3 ms·

I am not so convinced by this "clash of civilizations" or "different values" rhetoric. I know this is the standard party response to many foreign criticisms of

I am not so convinced by this "clash of civilizations" or "different values" rhetoric. I know this is the standard party response to many foreign criticisms of Chinese politics, but to me it comes across as a bit like the Chinese version of American exceptionalism. The recent effort to push a Chinese view of human rights[0][1] into the UN, I find to be cynical and politically motivated. The idea that Chinese people and "Western" people are fundamentally different seems to deny the fact that humans as whole share common needs and common motivations. If China and the West have incompatible values, where does that leave other countries of the East? Does India count as the West? What about Japan or South Korea or Taiwan? What about countries in the Global South, are their values incompatible with both the West and China? Plenty of those countries have ratified ICCPR[2]. [0] http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-02/22/c_139758736.htm http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-02/22/c_139758736.htm [1] https://thediplomat.com/2021/02/can-china-change-the-definition-of-human-rights/ https://thediplomat.com/2021/02/can-china-change-the-definit... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil_and_Political_Rights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civi...

justicezyx 6y ago
> I know this is the standard party response to many foreign criticisms of Chinese politics This is not true. This was even rejected by Mr. Xi himself, quote [1]: """ The world must "oppose politicization and stigmatization" over Covid-19, Xi said in the pre-recorded address, urging world leaders to embrace the "concept of a big family... and avoid falling into the trap of a clash of civilizations." """ One could interpret this as Xi actually agree with this view point, and simply try to avoid fall into the trap. Then we can reasonably conclude that Xi and CCP do not want to follow this line of thinking. Here I am assuming Xi is so powerful that he can largely shape CCP thought, which was widely agreed upon as a truthful statement. > deny the fact that humans as whole share common needs and common motivations This is quite a bland statement. And itself bears little factual support. Political values, as we are here discussing, seldom agree. CCP in its face adopts socialism and intends to move towards communism. That's 180 degree opposite of US domestic political theoretic. The so-called common value is quickly turning into a lie when it goes beyond typical bodily needs. Even that is a problem, like many Western media would state Chinese need to consume less pork, because of the climate change concerns. Since when the West believe one should be subject to the whole's needs? [1] https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/09/23/20/xi-defends-chinas-ambitions-warns-of-clash-of-civilizations https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/09/23/20/xi-defends-chinas...
- alisonatwork 6y ago
  It is useful for people like Wang Yi and Xi Jinping to pin the "clash of civilizations" terminology on American hawks and seemingly wash their hands of it, but the party media outlets still persist in implying that Chinese people and Americans (or is it "Western people"?) have fundamentally different values, and this is what I dispute. I really think it's disingenuous to imply that in a country of over a billion people, with countless regional traditions, where many different languages are spoken, there is a singular unified set of values that is somehow unique to within the political borders, as compared to people who live just across the mountain, just across the river, or just across the strait. It is a misunderstanding of American politics to imply that adopting socialism and intending to move toward communism is 180 degrees to their opposite. There are plenty of American politicians who admire socialism, and who call themselves socialists, and who would like to implement socialist policies - if not taking it all the way to communism. There are lots of grassroots communist publications in the US. Communism is discussed in school and universities, and it has champions in members of the public. In any case, your claim was that the West as a whole had different values to China, not just the US. There is explicit Communist Party representation in the EU and other Western governments, so even if it were true that all Chinese have exactly the same political values as defined by the CCP, it is not true that no people in the West share those. To get back on the actual topic, which is human rights, the UN has discussed human rights since the very beginning, and plenty of people from all around the world have agreed on some basic fundamentals, such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and so on. Personally, I find it hard to believe that one country's citizens are so unique that a definition of human rights coincidentally matching their current authoritarian government's ideology is merely a difference of opinion that should be immune to foreign criticism. But also, personally, I do not think there is enough evidence to definitively call what is happening in Xinjiang "genocide". However, I also think that the words do not matter so much. The basic point is that it seems to be a universal human rights violation to imprison people solely because of their religious or cultural beliefs.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > There is explicit Communist Party representation in the EU and other Western governments, so even if it were true that all Chinese have exactly the same political values as defined by the CCP, it is not true that no people in the West share those. The post-Maoist CCP has very different ideology from Western Communist parties (heck, even the original Maoist CCP had a distinct ideology from the contemporary Stalinist Soviet Communist Party.) But even if ignoring that, it's the fallacy of composition to conflate “some people in the West have the same ideology as the dominant ideology of the PRC” with a contradiction to “the West as a whole has a different ideology than the PRC”.

