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This kind of thing is going to play out a lot over the next few years. It's a tough question: how to marry globalisation with the political realities. When Chin

This kind of thing is going to play out a lot over the next few years. It's a tough question: how to marry globalisation with the political realities. When China was very poor, it didn't really matter, or perhaps the assumption was that China would liberalise more quickly than it has. But China, while increasingly mature economically, has not developed proper civil society, human rights, freedom of expression, democracy, and so on. Let us hope they do so as quickly as possible, not least for the sake of the Chinese people themselves. And let us work to improve our example and unity too in countries where we do have these things, however imperfectly.

mytailorisrich 6y ago
Whether China liberalise is a red herring. This is a geopolitical clash of power. It's not about respective political regimes, it's about relative power and influence. If China liberalises tomorrow none of the fundamental issues will change and China will still be a threat to the US. The only thing that will change is that the US will have to find something else in order to label China 'evil'.
- ahelwer 6y ago
  This is a good analysis. You aren't seeing a constant drumbeat of bad China news because the US suddenly cares very deeply about Muslim lives - otherwise we'd be hearing a lot more about India, for example. China threatens the US' global hegemony. To the extent people in power care about China's political system, it is used to rope in liberals to an anti-China stance and manufacture consent for various measures against them, military or otherwise.
  - enitihas 6y ago
    The comparison with India is wrong, or you don't understand the scale of what is happening in China. For starters, India is not re-educating anyone.
    - ferest 6y ago
      i doubt you understand the "fact" you are talking about in person, rather than from some "news". India is not re-educating anyone, but rules out muslim from citizenship? Not even mention the caste system, which is way worse than the color discrimination in US. When India became the 2nd biggest power in the world, all these will become target
      - enitihas 6y ago
        Your arguments lack context. India isn't ruling out Muslims from citizenship. While the CAA is a very bad step forward, and has several problems, it is about what criteria satisfying refugees are available for quick citizenship, and doesn't apply to citizens of the country. India is certainly not running anything close to the camps China is running for Uyighurs. India is actively trying to fix disparities caused by the caste system. It took the US 200 years to get civil rights, India had affirmative action from day one, and one of the biggest examples of affirmative action at that. The caste system is horrendous, but social change can never be brought so quickly ( atleast in a democratic way, we certainly don't want Stalin or Mao style quick changes) The caste system, while bad, isn't in any way worse than color discrimination in the US. To quote just one example, India has very strong laws against caste based violence. India has it's own shares of issues, but it's still an order of magnitude better than the Chinese Government.
      - ferest 6y ago
        > Your arguments lack context. India isn't ruling out Muslims from citizenship. While the CAA is a very bad step forward, and has several problems, it is about what criteria satisfying refugees are available for quick citizenship, and doesn't apply to citizens of the country. India is certainly not running anything close to the camps China is running for Uyighurs. I could argue the same, the so-called reeducation camps only applies to xinjiang province, and for those could only get education from religion maniacs, rather than a normal school. And there were numbers of attack events were caused by it. Keep in mind Uyighurs are not only living in xinjiang, there are uyighurs living in rest parts of China and doing well. > India is actively trying to fix disparities caused by the caste system. It took the US 200 years to get civil rights, India had affirmative action from day one, and one of the biggest examples of affirmative action at that. The caste system is horrendous, but social change can never be brought so quickly ( atleast in a democratic way, we certainly don't want Stalin or Mao style quick changes) Aye aye, it took 200 years for the US to have civil rights for all (still problematic), and Inida takes 70+ years still working on the caste problems, when it reaches China, which was founded after India, we are suddenly asking for all equal society. Yes, unwillingly education is bad, but keeping them blank and poor is evil. Learning skills to fit into a society, even it doesn't fit into your propaganda, is not wrong. > The caste system, while bad, isn't in any way worse than color discrimination in the US. To quote just one example, India has very strong laws against caste based violence. US also has strong anti hate crime law, and is one of countries offers most assistance for anti-discrimination, law doesn't help unless vast majority are educated to do so, and vast majority has economy power to do so.
- typon 6y ago
  This is why the Chinese strategy is not to give in to US bullying but create an alternative order in the world. Either the US comes to terms with it or we see the US empire lash out even harder
  - advanced-DnD 6y ago
    An alternative where criticizing the CCP or that Pooh will end you up in jail? An alternative where China claim my country's ocean, far from its Mainland? No thank you. Stop pushing "China is victim of bully" or "China is here to save you from evil West" rhetoric.
    - chrischen 6y ago
      China claiming your ocean is exactly the same political power clashing as US claiming UK’s 5G networks.
      - adventured 6y ago
        No it's not. The US isn't claiming the UK's 5G networks. The alternative solution providers such as Samsung, Ericsson and Nokia are not US companies. China is using its military to forcibly steal territory the size of France from neighboring nations. That territory does not belong to China. The US can rightfully sanction any nation that uses its technology and its currency. Those things belong to the US. The sea territory that China is stealing does not belong to it. Other nations do not have to obey US sanctions. They're free to abandon all US technology and abandon the US dollar and its banking structures. Go for it.
