China bad tho, right lemmy liberals?
3mon 5d ago by lemmy.ml/u/Smackyroon in memes@lemmy.ml from lemmy.ml

I’m tired of being surrounded by propaganda. Do better.
Tell that to your pedophile rulers
we do
You don't do jack shit
@Amnesigenic @ChadGPT2 They do shit, inc Jack. And Pete.
Cool story
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/p4M-Prike98
Denver, traffic lights made to say Trump is a pedophile etc
But maybe you thinking of other kinda shi ppl should be doin? Do share, we need all hands on deck in this global clusterfuck 🤍🌸🕊️
Congrats, you've raised awareness! Unfortunately everyone is already 100% aware of the problem so this is useless performative bullshit
lmao the fuck you do
Once I stop reading "two things can be true at once" whenever your nazi pedophile rulers tell you something bad about the next country they want to destroy maybe I'll believe you
Americans are protesting in historic numbers regularly. Larger than anything aside from the earth day protests that I am aware of. This narrative that Americans are rolling over and accepting this is false. It’s not being reported.
Of course that’s not enough l, but it’s counterproductive to spread information that contributes to a sense of learned helplessness. Trump is a traitor and a serial child rapist and murder, and all true Americans believe this and are fighting however they can.
Leftists have regularly been advocating for organizing:

The problem with liberals is that they still think the democrats are a path to progress, rather than slow death.
Cowbee I like the chart, but respectfully a lot of the rhetoric on ML instances reads closer to trolling than engaging to build a “sympathetic base” , just my 2 cents not worth much more than that ;-)
Lemmy.ml isn't an org, I'm not trying to suggest that it is. Leftists make memes and shitposts here, but when it comes to actual action, organizing in real life is always recommended.
Yes. Agree. And I would suggest it is counterproductive to the point of being counter-revolutionary.
A simulacrum mocking the landscape it seeks to map
I don't agree with the idea that shitposting is counter-revolutionary. Seems a bit much.
No worries. But making a movement into a farce of itself and encouraging infighting is right out of the 1970s cointel playbook.
Even better if you can do the above to the point that the original ideology is no longer decently reflected in the current discourse
(Note this is consistent with most online leftists spaces, so not throwing specific shade on ML, and gets into a whole greater problem with the role social tech platforms play in shaping discourse)
I dunno, I just don't see the same problems you do.
Fair.
Every time I see Cowbee in a thread like this, it's like I walked into a restaurant to see someone trying to explain to somebody else why their friend who just spat in their food is actually a cool dude doing great solidarity because the owners of the restaurant treat their employees poorly.
ML in my experience has very little to do with engaging with leftists and more to do with bashing the "decadent West." Anytime I see memes.ml pop up in my feed, it's a 50/50 shot between me finding something funny or something that makes me debate blocking the instance as much as I can at an account level.
I think what you're describing is the difference between leftists shitposting online and actual real-life practice.
The decadent west
Lol you have not seen a single person say this, you're just reaching into a grab bag of dialogue tropes you've heard in old movies or maybe a Red Alert game. Fucking nobody says "the decadent west" outside of Bond movies from 50 years ago. Quit lying.
I didn't mean that as a literal quote but as sarcastic air quotes to evoke the exact imagery that you came up with. Although, I have actually seen a Hexbear or (what's the other one, Beehaw?) user use that phrase. Of course, they also said that only capitalist pigs die in China, so it's hard to tell if they were serious or if it was full commitment to the bit. That part of Lemmy is fairly indistinguishable from a leftist version of 4chan.
Like I said in another comment, ML has an issue common to many leftist communities in that old saying of "nobody hates leftists more than other leftists." And that can manifest as behaving like more moderate leftists (not liberals - actual leftists) may as well be centrists or conservatives, or treating Europe as being just as bad as Trump's regime. Purity tests and trolling rather than the mutual cooperation that Cowbee posted.
I see hate from liberals for leftists pointing out the truth, which is somehow intolerable to liberals who claim to be leftists.
This is the sort of behavior that I'm talking about, but with the term "liberals" being thrown at any leftists whose flavor of socialism you personally disagree with. Like a bunch of Christian denominations all claiming that they speak the truth and all the others are heretics and liars.
It's all too common in leftist spaces because we can't get over the minor (and not so minor) differences in our theory/philosophy to stay focused on our shared opposition of fascism long enough to act on it, while fascists naturally cooperate because it's easy to do when you don't believe in anything other than hate and whatever you're told to believe.
And yet we don't have entire communities dedicated to saying how bad you are...
It would be weird for the Marxist instance to have entire communities dedicated to saying how bad socialists are, that's what Hexbear is for.
But, that's also why memes.ml is here, right? When people aren't making fun of liberals (rightly so) or calling all Americans Nazis or something, you gotta make fun of the wrong kinds of socialists for not seeing the truth. Otherwise, what kind of content would be left?
Selfcrit is a bitch
ML in my experience has very little to do with engaging with leftists and more to do with bashing the "decadent West." Anytime I see memes.ml pop up in my feed, it's a 50/50 shot between me finding something funny or something that makes me debate blocking the instance as much as I can at an account level.
Meme communities will be like that, right?
Why not block this community and engage with other communities in the instance?
I guess? I don't think I've ever really stayed in a memes community where that's the case, though on Reddit I was largely in places like egg_irl and traaa, where everything was focused around a shared experience of a minority group.
Besides, it's not just the memes community, the memes is just where it appears the most blatantly and loudly. As the person above me said, it's an instance wide thing. ML is nowhere near as bad as Hexbear (or I have yet to see any targeted harassment campaigns against an instance for failing a purity vibe check come from ML, at least) but, as they say, "nobody hates leftists more than other leftists." Leftist spaces tend to have a bit of an undercurrent of only being welcoming to the "right kind of leftist." I used "decadent West" up there very purposefully. There's a bit of a vibe to ML that's less "uniting various leftist groups" and more "preaching The Good Word to those poor ignorants" proselytizing.
Your entire argument is based on the idea that shitposting online is the primary means by which leftists organize. I organize with a communist party in real life, online memes and shitposting are by no means what people advocate as "practice," it's just a thing to do in free time. Take a step back and rethink what you believe is going on.
What on Earth are you talking about? All real communist orgs use online agitation, newsletters, social media, and more. I'm not saying that shitposting is valuable, I'm saying it's not what I mean by practice. You're deeply confused.
It's idiotic to suggest you stop debating. Theory isn't optional. It's the framework that separates effective action from performative gesture. You want to bypass clarification for the sake of "unity," but that's precisely how movements get absorbed, diverted, or broken. Action without theory isn't courage it's idiocy. And your theory contradicts itself: you call for a broad front while dismissing the most successful actually-existing socialist project that has lifted the most people from poverty, challenged imperialist containment most effectively, and created the most material space for the Global South. It's incoherent nonsense. Also side note, but every single even semi successful revolution has been some flavour of Marxist Leninist, this clearly isn't a fluke or luck.
You're correct that shitposting alone achieves little. But a coalition that includes those who uphold the imperialist state achieves less. The Chinese revolution for example didn't succeed by treating all anti-Japanese forces as equals. It succeeded by applying a materialist analysis to the principal contradiction at each stage, coordinating tactically when interests aligned, and never surrendering political independence. Unity isn't an abstract good, it's a conditional tool. Its value depends on clarity about objectives, adversaries, and the balance of forces.
So debate continues. Not for its own sake, but because sharpening theory is how you avoid repeating errors, co-optation, and strategic dead ends. You should organize with those who share a material commitment to dismantling imperialism, not just those who oppose fascism in the abstract. That isn't sectarianism, it's the precision necessary to build something successful.
I can't see what you are replying to, but thanks for putting this down properly.
This may counter propaganda, but is also clearly propaganda itself.
China executes pedophiles and America elects them and worships at their churches. It's really not a complicated comparison. There is no gotcha here
Fair, though I'm not sure it's as simple as that. I'm no fan of the US, but what do you think is the biggest issue plaguing China right now from a humanist perspective?
- Poverty (which they're alleviating), and the trappings of poverty (like poor labor conditions, corruption, and abuse).
- Environmental degradation (which they are alleviating) and all the trappings that come with it (like greater impact on the poor, bad health outcomes, corruption).
- Threats from state actors (which they are alleviating) and the trappings that come it (like selective repression of dissent, organizing, and collaboration, surveillance and chilling effects, etc)
Maybe both countries should stop executing people given that a non-negligible number of them are entirely innocent. Maybe capital punishment should have been abandoned long before the 21st Century and any country that continues it be a pariah state.
Im not a fan of corporal punishment at all. I don't think any state should have authority to end any life for any reason. I could wish for an end to state sanctioned murder in one hand and shit in my other. We all know which hand will fill up first
Propaganda is just messaging, there's nothing inherently evil about it. The question is what message is being propagated.
Absolutely - I did not mean to imply that this is evil propaganda.
Literally anything that causes an idea to spread is propaganda. Advertising, calls for help, gossip, commentary, analysis, storytelling, hell public art or theater or even just public conflict. That's what the word means, the means of idea propagation.
Absolutely, that's my point.
So calling anything propaganda is pointless, because everything is propaganda.
Exactly. And saying this meme is counter-propaganda is pointless, since it itself is propaganda.
Ok, sure. It's exactly as propaganda as anything else
Again, there is no cultural artifact that does not serve a propaganda purpose or espouse a worldview
Indeed - Riverside's claim that this is not propaganda is therefore false.
It's not propaganda as we've been made to understand it in the west, because that's a meaningless vibes based category
Hmm, maybe I misunderstood you.
If all cultural artifacts serve a propaganda purpose, but this post is not propaganda, does that mean that this post is not a cultural artifact?
I'm saying we've been taught that "propaganda" is just another word for "lies" when the reality is that it covers basically any piece of art, culture or commentary. It's just any art or information that advances a specific view of the world. As a category it's hopelessly broad, so it's better to understand it as a function rather than a thing.
Shitposting isn't propaganda
Then you might want to get off the internet and live in the woods
Tempting
They can both be bad.

