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I find the lack of understanding of what is happening a little bit baffling (and comic at times). We are used to living in countries where people have rights.

I find the lack of understanding of what is happening a little bit baffling (and comic at times). We are used to living in countries where people have rights. We have constitutions which guarantee citizen these rights and make the governments subservient to the population. Our government is elected by the people directly or indirectly and technically works for us. This is not the case with China. In China, people have no innate rights. Any rights they have, are given by the ruling body, whether it is an emperor or its continuation, the CCP. For China, what they are doing in Hong Kong is completely normal. They have been doing the same to their own mainland population for thousands of years and the changeovers from monarchy to communist party is basically cosmetic. China does not recognize Human Rights and so it is difficult to say they are "breaking" them. It is a construct we made for ourselves in countries that technically the people are governing themselves (ie democracies). This is an abstract concept in China. Just as if Iran started accusing Canada of breaking Sharia. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not absolving China of the crimes they are committing. Just because something is legal in China doesn't mean it is not a crime. We can and we should react to this and try to bring basic rights to Chinese people. But it is much more complex and delicate problem than people try to make it.

haswell 5y ago
> China does not recognize Human Rights and so it is difficult to say they are "breaking" them. Whether or not China recognizes human rights doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not they are breaking them. The international community recognizes human rights at least on some level, and it’s not particularly useful to use China’s perspective as a lens here any more than it would be useful to judge other atrocities throughout history through the eyes of the perpetrators. Edit: Adding [0] for consideration as some responses seem unaware. - [0] https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...
- lmilcin 5y ago
  This is poor logic, even if we agree on the ultimate result. > Whether or not China recognizes human rights doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not they are breaking them. "Whether or not your country recognizes Sharia doesn't have any bearing on whether or not you are breaking it and you should be prosecuted for breaking it." See how stupid your logic sounds when it is told from another perspective? If you want to fight for something at least try to understand what makes you right and the other one wrong.
  - tomjen3 5y ago
    You are assuming that all world views are equal, and doing so in a way that appear to be quite arrogant. We are absolutely saying that not all views are equal and that it is a violation whether the country acknowledge it or not. If you need to anchor it in something else: humanism has brought the quickest, most effective and most complete, reduction the suffering of individuals of any system ever practiced anywhere, by more than one magnitude. Sharia is hanging of men for having sex with men, and the beating of women for getting raped.
    - laurent92 5y ago
      Humanism? How do you check this? Why not “It’s extremely probable that economic development brought the quickest most effective reduction of human suffering”? Why not “Fossil fuels brought the quickest reduction of suffering”? Maybe our interest for humanism depleted when we had to get rid of fossil fuels because of climate change; at which point we noticed that humanism was only a pipe dream atop a fossil-dependent society, and coal had made our life much easier for a short period of time, until we fell into hard times again.
      - wangii 5y ago
        why is this down voted? I honestly don't know. imho the point is perfectly valid. is there too much political correctness?
      - tomjen3 5y ago
        You may as well ask if we stopped humanism when we stopped using asbestos. The answer is the same: no.
  - stale2002 5y ago
    > when it is told from another perspective? The difference is that the other perspective is wrong, and ours is much closer to being correct (even if it still has problems). So that is why your statement is silly. And before you say it, no, I do not care about any of your arguments about cultural relativism. I am perfectly happy, saying that people who, for example, want to kill gay people, have morals that are wrong, and that our morals, which are that we shouldn't do that, are correct. Are you able to do that?
- threatofrain 5y ago
  A right without enforcement is just a nice idea. I don't think we've ever had anything close to international human rights. It is not remotely obvious how a framework of global human rights would work in current times.
  - tomjen3 5y ago
    Poorly, and with lots of violations, is how I imagine the framework would work, but by having such a framework we have something that we can refer to, something that we can point to when countries aren't living up to it. Yes, it is just a peace of paper, except that it is also not once it becomes something to fight for and something that people believe in. The US declared itself independent while British troops were in the country. It asserted rights against somebody else who didn't recognize them. And that worked well enough that later people would refer to those assertions when debating freeing the slaves, and it was that which MLK was able to refer to in his speech. I won't live long enough to see international human rights become a norm and neither will anybody else alive right now. But that doesn't mean that it isn't important that we start creating the norm now.