- jaekash 6y ago
  > If China liberalises tomorrow none of the fundamental issues will change and China will still be a threat to the US. The only thing that will change is that the US will have to find something else in order to label China 'evil'. Cite please. And won't the best way to debunk the "propaganda" be to just liberalize right? So ... everybody is waiting and has been waiting for decades, China should stop making excuses and get on with it.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    The US destroyed Iranian democracy and replaced it by the Shah, a brutal autocratic leader whose abuse of power and violation of human rights led to the rise of the current far-right Islamic theocracy : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta... The US destroyed Bolivia, replacing an elected government that was legally found to be allowed to run, with a far-right nationalist military-backed junta that refuses to hold elections : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Bolivian_political_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Bolivian_political_crisis The US installed a brutal dictator in Chile, with the coup killing the legitimately elected president and overthrowing the liberal democracy, replacing it with dictatorship : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende No, it is entirely clear to anyone in the world that the US will destroy your country and kill you if you oppose, no matter how liberal it is, if it suits their geopolitical interests.
    - jjcon 6y ago
      I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish but the wiki articles you list don't support the point you are making. The US isn't responsible for the 2019 Bolivan political crisis and certainly didn't destroy Bolivia. I have to believe you are just trolling with language like, "The US destroyed Bolivia". Unless you call supporting the second round of elections (along with the European Union) the cause of the crisis they had. I've been in Bolivia recently, they will be just fine. Not sure what you are implying wrt the Chilean coup d'état - the US didn't like Salvador Allende but he was overthrown by his own military. The UK support of the Iranian coup d'etat in the 1950 (post WWII) was due to a conflict with AIOC (a British corporation) and US supported in turn. Not a good look by any means but also not a pattern of machinations as you make it out to be.
flohofwoe 6y ago
I think the simplistic sort of thinking that capitalism and human rights are 'inseparable' from each other and can be 'exported' like Coca Cola or Blue Jeans is just a leftover from the Cold War. The reality is much more complicated unfortunately, together with the slowly growing realisation that the USA has quickly lost it's 'role model' status as the leader of the 'Free World' after the Cold War has ended. The West needed 30 years to realize that (some are still working on this I think) because it thought that it had actually 'won' the Cold War through it's actions during the Cold War, when the reality was much more likely that the East had collapsed also without much 'help' from the West. The countries on the 'losing side' in this battle of ideologies (like the Soviet Union and China) had adapted to this new reality much more quickly, both in different ways though, but none of them copied the 'obviously superior' model of the Free West. Of course hindsight is 20/20, but sometimes I've got the impression that many people in the West still wear their rose-tinted Cold War glasses ;)
- Waterfall 6y ago
  The US seems to be stuck in the 1950s, with much of the infrastructure and the attitudes in a similar state of stasis. The US however hasn't lost its role model status, despite embarrassments like Bush (unless your definition is different). The petrodollar is just as powerful as ever, the dollar is the most powerful currency still, and US hedgemony is just as powerful.
  - cptskippy 6y ago
    The US government is stagnated by politics and the current political culture focuses on screwing over the opposing party above all else. On the surface it seems like the grumpy old men in charge are just being stubborn and exercising their power to ensure their opponents lose, but if you look at the legislation that does get passed you start to see something very different. Most of the legislation passed revolves around redistribution of wealth, and it's not taking from the rich and giving to the poor but quite the opposite. Any and all amassed wealth is being extracted from the poor and being given out to businesses in the form of lucrative contracts or, more recently, bailouts. The companies that receive this money promise that it's going to trickle down while they fill Golden Parachutes, perform stock buy backs, and find other ways to funnel that money to their wealthy share holders. The message for decades was that the government was inefficient and wasteful, and that private business can do it better. We've all heard the stories of the $300 hammer. But when things are privatized things generally get worse. Fewer workers earning lower wages doing more work but the overall product is worse and it's usually not cheaper. Any and all reductions in cost are just converted into profit margin. The US is being sucked dry and when there's nothing left, the globalist in charge will just up and move on.
einpoklum 6y ago
"Proper civil society and human rights" - like the ones afforded to Julian Assange? Or the treatment of the Grenfell tower victims' families? Glass houses etc.
- Karunamon 6y ago
  Yes, nobody's hands are clean here. There is, however, a pretty big gulf between the stuff the US has done and engaging in ethnic cleansing and running concentration camps as a matter of policy. The difference is massive, and well known. Please don't try to falsely equate the two.
  - einpoklum 6y ago
