It doesn't have to be most actually, just the ability to let out what even few are thinking.
Look at what's happening in India. An elected government on a clear majority, passed new laws and some section of people which are not happy with it, have held the government to ransom through protests. There seems to be international civil society support for the protests as it seems like the powerless going against an all powerful government.
Without going into the merits of the protests in this particular example, just the fact that even a small section is able to express themselves is a good thing. One can always argue that this can become counter productive, but I guess that's better than people suffering silently.
Having said this, I don't doubt that the majority of people in PRC, at least Han Chinese are massively better off in the last 40 years.
I agree on the principle: being able to openly protest is better than not. Once this has been said, there is a big difference between a tyrannical government that keeps people in poverty and an authoritarian one that has brought many hundreds of millions to a western standard of life and made the country a credible competitor to the only other world super-power.
I perfectly understand a Chinese being proud of their country, their government and their CCP- as much as Americans are proud of their country despite their 2 million imprisoned people, dual-party system that allows no competition, police violence, decades of wars waged around the world and support for dictatorships and coups to overthrow democratically elected leaders. Things could certainly be even better and hopefully with time they will be- but this attitude of fixating on one aspect to justify a black-and-white view of the world- in which your side is the good one- is damn stupid.
It is good to be proud of China's economic achievements. It is not good to be proud of totalitarianism, the genocide of the Uighurs, religious persecution, etc.
I’m just trying to explain the dynamics of typical HN comments regarding Chinese citizens, where the usually American commenter writes under the assumption that the Chinese citizen is held under this brutal dictatorship and must use any and all opportunity to speak up and/or oppose this brutal dictatorship. It’s a relatively recent phenomenon in American politics and it’s interesting to think about.
What's even more interesting is that, despite being a recent phenomenon, everybody seems convinced it's absolutely normal to think in these terms. And yet I am sure than only four or five years ago people were talking about China in an entirely different way.
Five years ago it was easy to believe that China was on a trajectory of increasing freedom. Then Xi's change in direction really took hold: the abuse of the Uighurs happened and became known, religious persecution increased, democracy was ended in Hong Kong, Xi made himself dictator for life, etc. It is entirely reasonable for people to talk about China in a different way now.
What's happening in India is that farmers were/are going to be screwed, and they're really mad about it.
What has happened in China is that a billion farmers are massively, undescribably better off. You literally cannot describe it to the average American, their scale for lifestyle doesn't go that low.
> What has happened in China is that a billion farmers are massively, undescribably better off.
After Great Leap forward? Cultural Revolution? What about the farmers of the marginalized communities in Tibet and Xinjiang. I am not saying all that gets printed in Western press is true but it is not all fabricated up as well. There was an actual cost to getting here, which might not have happened in a democratic setup.
> What's happening in India is that farmers were/are going to be screwed, and they're really mad about it.
From news reports it seems only a section of farmers, as the protests are concentrated in few areas. But as I said in the comment above I don't want to go into the merits/demerits of it, as looking from outside we both will not have the complete info. You can call them capitalist interests but most of the expert opinion from a farming/economics standpoint within the country and outside seems to support the laws.
Can you name the dates and major events within the Great Leap forward or Cultural Revolution without googling and reading wikipedia?
I'm not trying to assert authority here but you could look at the last 500 years, the last 200, 100, years, the last 50 years.. cherrypicking a 25 year period that happened between 70-45 years ago is kinda weird if you're after understanding rather than scoring points.
In the same vein, why should we be obsessing about mere 12 years of German history, and one guy (who isn't even a German but an Austrian!) instead of looking back at hundreds of years of European history and ignoring that unfortunate, but ultimately minor, incident? I mean, if we're about understanding, not scoring points.
Germany's an ally. We don't try to beat them up over hitler, and it wouldn't make sense if we did. For basically the same reasons, so good choice of analogy I guess.
Something happened between the time of Hitler and not beating them over it now, that led to Germany becoming an ally. But I guess this is also one of those things we're not supposed to dwell on? It was not an ally and became an ally, just like that. Same with Japan, btw. I guess that would happen magically with China too?
Changing systems without a massive, disruptive loss of life is actually a huge accomplishment. No other nation has transitioned out of communism smoothly. It had the side effect of not changing names of various things.
Yes, I know who he is, but he didn't change as much as you try to represent - China is still under the full control of the CCP. It's like Martin Bormann would take control over NDSAP, denounce some mistakes made by overzealous comrades, announced some modest reforms, and proclaim the new era - while NSDAP is still in control of Germany.
> No other nation has transitioned out of communism smoothly.
China didn't either. Unless by "communism" you mean whatever Marx meant as the ultimate point of history - classless moneyless post-scarcity society with no property and no suffering and basically paradise. Obviously nobody transitioned out of it at all because it never existed. If you mean actual society built in China, it didn't transition out of anything - it allowed some modest economic freedoms, under the tight control of the CCP of course, but the idea of state-controlled centralized economy which is subject to single-party rule and complete absence of the idea of any individual rights is firmly in place.