  - haswell 5y ago
    > A right without enforcement is just a nice idea. There was a time that all of these were just "nice ideas" in the US - Same sex marriage - Women having the right to vote - People of color having the right to freedom - And on the list goes Most of these rights were not enforced, or even recognized until people fought either with pens or with weapons and progress was made. I linked to the UN's framework for this in my parent comment, and while I agree that this is an incredibly hard problem to address globally, we shouldn't discount the value and power of "nice ideas".
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- bllguo 5y ago
  the "international community" is dominated by an affluent western minority that had no qualms about pillaging the rest of the world for centuries with no regards for human rights. _This_ is the Chinese - no, the foreign - perspective. If we think it's not useful to consider then so be it, we'll be locked in cold war for the foreseeable future. Personally I think there are more productive methods than hypocritical grandstanding.
  - wangii 5y ago
    don't understand why it's down voted. seems to be a valid argument. care to clarify?
  - another_story 5y ago
    Looking back at what other countries did centuries before is a weak argument for justifying what one does today. The “international community” includes more than a western minority when it comes to the issue of Hong Kong.
    - wangii 5y ago
      yes, basically the argument against 'whataboutism'. however I have a hard time to process the idea of 'follow what I told you, not what I have done' attitude.
      - torstenvl 5y ago
        The affluent Western minority is led by an anti-colonial rebellion whose record on this issue, while nowhere near perfect or even an absolute good, is the best of any major power in the history of humanity. When China says "You know what, China? No. We will not break our own agreement. How could you even suggest that? Hong Kong is sovereign" (as the United States recently did in McGirt v. Oklahoma), then we can talk about whataboutism. Until then, that kind of argument is utterly unconvincing.
        bllguo 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> as if Iran started accusing Canada of breaking Sharia More like if Iran agreed not to invade Canada, invaded it, and implemented Sharia law.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  If by "invaded it" you mean "dropped two nuclear weapons on its enemies, saving it from utter destruction, and then mostly let it do its thing and even helped them grow economically," then sure. China is not the victim here.
torstenvl 5y ago
> In China, people have no innate rights. It is a cornerstone principle that all people everywhere have innate rights. The entirety of the Enlightenment is based on this idea. And while China may be actively involved in oppressing these rights domestically, it tacitly endorses them on the international stage. Moral relativism is a cancer, applied selectively by the lazy. Do better.
- azinman2 5y ago
  The enlightenment was a European ideology. China is influenced still by Taoism, which has very different belief structure that emphasizes harmony with the masses over the individual.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    I'm not grokking your argument. Are you calling the forced enslavement and "re-education" of Uyghurs and so many others "harmony"? https://tenor.com/search/you-keep-using-that-word-gifs https://tenor.com/search/you-keep-using-that-word-gifs
    - azinman2 5y ago
      Taoism is thousands of years old, vastly pre-dating the CCP and its actions.
      - torstenvl 5y ago
        I am very well aware that Taoism is thousands of years old. I have an undergraduate honors thesis on the confluence of Taoist traditional thought and Buddhist influences expressed in the Lieh Tzu. I have spent considerable energy trying to convince Western military fans of Sun Tzu to teach it in its proper context, such as by requiring reading Lao Tzu first. You can stop being condescending at any point. Your argument appears to be that modern Chinese actions should not be judged against the rubrics of Western philosophy. I disagree because I do not believe in moral relativism. However, if their actions are to be judged only against the rubrics found in, e.g., Taoism, then judge them against those rubrics. Do you have anything approaching a good faith argument that the actions of China with regard to Uyghurs, Tibet, greater Guangdong (including HK), or any of the countless ethnic or political minorities in China comport with an ideal of harmony?
rfrey 5y ago
Arguing that the moral standing of genocide is a matter of cultural construction is a pretty tenuous position.
emodendroket 5y ago
I know the Chinese government themselves are just as given to engaging in it, but the idea of talking about "thousands of years" of Chinese administration as if there's no real difference between China's various dynasties and the modern state makes about as much sense as considering the Firth Republic as representing an unbroken chain going back to Charlemagne.

