The crazy thing here is that she wasn’t even traveling to Dubai. It was a layover! And all she wanted was help putting on some sort of medical device they made her remove. The whole thing was basically an extortion scheme.
How about forcing France and the other western powers who repeatedly pillaged and extorted Haiti to disgorge the hundreds of billions in value they effectively stole from Haiti?
And, while they are at it, how about making them re-green that end of Hispaniola?
It’s not like this will keep happening every year. No, it’s much worse. Temperatures will keep getting even hotter for decades until greenhouse gas emissions reach zero. In a few decades we will wish it was only this hot.
At some point even stopping emissions won’t keep it from getting warmer. Even if we stop tomorrow it will take decades for the co2 in the air to disappear.
Everyday people need to remember the difference between the general Chinese population and the CCP. The Chinese people are wonderful. The CCP is horrific, and working tirelessly to create their own version of hell.
I second this. I love Chinese people and culture, hell, I’m even learning Chinese to be able to communicate with my Chinese gf’s parents, however CCP ≠ Chinese people.
However, when you travel in China, you don’t have to travel far before you realise that broadly the Chinese support their government because things are getting better and in many places are on par or better than the west.
I love how you start off by saying you’ve never been to China and you never intend to go, then immediately discard the claims of someone that’s been there a lot.
Yeah: mass transit (transit) into camps (housing) for “re-education” (education), with the chance to get forcefully married to a real Chinese man (social mobility), or end up having your organs harvested (healthcare)
Do people really need to know more? I don’t think there are any virtues that could make up for China’s treatment of Uyghurs and the people who try to save them.
Uyghur’s aren’t one big monolith and treating them as one is reductionist and frankly a little racist.
Up until 2017-2018 the US was striking ETIM training camps on the border with China… But by 2020 “ETIM no longer exists.” It’s not like extremism in the region is entirely unexpected, and similarly China’s response has taken the dragnet approach for catching extremists. It hits a good chunk of innocent people, yes (give me a perfect response to terrorism), but it’s not systematically targeting all Uyghurs and it’s trying to do so without killing the human capital that China relies on for economic growth (particularly because ethnic minorities are the only ones reproducing above replacement rate in China).
That’s why Muslim countries are pretty much unanimously in support of China’s actions in Xinjiang.
A lot of stuff. But that your point basically boils down to “not all of China is about genocide!” is more than enough to know that it’s not worth my time arguing with you.
“affirmative action that China takes on its minority groups” good god, have the balls to call it what it is dude. China is doing a genocide. If that doesn’t bother you, that’s your deal, but at least own up to what you are defending
Chinese healthcare makes American healthcare look good by comparison. It is mostly private and you’re expected to bribe the doctors, nurses, orderlies and have a family member stick around the hospital the whole time pestering them or you won’t receive care. Same with Education, which is like the American Ivy system times 1000. Housing in China is… well, just try googling Evergande. Upwards mobility involves either climbing the party hierarchy or “leveling up” from being a rural peasant to being an urban migrant worker with bad hukou.
You got me on transit though, the Chinese have built some amazing trains.
Nobody would deny this. On the other hand, it’s the same argument as “not all Russians support Putin” or even—dare I say—“not all Germans were Nazis.” It’s true that when you live under a despotic regime there’s not much you can do about it, individually. And most people would not willingly be complicit in the regime’s crimes except to the extent that they have no choice.
But it’s true that these regimes do have lots of internal support. They wouldn’t exist without that support. And to the extent that this support is manufactured by internal propaganda, people within that message-space will not be able to resist having their own perceptions shaped by it.
So while it’s undeniably true that the CCP is not the Chinese people, and that the Chinese people are the principle victims of the CCP, they also are complicit in a collective sense.
I’m being generous. I tend to think that the Chinese people (or people of any country, really) are victims of propaganda. We’d all be less supportive of our various governments if we weren’t constantly told that we’re the GOOD guys, and our enemies are BAD and EVIL.
I read this ‘article’. There are zero references towards the so called ‘China Bashing’. If it is so rampant, how hard can it be to just link to a few mainstream offenders? It alludes towards a deliberate bashing, once again without any links or merit. I am fully aware that news is hardly unbiased but come on, this is ridiculous.
That’s not a defense. Opinion pieces can be fine, but if you’re claiming that something is off the charts you should probably have some charts (or any points of data) to prove the claim.
Do I need to? I haven’t had a visceral reaction to the article.
