5 ms·

China is a place where you can be locked to a chair and interrogated by police for social media comments critical of the state. Don't try to tell me it isn't a

by daenz 7y ago

China is a place where you can be locked to a chair and interrogated by police for social media comments critical of the state. Don't try to tell me it isn't a government ruled through fear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6uy12RpqQc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6uy12RpqQc

throw4r563s 7y ago
That’s like saying Americans are in fear of being water boarded by the authorities. Chinese people in China are not afraid of the cops. If you see how Chinese people interact with cops, I bet you would be surprised. I regularly see people yelling and screaming at them, and the Chinese cops will still try to diffuse the situation.
- gruez 7y ago
  >Chinese people in China are not afraid of the cops. If you see how Chinese people interact with cops, I bet you would be surprised. Perhaps they're not afraid of the cops on a daily basis, but they are afraid of the CCP. >That’s like saying Americans are in fear of being water boarded by the authorities. Guess where you can shit talk about the head of state and not end up in a re-education camp?
bllguo 7y ago
Okay? And the US is a place where I can get brutalized, shot, and killed by the police based on.. nothing. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of Chinese citizens are living lives thinking and worrying about the same kinds of things we do. Not cowering in fear bemoaning their lack of freedoms.
- bobbytran 7y ago
  I've heard this argument again and again from Chinese government sympathizers...and it's just not true. The vast majority of people aren't brutalized and shot by the police. If it does happen, it goes through a trial and the court systems. The vast majority of people talking out against the Chinese government will be jailed or re-educated in China...that's the difference.
  - bllguo 7y ago
    Yes, the vast majority of US citizens aren't getting brutalized by the police. Similarly, the vast majority of Chinese citizens are not being jailed or re-educated. You can't just compare the US population at large to the subset of Chinese people who speak out against the government. The claim was that people in China live in a state of fear, and I refuted it. Let's not conflate things.
    - daenz 7y ago
      >The claim was that people in China live in a state of fear, and I refuted it That wasn't the claim, so you refuted a strawman. The claim was that China governs through fear, not that Chinese live in fear. When people disappear and are "re-educated" against their will for speaking out about the government, as an official policy of your government, you are governing through fear. Refute that.
      - ineedasername 7y ago
        I refute it by pointing out that if the people are not afraid, they are not ruled by fear. The vast majority are no more afraid of their government than the average person in the U.S. is. Sure, some people have reason to fear-- there's the ever present problem of racial discrimination. And I don't mean this to say the U.S. is just as bad. I mean that people caught up in the badness in either country are outliers. So few in number as to make the issue seem too abstract, even if it is much worse in China. They just don't see their restrictions on freedoms through the same lens as folks in the Western world.
        daenz 7y ago
        If you can't watch this video[0] and see a level of fear in people to acknowledge the date June 4th 1989 on camera, then I just don't believe you are arguing in good faith. You seem to grossly underestimate what "disappearing" people for speaking out does to a society. You seem to think that Chinese citizens are ok with it, because they don't protest it, as if they are even allowed to speak out about it without serious repercussions. Just look at how HK reacted to the extradition laws. But I guess HK has become too westernized to understand that it's actually ok to disappear people. 0. https://vimeo.com/44078865 https://vimeo.com/44078865
ineedasername 7y ago
That is not common fear for the billion+ people living there. I have worked alongside many workers from China, and had a few student workers work for me. They do not view they their government as overly oppressive. They view it as working in the best interests of the people, protecting people from harmful things, like internet content through the firewall: in that case it may be they can circumvent it with some effort, but they view the initiative as coming from a place of wanting to take care of their people. You are bringing an outsider's view to this, and I'm telling you, it's not how the Chinese people feel, for the most part. I understand how that's confusing. One person was kind enough to indulge me in two hours of conversation on the topic, and it took that and shorter conversations with a number of people to realize that, Yes, the Chinese people have swallowed the blue pill offered by their government. Not that they're particularly unique in that respect, but, well, there it is. They do not live in fear in the way you think.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  Stated with a western perspective here, but I wouldn't be surprised if anybody who lived under an oppressive regime would openly admit they fear it, for fear of the repercussion. Can you meaningfully distinguish those who genuinely don't feel any fear (because they're bold, or ignorant, or possibly both), and those who superficially state they don't fear their government?
  - ineedasername 7y ago
    A U.S. citizen that migrated from China has very little reason to self-censor or dissemble on this topic. After encountering this beguiling attitude in conversations with others, I sought out such a person, an acquaintance who was a Professor of linguistics, who became a U.S. citizen decades earlier and still had close contact. He confirmed it all. This topic has also been a minor obsession for me, and the reading I've done further confirms it. Even when the people might be aware of something their government has done, they feel protected, that the government is acting in their best interests. And that awareness of incidents is rare. I showed a video of Tianmen Square to a Chinese student I knew. Not only hadn't they known about the incident, but their response was, "oh, those people (protestors) shouldn't have been doing that."