justicezyx 6y ago

> I know this is the standard party response to many foreign criticisms of Chinese politics This is not true. This was even rejected by Mr. Xi himself, quote [1]: """ The world must "oppose politicization and stigmatization" over Covid-19, Xi said in the pre-recorded address, urging world leaders to embrace the "concept of a big family... and avoid falling into the trap of a clash of civilizations." """ One could interpret this as Xi actually agree with this view point, and simply try to avoid fall into the trap. Then we can reasonably conclude that Xi and CCP do not want to follow this line of thinking. Here I am assuming Xi is so powerful that he can largely shape CCP thought, which was widely agreed upon as a truthful statement. > deny the fact that humans as whole share common needs and common motivations This is quite a bland statement. And itself bears little factual support. Political values, as we are here discussing, seldom agree. CCP in its face adopts socialism and intends to move towards communism. That's 180 degree opposite of US domestic political theoretic. The so-called common value is quickly turning into a lie when it goes beyond typical bodily needs. Even that is a problem, like many Western media would state Chinese need to consume less pork, because of the climate change concerns. Since when the West believe one should be subject to the whole's needs? [1] https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/09/23/20/xi-defends-chinas-ambitions-warns-of-clash-of-civilizations https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/09/23/20/xi-defends-chinas...

alisonatwork 6y ago
It is useful for people like Wang Yi and Xi Jinping to pin the "clash of civilizations" terminology on American hawks and seemingly wash their hands of it, but the party media outlets still persist in implying that Chinese people and Americans (or is it "Western people"?) have fundamentally different values, and this is what I dispute. I really think it's disingenuous to imply that in a country of over a billion people, with countless regional traditions, where many different languages are spoken, there is a singular unified set of values that is somehow unique to within the political borders, as compared to people who live just across the mountain, just across the river, or just across the strait. It is a misunderstanding of American politics to imply that adopting socialism and intending to move toward communism is 180 degrees to their opposite. There are plenty of American politicians who admire socialism, and who call themselves socialists, and who would like to implement socialist policies - if not taking it all the way to communism. There are lots of grassroots communist publications in the US. Communism is discussed in school and universities, and it has champions in members of the public. In any case, your claim was that the West as a whole had different values to China, not just the US. There is explicit Communist Party representation in the EU and other Western governments, so even if it were true that all Chinese have exactly the same political values as defined by the CCP, it is not true that no people in the West share those. To get back on the actual topic, which is human rights, the UN has discussed human rights since the very beginning, and plenty of people from all around the world have agreed on some basic fundamentals, such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and so on. Personally, I find it hard to believe that one country's citizens are so unique that a definition of human rights coincidentally matching their current authoritarian government's ideology is merely a difference of opinion that should be immune to foreign criticism. But also, personally, I do not think there is enough evidence to definitively call what is happening in Xinjiang "genocide". However, I also think that the words do not matter so much. The basic point is that it seems to be a universal human rights violation to imprison people solely because of their religious or cultural beliefs.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > There is explicit Communist Party representation in the EU and other Western governments, so even if it were true that all Chinese have exactly the same political values as defined by the CCP, it is not true that no people in the West share those. The post-Maoist CCP has very different ideology from Western Communist parties (heck, even the original Maoist CCP had a distinct ideology from the contemporary Stalinist Soviet Communist Party.) But even if ignoring that, it's the fallacy of composition to conflate “some people in the West have the same ideology as the dominant ideology of the PRC” with a contradiction to “the West as a whole has a different ideology than the PRC”.