haswell 5y ago

> China does not recognize Human Rights and so it is difficult to say they are "breaking" them. Whether or not China recognizes human rights doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not they are breaking them. The international community recognizes human rights at least on some level, and it’s not particularly useful to use China’s perspective as a lens here any more than it would be useful to judge other atrocities throughout history through the eyes of the perpetrators. Edit: Adding [0] for consideration as some responses seem unaware. - [0] https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...

lmilcin 5y ago
This is poor logic, even if we agree on the ultimate result. > Whether or not China recognizes human rights doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not they are breaking them. "Whether or not your country recognizes Sharia doesn't have any bearing on whether or not you are breaking it and you should be prosecuted for breaking it." See how stupid your logic sounds when it is told from another perspective? If you want to fight for something at least try to understand what makes you right and the other one wrong.
- tomjen3 5y ago
  You are assuming that all world views are equal, and doing so in a way that appear to be quite arrogant. We are absolutely saying that not all views are equal and that it is a violation whether the country acknowledge it or not. If you need to anchor it in something else: humanism has brought the quickest, most effective and most complete, reduction the suffering of individuals of any system ever practiced anywhere, by more than one magnitude. Sharia is hanging of men for having sex with men, and the beating of women for getting raped.
  - laurent92 5y ago
    Humanism? How do you check this? Why not “It’s extremely probable that economic development brought the quickest most effective reduction of human suffering”? Why not “Fossil fuels brought the quickest reduction of suffering”? Maybe our interest for humanism depleted when we had to get rid of fossil fuels because of climate change; at which point we noticed that humanism was only a pipe dream atop a fossil-dependent society, and coal had made our life much easier for a short period of time, until we fell into hard times again.
    - wangii 5y ago
      why is this down voted? I honestly don't know. imho the point is perfectly valid. is there too much political correctness?
    - tomjen3 5y ago
      You may as well ask if we stopped humanism when we stopped using asbestos. The answer is the same: no.
- stale2002 5y ago
  > when it is told from another perspective? The difference is that the other perspective is wrong, and ours is much closer to being correct (even if it still has problems). So that is why your statement is silly. And before you say it, no, I do not care about any of your arguments about cultural relativism. I am perfectly happy, saying that people who, for example, want to kill gay people, have morals that are wrong, and that our morals, which are that we shouldn't do that, are correct. Are you able to do that?
threatofrain 5y ago
A right without enforcement is just a nice idea. I don't think we've ever had anything close to international human rights. It is not remotely obvious how a framework of global human rights would work in current times.
- tomjen3 5y ago
  Poorly, and with lots of violations, is how I imagine the framework would work, but by having such a framework we have something that we can refer to, something that we can point to when countries aren't living up to it. Yes, it is just a peace of paper, except that it is also not once it becomes something to fight for and something that people believe in. The US declared itself independent while British troops were in the country. It asserted rights against somebody else who didn't recognize them. And that worked well enough that later people would refer to those assertions when debating freeing the slaves, and it was that which MLK was able to refer to in his speech. I won't live long enough to see international human rights become a norm and neither will anybody else alive right now. But that doesn't mean that it isn't important that we start creating the norm now.
- haswell 5y ago
  > A right without enforcement is just a nice idea. There was a time that all of these were just "nice ideas" in the US - Same sex marriage - Women having the right to vote - People of color having the right to freedom - And on the list goes Most of these rights were not enforced, or even recognized until people fought either with pens or with weapons and progress was made. I linked to the UN's framework for this in my parent comment, and while I agree that this is an incredibly hard problem to address globally, we shouldn't discount the value and power of "nice ideas".
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
bllguo 5y ago
the "international community" is dominated by an affluent western minority that had no qualms about pillaging the rest of the world for centuries with no regards for human rights. _This_ is the Chinese - no, the foreign - perspective. If we think it's not useful to consider then so be it, we'll be locked in cold war for the foreseeable future. Personally I think there are more productive methods than hypocritical grandstanding.
- wangii 5y ago
  don't understand why it's down voted. seems to be a valid argument. care to clarify?
- another_story 5y ago
  Looking back at what other countries did centuries before is a weak argument for justifying what one does today. The “international community” includes more than a western minority when it comes to the issue of Hong Kong.
  - wangii 5y ago
    yes, basically the argument against 'whataboutism'. however I have a hard time to process the idea of 'follow what I told you, not what I have done' attitude.
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      The affluent Western minority is led by an anti-colonial rebellion whose record on this issue, while nowhere near perfect or even an absolute good, is the best of any major power in the history of humanity. When China says "You know what, China? No. We will not break our own agreement. How could you even suggest that? Hong Kong is sovereign" (as the United States recently did in McGirt v. Oklahoma), then we can talk about whataboutism. Until then, that kind of argument is utterly unconvincing.
      - bllguo 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