For what it’s worth, China’s affirmative action policies for minority groups put the US to shame. Significantly easier college admissions (despite using a standardized process), extremely generous business loans, proportional ethnic representation in government, vast infrastructure projects to bridge the salary gap, and celebrations of different cultures across the country. Not very capitalist of them, given that these infrastructure projects (while very beneficial to the endpoints) are not profitable.
Treating minorities better than the USA isn’t exactly a high bar.
My country also treats minorities better than the USA, it’s easy to get into uni, celebrates diversity, has an alright social welfare system and socialised healthcare, does the occasional infrastructure project etc.
Thanks for teaching me that I’m actually living in a socialist paradise rather than a poor, neoliberal capitalist, physically isolated island where private corporations are free to wreck the environment for profit!
Significantly easier college admissions (despite using a standardized process), extremely generous business loans, proportional ethnic representation in government, vast infrastructure projects to bridge the salary gap, and celebrations of different cultures across the country. Not very capitalist of them
Sorry OP but basically none of this has anything to do with not being capitalist. I don’t even doubt that China is doing better in those departments than America, but that has more to do with how utterly shit America is at most things outside of building bombs than how communist China is. They should get some kudos for executing a couple billionaires, though, gotta at least give 'em that.
Nobody else has had a visceral reaction, we’ve just pointed out bad journalism 🙂 Using big negative words might make you feel better, but it doesn’t make them accurate. You’re using them to be dismissive of our points
I have been following media intensively. I am not saying that news about China is unbiased in the western media. I am calling out the lack of any sources in this weak ‘article’
1 I don’t know this outlet, nor am inclined to use perceived pedigree to determine the quality of news. I’d like to see sources, not news dresses as opinions. 2 Opinion pieces that try to be credible need sources or else I will disregard them as petty trolling. The title makes a bold claim, I want sources backing up that claim. 3 that ‘source’ is also an opinion peace without any sources.
Just show me where mainstream media is deliberately bashing China. If it’s that rampant it can’t be that hard right?
that ‘source’ is also an opinion peace without any sources.
?
The source of that article are the authors. One a professor at Oxford, the other a lecturer at MIT. The professor's also written a book about China which is mentioned at the bottom of the article. Pretty weak argument to say that isn't a valid source. A bit like an anti-vaxxer saying an article about vaccination written by a doctor isn't a valid source in an internet argument.
Just show me where mainstream media is deliberately bashing China. If it’s that rampant it can’t be that hard right?
I googled myself, because I was curious. Not necessarily bashing, but plenty of sensationalism. For example, NBC at the time of the balloon incident:
Spy balloon likely sent extensive intelligence to China, experts say. The Pentagon said Thursday it 'acted immediately' to counter a collection of sensitive information
U.S. president Biden ... however stated that it was "not a major breach", and that he also believed that the Chinese leadership wasn't even aware of the balloon. ... On September 17, 2023, in an interview with CBS news, General Mark Milley, the retiring 20th US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated “I would say it was a spy balloon that we know with high degree of certainty got no intelligence, and didn't transmit any intelligence back to China." Technical experts had also found that the balloon's sensors had never been activated while it was travelling over the Continental United States. The general also touched on a leading theory that the reason that it was flying over the United States, was probably because it was blown off-track, where the balloon had been heading towards Hawaii however winds at 60,000 feet simply came into the equation. Miley said, "those winds are very high.. the particular motor on that aircraft can't go against those winds at that altitude."
Media: the Chinese are spying on us. Are you ready for WAR?
Reality: the wind blew a balloon of course and by now most of us have already forgotten what turned out to be a nothing burger of a story.
I think that the concern was not that the articles like the ones you link to do not exist. Instead the complaint is that the posted piece did not itself link to them to back up the claim. These were likely quite easy for you to find and it’s poor journalism that the author did not put in the same effort.
U.S. president Biden ... however stated that it was "not a major breach", and that he also believed that the Chinese leadership wasn't even aware of the balloon. ... On September 17, 2023, in an interview with CBS news, General Mark Milley, the retiring 20th US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated “I would say it was a spy balloon that we know with high degree of certainty got no intelligence, and didn't transmit any intelligence back to China." Technical experts had also found that the balloon's sensors had never been activated while it was travelling over the Continental United States. The general also touched on a leading theory that the reason that it was flying over the United States, was probably because it was blown off-track, where the balloon had been heading towards Hawaii however winds at 60,000 feet simply came into the equation. Miley said, "those winds are very high.. the particular motor on that aircraft can't go against those winds at that altitude." c
TLDR: Unbeknownst to China's leadership, one of their balloons blew off-track (hardly a rare occurence). It didn't collect or transmit any intelligence.