This thread started under the topic "believe it or not, Chinese people are actually pretty happy with their government given the record over the last few decades".
Can you think about what would be persuasive to such a person?
They're not American, didn't grow up on your information diet, and really don't give a shit about what's "communist" or not. Their economy is state-controlled to the tune of Norway, or a little less so. Who cares. They are all doing way better than a generation or 2 ago, and here in America, we are comparatively struggling. They see this. Why should they want our system instead?
I've lived in a totalitarian state, and you can't really observe how happy the people are when their rights and means of expression are constantly suppressed. Even if some people were happy with the arrangement, I'm pretty sure people who are imprisoned, stripped of basic rights and sometimes just disassembled for spare organs aren't that happy.
> didn't grow up on your information diet
You don't know the first thing about my information diet.
> and really don't give a shit about what's "communist" or not
Hong-Kong protests showed pretty clearly they do, if they are not forcefully and violently suppressed. Of course, it's kinda hard to know if they give a shit if one gets shot for publicly admitting you give a shit.
> Their economy is state-controlled to the tune of Norway, or a little less so.
That's a lie.
> They are all doing way better than a generation or 2 ago
Generation or 2 ago Communists were literally destroying the country with Cultural Revolution, trying to purge it from any shred of old tradition and make all educated people forget all they know and go dig dirt in the fields. Pretending like stopping this and the resulting relative improvement of conditions is some great achievement of the Communists is the peak arrogance - what's the Chinese word for hutzpah? It's like if I beat you up for years and then stopped for a while and your health improved a bit and I would go around and brag that I am a great doctor - because I "cured" you from the sickness I was causing to you by beating you up!
> You don't know the first thing about my information diet.
You've given some pretty strong hints about it in fact, and tripled down in this comment.
I'll go out on a very specific limb, tell me I'm wrong: Moved to the US from an eastern european country at a young age, perhaps exactly 1989, parents talk a lot about how bad it was?
And "state-controlled to the tune of Norway" is approximately accurate, thank you. You know they have gigantic private corporations there? Alongside the state-owned oil behemoths, Norway makes for a particularly nice comparison.
You are not wrong about me being born in an Eastern European country (no shit, Sherlock, I told about it in this very topic pretty transparently, and mentioned it many times otherwise on HN), but very wrong about all the rest. Ok, except for the fact I am presently in the US (which also doesn't require genius-level detective insight as I also referred to this fact many times). As internet telepathy goes, I give you C- - at least you could read what I write, lesser minds would conclude if I said I lived in a totalitarian state I must have been born in North Korea.
That said, I am not sure what it has to do with my information diet anyway - I assume you are not going to tell me my place of birth somehow prescribes my information sources? That makes no sense whatsoever. Even if you guessed my whole biography right - which you mostly failed at with an exception of a couple of details which I pretty much explicitly told you - you still wouldn't have any idea what my information diet is. And you do not, of course.
> And "state-controlled to the tune of Norway" is approximately accurate, thank you.
Repeating a falsity does not make it less false. Norway has plenty of socialist stuff going on, but nowhere on the level that CCP totalitarian control goes. Not even same order of magnitude.
Anyways, you've made clear that your reference point for understanding China is Soviet Eastern Europe. If you check a map and a calendar, you can see some places where that reference point might be inexact.
No, I didn't make it clear. I did make it clear I have a personal experience living in a totalitarian county, but I also read books, articles, historical documents, and many other sources of information I encountered over the years that allow me to know about things I haven't personally experienced. I can also conclude since your only argument now is to personally attack me, you're out of ammo. Which is what usually happens to communist apologists - it's not something one can argue for very long without going dry on substance and having to resort to tricks.
It's not a personal attack, you're still calling China communist and don't seem to understand how things work there. They're something else.
There's more small business than america, by a lot, the biggest internet companies outside of America... I think you've redefined 'communist' into some sort of tautological catch-all.
I do call China communist, and so does Chinese Communist party itself. Only you for some reason try to pretend it isn't. And you do it not by addressing my argument but by discussing irrelevant details of my biography. This is textbook personal attack (check out Wikipedia of you're in doubt).
> I think you've redefined 'communist' into some sort of tautological catch-all.
I define "communist", broadly, as a totalitarian state with single-party rule, where the ruling party is the communist party, i.e. a leftist party based on the Marxist social theory, and with state-controlled planned economy, with all economic and political decisions being made and subject to the control of the state and the communist party (which are one and the same in this case). This describes China very well. What would be your definition of a communist country?
