If Thailand wants to be a democracy let it be a democracy ffs

You cannot be serious. The DPRK is highly oppressive and antidemocratic. The workers in rural areas are not empowered, they are enslaved. Marx would be disappointed.

To say that America is ruled by the top 1% is fair, but I would be extremely surprised if this was any different in China.

Democracy can be done different though, most German chancellors were not particularly wealthy for example.

American international policy is a shitshow, no question. I was just trying to say that supporting Taiwan in defending against china is justified.

Hmmmm. Imagine Hawaii was an autonomous, socialist state with it’s own government, openly demanding support from China or Russia. If the US threatened to invade Hawaii within the next five years, surely Russia and China would come to help, and rightfully so!

Thanks a lot for your long and in-depth answer! The stuff you said in 1) really opened a new view on the Xinjiang conflict for me.

However, the arguments in 2-3 do not convince me. There might be no perfect freedom of speech in the west, but even in Germany you have to try really, really hard to get arrested for being a Nazi. Also, saying that “chinese people agreed on socialism” seems a bit awkward after admitting that there is no political freedom in China. Chinese communism might be more flexible than western capitalism, but IMHO this does not justify the means by which the CCP crushes opposition and individual freedom.

4. I am glad that you see surveillance as a negative in both systems. 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. Services like signal enable encrypted communication legally without threatening to sell your data.

5. Hm, I guess we agree. Trying to forcefully make Hong Kong and Taiwan, countries which have decided against the Chinese system, a part of China is certainly not a nice thing to do. But I guess this is more of a tactical maneuver to present strength to the west.