13 ms·

The Hostile Forces of Beijing

113 points by jseliger 4y ago

toss1 4y ago
Just another reminder that if you are in any way doing business in China, you are helping the despots who made disappear Cao Zhixin and all her fellow vigil attendees, violently overthrew Tibet, broke every international agreement on Hong Kong, and are this minute militarily threatening Taiwan. It might cost more, but it is worthwhile to do business elsewhere.
- Pulcinella 4y ago
  Unfortunately there is little to no real ethical consumption under the current economic systems of the world (at least in the developed world). E.g. my mere existence in the USA funds the actions of the federal government and military. It is not my intention to legitimize actions you speak against (I.e. “there are none without sin” is not an invitation to sin your heart out). I just want to remind everyone that even true statements and facts can nevertheless be used as propaganda (I.e. focus on the bad things our enemies our doing, not that we are doing). I have no doubt that on the Chinese equivalent of hacker news there are people saying that doing any business in the USA is helping the US imperial war machine that has violently over thrown many governments, disappears people into Guantanamo Bay, etc.
  - winReInstall 4y ago
    The opening wage gap since the 70s have pathed the way for this. Raising wages could have paid for free produced products, but the haves decided that freedom for the have-nots has a price point.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    You'd have to be out of your mind to think the US government/military does even 1% as much bad stuff as the CCP/PLA does.
    - snapcaster 4y ago
      Are you joking? Do you mean "to its own citizens"? I just don't see how you can claim the US military has done less than 1% of the "bad stuff" the CCP does considering they haven't invaded dozens of countries like the US. Can you explain your comment?
    - mardifoufs 4y ago
      As long as you ignore the absolute chaos and mayhem caused by the US in the middle east for the past 2-3 decades... sure?
- theowawwyaansn 4y ago
  I kept using 10y laptop to avoid giving my money to China. I will buy parts made not in China to assemble PC when it breaks down. I don't know how Americans support the evil CCP after knowing it's exporting fentanal which ends up killing 100k young people per year. America doesn't care about its workers it seems
  - scottLobster 4y ago
    Uh, sticking it to the CCP is the one issue that brings Democrats and Republicans together: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/28/some-americans-views-of-china-turned-more-negative-after-2020-but-others-became-more-positive/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/28/some-americ... If you're demanding an immediate, national economic decoupling on moral grounds, well that's just not a good idea for a whole host of reason. Would produce a lot more suffering than it would prevent.
    - woooooo 4y ago
      Amazing to watch the trends skyrocket after 2018 when the media started turning against China. I suppose it's possible that all of those people are deeply clued into the details of Xi's increasing authoritarianism, but it seems more likely that we're just thinking what we're told to think.
    - uoaei 4y ago
      As long as the attitude remains "sticking it" to anyone, welcome to WWIII. We saw what happened when we left Afghanistan. The Blob got so antsy they couldn't help themselves from instigating Russia and the war in Ukraine, not to mention all the coups in South and Central America over the past couple years. Idle hands are the Devil's playthings. There are strong, institutional forces that inevitabilize (word?) conflicts profitable for military contractors. This is the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower was warning us about.
- maoista 4y ago
  I’m as anti-CCP and pro “buy local” as they come (or at least pretty far down the path) But they’ve kind-of won… I just can’t feasibly avoid China with my pocketbook every single day. I have no idea where to get a (usable) phone / computer that isn’t touching on them at some level. That company down the street that sells me a beer and a burger, well I guarantee they’ve got an add of Made in China. They’ve sadly outplayed us (or our shit heel political and business elite) to the point of overly tight integration.
  - scottLobster 4y ago
    Meh, Chinese labor is already more expensive than equivalent Mexican labor (at least from an American perspective). They're running on inertia at this point. Might take a decade or two to relocate the industrial plant, but it'll shift on cost alone given enough time.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - Nevermark 4y ago
      Replacing complex industrial centers is FAR more difficult, and costly to customers, than swapping out workers in one country for another. Lower wages were an advantage. But the Chinese have leveraged that into other lasting advantages. Not just inertia.
  - notch656c 4y ago
    America just moved their slavery elsewhere and got the CCP to administer it. Out of sight, out of mind, get me my iphone while the plebs desperately jump out 5th story factory windows.
    - Forgeties79 4y ago
      Give us an alternative to our Chinese-made computers, smart phones, etc. that isn't "don't get them," because that's kind of absurd in the modern era. If you have an alternative I'm all ears. You're destroying the world and exploiting communities every time you turn on a light switch or ride motorized transport. Every package you order online is part of the problem. Should I give you a high-minded lecture with no alternatives as well?
- jeoqn 4y ago
  Might is right. Even if I don’t like the result, I respect the natural order of things. The opposite is anarchy.