But if you watched the media coverage of that incident, you'd likely come to a different conclusion. For example:
Chinese spy balloon gathered intelligence from sensitive U.S. military sites, despite U.S. efforts to block it
So funny how that all got memory holed and now you have people who genuinely still think it was a spy balloon of some kind (even in these very replies!) because they just never read anything past the headlines and never followed up on it after. Just completely lacking any curiosity or news literacy but will still scoff at the thought of them being victims of very obvious propaganda haha
A Chinese corporation openly tested those spy balloons over my country a decade ago (allegedly just for monitoring livestock), why is it so unbelievable that they’d use a more polished version on their biggest geopolitical rival?
I also found it ridiculous. Turns out, you can hide bot posts in your account settings if you login into the web version of your instance (vger doesn’t display the option for example).
Ok I succumb to the summary illness: (in broken english via chatGPT (just for the fun))
In Spain, October start this year very hot. The weather guys say it’s hottest ever. Almost 40% of weather machines show more than 32 degrees Celsius (that’s like 90 Fahrenheit).
Our autumn, usually nice and cool, no good this year. Summer had four super-hot times in 24 days. They say humans make world warmer, you know?
On October 1st, it was like summer here! Way hotter than normal, 7 to 14 degrees more. They broke like 100 records for heat. Two cities in the south, Badajoz and Montoro, hottest ever in October with 38 C. Before it was 37.5 C in Marbella in 2014. Even in Madrid’s Retiro Park, the old weather machine tied the record from 1930, 30 C.
The climate guy from AEMET said it’s because of climate change. He thinks future summers will be even hotter and last longer into our usually nice rainy autumn. Not good, huh?
Ty for this, just did it. Like hell im going to trust some summary from a glorified autocomplete algorithm, ive seen them get it completely wrong and interpret it in biased ways.
I’m not anti-China, I genuinely wish the best for the people of China. I’m anti-CCP.
I don’t think China will really be able to engage or cooperate with a world community in any meaningful way until the CCP is out of the picture. There’s simply zero trust there from anyone.
The government of the United States is also highly untrustworthy, but plenty of other nation’s governments engage and cooperate with the US. This isn’t whataboutism, it’s evidence that there must be other factors.
In some ways, yes, certain factions within the US government have been untrustworthy. However, I think people do not understand that China is still on a completely different level. There’s a reason that the US is broadly trusted by its allies (or was, largely, up until the recent decade of overt campaign of internal sabotage).
To compare the US and China is like comparing Kent State to Tienanmen Square. Were they both violations of fundamental human liberty? Yes. Are they at all comparable as reflections of the viability of each respective state’s potential to sustain human liberty? No.
The US is in a conflict with itself, between far-right, corporate factions and those groups that actually defend some semblance of democratic liberty. This fact is the proof of the difference, that some meaningful element of democracy does exist in the US. The US has the ability to course correct. In China rule has been consolidated under a single man, unchallenged now, who has created hundreds of prison camps and a surveillance state unmatched even by the US. He ran literal execution vans in his run up to power.
Convincing people that the crimes committed by China against its own people and those they’ve colonized are normal is a way of lessening the seriousness with which those crimes are regarded. You have to ask yourself if that’s really the goal you want to be serving. You’re not required to sing the praises of the US, but acknowledging the meaningful degree of difference is critical to preventing the world sliding further into an authoritarian paradigm.
certain factions within the US government have been untrustworthy.
between far-right, corporate factions and those groups that actually defend some semblance of democratic liberty.
This just sounds like a whole lot of liberal US apologia. It isn’t actually far off from regressive phrases like MAGA or A Few Bad Apples. There was no golden time when the US has been a bastion of freedom and human welfare and it mostly shows signs of getting worse, and you cannot fix the US by removing a few politicians.
Are they at all comparable as reflections of the viability of each respective state’s potential to sustain human liberty? No.
I don’t see what the point is of picking two specific events when we are discussing nations and governments as a whole. Taken in totality the US does not and has not ever shown signs of sustaining liberty as you put it. The law and order system is a joke, human welfare is a joke, safety is a joke, education is a joke, foreign policy is a joke. A lot of these fundamental issues are completely ignorable for the privileged, and the last one ignorable if you live in the US itself, but I am not looking to have liberty for some and not others.
