Chinese characteristics, a choice of history and the people, has been proved a right path in line with China's national conditions and supported by the whole population. China is firmly committed to the path of peaceful development and to the development of human rights in China and the whole world, and has made significant contribution to the international human rights governance. This is a fact that is recognized by all unbiased people. The Chinese people have the best say on China. Their pursuit of a better life cannot be stopped by any force. Whoever attempt to patronize and bully the Chinese people in any name, or preach a "clash of civilizations" to resist the trend of times will never succeed. They will only end up in the ash heap of history." Talk about our past and we'll leave you in an ash heap? Sounds like they didn't learn anything in whatever "verdict" the government and people supposedly came to.

brighton36 7y ago
The three wise monkees. It's a staple of modern societies.
PavlovsCat 7y ago
From the totalitarian perspective, ultimately the whole globe, and the inside of any mind, is an "internal affair". That they talk of "resisting the trend of the times" is just par of the course: > More specific in totalitarian propaganda, however, than direct threats and crimes against individuals is the use of indirect, veiled, and menacing hints against all who will not heed its teachings and, later, mass murder perpetrated on "guilty" and "innocent" alike. People are threatened by Communist propaganda with missing the train of history, with remaining hopelessly behind their time, with spending their lives uselessly, just as they were threatened by the Nazis with living against the eternal laws of nature and life, with an irreparable and mysterious deterioration of their blood. [..] > The scientificality of totalitarian propaganda is characterized by its almost exclusive insistence on scientific prophecy as distinguished from the more old-fashioned appeal to the past. Nowhere does the ideological origin, of socialism in one instance and racism in the other, show more clearly than when their spokesmen pretend that they have discovered the hidden forces that will bring them good fortune in the chain of fatality. [..] > Totalitarian propaganda raised ideological scientificality and its technique of making statements in the form of predictions to a height of efficiency of method and absurdity of content because, demagogically speaking, there is hardly a better way to avoid discussion than by releasing an argument from the control of the present and by saying that only the future can reveal its merits. However, totalitarian ideologies did not invent this procedure, and were not the only ones to use it. Scientificality of mass propaganda has indeed been so universally employed in modern politics that it has been interpreted as a more general sign of that obsession with science which has characterized the Western world since the rise of mathematics and physics in the sixteenth century; thus totalitarianism appears to be only the last stage in a process during which "science has become an idol that will magically cure the evils of existence and transform the nature of man." And there was, indeed, an early connection between scientificality and the rise of the masses. The "collectivism" of masses was welcomed by those who hoped for the appearance of "natural laws of historical development" which would eliminate the unpredictability of the individual's actions and behavior. There has been cited the example of Enfantin who could already "see the time approaching when the 'art of moving the masses' will be so perfectly developed that the painter, the musician, and the poet-will possess the power to please and to move with the same certainty as the mathematician solves a geometrical problem or the chemist analyses any substance," and it has been concluded that modern propaganda was born then and there. -- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism" Same book, but I'm note sure if this passage comes before or after the above: > [The method of infallible prediction] is foolproof only after the movements have seized power. Then all debate about the truth or falsity of a totalitarian dictator’s prediction is as weird as arguing with a potential murderer about whether his future victim is dead or alive – since by killing the person in question the murderer can promptly provide proof of the correctness of his statement. The only valid argument under such conditions is promptly to rescue the person whose death is predicted. Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it. The assertion that the Moscow subway is the only one in the world is a lie only so long as the Bolsheviks have not the power to destroy all the others. In other words, the method of infallible prediction, more than any other totalitarian propaganda device, betrays its ultimate goal of world conquest, since only in a world completely under his control could the totalitarian ruler possibly realize all his lies and make true all his prophecies. same thing for this quote (since this discussion was flagged like a brick anyway I don't feel bad for taking up that much space -- if it's an additional incentive for even just one person to read that book, it's worth it) > We don't know a perfected totalitarian power structure, because it would require the control of the whole planet. But we know enough about the the still preliminary experiments of total organization to realize that the very well possible perfection of this apparatus would get rid of human agency in the sense as we know it. To act would turn out to be superfluous for people living together, when all people have become an example of their species, when all doing has become an acceleration of the movement mechanism of history or nature following a set pattern, and all deeds have become the execution of death sentences which history and nature have given anyway. edit: > The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits 'atrocities' but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future. and > Already history has in a sense ceased to exist, ie. there is no such thing as a history of our own times which could be universally accepted, and the exact sciences are endangered as soon as military necessity ceases to keep people up to the mark. Hitler can say that the Jews started the war, and if he survives that will become official history. He can’t say that two and two are five, because for the purposes of, say, ballistics they have to make four. But if the sort of world that I am afraid of arrives, a world of two or three great superstates which are unable to conquer one another, two and two could become five if the fuhrer wished it. That, so far as I can see, is the direction in which we are actually moving, though, of course, the process is reversible. -- George Orwell If you got this far, read this speech, it's really good, and I want this ray of hope to be your takeaway more than anything: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20262265 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20262265

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

robdachshund 7y ago

Hong kong protests Hong kong protests hong king protests... Tiananmen Square. P.S. Long March Rocket explosion cover up

mc32 7y ago

Wait, is China putting world leaders under a gag order? Under what authority? Are there mechanisms by which they are allowed to do this (stipulated in bilateral or international agreements of any type?). Or is this just the height of arrogance and delusion on the CCP side? I don’t think even Putin goes to these extents to quash dissent. I can even understand internal (domestic censorship, it makes some sense from their perspective), but this is attempting to control what sovereigns of other nations may say... What?

devoply 7y ago
Money and power drives leaders mad. It's not delusional if you can retaliate against people who don't toe the party line. Just look at the US destroying whole countries for not upholding "freedom and democracy" mythology... well that's different you say... but is it, really?
- Fjolsvith 7y ago
  > Money and power drives leaders mad. It's not delusional if you can retaliate against people who don't tow the party line. Just look at the US destroying whole countries for not uploading "freedom and democracy" mythology... well that's different you say... but is it, really? What do you mean by, "Uploading the 'freedom and democracy' mythology?"
  - mc32 7y ago
    It’s referring to thd Middle East meddling we got involved during Bush and to a somewhat lesser extent Obama presidencies (though North AfricanNear East and Middle East Arab spring was a debacle as well).
girzel 7y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if they're handling this the way they handle most domestic censorship; not so much the iron hand coming down, but more a wheedling pressure: "why would you stir up so much trouble, don't you know you're just causing bad blood, think about how this might influence future relations, you're not stupid, I know you'll do the right thing." It's rare that they reveal the bare face of authoritarian violence. Only when they're relatively confident no one will see it except their victims.

Shivetya 7y ago

and I ask again, how are American tech giants defending their production in this country. Very quick to toot their human rights horns yet show no shame in being in China.

bassman9000 7y ago
this No issue bashing collaboration with DoD, but damning silence when it's the business in China.