by daenz 7y ago

throw4r563s 7y ago

That’s like saying Americans are in fear of being water boarded by the authorities. Chinese people in China are not afraid of the cops. If you see how Chinese people interact with cops, I bet you would be surprised. I regularly see people yelling and screaming at them, and the Chinese cops will still try to diffuse the situation.

gruez 7y ago
>Chinese people in China are not afraid of the cops. If you see how Chinese people interact with cops, I bet you would be surprised. Perhaps they're not afraid of the cops on a daily basis, but they are afraid of the CCP. >That’s like saying Americans are in fear of being water boarded by the authorities. Guess where you can shit talk about the head of state and not end up in a re-education camp?

bllguo 7y ago

Okay? And the US is a place where I can get brutalized, shot, and killed by the police based on.. nothing. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of Chinese citizens are living lives thinking and worrying about the same kinds of things we do. Not cowering in fear bemoaning their lack of freedoms.

bobbytran 7y ago
I've heard this argument again and again from Chinese government sympathizers...and it's just not true. The vast majority of people aren't brutalized and shot by the police. If it does happen, it goes through a trial and the court systems. The vast majority of people talking out against the Chinese government will be jailed or re-educated in China...that's the difference.
- bllguo 7y ago
  Yes, the vast majority of US citizens aren't getting brutalized by the police. Similarly, the vast majority of Chinese citizens are not being jailed or re-educated. You can't just compare the US population at large to the subset of Chinese people who speak out against the government. The claim was that people in China live in a state of fear, and I refuted it. Let's not conflate things.
  - daenz 7y ago
    >The claim was that people in China live in a state of fear, and I refuted it That wasn't the claim, so you refuted a strawman. The claim was that China governs through fear, not that Chinese live in fear. When people disappear and are "re-educated" against their will for speaking out about the government, as an official policy of your government, you are governing through fear. Refute that.
    - ineedasername 7y ago
      I refute it by pointing out that if the people are not afraid, they are not ruled by fear. The vast majority are no more afraid of their government than the average person in the U.S. is. Sure, some people have reason to fear-- there's the ever present problem of racial discrimination. And I don't mean this to say the U.S. is just as bad. I mean that people caught up in the badness in either country are outliers. So few in number as to make the issue seem too abstract, even if it is much worse in China. They just don't see their restrictions on freedoms through the same lens as folks in the Western world.
      - daenz 7y ago
        If you can't watch this video[0] and see a level of fear in people to acknowledge the date June 4th 1989 on camera, then I just don't believe you are arguing in good faith. You seem to grossly underestimate what "disappearing" people for speaking out does to a society. You seem to think that Chinese citizens are ok with it, because they don't protest it, as if they are even allowed to speak out about it without serious repercussions. Just look at how HK reacted to the extradition laws. But I guess HK has become too westernized to understand that it's actually ok to disappear people. 0. https://vimeo.com/44078865 https://vimeo.com/44078865

ineedasername 7y ago

That is not common fear for the billion+ people living there. I have worked alongside many workers from China, and had a few student workers work for me. They do not view they their government as overly oppressive. They view it as working in the best interests of the people, protecting people from harmful things, like internet content through the firewall: in that case it may be they can circumvent it with some effort, but they view the initiative as coming from a place of wanting to take care of their people. You are bringing an outsider's view to this, and I'm telling you, it's not how the Chinese people feel, for the most part. I understand how that's confusing. One person was kind enough to indulge me in two hours of conversation on the topic, and it took that and shorter conversations with a number of people to realize that, Yes, the Chinese people have swallowed the blue pill offered by their government. Not that they're particularly unique in that respect, but, well, there it is. They do not live in fear in the way you think.

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
Stated with a western perspective here, but I wouldn't be surprised if anybody who lived under an oppressive regime would openly admit they fear it, for fear of the repercussion. Can you meaningfully distinguish those who genuinely don't feel any fear (because they're bold, or ignorant, or possibly both), and those who superficially state they don't fear their government?
- ineedasername 7y ago
  A U.S. citizen that migrated from China has very little reason to self-censor or dissemble on this topic. After encountering this beguiling attitude in conversations with others, I sought out such a person, an acquaintance who was a Professor of linguistics, who became a U.S. citizen decades earlier and still had close contact. He confirmed it all. This topic has also been a minor obsession for me, and the reading I've done further confirms it. Even when the people might be aware of something their government has done, they feel protected, that the government is acting in their best interests. And that awareness of incidents is rare. I showed a video of Tianmen Square to a Chinese student I knew. Not only hadn't they known about the incident, but their response was, "oh, those people (protestors) shouldn't have been doing that."