  - notch656c 4y ago
    That's a pretty compelling argument for anarchism.
  - steve76 4y ago
    [dead]
  - elefanten 4y ago
    Yeah, you have that perfectly backwards. "Might is right" implies the most powerful entity has 'the right' to do what it wants on the basis of the ability to assert it. That it cannot be bound or constrained by rules / laws. And all other conflicts also reduce to "which entity is more powerful". So, by the time you go down the entity list from most to least powerful, there is no room for rule of law to bind any given actor. And hence it is anarchy.
    - jeoqn 4y ago
      It seems you are saying that authoritarianism is anarchy. Which sounds absurd.
      - elefanten 4y ago
        You asserted three very distinct claims as equivalent, none of which included authoritarianism. Authoritarianism is not "might is right". The authority at the top does not extend the 'right' of might to agents in the middle of the hierarchy. They are bound by the authority's will in their behavior towards their own power-inferiors.
- pphysch 4y ago
  All of this except Julian Assange, ethnic cleansing of Yemenis, Palestinians, threatened ICC, flattened Iraq & Libya, ongoing looting of Syria, etc. Barely scratching the surface. There are no "good guys". The world is not divided into good vs. evil, as much as our Western worldviews are conditioned that way. There is zero moral difference between supporting businesses backed by Beijing or Washington. There is a moral benefit to not being wildly xenophobic on the internet, however.
  - toss1 4y ago
    You really think there is zero difference between Beijing (or Moscow, or Tehran) v Washington? Try going to live there and hold up a protest sign against whatever is the biggest anti-govt issue of the day. In any of the first three, you'll end up in jail for a fortnight to a decade, depending on the climate. In Washington, The worse you'll get is a "move along" if you are blocking traffic. Or try being a neighboring country, like Taiwan. Right this minute, China is threatening it with its air force, navy, and army all harassing or doing target practice in it's direction. Hong Kong has lost ALL of the freedoms that were internationally agreed. All other neighbors are under varying degrees of threat & coercion. Meanwhile, Mexico, Caribbean islands, or Canada have trivial border checks and even Cuba have zero worries of any invasion. The world really is divided between autocracy and democracy. It may or may not be "good vs evil", but there is an absolutely critical difference. There are people who want to live a self-determined life free of coercion, and want a government determined by the people and not some tyrant. There are others who want to on a local level, be the bully and steal your lunch money, and on a geopolitical scale, rule and take everything. This is a fight everywhere from the local level to be free, to the national level where abusers, bullies, crooks, and autocrats try to take over the reigns of democracy (and they recently succeeded in Hungary, Turkey), and internationally where the autocracies like China, Russia, Iran, NK, etc. are in expansionist. Vladimir Lenin had a term for people who didn't understand the difference — "Useful Idiots". People who don't get it, and will happily do things helpful to their autocratic intentions, out of what they think are good intentions. You are in this territory, and should stop deluding yourself.
    - GAN_Game 4y ago
- yorwba 4y ago
  > Just another reminder that if you are in any way doing business in China, you are helping the despots That may be true, but don't forget that you're helping ordinary people like Cao Zhixin as well. When you're buying stuff made in China, only a small part of the money you pay is captured as taxes by the government; the rest goes to other people, improving their livelihoods. Of course the same is true when you buy things made in other countries; it'll just be a different group reaping the benefits. So bettering people's lives is not a good reason to prefer products made in China, but it's also not a good reason to avoid them either.
  - toss1 4y ago
    It isn't about the flow of money, it is about the flow of power. Even if some of your purchase winds up in the pockets of ordinary Chinese, it does nothing to help them get out from out from under autocratic rule. That's the point — the Great Experiment failed. It would be fantastic to free the billion++ people of China, and we thought that open exchange would do it, but it only empowered their rulers and now threatens us. The best we can do is to strongly oppose that government and the society running under it (and yes, that this will end up benefiting others in other countries who are already overlooked, that is also a good thing).
trollerator23 4y ago
Ayep. China's government sucks.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pookha 4y ago
There's no rule of law in China. It's strictly a fascist crony capitalist regime. And there's not much room for human error. If you fuck up in China you might pay with your life. They have an organ harvesting system and all it takes is a kangaroo court and a mobile van and then they've got your kidneys, eyes, liver etc. Tim Cook runs a college in China (amongst other things). I have no idea how he sleeps at night.
- banannaise 4y ago
  [flagged]
- Overtonwindow 4y ago
  China is the single greatest threat to freedom, human rights, and prosperity, the world over. I don't know how anyone who makes money from China can sleep at night.
  - chinabot 4y ago
    While china is controlled by the CCP this is true. But remember Chinese people have no choice like we do in the west. I would exclude the USA from this too as they are different colours of the same shit.
    - jasmer 4y ago