JumpCrisscross 5y ago

> as if Iran started accusing Canada of breaking Sharia More like if Iran agreed not to invade Canada, invaded it, and implemented Sharia law.

torstenvl 5y ago
If by "invaded it" you mean "dropped two nuclear weapons on its enemies, saving it from utter destruction, and then mostly let it do its thing and even helped them grow economically," then sure. China is not the victim here.

torstenvl 5y ago

> In China, people have no innate rights. It is a cornerstone principle that all people everywhere have innate rights. The entirety of the Enlightenment is based on this idea. And while China may be actively involved in oppressing these rights domestically, it tacitly endorses them on the international stage. Moral relativism is a cancer, applied selectively by the lazy. Do better.

azinman2 5y ago
The enlightenment was a European ideology. China is influenced still by Taoism, which has very different belief structure that emphasizes harmony with the masses over the individual.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  I'm not grokking your argument. Are you calling the forced enslavement and "re-education" of Uyghurs and so many others "harmony"? https://tenor.com/search/you-keep-using-that-word-gifs https://tenor.com/search/you-keep-using-that-word-gifs
  - azinman2 5y ago
    Taoism is thousands of years old, vastly pre-dating the CCP and its actions.
    - torstenvl 5y ago
      I am very well aware that Taoism is thousands of years old. I have an undergraduate honors thesis on the confluence of Taoist traditional thought and Buddhist influences expressed in the Lieh Tzu. I have spent considerable energy trying to convince Western military fans of Sun Tzu to teach it in its proper context, such as by requiring reading Lao Tzu first. You can stop being condescending at any point. Your argument appears to be that modern Chinese actions should not be judged against the rubrics of Western philosophy. I disagree because I do not believe in moral relativism. However, if their actions are to be judged only against the rubrics found in, e.g., Taoism, then judge them against those rubrics. Do you have anything approaching a good faith argument that the actions of China with regard to Uyghurs, Tibet, greater Guangdong (including HK), or any of the countless ethnic or political minorities in China comport with an ideal of harmony?

rfrey 5y ago

Arguing that the moral standing of genocide is a matter of cultural construction is a pretty tenuous position.

emodendroket 5y ago

I know the Chinese government themselves are just as given to engaging in it, but the idea of talking about "thousands of years" of Chinese administration as if there's no real difference between China's various dynasties and the modern state makes about as much sense as considering the Firth Republic as representing an unbroken chain going back to Charlemagne.