They aren't, though. China is a rising socialist state, and the US is a dying, brutal empire run be pedophiles and fascists.
Lol ty
Public ownership is the principal aspect of China's economy, and capitalists are held on a tight leash to focus on developing the productive forces. The large firms and key industries in China are publicly owned, it's only the small and medium firms that are private.
The form of democracy and the mode of production in China ensures that there is a connection between the people and the state. Policies like the mass line are in place to ensure this direct connection remains. This is why over 90% of the Chinese population supports the government, and why they have such strong perceptions around democracy:

The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people's democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local government is directly elected, and then these governments elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Moreover, the economy in the PRC is socialist, with public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy. Combining this consultative, ground-up democracy with top-down economic planning is the key to China's success.
I highly recommend Roland Boer's Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we've learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.
China does have billionaires, as you might then protest. China is in the developing stages of socialism. Between capitalism, which is characterized by private ownership being the principle aspect of the economy and the capitalists in control of the state, and communism, characterized by full collectivization of production and distribution devoid of classes, is socialism, where public ownership is principle and the working classes in control. China in particular is working its way out of the initial stages of socialism:

The reason China has billionaires is because China has private property, and the reason it has private property is because of 2 major factors: the world economy is still dominated by the US empire, and because you cannot simply abolish private property at the stroke of a pen. China tried that already. The Gang of Four tried to dogmatically force a publicly owned and planned economy when the infrastructure best suited to that hadn't been laid out by markets, and as a consequence growth was positive but highly unstable.
Why does it matter that the US Empire controls the world economy? Because as capitalism monopolizes, it is compelled to expand outward in order to fight falling rates of profit by raising absolute profits. The merging of bank and industrial capital into finance capital leads to export of capital, ie outsourcing. This process allows super-exploitation for super-profits, and is known as imperialism.
In the People's Republic of China, under Mao and later the Gang of Four, growth was overall positive but was unstable. The centrally planned economy had brought great benefits in many areas, but because the productive forces themselves were underdeveloped, economic growth wasn't steady. There began to be discussion and division in the party, until Deng Xiapoing's faction pushing for Reform and Opening Up won out, and growth was stabilized:


Deng's plan was to introduce market reforms, localized around Special Economic Zones, while maintaining full control over the principle aspects of the economy. Limited private capital would be introduced, especially by luring in foreign investors, such as the US, pivoting from more isolationist positions into one fully immersed in the global marketplace. As the small and medium firms grow into large firms, the state exerts more control and subsumes them more into the public sector. This was a gamble, but unlike what happened to the USSR, this was done in a controlled manner that ended up not undermining the socialist system overall.
China's rapidly improving productive forces and cheap labor ended up being an irresistable match for US financial capital, even though the CPC maintained full sovereignty. This is in stark contrast to how the global north traditionally acts imperialistically, because it relies on financial and millitant dominance of the global south. This is why there is a "love/hate" relationship between the US Empire and PRC, the US wants more freedom for capital movement while the CPC is maintaining dominance.
Fast-forward to today, and the benefits of the CPC's gamble are paying off. The US Empire is de-industrializing, while China is a productive super-power. The CPC has managed to maintain full control, and while there are neoliberals in China pushing for more liberalization now, the path to exerting more socialization is also open, and the economy is still socialist. It is the job of the CPC to continue building up the productive forces, while gradually winning back more of the benefits the working class enjoyed under the previous era, developing to higher and higher stages of socialism.
In doing this, China has presented itself to the global south as an alternative to the unequal exchange the global north does with the global south, which is accelerating the development of the global south. China is taking a more indirect method of undermining global imperialism than, say, the USSR, but its been remarkably effective at uplifting the global working classes, especially in China but also in the global south.
To call China "imperialist" or "capitalist" is to either invent a fantasy of China or to not understand imperialism, capitalism, or socialism. China isn't a utopia, it's a real socialist country.
But they are asian and hence bad -Lemmy libs
Oh how could I forget! I made the classic blunder, not factoring in racism. Thanks!
Lol ty
So to clarify, should I feel guilty about buying the slave labor products on temu? Or are they not actually slave labor. Is child slave labor not really an issue? Deprogram me a bit here.
Slave labor and child labor are illegal in the PRC, same with child slave labor.
Ah so there isn't documented cases for both, right
There are documented cases of child labor and slave labor in the US, especially in the agricultural system. The prison system in the US is a system of forced slave labor. Over 4 million kids are laboring in the US. The hatred of China is pure projection. Are either of these societies perfect? No, is China particularly bad or worse than the US, definitely not. The US and the western nations in general fuel slavery and child labor world wide in their capitalist empires.
Nice whataboutism. Now you can either answer the question asked or abstain.
That whataboutism tells you everything you need to know about your sealioning. You live in a slave driving, child raping system and you are projecting your propagandized and racist understanding on others with your bad faith line of questions. USians and Europeans are by far the most evil people on earth and you have no right to cast stones in a glass house.
Have you stopped beating your wife?
Ok, so you won’t or can’t answer a question. I won’t bother reading your answer past the 2 first words.
No, there aren’t, not credible ones, anyway. i’m sure there are Radio Free Asia pieces quoting “anonymous sources,” because that’s all they do, because RFA’s whole job is to spin anti-China slop, because they’e a component of the US military-propaganda-industrial complex.
There are probably isolated incidents, but nothing on the scale of a systemic issue. Child labor isn't particularly effective to begin with.
There is no systemic slavery of Uyghurs. Uyghur genocide atrocity propaganda akin to claiming that there's "white genocide" in South Africa, Christian genocide in Nigeria, or that Hamas sexually assaulted babies in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
In the case of Xinjiang, the area is crucial in the Belt and Road Initiative, so the west backed sepratist groups in order to destabilize the region. China responded with vocational programs and de-radicalization efforts, which the west then twisted into claims of "genocide." Nevermind that the west responds to seperatism with mass violence, and thus re-education programs focused on rehabilitation are far more humane, the tool was used both for outright violence by the west into a useful narrative to feed its own citizens.
The best and most comprehensive resource I have seen so far is Qiao Collective's Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation. Qiao Collective is explicitly pro-PRC, but this is an extremely comprehensive write-up of the entire background of the events, the timeline of reports, and real and fake claims.
I also recommend reading the UN report as well as (especially) China's response to it, which eclipses it in size and detail.These are the most relevant accusations and responses without delving into straight up fantasy like Adrian Zenz, Christian nationalist and professional propagandist for the Victims of Communism Foundation, does. Zenz' work has been thoroughly discredited, yet is supported by western media for its utility in fearmongering. An example is lying about 8.7% of new IUDs as 80%, to back up claims of "forced sterilization," from this chart:

Tourists do go to Xinjiang all the time as well. You can watch videos like this one on YouTube, though it obviously isn't going to be a comprehensive view of a complex situation like this. Has there been mistreatment? Almost certainly to some degree, in a campaign as large as this. Is it genocide, be it cultural or outright? No, Uyghur culture is preserved and there are no mass killings.
Incredible, announcing that no matter how much evidence you see, you'd rather stick fingers in your ears and cover your eyes.
What kind of global imperial superpower doesn't drop bombs for 35 years in a row? That doesn't sound like any global imperial superpower I have ever heard of in the last 600 years. If China is a global imperial superpower without doing the whole war crimes thing, I'm almost inclined to say you've sold me on global imperialist superpowers being redeemable!
In short China is what it has always been a land empire in east Asia who forces homogenity in their culture and doesn’t like dissent, but promotes education for at least the ruling class and usually becomes too top heavy and collapses in on itself into civil war that kills millions.
Holy Orientalism.
You are a racist.
I hope you get a chance to look in the mirror and better yourself.
Wow. Just wow. You can't possibly be this wrong, can you?
Let's start with naming things. Han. The predominant Chinese culture you refer to is Han Chinese.
Let's look at one law that everyone loves to talk about - the One Child Policy.
Did you know that the One Child Policy only applied to Han Chinese? That's right. The Chinese government explicitly and openly promoted heterogeneity by limiting Han birth rates explicitly. Some other minorities were also restricted, that's true, but they were restricted to two children - double the birthrate of the Han. All the other minorities were unrestricted.
That's just one example of how wrong you are. Shall we do others?
Tibet and Xinjiang educate their children in their native language, in their native cultural traditions, and the governments of those regions run those regions in accordance with their best interpretation of the confluence between their own traditions and the Chinese system of government.
Let's compare that to the US or Canada, shall we? No? You don't want me to explain how Indian boarding schools literally beat children for speaking their native tongue, forcibly cut their traditional hair styles, and trained the children to hate their own families? You don't want to hear about how such boarding schools existed into the 80s? Should we talk about US eugenics programs and the forced sterilization of a full third of the women on Puerto Rico or the forced sterilization of black and Indian women on the mainland? Is that too much for you?
How much more wrong can you possibly be?
China officially recognizes 11 languages that can be used to conduct official business. Eleven. Most American politicians couldn't even name 11 languages.
Do you still think China enforces homogeneity? Are you so committed to your position that evidence cannot do anything to your Yellow Peril brain?
"China did eugenics" "These other places did eugenics, too, though"
This is not a good defense of China. Lmfao.
Yeah... so, recognizing that population competition is one of the ways that dominance can be exerted, China choosing to limit birth rates of the most populous ethnicity, which happens to be the dominant one, would be the opposite of eugenics used for reinforcing dominance. It's actually an incredible defense of China because it shows that not only are they nothing like the West, the West can't even conceive of what would motivate the dominant people to restrict their own privileges to reverse historical trends caused by dominance of their forebears.
You've got to be kidding comparing the One Child Policy of the dominant ethnic group, which the government itself was predominately composed of, and literal genocide and cultural genocide of white supremacists against the people they violently colonized.
That doesn't make it not definitionally eugenics. It is definitionally eugenics. I have trouble dancing around this topic because I CAN understand the benefits of limiting population growth, and I even understand what you're saying about "dominant ethnic groups".
But at the end of the day, eugenics is eugenics is eugenics. Feel free to make an argument about how this is morally acceptable eugenics. It's still eugenics.
Edit: and no, you don't get to decide what is an "incredible defense of China". I do. The neutral party leftist who hates America and is interested in Chinese policies but is also not stupid enough to fall into a new propaganda sinkhole to cope with the fact that I was propagandized my whole life. This is a bad defense of China.
You people are determined to reduce every single word used to describe a crime against humanity to meaninglessness, aren't you? You did it first with genocide (genocide is now when you implement jobs training programs and enshrine cultural protections into law, but you do it while being Asian and not capitalist) and it seems like you're hellbent on doing it with eugenics too
Lmfao "it's not eugenics to have specific breeding programs which specifically limit specific ethnic backgrounds" 😭 yeah dude I'm totally being reductive and you're not just defending literal eugenics by using mental gymnastics.
You are the one being reductive.
edit: "i love licking boots and believe all the propaganda of other governments because america government is the only bad one!!! I have no ability to read between lines and critically analyze when human rights violations are taking place!! But none of that matters because what about America??? What about America??"
breeding programs
Yup, there you go doing it again. War is peace, ignorance is strength, not breeding is a breeding program
Sure, it's totally not a breeding program. It just controls several key factors about who is allowed to breed and how much and when. It's not a breeding program! It's a "selective" breeding program, which is somehow better.
Nice.
Get a job
No matter how many times you compare antonyms nonsensically, it won't change that eugenics is eugenics.
You conveniently worded it as "not breeding is a breeding program", which is intellectually dishonest and dances around reality. Nice.
So no, "not breeding" is not a breeding program. Government mandated restrictions on who can breed and how much is a breeding program.
Try not to do that bullshit again, I'm not stupid, in fact it seems I'm a million times smarter than you if that's the best you got. Why don't you try being honest?
This is nonsense gish gallop.
Xinjiang
Uyghurs are not being tortured and killed.
The best and most comprehensive resource I have seen so far is Qiao Collective's Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation. Qiao Collective is explicitly pro-PRC, but this is an extremely comprehensive write-up of the entire background of the events, the timeline of reports, and real and fake claims.
I also recommend reading the UN report and China's response to it. These are the most relevant accusations and responses without delving into straight up fantasy like Adrian Zenz, professional propagandist for the Victims of Communism Foundation, does.
Tourists do go to Xinjiang all the time, yes. You can watch videos like this one on YouTube, though it obviously isn't going to be a comprehensive view of a complex situation like this.
Tibet
Tibet was a feudal slave society backed by the CIA. The PLA liberated Tibet. Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth:
Drepung monastery was one of the biggest landowners in the world, with its 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 great pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. The wealth of the monasteries rested in the hands of small numbers of high-ranking lamas. Most ordinary monks lived modestly and had no direct access to great wealth. The Dalai Lama himself “lived richly in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace.” [12]
Secular leaders also did well. A notable example was the commander-in-chief of the Tibetan army, a member of the Dalai Lama’s lay Cabinet, who owned 4,000 square kilometers of land and 3,500 serfs. [13] Old Tibet has been misrepresented by some Western admirers as “a nation that required no police force because its people voluntarily observed the laws of karma.” [14] In fact it had a professional army, albeit a small one, that served mainly as a gendarmerie for the landlords to keep order, protect their property, and hunt down runaway serfs.
Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries. He himself was a victim of repeatedremoved, beginning at age nine. [15] The monastic estates also conscripted children for lifelong servitude as domestics, dance performers, and soldiers.
In old Tibet there were small numbers of farmers who subsisted as a kind of free peasantry, and perhaps an additional 10,000 people who composed the “middle-class” families of merchants, shopkeepers, and small traders. Thousands of others were beggars. There also were slaves, usually domestic servants, who owned nothing. Their offspring were born into slavery. [16] The majority of the rural population were serfs. Treated little better than slaves, the serfs went without schooling or medical care. They were under a lifetime bond to work the lord’s land — or the monastery’s land — without pay, to repair the lord’s houses, transport his crops, and collect his firewood. They were also expected to provide carrying animals and transportation on demand. [17] Their masters told them what crops to grow and what animals to raise. They could not get married without the consent of their lord or lama. And they might easily be separated from their families should their owners lease them out to work in a distant location. [18]
As in a free labor system and unlike slavery, the overlords had no responsibility for the serf’s maintenance and no direct interest in his or her survival as an expensive piece of property. The serfs had to support themselves. Yet as in a slave system, they were bound to their masters, guaranteeing a fixed and permanent workforce that could neither organize nor strike nor freely depart as might laborers in a market context. The overlords had the best of both worlds.
One 22-year old woman, herself a runaway serf, reports: “Pretty serf girls were usually taken by the owner as house servants and used as he wished”; they “were just slaves without rights.” [19] Serfs needed permission to go anywhere. Landowners had legal authority to capture those who tried to flee. One 24-year old runaway welcomed the Chinese intervention as a “liberation.” He testified that under serfdom he was subjected to incessant toil, hunger, and cold. After his third failed escape, he was merciless beaten by the landlord’s men until blood poured from his nose and mouth. They then poured alcohol and caustic soda on his wounds to increase the pain, he claimed. [20]
The serfs were taxed upon getting married, taxed for the birth of each child and for every death in the family. They were taxed for planting a tree in their yard and for keeping animals. They were taxed for religious festivals and for public dancing and drumming, for being sent to prison and upon being released. Those who could not find work were taxed for being unemployed, and if they traveled to another village in search of work, they paid a passage tax. When people could not pay, the monasteries lent them money at 20 to 50 percent interest. Some debts were handed down from father to son to grandson. Debtors who could not meet their obligations risked being cast into slavery. [21]
The theocracy’s religious teachings buttressed its class order. The poor and afflicted were taught that they had brought their troubles upon themselves because of their wicked ways in previous lives. Hence they had to accept the misery of their present existence as a karmic atonement and in anticipation that their lot would improve in their next lifetime. The rich and powerful treated their good fortune as a reward for, and tangible evidence of, virtue in past and present lives.
-Dr. Michael Parenti
Tian'anmen
Of the few hundred people that died in the riots and fighting, the square was dispersed peacefully. The truth about Tian'anmen is that hundreds of protestors and PLA officers were killed in Beijing that day as the PLA advanced towards the square, but that the square itself was evacuated peacefully, which matches leaked US cables and the CPC's official stance on what it calls the "June 4th incident". This is a rejection of the commonly reported story of 10,000 people being killed on the square itself, which originated from a British diplomat's cable. Said diplomat was later confirmed to have evacuated well before.
Western nations intentionally sensationalize the quantity of deaths and the character of the events. This is also why Western Nations don't frequently report on the South Korean Gwang-Ju massacre that occured around the same era, where the South Korean millitary murdered thousands of High School and College students protesting against Chun Do-Hwan's dictatorship. All of what I said is backed up by the Wikipedia page for Tian'anmen Square Protests and Massacre, such as Alan Donald revising his estimate from 10,000 to the low thousands yet BBC continuing to report the 10,000 figure:
In a disputed cable sent in the aftermath of the events at Tiananmen, British Ambassador Alan Donald initially claimed, based on information from a "good friend" in the State Council of China, that a minimum of 10,000 civilians died,[237] claims which were repeated in a speech by Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke,[238] but which is an estimated number much higher than other sources provided.[239][240] After the declassification, former student protest leader Feng Congde pointed out that Donald later revised his estimate to 2,700–3,400 deaths.
Democracy
The form of democracy and the mode of production in China ensures that there is a connection between the people and the state. Policies like the mass line are in place to ensure this direct connection remains. This is why over 90% of the Chinese population supports the government, and why they have such strong perceptions around democracy.
The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people's democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local government is directly elected, and then these governments elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Moreover, the economy in the PRC is socialist, with public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy. Combining this consultative, ground-up democracy with top-down economic planning is the key to China's success.
I highly recommend Roland Boer's Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we've learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.
You're arguing against numbers published by Harvard. None of what I said is "Kool-Aid." Secondly, using publicly funded information is not an "appeal to authority," saying someone knows xyz because they are a specialist in something is an appeal to authority (and that isn't a fallacy).
How?
They can but they aren't
I'm so tired
Lotta comments from accounts a few days old, or with less than 50 comments in several years. Interesting.

Waiting for Liberals to actually have a thought out response to the excellent resources the MLs of this community provide.