      No, this is not an issue of moral relativism. The Americans are the central power that keeps the world from falling into insane tyranny. The oceans, suez, panam, bosphorous, etc. are all open because of the US Navy (previously UK). And partly supporting allies. The world order mostly exists because the West + Japan / Korea keep it up and the US is at the centre of that. You can see the pressure of this equilibrium at the Ukraine Russia border right now, 80 years after WW2, the US President still holds the magic keys. Now, it should be more spread out, but it's not largely because Europeans don't want to take necessary actions for a variety of reasons. Due to the power of technology, tyrants are even more powerful and all seeing than ever. Just one generation ago - a local province in Russia might have broken out in revolt, that's impossible now. There are eyes everywhere, the state can move their pawns very quickly, and more importantly, the propaganda channels. It's pretty shocking what regular Russians are led to believe. Every nations plebes believe in whacky, scary stuff, god knows we almost had an election overturned due to that, but it's on another level where the state controls communications. China in 2023 is effectively an Orwellian state. It's 'fine' for most people, so long as you don't challenge the power of the apparatus, but otherwise it's tyranny - and as stated very clearly in the document in question, any hint of challenge to the state will be crushed, there is no separation of powers, the CCP via Xi rules all. Full on Eye of Sauron stuff. It's plainly stated in the document. It's exceedingly naive to contemplate that America is just some other side of the coin, or 'another way'. 500 years ago, there was no power that could materially control the world, there were innumerable places to escape to - now we are locked in a room and it's entirely feasible the world could come under totalitarian control. Which is why by the way, even as we all understand global cooperation is very important, the concept of 'global governance' comes with the deep risk that such an institution could be compromised and then it's game over for all of us. 'Freedom' is not some kind of Rambo American propaganda even though it's often presented that way, and Americans in particular have default views, lacking in nuance. The basic values of Western Democracy matter a lot. The war in Ukraine is reminding us of that.
unity1001 4y ago
Regularly such 'disappearances' of personas in targeted countries are posted in the Western media. Then those people show up a few months later, having being doing their own thing. They posted that some guy had disappeared in an Xinjiang prison. The guy was then discovered in his own home, giving an interview to a local TV, unaware of his own disappearance. Some other woman was told to have been 'disappeared'. A few weeks later she was interviewed while manning the cash register in her own small cellphone shop, being unaware that she has disappeared. When it comes to North Korean dignitaries, its a regular thing - frequently major US outlets post that some NK dignitary has been 'vanished'. Two months later the guy shows up somewhere else, busy with something else. Because the public seems to have the memory span of a fish, nobody notices. This kind of smearing has been used against many countries before. From all the small countries that were attacked by the US in the last decades to the actual superpowers that the US targeted. It took only SIX months for the mainstream US press to turn the country I grew up in from being a 'model democracy in the region' to 'authoritarian state' after that country refused to play along with the US foreign policy in the region. Now that its pushing war in Taiwan, its no surprise such smears seem to be increasing. Nothing surprising. What's suprising, however, is how easily the supposedly educated Western public buys into lies. Its only 20 years after the Iraqi WMDs lie. The people were supposed to have learned something from that. However look at the comments in these threads, people raging about this supposed event far worse than how people raged against Iraq during the war propaganda back in 2003. All of this without any consideration for CIA rendition flights, Assange etc of course. Those things are 'bad but dont talk about them'. Such smears are 'rage all about it with all your might'. From what the Brexit process has taught, reviling, smearing others and uniting over this hatred of an external enemy seems to be a cultural paradigm in various countries - foremost the Angloamerican ones. Everyone else is most evil. They themselves are, well, 'okay with some problems'. Even if the problems are atrocious violations of most basic human rights, from killing people if they cant pay for healthcare to jailing whistleblowers to murdering people for their oil. 20 years after Iraq. The same thing. Shame. What's worse, against all objective, repeated reality repeating itself over and over and over and over again, people still reject such criticism as evidenced by the downvotes. If the 'educated and intelligent' segment in the West is like this, imagine the non-educated segments...
- 4y ago
netsharc 4y ago
I wonder if the people who get these Security Commission briefings believe the bullshit about "hostile external forces" or if they all know it's just a pretend boogeyman and the population unrest happened because they don't tolerate the government's behavior. Then again a lot of American reddit/Twitter users screamed "Russian bot!" when they see things they didn't like. Some of it maybe were Russian bots, but imagine if all the Russian interference disappeared, would all the anti-American commenters disappear off the Internet?
- red-iron-pine 4y ago
