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China using families as 'hostages' to quash dissent abroad

48 points by clouddrover 3y ago

csense 3y ago
China is an evil empire. What to do about it without starting World War 3? Here are some of my ideas: - Heavily tax or cut off business with them, with an explicit linkage between specific evil behaviors and the monetary costs / damages to Chinese businesses. They don't understand morality as we do, or they wouldn't do this kind of crap. But they definitely understand dollars and cents. And if their trading partner is willing to make sacrifices to hurt them, maybe that will be enough incentive to change their ways. - Talk about it. This should be in the national news, addressed by PotUS at international events, and so on. Most people realize this is evil as soon as they hear about it. So the more people find out about it, the more people will rightly be horrified, and the greater chance they'll have enough collective power to stop it. - Support Taiwan. No more of this "maybe it is, maybe it isn't" hand-wringing. Say explicitly "We decided Taiwan is the legitimate government of China because the CCP is too evil to be in charge of a corner supermarket, let alone a country." Yes, China won't like it. That's the point: The only way you can get someone with no moral compass to not do evil things is by implementing unacceptable consequences for the evil things they do.
2Gkashmiri 3y ago
Not just China you know.... Not directly related to news but recently a journalist who is in asylum in Germany claimed that her father was beaten to put pressure on her return https://thewire.in/rights/kashmiri-journalist-masrat-zahra-police-assault-father https://thewire.in/rights/kashmiri-journalist-masrat-zahra-p... So its not just authoritarian dictatorships but also democracies too
- Greed 3y ago
  Your usage of Kashmir as the representative for democracy in this context is a little less credulous given the region is generally synonymous with fascism, ethno-nationalism, and extreme corruption driven by startling inequality and poverty. I don't think you're wrong to say that it can happen to nominally democratic countries too, but India as a whole (and ESPECIALLY the smaller states) is probably not the best example to prove the point.
  - 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
    >extreme corruption driven by startling inequality and poverty. you talking about bihar?
  - 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
    >I don't think you're wrong to say that it can happen to nominally democratic countries too, but India as a whole (and ESPECIALLY the smaller states) is probably not the best example to prove the point. do you need to show proof from every state of india to "confirm" that india does this? as opposed to even 1 case of silencing dissent is good enough to prove a point?
mensetmanusman 3y ago
The only positive side of this stupid policy is that everyone knows how Xi’s CCP operates now, and it’s not popular. Which of China’s many bordering nations isn’t supremely suspicious of their antics? Does Xi really not know how stupid their political ideology is? Most every other Asian state is developing rapidly without constantly imprisoning political prisoners.

48 points by clouddrover 3y ago

China is an evil empire. What to do about it without starting World War 3? Here are some of my ideas: - Heavily tax or cut off business with them, with an explicit linkage between specific evil behaviors and the monetary costs / damages to Chinese businesses. They don't understand morality as we do, or they wouldn't do this kind of crap. But they definitely understand dollars and cents. And if their trading partner is willing to make sacrifices to hurt them, maybe that will be enough incentive to change their ways. - Talk about it. This should be in the national news, addressed by PotUS at international events, and so on. Most people realize this is evil as soon as they hear about it. So the more people find out about it, the more people will rightly be horrified, and the greater chance they'll have enough collective power to stop it. - Support Taiwan. No more of this "maybe it is, maybe it isn't" hand-wringing. Say explicitly "We decided Taiwan is the legitimate government of China because the CCP is too evil to be in charge of a corner supermarket, let alone a country." Yes, China won't like it. That's the point: The only way you can get someone with no moral compass to not do evil things is by implementing unacceptable consequences for the evil things they do.

2Gkashmiri 3y ago

Not just China you know.... Not directly related to news but recently a journalist who is in asylum in Germany claimed that her father was beaten to put pressure on her return https://thewire.in/rights/kashmiri-journalist-masrat-zahra-police-assault-father https://thewire.in/rights/kashmiri-journalist-masrat-zahra-p... So its not just authoritarian dictatorships but also democracies too

Greed 3y ago
Your usage of Kashmir as the representative for democracy in this context is a little less credulous given the region is generally synonymous with fascism, ethno-nationalism, and extreme corruption driven by startling inequality and poverty. I don't think you're wrong to say that it can happen to nominally democratic countries too, but India as a whole (and ESPECIALLY the smaller states) is probably not the best example to prove the point.
- 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
  >extreme corruption driven by startling inequality and poverty. you talking about bihar?
- 2Gkashmiri 3y ago
  >I don't think you're wrong to say that it can happen to nominally democratic countries too, but India as a whole (and ESPECIALLY the smaller states) is probably not the best example to prove the point. do you need to show proof from every state of india to "confirm" that india does this? as opposed to even 1 case of silencing dissent is good enough to prove a point?

mensetmanusman 3y ago

The only positive side of this stupid policy is that everyone knows how Xi’s CCP operates now, and it’s not popular. Which of China’s many bordering nations isn’t supremely suspicious of their antics? Does Xi really not know how stupid their political ideology is? Most every other Asian state is developing rapidly without constantly imprisoning political prisoners.