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So China infringes on human rights, in other news "water is wet". Not really newsworthy. I would be shocked if it was Iceland or Norway doing that. As much as

So China infringes on human rights, in other news "water is wet". Not really newsworthy. I would be shocked if it was Iceland or Norway doing that. As much as we hate hearing about it, only the Chinese people have the power to make changes to this regime. Having met many Chinese students abroad, I'd say they are OK with this happening. Either they are apathic, or supportive of their totalitarian regime.

afry1 5y ago
I am astounded by the lack of empathy in what you've written.
- triyambakam 5y ago
  It seems more like OP is just being realistic.
  - happytoexplain 5y ago
    One can be realistic and unnecessarily unempathetic at the same time.
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  What is he supposed to write instead? This is not news. There's new studies confirming it, but we've known for decades China is ruled by a totalitarian regime that treats human life as disposable, and we've heard rumors of this for decades, and of much, much worse. No one with power has done anything about it. No one with power wants to do anything about it. Instead we have world leaders praise China for its boldness in the coronavirus lockdowns, politicians and pundits who fantasize — let me use Thomas Friedman's words here — "What if we could just be China for a day? I mean, just, just, just one day. You know, I mean, where we could actually, you know, authorize the right solutions ..." China has power. They envy it. They want it. They want us to be less free and more like that. It's more common than not. Your political party is not immune. If you're lucky, they're struggling to engage with the idea of China as a Major Geopolitical Risk (and it makes them somewhat uncomfortable to admit even that) or they're trying to be tough on China as a general play for Economic Protectionism, an excuse to serve the self-interest of a narrow slice of their constituency. (America First!!! Let's pay $900k/yr/job to save $100k/yr jobs in the steel industry!!! This is the only road to prosperity!!!) You chide GP poster for his cynicism, essentially. Why shouldn't we all be cynical? I'm sorry, you're late to the show and probably missed out on the shock factor by a good decade or so, possibly longer.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
    "They envy it. They want it. They want us to be less free and more like that." I logged in to say basically this, but I will expand on this a little. There is a steady push in US to limit the rights of its citizens. It worked to an extent and had an interesting catalyst in the form of pandemic, but it seems that people who tried to use it expand power overshot a little, because pushback was significant and is now part of midterm fight. I absolutely agree on your take on China.
  - afry1 5y ago
    Eesh.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
rhn_mk1 5y ago
> only the Chinese people have the power to make changes to this regime What makes you think they have any power at all? This is not what history teaches us about totalitarian regimes.
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  > What makes you think they have any power at all I would say it's also not clear that they want it.
  - rhn_mk1 5y ago
    That's how totalitarian regimes work: voicing dissent is dangerous. See other comment (not mine).
    - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
      or that's how people of China like their country. Some of them are opposing to the regime, but it is possible that the majority of them is pleased for how things are going, also because things have improved a lot for the average Chinese folk over the past couple of decades. For many aspects China is not more totalitarian or violent than many other countries, it can in fact be considered an average country in that regards, where 1.2 billion people live. that's more than US + Europe combined (almost two times that) It is very possible that that's one of the few ways to run such a large country efficiently. Smaller countries like North Korea for example could probably benefit from a liberal democracy and could be run in such a system, but could China? And would Chinese people want it? I think it's an open question.
- chrischen 5y ago
  What makes you think the Chinese people don’t support their government? People will support their government if they can deliver the basic needs like economic growth and prosperity. At least on that front most people agree China has had some of that over the last 20 years. It’s safe to assume if that keeps up Chinese citizens can be pretty complacent. The needs and wants of a foreigner for the Chinese government will be vastly different from those of a citizen of China. For example we are primarily concerned with human rights, their cooperation in global politics, and other things that concern us as non citizens. But to a citizen they want jobs, food, a stable local economy. These are things China historically did not have, and which can at least be partially credited to the government for providing. By our metrics, yes they do poorly, but then our wants for the Chinese government are pretty much completely detached from that of a local citizen.
vmception 5y ago
It is nearly impossible to get an honest current thought from a Chinese citizen about that, many are comfortable, many are afraid that they will be reported for expressing any opinion. There is a worldwide network of snitches of mostly other Chinese citizens that will harm their interests and family in China. Just because you aren't part of it by not being Chinese (citizen) doesn't mean that a non-party line message won't harm them. It is important to understand that gradient of comfort, awareness and consequence. And how that also couples with unawareness, denial. In the same or different people. In this latter regard, its the same as how you would be on any range of topics. Some topics will trigger a hyper nationalistic response from you, others you accept as unchangeable, some would be totally off limits for you to feel comfortable talking about (ie. regime change outside of the prescribed methods) but this last section is a much broader range for a Chinese citizen to feel off limits talking about and the consequences extend beyond them to their family.