Something something square Something something tanks
And don't forget that China has billionaires!
Still waiting...
the real question: where is the liberal equivalent of @Cowbee@lemmy.ml
Do not confuse Technocracy with Socialism. While Chinese Technocracy is Socialist, Technocracy alone can be a massive problem.
Is the lower photo real or AI? It looks like an album cover.
Can we do the revolution now?
Dictatorship might seem appealing while democracy is failing, but we should never give up on democracy in exchange for safety and stability.
the US is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and that people still fail to see that after the epstein files is actually shocking
china, on the other hand, is one of the most functional democracies in the world
the US is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and that people still fail to see that after the epstein files is actually shocking
While this is true
To be fair, you didn't pick ubiased authors here. Neither of the authors is capable of saying anything negative of China.
For example, Paweł Wargan proponent of new Chinese imperialisms with extra steps - e.g. https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/global/multi-polar-world-order-is-multi-imperialism/
This article is garbage because it abandons the very method that makes socialism scientific. Dialectical and historical materialism are not optional accessories to Marxist thought; they are its core foundations, and to break with them is to break with scientific socialism as a whole. The article's definition of imperialism remains stuck at the level of quantitative description, ignoring how modern imperialism functions through the enforcement of unequal exchange and the systematic extraction of super profits from the periphery to the core. This qualitative dimension is essential because imperialism is not merely about military bases or corporate size; it is about the global circuit of capital that reproduces dependency and drains value from oppressed nations. When we apply this materialist framework to Russia, we must acknowledge that it is a capitalist state with possible imperialist ambitions, yet the devastating aftermath of shock therapy left it without the economic means to project power as a classic imperialist state. This structural weakness has pushed Russia toward backing anti-imperialist struggles throughout the periphery as its primary method of competing with the entrenched imperial core bloc, a position determined by concrete historical conditions rather than abstract moral equivalence. China presents a fundamentally different case because its mode of production retains a socialist character grounded in public ownership of the commanding heights of the economy, the leading role of the Communist Party, and a development model subordinated to social need rather than monopoly profit maximization. This does not mean China is free of contradictions, but the dominant logic of its political economy is not driven by the imperative to extract super profits from the Global South. Instead, its foreign policy, however imperfect, aligns with breaking the chains of unequal exchange and creating space for sovereign development. To collapse these distinct material realities into a single "multi-imperialist" label is to abandon the concrete analysis of concrete conditions that Lenin identified as the living soul of Marxism.
This false equivalence between US hegemony and the multipolar framework extends from a refusal to analyze the actual architecture of global power. The contemporary imperialist system is not a collection of equal great powers but a hierarchical structure of Euro-Amerikan hegemony led by the United States and integrated through institutional mechanisms like NATO, Five Eyes, AUKUS, and the G7. Europe, Oceania, and numerous vassal states are not independent poles but subordinate components of this core bloc, bound by military integration, financial dependency, and ideological alignment. This is the actually existing unipolar order that multipolarity challenges. Within this context, both Russia and China support anti-imperialist struggles across the periphery, but they do so for fundamentally different reasons rooted in their distinct material conditions. Russia, as a capitalist state weakened by the catastrophic legacy of shock therapy, backs anti-hegemonic movements as a strategic necessity: lacking the economic mass to compete through direct imperial projection, it aligns with forces that weaken the US-led bloc, creating breathing room for its own sovereignty and regional influence. China, by contrast, operates from a socialist mode of production where the state retains command over the commanding heights of the economy and where development is subordinated to long-term social stability rather than monopoly profit extraction. Its support for multipolarity stems not from a drive to dominate the Global South but from a structural interest in dismantling the unequal exchange mechanisms that have historically drained value from oppressed nations, including its own experience of semi-colonial subjugation. To conflate these two distinct positions, or to equate either with the predatory logic of Euro-Amerikan imperialism, is to abandon the dialectical method that requires us to analyze the specific character of each social formation and its place within the global contradiction.
The slogan "oppose all equally" may sound revolutionary in its refusal to compromise, but detached from dialectical and historical materialism it collapses into abstract moralism that objectively serves the very hegemony it claims to reject. Dialectics teaches us that not all contradictions are identical, and that the principal contradiction must guide our strategic orientation. To declare neutrality between an empire that maintains eight hundred overseas bases, controls the global financial infrastructure, and routinely overthrows governments, and states that merely seek to weaken that empire's stranglehold, is not principled internationalism. It is a refusal to analyze the concrete balance of forces, and in practice it aids the stronger power by dispersing opposition and denying tactical support to forces that, however imperfectly, challenge the core of imperialist domination. This abstract stance upholds capitalist hegemony by ensuring that resistance remains fragmented and that the most powerful aggressor faces no coordinated counter-pressure. Lenin criticized this kind of centrism as the highest form of opportunism because it cloaks passivity in revolutionary phraseology. Scientific socialism requires us to engage with actually existing struggles, to distinguish between the hand that wields the whip and the hand that seeks to break it, and to build proletarian independence within anti-hegemonic movements rather than abstaining from them in the name of purity. To do otherwise is not to stand above imperialism but to leave its structure intact.
The comparison of contemporary China to Weimar Germany seeking a "place under the sun" is not merely imprecise; it is fundamentally ahistorical because it transplants categories from one historical epoch onto a completely different material and geopolitical conjuncture. Weimar Germany operated within a world order defined by colonial scramble, pre-nuclear military technology, and the absence of any binding international legal framework constraining territorial conquest. Its mode of production was monopoly capitalism in crisis, with a bourgeois state increasingly fused with fascist political forms, driven by the imperative to seize colonies for raw materials and markets through direct coercion. The superstructure of that era reflected this: social Darwinist ideology, overt racial hierarchy, and a diplomatic culture that accepted war as a legitimate instrument of policy. Contemporary China exists in a post-1945 world shaped by the UN Charter's nominal commitment to sovereignty, the constraining reality of nuclear deterrence, and a dense network of multilateral institutions that, however imperfect, raise the political cost of overt aggression. Its mode of production retains some of the contradictions as is expected in the socialist transitionary period, grounded in public ownership of the commanding heights of the economy, the leading role of the Communist Party, and a development logic subordinated to long-term social stability rather than the short-term maximization of monopoly profit. The superstructure reflects this: an ideological framework centered on "community of shared future for mankind," non-interference principles, and South-South cooperation rather than civilizational hierarchy. When China engages the Global South through infrastructure investment and trade partnerships, it does so within a historical context where former colonies possess sovereign statehood and can negotiate terms, however unevenly. This is not to deny contradictions. It is to insist that historical materialism demands we analyze the concrete social formation before us, not force it into an abstract analogy that ignores the vast differences in geopolitical structure, productive forces, class relations, and ideological superstructure that separate the interwar period from the twenty-first century. To do otherwise is to abandon the method that allows us to understand history as a process of material development rather than a cycle of repeating labels.
The concept of "social imperialism" as applied to China and Russia in this context is not just analytically weak; it is politically absurd because it detaches the label from any concrete examination of how value actually flows through the global economy. To claim that a state is imperialist simply because it engages in international trade, invests in infrastructure abroad, or seeks to protect its sovereign interests is to empty the term of all scientific content and reduce it to a sectarian slur. This misuse of theory reflects the deeper problem of Trotskyism as a reactionary and ultra-leftist tendency that substitutes dogmatic formulae for materialist analysis. Lenin warned against the "infantile disorder" of communism, and this article exemplifies it perfectly: a refusal to engage with the messy contradictions of actually existing struggle in favor of a pure, abstract schema that exists only in textbooks. This approach worships the letter of Marxist theory while abandoning its living soul, applying quotations like incantations rather than using dialectics to grasp the movement of real historical forces. By demanding that anti-imperialist movements be led by perfectly conscious proletarian forces before they deserve support, Trotskyism isolates revolutionaries from the masses they seek to lead and objectively strengthens the hand of the principal enemy. It is reactionary because it blocks the formation of united fronts against hegemony, dismisses the genuine anti-colonial content of multipolarity demands, and substitutes moral denunciation for the patient work of building working-class independence within actually existing movements. Scientific socialism requires us to start from material conditions, not from doctrinal purity, and to recognize that the path to revolution runs through the concrete contradictions of our time, not through the abstract categories of a frozen orthodoxy.
All the errors traced through this critique flow from a single, foundational break: the abandonment of dialectical and historical materialism as the method of scientific socialism. When analysis begins with abstract categories like "imperialist" or "social-imperialist" applied mechanically, rather than with a concrete examination of production relations, class forces, and historical specificity, the conclusions are predetermined by the schema, not discovered through investigation. This is why the article collapses distinct social formations into a false equivalence, why it substitutes moral denunciation for strategic assessment, and why its prescription of "oppose all equally" becomes a sterile formula that objectively upholds the hegemony it claims to fight. Scientific socialism does not proceed by labeling but by uncovering the movement of contradictions within actually existing conditions. Multipolarity is not an end-state to be celebrated or condemned in the abstract; it is a contradictory terrain shaped by the struggle between hegemonic capital and sovereign development, within which class struggle must be advanced. Our task is not to stand outside this terrain in doctrinal purity but to engage it, to build proletarian independence within anti-hegemonic movements, and to push the logic of multipolarity beyond bourgeois limits toward genuine internationalism. To do that, we must return to the method that makes our politics scientific: the concrete analysis of concrete conditions, rooted in the living dialectic of historical materialism. Anything else is not Marxism, but book worship dressed in revolutionary phraseology.
The slogan "oppose all equally" may sound revolutionary in its refusal to compromise, but detached from dialectical and historical materialism it collapses into abstract moralism that objectively serves the very hegemony it claims to reject.
Yes! Say it louder for the people in the back. Even some well meaning western marxists really struggle with this, because it touches on their privilege.
You can’t give up what you never had. Previously.
It’s not wrong to say regulatory capture is a problem, it just doesn’t go far enough. The US government was never not captured by the bourgeoisie, because the US was born of a bourgeois revolution[1]. The wealthy, white, male, land-owning, largely slave-owning Founding Fathers constructed a bourgeois state with “checks and balances” against the “tyranny of the majority”. It was never meant to represent the majority—the working class—and it never has, despite eventually allowing women and non-whites (at least those not disenfranchised by the carceral system) to vote. BBC: [Princeton & Northwestern] Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy
The game is rigged. The election cycle’s pomp and circumstance is to divert your energy and attention from the fact that it’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.
I have some bad news about the democracy you think you have

It's a democracy for the pedophiles and rich and a dictatorship for everyone else
China is democratic, though. In addition to QinShiHuangsSchlong's comment, I recommend Roland Boer's Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we've learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.
China has democracy. Just not bourgeois liberal democracy. The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people’s democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local levels are directly elected, and then these representatives from around the country elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Also due to the nature of things the vast majority of representatives are among those directly elected by the people. You should research things before you just say things. And we're very happy with our system. Even Harvard puts the approval rating around 95%.

If China is a democracy, what opposition parties and media not related to government are in there?
Democracy is not defined by how many parties exist. It means that political authority comes from the people and that the population participates in governance. Different societies organize that participation differently. Liberal systems center competitive parties and election campaigns. China organizes participation through elections at the grassroots level combined with consultation and representation throughout the policy process.
In China we call this whole-process people’s democracy. The idea is that democracy should not exist only on election day every few years. It should exist through the entire political process: discussion, drafting policy, consultation with social groups, implementation, and feedback.
At the local level, people directly elect deputies to township and county People’s Congresses. These bodies then elect representatives to higher levels, which continues upward through provincial congresses and ultimately to the National People’s Congress. Because of this structure, most officials reach higher positions only after years working at lower levels where they directly interact with voters. Advancement depends on performance, governance results, and evaluation by the people and bodies that elected them.
China also has a consultative system through the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Multiple legally recognized parties and mass organizations participate there along with the Communist Party. Trade unions, ethnic organizations, professional associations, business groups, and other social bodies submit proposals and participate in consultation before policy decisions are finalized. It is not an adversarial party competition model, but it is still a structured form of representation.
There’s only one party in China, every communication channel is controlled by party
China does manage information. But I would recommend learning about Parenti’s concept of “inventing reality.” In capitalist systems the media is formally private, but in practice it is owned by a handful of large corporations and billionaires. Those owners decide what stories are emphasized, what narratives are framed as legitimate, and what perspectives are marginalized.
That kind of control is less visible but still very real. A small group of capital owners has enormous influence over what hundreds of millions of people see and how events are interpreted. So the idea that Western media is completely free from power structures is not serious. Remember Cambridge analytica?
China consistently ranks near the bottom in every democracy index
"But the eagle burger institute of goodness says China bad". These indexes measure democracy using a definition that assumes Western liberal institutions as the universal standard. If your scoring system requires competitive multi-party elections and privately owned media corporations, then of course a different political model will rank poorly.
China measures legitimacy differently. The government is evaluated based on outcomes and public satisfaction. Long-running surveys like the Harvard Ash Center study consistently find extremely high levels of reported public satisfaction with government performance in China.
You can disagree with the Chinese political system. That is fine. But reducing democracy to “number of parties” or citing Western indexes without examining how the Chinese system actually works is not a serious analysis.
Ranked by whom?

