What is with the China apologists in this thread? Wtf??
I found this to be a decent enough primer: https://medium.com/@bobbyarlan/a-case-study-in-racist-anti-chinese-sentiment-fuelled-by-american-bots-and-western-propaganda-f0a69978d568
A decent TLDR: The article argues that anti-Chinese propaganda spread by the U.S. and Western media is fueling racist sentiment. Claims of mass detention of Uyghurs are based on flawed studies and sources like Adrian Zenz, a far-right Christian fundamentalist. Atrocity propaganda is a common tactic used by the U.S. to justify wars. The U.S. is threatened by China's economic rise and technological progress, so it is trying to portray China negatively and prepare public opinion for a potential conflict. However, most of the world sees China positively and as an economic opportunity, making a new Cold War against China unlikely to succeed
In short, a lot of information about China that has come out of Western news media has been proven to be based on known biased sources, known anit-China rhetoric, and/or outright lies. It's difficult to prove/disprove of any information specifically, that takes time and reporting, but a lot of people see the anti-China pattern in BBC reporting, and tend to dismiss it because of known history.
I think this flies a bit too far in the other direction. China is totalitarian. It is not a democracy. It is also increasingly antagonizing nations abroad. I think it is valid to consider it a threat if you are any other nation, period.
Edit: Kinda like Russia
How many seats are in the highest legislative body?
What rights and responsibilities do autonomous regions within China have?
What is the most distributed government legislative committee and what is their role in the government?
1, Xi Xinping and whatever he says, doesn't matter how many show ponys you fill the room with.
In the end they all answer to the whims of the central government, which can change or remove and rights and responsibilities autonomous regions within China have.
See answer one.
Or you know, you could just listen to someone who was in an internment camp:
(Also your summary sounds like ChatGPT)
I see it all over Lemmy unfortunately. I think it is because Lemmy is still relatively fringe and it is where lots of pro communism communities emerged. Normally, I find it actually pretty refreshing to see more left wing stuff but the pro China (or at least the kneejerk reactions to anything anti China) to be exhausting.
To be fair, I used to see a lot of it on Reddit as well. I think they are just a bigger proportion percentage wise on Lemmy so you see much more of it.
It's a bit of a mixed bag. There are a lot of pro-China comments that are just... Well they either drank the kool-aid or are dishing it out. Especially when it comes to social policies.
On the other hand, China has been making significant technological accomplishments that you just don't hear about in Western media. They've made a lot of advancements in spaceflight and manufacturing processes that humanity as a whole could benefit from if we were more cooperative. And that's not even mentioning Nuclear Power.
China is WAY ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to new nuclear power. They're the only ones with Gen 4 reactors, the only ones working on Thorium reactors, and are on track to build over 100 new nuclear plants over the next few years. China is to nuclear power as the US is to weapons; sure other countries might be tinkering with some stuff, but there's really no comparison when they're doing more than the rest of the world combined.
I wish there were more unbiased sources. Unfortunately, there's usually only one of two sides. Either you get news from China which usually boils down to "We're amazing and nothing we do is ever bad or wrong. Anyone saying otherwise is just lying because they're jealous/afraid of our wild success!" Or you get news from the US/West that's basically "China is a totalitarian poo-country that's on the verge of collapse. They contribute nothing to global advancement and the only thing they're good for is making cheap, poor quality, crap."
I'd take the study a lot more seriously if the people financing it weren't literally tied to the US/UK governments...
We'd all take China a lot more seriously if it wasn't literally interring people in reeducation camps and ruling over people's lives like it's 1984.
First day on Lemmy? There are quite a few suspiciously active trolls on here, especially on worldnews communities
Edit - ah right on cue
Thanks for providing an example of a self referential comment.
This post is on lemmy.ml, an instance whose owner decided to continue federating with lemmygrad.ml for... reasons. Go visit lemmygrad.ml and you'll understand why.
I really wish Lemmy supported defederation of instances by individual users (so I'd auto-block anything that came from lemmygrad or its users for any reason). I have been threatened with death by communists enough and just want to be left alone to my far-left-but-not-communist devices.
This, my friend, is the absense of neocon/neolib censorship and propaganda that you were so used to on corporate social media.
Isn't it great?