- chrischen 5y ago
  You don’t really have to get their individual thoughts. At the end of the day look at their satisfaction levels. Look at the number of Chinese exchange students returning home vs staying abroad. And look at the economy. If it is doing well, chances are most people will be Ok with their government. Polling people for their thoughts is usually unreliable anyways because people can say anything: it costs nothing. It’s the same line of reasoning on why asking users directly how they would change a product yields crappy results.
  - vmception 5y ago
    > Look at the number of Chinese exchange students returning home vs staying abroad. That tells you basically nothing. Some wealthy Chinese have a designated family member move to hedge their wealth preservation bets while galavanting around in a western country. I don't think trends in that metric reveal anything except how many are willing to play that game.
    - chrischen 5y ago
      I think a good litmus test for if something is a good argument is to see if it is something possible to disprove by proving the inverse. If you were to take this argument: It is nearly impossible to get an honest current thought from a Chinese citizen about that... and therefore Chinese must not served/satisfied by their government. So the inverse of that would be "it is possible to get an honest current thought from a Chinese citizen." So since that is not something I can prove or disprove your claim tells basically nothing as well. This is because even an actual Chinese person telling you their honest thought cannot prove to you, by your standards, to have given you their honest opinion because you make hand wavy arguments that their true opinions are being suppressed already. You've already disqualified any potential rebuttal because saying "that tells you nothing" can be literally applied to any data or stats thrown at you... because your whole argument is that the data/stats/opinions of Chinese people cannot be trusted. > Some wealthy Chinese have a designated family member move to hedge their wealth preservation bets while galavanting around in a western country. I don't think trends in that metric reveal anything except how many are willing to play that game. You can literally apply this as a counter argument to anything. I could claim that Americans' satisfaction with their lives is just a select few that you happened to talk to that are rich and galavanting around. The only way to counter this would be to catalogue every single person and of course also audit that every person was accounted for because any survey covering people can be discredited by saying that it didn't count everybody or that answers were given under duress. The reality is that not even 20 years ago most Chinese who left did not have plans of returning, but given improving conditions the rate of repatriation is increasing. After the revolution people tried to escape, but that's not the case anymore. Rather than automatically discrediting any Chinese or stats that go against your pre-determined narrative, which is not something people can argue against, present evidence that can actually be proved/disproved.
alephnan 5y ago
> only the Chinese people have the power to make changes to this regime Not the Americans exploiting cheaper labor in China and making China rich ? > I would be shocked if it was Iceland or Norway doing that. I would be shocked if you weren’t wearing made in China / Vietnam shoes or clothing.
- sonicggg 5y ago
  At the same time I'm not wearing any clothes made in North Korea or Venezuela, same as pretty much everyone. How exactly is it making a difference on the lives of those people living under those regimes? The nice thing about the Ukrainian war is that it's going to show how overrated economic boycott is in practice.
  - alephnan 5y ago
    > At the same time I'm not wearing any clothes made in North Korea or Venezuela, same as pretty much everyone. No. Some of us have principal and is willing to pay more as to not support China, especially if we are going to speak about how evil it is to support the regime.
happytoexplain 5y ago
I (mostly) agree with you factually, but I really think it's almost always detrimental to use the old line "this isn't newsworthy" and its other forms, e.g. "why are you surprised", as they imply fallacious equivalencies. "Newsworthy" is not equivalent to "secret", and "surprise" is not equivalent to "offense/outrage". It's bad to imply that news outlets shouldn't report on these things, or that people shouldn't be emotional about them, or have strong opinions about them.
elil17 5y ago
It’s important to note that Chinese students abroad are generally quite wealthy. On average, the system is benefiting them and hiding all the bad stuff from them. It’s hard to know if there is a lot of unrest within China because most of the people who would have a big problem with the regime can’t travel abroad.
- vmception 5y ago
  On that same note, its also important to not lend much/any weight to the perspective of prior immigrants from China or "greater China" that came in various prior waves. They left, they have a universally negative opinion and haven't been there for 20-30 years. Its not an accurate take on the people there, or the travellers now, as simply surviving this long is a good enough indicator of complacency and comfort. There is a habit of deferring an opinion to someone that appears closer to the topic - from people that believe they are being inclusive and sensitive - but on the topic of China doing that is completely incompatible. For immigrants, residents and citizens in the west with Chinese heritage this only conveniently plays on a widespread identity and racial ignorance that happens to privilege their opinions, but reduces the rest of our ability to understand and potentially shape policy. As it is a very narrow lens that already matches our opinion of imagining daily woe and oppression from every resident in China, but is simply not accurate.
tartoran 5y ago
Just because it is not news means we should not discuss it? I find such comments lacking any value other than stating this has been happening for a while.

