Hey there! I would consider myself heavily anti-china, possibly because I spent too much time listening to western anti-china propaganda. Since this community seems to be mainly pro-china, I thought this should be a good place to clear up some misconceptions I might have. There are some issues which are repeatedly used to draw the picture of Chinese dystopia. A few of these points are:

  • The proclaimed genocide of Uighurs in Xinjiang.
  • Heavy restrictions of freedom of speech. It seems really dangerous to be publicly critical of the CCP; There is no chinese newspaper criticizing the works of the CCP, also it is forbidden to access foreign newspapers.
  • Along with the freedom of speech go restrictions of political freedom. “The most recent major movement advocating for political freedom was obliterated through the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989”. (Wikipedia quote) There also are many recent examples of people disappearing after publicly expressing differing political views.
  • Mass-surveillance of citizens. Anything the citizens do seems to be recorded. Appearently even saying anything anti-CCP on WeChat can have you imprisoned and a low credit score can make it impossible for you to leave the country (along with other restrictions of freedom).
  • The planned occupation of Taiwan and Hong Kong. At least in the case of Hong Kong there is some justification due to the completely stupid 99-year-lease, but china being so offensive about annexing Taiwan seems odd.

I would be happy to see what the pro-china views on these claims are. I realized that one could argue that claims 1-4 are simply made up or at least presented overly problematic in western media. If this is your whole point, don’t bother to answer.

I’m looking forward to your responses!

  • ttmrichter
    51·
    3 years ago

    I wouldn’t agree that it is worse in the west than in china, as in the west anyone still has the opportunity to avoid services which threaten to sell your data.

    You are talking from ignorance. Both ignorance of the nature and state of surveillance here (yes, I live in China) and of the ubiquity of surveillance in the west and how much of it the state has access to.

    Facebook tracks you if you have an account or not. Twitter tracks you if you have an account or not. Phone systems track you if you have any kind of mobile phone at all. In extreme cases, you can be surveilled from other people’s phones. While it is in theory possible to live free of surveillance in the west, it would involve actions and activities that would be extremely impractical.

    Surveillance is surveillance, whether done by corporate entities who cooperate with actual nation-states or directly by the government. (And, by the way, most surveillance in China is … exactly this variety, just like the USA.) Abrogation of free speech is abrogation of free speech, whether, again, done by corporate entities (and, again, the major source of censorship in China is exactly this variety, just like the USA) or by governments directly.