  How could you NOT think it was bots, esp. knowing what we know now about ChatGPT? Nation-state level actors could and almost certainly do have similar options at their fingertips, on top of having enough cash to pay a legion of folks to troll. We know they exist -- they have names like 50 Cent Army (or Mechanical Turk, or "online marketing firm").
- dirtyid 4y ago
  >if the people who get these Security Commission briefings believe the bullshit about "hostile external forces" They do and should. West working hard to deny that foreign coordination occurs - the magnitude of impact is subject to debate - but telegram group like @actionshanghai with 100s of particapants coordinating live SH protests with foreign journalists (including FLG/Epoche) and trained aggitators providing support were real. And within MSS ability to monitor / prosecute. Western influence OPs in PRC is as real as CCP influence ops abroad that warrants crackdown. CCP did not crack down on foreign NGOs and purge CIA network for shits and giggles. It was forgone some protestors would be naive enough to work with "hostile external forces" and would get slapped hard by state security, hence handful of arrests versus thousands. There's been surprising tolerance for protests so far, but also good reason not to tolerate protestors' behaviours that effects national security. The fact group is begging for attention on youtube good sign they're the kind of naive libtards that thinks it's fine to work with hostile external forces who has some ability to impact, i.e. media who manufactures consent vs internet trolls. Otherwise they'd receive the basic tea invite + self criticism ceremony and can move on with their lives like thousands of others.
Georgelemental 4y ago
Tanner Greer is one of the most thoughtful commentators I know, I have learned a lot from his blog.
lazyeye 4y ago
Well at least these "hostile forces" are not facilitating the import of massive volumes of fentanyl into China.
- 8jef 4y ago
  Uh... Try the other way around: https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-008-20%20Fentanyl%20Flow%20in%20the%20United%20States_0.pdf https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-...
  - lazyeye 4y ago
    Yep "Currently, China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail and express consignment operations environment, as well as the main source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States."
georgeg23 4y ago
After Trump, we can't knock China for being defensive. We sail warships by their ports and concoct distorted narratives of their policy. Meanwhile we STILL have Guantanamo and we invaded over a dozen countries in the last century. You'd think after the "weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" that we'd realize our hysteria doesn't help the world.
- Dig1t 4y ago
  This is the classic whataboutism that always pops up around China. You're right about the stuff you said. It doesn't mean we're not allowed to discuss the CCP disappearing people or bad things happening in authoritarian countries in general.
  - georgeg23 4y ago
    The point is we all need to turn down the temperature and stop being hysterical. They didn't disappear, they just aren't using social media.
    - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
      All those Uighurs didn't disappear, they just quit using social media? That's the lamest rationalization I have ever heard in my entire life. We can see the camps in satellite views, you know. (And those camps aren't just resorts where people can go to detox from social media...) Any given person, sure, I could buy your explanation. Saying that's all that's going on? No way.
    - CogitoCogito 4y ago
      China regularly threatens to invade Taiwan. If there’s anyone that needs to tone things down it’s China.
    - nitwit005 4y ago
      Yes, sure, they just stopped using social media. They also don't show up to work, none of their family can contact them, the government refuses to say where they are, and social media posts about them are deleted. I'm sure it's entirely innocent.
mrtnmcc 4y ago
You have to understand that after the cultural revolution, most all Chinese understand that internal rebellion can be very bad (leading to mass famine and death). Hence they largely support strong government regulation, even on speech. Americans think individual independence is a noble "Western value" because the Revolutionary War worked out fine for us. But these experiences each lead to biased extrapolations from the past. For the future, the specific conditions matter for individualism versus collectivism.. on which is the better path.
- mrtnmcc 4y ago
  Arguably a more Chinese-style philosophy is prudent now as the world becomes a smaller place. Chinese people have sustained for thousands of years on the same land, without needing to rely on continuously invading new territory. Now the whole Earth is settled, we need to learn how to live together. Not that China is perfect, but we certainly have much to teach each other, and the Chinese have been the better listener so far.
  - albertopv 4y ago
    I very much prefer living in a country where I can go where I want without asking to government or say almost what I want without risking to go an education camp. So no thank you, current chinese is not my way and never will.
    - mrtnmcc 4y ago
      It's ironic to criticize the way the Chinese handled terrorism concerns against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang, when the US War on Terror didn't just dehumanize and supress American Muslims-- it killed about 1 million people across the globe. This is a case of "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" We can all criticize Xinjiang, but not to justify cultural superiority, if anything it works the other way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_terror
      - 4y ago

