Inb4 I’m accused of being racist. I’m second-generation Chinese, I’ve lived in China for multiple years, and I have family there.
As you probably know the main Lemmy instance just enabled federation which is super exciting for me because although I wanted to have a main instance account, I initially was drawn to Lemmy by its antifascist community, and wanted to be able to engage with people on leftist instances like lemmygrad.ml. So as soon as my RSS reader notified me that federation had been enabled I started excitedly browsing lemmygrad.ml, but very quickly I became very disappointed. I get the vibe that most people here support the CPC without qualifications. So I thought I’d let you all know why we shouldn’t be looking to emulate China from the perspective of a Chinese Commie:
- China has the same growing wealth inequality and low social mobility we criticize countries like the US for having.
- China has a discriminatory regressive work culture in which workers are regularly exploited. China in many ways is behind when it comes to gender, race, political, and sexuality-based discrimination. There is rampant nepotism and corruption if you think privatized education and college admission based on legacy is unfair you would be appalled by the extent to which CPC connections affect your professional career. Workers are discouraged to discuss their wages stifling their ability to advocate for themselves.
- China is a surveillance and propaganda state. I thought that in the fediverse we would all be aware of the dangers of undemocratic entities with a vested interest in maintaining power having the ability to control speech, but I guess not. I don’t even know how to engage with this one because I don’t understand how people can see the digital scrubbing of historical events like the tiananmen square protests as ok. This is all without going into the nightmare that is social credit, I mean aren’t we leftists trying to fight against banks creating systemic inequality through the exact same techniques?
- Uygers are mistreated. Hong Kong should be democratic. This is a complicated issue because both of these have been co-opted by western right-wing people to antagonize communism and stir up fear of China. That being said I know someone who married a Uygur to help them escape the country. They wouldn’t be doing things like that if living in China was equitable. When people have a government that they do not want forced onto them that is not ok, and that is what is happening in Hong Kong.
- China supports fascist dictators. North Korea is fascist and China supports them.
- Travel is restricted. If this doesn’t raise red flags, I don’t know what to say.
Another thing I would like to add is that you being Chinese youself doens’t render you immune to racism. Not saying you are or aren’t racist because I don’t know you but it’s worth giving it some thought.
For example, many Indian people, especially the ones that are well off, see the litter on the streets, compare it to the cleanliness of Western countries, and come to the conclusion that this is because Indian people are inherently uncivilised compared to Western folks and not because of the simple reasons like government spending being hollowed out year by year under the pressure of IMF structural adjustments, with education and healthcare being the most affected, and the provision of goods to poor people in small single-use plastic packaging because they don’t have enough money to bulk in bulk which leads to an increase in plastic waste coupled with no proper channels for waste disposal which is the government’s job to provide.
While I lived in Canada, I have met many people with Hong Kong heritage that have confessed to disliking mainland Chinese people.
Colonial mindset is a real thing.
I have a lot of cultural pride and I love going to China and visiting family! I can not like the government and still love the people and culture.
Nice try Adrian Zenz
please enlighten me
For a start
The free speech article left a really bad taste in my mouth. The Chinese governments limiting of free speech goes far beyond protecting people from defamation, slander, libel, and hate-speech.
as an addendum: The banning of pornography and related media in the name of spiritual purification seems eerily similar to the banning of degenerate art in Nazi Germany. It’s also extremely unequal the way in which limitation to “problematic” media is enforced. All wealthy people in China have access to banned content, it’s only the poor who are shielded from “problematic” content.
I don’t have time to read every article right now, but after skimming the first two I want to clarify a few things. There aren’t Uyger concentration camps. There is widespread racism. I agree US citizens have responded terribly to covid and even if we all wore masks things would not be perfect, there is an extremely problematic “me first” mentality here that I hate. This still doesn’t address my biggest concerns.
You ask me to provide evidence, yet refuse to read it. Speaks volumes about you coming here in good faith
I plan to read more later, but I’m responding to other people rn. I’ll be back later, It’s late where I am and I’m only going to be up for another hour or so <3
I’ve started reading this (I’m about halfway through the section), and mostly it’s stuff I agree with and has nothing to do with what I’m talking about. There is/was a huge propaganda machine in the first world antagonizing the second world, and blatantly lying about what was going on there, and what was and was not successful. The red scare and the capitalist countries fear-mongering about communism in order to maintain power was/is awful.
Removed by mod
<3
Your first two points seem like you are criticising China for embracing a capitalist market economy and the vices that come with it. One thing that I have always noticed is that people are eager to point out the things they do wrong without ever having to take the responsibility to suggest alternative pathways to development that will lead to the utopian society that we all would like to see.
Can you say what China should do in order to build its productive forces to provide for its large population while also having a spotless record when it comes to exploitation of workers? Maybe even give some historical examples of nations or societies that have thrown the yoke of colonialism and emerged strong and self-reliant?
North Korea is fascist
Impossible to take this seriously lol. What is fascism and how is DPRK fascist?
A market economy does not necessarily this degree of wealth inequality. Besides outliers like the US most developed nations are doing much better in this respect and also have market economies. Also, I’m not suggesting that governing China is an easy problem with easy solutions I just don’t like it being hailed as the poster child for communism when there is such a low standard of living for the proletariat. As for how DPRK is fascist, your right it’s a bit of a stretch that I resorted to because I don’t want to explain why North Korea is awful when to me it seems obvious. What I mean is they have extrajudicial justice, an active propaganda machine, and their economy is built around war.
Most “developed” countries used to have colonies in the global South. Even the Scandinavian countries that the social democrats of the west hold up as ideal. To this day their economies are built on imperialism which they use to provide profits to the capitalist class and a decent standard of living for the working class. Despite all the loans from the First World, every year about two to three trillion dollars of wealth are extracted from the global South to the global North. This is foundation of existence of the current political economies in these countries. Does China, or any other Third World country, have the luxury of exploiting the workers of some poor sods to build up their collective wealth? What makes you think its fair compare the economies of colonisers and a formerly colonised country as if they are on a level playing field?
What I mean is they have extrajudicial justice, an active propaganda machine, and their economy is built around war.
The economy being built around war is something I am hearing for the first time. Do you have any sources to back up this claim? I am guessing you came to this conclusion because DPRK refuses to denuclearise despite incessant pressure from the US and building up a sizable army.
Do you know why Korea is split into two countries? Do you know what the US did to DPRK in the Korean War and to the communist in South Korea?
Let’s stop using First/Third World terminology. The cold war is over and china was second world anyway. Also, the implication that first world countries were constantly more developed is itself propaganda. You are totally right about the fact the worlds economic superpowers of today got their power by exploiting others, but I still think China could be doing a lot more wealth redistribution. I’m about to go to bed since it’s 2 AM expect a part 2 in the evening tomorrow.
There are countries that are trending towards higher social mobility/wealth equality that did not exploit the global south like Vietnam. Also being colonized does not prevent them from redistributing wealth. The amount of inherited wealth and class inequality is very similar to the US. Also, I don’t want my posts to be misinterpreted as advocating for western styles of government. As far as I’m concerned most powerful institutions maintain their power through exploitation. I’m not saying that China is the worst government, but their celebration rubs me the wrong way, and we should acknowledge their shortcomings, and not frame them as infallible.
