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"China is AuThORItAriAN!" - Liberals
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2026
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Just say you don't know what you're talking about.
Nice argument.
You didn't make one you just stated something wildly incorrect so why should I take the time to give you a well thought out response trying to explain how truly idiotic is?
I did make one, that you can oppose two things at the same time.
I could explain, but wait, you already said that authoritarianism was meaningless to you. If it doesn't matter to you, well, seems pointless to try to convince that it is actually fascist.
You have to be a troll.
Sure not what I took issue with. I took issue with you calling China fascist which is just an untrue statement.
Authoritarian is a pejorative. All countries and states in class society are "authoritarian" by necessity. Fascism is a specific thing arising from the tendency for the rate of profit to decline in capitalist society.
You can keep insisting I'm a troll if it helps you deal with not being able to engage with arguments.
China is authoritarian, but authoritarianism doesn't matter to you, so that shouldn't matter to you. Consistency, please.
And no, countries aren't "authoritarian" by necessity. Even if some amount of policies etc that would be considered such exist everywhere, you have countries that are freer and countries that have more political suppression, censorship of media outlets, etc etc.
China does censor it's media—political and entertainment— heavily. Just one small example.
How much Chinese media do you watch? How much time have you spent on Chinese social media? How fluent are you in Chinese? Or did you just get told this by other white people and decided to just go along with it because it confirms your biases.
https://www.equaldex.com/region/china
Please take a look through this page that elaborates on the oppression of queer people under the Chinese regime before you make any more personal attacks or assumptions about me. Just as an example.
Find a graph of these views over time, history is not a series of static snapshots. The PRC has been regularly improving with respect to queer rights and representation over time, showing no signs of stopping.
They're still banning TV shows/clips that feature queer stories or characters, there's been literal police raids where people have been asked to remove rainbow articles of clothing, rainbows are censored on TV. This is all very recent stuff within the past five years.
Idk man, seems like they're desperate to erase our existence if you ask me.
Even if it's not "as bad" as it once was, and if it "has potential", that's not where it is right now. Which is that it's an oppressive place for queer people right now, factually. Stop defending that.
China isn't the perfect haven free from all criticism that some people make it out to be.
I'm not defending repression, I'm pointing out that you're using queer identity as a club to beat a country that is steadily improving and showing no signs of slowing or stopping that growth. It's the same logic on your part that Zionists use to say queer advocates for Palestine are "defending homophobia." History and social progress exist as a progression of time, not as a static snapshot.
If you're not defending repression, then please call it what it is: repression.
I already have. Do you think history is a series of static snapshots, or something that moves over time?
I'm queer myself, of course I find the present level of queer rights in China to be insufficient. This isn't something that exists outside of the context of its own historical progression, though, which is why your argument is the same as those who use Palestinian queer rights as a reason queer people shouldn't support Palestine.
No, China is not perfect. It has real problems. What I am taking issue with is 2 of your major flaws:
Inventing issues with China, like calling it "fascist," a "dictatorship," or saying there's "Uyghur genocide."
Erasing real problems from their historical context and trajectories, making problems that are improving over time seem static and permanent.
These point to your chauvanism and dogmatism.
I'm not saying we shouldn't support China, I'm saying we should call it out for the BS that it does actually do, and not treat it like divinity beyond criticism. Every time I make any criticism of China, the responses are apologetic at best.
Those issues aren't "invented", but I won't go over those points again.
I didn't say it's permanent. It's common sense that everything is temporary. If you're reading that into my statements, that's on you.
Re: chauvanism and dogmatism. What was that thing you said earlier? Phrasemongering? Sounds like. I'll add one: hypocrisy.
Probably because 90% of your "criticism" is just spreading lies.
Again, your criticisms are not constructive. They are either based on falsehoods, or are real problems analyzed metaphysically and thus unconstructive and incomplete criticisms.
They are, and I proved why. Acting like I didn't take them down and that you just don't want to revisit them is not an accurate picture.
It's common sense, but at the same time metaphysics permeates liberal thought processes. That's why we have to insist on a dialectical approach, one that views everything as a process. Looking at queer rights, for example, they are uneven at a national level, with some areas being better than others, and largely this is tied to development. China is rapidly developing and rapidly improving. While it's true that in this moment queer rights are not satisfactory, it's not as though queer rights today anywhere can truly be seen as satisfactory, not even in Cuba, if judged by future standards. That's why it's important to identify what's rising and what's dying away, as the US for example is getting worse on queer rights as China is getting better.
I mean both in your insistence on never believing a word a Chinese person says, and on your insistence to use metaphysics. I'm not hypocritical at all here, nor am I phrasemongering, nor dogmatic nor chauvanistic. I'm certainly insistent and confident though.
Your insistence on ignoring China's historical progression in queer rights and instead focusing only on the present. You don't view progress as a process, but instead as a snapshot. It's like looking exclusively at one point on a graph instead of at the trend line.
And these places will all be seen as horribly reactionary in the future, socially. That's why you need to look at progress as a process and not a snapshot.