    > There is, however, a pretty big gulf between the stuff the US has done and engaging in ethnic cleansing and running concentration camps as a matter of policy. A big gulf. Hmm. A big gulf. Umm, maybe you mean the Gulf of Aden? That's kind of big, and it's right near where the US participating and supporting the ethnic-cleansing-level siege and bombardment of Yemen by Saudi Arabia. Remember most states of the US were founded on ethnic cleansing. The US supported Pol Pot, a notorious cleanser (although more of a self-ethnic-cleansing); it carried out mass bombing and poisoning campaigns in the same region of SE Asia, which constitute ethnic cleansing; it starved out the Iraqi people for years, which is borderline ethnic cleansing; it's doing the same to Venezuela right now; it supports Israel, an ethnic/religious-supremacy state held up by keeping the indigenous people of the country outside of it, as refugees - to ensure a demographic majority for the privileged group; it has supported Myanmar/Burma, while it ethnically cleanses the Rohingya; it has supported and still occasionally supports Sunni fundamentalists who aim to cleanse non-Muslims, Shia etc. As for concentration camps - the US is infamous for its concentration camps. Mostly in countries it occupies, but also for a significant fraction of its citizenry - over 1% if I'm not mistaken. They're more class-based than strictly race-based, but still.
    - chrischen 6y ago
      Well the dominant class in America is white western European. So effectively race-based superiority which is why we have the BLM movement right now.
lihan 6y ago
I disagree. Reports about China from many western media tend to exaggerate things about China, mostly influenced by western politics, not good at all. Also, western media tend to report selective facts to only show things they want people to hear and see. The right to life is the first clause of human right, which I see they are violated in many western countries. They refuse to treat the poor and old. Do you hear China criticise? Maybe they are, but for sure western media choose not to report them. Freedom of speech is a relative term in today’s world. I can say some of the things you shouldn’t say in China are equally not welcomed in many western countries. If you split US, see how many troubles could come to you? On democracy, I’m not sure what to comment. China has ran 4000 years under one empire system, and it’s just the culture there. Why democratic society is better than the 1 party system? What’s more important is to have the party represent people’s interests. In many democratic countries, each party represents the interests from certain groups, that’s why it’s necessity to have multiple parties perhaps. The downsides to democratic system is also quite obvious. There are countless debate on many small matters which waste tax payer’s money etc.. Also, the democracy can be manipulated, and if it is the case, it’s worse.
- deleted 6y ago
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- mpfundstein 6y ago
  comments like this make me wanna reach 500 karma so that i can downvote :-) man are you REALLY and seriously arguing that a single party empire system is better than democracy? dude please. It might be better if you like to live in your bee hive and play your assigned role. But what if you are different? what if you want to be something else than society forces you to be? what theb? you are screwed my friend. and thats why i happily accept.that democracy might be slower and more expensive. because its for EVERYONE. in theory though ;-)
  - yushuf 6y ago
    How is democracy working out in Arab spring countries or Eastern European countries? Most westerners have it wrong where they think Democracy --> Economic prosperity, where in fact it's quite the opposite. Economic prosperity --> Strong government --> Democracy. If you don't have a strong state, Democracy (or any political system) just leads to widespread corruption. If you're interested in learning more about how China, America, UK, etc were able to rise to power, I recommend checking out this paper: https://s3.amazonaws.com/real.stlouisfed.org/wp/2015/2015-006.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/real.stlouisfed.org/wp/2015/2015-00...
baybal2 6y ago
> It's a tough question: how to marry globalisation with the political realities. Very simple explanation: it's impossible, unless the West can mow the rogue regimes left, and right, and is ready for a war with a nuclear power to do that. > When China was very poor, it didn't really matter, or perhaps the assumption was that China would liberalise more quickly than it has. Expecting a communist party to "liberalise" is effectively to expect it to kick itself out of power. The moment they loose power, their people will murder them. And if people wouldn't, then it would be their internal factions who will strangle each other without an iron handed big boss at the top maintaining internal order. There is no way out for them. Their only way to avoid being torn apart alive is to stay in power, and their only way to stay in power is to exert, push, and expand it. For them, to stop repressions, means to let their enemies to take the proverbial rifle from which barrel's the power grows, and to seal their fate, essentially to voluntarily chose death. Any totalitarian system has an expiration date for this very reason. In case of China, what that means is an instant gulag, or worse for 5 political dynasties: 1. Few remnants of Mao, and his wife's reign, and their confidants for, well, everything. 2. Deng Xiaoping's era communist billionaires, who will have to return millions they stole from the state in eighties. 3. Shanghai people, and Jiang, who will have to at least surrender their posts, and titles which they bought, and sold illegally, and all privileges coming with them. 4. Hu's clique, whose members will have to surrender their businesses, and stocks which they got through connections 5. And finally, Xi, and his friends, who managed to make a bigger mess in their 8 years in power, than the three previous dynasties combined. Put it simply, do you expect a thief to voluntarily give a gun to the person whom he just robbed? An expectation that the West can share the planet with rogue regimes, is an expectation that a kleptomaniac, and a really rich person can live under the same roof. Even if the later can keep the former compliant under a gunpoint for some time, eventually the former succumbs to his urges, and the later has to shoot.