113 points by jseliger 4y ago

Just another reminder that if you are in any way doing business in China, you are helping the despots who made disappear Cao Zhixin and all her fellow vigil attendees, violently overthrew Tibet, broke every international agreement on Hong Kong, and are this minute militarily threatening Taiwan. It might cost more, but it is worthwhile to do business elsewhere.

Pulcinella 4y ago
Unfortunately there is little to no real ethical consumption under the current economic systems of the world (at least in the developed world). E.g. my mere existence in the USA funds the actions of the federal government and military. It is not my intention to legitimize actions you speak against (I.e. “there are none without sin” is not an invitation to sin your heart out). I just want to remind everyone that even true statements and facts can nevertheless be used as propaganda (I.e. focus on the bad things our enemies our doing, not that we are doing). I have no doubt that on the Chinese equivalent of hacker news there are people saying that doing any business in the USA is helping the US imperial war machine that has violently over thrown many governments, disappears people into Guantanamo Bay, etc.
- winReInstall 4y ago
  The opening wage gap since the 70s have pathed the way for this. Raising wages could have paid for free produced products, but the haves decided that freedom for the have-nots has a price point.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  You'd have to be out of your mind to think the US government/military does even 1% as much bad stuff as the CCP/PLA does.
  - snapcaster 4y ago
    Are you joking? Do you mean "to its own citizens"? I just don't see how you can claim the US military has done less than 1% of the "bad stuff" the CCP does considering they haven't invaded dozens of countries like the US. Can you explain your comment?
  - mardifoufs 4y ago
    As long as you ignore the absolute chaos and mayhem caused by the US in the middle east for the past 2-3 decades... sure?
theowawwyaansn 4y ago
I kept using 10y laptop to avoid giving my money to China. I will buy parts made not in China to assemble PC when it breaks down. I don't know how Americans support the evil CCP after knowing it's exporting fentanal which ends up killing 100k young people per year. America doesn't care about its workers it seems
- scottLobster 4y ago
  Uh, sticking it to the CCP is the one issue that brings Democrats and Republicans together: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/28/some-americans-views-of-china-turned-more-negative-after-2020-but-others-became-more-positive/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/28/some-americ... If you're demanding an immediate, national economic decoupling on moral grounds, well that's just not a good idea for a whole host of reason. Would produce a lot more suffering than it would prevent.
  - woooooo 4y ago
    Amazing to watch the trends skyrocket after 2018 when the media started turning against China. I suppose it's possible that all of those people are deeply clued into the details of Xi's increasing authoritarianism, but it seems more likely that we're just thinking what we're told to think.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    As long as the attitude remains "sticking it" to anyone, welcome to WWIII. We saw what happened when we left Afghanistan. The Blob got so antsy they couldn't help themselves from instigating Russia and the war in Ukraine, not to mention all the coups in South and Central America over the past couple years. Idle hands are the Devil's playthings. There are strong, institutional forces that inevitabilize (word?) conflicts profitable for military contractors. This is the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower was warning us about.
maoista 4y ago
I’m as anti-CCP and pro “buy local” as they come (or at least pretty far down the path) But they’ve kind-of won… I just can’t feasibly avoid China with my pocketbook every single day. I have no idea where to get a (usable) phone / computer that isn’t touching on them at some level. That company down the street that sells me a beer and a burger, well I guarantee they’ve got an add of Made in China. They’ve sadly outplayed us (or our shit heel political and business elite) to the point of overly tight integration.
- scottLobster 4y ago
  Meh, Chinese labor is already more expensive than equivalent Mexican labor (at least from an American perspective). They're running on inertia at this point. Might take a decade or two to relocate the industrial plant, but it'll shift on cost alone given enough time.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Nevermark 4y ago
    Replacing complex industrial centers is FAR more difficult, and costly to customers, than swapping out workers in one country for another. Lower wages were an advantage. But the Chinese have leveraged that into other lasting advantages. Not just inertia.
- notch656c 4y ago
  America just moved their slavery elsewhere and got the CCP to administer it. Out of sight, out of mind, get me my iphone while the plebs desperately jump out 5th story factory windows.
  - Forgeties79 4y ago