They're paid astroturfers and they don't belong on Lemmy. Why the server admins refuse to police them, I just don't know.
Wow, talk about conspiracy theories...
"Every person who doesn't participate in Sinophobi is paid off by the Chinese government"
Like, really? You actually believe that? Was 911 an inside job? How hot DOES jet fuel get??? Is Q-anon real? Is the earth flat?
If you've ever debunked a conspiracy theory, you should reconsider the idea that maybe, just maybe, not everyone hates China. It's probably more likely than you think..
Edit: And then they edited their comment to be more defensive instead. Perfect.
Me and the boys waiting for the ccp checks liberals said we were getting:
Imagine thinking there are paid astroturfers on a tiny niche platform with a few thousand users. We have some utterly insane people here after reddit migration.
Imagine thinking governments, fascists and PR agencies wouldn't migrate to wherever people choose to hang out and continue their decades-long campaign to brainwash people into believing whatever is convenient for them.
I see you don't understand the concept of niches. Governments, fascists, and PR agencies are going to spend their effort where it makes the most impact. Only a brainwashed person couldn't comprehend that people could legitimately disagree with their world view, and anybody who thinks different from them must therefore be a paid troll.
I'm just gonna sit back and enjoy the tankies from lemmygrad denying or trying to justify this one as well. 🍿
*Tankies from lemmygrad and lemmy.ml.
That's true.
However, I feel like the ones from lemmygrad are slightly more unhinged.
Is there a way to jump instances and bring all your content/moderation with you? I really didn't sign up for tankie voat, but I have growing communities in this instance.
Its a very weakly sourced state sponsored media article reporting on their state enemy. You have to be willfully credulous to believe their claims without further proof.
It doesn't mean that reports are false just because two states are enemies (which is an exaggeration).
Sample size: 58 people
18 in the U.K., 28 in Turkey, and 12 in Thailand.
The authors wish to extend their gratitude to the individuals and organisations who supported this research by providing concrete feedback for revisions on the report, offering suggestions and advice at the planning stages, and offering ongoing collaborative and moral support while conducting this research: Elise Anderson, Campaign for Uyghurs, Freedom House, Tim Grose, Ondřej Klimeš, Julie Millsap, David O’Brien, the Rights Practice, Radio Free Asia, Isabella Rodriguez, David Stroup, Hannah Theaker, Emily Upson, the Uyghur Human Rights Project, the Uyghur Transitional Justice Database, the World Uyghur Congress, the Xinjiang Documentation Project, the Xinjiang Victims’ Database, and Adrian Zenz.
Author
Yes, very trustable! /s
This is so key to propaganda. When researchers do a study on 58 people, you can barely claim you have a good representation of the population. And even in that case, if they are good, high quality researchers, they aren't pushing any opinion, just stating facts. It's just that 58 people can't represent the population well, It's just a starting point.
Now if we're talking about an opinion and not just stated facts, 58 people is hardly representative, easy to manipulate, especially when you don't have to cite specifics, just conclusion.
Okay, let's assume these are facts. 58 people were threatened, etc. This is still propaganda. Opinion, and interpretation can push the conversation in one direction or the other very heavily.
For example, let's draw a comparison to a system that people find more familiar (For westerners, at least), such as the united states police system or the FBI. How many US citizens are threatened to stop talking when pushing the limits of conversation publicly (Say, about calling out the inhumane treatment of others by the US military)? How many people have talked publicly about being approached by the FBI, or said they can't comment on their interactions with the FBI, or of some private corporation that paid them off to keep their mouths shut about some insider deal, money laundering, or underage sex scandal? Governments and even private citizens coming after people who are talking shit publicly happens in capitalist states all the time.
And that's just taking into account regular people who live in western countries. How about an even more direct comparison? The Uyghurs are Muslims that participated in terrorism in China, but the United States had Muslim terrorists of their own, what did they do? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_post-invasion_Iraq You can find all kinds of resources about the human rights violations that the united states participated in against the muslin people, even in western sources such as wikipidia, and others https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/03/iraq-20-years-since-the-us-led-coalition-invaded-iraq-impunity-reigns-supreme/ have lots and lots of facts surrounding this.
"rules for thee, but not for me" comes to mind.
Sorry didn't mean to unload on you. I'm vehemently agreeing!