There are nine political parties in the PRC
Eveey democracy index
The very unbiased FreedomBurger Institute gives China 0/10 Freedoms
Am I misunderstanding the graph, or does the Communist Party have 92 million members?
1.4 billion people
I too live in a country with 1.4 billion people. The party that leads our govt claims to have 100 million members, but that's because you can become a 'member' by giving them a missed call.
They do.
If China is a democracy, what opposition parties and media not related to government are in there?
Democracy is if you have political parties, the more you have the democratier it is
China is capitalism, they even have mock elections
You really should research things before you just make statements on things you have no understanding of.
I know you're replying in bad faith but if you change your mind even out of curiosity if you engage with the content of these 3 replies I've already written
https://lemmy.ml/post/44457794/24524987
https://lemmy.ml/post/44457794/24529983
https://lemmy.ml/post/44251521/24507103
I'm happy to have a conversation about why you believe what you do and the analysis and lived experience underpinning my thoughts as well.
Public ownership is the principal aspect of the Chinese economy, and the working classes control the state. It's definitionally socialist. How on Earth is a country where public ownership is principal "capitalist" in your eyes?
Polls in authoritarian countries are notoriously more positive about own countries than in democratic ones due to insane amount of propaganda (yes, even compared to US). In which next country do we di polls next - Russia or North Korea?
"During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum."
Blackshirts and Reds, Michael Parenti
So we're just too subhuman and brainwashed to answer a Harvard poll about our thoughts correctly?
"Umm they're they Bad Country sweaty you can't trust the people there. Just like the other Bad Countries!"
You are a political toddler and the fact that you don't understand this while our side diddles kids and bombs elementary schools is insane
You are just privileged idealist disappointed in your own system so you try to latch on something completely opposite in order to belong somewhere. I have experienced living under one of those systems and fleeing it to one of the “West Bad!” countries. I am both envious that you didn’t have to go through this and pitying you that eventually you will be disappointed in your new “Good Country” choice
Lmao you're another one of the post soviet 20 something's who think shock therapy was communism's fault. Or you're a reactionary who fled because you're a right wing loser either way it explains your white man's burden chauvinism.
Lol what an amazing self report on how your psychology works, you petty little man. Pure team sports contrarianism, no analysis. I would feel bad for you if you weren't so desperate to ignore reality in favor of regurgitating propaganda
"C'mon, Chinese govt lifted 800 million people out of extreme poverty. Took the country from one of the poorest in a world to a world power. All this in just 4 decades and you expect the people to hate the govt."
You have it the wrong way around: Chinese democracy is appealing while western capitalist dictatorship is failing.
No, you were just incorrect
For one, no, that's not how burden of proof works: you were the one who made the claim first. I wish you Reddit losers would actually learn what these phrases mean rather than treating them like magical incantations for winning debates.
Secondly, you've already been presented with ample proof that you just ignored.
Both already proven for the world to see a thousand times over, cry about it halfwit
Whatever you checked was wrong
They are democracies of the wealthy; they were never democracies of the people. I already covered this elsewhere in this post.
The US has never been a democracy
I like China
Is it? Why is China "bad"?
If Israel treated Muslims in Gaza the same way as China does in Xinjiang (providing education and citizenship), Netanjahu would be hailed to no end
There is no genocide of Uyghurs. Uyghur genocide atrocity propaganda akin to claiming that there's "white genocide" in South Africa, Christian genocide in Nigeria, or that Hamas sexually assaulted babies in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
In the case of Xinjiang, the area is crucial in the Belt and Road Initiative, so the west backed sepratist groups in order to destabilize the region. China responded with vocational programs and de-radicalization efforts, which the west then twisted into claims of "genocide." Nevermind that the west responds to seperatism with mass violence, and thus re-education programs focused on rehabilitation are far more humane, the tool was used both for outright violence by the west into a useful narrative to feed its own citizens.
The best and most comprehensive resource I have seen so far is Qiao Collective's Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation. Qiao Collective is explicitly pro-PRC, but this is an extremely comprehensive write-up of the entire background of the events, the timeline of reports, and real and fake claims.
I also recommend reading the UN report and China's response to it. These are the most relevant accusations and responses without delving into straight up fantasy like Adrian Zenz, professional propagandist for the Victims of Communism Foundation, does.
Tourists do go to Xinjiang all the time as well. You can watch videos like this one on YouTube, though it obviously isn't going to be a comprehensive view of a complex situation like this.
HRW is a pro-western think tank that frequently cites CIA cutouts like Radio Free Asia. Looking at this document, for example, you can see that it frames public ownership of news media as inherently bad and capitalist news as inherently good. It also frames China as anti-democratic, when it is widely seen by its own citizens to be very democratic:

Overall, you're just grabbing an anti-communist tool of western governments as a cudgel to bash China. Are there real problems in China? Yes. Is it a "horrible country?" No, far from it, and it's far better than western imperialist countries that export genocide and plunder the global south.
The form of democracy and the mode of production in China ensures that there is a connection between the people and the state. Policies like the mass line are in place to ensure this direct connection remains. This is why over 90% of the Chinese population supports the government, and why they have such strong perceptions around democracy.
The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people's democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local government is directly elected, and then these governments elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Moreover, the economy in the PRC is socialist, with public ownership as the principle aspect of the economy. Combining this consultative, ground-up democracy with top-down economic planning is the key to China's success.
I highly recommend Roland Boer's Socialism in Power: On the History and Theory of Socialist Governance. Socialist democracy has been imperfect, but has gone through a number of changes and adaptations over the years as we've learned more from testing theory to practice. Boer goes over the history behind socialist democracy in this textbook.
China is socialist, not yet communist. It's run by a communist party, but there is still class struggle. In China, public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, but there are still other forms of ownership. Communism will exist once all production and distribution has been collectivized.
Secondly, propaganda doesn't work that way. Read the sources, people believe China is democratic because it is. It has elections, and consultative democracy where the will of the people directs policy. The people rule the system in China. You're confusing liberal democracy for democracy in general, but what's interesting about liberal democracy is that really it's just democracy for capitalists. Having a single main party but broad consensus-building and polling to direct policy is more democratic than picking between a handful of capitalist dominated parties. Plus, China has 8 parties in addition to the CPC that form the government. Finally, there's nobody with absolute authority in China, so I don't know what you mean by this.
Overall, I think you're very confused about socialism and communism, and China in general. Where did you get these ideas from?
China isn’t socialism, it’s communism.
You understand neither socialism nor communism. Read a book.
You think Xi has absolute power? Not even Mao had absolute power.
They seem like the kind of person who thinks the cultural revolution was completely lead by Chairman Mao and not mostly the chaos of warring factions when all power was given to the people with no oversight or discipline.
It's always amazing to me how these people who have done zero investigation have the sophomoric nerve to speak as if they're educating other people in the middle of having information poured over their heads with a bucket
I'm neither American nor a liberal, but I suspect that American liberals agree wholeheartedly about your assessment about America.
While I think this is far too simplistic of a comparison. I will agree that the US is like nazi Germany if it was entirely run by barely functional idiots. The turd reich.
*Run
I love the smell of false dichotomy in the morning. Smells like... propaganda
Both states are awful.
Wow, that was hard.
God I would hate to have my life expectancy doubled, truly evil shit
Being wrong takes no effort.
Dumb and wrong
There is no genocide of Uyghurs. Uyghur genocide atrocity propaganda akin to claiming that there's "white genocide" in South Africa, Christian genocide in Nigeria, or that Hamas sexually assaulted babies in Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
In the case of Xinjiang, the area is crucial in the Belt and Road Initiative, so the west backed sepratist groups in order to destabilize the region. China responded with vocational programs and de-radicalization efforts, which the west then twisted into claims of "genocide." Nevermind that the west responds to seperatism with mass violence, and thus re-education programs focused on rehabilitation are far more humane, the tool was used both for outright violence by the west into a useful narrative to feed its own citizens.
The best and most comprehensive resource I have seen so far is Qiao Collective's Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation. Qiao Collective is explicitly pro-PRC, but this is an extremely comprehensive write-up of the entire background of the events, the timeline of reports, and real and fake claims.
I also recommend reading the UN report as well as (especially) China's response to it, which eclipses it in size and detail.These are the most relevant accusations and responses without delving into straight up fantasy like Adrian Zenz, Christian nationalist and professional propagandist for the Victims of Communism Foundation, does. Zenz' work has been thoroughly discredited, yet is supported by western media for its utility in fearmongering. An example is lying about 8.7% of new IUDs as 80%, to back up claims of "forced sterilization," from this chart:

Tourists do go to Xinjiang all the time as well. You can watch videos like this one on YouTube, though it obviously isn't going to be a comprehensive view of a complex situation like this. Has there been mistreatment? Almost certainly to some degree, in a campaign as large as this. Is it genocide, be it cultural or outright? No, Uyghur culture is preserved and there are no mass killings.
Your poor argumentation shows the cracks in what you claim. You start off with a classic poisoning of the well by your false equivalence of the far right so-called white genocide with PRC's active suppression and genocide of Uyghur. "vocational programs," "de-radicalization," and "rehabilitation" all you use to desensitize us to what is really happening to the people. Just the same as torture apologists using "enhanced interrogation". Leaked Chinese government documents (the "China Cables," "Xinjiang Papers") show are coercive mass detention facilities. Claiming PRC is the best source but yielding its bias is like citing Pravda to debunk Soviet gulags and noting "yes it's state-aligned, but very thorough."Ridiculous. Your sources do not invalidate multiple independent researchers, satellite imagery, survivor testimony, and leaked internal CCP documents show what is happening to this vulnerable minority group. What's your response to:
- The UN's own 2022 report concluded China's actions may constitute international crimes
- Documented forced sterilization, birth rate collapse among Uyghurs
- The leaked "shoot to kill" orders in the Xinjiang Papers Well, apart from your mod removing dissident for arbitrary reasoning? You can't claim you want real discourse while doing that. At least own up to your imperial fascist narrative and that you don't care about truth. You like imperialism when it's "your guys".
Your poor argumentation shows the cracks in what you claim. You start off with a classic poisoning of the well by your false equivalence of the far right so-called white genocide with PRC’s active suppression and genocide of Uyghur.
It isn't a false equivalence, though. Just like ideas of "white genocide," western countries often accuse their geopolitical opponents of atrocities, heavily distorting reality in order to make it impossible for the western working class to take an active stance against western imperialism.
"vocational programs,” “de-radicalization,” and “rehabilitation” all you use to desensitize us to what is really happening to the people.
This is what was factually happening, though. Prior to the establishment of de-radicalization programs, western-backed terrorist attacks were common, in order to disrupt the Belt and Road initiative (where Xinjiang is key to expanding westward). These included:
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July 5, 2009: The Urumqi Riots resulted in 197 deaths, and 1700 wounded in mass stabbings.
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October 28, 2013: Tian'anmen Attack, 5 killed, 40 wouded, when a Jeep was driven directly into crowds.
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March 1, 2014: Kunming Train Station Attack, 31 killed, 141 wounded. 8 jihadists committed mass stabbings.
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May 22, 2014: Urumqi Attack, 39 killed, 94 injured as 2 attackers drove cars into crowds and threw explosives at buildings.
And many more. Since the de-radicalization efforts, these attacks have gone down to effectively 0.
Just the same as torture apologists using “enhanced interrogation”. Leaked Chinese government documents (the “China Cables,” “Xinjiang Papers”) show are coercive mass detention facilities.
They don't, actually. You're referencing Adrian Zenz, professional propagandist for the Victims of Communism Foundation. He believes he was sent by God to punish China, and his work has been thoroughly discredited.
Claiming PRC is the best source but yielding its bias is like citing Pravda to debunk Soviet gulags and noting "yes it’s state-aligned, but very thorough.
I never said the PRC was the best source. Qiao Collective is pro-PRC, they aren't affiliated with the PRC itself. They are made up of Chinese diaspora in the west. Further, though, I don't know why anyone would try to debunk the idea that the Soviet Union had prisons. That all being said, China does release white papers like Vocational Training and Education in Xinjiang that document in detail how the program is run. Not listening to the defendent at all in a court case would have you thrown out as clearly unfit to judge.
Your sources do not invalidate multiple independent researchers, satellite imagery, survivor testimony, and leaked internal CCP documents show what is happening to this vulnerable minority group.
China already released a massive response to these kinds of claims. Many buildings alleged to be camps were just normal buildings. Witness testemony is about all there actually is, and it's highly conflicting.
The UN’s own 2022 report concluded China’s actions may constitute international crimes
See China's rebuttal, which eclipsed the UN's report in size and detail, thoroughly debunking it.
Documented forced sterilization, birth rate collapse among Uyghurs
More Adrian Zenz bullshit. This claim comes from Zenz misrepresenting 8.7% of new IUDs as 80%, from this chart:

Zenz lied about forced sterilization and misrepresented numbers to do so.
The leaked “shoot to kill” orders in the Xinjiang Papers
The Xinjiang Police Files are made by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a far-right propaganda tank, and again come solely from Adrian Zenz.
Well, apart from your mod removing dissident for arbitrary reasoning? You can’t claim you want real discourse while doing that. At least own up to your imperial fascist narrative and that you don’t care about truth. You like imperialism when it’s “your guys”.
I'm not the one relying entirely on the fascist ravings of a Christian Nationalist paid by the US State Department and UK Government to invent lies about China. Have fun taking this back to the Nazi bar you just came from, MeanwhileOnGrad.
I've already read that article, the sources I linked debunk what's fake and help contextualize what's real. You should really do some due dilligence instead of coasting by on Wikipedia, many of the sources in that article link back to made-up claims by Adrian Zenz.
Fun fact, that Wikipedia page used to be titled "Uyghur Genocide" but they had to change it after it became obvious that no genocide was occurring.
Anyway, do you acknowledge the white genocide being orchestrated by a shadowy international jewish communist cabal, or are you a genocide denier? Because if a bunch of nazis say it, it must be true.
Also, name a single non "authoritarian" government. You can't.
I 100% acknowledge all genocides by imperialist authoritarian shitholes unlike you tankies. Every authoritarian government deserves to fail. I notice how your mod removes links to Wikipedia yet you clamor for sources. You do not care for the truth, you are just propagandists for your preferred imperial authoritarian governments if you're even an organic person and not just some official in the propaganda arm. Enjoy your little bubble, you will never win supporters this way.
Do you acknowledge the totally real white genocide definitely being orchestrated by a shadowy international jewish communist cabal, or are you a genocide denier?
Why can't you answer this simple question instead of freaking out? Are you secretly some kind of tankie?
Do you condemn Hamas for beheading 40 babies?
Lol. Imagine declaring "Yes, I do believe the Jews are committing white genocide!" And thinking you're making a compelling argument
And off he goes to post on c/meanwhileongrad 😂
Edit to add: 1) Wikipedia isn’t a source, dumbass. 2) We’re not the ones in a bubble. Previously:
It’s virtually impossible to be in an “echo chamber” when living in a Five Eyes country. Or rather, it’s virtually impossible to not be stuck in the Five Eyes liberal echo chamber. You would have to go full Kaczynski, living in a shack in the woods.
As if we weren’t—and aren’t still—exposed to exactly the same life-long indoctrination, education, and propaganda as everyone else in the imperial core. But somehow we, who looked beyond the cultural hegemony in which we’re surrounded, are the ones living in a bubble.
“Genocide denial” isn’t a magic spell. Do you not deny the genocide of white South Africans?
Also, do you think we haven’t gone over the Wikipedia entry with a fine-toothed comb already?
The US tried to foment division in China by funding and organizing Salafi terrorist into Xinjiang, and once its efforts failed, it made lemonade out of its lemon by concocting and promoting a genocide narrative.
The only countries pushing this narrative are the “always the same map” imperial core countries, which just so happen to be largely the same ones supporting Israel’s genocide.
Almost no predominantly-Muslim country buys the Uyghur genocide narrative, because they know it’s bullshit, because they talked to the Uyghurs themselves.
https://twitter.com/un_hrc/status/1578003299827171330#HRC51 | Draft resolution A/HRC/51/L.6 on holding a debate on the situation of human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of #China, was REJECTED.
- The Uyghur Human Rights Project is a product of the National Endowment for Democracy, which is the American government’s main regime change NGO.
- A Reddit AMA Claiming To Be A Uyghur Quickly Exposes A CIA Asset Slandering China
- The Xinjiang Genocide Allegations Are Unjustified
- Uyghur genocide allegations
- American Debunks All Major Western Propaganda on Uyghurs and Xinjiang
- US-Funded Uyghur Activists Train as Soldiers of Empire
- The blueprint of regime change operations How regime change happens in the 21st century with your consent
Genocide is more than just killing, it’s the deliberate destruction of a people including its culture and institutions.
(a) Show me the Uyghur bodies
(b) Show me the serious bodily or mental harm
(c) Show me the conditions calculated to bring about physical destruction in whole or in part
(d) Show me the measures intended to prevent births within the group
In accordance with China's affirmative action policies towards ethnic minorities, all non-Han ethnic groups were subject to different laws and were usually allowed to have two children in urban areas, and three or four in rural areas.
(e) Show me the forcible transfer of children from one group to another group
violent incidents in East Turkestan
I wonder where those Salafi terrorists came from? Oh right: the US, UK, and Israel organized, funded, and trained them, as they did Al Qaeda and the various flavors of ISIS/ISIL, including the “moderate rebels” that just took over Syria. The blueprint of regime change operations How regime change happens in the 21st century with your consent.
I think you should reread my comment and sources, as they already counter that article. Do you think I haven't read that wikipedia entry already? It's the first thing people jump to when trying to prove a genocide, despite being full of holes and referencing Adrian Zenz, or sources relying on Adrian Zenz. Have the basic decency to check out the sources I linked.
You're getting downvoted because your points have been thoroughly debunked, and we refuse to accept your fantasies as material reality.
Lol. Sorry, one is absolutely perfect and must not have any problems spoken about. Let's do some more you vs us bullshit (not that I am from either).
Do you think, perhaps, that there could be a middle ground between "as awful as the US Empire" and "absolutely perfect and must not have any problems spoken about?" Do you think the position "US Empire is awful, China is good but not perfect" can exist, or is that too nuanced?
Has anyone ever said that on ml! You may the the most flexible commenter here!
I don't think anyone has maintained the position that China is perfect on Lemmy.ml. Defending China from overstated or false allrgations does not mean there are no problems, and the existence of problems does not mean most are not being actively worked on.
Maybe confronting the conversations is a better thing than denying and finger pointing then? Depends who you want in the conversation though, assuming such a thing is allowed.
I see more confrontation of the conversation than not. Denying can be useful for instances where it's straight up made-up.
denying and finger pointing
Literally what the libs are doing constantly in any conversation about countries they've been brainwashed to hate. You're afraid of a real conversation, so you just mentally shut down, repost the same old debunked propaganda for the 500th time, and shout thought-terminating epithet at anyone who dissents. The liberal caricature of communist society is in fact how they themselves enforce ideological compliance.
Literally every day. You guys, on the other hand, have to pretend not to see it because actually engaging with actual criticism (like you pretend to care about) would be devastating to your stunted worldview.
No, I want to see it. I hate the needless wars and aggression. Dictatorships, genocide, ethnicity restrictions, forced labour, natural desolation for coin/convenience, etc.
No superpowers are immune from committing these crimes.
It is my mistake to comment on the ml propaganda site though.
Yes, US is uniquely bad though, but i don't need to say that, it's obvious
Cynical lip service that isn't reflected in your actual politics
Sweeping declarative statements divorced from any analysis beyond idle chin tapping
Crying victim when your hostile shit behavior isn't fawned over
No superpowers are immune from committing these crimes.
The sad thing about living in the empire built on these crimes is that they are so all-pervasive, it becomes second nature to see them as universal. Like a child born into an abusive family who sees the abuse as normal. Their parents tell them, in between beatings, that anyone who claims not to live this way is lying. The child slips into state of depression, believing that humanity itself is simply like this everywhere. They see no point in striving for better, because better doesn't exist. When more and more people tell the child that this is wrong, that other people in fact do not live like this, the child may lash out in anger and denial, too afraid to entertain hopeful notions. "There is no alternative" becomes the accepted wisdom. Fear and spite close the curtain on curiosity. The cycle continues.
Lol you're doing the angry 12 year old thing of throwing up your hands and going "Oh so China must be an absolute perfect heaven on earth, huh?!"
Have you considered a lot of your criticism are not accepted or have paragraphs of denials analysis because a lot of your criticism stem from a faulty base understanding and/or analysis (such as overstating the scale/scope of the issue if it exists or hammering on criticisms that aren't real like the "genocide")?
Just an example of what I'm talking about: The hukou system in the modern day is deeply flawed and there are many criticisms to be made of it such as it leading to wage disparity etc. However if I were to then say that the hukou system never made any sense, was senseless cruelty or some other such nonsense jumped off from it that would necessitate a few paragraphs of explanation and rebuttal to reach the truth of the matter. Which is that the system in the modern day is outdated and harmful but was a necessary policy to avoid massive slums forming and despite it's harms does have some positive aspects such as the guaranteed land and homesteading rights should one end up homeless.
It's important that criticism be principled and precise for it to have any meaning. I'd be very interested to hear some of your criticisms that were faced with paragraphs of "denials".
The issue is that the "criticisms" that people bring up aren't reality, they're propaganda. We can talk about real issues just fine, if/when you spend the time first learning how China really is, then we can actually have a productive discussion and treat you seriously. As it is we're not gonna act as if disproven shit is real.
Everyone and their dog just seem to be waiting for the chance to write their dissertation on the benevolence of China, and yet rarely do I see the same in defence of western countries.
Have you considered that what looks like "dissertations" might just be people applying materialist analysis, seeking truth from facts against the propaganda wave?
That China, flaws and contradictions included, has still secured historical wins for the proletariat of the periphery (especially in China), while the Western imperial bloc runs and has been running the world's largest and most advanced exploitation and immiseration machine in human history on throughout the periphery?
So of course dissecting China takes nuance to weigh the real gains against the flaws and discern the truth from the wave of lies?
When you do a material analysis of the West and what's left to weigh? Just capitalist plunder, imperialist immiseration, and fascism.
Sort feed by new comments. See comment. Reply. That is how forums work. An hour is not a stakeout.
Your real argument at its core is that no Chinese(or otherwise) person could genuinely support the Chinese government unless they are paid or brainwashed. That is chauvinism. You dismiss my lived experience, my family's gains, and the material progress hundreds of millions have seen because it does not fit your Western notions of "how it should be".
It is the same logic as the person earlier today in this very thread who told me mainlanders only support the government because we "do not know any better." Different person, same paternalism. Any Chinese(or otherwise) person who offers a nuanced, factual critique that weighs both gains and flaws must be compromised. Any mass consensus in China must be manufactured. The only valid analysis, in your view, is the one that confirms Western superiority.
I am not paid. I am not brainwashed. I am someone who applies materialist analysis and sees what China has actually delivered for its people. If that threatens your worldview, that is your problem. Not mine.
It is the same logic as the person earlier today in this very thread who told me mainlanders only support the government because we “do not know any better.”
Usually these same people are oblivious to the propaganda they swim in, but have a dissenting viewpoint and you’re the paid agitator.
Propaganda is only taught in elite universities because only future mandarins of public opinion are supposed to understand it.
Much like the old soviet joke:
A Soviet and an American get on a plane and get to talking. The Soviet says he works for the KGB and he's on his way to go learn American propaganda techniques.
"What American propaganda techniques?" asks the American.
"Exactly," the Soviet replies.
Had a quick look at your profile. With very few exceptions, (all of which I saw were pretty much about calling America bad (which is fair, fuck America)) every single one of your ~340 comments averaging about 10 comments a day every day for the past month, have been about defending China.
Not true I discuss communist theory among other topics.
Also