    Give us an alternative to our Chinese-made computers, smart phones, etc. that isn't "don't get them," because that's kind of absurd in the modern era. If you have an alternative I'm all ears. You're destroying the world and exploiting communities every time you turn on a light switch or ride motorized transport. Every package you order online is part of the problem. Should I give you a high-minded lecture with no alternatives as well?
jeoqn 4y ago
Might is right. Even if I don’t like the result, I respect the natural order of things. The opposite is anarchy.
- notch656c 4y ago
  That's a pretty compelling argument for anarchism.
- steve76 4y ago
  [dead]
- elefanten 4y ago
  Yeah, you have that perfectly backwards. "Might is right" implies the most powerful entity has 'the right' to do what it wants on the basis of the ability to assert it. That it cannot be bound or constrained by rules / laws. And all other conflicts also reduce to "which entity is more powerful". So, by the time you go down the entity list from most to least powerful, there is no room for rule of law to bind any given actor. And hence it is anarchy.
  - jeoqn 4y ago
    It seems you are saying that authoritarianism is anarchy. Which sounds absurd.
    - elefanten 4y ago
      You asserted three very distinct claims as equivalent, none of which included authoritarianism. Authoritarianism is not "might is right". The authority at the top does not extend the 'right' of might to agents in the middle of the hierarchy. They are bound by the authority's will in their behavior towards their own power-inferiors.
pphysch 4y ago
All of this except Julian Assange, ethnic cleansing of Yemenis, Palestinians, threatened ICC, flattened Iraq & Libya, ongoing looting of Syria, etc. Barely scratching the surface. There are no "good guys". The world is not divided into good vs. evil, as much as our Western worldviews are conditioned that way. There is zero moral difference between supporting businesses backed by Beijing or Washington. There is a moral benefit to not being wildly xenophobic on the internet, however.
- toss1 4y ago
  You really think there is zero difference between Beijing (or Moscow, or Tehran) v Washington? Try going to live there and hold up a protest sign against whatever is the biggest anti-govt issue of the day. In any of the first three, you'll end up in jail for a fortnight to a decade, depending on the climate. In Washington, The worse you'll get is a "move along" if you are blocking traffic. Or try being a neighboring country, like Taiwan. Right this minute, China is threatening it with its air force, navy, and army all harassing or doing target practice in it's direction. Hong Kong has lost ALL of the freedoms that were internationally agreed. All other neighbors are under varying degrees of threat & coercion. Meanwhile, Mexico, Caribbean islands, or Canada have trivial border checks and even Cuba have zero worries of any invasion. The world really is divided between autocracy and democracy. It may or may not be "good vs evil", but there is an absolutely critical difference. There are people who want to live a self-determined life free of coercion, and want a government determined by the people and not some tyrant. There are others who want to on a local level, be the bully and steal your lunch money, and on a geopolitical scale, rule and take everything. This is a fight everywhere from the local level to be free, to the national level where abusers, bullies, crooks, and autocrats try to take over the reigns of democracy (and they recently succeeded in Hungary, Turkey), and internationally where the autocracies like China, Russia, Iran, NK, etc. are in expansionist. Vladimir Lenin had a term for people who didn't understand the difference — "Useful Idiots". People who don't get it, and will happily do things helpful to their autocratic intentions, out of what they think are good intentions. You are in this territory, and should stop deluding yourself.
  - GAN_Game 4y ago
yorwba 4y ago
> Just another reminder that if you are in any way doing business in China, you are helping the despots That may be true, but don't forget that you're helping ordinary people like Cao Zhixin as well. When you're buying stuff made in China, only a small part of the money you pay is captured as taxes by the government; the rest goes to other people, improving their livelihoods. Of course the same is true when you buy things made in other countries; it'll just be a different group reaping the benefits. So bettering people's lives is not a good reason to prefer products made in China, but it's also not a good reason to avoid them either.
- toss1 4y ago
  It isn't about the flow of money, it is about the flow of power. Even if some of your purchase winds up in the pockets of ordinary Chinese, it does nothing to help them get out from out from under autocratic rule. That's the point — the Great Experiment failed. It would be fantastic to free the billion++ people of China, and we thought that open exchange would do it, but it only empowered their rulers and now threatens us. The best we can do is to strongly oppose that government and the society running under it (and yes, that this will end up benefiting others in other countries who are already overlooked, that is also a good thing).