- yorwba 6y ago
  They might be able to take some inspiration from the KMT slowly giving up power in the ROC without being eaten alive by their enemies afterwards.
  - 6y ago
free_rms 6y ago
Different != Improper. They're not perfect, but over the last 30 years they lifted half a billion out of poverty and didn't wage war all over the world. Not everything needs to be wrapped in our style of propaganda, sometimes it can be wrapped in other brands instead.
- HideousKojima 6y ago
  Percentagewise, China hasn't done any better than South Korea or Taiwan at lifting their populace out of poverty. So I don't see how that comes anywhere close to excusing China's human rights abuses. And while SK and Taiwan only became democracies relatively recently, their human rights abuses even before then pale in comparison to what China is currently doing to Uighurs, Tibetans, and religious minorities in general. So yes, if anything improper is putting things too lightly.
  - free_rms 6y ago
    I think you're understating the human rights impact of going from third world to first world living standards. You like having your teeth?
    - HideousKojima 6y ago
      No, I'm saying that similar countries were able to lift their populations out of poverty without creating concentration camps for millions of political dissidents and religious minorities in the process. China's economic success isn't tied to its authoritarian regime, and it's actually pretty easy to argue that they would have lifted even more of their population out of poverty even faster if they hadn't had harebrained/genocidal schemes like the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and communism in general. China didn't begin to see any significant economic success until after they abandoned most of their communist policies and began liberalizing markets in the late 80's and early 90's.
      - ferest 6y ago
        Lifting 100 millions people out of poverty is totally different from lifting 1 millions people out of poverty. Moving a car involves much more engineering than moving a carpet. If they haven't done great leap forward and cultural revolution it would be better, that is true. But by "abandoning all communist policies and began liberalizing markets", not all countries see economic success, ukraine, iraq and all recent "liberated" countries, and russian living quality in 90s was even worse than their late 80s. And ironically enough, the fast developing era of taiwan, south korea, by today's standard, are not under any form of democracy.
bzb3 6y ago
It's not like the UK is a paragon of freedom of expression.
- bigfudge 6y ago
  paragon
  - bzb3 6y ago
    Thanks :)
- ogogmad 6y ago
  This reminds me of a joke: During Soviet times, a Russian man was arguing with a British man over whether their respective countries had freedom of speech. The British man said "I can go to the Houses of Parliament and call Margaret Thatcher an idiot". To which the Soviet man said "It's the same for us. I can go to Red Square and call Margaret Thatcher an idiot".
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - chosenbreed37 6y ago
    :-)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
yifanlu 6y ago
Jeez as a Chinese person who lives in USA I find this comment very condescending and offensive. > But China, while increasingly mature economically, has not developed proper civil society, human rights, freedom of expression, democracy, and so on. I don’t want to get into a whataboutism debate about all the human rights violations the USA has engaged in (yes Trump but Obama as well and W before him and etc). But really I’ll just focus on “proper civil society”. Jfc is the sinophobia getting overt around here. Even if I take the good faith argument that “it’s commentary about CCP not Chinese people” as I often hear after racist remarks, I’ll just point out I’ve been hearing comments like this all my life in all sorts condescending ways. Most of the time in bad faith. So I don’t give a shit about how you “intend” it to be.
- vinay427 6y ago
  1. I agree that "proper civil society" is rather questionable as criticism of China goes, but do the others not apply? I think they clearly seem to be points of commentary on the Chinese political system, which isn't a reflection of a race/ethnicity. I have no trouble believing that comments that you have received throughout your life were in bad faith. I've heard similar (at least in sentiment) comments about the society in my parents' country of origin. However, I think the majority of those comments (as with the ones in question here) fit into the bucket of clearly criticizing a social structure that applies to but does not immutably define the people living in it, and certainly doesn't apply to you if you live outside of it. 2. On a slightly different note, I think that while whataboutism is generally neither productive nor relevant, in this case a small amount could be relevant because the implication is that some other countries have developed to a state of "proper civil society, [...] democracy, and so on" while China has not. If the claim relates China to some base standard in the author's mind, then pointing out failings in those places seems like an attack on the point itself, but I don't know whether the US was at the top of their mind when crafting that sentence.
- _zamorano_ 6y ago
  Hypocrisy. Looks good to exibit tolerancy between like minded friends about accepted topics, abortion, sexual orientation, skin color and the like... But about a different political system other than western liberal democracy? No way! And it's not like Chinas Communist Party (from Deng Xiaopin on) has not good credentials. It might be the more succesfull regime in the history of humanity if we talk about taking people out of poverty. Which system has improved the life of millions like the party? But it doesn't matter. The aglosphere keeps with its cultural war against the new enemy. What are the signs that the Chinese want to export their way of life? Any recent war launched by China? Any attempt to force a Western goverment to accept their condicions? They are not the ones messing with other countries democracies. Anyway, there are plenty of things not to like about the Communist Party, but seriously, the propaganda is out of control.