afry1 5y ago

I am astounded by the lack of empathy in what you've written.

triyambakam 5y ago
It seems more like OP is just being realistic.
- happytoexplain 5y ago
  One can be realistic and unnecessarily unempathetic at the same time.
fennecfoxen 5y ago
What is he supposed to write instead? This is not news. There's new studies confirming it, but we've known for decades China is ruled by a totalitarian regime that treats human life as disposable, and we've heard rumors of this for decades, and of much, much worse. No one with power has done anything about it. No one with power wants to do anything about it. Instead we have world leaders praise China for its boldness in the coronavirus lockdowns, politicians and pundits who fantasize — let me use Thomas Friedman's words here — "What if we could just be China for a day? I mean, just, just, just one day. You know, I mean, where we could actually, you know, authorize the right solutions ..." China has power. They envy it. They want it. They want us to be less free and more like that. It's more common than not. Your political party is not immune. If you're lucky, they're struggling to engage with the idea of China as a Major Geopolitical Risk (and it makes them somewhat uncomfortable to admit even that) or they're trying to be tough on China as a general play for Economic Protectionism, an excuse to serve the self-interest of a narrow slice of their constituency. (America First!!! Let's pay $900k/yr/job to save $100k/yr jobs in the steel industry!!! This is the only road to prosperity!!!) You chide GP poster for his cynicism, essentially. Why shouldn't we all be cynical? I'm sorry, you're late to the show and probably missed out on the shock factor by a good decade or so, possibly longer.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
  "They envy it. They want it. They want us to be less free and more like that." I logged in to say basically this, but I will expand on this a little. There is a steady push in US to limit the rights of its citizens. It worked to an extent and had an interesting catalyst in the form of pandemic, but it seems that people who tried to use it expand power overshot a little, because pushback was significant and is now part of midterm fight. I absolutely agree on your take on China.
- afry1 5y ago
  Eesh.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

rhn_mk1 5y ago

> only the Chinese people have the power to make changes to this regime What makes you think they have any power at all? This is not what history teaches us about totalitarian regimes.

peoplefromibiza 5y ago
> What makes you think they have any power at all I would say it's also not clear that they want it.
- rhn_mk1 5y ago
  That's how totalitarian regimes work: voicing dissent is dangerous. See other comment (not mine).
  - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    or that's how people of China like their country. Some of them are opposing to the regime, but it is possible that the majority of them is pleased for how things are going, also because things have improved a lot for the average Chinese folk over the past couple of decades. For many aspects China is not more totalitarian or violent than many other countries, it can in fact be considered an average country in that regards, where 1.2 billion people live. that's more than US + Europe combined (almost two times that) It is very possible that that's one of the few ways to run such a large country efficiently. Smaller countries like North Korea for example could probably benefit from a liberal democracy and could be run in such a system, but could China? And would Chinese people want it? I think it's an open question.
chrischen 5y ago
What makes you think the Chinese people don’t support their government? People will support their government if they can deliver the basic needs like economic growth and prosperity. At least on that front most people agree China has had some of that over the last 20 years. It’s safe to assume if that keeps up Chinese citizens can be pretty complacent. The needs and wants of a foreigner for the Chinese government will be vastly different from those of a citizen of China. For example we are primarily concerned with human rights, their cooperation in global politics, and other things that concern us as non citizens. But to a citizen they want jobs, food, a stable local economy. These are things China historically did not have, and which can at least be partially credited to the government for providing. By our metrics, yes they do poorly, but then our wants for the Chinese government are pretty much completely detached from that of a local citizen.

vmception 5y ago

It is nearly impossible to get an honest current thought from a Chinese citizen about that, many are comfortable, many are afraid that they will be reported for expressing any opinion. There is a worldwide network of snitches of mostly other Chinese citizens that will harm their interests and family in China. Just because you aren't part of it by not being Chinese (citizen) doesn't mean that a non-party line message won't harm them. It is important to understand that gradient of comfort, awareness and consequence. And how that also couples with unawareness, denial. In the same or different people. In this latter regard, its the same as how you would be on any range of topics. Some topics will trigger a hyper nationalistic response from you, others you accept as unchangeable, some would be totally off limits for you to feel comfortable talking about (ie. regime change outside of the prescribed methods) but this last section is a much broader range for a Chinese citizen to feel off limits talking about and the consequences extend beyond them to their family.