trollerator23 4y ago

Ayep. China's government sucks.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

pookha 4y ago

There's no rule of law in China. It's strictly a fascist crony capitalist regime. And there's not much room for human error. If you fuck up in China you might pay with your life. They have an organ harvesting system and all it takes is a kangaroo court and a mobile van and then they've got your kidneys, eyes, liver etc. Tim Cook runs a college in China (amongst other things). I have no idea how he sleeps at night.

banannaise 4y ago
[flagged]
Overtonwindow 4y ago
China is the single greatest threat to freedom, human rights, and prosperity, the world over. I don't know how anyone who makes money from China can sleep at night.
- chinabot 4y ago
  While china is controlled by the CCP this is true. But remember Chinese people have no choice like we do in the west. I would exclude the USA from this too as they are different colours of the same shit.
  - jasmer 4y ago
    No, this is not an issue of moral relativism. The Americans are the central power that keeps the world from falling into insane tyranny. The oceans, suez, panam, bosphorous, etc. are all open because of the US Navy (previously UK). And partly supporting allies. The world order mostly exists because the West + Japan / Korea keep it up and the US is at the centre of that. You can see the pressure of this equilibrium at the Ukraine Russia border right now, 80 years after WW2, the US President still holds the magic keys. Now, it should be more spread out, but it's not largely because Europeans don't want to take necessary actions for a variety of reasons. Due to the power of technology, tyrants are even more powerful and all seeing than ever. Just one generation ago - a local province in Russia might have broken out in revolt, that's impossible now. There are eyes everywhere, the state can move their pawns very quickly, and more importantly, the propaganda channels. It's pretty shocking what regular Russians are led to believe. Every nations plebes believe in whacky, scary stuff, god knows we almost had an election overturned due to that, but it's on another level where the state controls communications. China in 2023 is effectively an Orwellian state. It's 'fine' for most people, so long as you don't challenge the power of the apparatus, but otherwise it's tyranny - and as stated very clearly in the document in question, any hint of challenge to the state will be crushed, there is no separation of powers, the CCP via Xi rules all. Full on Eye of Sauron stuff. It's plainly stated in the document. It's exceedingly naive to contemplate that America is just some other side of the coin, or 'another way'. 500 years ago, there was no power that could materially control the world, there were innumerable places to escape to - now we are locked in a room and it's entirely feasible the world could come under totalitarian control. Which is why by the way, even as we all understand global cooperation is very important, the concept of 'global governance' comes with the deep risk that such an institution could be compromised and then it's game over for all of us. 'Freedom' is not some kind of Rambo American propaganda even though it's often presented that way, and Americans in particular have default views, lacking in nuance. The basic values of Western Democracy matter a lot. The war in Ukraine is reminding us of that.

unity1001 4y ago

Regularly such 'disappearances' of personas in targeted countries are posted in the Western media. Then those people show up a few months later, having being doing their own thing. They posted that some guy had disappeared in an Xinjiang prison. The guy was then discovered in his own home, giving an interview to a local TV, unaware of his own disappearance. Some other woman was told to have been 'disappeared'. A few weeks later she was interviewed while manning the cash register in her own small cellphone shop, being unaware that she has disappeared. When it comes to North Korean dignitaries, its a regular thing - frequently major US outlets post that some NK dignitary has been 'vanished'. Two months later the guy shows up somewhere else, busy with something else. Because the public seems to have the memory span of a fish, nobody notices. This kind of smearing has been used against many countries before. From all the small countries that were attacked by the US in the last decades to the actual superpowers that the US targeted. It took only SIX months for the mainstream US press to turn the country I grew up in from being a 'model democracy in the region' to 'authoritarian state' after that country refused to play along with the US foreign policy in the region. Now that its pushing war in Taiwan, its no surprise such smears seem to be increasing. Nothing surprising. What's suprising, however, is how easily the supposedly educated Western public buys into lies. Its only 20 years after the Iraqi WMDs lie. The people were supposed to have learned something from that. However look at the comments in these threads, people raging about this supposed event far worse than how people raged against Iraq during the war propaganda back in 2003. All of this without any consideration for CIA rendition flights, Assange etc of course. Those things are 'bad but dont talk about them'. Such smears are 'rage all about it with all your might'. From what the Brexit process has taught, reviling, smearing others and uniting over this hatred of an external enemy seems to be a cultural paradigm in various countries - foremost the Angloamerican ones. Everyone else is most evil. They themselves are, well, 'okay with some problems'. Even if the problems are atrocious violations of most basic human rights, from killing people if they cant pay for healthcare to jailing whistleblowers to murdering people for their oil. 20 years after Iraq. The same thing. Shame. What's worse, against all objective, repeated reality repeating itself over and over and over and over again, people still reject such criticism as evidenced by the downvotes. If the 'educated and intelligent' segment in the West is like this, imagine the non-educated segments...