Your account is almost strictly dedicated to Chinese propaganda. Whether that propaganda is true or not is irrelevant to the discussion at hand, you’re spending hours every day to push an agenda. You’re a government boot locker honestly.
Again not true. I use this account to practice my English while discussing something I had enough interest in to get a masters degree in (Marxist theory). China makes up a large portion as being the largest and most successful socialist state to date it is a major topic of discussion. Did you think this reply through at all? Bootlicking is when you have a nuanced take on a government. You are a brain poisoned by your dogshit government that sees you as less than dogshit.
I never said a Chinese (or otherwise) person can’t defend their government without being paid or brainwashed. So far I’ve not actually said a negative thing about China, nor do I plan to.
So when you said "Which reeks of people paid to post biased propaganda" you weren't implying the people replying to you with analysis and nuance were paid?
What I have said is the amount of people who with such vehemence, eloquence and verbosity who come out to defend China every single time about every single thing, is in fact suspicious.
Communists posting essays is literally a meme even in the west. To be a communist requires study of dense theory is it really that surprising communists are elequent and can get verbose when it comes to debating a topic they have studied far more than you clearly have?
Sticking around on a thread for hours refreshing it so you can argue about China is a bit stakeout-ish. But you do you.
my entire home feed is is set to comments then sorted by new.
You should stop getting pissy and try actually engage with the content of what the communists and Chinese people who are correcting you when you "criticise" China are saying. No one says China is perfect but all the criticisms need to be taken in the context of the material conditions and the both the good and the bad for them to be worth anything more than a toddlers tantrum.
"Anyone who argues against the firehose of fascist propaganda that America puts out about countries it doesn't like must be paid propagandists".
That's the commentary you folk give give though. Every post is US bad, any knows issues with cha are lies
Now you're doing the 12 year old "This thing I'm doing is actually what you're doing".
Sounds very familiar here
Chickenshit mods
Cool as, dumbass
Chickenshit mods
You too
Your mother
Well, your super dooper mother!
Yeah, she is pretty great
💚 always love to those hard working women
Lol bro i am begging you to at least act 13
I've actually conversed with 13 year olds who literally opened my mind to communism with well researched and worded arguments (not angry ones).
Nobody said that and you know it, you're full of shit
Yay politics in my memes again.
Lemmy.ml's meme community allows political memes.
Politics are in everything. The jobs available to you, personally, the education, quality of air, water, soil, wages, religion, atheism, brands to "choose" from, free speech zones, cars, public transit, where you live, how long you live... I can't think of anything free from politics, even thoughts.
I pay $20 a month to CPUSA now am I a good boy yet 🐶
lol hong kong
Edit: if your best meme and viral defense of china is "america bad", then it's not good enough lmao
Edit: downvoting but not refuting? 😔 shocker
Ohh, so I get to pick which awful country is better? Cool choices.
Edit: aaaaaaand the tankies show up.
Why do you think China is awful?
Fire ass name btw
Thank you Comrade Sharkfucker 🫡
While I don't posit that China is uniquely awful here are some low lights:
- The oppression of the Uyghur Muslims
- The invasion of Tibet
- The threatened annexation of Taiwan
- The Tiananmen Square massacre. Shall I go on?
I'm sure the people of Tibet would much rather have continued living as barefoot slaves under a medieval theocracy of pedophile priests who tortured them, sexually abused them and made arts and crafts out of their body parts.
CW Insane Leatherface-type Horror Shit, including a flayed toddler skin: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/tvs5pj/remembering_tibet_here_and_there_warning_graphic/
I can always tell when someone doesn't know shit about Tibet beyond what they absorbed from 90s pop culture when their reflexive, programmed hatred for China leads them to side with the absolute nightmare kingdom that the PLA liberated people from. If you would have a problem with Mormons taking over all of America and imposing brutal Deseret Law on millions of people, then boy do I have some fucking news for you about Old Tibet.

Fuck the overlords, fuck the llamas
Now look up "Taiwan White Terror".
Their were excesses during the ETIM crackdown no doubt, however much of those have since been rectified and the crackdown was unfortunately necessary. The crackdown was also far more humane and reasonable in response to the terrorism in comparison to the western world that spent decades killing hundreds of thousands to over a million innocents in the middle east (not to mention Abu gharib, Guantanamo and the other black sites).
Tibetan serfs and slaves requested the PLA's help in overthrowing their violent theocratic slave state.
Do you support the reunification of Ireland? Do you support the reunification of Korea (who reunified with who being irrelevant)? Are you a supporter of the American confederacy? Why should China not be allowed to finish it's civil war? Also invasion is the last resort, peaceful reunification is the ideal.
A violent clash between police and protesters (who started the violence) over 35 years ago makes China awful? Certainly an interesting perspective.
You’re the 573rd person to point these out to us. You can go on, but we’ve heard them all before.
We’re doing this again?
I’m pretty sure virtually all of the Tibetan people are happy to no longer be suffering under theocratic feudalism. Happy to no longer be illiterate serfs and slaves living in depredation under a god-king. I doubt many of them are sad that CIA asset Dalai “suck my tongue” Lama is in exile.[1]
Xinjiang/The Uyghurs
The US tried to foment division in China by funding and organizing terrorist cells in Xinjiang, and once those efforts failed, it concocted and promoted a genocide narrative. Antony Blinken is still pushing this slop, just a few weeks ago.
- The Xinjiang Genocide Allegations Are Unjustified
- The Uyghur Human Rights Project is a product of the National Endowment for Democracy, which is the American government’s main regime change NGO.
- Uyghur genocide allegations
- American Debunks All Major Western Propaganda on Uyghurs and Xinjiang
- US-Funded Uyghur Activists Train as Soldiers of Empire
- A Reddit AMA Claiming To Be A Uyghur Quickly Exposes A CIA Asset Slandering China
.
The blueprint of regime change operationsWe see here for example the evolution of public opinion in regards to China. In 2019, the ‘Uyghur genocide’ was broken by the media (Buzzfeed, of all outlets). In this story, we saw the machine I described up until now move in real time. Suddenly, newspapers, TV, websites were all flooded with stories about the ‘genocide’, all day, every day. People whom we’d never heard of before were brought in as experts — Adrian Zenz, to name just one; a man who does not even speak a word of Chinese.
Organizations were suddenly becoming very active and important. The World Uyghur Congress, a very serious-sounding NGO, is actually an NED Front operating out of Germany […]. From their official website, they declare themselves to be the sole legitimate representative of all Uyghurs — presumably not having asked Uyghurs in Xinjiang what they thought about that.
The WUC also has ties to the Grey Wolves, a fascist paramilitary group in Turkey, through the father of their founder, Isa Yusuf Alptekin.
Documents came out from NGOs to further legitimize the media reporting. This is how a report from the very professional-sounding China Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) came to exist. They claimed ‘up to 1.3 million’ Uyghurs were imprisoned in camps. What they didn’t say was how they got this number: they interviewed a total of 10 people from rural Xinjiang and asked them to estimate how many people might have been taken away. They then extrapolated the guesstimates they got and arrived at the 1.3 million figure.
Sanctions were enacted against China — Xinjiang cotton for example had trouble finding buyers after Western companies were pressured into boycotting it. Instead of helping fight against the purported genocide, this act actually made life more difficult for the people of Xinjiang who depend on this trade for their livelihood (as we all do depend on our skills to make a livelihood).
Any attempt China made to defend itself was met with more suspicion. They invited a UN delegation which was blocked by the US. The delegation eventually made it there, but three years later. The Arab League also visited Xinjiang and actually commended China on their policies — aimed at reducing terrorism through education and social integration, not through bombing like we tend to do in the West.
Tiananmen riots
- The Tian’anmen Square ‘Massacre’: The West’s Most Persuasive, Most Pervasive Lie.
- 1989 Tian'anmen Square riots
- A Note on the Tiananmen Protests
- Images from Tiananmen 1989 the West never shows (NSFW / CW: violence and death)
- Tank Man video footage. Tiananmen Square, Beijing, 1989
- How psy-ops warriors fooled me about Tiananmen Square: a warning
Taiwan claims to be an independent nation ready to resist China
And yet only a dozen UN member states recognize it as an independent state.
I’d love to know which Taiwanese say that.
Pretty much all of them? It’s even in the ROC’s constitution. Both the ROC and the PRC claim all of China, including the island of Formosa.
- Oppression of Uyghur ISIS terrorist members.
- Liberation of British-colonized Tibet, run by a local theocrat that enslaved most of its people and by enslaved I mean they had officially been designated as serfs to the state, as human property of the clergy, by law.
- You can't annex your own country, but what you can do is support an expelled far-right party of a country that kills the indigenous people of an island and pretend that these murderers are somehow the victims.
- The Tiananmen square insurgency was a CIA-backed coup attempt where the insurgents murdered 100+ Chinese army choir soldiers that were on their way to the square to sing out the protesters off the square.
Go on...
Oh wow more authoritarian genocide denialists. You're either really scummy or really brainwashed.
The biggest media censorship machine on earth has failed to hide a genocide in Gaza (that you people screamed we had to vote for) and lied about it for years, but somehow that same Epstein media machine is totally telling the truth about an invisible bloodless genocide in China. Evidence means nothing to you white supremacists, only imperial loyalty.
By the way, do you deny the ethnic cleansing of eastern Ukraine by the nazi junta government?