mytailorisrich 6y ago

Whether China liberalise is a red herring. This is a geopolitical clash of power. It's not about respective political regimes, it's about relative power and influence. If China liberalises tomorrow none of the fundamental issues will change and China will still be a threat to the US. The only thing that will change is that the US will have to find something else in order to label China 'evil'.

ahelwer 6y ago
This is a good analysis. You aren't seeing a constant drumbeat of bad China news because the US suddenly cares very deeply about Muslim lives - otherwise we'd be hearing a lot more about India, for example. China threatens the US' global hegemony. To the extent people in power care about China's political system, it is used to rope in liberals to an anti-China stance and manufacture consent for various measures against them, military or otherwise.
- enitihas 6y ago
  The comparison with India is wrong, or you don't understand the scale of what is happening in China. For starters, India is not re-educating anyone.
  - ferest 6y ago
    i doubt you understand the "fact" you are talking about in person, rather than from some "news". India is not re-educating anyone, but rules out muslim from citizenship? Not even mention the caste system, which is way worse than the color discrimination in US. When India became the 2nd biggest power in the world, all these will become target
    - enitihas 6y ago
      Your arguments lack context. India isn't ruling out Muslims from citizenship. While the CAA is a very bad step forward, and has several problems, it is about what criteria satisfying refugees are available for quick citizenship, and doesn't apply to citizens of the country. India is certainly not running anything close to the camps China is running for Uyighurs. India is actively trying to fix disparities caused by the caste system. It took the US 200 years to get civil rights, India had affirmative action from day one, and one of the biggest examples of affirmative action at that. The caste system is horrendous, but social change can never be brought so quickly ( atleast in a democratic way, we certainly don't want Stalin or Mao style quick changes) The caste system, while bad, isn't in any way worse than color discrimination in the US. To quote just one example, India has very strong laws against caste based violence. India has it's own shares of issues, but it's still an order of magnitude better than the Chinese Government.
    - ferest 6y ago
      > Your arguments lack context. India isn't ruling out Muslims from citizenship. While the CAA is a very bad step forward, and has several problems, it is about what criteria satisfying refugees are available for quick citizenship, and doesn't apply to citizens of the country. India is certainly not running anything close to the camps China is running for Uyighurs. I could argue the same, the so-called reeducation camps only applies to xinjiang province, and for those could only get education from religion maniacs, rather than a normal school. And there were numbers of attack events were caused by it. Keep in mind Uyighurs are not only living in xinjiang, there are uyighurs living in rest parts of China and doing well. > India is actively trying to fix disparities caused by the caste system. It took the US 200 years to get civil rights, India had affirmative action from day one, and one of the biggest examples of affirmative action at that. The caste system is horrendous, but social change can never be brought so quickly ( atleast in a democratic way, we certainly don't want Stalin or Mao style quick changes) Aye aye, it took 200 years for the US to have civil rights for all (still problematic), and Inida takes 70+ years still working on the caste problems, when it reaches China, which was founded after India, we are suddenly asking for all equal society. Yes, unwillingly education is bad, but keeping them blank and poor is evil. Learning skills to fit into a society, even it doesn't fit into your propaganda, is not wrong. > The caste system, while bad, isn't in any way worse than color discrimination in the US. To quote just one example, India has very strong laws against caste based violence. US also has strong anti hate crime law, and is one of countries offers most assistance for anti-discrimination, law doesn't help unless vast majority are educated to do so, and vast majority has economy power to do so.
typon 6y ago
This is why the Chinese strategy is not to give in to US bullying but create an alternative order in the world. Either the US comes to terms with it or we see the US empire lash out even harder
- advanced-DnD 6y ago
  An alternative where criticizing the CCP or that Pooh will end you up in jail? An alternative where China claim my country's ocean, far from its Mainland? No thank you. Stop pushing "China is victim of bully" or "China is here to save you from evil West" rhetoric.
  - chrischen 6y ago
    China claiming your ocean is exactly the same political power clashing as US claiming UK’s 5G networks.
    - adventured 6y ago
      No it's not. The US isn't claiming the UK's 5G networks. The alternative solution providers such as Samsung, Ericsson and Nokia are not US companies. China is using its military to forcibly steal territory the size of France from neighboring nations. That territory does not belong to China. The US can rightfully sanction any nation that uses its technology and its currency. Those things belong to the US. The sea territory that China is stealing does not belong to it. Other nations do not have to obey US sanctions. They're free to abandon all US technology and abandon the US dollar and its banking structures. Go for it.
jaekash 6y ago
> If China liberalises tomorrow none of the fundamental issues will change and China will still be a threat to the US. The only thing that will change is that the US will have to find something else in order to label China 'evil'. Cite please. And won't the best way to debunk the "propaganda" be to just liberalize right? So ... everybody is waiting and has been waiting for decades, China should stop making excuses and get on with it.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  The US destroyed Iranian democracy and replaced it by the Shah, a brutal autocratic leader whose abuse of power and violation of human rights led to the rise of the current far-right Islamic theocracy : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta... The US destroyed Bolivia, replacing an elected government that was legally found to be allowed to run, with a far-right nationalist military-backed junta that refuses to hold elections : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Bolivian_political_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Bolivian_political_crisis The US installed a brutal dictator in Chile, with the coup killing the legitimately elected president and overthrowing the liberal democracy, replacing it with dictatorship : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende No, it is entirely clear to anyone in the world that the US will destroy your country and kill you if you oppose, no matter how liberal it is, if it suits their geopolitical interests.
  - jjcon 6y ago
    I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish but the wiki articles you list don't support the point you are making. The US isn't responsible for the 2019 Bolivan political crisis and certainly didn't destroy Bolivia. I have to believe you are just trolling with language like, "The US destroyed Bolivia". Unless you call supporting the second round of elections (along with the European Union) the cause of the crisis they had. I've been in Bolivia recently, they will be just fine. Not sure what you are implying wrt the Chilean coup d'état - the US didn't like Salvador Allende but he was overthrown by his own military. The UK support of the Iranian coup d'etat in the 1950 (post WWII) was due to a conflict with AIOC (a British corporation) and US supported in turn. Not a good look by any means but also not a pattern of machinations as you make it out to be.