No, I mean the mountains of sources I gave you from Chinese citizens explaining their system and why they support it. You deflected to Russia.
No, I am not. Please explain.
What do you actually know about China?
"authoritarian oppression" entirely meaningless when stripped of context.
What do you think is happening in Xinjiang? Do you mean the lies about a genocide? Please be specific.
You are treating “authoritarian” as a special category of state. That is simply untrue. Every state is an instrument of organized authority. A state exists precisely to enforce the rule of a particular social order. Laws, police, prisons, intelligence agencies, and armies are not neutral features. They are mechanisms through which the dominant class secures its position and suppresses forces that threaten it. In that sense every state in a class society must act “authoritarian,” because it must compel obedience and defend the structure that produced it. The label therefore functions less as a meaningful description and more as a moral signal. Governments aligned with Western power are described with neutral language such as “government,” while adversaries are cast as “authoritarian” or reduced to the “regime” of a rival country. China becomes “authoritarian China,” Iran becomes the “Iranian regime,” yet the United States is rarely framed through the same lens even when its institutions exercise clear coercive authority, whether through domestic repression such as COINTELPRO or the routine enforcement of property and political order. The distinction therefore obscures the basic reality that all states rest on organized force. What changes from place to place is not the presence of authority but the historical conditions and social interests that direct it.
And that's your right like it is mine to say I would never want to live in any of the imperial core nations especially not at this moment in time where austerity and fascism is coming home to them as imperialism declines and the contradictions of capitalism are heightening. I am happy in China.
Not a strong start. You open by implying that if someone disagrees with you on this they must either be part of the Chinese government or “brainwashed.” That's chauvinism. People here are perfectly capable of thinking for themselves. And if you have proof for your claims you are welcome to post it. Most people who are online regularly have VPNs anyway and even many who aren't regularly too. What tends to happen in these discussions, though, is that the same small circle of sources gets recycled, often tracing back to figures like Adrian Zenz(evangelical on self proclaimed mission from god to destroy china), Rushan Abbas(Guantanamo bay torturer and pretend activist), and outlets like Radio Free Asia.
It is also worth noting that major international bodies have not formally classified the situation as genocide. The United Nations has raised concerns about human rights abuses but has not declared a genocide. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, representing dozens of Muslim-majority countries, has not described it that way either. That does not mean nothing problematic happened. During the crackdown on ETIM after the numerous attacks there were clearly heavy-handed policies and abuses. But there is still no credible evidence that meets the legal definition of genocide.
If the standard being applied is simply “serious abuses carried out by the state,” then that label would have to be applied much more broadly. By that logic you could argue the United States is committing genocide against African Americans through decades of structural abuse in policing and incarceration. Practices like dragnet policing and mass surveillance have produced enormous harm. Yet most people understand that this still does not meet the legal threshold for genocide, which is exactly why the distinction matters.
You quoted the definition of authoritarianism from Wikipedia. By that definition a very large portion of the world would qualify, including most Western states in one form or another. Centralized power, limits on certain kinds of political activity, and institutions designed to preserve the political order exist almost everywhere. When a label becomes broad enough to describe nearly every state operating in a world structured by power and class conflict, it stops being analytically useful. Terms like “authoritarian” much like “regime”, (as I tried to illustrate already) are often used as political shorthand for governments that oppose Western geopolitical interests (often with racial undertones).
You also seem to assume that people in China cannot criticize politics or joke about leaders. That is simply not accurate. People complain about policies, argue about politics, and make jokes about officials all the time. The idea that political discussion just does not exist here is a caricature that mostly survives outside the country. If you ever spend real time here and actually talk to ordinary people about politics, you will see very quickly that the reality is far more complex than the version usually presented abroad.
If you read my post you'd see I know there were abuses but characterising it as a genocide is a lie built on lies and exaggerations of those abuses.
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.
Also fuck Wikipedia it constantly sites bullshit like RFA and is used by American intelligence to run psyops. If you use it as a source for anything outside of scientific facts like the atomic number of an element you're an idiot.
You do realise if you call all abuses genocide you're not only diluting the term genocide but also slinging mud on the real grievances of people?
So you agree it applies to pretty much every country? And again can see how that makes it largely meaningless?
Why do you need TV to agree with you? Are you incapable of having independant political discussion with people in your country without the TV telling you what to think? Also Winnie the pooh isn't banned Winnie the Pooh merch is all over the place it's super popular. Not to mention Disneyland and it's Winnie the pooh themed areas. What was banned was platforms regulating the spread of a racist caricature in the same way they do all other racist caricatures because social media harm is actually regulated here as opposed to allowed run rampant for profits sake.
No you're a child. You refuse to analyse class power, material conditions and the reality of the world. You prefer the much easier option of just condemning everything short of utopian flat society instantly. You should stop giving anarchists a bad name.
How do you post this without realizing the irony?
I like it when the working classes in China wield the state against capitalists and fascists, and to ensure that social surplus is directed towards social ends above all else.