Explain
Shall I go on?
Yes, go on, because it seems like you're losing steam and I'm calling your bluff
My Chinese friends living in New Zealand as dual citizens are afraid to criticize the Chinese government even in private online conversations. That says a lot, I think.
That says a lot, I think.
It certainly does but mostly about them lmao. If you ever end up living in China you'll come to realise criticizing and debating about the government is like the second most popular conversation topic. We love it, it's almost a national pass time.
But do you do it in public, online or offline? What about protests? What about strikes?
Where are the independent news organizations and invitations to during media to prove to the world everything we think is wrong with the Converse government is a lie?
Why the great firewall of China?
Yes, people discuss government policy in public and offline all the time. It’s a very normal topic of conversation. In practice, serious political discussion tends to happen face-to-face because that’s simply a better format for nuanced debate, but there is also plenty of discussion online. What generally gets censored online are calls for overthrowing the state, organizing mass unrest, or similar things. Many countries draw similar lines around incitement or destabilization.
Protests and strikes do occur, but they are usually local and issue-specific rather than ideological movements aimed at regime change. Labor disputes, land disputes, corruption complaints, etc. happen all the time and are often resolved through administrative or legal channels. The political culture tends to focus more on petitioning, negotiation, and internal pressure than on permanent protest movements.
On “independent” media: Independent from whom? In Western countries most major media outlets are owned by a very small number of large corporations or billionaires. Those owners influence what gets covered, what narratives dominate, and what perspectives are marginalized. Calling that system “independent” while ignoring ownership power is a very selective definition of independence.
The firewall was originally created to foster and protect China’s fledgling digital infrastructure and data sovereignty. That was a legitimate policy choice. Many countries regulate foreign platforms and data flows. China built its own ecosystem instead of depending on foreign companies. We have seen what happens when foreign platforms operate without local oversight: Facebook facilitating genocide in Myanmar, coordinated anti-vax disinformation campaigns in Southeast Asia, algorithm-driven radicalization. The firewall makes those kinds of external influence operations harder to run at scale.
I like many others here support the firewall even though it can be inconvenient (so long as vpns remain accessible and legal). I have seen the alternatives. The trade off makes sense to us.
Thanks for taking the time to go into all this detail. If nothing else I will keep an open mind that everything we know in the west is wrong, and hope that a world led by China is a world worth wanting.
And my aunt living in alabama is scared of muslim inflltrators, sometimes people worry about things that are fictional and/or unfathomably stupid
You're right that's a thing, it isn't that.
It is exactly that
China has democracy. Just not bourgeois liberal democracy. The Chinese political system is based on whole-process people’s democracy, a form of consultative democracy. The local levels are directly elected, and then these representatives from around the country elect people to higher rungs, meaning any candidate at the top level must have worked their way up from the bottom and directly proved themselves. Also due to the nature of things the vast majority of representatives are among those directly elected by the people. You should research things before you just say things. And we're very happy with our system. Even Harvard puts the approval rating around 95%.

Perception != reality
Correct. Which makes it strange that you ignored everything I explained in this reply to you and just went back to the same checklist again.
Functional democracy needs: Opposition
No. That is the liberal electoral model, not the universal definition of democracy. Democracy means political authority comes from the people and that they participate in governance.
China’s system does this through whole-process people’s democracy. People directly elect local People’s Congress deputies, those bodies elect higher congresses, and the system scales upward to the National People’s Congress. Most representatives come from those directly elected levels. Officials advance after years working through those layers.
It is a different institutional design. Pretending it does not exist because it is not your familiar Western party circus is not an argument.
Free media
Again you should read Michael Parenti on “inventing reality.” In the West media is not magically independent. It is owned by a tiny number of massive corporations and billionaires. Those owners decide what gets covered, what narratives dominate, and what perspectives disappear.
Calling that “free” while pretending ownership power does not shape information is extremely naive.
Open voting / Free elections
China holds direct elections at the grassroots level where the majority of representatives originate. Higher levels are elected by the bodies below them. Again, a hierarchical representative system instead of a national campaign spectacle.
Different design. Not absence.
Same law for everyone
This one is especially funny coming from systems where billionaires routinely dodge consequences while corporations treat fines as operating costs.
Civil liberties
China prioritizes social stability and development as core measures of legitimacy. Over forty years it lifted hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty and massively expanded infrastructure, education, and living standards.
You may not like that model. Fine. But dismissing it with slogans while ignoring the outcomes is not serious.
As far as I’m aware
Yes, that part was obvious. Your entire argument is basically “it doesn’t look like my system therefore it isn’t democracy,” plus a "citation" from the eagle burger institute of goodness democracy index in your other comment made it abundantly clear.
Your awareness is painfully inadequate
Perception != reality
Unless it's your perception, of course
How do you justify all the censorship and working 996 for an example?
No one will deny that China has censorship. We do as well, but it’s more subtle, covert, informal, and sophisticated, which Michael Parenti and Noam Chomsky have explained in great detail. China’s censorship is largely out in the open. It’s made clear where the lines are. The press freedom in bourgeois democracies, A.K.A. social democracies, is the freedom of the media owned by the capitalist class and by the government, a government which is run by the capitalist class.
“996” was never legal nor pervasive, and the state cracked down on it years ago. Western media will always make a mountain out of a molehill to maximally smear China, because the Cold War never ended.
996 seems like a concept copied from Korean and Japanese workplace culture. It would probably be fairer to look at some underlying common circumstances
It was a thing in ~40 of the big tech firms during the 2016-2019 tech boom, the supreme people's court explicitly ruled it illegal in 2021 and with the 2025 consumption boost plan more frameworks for cracking down on excess overtime alongside enforcing rest and vacation rights better alongside many other things is being put in place.
Thank you for answering. I will take a look at your claims.
Well for a start 996 is illegal so I don't think I need to justify that.
And censorship can be annoying but is far less pervasive than you people imagine. The amount that is censored is probably on par with that of the western world, China is just open about where the lines are. Even then it's entirely confined to the digital domain/media you can still talk about whatever you want which becomes very clear if you ever get a taxi lmao. Some amount of censorship is good anyway, fascists should be censored for example.
Edit: aaaaaaand the tankies show up.
You’re in our house, dummy.
They're both bad...
Behold the peak of liberal geopolitical analysis
China is still the world's leading polluter, in a time where those so-called "scientists" most definitely know what they're doing contributing to global climate change like they are. No country is innocent, but making no attempt to not be first isn't a defensible policy position.
China is the world’s biggest emitter of carbon gases**
Yeah, because it’s the second-largest population in the world and it’s producing & exporting the world’s products. You don’t get to de-industrialize, import your products, and then chastise your producers for using more energy than you, when they’re using that energy for you.
China is also the largest green energy user and producer of green energy technology, which it also exports.
The Economist: China’s clean-energy revolution will reshape markets and politics
ROFL. Stow the faux benevolence. It's nonsense. Nobody is acting out of the goodness of their hearts in a capitalist transaction. They're choosing to pollute instead of choosing to do other things. That's not for anyone's benefit but their own. The long-term consequences are so well-understood that only the extremely selfish are optimizing for the short-term.
China's choice to build a national highway system instead of a national railway system wasn't done with ecological concerns as the priority. They're, again, choosing to pollute more purely because of the short-run benefit instead of doing something else that optimizes for humanity's collective benefit.
So weird how the supposedly collectivist country isn't acting in all of our best interest. Communism is an idea so good that they'll silence you forever if you disagree.
Anything possible when you make shit up 🤷
Meanwhile in the real world:
ROFL. Stow the faux benevolence
Go back to Reddit
You're losing
What no theory does to a mf

The PRC is leading the world in green energy production, electrification, and combatting desertification. They are the largest polluter because they are the largest producer, if you compare pollution based on consumption then the west is by far the larger polluter.
China is the one of the most populated country in the world. It produces about 30% of all manufactured goods many of which is consumed by rest of the world. So yeah there is going to be some pollution. If we take about on a per-person basis countries like the U.S. still emit more. Moreover, China is the largest investor in renewable energy and China alone accounted for roughly 40% of the world’s renewable energy investment.
China is still the world's leading polluter
This is a rhetorical sleight of hand that conveniently glosses over the actual history of polluting nations.

meanwhile, wakko is still the world's leading ignoramus