flohofwoe 6y ago

I think the simplistic sort of thinking that capitalism and human rights are 'inseparable' from each other and can be 'exported' like Coca Cola or Blue Jeans is just a leftover from the Cold War. The reality is much more complicated unfortunately, together with the slowly growing realisation that the USA has quickly lost it's 'role model' status as the leader of the 'Free World' after the Cold War has ended. The West needed 30 years to realize that (some are still working on this I think) because it thought that it had actually 'won' the Cold War through it's actions during the Cold War, when the reality was much more likely that the East had collapsed also without much 'help' from the West. The countries on the 'losing side' in this battle of ideologies (like the Soviet Union and China) had adapted to this new reality much more quickly, both in different ways though, but none of them copied the 'obviously superior' model of the Free West. Of course hindsight is 20/20, but sometimes I've got the impression that many people in the West still wear their rose-tinted Cold War glasses ;)

Waterfall 6y ago
The US seems to be stuck in the 1950s, with much of the infrastructure and the attitudes in a similar state of stasis. The US however hasn't lost its role model status, despite embarrassments like Bush (unless your definition is different). The petrodollar is just as powerful as ever, the dollar is the most powerful currency still, and US hedgemony is just as powerful.
- cptskippy 6y ago
  The US government is stagnated by politics and the current political culture focuses on screwing over the opposing party above all else. On the surface it seems like the grumpy old men in charge are just being stubborn and exercising their power to ensure their opponents lose, but if you look at the legislation that does get passed you start to see something very different. Most of the legislation passed revolves around redistribution of wealth, and it's not taking from the rich and giving to the poor but quite the opposite. Any and all amassed wealth is being extracted from the poor and being given out to businesses in the form of lucrative contracts or, more recently, bailouts. The companies that receive this money promise that it's going to trickle down while they fill Golden Parachutes, perform stock buy backs, and find other ways to funnel that money to their wealthy share holders. The message for decades was that the government was inefficient and wasteful, and that private business can do it better. We've all heard the stories of the $300 hammer. But when things are privatized things generally get worse. Fewer workers earning lower wages doing more work but the overall product is worse and it's usually not cheaper. Any and all reductions in cost are just converted into profit margin. The US is being sucked dry and when there's nothing left, the globalist in charge will just up and move on.

einpoklum 6y ago

"Proper civil society and human rights" - like the ones afforded to Julian Assange? Or the treatment of the Grenfell tower victims' families? Glass houses etc.