Of course, if we instead use strict Marxist definition of "communism", no communist country ever existed and none can exist ever, because marxian communism is anti-scientific fever dream. But if you follow the common use and include socialist countries which are ruled by Marxist parties calling themselves "communists" (e.g. USSR, North Korea, Warsaw Pact countries, China) - even though their countries do not implement marxian communism (because it can not exist) - China fits. Here is Wikipedia:
The economy of the People's Republic of China is a mixed socialist market economy which is composed of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and domestic and foreign private businesses and uses economic planning. Since the 12th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in 1982, the economy has been described as socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Following the common, colloquial definition of communist country instead of the strict marxian one - and noticing SOEs in fact dominate the economy and even the nominally independent businesses are subject to strict control by the CCP - one can be sure my definition is correct. But if you insist on saying "totalitarian socialist country ruled by Communist party" - ok, you can use that one, it's just saying the same with different words.
Americans killed 99% of its indigenous population, alright robbed or bought under heavy pressure a large portion of its territory, it used 2 nuclear weapons which would be considered a crime against humanity if there were justice in the world, and barely anybody mentions it now. America is not yet 250 years old. China is 5000 years old.
> it used 2 nuclear weapons which would be considered a crime against humanity if there were justice in the world,
By which you mean "if I were sole judge of everything happening in the world" - but you aren't, and it isn't.
> and barely anybody mentions it now.
You just mentioned it. And your comrades mention it all the time, both in the US and abroad. Scarcely any discussion involving anything political - not even having anything to do with the US, as for example this one - can pass without mentioning it. I leave it for you to judge whether "barely anybody" adequately describes yourself and your comrades.
> America is not yet 250 years old. China is 5000 years old.
Yes, and? 5000 years, and it culminated in the Cultural Revolution, where educated people were hunted down, free thought was suppressed, cultural artifacts and knowledge were forcefully destroyed, all traditional values were discarded, tens of millions of people were persecuted and many of them murdered, and country's development has been set back by decades at least. I'm sure there are a lot of things over China's 5000 years of history which one can be justifiably proud about, but these years should be source of shame, not pride. And yet, the same organization that perpetrated it still rules China, and under essentially the same ideology, only slightly tweaked.
Any decent person with an ounce of humanity knows it was a barbaric crime. Then you have your Bush, Trump and I suppose you for your enthusiastic support.
> describes yourself and your comrades.
It is the big bad commies, I tell ya, but we will make america great again.
> And yet, the same organization that perpetrated it still rules China, and under essentially the same ideology, only slightly tweaked.
The same you dont see the irony on criticizing China (btw the Cultural Revolution and the BLF were criminal things) and yet get your panties in a twist because a COMMIE dares to criticize the best country in the world(TM) says everything about your mental state.
> Any decent person with an ounce of humanity knows it was a barbaric crime. Then you have your Bush, Trump and I suppose you for your enthusiastic support.
Bullshit claims that whoever disagrees with you is "barbaric" and "inhuman" is just that - bullshit empty words, devoid of any substance. However, this is exactly the language that the people we're talking about used - Germans fought "barbarians" for the future of "humanity" and "civilization" - as they saw it, Japanese fought "barbarians" for the future of "civilization" - as they saw it. Read their propaganda, it's literally the same words. Both considered their enemies subhuman and devoid of any value or decency. That was what gave them the moral sanction for their atrocities. I am very happy they lost. I sincerely hope your side, whatever it is, considering people disagreeing with you sub-human, will lose also.
> It is the big bad commies
For you, it may be fun and jokes, for people who actually lived under communist regimes, it's the history of death, torture and oppression. You are welcome to make fun of it, because these people are not fully human anyway, since they might disagree with you. While furiously patting yourself on the back convinced in your moral superiority.
> yet get your panties in a twist because a COMMIE dares to criticize the best country in the world
The communists are morally aligned with one of the most oppressive and deadly ideology that we have seen so far, judging by the history of 20th century. And they should learn those lessons. It does not exclude US - or any other country - from criticism about problems they have - but communists have less right than anyone to mount the high horse and call out anybody, if they refuse to reckon with their own blood-stained past. There is a place for honest criticism - but people who deny anybody who disagrees with them human decency is not the people who you expect the honest criticism from. Especially when they openly align with the ideology that literally murdered hundreds of millions of people for the mere fact they were born to wrong parents or dared to disagree with the Party.
> A walking,talking stereotype.
Also probably not fully human. As usual from the moral high horse types, they only think about themselves and their comrades as human. All the rest are walking, talking whatever but not humans. Of course, then there's not much problem with suppressing them, and having a good hearty laugh about it.
Look at what's happening in India. An elected government on a clear majority, passed new laws and some section of people which are not happy with it, have held the government to ransom through protests. There seems to be international civil society support for the protests as it seems like the powerless going against an all powerful government.
Without going into the merits of the protests in this particular example, just the fact that even a small section is able to express themselves is a good thing. One can always argue that this can become counter productive, but I guess that's better than people suffering silently.
Having said this, I don't doubt that the majority of people in PRC, at least Han Chinese are massively better off in the last 40 years.