Yes, the reason diaspora isn't speaking out against China is because there's a conspiracy to silence them.~
There can't possibly be any other explanation.~
Well I, as a former citizen of China, do "speak out" against CCP as in family discussions, in online forums, and sometimes with classmates in school, but I don't "speak out" as in actually participate in protests. Demonstrations just isn't my thing. Protesting against CCP gets you labeled a "race traitor". I mean honestly, with all the racial problems in the US, and having to deal with my abusive family, I really don't have to energy care about CCP anymore. It's dead to me. I view China just like how an anti-fascist German view Nazi Germany. There's no point of protests. It's beyond anything a protest can fix. Like... why do I even care, it isn't even my country anymore.
Edit: Also, it isn't a conspiracy that ethnic Chinese (I'm gonna use the term "ethnic Chinese" because this applies regardless of citizenship status) people don't "speak out". People just value "Social Harmony" more than being correct. Like if you live abroad, why care about what happens back in China? Most ethnic Chinese people who lives abroad don't really feel welcome in their new country, so why be against your former country if you aren't even sure if you are actually safe in your new one? You don't end up in a situation where you have no safe harbor in the world. Ethnic Chinese people living abroad believe China will accept them again in-case their living situation abroad goes south, so they don't want to get on the bad side of the Chinese government. Like what happened with the Chinese Exclusion act in the US more than 100 years ago, and also the Japanese Internment Camps. Maybe you disagree with the thought process, but that is what most ethnic Chinese people think.
No, clearly the Chinese government has your family hostage and that's why you aren't out protesting.~ Didn't you read the article? 😏
If your comment (the top-level one) was supposed to be sarcasm, you need a /s tag because there are people actually being serious saying that "it's a conspiracy, couldn't be any other possible explanation" stuff.
But also, the "hostage" thing is not entirely false, just very exaggerated. They only take your family "hostage" if you are like a leader of a protest or something. But I doubt they care if you are just some forum user that has no followers and "protesting" online. They got too many dissidents within their jurisdiction to care about those abroad.
As someone who legitimately has family in China and who visits them and speaks to them in Mandarin, there is 100% a chilling effect caused by CCP autocracy.
But I am eager to hear how a bunch of people who have never been and don't speak the language know more about this because they read a pamphlet.
How would that work if they have a toxic family and decided to kill 2 birds with one stone?
I mean if the CCP threatened my family while I'm abroad, I'd just go: "Lol go ahead, idgaf. They're toxic anyways. Thanks for getting rid of them for me." 😎
But too bad my toxic family is already here and I had to endure their abuse. 😥
This is pretty crazy if true. I wonder if it has any connections to the alleged "ghost" CCP police stations that were reported around in Canada. I believe it was being claimed the stations were being used to bully Chinese people that were in Canada.
PSA: these kinds of threads are a great way to create blocklists of western bootlickers and trolls.
Curious. Seems to work both ways.
I don't have any issue with that, the less toxic people I have to interact with on here the happier I'll be. I encourage anybody who finds my comments and posts upsetting to block me and move on.
Don't feed the troll. He's an actual professional troll who will try his hardest to drag you into a debate. I like to just keep editing my comments with new links that refute his claims, and that's when he totally loses it and gives me -30 and himself +55 updoots on a post with a grand total of 18 votes. He's really aggressive but he's not very good at his job.
Edit: I can see he has gone through my post history and downvoted everything so I have 0 or negative karma or whatever it's called.. and he did it a week afterwards. He's a spiteful little troll, isn't he? I don't care about updoots. You can't silence the truth, you dumb fuck.
Most notably, they will not actually engage in any real discussion on these topics. They only want to shut down discussion by calling everyone brainwashed. They will offer not a single critical word against China or Russia, past present or future. Obviously this analysis is very noteworthy, and the conjecture that these societies are above reproach makes for a very good faith argument. Especially when combined with the intellectually honest strategy of removing their opponent's agency by calling them brainwashed. Truly a master debater.
Everyone is brainwashed except for you.
Nah, just people who uncritically regurgitate propaganda, and screech about everybody who disagrees with them being a Russian puppet and a tankie whatever that means.
The most offensive part of being called a tankie is being called British.
😄
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