Karunamon 6y ago
Yes, nobody's hands are clean here. There is, however, a pretty big gulf between the stuff the US has done and engaging in ethnic cleansing and running concentration camps as a matter of policy. The difference is massive, and well known. Please don't try to falsely equate the two.
- einpoklum 6y ago
  > There is, however, a pretty big gulf between the stuff the US has done and engaging in ethnic cleansing and running concentration camps as a matter of policy. A big gulf. Hmm. A big gulf. Umm, maybe you mean the Gulf of Aden? That's kind of big, and it's right near where the US participating and supporting the ethnic-cleansing-level siege and bombardment of Yemen by Saudi Arabia. Remember most states of the US were founded on ethnic cleansing. The US supported Pol Pot, a notorious cleanser (although more of a self-ethnic-cleansing); it carried out mass bombing and poisoning campaigns in the same region of SE Asia, which constitute ethnic cleansing; it starved out the Iraqi people for years, which is borderline ethnic cleansing; it's doing the same to Venezuela right now; it supports Israel, an ethnic/religious-supremacy state held up by keeping the indigenous people of the country outside of it, as refugees - to ensure a demographic majority for the privileged group; it has supported Myanmar/Burma, while it ethnically cleanses the Rohingya; it has supported and still occasionally supports Sunni fundamentalists who aim to cleanse non-Muslims, Shia etc. As for concentration camps - the US is infamous for its concentration camps. Mostly in countries it occupies, but also for a significant fraction of its citizenry - over 1% if I'm not mistaken. They're more class-based than strictly race-based, but still.
  - chrischen 6y ago
    Well the dominant class in America is white western European. So effectively race-based superiority which is why we have the BLM movement right now.

lihan 6y ago

I disagree. Reports about China from many western media tend to exaggerate things about China, mostly influenced by western politics, not good at all. Also, western media tend to report selective facts to only show things they want people to hear and see. The right to life is the first clause of human right, which I see they are violated in many western countries. They refuse to treat the poor and old. Do you hear China criticise? Maybe they are, but for sure western media choose not to report them. Freedom of speech is a relative term in today’s world. I can say some of the things you shouldn’t say in China are equally not welcomed in many western countries. If you split US, see how many troubles could come to you? On democracy, I’m not sure what to comment. China has ran 4000 years under one empire system, and it’s just the culture there. Why democratic society is better than the 1 party system? What’s more important is to have the party represent people’s interests. In many democratic countries, each party represents the interests from certain groups, that’s why it’s necessity to have multiple parties perhaps. The downsides to democratic system is also quite obvious. There are countless debate on many small matters which waste tax payer’s money etc.. Also, the democracy can be manipulated, and if it is the case, it’s worse.

deleted 6y ago
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mpfundstein 6y ago
comments like this make me wanna reach 500 karma so that i can downvote :-) man are you REALLY and seriously arguing that a single party empire system is better than democracy? dude please. It might be better if you like to live in your bee hive and play your assigned role. But what if you are different? what if you want to be something else than society forces you to be? what theb? you are screwed my friend. and thats why i happily accept.that democracy might be slower and more expensive. because its for EVERYONE. in theory though ;-)
- yushuf 6y ago
  How is democracy working out in Arab spring countries or Eastern European countries? Most westerners have it wrong where they think Democracy --> Economic prosperity, where in fact it's quite the opposite. Economic prosperity --> Strong government --> Democracy. If you don't have a strong state, Democracy (or any political system) just leads to widespread corruption. If you're interested in learning more about how China, America, UK, etc were able to rise to power, I recommend checking out this paper: https://s3.amazonaws.com/real.stlouisfed.org/wp/2015/2015-006.pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/real.stlouisfed.org/wp/2015/2015-00...

baybal2 6y ago

> It's a tough question: how to marry globalisation with the political realities. Very simple explanation: it's impossible, unless the West can mow the rogue regimes left, and right, and is ready for a war with a nuclear power to do that. > When China was very poor, it didn't really matter, or perhaps the assumption was that China would liberalise more quickly than it has. Expecting a communist party to "liberalise" is effectively to expect it to kick itself out of power. The moment they loose power, their people will murder them. And if people wouldn't, then it would be their internal factions who will strangle each other without an iron handed big boss at the top maintaining internal order. There is no way out for them. Their only way to avoid being torn apart alive is to stay in power, and their only way to stay in power is to exert, push, and expand it. For them, to stop repressions, means to let their enemies to take the proverbial rifle from which barrel's the power grows, and to seal their fate, essentially to voluntarily chose death. Any totalitarian system has an expiration date for this very reason. In case of China, what that means is an instant gulag, or worse for 5 political dynasties: 1. Few remnants of Mao, and his wife's reign, and their confidants for, well, everything. 2. Deng Xiaoping's era communist billionaires, who will have to return millions they stole from the state in eighties. 3. Shanghai people, and Jiang, who will have to at least surrender their posts, and titles which they bought, and sold illegally, and all privileges coming with them. 4. Hu's clique, whose members will have to surrender their businesses, and stocks which they got through connections 5. And finally, Xi, and his friends, who managed to make a bigger mess in their 8 years in power, than the three previous dynasties combined. Put it simply, do you expect a thief to voluntarily give a gun to the person whom he just robbed? An expectation that the West can share the planet with rogue regimes, is an expectation that a kleptomaniac, and a really rich person can live under the same roof. Even if the later can keep the former compliant under a gunpoint for some time, eventually the former succumbs to his urges, and the later has to shoot.

yorwba 6y ago
They might be able to take some inspiration from the KMT slowly giving up power in the ROC without being eaten alive by their enemies afterwards.
- 6y ago

free_rms 6y ago

Different != Improper. They're not perfect, but over the last 30 years they lifted half a billion out of poverty and didn't wage war all over the world. Not everything needs to be wrapped in our style of propaganda, sometimes it can be wrapped in other brands instead.