chrischen 5y ago
You don’t really have to get their individual thoughts. At the end of the day look at their satisfaction levels. Look at the number of Chinese exchange students returning home vs staying abroad. And look at the economy. If it is doing well, chances are most people will be Ok with their government. Polling people for their thoughts is usually unreliable anyways because people can say anything: it costs nothing. It’s the same line of reasoning on why asking users directly how they would change a product yields crappy results.
- vmception 5y ago
  > Look at the number of Chinese exchange students returning home vs staying abroad. That tells you basically nothing. Some wealthy Chinese have a designated family member move to hedge their wealth preservation bets while galavanting around in a western country. I don't think trends in that metric reveal anything except how many are willing to play that game.
  - chrischen 5y ago
    I think a good litmus test for if something is a good argument is to see if it is something possible to disprove by proving the inverse. If you were to take this argument: It is nearly impossible to get an honest current thought from a Chinese citizen about that... and therefore Chinese must not served/satisfied by their government. So the inverse of that would be "it is possible to get an honest current thought from a Chinese citizen." So since that is not something I can prove or disprove your claim tells basically nothing as well. This is because even an actual Chinese person telling you their honest thought cannot prove to you, by your standards, to have given you their honest opinion because you make hand wavy arguments that their true opinions are being suppressed already. You've already disqualified any potential rebuttal because saying "that tells you nothing" can be literally applied to any data or stats thrown at you... because your whole argument is that the data/stats/opinions of Chinese people cannot be trusted. > Some wealthy Chinese have a designated family member move to hedge their wealth preservation bets while galavanting around in a western country. I don't think trends in that metric reveal anything except how many are willing to play that game. You can literally apply this as a counter argument to anything. I could claim that Americans' satisfaction with their lives is just a select few that you happened to talk to that are rich and galavanting around. The only way to counter this would be to catalogue every single person and of course also audit that every person was accounted for because any survey covering people can be discredited by saying that it didn't count everybody or that answers were given under duress. The reality is that not even 20 years ago most Chinese who left did not have plans of returning, but given improving conditions the rate of repatriation is increasing. After the revolution people tried to escape, but that's not the case anymore. Rather than automatically discrediting any Chinese or stats that go against your pre-determined narrative, which is not something people can argue against, present evidence that can actually be proved/disproved.

alephnan 5y ago

> only the Chinese people have the power to make changes to this regime Not the Americans exploiting cheaper labor in China and making China rich ? > I would be shocked if it was Iceland or Norway doing that. I would be shocked if you weren’t wearing made in China / Vietnam shoes or clothing.

sonicggg 5y ago
At the same time I'm not wearing any clothes made in North Korea or Venezuela, same as pretty much everyone. How exactly is it making a difference on the lives of those people living under those regimes? The nice thing about the Ukrainian war is that it's going to show how overrated economic boycott is in practice.
- alephnan 5y ago
  > At the same time I'm not wearing any clothes made in North Korea or Venezuela, same as pretty much everyone. No. Some of us have principal and is willing to pay more as to not support China, especially if we are going to speak about how evil it is to support the regime.

happytoexplain 5y ago

I (mostly) agree with you factually, but I really think it's almost always detrimental to use the old line "this isn't newsworthy" and its other forms, e.g. "why are you surprised", as they imply fallacious equivalencies. "Newsworthy" is not equivalent to "secret", and "surprise" is not equivalent to "offense/outrage". It's bad to imply that news outlets shouldn't report on these things, or that people shouldn't be emotional about them, or have strong opinions about them.

elil17 5y ago

It’s important to note that Chinese students abroad are generally quite wealthy. On average, the system is benefiting them and hiding all the bad stuff from them. It’s hard to know if there is a lot of unrest within China because most of the people who would have a big problem with the regime can’t travel abroad.

vmception 5y ago
On that same note, its also important to not lend much/any weight to the perspective of prior immigrants from China or "greater China" that came in various prior waves. They left, they have a universally negative opinion and haven't been there for 20-30 years. Its not an accurate take on the people there, or the travellers now, as simply surviving this long is a good enough indicator of complacency and comfort. There is a habit of deferring an opinion to someone that appears closer to the topic - from people that believe they are being inclusive and sensitive - but on the topic of China doing that is completely incompatible. For immigrants, residents and citizens in the west with Chinese heritage this only conveniently plays on a widespread identity and racial ignorance that happens to privilege their opinions, but reduces the rest of our ability to understand and potentially shape policy. As it is a very narrow lens that already matches our opinion of imagining daily woe and oppression from every resident in China, but is simply not accurate.

tartoran 5y ago

Just because it is not news means we should not discuss it? I find such comments lacking any value other than stating this has been happening for a while.