4y ago

netsharc 4y ago

I wonder if the people who get these Security Commission briefings believe the bullshit about "hostile external forces" or if they all know it's just a pretend boogeyman and the population unrest happened because they don't tolerate the government's behavior. Then again a lot of American reddit/Twitter users screamed "Russian bot!" when they see things they didn't like. Some of it maybe were Russian bots, but imagine if all the Russian interference disappeared, would all the anti-American commenters disappear off the Internet?

red-iron-pine 4y ago
How could you NOT think it was bots, esp. knowing what we know now about ChatGPT? Nation-state level actors could and almost certainly do have similar options at their fingertips, on top of having enough cash to pay a legion of folks to troll. We know they exist -- they have names like 50 Cent Army (or Mechanical Turk, or "online marketing firm").
dirtyid 4y ago
>if the people who get these Security Commission briefings believe the bullshit about "hostile external forces" They do and should. West working hard to deny that foreign coordination occurs - the magnitude of impact is subject to debate - but telegram group like @actionshanghai with 100s of particapants coordinating live SH protests with foreign journalists (including FLG/Epoche) and trained aggitators providing support were real. And within MSS ability to monitor / prosecute. Western influence OPs in PRC is as real as CCP influence ops abroad that warrants crackdown. CCP did not crack down on foreign NGOs and purge CIA network for shits and giggles. It was forgone some protestors would be naive enough to work with "hostile external forces" and would get slapped hard by state security, hence handful of arrests versus thousands. There's been surprising tolerance for protests so far, but also good reason not to tolerate protestors' behaviours that effects national security. The fact group is begging for attention on youtube good sign they're the kind of naive libtards that thinks it's fine to work with hostile external forces who has some ability to impact, i.e. media who manufactures consent vs internet trolls. Otherwise they'd receive the basic tea invite + self criticism ceremony and can move on with their lives like thousands of others.

Georgelemental 4y ago

Tanner Greer is one of the most thoughtful commentators I know, I have learned a lot from his blog.

lazyeye 4y ago

Well at least these "hostile forces" are not facilitating the import of massive volumes of fentanyl into China.

8jef 4y ago
Uh... Try the other way around: https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-008-20%20Fentanyl%20Flow%20in%20the%20United%20States_0.pdf https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-...
- lazyeye 4y ago
  Yep "Currently, China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail and express consignment operations environment, as well as the main source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States."

georgeg23 4y ago

After Trump, we can't knock China for being defensive. We sail warships by their ports and concoct distorted narratives of their policy. Meanwhile we STILL have Guantanamo and we invaded over a dozen countries in the last century. You'd think after the "weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" that we'd realize our hysteria doesn't help the world.

Dig1t 4y ago
This is the classic whataboutism that always pops up around China. You're right about the stuff you said. It doesn't mean we're not allowed to discuss the CCP disappearing people or bad things happening in authoritarian countries in general.
- georgeg23 4y ago
  The point is we all need to turn down the temperature and stop being hysterical. They didn't disappear, they just aren't using social media.
  - AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    All those Uighurs didn't disappear, they just quit using social media? That's the lamest rationalization I have ever heard in my entire life. We can see the camps in satellite views, you know. (And those camps aren't just resorts where people can go to detox from social media...) Any given person, sure, I could buy your explanation. Saying that's all that's going on? No way.
  - CogitoCogito 4y ago
    China regularly threatens to invade Taiwan. If there’s anyone that needs to tone things down it’s China.
  - nitwit005 4y ago
    Yes, sure, they just stopped using social media. They also don't show up to work, none of their family can contact them, the government refuses to say where they are, and social media posts about them are deleted. I'm sure it's entirely innocent.

mrtnmcc 4y ago

You have to understand that after the cultural revolution, most all Chinese understand that internal rebellion can be very bad (leading to mass famine and death). Hence they largely support strong government regulation, even on speech. Americans think individual independence is a noble "Western value" because the Revolutionary War worked out fine for us. But these experiences each lead to biased extrapolations from the past. For the future, the specific conditions matter for individualism versus collectivism.. on which is the better path.

mrtnmcc 4y ago
Arguably a more Chinese-style philosophy is prudent now as the world becomes a smaller place. Chinese people have sustained for thousands of years on the same land, without needing to rely on continuously invading new territory. Now the whole Earth is settled, we need to learn how to live together. Not that China is perfect, but we certainly have much to teach each other, and the Chinese have been the better listener so far.
- albertopv 4y ago
  I very much prefer living in a country where I can go where I want without asking to government or say almost what I want without risking to go an education camp. So no thank you, current chinese is not my way and never will.
  - mrtnmcc 4y ago
    It's ironic to criticize the way the Chinese handled terrorism concerns against Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang, when the US War on Terror didn't just dehumanize and supress American Muslims-- it killed about 1 million people across the globe. This is a case of "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?" We can all criticize Xinjiang, but not to justify cultural superiority, if anything it works the other way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_terror https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_terror
    - 4y ago