HideousKojima 6y ago
Percentagewise, China hasn't done any better than South Korea or Taiwan at lifting their populace out of poverty. So I don't see how that comes anywhere close to excusing China's human rights abuses. And while SK and Taiwan only became democracies relatively recently, their human rights abuses even before then pale in comparison to what China is currently doing to Uighurs, Tibetans, and religious minorities in general. So yes, if anything improper is putting things too lightly.
- free_rms 6y ago
  I think you're understating the human rights impact of going from third world to first world living standards. You like having your teeth?
  - HideousKojima 6y ago
    No, I'm saying that similar countries were able to lift their populations out of poverty without creating concentration camps for millions of political dissidents and religious minorities in the process. China's economic success isn't tied to its authoritarian regime, and it's actually pretty easy to argue that they would have lifted even more of their population out of poverty even faster if they hadn't had harebrained/genocidal schemes like the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and communism in general. China didn't begin to see any significant economic success until after they abandoned most of their communist policies and began liberalizing markets in the late 80's and early 90's.
    - ferest 6y ago
      Lifting 100 millions people out of poverty is totally different from lifting 1 millions people out of poverty. Moving a car involves much more engineering than moving a carpet. If they haven't done great leap forward and cultural revolution it would be better, that is true. But by "abandoning all communist policies and began liberalizing markets", not all countries see economic success, ukraine, iraq and all recent "liberated" countries, and russian living quality in 90s was even worse than their late 80s. And ironically enough, the fast developing era of taiwan, south korea, by today's standard, are not under any form of democracy.

bzb3 6y ago

It's not like the UK is a paragon of freedom of expression.

bigfudge 6y ago
paragon
- bzb3 6y ago
  Thanks :)
ogogmad 6y ago
This reminds me of a joke: During Soviet times, a Russian man was arguing with a British man over whether their respective countries had freedom of speech. The British man said "I can go to the Houses of Parliament and call Margaret Thatcher an idiot". To which the Soviet man said "It's the same for us. I can go to Red Square and call Margaret Thatcher an idiot".
- deleted 6y ago
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- chosenbreed37 6y ago
  :-)
deleted 6y ago
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yifanlu 6y ago

Jeez as a Chinese person who lives in USA I find this comment very condescending and offensive. > But China, while increasingly mature economically, has not developed proper civil society, human rights, freedom of expression, democracy, and so on. I don’t want to get into a whataboutism debate about all the human rights violations the USA has engaged in (yes Trump but Obama as well and W before him and etc). But really I’ll just focus on “proper civil society”. Jfc is the sinophobia getting overt around here. Even if I take the good faith argument that “it’s commentary about CCP not Chinese people” as I often hear after racist remarks, I’ll just point out I’ve been hearing comments like this all my life in all sorts condescending ways. Most of the time in bad faith. So I don’t give a shit about how you “intend” it to be.

vinay427 6y ago
1. I agree that "proper civil society" is rather questionable as criticism of China goes, but do the others not apply? I think they clearly seem to be points of commentary on the Chinese political system, which isn't a reflection of a race/ethnicity. I have no trouble believing that comments that you have received throughout your life were in bad faith. I've heard similar (at least in sentiment) comments about the society in my parents' country of origin. However, I think the majority of those comments (as with the ones in question here) fit into the bucket of clearly criticizing a social structure that applies to but does not immutably define the people living in it, and certainly doesn't apply to you if you live outside of it. 2. On a slightly different note, I think that while whataboutism is generally neither productive nor relevant, in this case a small amount could be relevant because the implication is that some other countries have developed to a state of "proper civil society, [...] democracy, and so on" while China has not. If the claim relates China to some base standard in the author's mind, then pointing out failings in those places seems like an attack on the point itself, but I don't know whether the US was at the top of their mind when crafting that sentence.
_zamorano_ 6y ago
Hypocrisy. Looks good to exibit tolerancy between like minded friends about accepted topics, abortion, sexual orientation, skin color and the like... But about a different political system other than western liberal democracy? No way! And it's not like Chinas Communist Party (from Deng Xiaopin on) has not good credentials. It might be the more succesfull regime in the history of humanity if we talk about taking people out of poverty. Which system has improved the life of millions like the party? But it doesn't matter. The aglosphere keeps with its cultural war against the new enemy. What are the signs that the Chinese want to export their way of life? Any recent war launched by China? Any attempt to force a Western goverment to accept their condicions? They are not the ones messing with other countries democracies. Anyway, there are plenty of things not to like about the Communist Party, but seriously, the propaganda is out of control.