You’re not required to sing the praises of the US, but acknowledging the meaningful degree of difference is critical to preventing the world sliding further into an authoritarian paradigm.
I disagree. I think what you’re doing right now is what strengthens authoritarianism in “Western” countries. Always framing Western countries, especially the US, as the lesser of two evils just justifies nationalism and militarism and downplays the need for radical change. What’s the point of this liberty you speak of if we don’t use it to criticize our own governments, and why stop at just criticism? The truth is you’ll only realize how thin your liberty actually is when you actually pose a threat.
But I’m not sure how we got on this tangent. I was simply responding to the notion of geopolitical trust and how that relates to the US and China. The US reneges on international agreements all the time or simply does not adhere to them. The government also partakes in the manipulation of foreign governments, extrajudicial murders in foreign countries in “times of peace”, and sabotages countries with embargos. All of this should make the US untrustworthy, but the unspoken part is that when we talk about trust we are taking about among Western countries. These nations have some shared geopolitical goals and because the US’s violations aren’t against these nations but against ones where say the common religion is different or the people have a darker average complexion they can be ignored.
What’s the point of this liberty you speak of if we don’t use it to criticize our own governments, and why stop at just criticism? The truth is you’ll only realize how thin your liberty actually is when you actually pose a threat.
You’re conflating a comparison with an endorsement.
One can say the US is unquestionably better than China while still acknowledging the US has issues.
I’d challenge you to find any country that’s truly “trustworthy.” That doesn’t mean I think it’s impossible, I just think historically humans suck at governorship.
As for what’s different between the US and China, your original point, I think a lot of it is just what’s available/who has the better deal. The US historically has the better innovations, the better weaponry, and in the case of Europe, bidirectional cultural influences, and there’s just a lot more history with the US as a partner and a lot more families with folks in both locations.
This is an important difference that always gets left out in these articles.
Of course people will be anti-China when the CCP is making the movies (edit, I meant “moves” but movies works too haha). It’s one thing to ask for companies to make a version of media specifically for your country, but using your weight to make that the version? That is an insanely big red flag when Tencent has roots in everything and also goes by the whim of the party.
On the flip side, my friend from college moved to China a couple years after we graduated and he’s been doing really, really well. He loves it there. Ironically he ended up getting a job with Tencent and is a pretty big part of their last released Synced. So I’m glad he’s doing well, but it’s also been weird talking about certain topics with him. It was also weird when I was asking about how he was talking with me and he’s like “oh I just have to get on a VPN and etc so I that’s why I’m not around much, but it’s cool lol.” Kinda freaky when I also just see the articles about a company getting fined for using a VPN. I’m sure he’ll be fine but it’s still slightly worrying.
Which ultimately kind of sums up the situation. My friend loved his experience in China so much so that he moved back there seemingly permanently and set himself up with a nice life with the culture seeming to be a big part of that. And then there’s the actions of the government. Many of the same criticisms can absolutely be held toward the U.S. regarding housing and towards a not-so-small portion our political actions, however it seems the difference is that we don’t have a knitted corporate government quite yet. I dunno, the sway of Apple, MS, whoever else just doesn’t have the same weight as the CCP and Tencent. That generally seems to be peoples issue
I dunno, the sway of Apple, MS, whoever else just doesn’t have the same weight as the CCP and Tencent.
The fact that you name Apple and Microsoft makes me think there is a blind spot here. If you are taking about big tech with it’s tendrils in US policy I’d go for Google and Facebook. Big pharma and the military industrial complex are even bigger issues. These industries don’t just undermine the US but harm the global community as well. Then you have think tanks, often funded by capital, shaping narratives and foreign policy.
I more just didn’t want to list more than 3 companies, hence “whoever else”. You’re right that Google and Facebook are closer to the tendrils of Tencent than MS or Apple, or well, Apple at least.
Yes, and this is why the experience of individuals can’t be taken as an indication of whether there is or isn’t a problem.
China is a huge country with a long history and cultures of its own, the people there are like anywhere else mainly concerned with just living their day to day life. But we learned from the middle of the last century that people can be living a relatively normal life directly adjacent to some of the most heinous crimes against humanity our species has ever seen.
There’s a lot of value that the people of China could contribute, culturally and economically, if they were in a position to actually freely and openly engage with the rest of the world in an honest way. Some incredible cinema, for example, came out of China prior to the new age of censorship and hyper-aggressive information control brought in by Xi. I just wish that the CCP was out of the picture so that could happen again, China has so much more to offer.
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